#also i think its good that zuko was banished when azula was too young to get hers and that he didnt stay long in the fn before joining aang | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

zuko-always-lies · 3 years

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ATLA AU Idea which is Basically “Azula Raises Katara for Several Years”

I’ve had this idea kicking around my head for months, and, since I have no intention of writing it, I figure I might as well post it. To be clear, the premise of this fanfic is “Azula, Katara, and Sokka get traumatized in ways they weren’t in canon, but the events that traumatize them potentially help lead to a better outcome in the long-term,” so be prepared for rough sailing.

This idea is very much inspired by all the “Katara gets kidnapped young and raised within the Fire Nation royal family” fanfics, which I think can be excellent if done with care. However, in a situation where Katara and Azula develop a relationship when they are young, the natural tendency is to make Katara the “motherly” or parental one, and I wanted to turn that on its head. I also wanted to explore some of the possible implications of Azula taking on adult sized responsibilities as a child and of the perverse ways that power differentials can influence things. I also wanted to explore some of the ways that Azula’s commitment to duty and responsibility can be a positive thing. Another ~2000 or so words under the cut.

The premise is that, shortly after Zuko gets banished, Katara gets captured by the Southern Raiders as the last Southern Water Tribe waterbender and brought back to Caldera and presented as a trophy to Ozai. Ozai’s first reaction is to have her executed, but fortunately Azula is also present in the throne room. For reasons which Azula doesn’t entirely understand herself but which definitely have something to do with her guilt over what happened to Zuko, Azula decides to intervene, despite the risks involved. However, not being Zuko, she manages to do this without provoking Ozai, through convincing him that Katara is more valuable alive as a trophy, a symbol, and a plaything than she is dead. Ozai doesn’t really care that much, so he pawns Katara off to Azula and basically forgets about her, accidentally using language that implies to Azula that Katara and taking care of Katara is now Azula’s responsibility. Azula is at an age where she’s started to take her responsibilities and duties with deadly seriousness.

Katara doesn’t know what to make of this all. She’s been severely traumatized by being kidnapped and torn from her family and culture and by having her life threatened by Ozai. She’s aware that Azula saved her life, but the language Azula used to in order to do so sounds warped and screwed up to Katara, who is unaware that Azula had to say what she said in order to manipulate Ozai. Katara noticed that Azula seemed a little nervous when she talked to Ozai, but Katara doesn’t initially know how risky and dangerous what Azula did was.

Again, Azula takes her responsibilities with deadly seriousness. So, when it becomes her responsibility to take care of Katara, Azula is determined to do the best possible job, even though she’s 11 and Katara is also 11. If there were any responsible adults present, they would intervene and talk to Azula about how awful an idea this is, but there aren’t any left. In any case, Katara’s waterbending abilities make it so she has to be kept under some kind of supervision, Azula is perceptive enough to worry that Katara might be mistreated if she got fostered out, and in any case Azula is convinced she can do a better job than any foster family.

Azula is a badly abused 11 year old who grew up indoctrinated in an absolutely toxic ideology. She’s never really seen good parenting in her life. The idea of her trying to parent should be terrifying. Yet she’s aware that Ursa didn’t do the best job with her, and since Katara isn’t a “monster” Azula sees no reason to replicate Ursa’s behavior. Azula believes the way that Ozai treats her is absolutely justified, even though she has some knowledge of its negative effects on her, but since Katara isn’t a princess who has immense duties to her nation and family, Azula sees no reason to treat her that way. In fact, Azula is aware of ignorance about parenting, and tries to read as much about parenting as she can. She also reads as much about the water tribes as she can in order to try to understand Katara better.

In terms of being a “parent,” Azula is overall a little standoffish, absent, and demanding. She doesn’t need to directly look after Katara’s physical care(she has servants for that), but she has to look after Katara’s emotional needs, her education, and her overall care. As a temporary measure, she arranges that Katara sleep on a cot in Azula’s room because she’s not sure where to put her, and this arrangement becomes permanent. This means Azula and Katara usually eat together, since Azula has taken most of her meals in her room, but Azula is very busy with her duties, training, and education, so they don’t spend much time together in a typical day. Azula has Katara officially declared a servant(but one who only reports to Azula) in order to regularize her status and allow Katara to draw a salary(most of which Azula holds in escrow for when Katara comes of age), but Azula only rarely asks Katara to do work; Katara had far more chores back in the Southern Water Tribe. On the other hand, Azula demands that Katara work hard in her education and on practicing her waterbending. Katara is too old to be sent to the Royal Fire Academy for Girls, but Azula obtains tutors for her, in addition to getting her whatever waterbending scrolls she can and trying to obtain the best possible bending coaches for Katara’s waterbending, sometimes even stepping in herself to try to coach Katara.

Azula is aware that Katara wants to return home, but she doesn’t think that Ozai would ever allow that, and, in any case, Azula is an imperialist who thinks Katara is better off being “civilized” in the Fire Nation than she would be back in her ignorant and “savage” home. A large portion of Katara’s education is intended to “civilize” her. Azula doesn’t have firm ideas of where adult Katara will fit into Fire Nation society but plays with the idea of marrying her into the nobility or of making her governor of the conquered Water Tribes. So overall, Azula does a shockingly good job as “parent” given she’s an abused 11 year child acting within the toxic norms of the Fire Nation, but that still means she does a bad job, and her relationship with Katara remains pretty toxic.

Ozai and the rest of the court have some awareness of what’s going on, but they honestly don’t care as long Azula continues to be an exemplary princess, fulfills her duties, and continues to exceed expectations. Some members of the court even find Azula’s personal commitment to “civilizing” a savage to be inspiring. However, the burden of taking care of Katara means that Azula is under even more pressure than she is in canon, with the good news being that Azula has something more of a support network than in canon. Katara provides some measure of support, and in this AU Azula never has the energy to really push Ukano’s political career forward, and so Mai never has to leave, so Ty Lee also stays put.

Katara, again, is severely traumatized by her experiences, and to a degree feels helpless. She knows that she can’t escape and go back home. She’s resentful of Azula and particularly of the efforts to cut Katara off from her culture, but at the same time Katara ends internalizing some Fire Nation culture. Yet after a while Katara gets a sense of how toxic the environment is at the Royal Court, and she soon(after overhearing a conversation between Mai and Ty Lee which was supposed to be confidential) learns what happened to Zuko and realizes how much Azula risked in order to protect Katara, and Katara can’t help but feel intense gratitude to Azula for it. Azula also gradually becomes more and more respectful of Water Tribe culture, and Katara deeply appreciates the emphasis Azula places on Katara mastering waterbending. Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee are also the only people in the Fire Nation who are ever consistently kind to Katara, and Katara ends up deeply bonding with each one of them, although the resulting relationships are not the healthiest. Katara eventually starts to develop a sense of how each one of them has been deeply victimized by Fire Nation culture. Azula goes to great lengths to hide her own struggles and pain from Katara, but Katara spends a lot of time with her and sometimes notices. Several years in, Katara notices some positive changes in Azula and begins to play with the idea that she can positively influence Azula so that Azula will be become a kinder and anti-imperialist Firelord.

Azula thinks Katara’s waterbending is the coolest thing ever(well, aside from firebending at least), a sentiment shared to a lesser degree by Mai and Ty Lee. Azula also thinks that learning to fight is vital, so she brings Katara along for her spars with Mai and Ty Lee. Katara makes rapid progress, particularly due to her access to many waterbending scrolls. As a result of this, and of Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee not separating, all four girls end up being significantly better combatants than they were in canon.

Mai and Ty Lee have complex reactions to Katara, but they eventually come to like and even love her. There is an element of resentment present because Katara takes up so much of the ever busy Azula’s time, but Azula forces her friends to spend time with Katara, and they end up bonding with her. Katara’s empathy and compassion works in her favor here, especially since she rapidly develops into one of the few people who sees and appreciates them for who they are. Mai and Ty Lee also find Katara’s waterbending to be an interesting and intriguing method of combat, soon come to respect Katara’s budding combat skills, and, as people deeply unhappy with their own places in society, they find Katara’s stories of life at the south pole to be interesting. Mai has issues with Katara being a little too “motherly,” but on the other hand appreciates that Katara pays attention to Mai’s actual desires and needs. Ty Lee sometimes finds Katara to be a little too similar to her for comfort, but also at the same time appreciates Katara’s caring side and the way she’s not reluctant to give her positive attention. Frequently Azula is too busy to join her friends, so Katara, Ty Lee, and Mai end up hanging out together. Freaks and outsiders stick together.

Azula, through her research into the Water Tribes, personal experience with Katara, and interest in Katara’s waterbending, begins to subtly yet strongly move in anti-imperialist directions and doubt Fire Nation ideology, but her transformation has scarcely begun by the time Book 1 begins. She does benefit from better relationships with her friends, though, and Katara gives her some emotional support. Meanwhile, to a lesser degree Mai and Ty Lee have had their own doubts develop about imperial ideology.

Azula tends to see her relationship with Katara mainly in terms of responsibility and duty, but she ultimately comes to fiercely love Katara.

Zuko and Iroh do their things, just like in canon. They receive vague reports about Katara’s presence in court, but they don’t understand the significance of them.

Sokka gets badly traumatized by losing his sister and believes her to be killed by the Fire Nation. Hakoda, Bato, and the water tribe warriors also still leave to fight the Fire Nation. Sokka is absolutely dedicated to seeking vengeance on the Fire Nation, and when he accidently defrosts Aang, he sees an opportunity.

Book 1 largely plays out the same, with minor changes. I think an interesting one is that Suki ends up joining a badly understrength Team Avatar and temporally leaving her warriors behind in order to aid Avatar Kyoshi’s reincarnation with the fulfillment of his destiny.

Book 2 opens with Azula being sent to capture Zuko and Iroh. Mai and Ty Lee tag along, in part with the hope of making sure Zuko is captured without being harmed, and Azula decides to bring Katara too rather than leave her alone in Caldera. However, the operation goes south, and Azula, Mai, Ty Lee, and Katara soon find themselves hunting the Avatar. Katara’s loyalties are about to be tested like never before…Meanwhile, Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee all have seeds of anti-imperialism growing within them, but what will it take for these seeds to blossom and give fruit? Meanwhile, Azula grapples with not only her canon trauma but also the trauma she experienced through her parentification.

#Azula #Katara #Zuko #Iroh #Mai #Ty Lee #Ozai #Dangerous Ladies #Dangerous Ladies + Katara #ATLA au

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azucanela · 4 years

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OMG I AM OBSESSED WITH YOUR WRITING YOU ARE DEFINITELY ONE OF THE BEST WRITERS ON TUMBLR NO CAP!!! i love ur zuko fics, and i wanted to request some sokka x reader!!! i want u to have complete creative freedom but i love how you write slowburn omg so some enemies to friends to lovers sokka content would be insaneeee! maybe reader is fire nation (zuko’s cousin/iroh’s daughter??) but joins the gaang after crossroads or something?

AFTER | SOKKA X READER

SUMMARY: Sokka didn’t expect the girl who held a knife to his neck to be the same girl he’d fall for. Y/N didn’t really expect to fall either.

WORD COUNT: 10k

WARNINGS: injuries, implications of death, kisses, bloodbending, threats of bodily harm, death threats

A/N: time to give sokka the attention and hype he is OWED, also im SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONGGG but this is quite possibly my favorite Y/N. writing for sokka is hard tho. im not sure how much i like this tbh but its really long omg. also thank you!!!! i feel honored to be considered the best :D you are too kind

When she was younger, Y/N joined Azula’s little troupe of girls. Though she wasn’t some loyal little soldier for her to order around, no, Y/N never feared Azula. Nor did she follow her blindly. No, it had always been a struggle for power between the two. Even when her father was booted from the throne as the rightful heir.

Losing her brother made her wonder if giving up like her father had in Ba Sing Se was the easy way out. Perhaps thats why she promised herself she would never give up. Maybe thats why she challenged Azula to... an unofficial duel when she’d heard her comment. Challenged her and won.

The new Fire Lord’s pride and joy had lost against his niece, a shame.

Y/N hadn’t thought much of it, but it probably would’ve explained why Fire Lord Ozai was rather pleased when Y/N had came to him and explained her intents to go alongside her father and cousin in banishment. She was, no matter how unlikely, another potential heir to the throne. And unlike Zuko, an actual threat. Sending her on a journey to find someone who’d been missing for a century was the best way to get rid of her.

If Y/N was honest, she viewed the banishment as more of a vacation. All her life, she had to deal with banquets, politics, war tactics, all at such a young age. It was tiring, and dull, spending day and night in the palace doing such things. Now, she had the opportunity to travel the world, though her grumpy cousin was rushing them throughout each spot, it was still nice. Zuko certainly didn’t think so, given that they hadn’t found the Avatar yet, not that Y/N believed they ever would but, it is what it is.

A sigh escaped her as she sat, on leg propped up against the other on the deck of the ship, they had arrived in the Southern Water Tribe after seeing an odd light in the distance. Maybe it was cruel, but Y/N sincerely hoped they didn’t find the Avatar. She didn’t want her vacation to end, she didn’t want to return to the politics, and she didn’t want to deal with one of the most powerful people on the planet. Aside from her own desires, Y/N couldn’t help but disapprove of Zuko’s need to please his father, the man who’d hurt him beyond forgiveness.

She sincerely doubted her father approved either. Though their relationship had been strained for some time now. Y/N didn’t hate her father, she doubted that was possible, he was a kind man and a good father. Things between them simply felt... off. She liked to think she’d gotten over it, the initial jealously she felt when she discovered her father intended to join Zuko on his hunt for the Avatar.

When she’d found out from Fire Lord Ozai.

Sometimes she wondered if her father even intended to say goodbye. But she wasn’t a fool, Y/N knew he had recently lost a son, they were both hurting and Zuko needed someone who wasn’t going to hurt him if he did something wrong. Though, Y/N saw him try to save the lives of the soldiers of the so-called great Fire Nation, not do something wrong. Regardless, Zuko needed a father figure, yes. But Y/N needed a father as she grappled with the death of her brother.

Maybe she was just a little bitter about it.

“Are you coming?” Zuko asked, his words coming out harshly.

Raising a brow, Y/N shook her head, “no. Don’t get too violent, though.” She warned, looking at him pointedly, “they’re a small tribe that’s going extinct.”

Zuko rolled his eyes as he exclaimed, “that’s not my fault!”

