Chapter Text
Zuko can’t remember how old he was when he first heard about soulmates from his nanny. Not very, he thinks.
She told him so many stories about them—Azula, too, but Azula never listened. In the stories, people traversed stormy seas, harsh deserts, and even the spirit world to be reunited with their soulmates. “Everyone has one,” she’d said. “The person destined to love you most in the world for the rest of your life.”
But life wasn’t as simple as that, and love came in many forms. Mother’s soulmate was a girl from her village whom she hadn’t been permitted to see since she’d entered the palace. Uncle Iroh’s soulmate was the great swordmaster, Piandao. They saw each other rarely but wrote constantly; Zuko had never seen Uncle so happy as when he’d brought Zuko to be trained in swordsmanship and had the excuse to regularly visit Piandao. Father never spoke of his soulmate, and Zuko secretly wondered if he didn’t have one.
The older Zuko got, the more he wondered about his soulmate. He wasn’t so naïve as to think that he would get to marry his soulmate, but an arrangement like Uncle had with Master Piandao didn’t seem so bad. Just knowing there was someone in the world who loved him and was thinking about him would be enough.
Out on the ocean, in a rickety ship with a crew who hated him and an uncle who pitied him, dreams of his soulmate were sometimes the only thing keeping Zuko warm. Especially when he went cold with doubt about his mission. He knew, from the start, that the mission Father had given him was impossible. He was never meant to return to the Fire Nation. But giving up was tantamount to curling up to wait for death to claim him. So, when he was just pushing through his own faltering faith with sheer hippo-bull-headed stubbornness, he consoled himself with the thought that he could spend the rest of his life on this rust bucket Uncle had dredged up from somewhere and still have a soulmate waiting to love him.
Just once, in the middle of a particularly dark night, Zuko let himself wonder if there was any point in even having a soulmate because, trapped on this boat, he was almost certainly never going to meet them. He swore never to let himself think about that again because it made the itching desire to just let himself fall overboard in his armor when no one was looking climb up his spine in a way that scared him.
Then, a strange light erupted from the South Pole, and Zuko didn’t need to cling to childish notions of a soulmate anymore because he had something better—real hope. If he could just capture the Avatar, he would be welcomed home with open arms—Father was too proud to go back on words so publicly spoken—and this whole nightmare would be washed away like a dream.
Then there was confirmation—the flare from an old Fire Navy vessel and the first sighting of an airbender in a hundred years. It was like nothing Zuko had ever seen. In the privacy of his mind, he allowed himself a single, bright flash of terror as the reality of his situation sank in. He was a sixteen-year-old Firebender of mediocre talent, about to challenge the most powerful Bender in the world—a centenarian who had had more than five times Zuko’s entire lifespan to master all four elements. And Zuko was too well-studied on the lives of the Avatars to expect age would equate to frailty here.
Zuko did his best to set aside the terror because it didn’t serve him and was a shameful trait in a prince of the Fire Nation. Centering his goal—return home, reclaim his honor—helped, as did the almost meditative process of dressing for battle. It was new armor because he’d just had another growth spurt, and he was glad for that because it was flawless and undamaged, making him appear to be the untouchable force of nature he wished he was. If only he could be guaranteed that it would fool the Avatar.
Zuko assembled a team of six. He chose the three marines—Hyeon, Riki, and Wei—with whom he preferred to spar. He’d recognized them early on as the most competent fighters of the complement, and two years’ sparring meant they were the most cohesive group of the unit. He chose Kaito, Qing, and Seong from among the sailors, as they had the most combat experience. All Fire Navy sailors were taught hand-to-hand and polearms, but few ever needed it because Fire Navy vessels were so rarely boarded and most sailors relied on the marines to protect them if they were. The three Zuko had chosen were an exception, and he knew they could be trusted not to cut and run should a fight break out.
It would, of course, have been safer to take a larger number of men, but Zuko was hoping to make this as much of a precision strike as possible. A village as small as this was likely a fishing village of some sort, made entirely of civilians. And Zuko had no taste for harming civilians. He just had to make a strong enough show of strength to encourage them to make the right choice and give up the Avatar.
Uncle still saw this as a fool’s errand. He insisted Zuko would be terrorizing the villagers for no reason. But Uncle hadn’t seen the Airbender bounding down from the wreck of a Fire Navy vessel through the spyglass like he had, and he hadn’t traced the path the Airbender was running straight to the village, either. He could have taken Zuko at his word for once in his life, but he wouldn’t have been Uncle if he had. It always felt like Uncle believed in him the least right at the moment when he needed that belief the most. Not that it mattered. If life had taught Zuko anything, it was that the only person he could truly rely on was himself—all other foundations were shakable.
