AtLA fic: Airbender's Child: Fire 3/15
Disclaimer: I don't own anything in this story, in fact a lot of the dialogue will probably be cadged straight from the show itself, which means I own even less.
Author's Notes: I know, I know, where the hell have I been, and fluff doesn't count. It's just been a tiring couple weeks and r/l was a bit bitchy. I lost some momentum on this. I'll try to pick it up, but this section of the fic that I'm in is . . . well . . . less plotty and more character-y. So, I'm trying not to turn this into, "Zuko sits around and thinks a lot." But enough about that. Here's the next instalment, and I hope it was worth the wait, I'm sorry if it wasn't.
A few weeks passed and, soon enough, Zuko discovered that the bison was simply hiding from everyone but him. She seemed to trust him and it too very little time for him to discover that his clever bison had found the perfect hiding places to meet. They were easily accessible from the palace's secret passage exits, allowed for discreet escapes by air, and were remote enough that they wouldn't be caught by anyone.
He'd found pictures in the library of sky bisons with odd saddles on their backs, designed to carry people, but he hadn't been able to find the texts he knew he must have read that explained how to piece together saddles and straps for riding a bison. He'd even asked the old man who was the librarian for the palace where to find such scrolls, and the man had only looked at him askance, asking where he thought the information would have come from. Zuko had only just bitten back the response that, since he knew all this information, it must have been somewhere in the palace.
Since he was already getting odd, sideways looks from Azula, Mai, Ty Lee, the servants - pretty much everyone at the palace - Zuko decided to let it go and set himself to looking in other places. The fact that he couldn't recall how he knew these things, only that he did, was very disconcerting.
On top of all that, he was still suffering from the disturbing dreams that felt all too real. He'd dreamt of having a friend, his own age and gender, the way Azula did.
"You just want to play walking dead again, don't you?"
"It's a benefit."
The scene blurred and then reset in another time and place.
There was a sudden thudding behind him and he turned to see a grouchy-looking Water Tribe teenager in the saddle behind him. "I didn't mean I wanted to be tossed from Appa to Shuga while we're flying, Aang!" he shouted toward the innocent-looking Avatar.
"What . . ." Zuko trailed off.
The boy in blue leaned back against the back of the saddle. "That was some pretty awesome bending down there," he said.
"I'm not good enough," Zuko snapped back. "I'll never be as good as her."
"So that was the little sister, huh?" the other asked carefully.
He closed his eyes for a moment. "Yeah. That's my sister Azula," he said. "Crazy, evil and . . . a damn firebending prodigy. She's just . . . so good at everything."
"You seemed to be handling yourself fine out there," his friend said.
"She was letting me," Zuko said in irritation. "It's what she always did. Make me think that maybe I'd finally caught up, then she'd just . . ." He waved a hand in the air.
Behind him, Sokka said, "I don't know. From where I was sitting, you'd backed her into that corner, you had a barrage going she could only block and not retaliate, and I'm pretty sure I saw you use that waterbending thing where they catch something thrown at them and wing it right back. I mean, unless you're able to make blue fire like her, which would be pretty impressive too."
Another blurring, another resettling.
"What? Where! Where!" Sokka demanded, panic making him spin around like a ferret dog chasing its tail.
Zuko leaned back. He could watch this for hours. The Water Tribe girl spoiled his fun by telling her brother, "Where do you think?"
Sokka sourly pulled the thing off his elbow, tossing it back into the swamp. Then he caught the look on Zuko's face. "Why didn't anything bite you?" he grumbled.
"Because-"
She stopped his fun again. He never got to say that it was because "Suckered animals wuuuuuuv you," the way he wanted.
"Because Lee managed to land us out of the water," she said sharply.
While she went ahead to consult with Aang, Sokka gave him a suspicious look. "What were you gonna say?"
"Why would you think I was going to say anything else?" Zuko asked, trying to blink innocently at his friend.
"Do you have something in your eye?"