Sitting up to face him, Y/N smacked him upside the head as she walked past him, “considering the royal family, which you are a part of need I remind you, ordered the genocide of every single Waterbender they had...” She paused, cracking her knuckles before turning to look back at Zuko, “I would say you that everyone here probably blames you for it by assosiation.” Y/N reasoned. She had never liked the history that her ancestors had, much less approved.

Taken aback, Zuko exclaimed, “you’re a part of the royal family too!” Y/N was well aware of the circumstances surrounding his banishment, he’d tried to save lives, but war was the only thing that mattered to the Fire Nation it appeared.

His attempt at defense simply earned him a shrug, “perhaps.” Y/N didn’t consider herself a member of the royal family, and she doubted her father did either. And no matter what Zuko thought, though he was royal by blood, his banishment severed his ties to the throne permanently.

Unless they happened to find the Avatar, though that wasn’t very likely, Y/N decided she would rethinking her life choices should the Avatar be here of all places, as she rested her forearms on the side of the ship and watched Zuko march down his soldiers.

She wasn’t going to tell him that the Southern Water Tribe didn’t have a military, much less benders. As previously mentioned, the genocide destroyed the benders, and the most of the soldiers in the village had headed off to fight in the war against the Fire Nation. Though her brow did raise as she watched him yank an old lady from the small crowd of people, Y/N straightened her back, preparing to get involved.

Of course, a young warrior ended up running at her cousin, war paint and all as he attempted to attack. Key word being attempted. Watching him fall face first into the snow, Y/N realized he wasn’t a warrior, but a boy. The Avatar also happened to be a boy. A very, very young boy. Not a century year old Airbender.

Y/N supposed it was time to start rethinking her life.

Sokka didn’t know what he was supposed to do as he helped Princess Yue onto the Sky Bison. They needed to find Aang’s physical body, quickly, otherwise he wouldn’t be returning to the real world, and they happened to be fresh out of Avatars up until recently so that wasn’t really an option. Not when they needed the balance of the world to be restored immediately.

Sighing, Sokka moved to get onto the Sky Bison, only to be yanked backwards, stumbling before having a knife pressed to his neck. “What the hell!” He exclaimed in shock, garnering the attention of the others that were already on Appa. Katara’s mouth gaping open at the sight of him as Princess Yue cried out in shock.

The knife against his neck is certainly uncomfortable, and he realizes that he probably should’ve stuck around Kyoshi Island long enough to learn how to get out a situation like this. “I’m coming with you. Someone has to make sure Zuko doesn’t do anything else dumb.” Comes a voice from behind him, and Sokka’s brows furrowed in confusion, who was this? And why were they trying to kill him? More importantly, how did they know Prince Zuko, the guy who had been chasing them since Aang had come out of that iceberg. Questions ran rampant through his mind, and he nearly forgot that his life was being threatened.

That was a luxury he couldn’t afford at the moment.

Though he couldn’t see the person behind him, he could see Katara grimace at her demand, anyone associated with Prince Zuko likely had a similar end goal, to capture the Avatar. This wasn’t something they could allow, and Sokka recognized this as Katara asked, “why should we trust you?” Katara’s eyes soon met Sokka’s and he knew that no matter what he said, she would give into the girl’s demands for his safety. Sokka mentally scolded himself for failing to prevent this situation.

The girl behind him scoffed, “unlike my dear cousin,” Sokka couldn’t help the shock that flooded him, cousin? As in Zuko is this girl’s cousin? Or did she mean someone else? He was kidding himself, there was no one else it could be. “I like banishment, it’s like a fun little vacation. I could care less about the Avatar.” The knife draws in closer to Sokka’s neck, nearly drawing blood, likely expressing the fact that she could care less if Katara believed her. Though Sokka doubted she didn’t care about the Avatar, he was one of the most important people in the world.

But Sokka would likely die if she didn’t agree, or at least end up fatally injured. No matter how far Katara had come with her Waterbending, she hadn’t perfected it yet, and healing was only so effective. Sokka sincerely doubted she could beat the speed of this girl and her weapon considering the fact that she’d gotten the jump on them the first time around. Death wasn’t something he wanted, but anyone who knew Zuko couldn’t be trusted, much less someone who shared his blood. If he turned out... like that, Sokka didn’t want to imagine how this stranger ended up.

“Don’t try anything.” Katara warned, eyeing the girl wearily. Though it was an empty threat for the most part, in the air, there was little Katara could do against a foe. Though three, well two if you exclude the princess, against one seemed like favorable odds, this girl seemed talented in combat, even without bending.

She released Sokka, and he turned to see her beaming up at Katara, “happy to be doing business with ya.” Turning to Sokka, she looked him up and down, sizing him up before speaking, “be a gentleman and help me up?” Yeah, she was crazy. The pretty ones are always crazy. That, and she was Zuko’s cousin, it made sense. Though Sokka was fairly sure that she was joking, you could never be too sure.

“Who even are you?!” He exclaimed, exasperated and preparing to whip out his boomerang as he glared at her. He didn’t recognize her, but she’d likely been traveling with Zuko for quite some time now if they were related.

She just shrugged, “you can call me Y/N.” She got onto Appa with ease, Katara on guard a she eyed her, eyes piercing into her soul, Y/N raised a brow upon noticing this, “calm down. I wouldn’t have killed him.”

Katara inhaled deeply, trying to maintain patience as Sokka got into the saddle, “yip, yip.”

Y/N wasn’t really shocked when it turned out Azula was after them. Of course good old Uncle Ozai sent his most valuable asset to bring them back. Though some good at come of it, Zuko cut his ponytail, something Y/N had taken pleasure in bullying him over. Now they were on the run, in the very city that her father had tried to run to the ground all those years ago.

Irony at its finest.

Tugging at the sleeves of her Earth Kingdom garments, Y/N sighed, walking through the streets of the city. She didn’t know where she was if she was honest, and standing in the beautiful plaza, Y/N wondered if maybe, it would be better if she never returned back to that horrid apartment. Her father was starting over, getting them all jobs at a tea shop, even Zuko had tried to move on, going out on a date with a girl.

The Earth Kingdom was an odd place, but here, no one knew who she was. It wouldn’t be difficult to restart, alone. Without the expectations she’d been raised with. Fists balling up, Y/N exhaled slowly, turning a corner. There wasn’t graffiti in this part of the city, she realized, staring at the walls. Though there was an odd poster, squinting at it, she moved closer. It was a poorly drawn image of-

A Sky Bison. The same one she’d ridden on back during the Siege of the North, not that any others existed, the Sky Bison were a dying breed. Which could only mean one thing, the Avatar was in Ba Sing Se.

"Have you seen him?” She heard from behind her. Y/N recognized the voice, it belonged to the boy she’d held at knife point, “the drawing isn’t my best but-”

Turning around she spoke rapidly, “don’t freak out.” This was a problem.

Y/N liked to think she was the least threatening of the Royal Family, aside from her father that is. Though they could both be lethal in their own ways, neither demonstrated the true extents of their power unless it was truly necessary. Maybe that’s why Y/N hoped that the boy, Sokka, she believed his name was, wouldn’t freak out.

Of course, he did. Dropping the posters in his hand, he opened his mouth, likely to scream, only for Y/N to practically tackle him. She slammed his body against the wall, covering his mouth with her hand as she glared at him. Sokka let out a grunt of surprise, immediately beginning to struggle in her hold, “calm down! I don’t have a knife this time around.” Y/N cried out, her voice a hushed whisper. Of course, what she said was a lie, she always had at least three weapons on her. Upon entering the city, she’d knocked that number down to only two weapons, much to her dismay and Iroh’s relief.

She felt him lick her hand, and she quickly removed her hand in disgust, while keeping the other planted on his shoulder, they both exclaimed, “what the hell!”

Sokka’s eyes narrowed at her, “look. I don’t wanna cause a scene, so I’m just gonna go-” He sighed when her hand remained on his shoulder, firmly holding him against the wall as he tried to move away only to be pushed back into the wall. “Or not.”

“Look, you cannot go back to your little group and tell them that I’m here.” Y/N tried to choose her words carefully, if she didn’t need to, she didn’t want to suggest that her father and Zuko were also in the city. “I’m trying to have a permanent vacation, away from the Fire Nation and my crazy family, in Ba Sing Se.” She explained, slowly removing her hand from his shoulder, “think you can respect that?”

He looked at her wearily, during their last interaction, she’d made no attempts to actually injure them. And when she had the Avatar right in front of her, unlike Zuko, she hadn’t tried to kidnap him. Y/N had been honest last time, and chances were, she was being honest now. That didn’t make him feel any better about trusting her though.

“How do I know you won’t follow me and kill me in my sleep?”

Y/N looked at him incredulously, “is that a joke?” She’d considered that too though, the possibility that he’d follow her back to her shared apartment and alert his friends of their location. Y/N refused to be the reason that they lost their new lives in Ba Sing Se, and had already decided to check into an inn for the night.

Raising a brow at her, Sokka gestured for her to give him an answer, and Y/N stared at him momentarily, “well. How do I know you won’t kill me in my sleep?” Y/N retorted.

Sokka rolled his eyes at her, “I’m a good person.” Came his response.

“Debatable.”

Sokka stared at her in disbelief, “I’m trying to save the world here!” He exclaimed, and Y/N wasn’t shocked by his response, her goal had been to fluster him and she had.

Tilting her head at him, Y/N replied, “sure.” Stretching her arms upwards, she waves to him, “don’t tell your friends I was here, and we’re good.” She began to walk further into the alley, towards the other side, “see you around.” If he was here, his friends were probably around the area as well, meaning she had to leave.

His mouth gaped open and he stared at her figure as she stalked off, pausing momentarily before groaning and running after her, ending up at her side. “What do you mean, sure?” Sokka asked, confusion laced in his tone.

Y/N raised a brow at him. “What are you doing?” She wanted to laugh at his reaction, though he was now following her liked a lovesick puppy, which could prove problematic.

Crossing his arms he responded, “making sure you don’t do anything bad.” Sokka eyed her suspiciously, “because I am a good person.” He asserted.

“And I’m a bad person?”

She already knew he was going to say, ‘yes, yes you are.’ After all, she was from the Fire Nation, and Y/N had no doubt she’d done terrible things in her life, especially when she’d fallen into a dark place and taken on... less than favorable coping mechanisms.

And he’s silent for a moment, leaving Y/N to wonder if he suddenly cares about the feelings of the enemy. Only for him to say, “in my experience... good people can do bad things.”

That wasn’t what she expected. Y/N found herself stunned, speechless as she looked to Sokka, though he simply continued to walk alongside her nonchalantly. Quickly collecting herself, she looks away from him and to the nearby food stand, “that didn’t answer my question.” And as Sokka opened his mouth to likely continue his statement, Y/N realized she didn’t want to know the answer as she spoke, “you want food? I want food. Let’s get food.”

Sighing, Sokka followed her, “as long as you don’t poison me.”

Y/N’s brows furrowed at his comment, looking back at him, “do you-” A small laugh escaped her, “do you think I just carry around poison?”

Sokka didn’t know why he swelled with pride when he made her laugh, “in case you run into your enemies, absolutely.” It was probably because she was the enemy, and it took real talent to make someone who hated you laugh.

“How often do you think I run into my enemies and invite them to get food with me?” She asked, picking up a few things from the stand, before heading over to pay.

Frowning, Sokka watches her pay, “I thought we were bonding over,” he paused to take a meat bun from her and shove it into her face dramatically, “meat! Yet, I’m still your enemy.”

Y/N simply shrugged, “this is a one time thing.”

It was not a one time thing.

Sokka found himself ‘coincidentally’ running into Y/N, more and more often. She’d be walking through the streets of the upper ring about once a week, though she had started walking through the streets of the inner ring of Ba Sing Se far more frequently than normal in recent weeks. He’d been meaning to ask her why, maybe she’d also grown accustomed to their meetings and started to come around more. During their meetups they’d talk, about things other than the war, which was a conversation difficult to come by with the others. Though he cared for his friends, talking to Y/N felt different, a good different. She wasn’t overbearing like Katara, or mean like Toph, but she also wasn’t as passive as Aang.

It was odd. Knowing someone who had once held a knife to your neck in a more friendly way. Though, if Sokka was honest, he didn’t trust her, and she likely didn’t trust him either. They’d both taken precautions due to the mistrust between them, not that be blamed her. At the end of the day, they were still on opposing sides, kind of. Y/N had never seemed to care about finding the Avatar, but she was certainly loyal to her family above all else.

She’d demonstrated that in the Northern Water Tribe.

Sokka was the same, if he had saw an inkling of betrayal as a possibility, he wouldn’t hesitate to tell the others. Their safety was his priority at the end of the day, and Y/N didn’t owe him anything, just like he didn’t owe her anything. Maybe that was the beauty of it all. But for now, everything remained peaceful, calming, and simple.

Of course, all good things must come to an end.

Katara had oddly disappeared after Aang arrived with news of his vision. And then, as though things couldn’t get any weirder, Iroh arrived, Y/N’s apparent Father Iroh. Toph seemed to know him well, which certainly came as a shock to Sokka and Aang. “I need your help, Prince Zuko has been captured.” He explained, opening his mouth to continue only for Sokka to interrupt. He couldn’t help it when his brows furrowed in both confusion and frustration, Y/N had never suggested that the rest of her family was here.

“Are you crazy? You guys were trying to capture Aang not to long ago!” Sokka pointed out, throwing his arms outwards, “why not get Y/N to help?” She was certainly capable of raiding the palace and retrieving her cousin.

At this comment, Iroh’s face darkened, “we were separated in the palace. I’m unsure if they managed to capture her or if she escaped.” Oh. So that’s what he was going to say.

Sokka couldn’t help it when his face dropped, looking to Iroh he exclaimed, “well- why didn’t you lead with that!” Pushing past Aang who had been prepared to start giving a speech on why they should assist Iroh, only for his mouth to gape open as Sokka headed for the door.

“Why are you so eager?” Toph asked as they began to follow him out the door.

He faltered, quickly trying to think up a good excuse as he replied, “no reason.”

Toph’s frowned, “I can tell when you’re lying Sokka.” She reminded him.

“We can discuss this later!” He exclaimed, flustered. “Let’s go.”

Y/N had contemplated killing Zuko before.

It had never really been serious, as far as she would’ve gone was maybe injuring him badly enough that she got her point across. But at the end of the day, she protected Zuko to the best of her ability, and tried to keep his mind from being poisoned by the Fire Nation ideals that she’d once lived by unquestionably.