The ship shuddered as it lodged itself into the firm pack of snow and ice that fringed the actual ground of the South Pole. Zuko’s heart was pounding, anticipation tinged with trepidation. He focused on his breathing because, for all he complained about Uncle’s training methods, the advice was invariably sound, and he could not afford to sacrifice power for pride when a fight with the Avatar was a looming possibility. The landing door hissed as the locking mechanisms released. Zuko let out a little breath of flame, pushing his fire outward to sizzle just under his skin and protect him from the Antarctic cold. The door swung open. Zuko was ready.
Zuko’s first thought as he began to descend the ramp was that the village, if that word was even accurate for such a puny collection of…tents?, was absolutely pathetic. A handful of women, mostly old, and small children huddled together behind a boy younger than Zuko. He had his face painted and a club in hand like he thought that made him a warrior, but he was all narrow shoulders and skinny limbs, and his blue eyes were wide with fear. He likely felt compelled to defend his home against a force so much more magnificent than his village could ever produce. He was lucky it was Zuko who had come and not a crueler commander.
The boy pelted up the ramp, club raised over his head. It was bold but desperate. Zuko knew what desperation felt like. He was almost sorry he had to break the boy in his. Almost. One kick knocked the club from the boy’s hands and stunned him. Another sent the boy flying into a snowbank, further than Zuko had intended. He was just so much lighter than the grown men Zuko was used to fighting.
Zuko didn’t look to see where the boy had landed, eyes fixed on the rest of the villagers. He couldn’t afford to miss the moment the Avatar decided to stop letting children fight his battles and stepped forward to attack. He’d already proved himself an insufferable coward by permitting this display, but there had to be a breaking point. And yet, no one did step forward as Zuko reached the bottom of the ramp and began to cross the snow, his boots crunching eerily with every step.
He stepped up to the assembled villagers and looked them over. It was as it had seemed, a collection of old women and children with a mother here or there and one girl about the same age as the boy who had wanted to play soldier. Not one came even close to resembling the Airbender he’d seen through the spyglass. They must have stashed him away somewhere when they saw Zuko’s ship approaching.
“Where are you hiding him?” he demanded harshly.
A part of him really believed that might work because the villagers already looked like frightened komodo chickens. But no one spoke up.
Zuko’s gaze landed on a woman who looked like she might plausibly be a hundred. He snatched her collar and dragged her out of the grasp of the teen girl who had been clinging to her. “He’d be about this age, master of all elements.” He shook the woman a little in front of the group just to emphasize that he had her in his grasp, a hostage of sorts since they couldn’t know he had no intention of hurting her.
Still, no one spoke up. Zuko shoved the old woman back at the girl who had been clinging to her and scanned the crowd again. He needed one of them to break, just one. Since the implied threat to one of them hadn’t worked, perhaps a threat to them all would. He sent a brilliant gout of flame arcing over their heads and watched them duck away from it. He knew better than anyone the bone-deep dread that came with the threat of being burned. He wouldn’t do it, not the way it had been done to him at least, and not at all if he could help it, but he could come a lot closer to it than that if it meant one of them would break.
“I know you’re hiding him,” he told them to emphasize that their silence wasn’t keeping a secret. It was just stalling the inevitable.
Then, Zuko heard the boy let out a war cry behind him. He glanced over his shoulder to see that the kid was coming at him with the club. Again. As if he hadn’t learned his lesson. Zuko timed it just right and caught the boy’s middle with his shoulder, tossing him neatly into the snow before the crowd of villagers.
Zuko didn’t give the boy a second to breathe but sent a small blast of fire at him, meant more to scare than to burn. The boy screamed—fury, not pain—and executed a surprisingly graceful roll. He removed a curved weapon from a holster on his back and flung it at Zuko. His aim was true, but Zuko’s reflexes were faster. He dodged, then followed the trajectory of the projectile with his gaze as it disappeared into the distance, surprised at how close it had come to hitting him. He turned back to the boy.
“Show no fear!” one of the little ones cried and tossed the boy a spear.
The boy caught it and rushed Zuko, just like he’d done with the club. Like he expected Zuko to just stand there and let himself be impaled. Maybe he did. Zuko had never hunted or fished before, but he could imagine the boy’s tactics being useful on animals. A hunter who thought that made him a soldier.
It was too easy to just stand there and wait for the boy to bring the spear close enough to dismantle it. Zuko struck it twice right behind the tip, where it was weakest, then again, and took the tip off cleanly. Then he snatched the haft from the boy’s surprise-slackened grasp. He jabbed three in quick succession, hitting the boy in the forehead until he fell back on his ass. It was the sort of embarrassing takedown that had passed as affection from Zuko’s masters when he was much younger than this boy. Here, he hoped it felt like condescension.
The boy sat there in the snow, rubbing his sore forehead like he’d just lost a training match and not a duel with the enemy. As Zuko watched him, he could almost imagine the boy reaching out for a hand up. Zuko could almost see himself reaching down to help him. There was a part of him that liked the boy’s scrappy determination. If they’d grown up together in the Fire Nation… But it didn’t bear thinking about.