He woke, amused and disturbed at the same time. The water tribesman felt familiar. But the only member of the Water Tribes he'd ever met was the girl under Ba Sing Se. She'd been in his dream, too. In fact, now that he thought about it, those odd flashes he'd been having after kissing Mai - the ones of him kissing a girl who wasn't Mai - were all about him kissing that girl.
How did he even know the boy's name, he wondered.
It never occurred to Zuko that the Water Tribesman had any name other than Sokka, or even whether he had anything to do with the Avatar or the waterbender.
A few weeks of this and suddenly they were all packed off to Ember Island for an enforced vacation. Ty Lee was enthusiastic, but she seemed to be the only one. Zuko couldn't shake the feeling they were being sent off for reasons other than the stated, 'well-earned rest', Mai clearly seemed to resent the intrusion into her life and Azula . . .
Azula had continued to act odd lately. She was blowing hot and cold with everyone, all the time. She'd be nasty one minute, sweet the next. She'd try to trip Mai up, then she'd arrive on the scene with pastries and new senbon to make it up. She'd sparred with Zuko and laughed when he, for some crazy reason, had thought he'd get lightning this time and wound up lightly smoking with his hair crimped and frizzed from the blast that sent him into the wall. Later that same day she'd walked him through the process of making lightning slowly and carefully until he'd come so close to managing it that she'd smiled and said he was making great progress.
He'd even seen her kowtowing to their father, then later talking back to him with an insolence that Zuko knew she'd only gotten away with because of how very much their father favoured her.
He had his suspicions, mostly relating to the fact that she had continued to visit their sister in prison, but he had no idea what the woman was telling her, or why. It all left him rattled and in a bad temper.
So when Ty Lee started to enthuse about how much fun Ember Island must have been for him and Azula as children, he deliberately tried his damndest to take the wind out of her sails. "That was a long time ago," he said bleakly. He felt bleak. Mai, for all that she was his girlfriend, didn't help in the slightest. She just stood there, morose.
As they pulled up to the docks, Zuko saw that Li and Lo were waiting for them. Inwardly he shuddered. Those two old bats were just plain creepy. "Welcome to Ember Island, kids," they said. Zuko wondered if, just once, the pair could try talking as though they were two individuals and not one person split between two bodies. Then again, he mused as they struck a pose that might have been sexy in their youth, but was just plain icky now, perhaps they really were one person in two bodies. Stranger things had happened. If there was a demon that could steal people's faces just because they had a facial expression around him, surely it was possible for there to be one mind divided between two bodies.
Then they stripped off their robes to reveal matching swimwear on those old, decrepit bodies, and Zuko decided it was just too vile to even contemplate. As the bile rose in his throat, Mai's hand came up to cover his face. "Thank you," he said.
"No problem," she replied. "I'd hate to get this dress dirty."
An hour later they were down at the beach, the girls in various states of undress for swimming, while Zuko was wearing a robe over the bathing suit Ty Lee had declared, "So cute!"
As much as Zuko enjoyed the affirmation that he was his father's son inasmuch as girls found him attractive, there was something off-putting about Ty Lee's enthusiasm. Mostly because, although there had been some talk about marrying him off to the girl (similar talks had been conducted about Mai and several other girls his father had wanted to solidify family alliances with) Ty Lee was too much like a sister to him. A different kind of sister than Azula was, but a sister nonetheless. The whole thing felt awkward.
"By the way, if it came down to it, I wouldn't mind marrying you."
"Oh?" Zuko asked the blind girl in surprise. "How come?"
"I heard you telling the other two about love and marriage in the upper classes," she explained. "I think . . . I think we'd get along if it came down to it."
He grinned, and said, "You do realise that Sokka's a savage, Aang's an optimist and Katara's just crazy?"
"Eh," she said and flopped down to pick at her bare feet with her fingernails. "I'm not all that civilised either. I just pretended with my parents."
Watching her prod at some pretty disgusting things caught between her toes, Zuko gagged and said, "I can believe it."
The images hit him with the force of a runaway tank and Zuko found himself dropping the parasol he was holding over Mai's head and falling to his knees, clutching at his painful temples.