Now she actually wanted him dead. He stood alongside Azula, who had offered Y/N her spot in her little gang hours ago, though she’d rejected the offer much to Azula’s chagrin. But she seemed sure that Y/N would accept some time soon. Perhaps it was because Zuko had betrayed her father and left him to the Dai Li.

He had betrayed her father, the man who had practically raised both of them.

Y/N had a violent past, she wouldn’t deny, and she liked to think that she was past all that. But looking at the situation ahead of them, watching the Waterbender, Sokka’s sister, Katara, cry over the body of the Avatar, she realized that maybe violence was the answer. Just this once.

So, when she hopped in front of them, she had a plan. A violent one.

“Pull yourself together.” She snapped at Katara, who looked up at her, bloodshot eyes and tears streaming down her confused face, “he’s getting out of here alive. But first, I need you to soak them.” Y/N gestured towards the troops coming towards them, Zuko and Azula accompanying them. Katara opened her mouth, and Y/N didn’t care what she was going to say as she ordered, “now!”

Katara’s brows drew together as she released the Avatar’s head onto her lap, raising her hands to use the waterfall behind them to successfully drench the soldiers, who groaned at the discomfort but pausing temporarily before they continued towards them. “What did you think that would accomplish? What a pitiful-” Azula’s taunts were paused when she watched as Y/N drew her hands together, inhaling deeply, and Azula stopped her movement. “That’s not possible.”

Suddenly, lightning was between Y/N’s fingertips, and she extended her hand into the large puddle of water that Katara had created. Y/N had learnt to bend lightning soon after she’d mastered Firebending, from her father, he’d insisted that she only use it when necessary, so she kept her ability to herself. This was necessary, she decided, hand touching the water and sending a shock throughout everyone with it, successfully putting all of the soldiers out of commission.

Unfortunately, Azula recognized the signs of lightning bending, and withdrew alongside Zuko, and the two were now coming to attack from above at a rapid rate. Y/N whipped her head around to see Katara, mouth gaped open at all the fallen soldiers. “You two need to leave, I’ll hold them off.” She began to move to create another strike of lightning

“No.” Called out another voice, and Y/N whipped her head over to see it was her father, Dai Li agents likely nearby as he moved in front of Y/N. “You all need to leave. Take Y/N with you, she will help the Avatar reach his destiny.” Y/N wanted to laugh at that, how could he be so sure? If the boy did die, then this would all be for nothing

Y/N scoffed, “are you crazy?” She moved closer to her father, “unlike Zuko, I’m not leaving you.” She exclaimed, exasperated.

Iroh simply smiled at her as he said, “I’m proud of you, Y/N.”

Sokka knew he seemed dumb. He knew how others perceived him, as the ‘extra’ member of Team Avatar, the useless one, because he lacked bending. At the end of the day, Sokka was the brains of their operations, he was observant, and this helped him develop plans that most people would never even consider.

Not that anyone else knew, but Sokka was the only one that had actually interacted with Y/N prior to what happened in Ba Sing Se. Sure, they’d all met once or twice in the past, but Sokka had a knife to his throat then, so Y/N probably didn’t seem that appealing to the others. And he doubted they understood how odd it was that she was so... apathetic. Normally she’d tease, and joke alongside him but now?

It was odd, and nobody else could notice the shift in her personality but him, and he was concerned. Y/N had lost her father, and been betrayed by her cousin, and she had yet to talk about it, at all. Sokka liked to think that they were close enough to discuss such things, and he’d tried to get some sort of emotion out of her, the key word being tried.

Despite her apathetic personality, the others had warmed up to her for the most part. Apparently Toph had met Y/N in the past, during the time she’d run off and encountered Iroh. So, the two got acquainted fairly fast, Aang was happy to have a Firebender, and insisted that once he was back to full strength, and they’d found a better place for practice, he’d learn Firebending from her. Y/N had agreed but it was clear Aang wasn’t as excited as he was acting, Sokka figured he still associated the time he hurt Katara with Firebending.

Katara had been far less weary of Y/N than Sokka had expected, but given what Katara had told him when she’d first joined, that made sense. Y/N was a powerful Firebender who had betrayed her entire nation to help save Aang’s life, and though Katara didn’t approve of everything she’d done in the past, she tolerated her. Which was better than nothing in Sokka’s book.

They were currently camped out in the woods beside a Fire Nation town, everyone had scattered to prepare for the few nights they’d likely stay in the area. Katara had gone to the town with Toph and Aang, in search of supplies and food, while Sokka and Y/N set up the camp and collected wood to help start a fire. Y/N had insisted that she could maintain the fire without any wood, but Sokka viewed this as an excuse to get her alone and force her to discuss her feelings.

“So...” Sokka mumbled, looking to her as she leaned down to pick up another piece of wood, “lovely weather we’re having.”

Y/N turned to him, raising a brow before nodding, “yeah.” It was clear she wasn’t entirely paying attention the nonsense that was coming out of his mouth as he tried to get her to listen to him.

Sokka grabbed another piece of wood, “how have you been?”

Tilting her head at him in confusion, Y/N brought another piece of wood into her arms, “fine.” Looking up at the dimming sky she frowned, “we should start heading back to that spot we’d found earlier.” Y/N turned to begin walking, and Sokka struggled to match her pace.

His brows furrowed in frustration as he stared at her, the light of the falling sun filtering in between the trees and onto them. Y/N seemed to glow as she maneuvered between the trees, “how have you been sleeping?” Even Sokka sounded confused at the question he asked, but he didn’t know how to broach the topic with Y/N.

She simply paused her movement, turning to him, he stumbled slightly due to the abrupt stop, and met her eyes. “Just ask what you wanna ask, Sokka. Stop dancing around whatever it is.” Y/N sounded tired, looking to him expectantly as she awaited his question. Sokka scolded himself for being so obvious that she’d noticed something was up.

He sighed, “are you okay?” And she opened her mouth to respond but he continued, “actually? You can say that you are okay, and not mean it. Y/N you lost your dad and were betrayed by your cousin, and you-” Sokka grimaced as he met her eyes, “you haven’t been the same since you joined us.”

Y/N is silent for a moment, then her eyes were piercing into his, “how would you know that I haven’t been the same?” She asked, turning away to continue walking back to the chosen campsite, “it’s not like you know me.” His statement had set her off it appeared, but her response had easily done the same for him.

“Are you serious? Not like I know you?” He scoffed, jogging to catch up with her, “I know that you do whatever it takes to protect the people you care about. I know that you really like Earth Kingdom food because most of the food within the Fire Nation is on the spicier side.” Y/N didn’t seem to be listening, and the camp was in sight, but Sokka continued, “I know that you get really cold easily unless you regulate your body temperature with your Firebending. And I know that you can’t pick a favorite color because you are very indecisive.”

Aggressively, Y/N dropped the sticks into the center of the campsite as they arrived, turning to him, “you can stop now.” Her voice was almost taunting as she spoke, sarcastic in a way.

Sokka simply followed suit, placing the firewood in the center and facing her head on, “and most importantly, I know what it’s like to lose someone.” He takes her hand, and Y/N practically growls at the contact, attempting to yank her hand out of his grasp, she ends up pulling him closer towards her. Sokka clumsily topples onto her, knocking the both of them down into the dirt with a grunt. His forearms preventing him from crushing Y/N under his body weight as he held himself up, his eyes meet hers.

Y/N finds herself glaring daggers at him, while Sokka finishes his little speech with, “you don’t have to deal with this alone.”

And in that moment, he looks at her, really looks at her. And she’s really pretty.

Y/N opens her mouth to say something to him, only for someone else to begin speaking, “are we interrupting something?” Toph. Looking up, Sokka sees the others as well, Aang looks rather smug as he wiggles his eyebrows at Sokka, and Katara gives him a pointed look, likely disappointed that he’d fraternizing with the former enemy. He can’t help it when he feels his cheeks warm, and before he can move to get off Y/N, she’s launched him off of her, and he’s flat on his back on the ground. Toph laughs at the actions, bending a seat of earth for herself and the others before falling backwards into it, the girl seems to wish she had popcorn as she watched the moment unfold.

“No.” Y/N mumbles, bringing herself to her feet and dusting herself off. “I’ll be in my tent if you need me.” She retreats into one of the tents they’d set up earlier, and Sokka groans as he lets his head fall backwards into the ground and runs his hands over his face.

When he removes them, Aang is standing over him, along with Toph, while Katara organizes the firewood. “So... did we interrupt something?” Toph asked.

Sokka just sighs, his plan failed. This time at least. Next time, his goal would be to make her laugh, to make her smile. At least she had expressed some emotion, anger was better than nothing.

Anger seemed to turn to annoyance, since Y/N doesn’t leave her tent until nightfall and Sokka can’t help but wonder what was entertaining enough to keep her in there for all that time. When she does exit, she uses her Firebending to light a fire, and uses the firewood they’d collected earlier to ensure it stays alight. The rest of the group was seated around the center of the campsite, and Sokka wonders if she’s going to go back to her tent when she realizes the only open seat is next to him.

She doesn’t return to her tent though and he’s grateful. Though she sits as far as possible from him on the bench that Toph had created, half-heartedly listening to the things that the others are saying. Y/N can feel herself getting cold and can’t help the resent that bubbles up in her chest as she recalls what Sokka send earlier. Exhaling deeply, a puff of blue fire escapes her mouth and Y/N feels nauseous at the small reminder of Azula.

This catches Sokka’s attention, though the others are too enraptured in the story Aang was telling, Sokka turned to her, “cold?” He asked, leaning to the side to grab a blanket from his small pack, he offers it to her.

Y/N knew she wouldn’t be able to regulate her temperature when she fell asleep, but accepting the blanket from Sokka felt like... it felt like accepting him and everything he had said about her. So, when she doesn’t take the blanket from his hands, Sokka sighs, moving to put it back, only for Y/N to snatch the blanket from his hand and wrap it around herself begrudgingly.

This was her way of apologizing, moving closer to Sokka on the small bench she huffed as she pulled the blanket tighter around herself and turned her attention to Aang. She’d been mean, she wouldn’t deny, but what was she supposed to say? Exhaling deeply, Y/N closes her eyes temporarily, allowing drowsiness to consume her for a moment, before looking back to Aang.

It isn’t until Sokka feels a weight fall onto his shoulder midway through his own story that he realizes Y/N has fallen asleep, his mouth gaping open in shock as he pauses his words. He quickly shakes off the shock, cheeks warming as he turns back to the rest of the group, who all regard him curiously. Aang once again wiggles his eyebrows and Sokka ignores the action, continuing his story. Though he’s more weary of his vivid hand movements in fear of awakening Y/N, and noticeably quiets his voice. Sokka finds himself wishing he was Y/N as he listens to Katara’s Water Tribe horror story intently, after all, this is the most peaceful he’s ever seen her.

It doesn’t last long, because she’s soon startled awake, hand going to her side where she keeps her dagger as she and Toph speak simultaneously, “someone’s coming.”

As an old woman emerges from the shadows, Sokka practically holds Y/N down to keep her from lunging at her and attacking as the woman speaks. And of course, Y/N’s distaste for the woman doesn’t stop there, even when she invites them into her home, though Sokka doesn’t blame her. She’s a suspicious woman.

It’s not until he and Aang are attacking each other that Sokka regrets preventing Y/N from attacking the old woman when she had the chance. Katara is struggling to move, and Sokka can only hope that Toph and Y/N return from the cave soon as he yelps upon nearly making contact with Aang, the old woman laughing cynically. Sokka watches as she shifts, hand outstretching behind her, “don’t think I forgot you little Firebender.”

His eyes widen in both shock and fear as Y/N’s body is suddenly thrown onto the ground in front of him. Her body rising almost mechanically, back to a stand, Sokka realizes there’s lightning at her fingertips, the woman manipulating her body to aim for Sokka. “A shame you’ll be the woman to end your friend’s life isn’t it,” She’s making eye contact with Katara who is crying out and begging for her to stop.

Sokka can see the panic in Y/N’s eyes as the her hands aim towards him, “Y/N. It’s okay.” He calls out her, in an attempt at assurance that he doubts does much to soothe her. “It’s okay.” He repeats, squeezing his eyes shut as he prepares for the lightning to hit him. Except it never does, instead, it goes upwards into the sky as Y/N cries out in pain, having moved her body despite the woman blending her blood.

She had overpowered Hama’s bloodbending, something that clearly came as a shock to the old woman as Y/N turned around sluggishly, staring at the shocked old woman as blue fire left her mouth once more, chest heaving. Sokka could feel the weight on his bones slowly disappear, leaving behind an ache, the woman likely intended to focus her abilities onto Y/N, who was struggling to walk towards her.

“Scared?” Y/N asked, looking up at the woman, “you should be.”

The next time that Team Avatar feared Y/N. She was face to face with Zuko.

He’d approached them as they sat in the Air Temple. And Y/N had practically jumped out of her seat, preparing for a fight as lightning seemed to dance at her fingertips. Though Sokka knew better than to allow her to attack her cousin, and grabbed her arm. “Can you guys handle this?” He asks the others, maintaining eye contact with Y/N. The others looked to them understanding what would likely occur if Y/N was allowed to be involved.

Zuko wouldn’t walk away from that fight.

“We got this Sokka.” Katara assured, pure hate in her eyes as she stared Zuko down, and Sokka couldn’t help but wonder if maybe he should remove both of them from the situation.

Sokka’s hand found Y/N’s, and it was almost burning hot, a sparks seeming to fly between them, he pulls at her hand. Y/N hesitantly allows him to drag her away, though she turns back momentarily to meet Zuko’s eyes. “I’ll kill you later, cousin.” She promises, and her voice is scarily calm. “For my father.” The condescending tone in her voice and the wince Zuko has in response is enough for Sokka to know that her intent was to hurt him emotionally if she couldn’t do it physically, and it was clear she had been successful.

Inhaling deeply, Y/N closes her eyes temporarily as Sokka brings her into one of many abandoned rooms in the temple, sitting her down onto a bed before kneeling down in front of her. “Are you good?” He asks.

“That’s a stupid question.” Comes her response.

Sokka tilts his head at her, giving her a smile, “well I’m a stupid guy.”

He’s rubbing gentle circles in her hand as she shakes her head, a small laugh escaping her, “no you’re not.” Her voice cracks and she cringes at the sound so she clears her throat, staring at the wall beside her. Sokka can’t help the way his heart swells at this comment, because for once he doesn’t feel like the comic relief, he doesn’t feel like the side character. Though he appreciates the rest of Team Avatar and loves them all dearly, at times, they didn’t take him seriously.

