Chapter Text
Hakoda was shocked to say the least. He was prepared to spend the last of his days in this hellhole of a prison when his son popped up out of nowhere saying that he is here to save him. This was the most amazing and the most devastating thing that he has ever heard because while it is amazing to have hope of getting out of here, the idea of sokka’s ingenious plan failing and trapping Sokka with him is terrifying.
Sokka, my baby boy, why do you have to give me heart attacks like this?
After Sokka explained the plan to Hakoda, casually mentioned that he was working with the prince of the fire nation. THE prince of the fire nation, the same one that chased them around the word and helped to put the avatar in a coma that could have ended the avatar cycle forever.
Lets just say that Hakoda has some strong feeling towards the boy, but if his son trusts him he will have to put those feelings aside and work with the prince to get out. But that does not mean that Hakoda will trust the prince, no, quite the opposite, while he trusts Sokka’s judgement, Sokka has not seen the amount of damage one fire nations soldier can do and people can have slips in judgment so as far as Hakoda is concerned the prince will be watched every second of the way.
The rest of the day was hectic, and it can only be described as chaos. The past few hours of watching Sokka’s plan play out with the only problem being Azula, the princes of the fire nation, shows how much Sokka has grown and become a capable young man. What also amazed Hakoda was Sokka’s girlfriend ( that Hakoda did not know about until now) , she was a very skilled Kiyoshi warrior and how they got to know each other is still a mystery to Hakoda but after what he saw today he will welcome her to the family all the same.
After they got out of the rough and into the air balloon it was a promised smooth sailing from there. This was the first time in the day that the chief had time to breath and then realized that he has forgotten all about the prince. The last time Hakoda remembers seeing him was when the he broke the lever of the gondola and jumped.
This got Hakoda thinking, why would he risk his life for the rest of us to live? What kind of twisted scheme is this and why does it have to end with a disappointed Sokka when he realizes that the prince has been playing the long game this whole time.
Just then Suki decided to walk into the room and find Hakoda deep in thought.
‘Hello? Hakoda are you ok?’ Suki asked, startling Hakoda out of thought
‘Oh yes I’m fine but I think I have gotten a little lost on this air ship…’
Suki laughed ‘ Yeah it sure is big for a balloon, but after all it was make for the royal family so we cant expect anything less’
They went on with some casual chat about the expensive ship until they came to the topic of Azula and Hakoda’s parental senses awakened.
‘ I heard that the prison is a cruel place. I was lucky that I had people to help me escape so I didn’t spend much time there. How are you?’
Suki blinked, taken back by the shift in topic “I’m fine, I wasn’t in there for too long either, thought watching the torture others have endured in there will definitely scar.”
“You saw people get tortured?” Would that be another form of torture, watching people get hurt knowing you can’t do anything? Hakoda knew that the fire nation has crude forms of torture but this in on another phycological level.
Hakoda felt a pang of guilt knowing that even thought this war was made by the adults, but the children suffer more
“Oh, I didn’t see it happen, but I could hear it and afterward the guards would drag the poor bloody person around to show what they can do if you step out of line. Honestly, that was the only thing keeping me back from starting a uprising” Suki replied with a thoughtful face on.
Hakoda was shocked that something like that would happen and suddenly felt immensely grateful for his sons daring escape, especially after his direct disrespect toward the warden.
Before Hakoda could respond with concern for Suki’s health, mentally and physically, Chit Sang’s head popped around the door of the room that they were in announcing that they would be landing in 5 minutes.
With the help of Suki, Hakoda found his way to the control room that Sokka was in to find a very asleep Sokka. I wave of panic went through Hakoda as he realized that there was no one at the wheel but then quickly realized that someone had jammed some cloth in the steering wheel so that they kept flying straight.
He heard a laughter coming from beside him and he turn to see Suki and Chit sang laughing at sokka’s idea. Sokka woke up and looked around blearily for a second before his fac lit up and he waked to suki and Hakoda.
“2 of my favorite people are here and the collection will be complete as soon as we land!” Sokka said hugging them both
Once they landed and the greeting, introductions, hugs, stories and tears were over Sokka felt the past few days of tension and sleepless nights weigh on him, so he decided to just get some shut eye.
Despite complaining from Aang about having too much energy, the decided to hit the hay early. Everyone arranged their sleeping bags around the fire, Teo, Duke and Haru slept in one clump, Toph and Aang slept next to them and Sokka, Hakoda and Katara slept together with suki a little off from where Sokka was.
The only people missing from the circle were the 2 fire benders, Chit Sang slept in the corner of the room keeping a respectable distance from the others while Zuko was no where to be seen.
Then Hakoda realized that in all the emotion with meeting his kids again and trying to make up for lost time, the prince had disappeared.
Hakoda sat up in his sleeping bag as they were getting comfortable to look around for the prince for him not to be found anywhere.