Warm arms wrapped around his shoulders, supporting his weight. "If you wanted to stop carrying the parasol, all you had to do was say so," Mai's deadpan delivery reached his ears.
"Sorry to be an inconvenience," Zuko snapped. Even as the words left his mouth he knew they were wrong. Mai just had a very dry sense of humour that could be piqued at the oddest times. "Mai, I-"
Her face was blank and emotionless as she said, "Don't worry. You weren't doing anything indispensible anyhow."
Zuko felt his own face go blank. "Since I'm so dispensible, perhaps I'd better leave you to your own devices." He turned sharply and left the girls to do whatever they were going to do on the beach. He knew that both he and Mai were simply snarling at each other for no good reason and they both were feeling hurt by the exchange.
That didn't help the hurt feelings on his part as he dragged his aching head away to his bedroom in the hopes of easing the pain. He collapsed onto the mattress and curled into a ball, letting the pain wash over him. He managed to drift into sleep, but his dreams were more confusing than ever, filled with memories of his uncle he'd never made and friends he'd never had. When he finally woke, he was confused for a moment. Just as confused as that first time he'd woken in Ba Sing Se after his illness.
He blinked slowly and then squawked, falling off the bed. Azula had perched herself on his bed, staring at him from about two inches away. It was a somewhat disconcerting way to wake up. "Azula?" he gasped from the floor. "What are you doing?"
"I was wondering about you and Mai," she told him. "What happened? You both seemed to be getting along so well, and then one migraine and you've all but broken up."
Zuko sighed. "I just snapped at her for making a joke when I was hurting too much to find it funny, then she snapped at me for snapping at her," he said. "I'll apologise, tell her I think it's all my fault even though we were both oversensitive and it'll blow over."
An odd look crossed Azula's face. "Why should you pretend she had no fault in it?" she asked.
"Because most things are my fault?" Zuko suggested. "Anyhow, Mai's the only girl I know who'll put up with me. The fact that she's attracted to me at all is more than enough."
"They're not your fault," Azula said, sharply. Suddenly a bitter laugh escaped her. "They're out parents' fault. Our mother's for deciding I wasn't worth her time, and our father's for never giving you a chance to prove yourself."
"Azula-"
She talked right over him. "What is so wrong with me that our mother would just . . . call me a monster?"
"Nothing's wrong with you," Zuko denied. "Mother just . . . didn't see you clearly, and she . . ." he trailed off, because there was something that felt wrong about describing his mother's behaviour as doting or loving. A flash of memory slipped by him.
"While you are here with me, I expect you to keep your firebending mouth shut so that I do not have to deal with your unsavoury tendencies, Zuko."
Zuko shook his head briefly. "My point is, our father had the good judgment to see which of us was worth his extra time and encouragement. There are black koala sheep in every family." He shrugged. "I guess that's my role."
There was a long pause, then Azula seemed to come to a decision. "Aiko makes some very good points when I talk to her." She started.
"What?" Zuko snapped, disbelieving. "Why have you been talking to her? She's . . ." he searched for words, which came easily suddenly. "She's self-centred, arrogant, she thinks that firebenders are the most inferior of all the benders, that we're somehow too stupid to know better or right from wrong. She's aggravating and it's all I can do not to knock her over the head with something and prove her right when she gets on her high ostrich horse about things."
"But she doesn't expect me to do, or be, anything in particular," Azula said. "You and father, you both just see me as perfect, and mother always saw me as-"
"You are annoying," Zuko said flatly. "You poke and prod and push and irritate and then laugh when I screw up because you made me so angry I couldn't concentrate. I know that it's because I'm a failure, but it's damned annoying, Azula. I don't see you as perfect, I see you as . . . as everything father wants me to be and I'll never be."
Azula's eyes lit with fervour. "Then I'll stop. Tell me when I'm doing it and I'll stop. Zuzu - Zuko," she corrected herself, sharply. "We can be great together. When you put your mind to it, you're strong and brilliant and everything I'd want at my right hand as Fire Lord. Father will make me Fire Lord after him, and you'll be my second." She seemed to wilt a little. "Aiko made some very good points, Zuko. I don't want to be alone like Father and Mother."