Y/N makes him feel important. Though he doesn’t say this as he looks at her, clearly shaken by Zuko’s sudden appearance, she speaks once more, “are you sure I can’t kill him?”

This time Sokka laughs, shaking his head, “I’m sure Katara would love to help you with that, but I doubt Aang would approve.”

Y/N nods slowly, letting out a shaky breath as a tear escaped her, though she quickly wiped it away and looks to the ground. “You wanna sit with me?” She asks, patting the spot on the bed beside her.

“Sure.” He replies softly, moving to sit on the bed with her. One he’s situated, Y/N leans her head onto his shoulder, and Sokka finds his hand wrapping around her waist. And they sit like this for several moments.

Taking a deep breath, Y/N removes her head from his shoulder and looks to him, “thank you.”

Sokka raises a brow, “for what?”

“Being here.” She replies, bringing her hand to move a hair from his face, Sokka watches her actions intently and in awe. “With me.” Her hand remains on his face for longer than necessary, and when she moves to let it fall back into her lap, Sokka’s hand cups hers.

They’re both silent when Sokka’s hand releases hers, and his other hand leaves her waist, both coming to her face. The look in his eyes tells her enough, and she nods to him.

The kiss felt like the first breath of fresh air in a while. Maybe it’s because it had been long overdue, but as Y/N brought her hands to his arms to pull him closer, she felt her head empty of all thoughts.

He pulls away momentarily, their foreheads resting against each others, he can see her eyes are shut, lashes pressed against her cheeks. “I hope,” Sokka pauses, and her eyes flutter open to look at him, he can feel his cheek warm as he continues, “I hope I can always be here, with you.” It’s a confession in its own way, and Sokka understands the weight of his words as he watches her reaction.

She opens her mouth, likely to reply, be closes it quickly, and Sokka can’t help the panic that floods him. Though this is quickly replaced by the feeling of her lips on his as her hand collides with his chest and pushes him down on the bed, earning a grunt from him.

“Guys, Zuko is gone-” Y/N throws herself onto the floor as she rolls off Sokka, and he sits up immediately. “Am I interrupting something now?” Aang asked, giving Sokka a look.

Y/N clears her throat, “no.” Sokka couldn’t help it when his brows drew together at this comment, bringing a hand to his temple as he sighed, and Y/N stood, dusting off her thighs as she mumbled, “see you guys later.”

She started avoiding him after that.

When Zuko joined the group, she’s also made a point to avoid him no matter how hard he tried to apologize to her. And of course, when Sokka first showed him to his room they had a... chat. To put it simply, Sokka had threatened him.

Just a little.

“So yeah, here it is, your room.” Gesturing to the room, Sokka gave Zuko a tight lipped smile, watching him wearily.

Zuko’s back was to him as he placed his stuff down, “thank you.” He said, expecting that to be the end of it, upon hearing the door close he assumed Sokka had left.

When he turned around, Sokka was still very much there. “Let’s have a chat, Prince Zuko.” It didn’t go unnoticed by Sokka how the boy grimaced at the use of his title, though that didn’t stop him from moving forward and placing a hand on Zuko’s shoulder a little too tightly. “Y/N does not want to speak with you.”

“I know,” Came his reply. “Thank you for keeping her from... killing me. The other day. I intend to apologize-”

A small laugh escaped Sokka, “next time. I won’t stop her.” This was for multiple reasons, one of which being that Y/N was avoiding him, and the other being that he wished to respect her and her feeling about Zuko. “And you need to respect her wishes. One of those wishes being, avoiding you. Until she approaches you, leave her be.”

Zuko’s brows furrowed at this comment, “she’s my cousin. You can’t expect-”

“Leave. Her. Be.”

Zuko became silent, nodding slowly as he looked to Sokka curiously.

And now, to avoid some of his problems and solve some of them, Sokka ended up running away in a hot air balloon with the person he related to the most at the moment, and the person he threatened rather recently. Zuko. Both of them were being avoided by someone important in their lives, and they both had slightly crazy younger sisters. Though their conversations were certainly... odd.

“My first girlfriend turned into the moon.”

Zuko looked at him for a moment before saying, “that’s rough, buddy.” There was silence after this, a temporary lapse in conversation that Zuko seemed determined to fill. “So...” Zuko mumbled. “You and my cousin huh.”

It wasn’t a question, Sokka realized this, but he disregarded it as he responded, “what about us?” Playing dumb would hopefully get him to drop the subject.

Zuko raised his brows at Sokka, “us?”

Scolding himself, Sokka realized he’d unintentionally dug a deeper hole for himself when he said this as he tried to avoid Zuko’s gaze. “Not really.” Sokka replied, “she’s avoiding me too.”

Nodding, Zuko gave him a tight lipped smile, “what did you do?”

“I wish I knew.” Sokka could only make assumptions about why Y/N had begun to avoid him, but at the end of the day was confused over it.

He really needed to talk to her.

As the day of Sozin’s Comet drew closer, Sokka had started trying to talk to Y/N more and more, she’d keep basic conversation but whenever he tried to address... the kiss, Y/N would shut down the conversation. And now, it was the day of Sozin’s Comet, and they established that Zuko and Katara would take on Azula, Aang would take on Ozai, and the rest of them would go after the army that was heading for the Earth Kingdom.

It seemed that Sokka intended to try to speak with her once more as he approached her while she strapped a dagger to her thigh. “We need to talk.” He said, plopping down onto a rock beside her.

“About battle strategy?” She asked, looking to him, “I had some ideas.”

Play dumb, play dumb, play dumb.

Sokka’s brows furrowed as he shook his head, “about the kiss, Y/N.” Y/N tried to hide her shock at his forwardness, he’d never been this blunt before, during his previous attempts to discuss this with her. Turning to him, she prepared to speak but he silenced her, “you’re going to listen this time.” Grimacing, he looked away, towards the horizon. “I don’t know what’s going to happen today. And if something goes wrong, I need you to know-”

“Nothing is going wrong.” Y/N stated firmly. “Nothing. So, we can have this conversation after.”

Sokka sat up from his place on the rock, moving in front of her, “there’s no way to guarantee that Y/N.”

Squeezing her eyes shot, Y/N took a deep breath, “I’ll make sure nothing happens to you guys.” She promised, “and I swear we can talk about this after.” She grabs onto his hands, holding them in hers as she looks away. Y/N knew why she was avoiding it. He was right, it was totally possible for one of them to die, and a relationship in the midst of a war was the worst possible idea. After would be better, or at least that’s what she’d told herself.

The pleading look in his eyes almost burns through her resolve as he asks, “will we?” It almost hurts that he doesn’t believe her, but Y/N can’t blame him.

“We need to go.” Her voice was almost a whisper as she releases his hands. Even if she wanted to continue discussing the subject, they needed to begin the battle soon.

Sokka frowned though, “if you don’t want this, just tell me and I’ll-” He sighed, bringing a hand to his temple. “I’ll stop bothering you.”

Y/n began to shake her head, “you are never a bother to me I just-” Sighing, she looked into his eyes, “I want this. I do, I’m just scared, and we’re in the middle of a war Sokka!” She exclaimed, the words spilling out of her mouth before she can stop them.

“You think I don’t know that?” Sokka cried out, exasperated. “Y/N I’m so scared that something is going to go wrong, and I’ll never get to tell you that I-”

“Don’t say it.” She interrupts, fear in her veins as she watches him.

So, he didn’t.

If she didn’t feel like she had something to come back to, maybe that would make it easier. Sacrifices would have to be made to reach victory, and Y/N wouldn’t hesitate to be the one to make them if it meant the others survived. They deserved to see the new world, the world of peace, prosperity, and freedom, the one that came after all this.

Y/N could feel the power flooding her as the comet drew closer, pure and raw power. Though this accompanied by her skill would likely help her in the upcoming battle, dozens of Firebenders with half her skill and the power of the comet was something she was definitely worried about. Overpowering them all was unlikely, and in the best case scenario, Y/N could slow them down. But she wasn’t a fool. In war, there were always casualties, and she was prepared to become one of many.

Then there were the thoughts in the back of her mind. Though nobody had discussed it, the throne could potentially go to her after all this, and that wasn’t really something Y/n was looking forward to debating. Perhaps it was selfish, but Y/N didn’t really care. Was it wrong of her to dream of escaping the shackles that bound her to the Fire Nation since birth, to leave behind the politics and the lies and the pain of it all?

Maybe.

Sokka knew Y/N had a lot going on in her mind right now. And he knew she was scared of what was to come, and no matter how much it hurt him, he respected her wishes to wait until this battle was over to discuss whatever it was between them. He knew where he stood. But now that Suki had left them, he found himself beginning to regret it. On the top of the Air Balloon, Toph was practically blind, and Sokka could do little in terms of long distance, aside from his boomerang. Which left Y/N to do her best to defend them from the Firebenders that had begun to swarm them.

“Go!” She cried out, knocking one of the Firebenders off the balloon. “Take out the rest of the fleet.” Y/N dodged the oncoming flames, intercepting them with her own to prevent the others from getting burned.

But Sokka wasn’t going to let anyone die today. “You still owe me a conversation,” came his response, looking down at the bridges on the Air Balloon. “Jump!” Sokka cried out as another ball of fire rushed towards them, he took Toph by the hand and hoped that Y/N followed.

Thankfully, she did, he took notice of her as he fell towards the bridges extending from the giant hot air balloon. They were all screaming as they fell, and Y/N grunted in pain as she hit Sokka, tumbling over him and off the edge, yelping as her hands grasped the bridge, with little leverage. Toph similarly went over the side, her screams filling Sokka ears as Y/N released one of her hands from the bridge and caught Toph’s wrist.

Panic flooded Sokka as he scrambled to the edge of the bridge, Y/N’s hand slipping, “Sokka! Hurry up-” Another scream rips out of her as she loses her grip on the edge.

Nearly falling as he grabbed her hand, his chest heaved. “It’s gonna be okay.” He promised, looking into Y/N’s panicked eyes. “It’s gonna be fine Toph!” He cried out to her.

“Yeah, right!” She called out into the wind, the fear evident in her voice despite the sarcastic nature of the comment. “Y/N I don’t wanna die.”

Y/N almost can’t hear her, too focused on maintaining her grip on both Sokka and Toph’s hands. She exhales slowly, eyes falling on the soldiers that are beginning to make their way down to them as she replied, “you’re gonna be fine, I promise. I’m gonna get you to Sokka, okay?”

Sokka was internally panicking, he wouldn’t be able to fight back against the incoming soldiers if both his hands were occupied, but his grip was faltering and he couldn’t pull them both up. Grimacing as he looked down at the two, he nodded in agreement to Y/N signaling that he was ready. It made sense in his mind, she would be able to use her free hand to Firebend, which was far more useful than anything he could provide at the moment.

Inhaling deeply, Y/N looks to Toph, “Toph, I need you to climb up my body, and grab Sokka’s free hand, okay?”

Toph’s death grip on her hand seems to grow stronger, tears brimming her eyes, “I- I don’t think I can.”

Y/N shakes her head at these words, “yes, yes you can. Bring your legs up to grab my lower body, and then make your way up, okay? Like a tree.”

Toph shook her head rapidly, “I’ve never climbed a tree!”

Sokka couldn’t help but grow impatient as he exclaimed, “there are soldiers coming, Toph please!” His hand was growing sweaty as he used his free hand to throw his sword at one of the oncoming soldiers, effectively knocking him down.

Y/N felt her arm swing slightly, and watched as Toph blindly extended her legs, finally managing to wrap them around her legs. She released Y/N’s hand and wrapped both arms around her lower body, slowly inching upwards until her legs were around Y/N’s waist and her arms were on her shoulders. “Good job, now reach up, as far as you can, and Sokka’s gonna grab your hand.” Y/n instructed using her free hand to pat the hand that Toph had wrapped around her.

Y/N could feel the young girl’s tears fall onto her shirt as she extended her hand upwards, Sokka’s freehand moving as far down as possible. The strain on Y/N’s body slowly becoming too much as tears leaked out of her eyes.

Maybe it would be better to just... let go.

She quickly shook off those thoughts, Toph, Toph, Toph, she couldn’t do anything brash until Toph was safe. Y/N watched as Sokka’s hand narrowly missed Toph’s. “Sokka, please.” Y/N whispered, looking to him with pleading eyes.

Maybe it was the desperation he heard in her voice that moment, or maybe it was pure luck, put his fingers grazed Toph’s and he latched on, extending his arm as far as possible and gripping her hand. “Now let go of me, and Sokka’s gonna pull you up, okay?” Y/N explained, looking to Sokka, his eyes meeting hers. Y/N quickly realized he couldn’t lift either of them up. Just like her, this was straining his muscles, and Sokka was struggling to keep both of them up.

“Sokka.” She said, demanding his attention, his eyes met hers, filled with fear as Toph relieved Y/N’s body of her weight and evened out the distribution on Sokka’s body. “You can’t fight back with both your hands taken.” More tears were streaming down her face as she spoke, “a-and... you can’t pull us both up.” Sokka was crying too now, shaking his head rapidly as Y/N simply pointed out the facts.

Toph’s grip on his hand tightened, “we’re all going to die.” There was resignation in her voice, and it hurt Y/N to hear it.

“We’ll figure it out. We are all going to be okay.” He stated firmly, a shaky breath leaving him as he made an attempt to pull them both upwards, a failed attempt.

Squeezing her eyes shut momentarily, Y/N allowed herself to imagine it, a life with Sokka and the rest of her friends. A life where they were all happy. Where everyone made it out of this war alive, and they helped bring balance to the world.

To give them that world, they had to end this war. And what was war without death?

Opening her eyes, she looked to Sokka, and he was panicked, noticing that far more soldiers had surrounded them and were preparing to mercilessly throw them off the balloon. “Sokka.” She repeated, and he looked to her with a tear streaked face.

“I love you.”

Everything seemed to slow as she spoke this words, and Y/N didn’t see the horror on his face for long as the grip of his hand faltered when she released it, he was screaming, crying, begging for her to stop. Toph clearly didn’t understand what was going on as she began to call out Y/N’s name in a panic.

And then she was falling.

It appeared there would be no after.

It felt peaceful, she decided. Falling. The stress on her body had dissipated and she caught one final glimpse of Sokka’s mortified face before going through the clouds. The comet was visible from where she was, the horizon, it was a beautiful way to die. But staring at the comet she realized she wanted to know what would come after, she realized that Toph was practically helpless and all Sokka had was a boomerang against dozens of Firebenders.

