Chapter Text
~ 104 AG ~
“Ah! So, you have been reading our histories, I see.”
“Yes, Uncle.”
“Didn’t you tell me in your last letter that you were ‘up to your eyeballs’ in council paperwork?” Zuko’s uncle gestured to a stack of parchment sheets shoved to the edge of his overcrowded desk. “Something about ‘military reassignments, reparations, negotiations, this year’s legislative agenda’—”
“Yes, Uncle.” Zuko interrupted tersely. “I remember.”
Zuko felt his mouth go tight and was sure his signature scowl had taken over his face. He could feel a characteristic tightening in the scar tissue over his left eye as the skin on his forehead pulled tight to form deep ridges between his brows.
With an effort, Zuko took a breath and tried to summon some patience. His beloved Uncle Iroh deserved better than his irritation.
“However, this was also urgent,” Zuko indicated the books and scrolls laid out across his desk then regarded Iroh’s lined face. He tried once more to remain calm; however, his patience didn’t last more than a breath.
“So? What do you think?”
“A dragon lily may be mistaken for a tiger lily when you see only the artist’s rendering, not the reality.”
Zuko groaned, and his shoulders slumped.
Not another riddle.
Zuko could rarely puzzle out his uncle’s mysterious aphorisms. However, judging by the reference to the awful, sulfur-smelling dragon lily, it was not an encouraging reply.
“You think it’s a bad idea,” he concluded. His sigh ruffled the many parchments spread open between them. Wearily, Zuko scrubbed a hand over his face.
“Not at all, Nephew,” Iroh corrected gently. “I only mean to say that histories are written by human beings, from their particular perspectives and more often to serve their particular purposes than out of any dedication to recording the truth. It is unwise to listen too closely to any one voice, especially when that voice says only that which you most wish to hear.”
Zuko glared over his fingers at Iroh, but without any real heat.
“Does that warning apply to your voice, too, Uncle?”
Iroh considered him with an expression of easy benevolence and sipped his tea.
“Perhaps.”
Then, he leaned forward and said in a confidential tone, “I think your idea is quite brilliant actually. You’re still honoring our history on the day of your birth, although your ascension has already happened out of order, as it were. It is very clever to embrace a tradition from a time of peace in the Fire Nation. This way you avoid outright offense to those who oppose you while not drawing undue attention the leaders and traditions that have caused so much suffering. It is quite politic of you.”
Uncle Iroh beamed at him over the rim of his teacup, eyes twinkling in approval.
“Oh. Yes! That’s exactly it,” Zuko felt a relieved smile start to pull up the corners of his mouth. His uncle’s approval meant a great deal. “Everything else is out of order already. I thought I might as well choose the ceremonies that would honor our people and our history instead of—”
“Squeezing into garments that no longer fit?” Iroh finished.
Ha! Finally a metaphor that Zuko could understand.
“Deftly handled, Nephew.”
It was true. Fire Lords since before Sozin’s time had not taken the throne before reaching the age of majority at twenty one. All had been married and had successfully fathered heirs before taking up the mantle. Zuko by contrast had been seventeen when he’d become Fire Lord, and now here he was at twenty one, unmarried, and with no clear plan about how to address his succession. When the Royal Master of Ceremonies had come to him, visibly agitated, to make plans for the traditional celebrations for a member of the royal family upon reaching their majority, not one of them fit Zuko’s exceptional circumstances.
So, he’d instructed the distressed man to provide him with as many references as possible to ceremonies from previous eras. The Master had fulfilled his mission with zeal. Zuko’s private office was now littered with piles of scrolls, teetering heaps of books, assorted maps, and fragments of notes. Zuko had dived into his researches and spent long weeks thus employed until he’d found something that spoke to him.
Several generations past, when a member of the royal family reached their majority, they had made a pilgrimage through the nation to a temple for a blessing from the Fire Sages. It was meant to be an act of humility, to remind the royal family of the lives of the common people and the service they were expected to do their nation as leaders. When an heir was named, they would undertake a pilgrimage yet again. At last, before a new Fire Lord was crowned, they would make the journey a final time.