“Dad what’s wrong?” Katara asked concerned for why her dad suddenly shot up
“Don’t worry about it. Where is prince Zuko?” Asks Hakoda
“oh, he sleeps in a separate room” Sokka answers still lying down in his bed roll
“Ah, why? Wouldn’t it be easier to keep an eye on him if he slept in this room?” Hakoda askes, genuinely confused
“Well, we have Toph who can easily detect and movement and keep track on him so if he were to attack we would have more time before he can come here, buuuuut he wont attack because he is genuinely on our side now.” Answered Sokka with full confidence
Katara gave a huff and rolled her eyes “You always trust him! I don’t know what goes in your head anymore! THE FIRE NATION KILLED OUR MOM, HE RAIDED OUR HOME AND THREATENED US!
At this Sokka sat up “Katara, we have been over this, he didn’t kill our mom and yes, he as done some bad things when Aang went back on his promise to go with Zuko without escaping Zuko didn’t come back and follow on his threat. He is trying to make things right and you keep stomping all over him!” With that Sokka turned to face away from Hakoda and Katara and went to sleep.
The anger form Katara’s face melted away into a sad one and she hugged Hakoda’s arm and drifted to sleep. Hakoda lay in the middle of his children conflicted, but before he could do anything about it his eyelids grew heavy and weeks of exhaustion settled on him.
Hakoda woke up with a content feeling of his children on both his sides fast asleep. He looked at the sky and it was still dark but after minimal sleep for the past few weeks there is no way that he could still any longer.
Slowly, he removed himself from the pile without waking up Katara and a snoring Sokka and stretched his stiff back. There was a calm silence through the temple that reminded him that he wasn’t on the sea or in a prison.
Suddenly there was some shuffling and Hakoda turned to see Toph, half asleep, get up from her pile and zombie walk into one of the corridors.
As far as Hakoda knows, Toph is a very menacing blind young girl who says something about being the “worlds greatest earth ender and everyone backs it up.
He decides to follow her just in case she needs help. She walks into a room at the end of the hall and when Hakoda pops his head through the doorway he is stunned too see Toph plop down next to a bed roll and immediately fall asleep on the ground, but the shocking part is when he sees that the prince in in the bed roll
Toph got up in the middle of the night, got up and went to cuddle with THE prince of the fire nation???
Toph had rolled and tucked herself in prince Zuko’s side. This took a little processing time in Hakoda’s mind.
Zuko woke up with the feeling of a warm body snuggled next to him and opened his eyes to a fast asleep Toph. A warm happy feeling spread in his chest before realizing that the sun is up now so he will have to get up. Getting up meant moving and moving meant leaving this feeling ad possibly waking up Toph. But he had to train Aang, so he gathered all his strength and got out of him bag before a wave of pain came over him.
Hakoda watched as the prince slowly extracted himself from toph with a gentleness that he never thought a person from the fire nation could have. Zuko then stood up and a flash of pain came over his face as he lost his balance and tipped to the side. Using the wall for balance he stood hunched over, hands over his stomach protectively. Gingerly lifting up his shirt blue and black bruises were revealed all over his torso, with a sigh he dropped his shirt down and mumbles a quiet “ everything hurts” before slowly bending over and picking up toph to place her in his sleeping bag.
Then he walked over to a corner in the room where there was a bunch of stuff and pulled out a shirt, he quickly ripped of his shirt with a wince and changed into the new one with his back towards the door. Hakoda’s jaw dropped as he saw Zuko’s back covered in large cuts that go in every direction across his back, from the top to the waist. It took a few second but eventually Hakoda realized why they were so familiar, they were whip marks, recent ones with the skin around it an angry red.
As quickly as it appeared it had gone when Zuko put on the other shirt.
Boiling rock.
The sight of Zuko’s back repeated in his mind with Suki’s words “torture others have endured… the guards would drag the poor bloody person around to show what they can do if you step out of line”
Hakoda felt like he was going to puke, they tortured their own prince, a CHILD from their own nation.
You would think that they would have some dignity, tui and la the prince is just a child!
Hakoda was brought out of his thoughts by footsteps and he looked to see Zuko approaching the door, with all his year of training, Hakoda slipped into another room close by and stayed there until the footsteps had gone.
After all that he had seen in the past 5 minutes Hakoda came to the realization that his son was right about Zuko.
Gathering his thoughts he realized Zuko risked his life and got tortured to get them out and hasn’t told anyone.
I knew that all fire nation people aren’t bad but the prince was supposed to be one of the figure head for the war, who knew that he after all the tough exterior he would be someone like this?
He is in a lot of pain, Katara can heal it.
So Hakoda decided that he would bring it up later
Zuko and Aang sat in the blazing sun, taking a break from training to drink water. Aang started complaining again saying something about being hot and tired but Zuko could not focused due to the blinding pain radiating from his back and legs where most of the damage from boiling rock had been inflicted at. The world tilted and his vision swam as he dismissed Aang from training and waved away Aang concerned face away saying that he is just a little winded.