They would die. So, what was the point of her sacrifice? What was the point of her dying?

No, she wouldn’t be dying today.

Inhaling deeply, Y/N felt the power course through her veins, and she reminded herself that she was Y/N L/N, a force to be reckoned with. Nobody would forget that as fire tore through the soles of her shoes, and extended from her hands, propelling her upwards.

She was the daughter of the famed Dragon of the West. And she would take on his mantle, she decided, as she flew upwards and through the clouds.

She could see Sokka had managed to bring Toph upwards and onto the platform alongside him, and they were surrounded by Firebenders. It was clear that they’d seen her when their mouthes gaped open, and a few of the soldiers began to retreat, much to the chagrin of their commanding officer. Y/N found herself ceasing her Firebending and falling towards the platform, she landed in a roll and rose on one knee before opening her mouth and allowing fire to pour outwards.

The Firebenders fell off the bridges beside them one by one, and those who didn’t retreated back inside along with the others at the sight of the Air Balloon that Suki had evidently comandeered.

Closing her mouth, Y/N’s chest heaved, and she felt Toph tackle her from behind, “you’re alive!” She exclaimed, punching Y/N’s arm roughly, “idiot.” She dug her head into Y/N’s shirt.

“Yeah, I am an idiot.” Y/N replied breathlessly, holding the girl tightly.

When Toph finally released her, she gave her a smug look, “I’ll give you and him a minute.” Though this was partially an excuse to head back inside and into the safety of the balloon, maybe even attack some of the remaining Firebenders, it was also because Toph could read the room.

And there stood Sokka, mouth gaping open, tears streaming down his smiling face as he looked at her, before lunging towards her similar to how Toph had. Except his hands came to her cheeks as he brought their lips together, effectively knocking the two onto the ground of the platform, be pulled apart from her with a smile on his face, “I love you too.”

Yeah, after was looking pretty good right about now.

A/N: i hope you guys liked this SUPER LONG THING WOW, that was an accident. i was super close to like breaking everyones hearts and killing Y/N but then i felt bad so be grateful i was nice ksaljdlahfkj

anyways take care of yourselves!

taglists:

atla: @bubblebars @jada-cleo @art-flirt @the-deli-meat

#sokka x reader #sokka x you #sokka x y/n #sokka atla #atla sokka #atla sokka x reader #sokka atla x reader #atla sokka x you #atla #avatar the last airbender #lok #legend of korra #sokka is a bottom change my mind #im sorry ignore this #i hope no one reads tags #anyways have a nice day #drink water

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mellowdreamer · 4 years

Text

HOLDING OUT FOR A HERO VERSE.

this is a modern bending vigilante/hero au featuring zukka, mailee, yueki and a lot of hijinks!

the gaang are all 16-19 here, because while bruce wayne apparently has no problem with it, i’m not comfortable with having vigilantes who haven’t yet gone through puberty.

the avatar world is just one big city, and each of the nations/cities are different suburbs of the city.

kyoshi island, ember island, and boiling rock are small islands off of the city, similar to singapore’s sentosa island.

the city (republic city? i dunno, get back to me on this one) is full of heroes, vigilantes and villains alike. the fire nation is a criminal empire intent on taking over the city. the avatar is a hero who works to keep the balance of heroes and villains in the city, and stop the entire city from becoming a war zone.

however, the avatar disappeared 100 years ago, and no one was chosen to take up the mantle since. in the avatar’s absence, the fire nation was able to begin its quest to take over the city.

the heroes of the southern water tribe that were left after the various raids have left the southern water suburb on a mission to defeat the fire nation or die.

hakoda, alias chief, left his two young children in charge of their territory, despite them being a) children and b) relatively untrained.

katara, alias painted lady, is the only waterbender left in the southern water tribe. sokka, alias captain boomerang, is the only trained combat hero left in the southern water tribe. all those remaining are either children or incapable of fighting.

side tangent: when sokka does well, he calls himself “grand marshal boomerang” and when he does badly, he calls himself “private boomerang”. thank you to the crimily for coming up with this one!!

one night, when katara and sokka are out on patrol, they get chased by fire nation goons into the ice off of the southern harbour. there, they get into a fight over sokka’s sexist remarks and katara’s yelling having attracted the fire nation goons, and katara’s waterbending gets out of control. she breaks open an iceberg, only to find someone in there.

the two siblings approach the iceberg and break the person out. they are shocked to find a young boy in the unmistakable uniform of the avatar, resting next to a creature they’ve never seen before.

they wake the boy up, to find that his name is aang and he’s the next avatar. and that he has no idea of the fire nation’s quest to conquer the entire city, or the fact that the air nomads – heroes that didn’t resign to just one area of the city – hadn’t been seen for the same hundred years that he must’ve spent in the iceberg.

katara and a reluctant sokka take aang back to the apartment building where the remaining southern water suburb residents have been living and introduce him to everyone.

later that night, the three go out on patrol together. it’s a quiet night, and sokka thinks they might actually get through it without any incidents, until they find a woman being mugged.

sokka and katara are about to intervene, but aang takes down both thugs in a matter of seconds. aang, ignoring the slack jawed shock of his friends, asks if they could go penguin sledding. katara goes to agree, but is cut off by the shout of “MY HONOUR” from a nearby rooftop.

zuko, alias dragon prince, runs from the rooftop before they could find him. his father ozai, alias firelord, had sent him and his uncle iroh – formerly dragon of the west, now retired – to find the avatar. zuko had been banished from the fire nation territory years ago, after speaking up about a plan that would’ve cost them a whole division of goons and refusing to fight his father in an agni kai.

the kyoshi warriors are similar to the birds of prey or the amazons; they’re an all-female crime-fighting unit not directly associated with any of the kingdoms or nations. suki is their leader, and they don’t have secret identities like the other heroes.

iroh, bumi, piandao, jeong-jeong and p*kku are all retired heroes and a part of the order of the white lotus.

toph is the blind bandit and a hero, albeit a less morally structured and ‘good’ hero than the avatar, the painted lady, and captain boomerang. she was a part of the underground fighting ring ‘earth rumble’ when the gaang infiltrated the ring looking for intel and convinced her that her powers could be used for something better than beating bitches blue and making bank while doing it.

azula is firebolt, and she is as brilliant as she is terrifying. she’s arguably more feared than the firelord, mainly because she’s the one who frequents other areas and actually goes on missions. ozai just sits on his stupid throne and yells at people and manipulates his children like the little bitch he is.

mai and ty lee are azula’s sidekicks, and are known as blade and tightrope respectively. also: they’re lesbians, harold.

yue is a part of the northern water tribe’s group of heroes, alongside her family. they tried to marry her off to hahn and have her trained in healing instead of fighting, but she rebelled and threatened to go out on her own, so they relented. yue’s hero alias is tui, but she will be called sailor moon at least three times.

jet and his freedom fighters are a group of anti-heroes who aren’t afraid to hurt innocent people in their pursue of ‘justice’.

zhao is a villain who works for the firelord, under the alias admiral, and he’s an asshole. using the yuyan archers, he manages to capture aang and takes him to a fire nation stronghold. zuko finds out about this, and not wanting admiral asshole to get the upper hand, dresses as the blue spirit for the first time to rescue aang.

during the siege of the north, zhao “kills” yue. she fakes her own death and disappears into hiding until the final battle, in which she kills zhao because it’s what she deserves.

the gaang know that yue is alive, because she’s nice enough to not do them like that, but they have to keep up appearances. because of this, sokka amps up the heartbreak and clings to suki a lot. that’s why a lot of outsiders begin to think that sokka dated yue and is dating suki, though in reality yue and suki are dating each other.

zuko and iroh, after the siege of the north and a trap set by azula, disappear into hiding and decide to take refuge in ba sing se, knowing that the fire nation wouldn’t think to look for them there.

ba sing se is a section of the city that has been fenced off in order to prevent an influx of heroes and villains. the dai li, who keep a tight grip on the suburb and ensure that the residents don’t know of the war raging outside the walls, are a group of “heroes”.

of course, the fence does nothing to prevent zuko and iroh, the gaang, and later azula, mai and ty lee from entering ba sing se and turning it into their own warzone.

iroh fulfils his dream of finally owning a tea shop and zuko, when not working in the tea shop, spends his nights lingering in the shadows of ba sing se as the blue spirit.

sokka, desperate for a warm drink and something to do while the others do their bending training, wanders into the jasmine dragon one afternoon and is served by “lee”.

neither know the other’s civilian identity, so there’s no shady business, just pining over the cute customer/server. sokka strikes a conversion and the two begin flirting chatting. it’s going really well, and you can almost see the romance blooming.

and then in walks azula, flanked by mai and ty lee, all in costume.

sokka and zuko both leap up from their seats and into fighting stances. both are confused as to why the other jumped up, and then azula calls zuko brother and it clicks in sokka’s mind.

he starts yelling at zuko for a lot of things, including yue’s “death” which is how zuko realises who he is. zuko starts yelling back because he’s only once met a fight he didn’t like. in the background of this argument, iroh is trying to fight azula, mai and ty lee to varying degrees of success.

it’s funny that i say degrees, because this is when azula sets fire to the jasmine dragon. iroh grabs the two dumbass arguing teens and shoves them outside as he too runs, telling zuko to meet at their rendezvous point at sunrise.

azula, mai and ty lee chase after zuko and sokka (who are still arguing as they run from the three girls). mai and ty lee don’t want to chase them, because zuko has always been better to them than azula, but defying azula would be a death sentence.

sokka pulls zuko into a building for coverage, and because azula is azula, she summons the dai li and has them surround the building. there would be no leaving without confronting the dai li, and thus zuko and sokka are trapped.

sokka confronts zuko and basically asks how he could justify the fire nation’s villainy, how he could support a monster who’s killing hundreds of people. zuko defends his father blindly because he’s been raised to believe that his father is right, that his father has to be right, and this southern water scum is wrong. but zuko’s losing his grip on the argument and is becoming more and more hysterical but sokka is so calm, so sure of himself, and the dam finally breaks.

zuko crumples to the ground in tears, and now sokka’s gotta deal with this because ozai is a shitface and has been brainwashing his son for years and wow fuck the fire nation.

mai and ty lee, having taken down the dai li, burst in to find zuko crying his eyes out in sokka’s arms. they teasingly ask if they’re interrupting something and laugh as zuko next to sprints out of the building, sokka hot on his heels.

this is the last straw for zuko, who defects from the fire nation, hangs up his dragon prince uniform and fully becomes the blue spirit, a hero who works with the gaang to eventually take down the fire nation.

also, at some stage zuko rescues a turtleduck that got stuck up a tree. don’t ask me how this happens.

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reinerispretty · 4 years

Text

rotations. (zuko x f!reader) pt 7

hello!! thank you all so much for reading my story, i super appreciate it, you have no idea! from the last chapter i guess you’ve kinda maybe sorta started to notice a little something happening there. but don’t worry, we’ll get where we need to be :) please share if you can!!

pt 1

pt 6

pt 8

“Yes, yes, I’ve joined the Avatar, I’m betraying my country, I’m a dishonor to everyone, blah, blah, blah. You can’t tell me anything that I haven’t already heard from your brother.”

“I actually think it’s quite admirable that you chose to become a traitor. It shows that you’ve developed more of a backbone than I ever thought you could. I’m a bit sad that we have to end your life. I always looked forward to having you as a sister.”

(Y/N) was panicking. She had not anticipated that when she came to Omashu with Aang, Katara, and Sokka, that she would be face to face with some of her oldest friends. It had been years since she had seen Mai, Ty Lee, or Azula, but she had always imagined their reunion going a bit differently than this current one, which involved her friends from her past attacking her current friends. But, she supposed, traitors can’t be choosers.

“Isn’t this a special treat?” Azula drawled. “It’s so good to see old friends.” The young princess had grown so much since they had last seen each other. She was fourteen now and her face contained the same ruthlessness as her fathers.’ If (Y/N) was being honest, Azula intimidated her, but there was no way she would let her know that.

“Azula,” she said, nodding at her old friend. Katara and Sokka looked at her, their expressions riddled with surprise.

“I’d heard rumors that you had become a traitor. I wanted to see it with my own eyes, of course. You know how vicious gossip can get.” (Y/N) rolled her eyes.

“Yes, yes, I’ve joined the Avatar, I’m betraying my country, I’m a dishonor to everyone, blah, blah, blah. You can’t tell me anything that I haven’t already heard from your brother.”

The comment caught Mai off-guard, causing the stoic girl to break her gaze from the group to glance at Azula. (Y/N) noticed this instantly. If there was one advantage she had over their enemies, it was being able to tell when they faltered. She shot a flame at Mai, who barely had enough time to dodge it. The fight had begun, and while she and her friends focused on fighting Mai and Ty Lee, Azula slipped away to go after Aang.

The four heroes managed to escape their attackers, but the fight had bothered (Y/N) to her core. If there hadn’t been already, there was no doubt that the Fire Nation was now going to put a bounty on her head. And seeing Azula stirred up similar feelings that she had experienced whenever she saw Zuko. As evil as she had become, it still hurt to fight against her. She had been a troubled child for sure, but (Y/N) had had many good times with her. There were sleepovers where they giggled into the early hours of the morning. Too many secret handshakes and inside jokes to count. While Zuko had become her best friend, she had also become close to Azula as well. Up until the moment she left the Fire Nation, she had considered Azula to be like a sibling. A crazy and evil sibling, but still a sibling nonetheless.

The hunt for Aang’s earthbending teacher did well to take her mind off of things. After their terrifying time in the swamp, it was nice to return to civilization in the Earth Kingdom. The city eventually led them to the underground earthbending competitions, where a small girl reigned supreme over earthbenders twice her size. The event had made (Y/N) a bit uncomfortable, as she wasn’t used to have two-ton rocks flying at her face every second, but who was she to complain?

They tracked the girl back to her home and learned that she was a member of the Beifong family, one of the wealthiest families in the entire Earth Kingdom. They had been invited to join the family for dinner and (Y/N) couldn’t help but wonder if the actual members of the Earth Kingdom could tell she was a fraud. Her green tunic and pants were burnt at the edges from her firebending and she felt like they were eyeing her suspiciously.

“So, (Y/N),” asked Toph’s father, Lao. “I see you’ve traveled far in your journeys with the Avatar. Tell me, where in the Earth Kingdom are you from?”

“Oh, a small town,” she waved a hand to signify its unimportance. “I doubt you’d even know it.”