It had been customary to make the trip carrying only a flame, bearing no signs of royalty, and traveling without the comforts and privileges of rank. The first journey was often the longest one, taking weeks to reach one of the temples in the outermost islands. The supplicant was obliged to ask for food and shelter from the people whose cities, villages, and farms they walked through. While it was considered an honor to aid the pilgrim on their journey, the accommodations could not be lavish.
The heir’s pilgrimage might be shorter, to a nearer temple, while the final journey of the soon-to-be Fire Lord typically took only the day to walk through the capitol city to the High Temple. This balanced the urgent need to crown a new leader with ritual obligation.
It was this that Zuko had proposed to do to mark his twenty first birthday. He felt the reminder that his duty was to serve to his nation not his ego would be good for him, for his people, and the world. For most of the last one hundred years, humility had been seen as synonymous with weakness. Zuko wanted to remind the world that a little humility on the part of its leaders could do a lot for peace and kindness in the world.
“I have one question, though,” Uncle Iroh said very seriously, breaking in upon Zuko’s thoughts. “You do still plan to have a birthday party, don’t you?”
* * * * *
Three weeks later Zuko was deep in meditation, his whole being concentrated on the flow of chi through his body, feeding the fire in his core, when a sudden gust of air blew through the open doors to his meditation room and a figure barreled into him.
Without opening his eyes, Zuko extended a foot, catching his attacker in the midriff and allowing their energy to roll him onto his back and so toss the figure into the wall behind him. Getting quickly to his feet, Zuko set himself for the next attack, extending fire blades from his fists.
Aang grinned at him from across the room. The painted hanging on the wall behind him remained entirely undisturbed.
This time when Aang propelled himself at Zuko, he only caught his gangly friend in an enthusiastic embrace. These days Aang was all angles and over-long limbs. He was shooting up like a weed. The top of his head already cleared Zuko’s nose. And, Aang’s growth didn’t appear to be slowing down in the least.
Zuko himself had grown considerably in the last couple of years, at first slowly as his diet improved after years in exile, then so swiftly that for a few months last year the palace tailors despaired of keeping him properly dressed for his station. These days he stood six feet tall in his bare feet.
Now, as he gripped his friend by the arms and pushed him back so he could look into Aang’s face, Zuko could see he was putting on muscle and the baby fat in his cheeks was quickly fading away. If he squinted, Zuko thought he might the able to see the face of the man Aang would become in the teenager who stood in front of him.
“I’m so happy to see you.” Aang smiled so widely Zuko thought it must make his jaw hurt. Swiftly, Aang crushed him back in his arms, knocking all the wind out of him.
“Y- You, too!” Zuko squeaked.
From the courtyard beyond the open door came another gust of wind and a deep, rumbling ‘RARRRGH’ that could only have come from a one very well-known and well-loved sky bison.
The next several minutes were a riot of activity as new arrivals slid from Appa’s broad back and the commotion brought Suki and the rest of Zuko’s guard as well as Iroh into the courtyard.
Momo alighted on his head and turned into a whirling scarf of fur around his neck until Zuko managed to get his hands on the little lemur and reassure him of his continued affection. After that, Zuko lost track of whom he was greeting as one body after the next flung themselves at him and hugged him until he thought his spine might crack.
He had the distinct impression that he’d caught Katara twice, getting a face full of her sweet-smelling hair and exchanging smiles that spoke more than any words could manage. Twin bruises on his arms confirmed that he had also been greeted more than once by Toph. She wasn’t much for hugs at the best of times, but she tolerated the arm he threw around her shoulders and the way he squeezed her briefly against his side.
Sokka’s enthusiasm nearly deafened him and the fervor of his embrace might have been a contributing factor in the feeling that Zuko’s spine would need realignment. Only a year younger, Sokka was also growing at an outrageous speed, and each time they met, he eagerly measured his height against Zuko’s, determined to ‘win the race to the top’ as though either of them could control the final outcome.
At last after many hugs and exclamations of welcome, Zuko’s mother arrived in the courtyard, looking composed and regal, and shooed them all inside.