After a while of sitting and regaining his balance he decided that he needs to eat something after being deprived of food for the past few days, being the traitor prince he was given less food than the others out of spite and orders.
Zuko walked towards the main are where the Katara was serving the others and got in line. When in was his turn she glared at him and have him the burnt scarping from the bottom of the porridge pot but he didn’t mind, food was food and he believed that he deserved it after all the problem he put them through in the past.
Zuko sat down next to Toph who was ranting about something of the other with his share and took the first bite before figuring out that he was starving and ate all of it to the very last grain.
Once he was done he sat there content for a moment, and then his stomach reminded him that he hadn’t eaten in a while and probably should have eaten that more slowly. A wave of nausea came over him as he felt his breakfast threatened to make a reappearance, he shot up and speed walked as fast as he could with his throbbing legs ignoring Katara shouts after him.
Hakoda was eating his breakfast that Katara had made when he saw Aang skipping towards the area. Aang happily took a bowl if porridge from Katara and thanked her with a blush.
I should probably look into that.
After a few minutes followed Zuko, if Hakoda didn’t know it he would have never guessed that Zuko was hurt except for the small pinch in his eyebrows. Hakoda watched as Katara scraped the bottom of the bowl and put a spoonful of blackish rice in his bowl and Zuko took it as if he didn’t even care and ate it all next to Toph who was talking the whole time only to stop when Zuko gave a brief opinion.
Suddenly Zuko shot up and jogged away with no explanation and Katara shouted
“Where are you going? You can’t just run off without saying anything? HEY IM TALKING TO YOU!”
“Don’t worry, I will go after him, I’m sure everything’s fine” Hakoda replied, trying to calm her down
“Dad no, you don’t understand, he’s not –“
“I know Sokka, I’m just going to check if he’s ok” and with that Hakoda set of in the direction Zuko went in.
It took a while to find him but eventually Hakoda figured out that he went into the forest, following the trail he came upon a river. He walked beside the river for a few minutes and as he expected came upon Zuko who was dry heaving after presumably puking his breakfast.
A few agonizing convulses later it final stopped and Zuko sat with his back to a tree with his in between his knees as he hugged his legs.
Hakoda walked towards him as loud as possible, making sure that he isn’t startled at his arrival but Zuko made no acknowledgement that he heard him.
Sitting down on a patch of crunchy leave, Hakoda cleared his throat and Zuko quickly looked up from his knees to Hakoda before promptly looking away, but Hakoda caught the sight of tears from Zuko’s good eye. It lead Hakoda to wonder how bad the scar is and how he got it but those were the thoughts for another time because right now the 16 year old literal child needs him.
As if embarrassed, Zuko crossed his legs, sat up straight and swiped his face clear of any emotion the was there before.
Zuko emptied what little he had in his stomach and felt the effects of what was probably a concussion making the world spin once again. Leaning back and settling down against a tree and pain explodes on his back reminding him of the painstaking hours spent in chains entertaining the guard through whatever torture they decided to put him through but its not the worst he had sustained so he wont complain.
Without warning, his ears started ringing making him push his face further into his knees hoping it would subside before he had to go back to an angry Katara.
Before he could realize what was happening, the ground beside him shifts and he looks up to see Hakoda, THE chief of the water tribe, and Zuko has never talked to him but if he was honest the man scared him and for good reason. He had done a lot against Hakoda’s children after all and expects to be treated as so.
Suddenly self conscious, Zuko turns away and wipes the stray tears that managed to appear with his consent and sits up straighter before clearing his throat awkwardly.
Hakoda turn toward Zuko, expecting him to tell him to go away
“Um… do you need something… sir?” Zuko says looking at anything except Hakoda, ashamed to be caught at such a vulnerable state, body rigid, ready to run if needed.
“No, no, not at all, I just came to make sure you were ok” Hakoda replied trying to make his voice softer and try not to cry at the confusion in Zuko’s face. Clearly Zuko was not used to people caring about his well being.
“Oh…um… yeah I’m fine, I can still train Aang” Zuko answered and Hakoda’s heart cracked a little
“Don’t worry about that, you should take care of yourself fist if your hurt” at this Zuko eyes widened and he looked away again “also, I didn’t get to Thank you for helping Sokka get us out of the prison, you really saved me”
“… You shouldn’t thank me, I did it because I own them a lot, caused a lot of problems for them in the past, I’m sorry”
“Well Sokka tells me that you have changed and everything that you have done so far shows it, so I forgive you, Katara will come around soon too” Hakoda says sincerely.
Zuko searches Hakoda’s face for any sign of a lie and finds none
“Thank you” whispers Zuko looking down at his hands
“Now, lets go back to the others and we will get you something to eat, maybe something at little less burned than the last”
Hakoda understood.