Lao Beifong raised a suspicious eyebrow.

“She’s a refugee!” Sokka shouted.

“She’s homeless!” Aang shouted at the same time. (Y/N) put her head in her hands.

“She’s a homeless refugee,” Katara clarified, smiling pleasantly at the Beifongs. “We picked her up off the streets when we were passing through her village. Isn’t that right, (Y/N)?”

“I mean, I wouldn’t say you picked me up off the streets, but--”

“I remember the day she was begging me for coins like it was yesterday,” Sokka sighed. (Y/N) kicked him from under the table. He tried his best to suppress his yelp.

“How lucky you are to have the Avatar and his companions save you!” Toph’s mother said. (Y/N) glared at her friends.

“Oh yeah. So lucky.”

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Despite their efforts to convince the Beifongs to let Toph accompany them on their journey, and the fact that they had literally saved her life, the group of four was banished from ever returning to the Beifong residence. They were practically thrown out of the house by the guards and were left to continue on their journey.

“It’s okay Aang,” Katara said to her friend. “We’ll find someone to be your earthbending teacher.”

“No one like her,” Aang sighed. He felt defeated and every one of his friends felt the same. Even Momo’s ears were less perkier than usual.

“This is exactly why I hate stuffy rich people,” (Y/N) said haughtily as they walked up the hill to Appa. “They think they know what’s best for everyone.”

“Weren’t you a stuffy rich person?” Aang asked.

“I think that’s besides the point.”

“Hey, wait up!” Toph shouted as she ran to catch up with them. She carried a knapsack over her shoulder. “My parents changed their minds! They said I could come with you!”

“That’s amazing!” Aang cheered.

(Y/N) pursed her lips. She knew how rich people acted. She had grown up around them her whole life. They never changed their minds. Not unless someone richer than them told them to. She could tell Toph was lying, but she understood why. Her parents treated her like she was helpless and wouldn’t let them out of her sight. In reality, Toph was anything from it. She was tougher than all four of them combined.

She climbed Appa and reached down to help Katara get up. “Alright, let’s get ready to go! We’ve got an Avatar to teach.”

Tag List!

@mdgrdians , @soft4kei , @bubblebars , @pleasantfankingdom , @vintageroses1014516 , @celamoon , @fangirlanotherjust , @gliderbudgie , @haylaansmi , @jada-cleo , @boxofteenageideas , @disgruntled-gay , @lie-ana , @jasmine-the-amazing , @svsoftie , @buckysfeet , @anime-simp , @imcravingyou , @rosetheshapeshifter , @alrightberries , @izzieserra , @hstott , @random-stupid-stuffs , @jackbamexpress , @jainaixo , @thefoxskinwalker , @kryptidkova ,

#avatar #atla #zuko x reader #sokka x reader #katara x reader #aang x reader #toph #katara #aang #sokka #zuko #azula #iroh #the last airbender #writing #fanfiction

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rolandtowen · 3 years

Text

Prince Zuko was a harsh, entitled boy.

Firelord Zuko is a ruler who makes amends. - a study in the various side characters that Zuko came across in his banishment, and how he repays his past actions.

Read Chapter One on ao3 or under the cut! TW for referenced non-con and colonialism

[I believe @flamehotman and @flameomcfirey wanted to be tagged?]

Chapter One: Song

We will get there when we get there, don't you worry Feel bad about the things we do along the way But not really that bad We inhaled the frozen air Lord, send me a mechanic if I'm not beyond repair

- The Mountain Goats

It happened on a Tuesday afternoon.

Zuko was meeting with the agricultural council, a collection of both scholars and farmers, to discuss best practices for renewing the Fire Nations agricultural trade. For so many decades, the Fire Nation out-sourced its agriculture to land in the colonies and imported much of its food. But with the land being given back, the Fire Nation was either going to have to begin growing its own food again, or import their food at a fair price. The economic committee decided on Monday that reviving the Fire Nation farms would be far more cost effective - and of course, would create more jobs in the Fire Nation. With the war over, the number of soldiers that the military required had dropped dramatically, and there were many citizens without work. Zuko had instated severance benefits for unemployed soldiers - the ones not found guilty of war crimes of course, mostly the young recruits - but it couldn't last forever.

It was maddening. Every time Zuko unraveled one problem, he undoubtedly found or created another one. He was trying, really trying, to keep his people safe. But he also had a duty to the rest of the world. The nations that his lineage colonized, pillaged, and destroyed. He resists the urge to write to Aang, to ask him how he does it, how he balances all of the nations in every action he takes. But Aang is busy, all of his friends are, spread thin to the four corners of the world.

Uncle visits him occasionally, when the letters from staff concerned about Zuko's health pile up on his desk. One too many servants have found him, asleep at his desk, face down in treaty papers. But Uncle has his hands full. He already splits his time enough between the Jasmine Dragon and Ember Island, looking after Azula.

Azula.

She was improving, and that's really all Zuko can ask for. He sees her a couple of times a month, pours her a cup of tea, and they sit on the balcony of their vacation-house-turned-mental-retreat. Most of the time, they don't talk. Zuko won't push her; he remembers his silence in his first few months of being banished, how Uncle had to coax him to say anything at meals. Sometimes the only words he uttered in a day were in prayer before meditation. Zuko had thought to himself, speaking out got me into this mess: I'll never speak again.

He's not sure what words were exchanged between Azula and Ozai before he left her and went to burn down the Earth Kingdom, but he can guess it wasn't good. Few of his father's words were.

So they sit and drink their tea. Sometimes, on a good day, Zuko will fix up Azula's hair for her, and she'll reveal some bits of information that he files away for future examination. Something like, I saw Mom before you came with Master Katara. Or she'll double check her reality, asking, you let Ty Lee and Mai out of jail, right? and Zuko will say yes, her friends are safe, they should be visiting any day now.

As painful as seeing her may be, spending time with Azula is far preferable to sitting through an agricultural council meeting.

He looks down at the paper in front of him, a comprehensive budget list for all of the supplies needed to revitalize the Fire Nation's agricultural sphere. Dozens of machines that he's sure Sokka had a hand in inventing, hundreds of varieties of seeds that Omashu is generously selling to them, and -

Thousands of ostrich-horses.

"Councilor Yichen, can you elaborate on the number of animals in this budget? Certainly with the machines we'll provide, farmers will not need so many working livestock."

Councilor Yichen stands, giving a little bow in Zuko's direction. "Of course, Lord Zuko. While the machines will certainly boost productivity, we only have enough for one per farming village at this point. Each family needs at least one working animal, if not to plow the fields, then to transport goods. We decided on ostrich-horses on a recommendation from farmers in the Earth Kingdom colonies, who found them to be invaluable. An ostrich-horse is, in many ways, more valuable than a machine."

Zuko's stomach settles uncomfortably, but he isn't entirely sure why. "Thank you, Councilor. I understand now."

Yichen gives another little bow before he sits, and the rest of the meeting goes as planned, with the exception of a strange seed of unknown guilt now growing in Zuko's stomach.

"Uncle, do you remember when you made tea out of that poisonous plant?"

Uncle laughs, hands faltering as he pours Zuko a cup of jasmine tea. "I remember, Nephew. How could I ever forget?"

"Do you remember the girl who helped you?"

Uncle takes a sip of the warm tea. "Song. Her mother made the best roast duck." He looks at Zuko out of the corner of his eyes. "Why do you ask?"

Zuko looks out over the gardens. He's able to see the whole palace grounds from where they're seated on the second-floor balcony, watching the sun rise. As far as the eye can see, Zuko is upheld as a flawless ruler, his word taken as law. He's sick of it.

"I stole her ostrich-horse," he murmurs into his tea, taking a sip to calm his nerves. "I just remembered, in that agricultural meeting a few days ago. I - I never knew how essential those were to farmers, I just thought I was taking their ride." He turns to fully face his Uncle. "But I think I took a lot more than that."

Uncle meets his eyes with understanding. "And now you want to give it back."

"I know there's no way for me to fully apologize for how I acted in exile, but it feels like I have to try." The cup quivers a bit in his hands, and so his hands drop to his lap. "I'll need someone to watching over the Nation while I'm gone."

Uncle places one of his warm hands over Zuko's shaking ones. "I'm sure I can deal with your advisors for a few days." He squeezes his hand just slightly around Zuko's. "I'm proud to see that even in a few short months, your wisdom as a ruler is growing. Go, make your amends. The Nation will be here when you return." Uncle calls for Zuko's secretary and tells her to clear as much of the Firelord's schedule as she can for the next week. Their voices fade into the background as Zuko stares into his tea, wracking his brain to try and figure out how to track down just one girl in the entire Earth Kingdom. Sending scouts or soldiers from town to town is a recipe for disaster, and the Earth Kingdom villages have been traumatized enough. He supposes he could always call in a ride on his favorite air bison but - this feels like something he should do on his own.

If Song hates him, it might be hard for her to show it in front of the Avatar.

So he'll go alone. No friends, no royal guard. He'll come into Song's town the same way he came last time - defenseless. She can hate him if she wants, he'll give her that.

And he'll try to give back what he took from her.

He packs light, pulling an old tunic and boots from the back of his wardrobe. Though they've been thoroughly cleaned by the palace staff, the scent of campfires and smoke linger upon them. He grabs a cloak - the Earth Kingdom will be starting to chill at this time of year - and he slips out of the palace, using the servant's entrance to get onto the streets unseen.

Autumn comes quietly in the Earth Kingdom. The trees slowly lose their color, giving the last of their strength into vibrant leaves. Soldiers previously conscripted to fight in the war have either returned to their families or have gone to tend to the scorched earth where the Phoenix King made landfall. They clear the debris of fallen airships, making room for the earth to slowly restore herself.

Song envies those soldiers.

Their lives have changed with the ending of the war, but Song's life continues on, its mundane routine continuing over and over again. She cares for a small garden, crafts herbal remedies for her neighbors, and tries to make her mother comfortable. She curses the Spirits for their cruel sense of humor - her mother survives the greatest war ever seen, lives through the attempted invasion of her homeland, only to be struck down by frailty months after the end of it all. Hasn't she suffered enough? Song has whispered those words to the woods on her way to the well time and time again. Now, her body is just - stopping.

Her mother is dying and there's nothing she can do.

Song knows all living things have their time. And she's seen too many living beings go before their rightful time. But she never imagined her mother's time would be in a time of peace. Wasn't ending the war supposed to stop all this pain? Apparently not. She tries not to become bitter, knows that that's the last thing her mother would want for her, but - it hurts. And there's not a damn thing she can do about it.

The leaves from dying trees crackle under her feet.

She arrives at the well, alone. Her hometown is just barely beginning to wake up, rising from its slumber as mothers bring in dry clothes from the clotheslines and fathers begin to toil in the fields. Children run freely from street to street, with a joy that was forbidden during the Fire Nation's occupation. They're kicking at a ball, passing it from one pair of bare feet to another, and Song smiles at them. Someday, maybe.

She sets her water jug on the stone wall of the well and begins to lower the bucket before hearing the ball make impact and a man's voice grunt, "oof!". She spins rapidly around to see a young man, rear planted firmly in the dirt, one hand rubbing at his forehead while the other wipes at a watering eye. The group of children stand, frozen, and she gives them a look, and unspoken command to stay and apologize to the man they just hit with their ball.

"Here, take my hand," Song holds out her right hand, and the man takes it. When the young man meets her eyes, she almost drops him back in the dirt. He has those amber eyes, and she can just see under his loose hair - a burn scar. "Lee?!"

He stands, brushing dust from his cloak, and she catches the hints of red fabric that lie beneath. She recoils. He sighs. "Um, about that." Song sees his hands tremble against his cloak. "My name's not Lee - and I'm from the Fire Nation."

Song reacts as if she'd been slapped. She trips backwards, away from Not Lee, landing hard against the stone of the well. Her leg is aching, feels like its on fire all over again, looking into those amber eyes.

"How could you? I let you into my home." She braces her hands against the well, her leg threatening to give out at any moment. "Now it all makes sense, that you stole from me. That's all you ashmakers are good for." She spits, and it lands on his scarred cheek. "You take land that isn't yours, take women that aren't yours, you take lives!" Her leg finally collapses, and she sinks to the ground with her back against the well. Not Lee makes a move, and she throws her hands up. "Don't you touch me," she grits out, clutching at her leg. He stills, and she wraps her arms around herself, bringing her knees to her chest. "I pitied you, you know? I thought your mother must've been - I looked at your eyes and thought you were a victim like me, like my mother." Her whole body is trembling, but she doesn't care. "But I bet you know who your father is, I bet you're proud to have his eyes."

Not Lee mirrors her, curling in on himself, not even bothering to wipe his face clean. "I do know who my father is, but I'm not proud of him." He looks up to meet her eyes, and Song is struck by how young he looks. When she'd last seen him, he'd looked gaunt, malnourished, with sharp cheekbones. Now, his face had filled out and he looks - young? The scar makes him look older as well, but when you look on the opposite side of his face - all she can see is a kid, couldn't be older than a teenager.

And he was crying.

Stubborn as he is, Not Lee is resolutely ignoring the tears slowly falling from his eyes, but nevertheless - they fell. Song didn't expect that reaction. Tears are not what she expected from a Fire National. Anger, rage, violence - those are the things she's tasted at the hands of firebenders, but this? This is new.

"I'm sorry," Not Lee whispers, looking at his feet. "I came to apologize, I wanted to repay you for your kindness and return what I took. But I think I've overstayed my welcome." He scrubs at his face roughly with the heel of one hand. "But I am, truly sorry. I acted selfishly the last time I was in your home, and I took advantage of your compassion. And I understand that my nation has done even worse. I'm trying to make it better." He pulls his hair back with a band. "I know you have no reason to trust me, but I would like to purchase you a new ostrich-horse. And anything else you or your mother may require."

Without warning, Not Lee shifts from his seat position to a bowing one, kneeling with his head pressed to the dry earth. Song stares at him for a small eternity, before realizing that he's waiting, unmoving, for her response. For her judgement.

She lets out a small breath. "Okay," his eyes flick up to hers and her stomach twists. The way he bows is so precise - it must have been drilled into him hundreds of times before. Another thing she wouldn't have expected from a firebender. "Come to dinner."

He stands after she does and gives another slight bow. As they begin the walk back to Song's home, he offers to carry her water jug, and Song feels more weight than one lifted from her.

"What did you say your name was again, young man?" Mei pokes at Zuko's shoulder as she hobbles to the table.