The only warning Zuko got was the faint whistle of something flying through the air; then he was struck so forcefully on the back of the head it left his ears ringing and nearly knocked him off his feet, his helmet twisted around on his head. Any spark of warmth that had been growing toward the boy died instantly as the projectile from before buried itself in the snow. Something inside him snapped.
Zuko growled as he straightened his helmet, head throbbing. It took him a second to focus on the boy again, but when he did, he leveled the full weight of his glare at him. He extended flame daggers from his fists, the most reliable weapon he had access to right now. If the boy wanted to play soldier, Zuko would teach him exactly what that meant.
He didn’t get a chance to even start the lesson because he was abruptly knocked off his feet. His helmet flew off, and he landed on his face in the snow before his men, his own helmet coming down to strike him seconds later as the Water Tribe children cheered on this new arrival.
Zuko pulled himself up from the snow to see an otter penguin waddling away and a boy with a blue arrow on his head sitting placidly in the snow and greeting the Water Tribe teenagers with a lighthearted enthusiasm that had no place in war.
“Hey, Katara. Hey, Sokka.”
“Hi, Aang,” the boy said weakly. “Thanks for coming.”
Zuko dragged himself to his feet as he struggled to reorient himself in the situation. He had studied enough about the Air Nomads over the course of his two-year search that there was no doubt in his mind that this new boy, Aang, was culturally tied to them. Unless there was somehow a secret Air Nomad society hidden away at the South Pole—unlikely, given the Fire Nation’s campaign against the Waterbenders of the South would have turned up such a community decades ago—that meant this Aang was the Avatar. It just made no sense.
Still, the details could be sorted out later. The important part was capturing the Avatar now. Zuko gestured to his men, and they fanned out to encircle the boy. Zuko took up a standard starting pose for a duel and attempted to center himself for the most difficult battle of his life.
The Avatar looked left, then right. He flipped around the staff he was carrying and sent blasts of snow at Zuko’s men, knocking them off their feet. Zuko might have presumed this was a waterbending technique except that he felt the gale that propelled the snow forward when he was hit himself. Unlike his men, however, he kept his feet. The snow melted and steamed against the heat of his skin, primed for firebending.
“Looking for me?” Aang asked.
“You’re the Airbender?” Zuko asked. He knew it was true, but he was struggling to believe it. “You’re the Avatar?”
Aang didn’t answer, so Zuko approached. Aang sidestepped, and they began circling each other. It was a standard technique in one-on-one Firebending matches that were not limited by the strict ritual of the Agni Kai. Firebending was, after all, primarily offensive, so it only made sense to stay out of your enemy’s direct line of attack while keeping an opening for yourself. The familiarity of it allowed Zuko to stew over how ludicrously this had all turned out.
“I’ve spent years preparing for this encounter,” he said, “training, meditating. You’re just a child.”
Aang relaxed his defensive posture for a second. “Well, you’re just a teenager.”
Zuko took advantage of the relaxation of defense to throw two blasts of fire at Aang in quick succession, leaving the Avatar tripping over his feet as he danced out of the way and spun his staff to dispel the flames. Zuko didn’t let up for a second. Before the first fire had dissipated, he sent another blast, forcing Aang to continue the windmill motion of his staff even as he fell back. He sent another blast in the same way, and yet another, even larger than the first four. The Avatar’s wind blew the excess flame around him and toward the villagers, who screamed and cowered.
Abruptly, Aang slashed his staff to the side, flinging away the last of the fire. “If I go with you,” he said, holding out his staff in surrender, “will you promise to leave everyone alone?”
That had always been Zuko’s intention, so he stood up from his fighting stance and nodded gravely. Riki and Seong took the action as a sign and stepped up beside the Avatar. Riki took the staff from him, and Zuko was satisfied enough to turn and begin walking to the ramp of his ship, trusting his men to follow with Aang.
Behind him, he heard a girl, likely the teen girl Aang had addressed on arrival, say, “No, Aang. Don’t do this.”
“Don’t worry, Katara,” the Avatar replied. “It’ll be OK.”
And it would be, Zuko agreed. After two long years, he was finally going home. And the Avatar would be going to a prison where he’d be kept safe and alive for the rest of his natural life. It was hardly worth the fuss.
“Take care of Appa for me until I get back,” Aang concluded, and it made Zuko shiver because the only people he knew who spoke with that kind of assured confidence backed it up with unimaginable destruction.
No. The Avatar was a silly boy who had surrendered without even trying to fight back. He wasn’t Azula. He wouldn’t cause trouble. Zuko would be home by the end of the week, honor restored, showered in glory. It was just…when had anything ever turned out that well for him?