Her ambitions seemed to pour out of her. They made Fire Lord Sozin's desire to bring the world under the power of the Fire Nation seem almost petty. For a moment, Zuko was caught up in her words. He'd always wanted Azula's regard, to be her brother in more than just name. Aiko had brought them together and he was grateful for the chance. But as everything tumbled out of her, he began to feel disturbed. There was something frightening in her fevered eyes and the manic smile on her face.
He was grateful when she was distracted by Ty Lee and fled through the marketplace, finding himself an isolated place to hide from everything. It was there the bison found him.
Zuko didn't even pause, just climbed up onto her back and flopped down on his stomach, both hands soon occupied with scratching at two points on her shoulderblades. She made a happy rumbly sound and flopped down. "Hey girl," he said. "I'm glad to see you. You're the least confusing part of my life right now, you know?"
An inquiring groan issued from beneath him.
"I told you all about my girlfriend, Mai-"
The bison had decided opinions on Mai, and never hesitated to make them known by making rude noises at the mere mention of her name.
"Well, that's what you think. No one asked you to date her."
A bad-tempered-sounding grumble was the reply.
"I'm sure you'll be happy to hear we had a fight. I mean, it's my fault, but we've been dating for three years, I thought she'd know me better. At least enough to know when I'm trying to apologise. Especially after she'd made that crack when my head was hurting so much."
Suddenly his comfortable perch bucked and rolled under him, sending Zuko rolling to the ground. He found himself the object of intense bison scrutiny as she nosed all over him, clearly making sure he was okay.
"I'm fine now," he said, trying to reassure her. "It was just a really bad headache."
Somehow, that bison face spoke volumes of scepticism about that.
"Really," he told her firmly. "I know I'm having a lot of those lately. They're just . . . aftereffects of whatever it was I had in Ba Sing Se."
She rolled her eyes and flopped back down, nudging at him with her nose. Zuko took the hint and climbed back on.
"I just . . . Azula's starting to really worry me. She's never been affectionate, but it's like she . . . like she's trying to make us into a perfect sibling pair. I wouldn't mind, but it's like it's also all part of some weird, terrifying plan to conquer the world, or something. I don't know." He mused aloud. "This Aiko woman-"
A disdainful snort had Zuko looking down in surprise. "I hadn't told you about her, how can you have an opinion? Wait . . ." he suddenly realised something. "She's an airbender. Did you know her from an airbender enclave?"
The big head nodded.
"Wow." He shook himself. "Anyhow, she's been saying things to Azula, and they're having an effect. I just don't know what it is." He frowned. "It's like Azula's trying to develop all those family bonds and things that she always said were a sign of weakness, but it's all filtered through . . . through how she normally sees the world."
An inquisitive noise made Zuko smile wryly. "I don't know what to do, Shuga. I mean, there's Mai, who's completely changed, Azula, who's changing, and I keep having these dreams about the Avatar and his friends." He flopped onto his back. "It doesn't help that my dreams keep insisting that the waterbender is a better kisser than Mai." He rolled over and started scratching Shuga again. "Do you suppose it's just the lure of the exotic?"
She made a dismissive noise.
They were interrupted by the sound of approaching people, and Zuko leapt off her back and Shuga took off to hide just in time. A moment later, Ty Lee, Azula and Mai all appeared around the trees.
He was dragged to a party, an uncomfortably cathartic meeting on the beach and found himself joining in on the destruction of some poor unfortunate idiot's home. By the time they were all piling onto the ship to take them home, he felt more confused than ever. He and Mai had made up, but it all felt very uncomfortable. Like they were strangers playing at a relationship. The only thing that made him feel better was the glimpses he caught of Shuga lurking behind clouds the whole way home.
Prologue Part One Part Two Part Four Part Five Part Six Part Seven Part Eight Part Nine Part Ten Part Eleven Part Twelve Part Thirteen Part Fourteen Part Fifteen
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