"Mom, I'm sorry about her, she's getting older," Song sets a bowl of fragrant roast duck in front of him and Zuko feels his mouth begin to water.

"No, it's okay, I don't think I've actually properly introduced myself." He takes a quick sip of tea - bracing himself for whatever will happen next - and calmly sets the mug back down. "My name is Zuko," he begins slowly. "AndI'mkindoftheFirelord."

There's the sound of Song dropping a bowl in the kitchen, and Mei leans in a bit closer to Zuko.

"Sorry, dear, could you say that again? My ears aren't what they used to be."

Zuko opens his mouth to respond, but Song slowly enters the room, her eyes narrowed in on Zuko. "You said - you're the firelord?" He nods at her, waiting for her to swing a knife at him, kick him out of their home, call some earthbenders to rough him up -

Before his panic can start to set in, Song runs out the front door, slamming it behind her.

Zuko looks helplessly at Mei.

"Give her a moment." Mei brings her pair of chopsticks to her mouth. "Hmm, she still doesn't make it as well as I used to."

"What about you? Do you hate me?"

Mei sighs, putting her bowl down. "I'm too old for hate, dear. My time in this world is almost over. I can't spend it hating world rulers." She takes a sip of her tea. "But Song? She -" Mei sighs again. "She's been hurt deeply by the Fire Nation, in more ways than one. And it isn't just you. But for a long time, the monarchy has been the embodiment of everything terrible that's ever happened to her. And now you're here, standing in front of her."

Zuko nods. "I understand. And I am sorry, to you as well. I don't think I fully understood the reach of the war. I was always taught that the army acted with honor, that women and children were untouchable." He looks down at his folded hands. "I can see that was false."

"Unfortunately, you are correct." She reaches between them to refill Zuko's cup, then Song's, and hands them both to him. "Go to her. A bit of tea should help bring you some good favor."

The screen door opens and closes, and Zuko finds himself out on the porch. Song sits on the edge, absently massaging her leg, peering into the darkness of the forest.

"Can I join you?"

She shrugs, and he takes that as a yes. Handing over her tea, Zuko sits besides her and tries to find what she sees in the darkness.

For a few minutes, the only sounds are those of them drinking and crickets chirping. Then Song speaks.

"His name was Bao."

Treasured. Precious. Rare.

"That's a lovely name."

"What happened to him?" Song turns abruptly to look at him with shining eyes. "Did he...?"

Zuko shakes his head emphatically. "My Uncle and I traded him to a florist for safe passage to Ba Sing Se. The florist seemed like a good man."

"You went to Ba Sing Se?"

Zuko runs one hand down the back of his neck. "I might have conquered it, actually?"

Sing snorts. "That part I've heard about. You've lived an interesting life, Zuko."

"If by 'interesting' you mean messy, then yes." He sighs. "You had no reason to trust me. Why did you let me back into your home?"

Song laughs, tinged with bitterness. "My mother says I'm too trusting, too gullible." She swirls the dregs of her tea around the bottom of her cup. "But I think there's strength in being kind. And I really did want to forgive you. But you have to be ready."

"And do you think I am?"

She smiles softly at him. "For me, yes. But my guess is I'm not the only person you hurt in exile." She gulps down her remaining tea. "They may not be as forgiving as I am."

"I'm preparing myself for that possibility."

"Does it scare you?"

Zuko ponders it. "I think it does. The idea that I've hurt someone innocent so badly that they may never be able to move past it... that keeps me up at night."

Songs turns towards him, tucking her knees up to her chest. "We can't control how other people see us in this life. How they react to our actions is up to them - all that we can control is our response. You have to be ready to accept that someone may not be ready to forgive you, and you can't let that eat you up." She stares at him intently. "You have to confident that your own actions are enough. That they're good."

It's Zuko's turn to laugh sourly. "Easier said than done," his hand wanders to his scar. "Sometimes I'm still not sure if what I'm doing is right."

"You don't have to do it alone, you know," Song gives him an understanding look. "You need other people around you, Zuko, to remind you what's good."

He huffs, looking down at his hands, folded in his lap. "Do you want to be one of those people?"

"I think you have more than enough goodness surrounding you already. You just have to be confident enough to ask." She sighs, looking back out into the darkness. "Besides, I have to stay here with my mother. She doesn't have long."

"Are you sure there's nothing I can do? I could send my healers -"

She shakes her head, cutting him off midsentence. "It's her time." She begins to rub at her scars again. "I just didn't know how much it would hurt. We finally have some peace, and suddenly it's her time."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be, not for this. It's due to you that she'll be able to die during peacetime." Her hands come to her eyes, wiping tears away before they can spill down her cheeks. "Her biggest fear was that she'd die and leave me alone to fend for myself during the war. You released her from that fear. Of course I forgive you, Zuko. My mother's no longer scared of dying because of you."

The two of them are silent for a long time, watching fireflies flicker off and on in the trees, listening to the crickets sing.

"I'm going to find Bao for you."

Song looks up in surprise. "You don't have to-"

"I want to, I'm sure he's still out there somewhere." Zuko rises from his seat. "If you ever need anything, anything, you write directly to me. I'll tell my staff that you're a priority."

"Are you leaving?" Song stands as well. "You could stay, if you want."

Zuko shakes his head silently. "I have to get back, and travelling by night is best for a Firelord who doesn't want his identity revealed," he smiles, his scarred skin relaxing into it. With that, he pulls his hair out of its topknot, grabs his pack and swords, and starts to disappear into the night.

"Firelord Zuko?" He stops and turns back at the sound of Song's voice. She makes the sign of the flame and bows. "Thank you, for everything." He bows back, lower than protocol dictates, but he doesn't care.

Three weeks pass, and the air has turned bitterly cold.

Song again makes her daily trip to the village well, with snow crunching under her feet instead of dead leaves. The soldiers have returned from their work in restoring fields for the season, and so the village feels alive when she steps into it. Despite the chill, children still run in the street, under the watchful eye of their mothers and fathers. Song feels a twinge of longing, but she tries to focus on the happiness she feels for the children instead. Song sets her water jug on the side of the well, breathing hot air into her palms to warm her hands after touching the freezing stone.

"Excuse me, miss, are you Song?" A voice comes from behind her, and she turns to see two men dressed in red tunics.

"I am," she replies, tucking her hands into the pockets of her hanbok. "And you are?"

They bow to her. "We come on behalf of Firelord Zuko, to deliver a gift." A third man rounds the corner with an ostrich-horse on a tether. "We found him at a desert settlement, he's been well taken care of, but if there's anything you need -"

They're cut off as Song runs to throw her arms around the neck of the ostrich-horse. "Bao!" She strokes his beak, looking into his eyes. "Do you remember me?"

Bao cocks his head to the side, pupils widening as he chirps softly, and then he lets out a loud whinny, pushing his head into Song's chest. He purrs, closing his eyes and relaxes against her.

"Sweet Bao, it's really me, you're really home," Song can feel her eyes dampening, but holds it together as one of the men hands her a bit of parchment.

"A note from the Firelord. He wanted us to remind you that you can write to him anytime you need anything."

Song nods. "And tell him I said 'thank-you' again." Bao whinnies loudly again, and she adds on, "Bao says 'thank-you' too."

"Of course, miss." With a synchronized bow, the men depart, and Song unrolls the parchment.

Song,

I've followed your advice and surrounded myself with good people. It helps.

Give my best to your mother - my Uncle still talks about her roast duck sometimes. I've established a fund specially for women and child victims of the war, inspired by some of what you and Mei shared with me. Write me if you feel like you or anyone in your village wants to apply for it.

And, thank you for trusting and forgiving me. I'll try to keep earning it.

May the Spirits continually bless you,

Zuko

She tucks the parchment into her pocket, fills her jug, and finds herself back in Bao's familiar saddle after more than a year. "Come on, Bao," she says as she takes the lead into her hands, guiding them back to the empty farmhouse.

"Let's go home."

[if you read through this whole thing, go drink some water! I'll know if u don't :) ]

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zukka-dyke · 3 years

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here’s a question: how interested would yall be in a fic about sokka and zuko’s relationship with hair throughout their own relationship?

the way I imagine it:

when sokka was little, kya did his hair. she was the one who first shaved his sides for teh wolftail, and she was the one who’d pull it back in the mornings before sokka went out with hakoda to train. after she died, he wouldn’t let anyone else touch his hair, not kanna, not hakoda, not even katara. that was his thing with kya, it was the center of their relationship, which meant to him that sokka had to do it himself, after she was gone.

so, he started to do his own hair. he would shave it in the reflection of the ocean when it needed to be shaved, and he would sheer off the ends with a knife when they got too long, and he was the one who pulled it back in the mornings, because kya was no longer there to do it for him.

for zuko, his relationship with his hair was different, but also similar to sokka’s, in some ways. When he was a very young child, before even azula was born, ursa did his hair. it was simple, then, short and slightly curly because he was supposed to grow it out for a topknot, and she’d brush it out in the mornings and wash it in the evenings, and it was simple in that way. as he got older, after azula was born, when his hair was long enough to be pulled back into a topknot, he started having servants attend to his hair, as was protocall for a child of his standing.

the very last time that he had a servant pull his hair into a topknot was on the morning of the agni kai.

after he was banished, zuko started to do his own hair as well. he was the one who washed it, he was the one who pulled it into that horrible ponytail, and maybe it was because he wanted to be self-sufficient, or maybe it was because he flinched every time someone got too close to touching his face.

the first time that zuko let anyone other than himself touch his hair after the burn was when iroh had to sheer off his ponytail. it was out of necessity, out of secrecy, not out of want, that zuko let another person touch his hair. and when he watched his ponytail float off in the river, he knew that that one lapse, that one moment of weakness, it would follow him for too long.

when the two of them meet up at the wester air temple, there’s still a layer of distrust that hangs heavy between them, one that doesn’t dissapear until their trip to the boiling rock. sokka doesn’t want to aknowledge it, because of he doesn’t think about it than maybe the thoughts that still show up unwarranted will go away, but there are feelings there, after the distrust goes away, feelings that he’s not allowed to have. and it’s not because zuko’s a boy, and it’s not because he’s fire nation, but it’s because being in a relationship, even being close to being in a relationship, it means letting yourself be vulnerable with other people, and sokka hasn’t let himself be vulnerable since his mother died.

since another person last touched his hair.

for zuko, the feelings were there long before the boiling rock, long before he even joined the gaang, but he pushed them aside as well, because he’s not supposed to feel this way, not for another boy, not for someone from a water tribe, not for sokka, because it’s wrong, it’s all wrong.

zuko doesn’t even know what’s wrong with it, until it hits him. hair. hair has always been a private thing for him, something that involves only himself and the people that he holds dear. and- fuck it all, but he’s starting to get to a place where he can open his heart up to someone like that again. like he opened his heart to his mother, to his uncle, to azula, when they were young, and now, to sokka.

they kiss on the day of the comet.

when they get back to the palace, after the battle, after the airships, and the fire, and the agni kai, sokka finds himself sitting on the edge of a palatial bed, stroking zuko’s hair. it’s all splayed out against his pillow, inky black on cream, and it’s so soft, exactly what sokka expected a prince’s hair to feel like (a soon to be firelord’s hair, really) and he just wants to touch it. and he can now. so, he does.

when zuko wakes up, he blinks bleerily at the light that’s coming in through the windows and mindlessly pushes his head into sokka’s hand, mindlessly goes towards the contact, because, he realises with a start, he trusts sokka. not only does he care for him, not only does he want to kiss him, and hold him, but he trusts him, and that is all together more precious and important to zuko than winning all of the wars in the world.

“hey, sunshine,” sokka whispers when he notices that zuko’s awake, his voice gruff and worn from yelling in battle, and then not talking all that much for hours after that as he sat there, on that bed, waiting for zuko to wake up again.

“hi,” zuko murmurs back. and then he smiles.

sokka’s seen his smile before, of course, he saw it when they kissed, when they escaped the boiling rock, when he’d whispered into zuko’s ear just how much he cares about him, but this time, the smile is private and perfect and just for sokka.

he loves it.

that day, them, together, in the bed, all of it is the end of the beginning. it’s the end of the faraway looks, of the pining and denial, and it’s the beginning of the gentle touches and the stolen moments, and the soft kisses in the morning light.

it’s the beginning of them, in all forms. of sokkandzuko, the two of them as a pair, the way it was always meant to be.

on the morning of zuko’s coronation, sokka finds him in his quarters, struggling with his topknot. he’s standing in front of the mirror, staring at himself with the ribbon in his hands, eyes glazed over. sokka comes up quietly behind him, in a way that zuko will be able to see in the mirror, and he takes the ribbon from zuko’s hands, and he combs his fingers through zuko’s hair, and he ties it up in a topknot that’s not smooth, and it’s not perfect, but it’s made with sokka’s love, for zuko, and that’s good enough for them.

they day that sokka is set to return to the south with katara and bato, zuko finds him in the gardens. his hair is down, touching his shoulders, and its being blown about by the wind, swishing to and fro. zuko nudges him in the side and kneels down behind him, and he braids up one side of sokka’s hair, and then tucks it all into a wolftail, kisses him on the forehead and makes him promise to write.

the thing is, about sokka and zuko, and their hair, it’s so personal, so vulnerable, that it’s hard for them to even share with each other. but, they make that journey. they do it together, for each other.

please, if you guys are interested in something like this, but better fleshed out, and longer, leave a note, reply, reblog. the interaction on this post will tell me if i should or shouldn’t write it, and that’s super useful for me as a writer!

#zuko #sokka #zukka #kya #ursa #katara #hakoda #Avatar The Last Airbender #just zukka things #cj's drabbles #please! if you guys want to read this #tell me!

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caucasianfallactivities · 4 years

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Something I’ve never really seen anyone talk about in regards to avatar is the really healthy way in which the show portrays emotion and integrity, especially when handling their male characters. Aang and zuko are both really good examples of this imo; when the sand benders steal appa, aang pretty quickly falls into apathy, but instead of being praised by his friends for how “strong” he is in handling appa’s disappearance (like a lot of other male characters in media often are), they’re actively concerned for him. Katara even tells him that “it’s okay to miss appa” when aang starts to abandon hope entirely. A similar emotional struggle happens when guru pathik tells aang he must let go of his love for katara in order to gain control of the avatar state - aang clearly grapples with the responsibility of being the avatar while also knowing that he can’t just repress his feelings for katara and pretend they don’t exist. This happens again when aang is faced with the moral dilemma of killing the firelord and the obvious contradiction this has to his personal beliefs.

