avatar fic: hello world, do you listen (Zuko)
hello world, do you listen
Summary: The grass is always greener, on the other side. He learns this the hard way, but isn’t that how he learns everything?
Characters: Zuko
Word Count: 720
Prompt: avatar_contest ; 043. Green // Challenge
He’s changing. It’s not like it's because he wants to.
Trade the silken sheets and palanquin rides for steel monsters and ocean waves for three years and maybe he’s finally getting used to nosy crews and impromptu tea ceremonies to miss what he was forced to leave behind. So he vows to himself- vows to check every port, journey across every ocean available, and double-check everything all over again; because if he stopped searching for a minute he’s scared that his too-tired heart might just crumble from what they say is homesickness.
He hates the fact that he sounds too much like quitting.
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In North Pole, he lets the arctic wind bites his skin as he takes the Avatar away.
There’s a blizzard and he’s not really surprised; he already survives quite a number of near-death experiences since he finds the Avatar, it will be odd if fate suddenly changes without warning.
He looks at the kid on his back and convinces himself that it wasn’t because of his kindness that he puts the captive in a comfortable position with the warm fire close. He also blames himself for getting distracted so that Water Tribe girl is able to defeat him once again.
He doesn’t give up (not without a fight) so the Moon disappears and reappears while the Avatar offers no salvation for each and every of his countrymen (Jee, the crew) except two, and Zhao dies in front of his very eyes.
There is a makeshift raft and hastily made escapes and he’s starting to think this is too much as he lays hungry and wasted for the next twenty days.
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Azula always lies.
Desperation tunes out every false story it is told, blindly seeking for long-lost hope of long-lost acceptance. Perfect sons choose expertly told half-truths of implied fatherly affection instead of cold, hard reality from rational thinking.
In short; he believes her. It hits far too close to home when everything unravels.
His uncle looks at him with carefully placed sadness in his eyes- not too much so he won’t accept pity, and not too little to be completely indifferent.
“I’m sorry, nephew.”
His mind already takes too much for the day to completely absorbs the comforting effect, but somewhere not far in the future he notices the hidden hope in his uncle’s tone- for what, he doesn’t know. But he has a pretty clear idea.
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Honestly, he’s trying to change. But old habits die hard and it’s easier to ignore a girl’s heartbroken gaze when he’s on something that is not his worn out feet for once.
When they stop, Iroh makes him promise on himself.
His fleeting relief of this idiocy (his uncle’s words) finally ending comes to an abrupt stop when he notices that the town they’re stopping at is having a masquerade festival. Complete with various stalls of souvenirs right and left- toys, clothes, paints-
-masks.
It only takes a day for his uncle to find out.
(The Blue Spirit is back.)
Not that he cares.
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Karma bites him in the ass when hell catches up and takes down The Dragon of The West.
This feels too much like square one for his liking; blaming his sister, blaming the Avatar and his friends, blaming everything and everyone, and blaming himself while regret eats him from inside.
It’s the third day after the fight and his uncle has yet to open his eyes.
Visions of home starts to fade and so does the burning ambition to capture the Avatar.
Maybe, he thinks, maybe a change would do me good after all.
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Lee doesn’t steal for himself. Lee doesn’t fight unless it was to protect those who are weaker. His only weapons are the swords on his back, the legacy of a father lost in war only for his to protect. The world exists as a safe haven inside stone walls, with ambitions as the equivalent of the pleasure he gets by serving very good tea and taking care of his aging uncle. Lee has this belief that second chances will get everything right for everyone and can’t imagine a world where a boy gives up everything he has only for something he never loses.
Lee doesn’t need redemption and Zuko hates him for it.