Zuko is obvs another highly emotional character (see: screaming at the sky to get struck by lightning), but I never noticed until my recent rewatch that the only people who ever really try to invalidate his feelings are azula and ozai, aka the villains. Azula is always very quick to tell zuko that he’s overreacting when he questions his family’s actions, something that is supposed to cue the viewer in early on that maybe zuko’s base character isn’t actually that bad after all (azula’s own motivations and decline are also v interesting when considering emotion tbh). And I mean... ozai literally burned and banished him for speaking out against a military strategy that he believed was ethically and morally wrong. Meanwhile Iroh (aka the KING of acknowledging the power and necessity of human emotion) never once tries to tell his nephew that he’s overreacting to anything, even when zuko falls into a full-blown fever after freeing appa. Instead he tells him that his emotional state is a necessary part of going through life changes and isn't something to be worried about. Don’t even get me started about the reunion scene, which tbh is the only scene in popular media I can currently think of that shows a clearly emotional display of unconditional love and forgiveness between a young man and his chosen father figure.

The depiction of Sokka’s grief for Yue is also something I can’t really believe came out of a show that was marketed for children. Instead of pretending that her death doesn't affect him, sokka talks about how he thinks about yue “every day” and grapples with his relationship with suki in its early stages. Not only that, suki even respects sokka’s pain and boundaries even though she doesn't know exactly what happened with yue - she realizes that he’s obviously going through something and offers support without ever prying too deep.

If anything, the show regularly equates emotion with strength, which is basically the backbone of katara’s entire character. Even though the ember island players ep pokes fun at her for being a hopeful crybaby, the writers also show over and over again how katara’s emotional nature is what lends her strength and power. They’re pretty literal with this when they show that her water bending strength is directly tied to her emotions - this is clear in what I would consider to be her most iconic bending moment, when she confronts the man who murdered her mother. Here the show also meditates on how katara’s refusal to enact revenge on him shows her strength and fortitude, even though she herself questions whether granting mercy was the right thing to do.

tl;dr I guess I never realized when I was younger how much this show may have shaped how I view emotions and their importance in life - I hope it’s helped other people like it helped me

#long post #guess this is the result of my pent up bookclub desire in the past few months #also thinking about how jet's character factors into all of this but this post is already too damn long lmao #avatar #team avatar #a;tla #atla #avatar the last airbender #aang #zuko #sokka #uncle iroh #katara #azula #ozai

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ohmaigoth · 3 years

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Unpopular opinion #8

I don't like how many (most of the?) people in the fandom treat Iroh. Especially compared to how they treat some other characters. There's a lot of double standard going on imo. It applies to Zuko too but this post is only about Iroh.

First of all, Iroh is a war General. He's most notably known for having besieged the most populated city in the world, probably indirectly and directly killing we don't know how many but I think it's fair to assume it's a lot, people in the process. He's seen laughing at the thought of burning Ba Sing Se to the ground and only gave up when Lu Ten died, when it became personal. Years later, when he goes back to Ba Sing Se, he's joking again about being a tourist this time. In defence of Iroh though, it's established there's a lot of propaganda going on in the Fire Nation to make its citizens believe they're on the good side of the war.

Something that's always bugged me is Iroh's treatment of Azula, especially compared to the way he treats Zuko. When they were young, Iroh gifted a dagger to his nephew and a doll to his niece. Granted he's been gone at war for a while at that point but anyone who spends 5 min with Azula would know she's not into that kind of toy. Perhaps it was Iroh's way of telling her she's just a child and she needs to chill out but again, he offered Zuko a dagger so I think Iroh just genuinely thought Azula, as a girl, would like a doll... Yikes! It also means he's probably not interested in knowing who his own niece actually is. Then Zuko was banished and he left with him, leaving behind his 11 or 12 yo niece, alone because Ursa's gone, with her father who's just burnt his own son's face. It also probably shows that Ozai is an overall terrible father (the kind that agrees on killing his son) and while he's "nicer" to Azula, it's not ok to let a child with a father who mistreated his son this bad. Iroh is portrayed as the wise old man so I think he could have known better than to leave his niece to her fate. When he meets her again for the first time in three years, all he has to say about her is "She's crazy and she needs to go down.". Sure she did a lot of wrong stuff but, even when I was young, this comment's never sat right with me. Meanwhile he's always supportive of Zuko, forgives his wrongdoing and even thinks of him as his son (how convenient since he lost Lu Ten). Overall I get the feeling Zuko is a replacement son for Iroh (he actually kinda said it himself) while he's never given a damn about Azula.

Then there's this scene.

Ugh. When I was young, June x Iroh was actually my crack ship. He's obviously into her and the fact she then called him Zuko's creepy grandpa makes this scene even worse to me now. Some people say Iroh's out of character in this scene. I disagree. Throughout the series he's portrayed as a ladies' man and I think some people glorify him when he's actually a flawed character (which is what this whole post is about).

Overall, Iroh's never struck me as really sorry for the wrong he's done and does, though this might only be my personal interpretation. Besides, for the most part, while he doesn't actively fight against the gaang, he goes along with Zuko's idea of capturing Aang. I know he wants Zuko to realize by himself it's not his destiny but still, what would happen if Aang's killed during a fight? He also lets his nephew steal a bunch of things and Song's ostrich horse (though he does initially call Zuko out on it) and I guess, as they're refugees, they may need them more than their owners, Idk. Iroh actually steals a bottle of perfume himself while at the Abbey. He also blows his and Zuko's cover because Tea™ and while Zuko's rightfully mad at him for doing such a dumb thing, he complains because Zuko spilled his tea rather than worrying because he endangered both of them. Tea over safety I guess.

I want to make it clear this is not character bashing. I do like Iroh but I like him for who he is: a grey character who has his fair share of flaws. It's what makes him interesting to me and not just the generic morally white know-it-all mentor that many shows have. Though it does irk me when people act as if he's perfect and has never caused suffering. Especially when said people who glorify Iroh and conveniently forget about his wrongdoing demonize other characters for dumb reasons (think about Aang and particularly Mai).

ATLA's all about nuances and how there's no pure white and pure black, which is one of the many reasons why this show is great, and Iroh fits right in this theme too.

#Iroh #Zuko #Azula #June #ATLA June #Avatar: the last airbender #ATLA #unpopular opinion #sometimes I speak my mind

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kyrievali · 4 years

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I've been reading your posts and in one of them you mentioned that Iroh in fact is very shady and Azula has every right to hate him, may you explain why?

Sure, I’ll go into it.

Let me start off by saying that I actually really like Iroh as a character. I think he’s great and well-written. I think the fandom tends to gloss over his flaws and label him as “perfect”, which is not true. One of his greatest failings (aside from making two teenage siblings fight each other for the throne...or really not intervening at all where Ozai is concerned) is his treatment of Azula, and him saying “No, she’s crazy and needs to go down” and essentially writing her off when, if you compare Azula’s personality with Season 1 Zuko, they’re really not all that different. Azula, people tend to forget, is a 14 year old girl who was as much a subject of abuse as her brother. Zuko and Azula were essentially pitted against one another to both gain Ozai’s affection and, more importantly, avoid punishment. The only difference is that she was rewarded and praised by Ozai for her power and cruelty, while Zuko was punished for his “shortcomings”. Zuko’s entire storyline proved how important it is to have a good, guiding parental figure in one’s life, and it’s tragic that Azula didn’t have that.

Now, let’s talk about why Azula probably hated her Uncle.

1. She thinks he’s a failure and, worse than that, weak

And I don’t mean weakness in terms of his firebending skills. Let me explain - Fire Nation citizens are ingrained with Nationalistic pride and complete loyalty to the Fire Lord from a very young age. Iroh, once upon a time, was the heir to the Fire Nation’s throne and the favored son of the notoriously cruel Azulon. He laid a 600 day siege against Ba Sing Se during which his son, Lu Ten, was killed. This tragic event caused him to withdraw his troops, despite having breached the outer wall.

Upon his return home, his father dies under mysterious circumstances and decrees that Ozai will be the heir to the throne. Instead of contesting it, Iroh leaves the Fire Nation and ostensibly spends his time traveling the world, meeting with the Dragons, and getting in tune with the Spirit World. Doing so gives him the knowledge and wisdom to see the error of his ways, at which point he returns to the Fire Nation and serves as a General in the army.

Let’s look at this from the perspective of Azula, or really any other citizen of the Fire Nation. Their country waged a nearly 2-year long siege against the Earth Kingdom - and right when they make progress by breaking through the first wall, the Crown Prince gives up because his son died. Countless Fire Nation lives and resources were spent on this 600 day campaign, and they end up with nothing to show for it. If you look at the philosophy of Sozin, Azulon, and Ozai, they likely would have used the death of Lu Ten to galvanize the troops and double their efforts, in an attempt to exact revenge against the Earth Kingdom for daring to spill royal blood - and so that their sacrifices thus far would not have been in vain.

And then, not only does Iroh withdraw from Ba Sing Se, he also abandons his duties and his country completely. Iroh had a reputation as a fearsome Firebender and cunning strategist - and he just leaves. So now not only is he a failure, but he’s also a deserter, one who abandons his nation while it’s reeling from a humiliating defeat and the loss of its Sovereign, Azulon (who, by the way, ruled for about 80 years).

In Azula’s eyes, all of this amounts to weakness, and as we all know from how she was raised by Ozai, weakness is unacceptable.

2. She is parroting her father’s feelings of resentment

Given that Azula was the favored child of Ozai, it’s likely that she idolized her father and thought he was superior to her uncle, the Crown Prince (for the first few years of her life, at least, Iroh WAS the Crown Prince) and should have been the true heir to Azulon. We don’t see a whole lot of Ozai or his backstory/characterization, but it’s not unreasonable to assume that he, being many years younger than Iroh (it’s never officially stated, but Ozai is around 45 at the time of the show and Iroh appears to be in his late 60’s/early 70’s) had an inferiority complex growing up, and probably some form of sibling rivalry. After all, Iroh is already an adult by the time Ozai is born, and the Crown Prince, who has been groomed from birth to be Azulon’s heir. Ozai is an afterthought; an insurance policy, who at the very moment of Lu Ten’s birth, is outranked by an infant.

Ozai probably resented Iroh his entire life, so it is not unlikely that Azula would probably feel the same way.

3. He’s a traitor to the Fire Nation

Azula is a Nationalist and Ozai’s most loyal enforcer. Iroh’s a traitor, and as far as she knows, a corrupting influence to her brother, Zuko. She also probably thinks that he’s committing treason because (she doesn’t know any better) Iroh wants to be the rightful Fire Lord, and she is not going to stand for that.

4. He reminds her of her mother

Azula is used to being the golden child - a prodigious Firebender, the favored daughter of her father, representative of everything the model Fire Nation child should be. And yet, her own mother does not appear to love her. Her Uncle has stated distaste for her. She thinks she’s doing everything right - because according to Sozin and Ozai’s philosophies and the emphasis of power and loyalty to the Fire Nation - she is; so why do two of her own family members prefer Zuko, the “screw-up” of the family - to her?

It’s clear that Azula craves the love and adoration of others, but she doesn’t really understand it. I think as she grew older and saw more of the world and how people behaved toward her, she understood on some level that she was considered a “monster” and that people were afraid of her; but that’s how she was raised. Fear was power, and power was everything. And growing up, she was only ever positively reinforced for her ruthlessness and cunning by her father (of whom she is very much afraid, by the way...that is made perfectly clear in her attempts to bring Zuko home and also give him credit for allegedly killing the Avatar. Part of it is actually probably due to some level of affection she has for him, but part of it is definitely motivated by having someone else take the heat off of her in an abusive household) and she witnessed firsthand how perceived weakness was punished - so she did everything she could to achieve the ideal of perfection that Ozai, Azulon, and Sozin had proliferated. So she probably never really understood why her own mother and Iroh didn’t like her. And the fact that they both seemed to prefer Zuko, who she’s been taught to think she’s better than, would only further that resentment.

She thinks she can earn people’s affection by being a perfect Fire Nation soldier, because that’s what works with her father - and when it doesn’t work with Ursa or Iroh, two important adult family figures in her life - she doesn’t understand why and, even worse than that, it makes her feel inferior to Zuko.

5. My final point is purely speculative, but...He didn’t do anything to directly stop Ozai’s rise to power

In the years after the war, after recovering from her mental break and maybe rehabilitating to become an advisor to Zuko (let’s be totally honest, a Nation whose entire economy for the past 100 years has been built on war and imperialization is not going to have an easy transition into peace, especially when they are expected to give up their colonies and play nice with an equally corrupt government that was controlled by the Secret Police force which has no qualms about brainwashing its own citizens...also the new Fire Lord is a banished Prince who is the apprentice of the Disgraced Prince and who returned to defeat the pride of the Nation, Princess Azula, Ozai’s Chosen Heir and the Conqueror of Ba Sing Se), Azula’s going to be pretty pissed that her supposedly wise and worldly uncle did not intervene in her megalomaniacal and abusive father’s rise to power.

If my uncle, who never liked me, lost countless Fire Nation lives and resources in a battle that ended with him retreating, abandoned the Crown to go on a sightseeing tour of the world, returned and became a traitor to the nation by foiling the Admiral’s conquest of the Northern Water Tribe resulting in the loss of more Fire Nation lives, escaped from you multiple times and went on to become a tourist and small business owner in an enemy nation, turned your brother against you, did nothing to stop his own brother whom he knew was deeply abusive even after he came back after gaining all this supposed wisdom, and THEN also left you alone with your abusive father while taking your inferior brother under his wing and helping him become an extremely powerful bender who eventually defeats you with the help of a Water Tribe peasant...yeah, I’d be pretty pissed at him, too.

To be fair, she probably never would have willingly gone with them because they were basically just sent on a wild goose chase at that point...but he never even tried to help her.

Anyway, that’s why I think Azula hates Iroh and honestly, she has every right to hate him. He abandoned her Nation and wrote her off completely, so there’s no reason she wouldn’t do the same.

#a:tla #avatar #azula #iroh #a:tla analysis #anon answers #i actually do like iroh btw #i just don't think he's perfect #and don't give me that he's perfect because he's imperfect crap #he's predominantly portrayed as wise #so when he says Azula is crazy and needs to go down #all the fans think that too #and it's sad because azula doesn't get any love #not even from her mother whoops

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likealittleheartbeat · 4 years

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The Queer Platonic Love of Aang & Zuko

Friend. What a weighty and intimate word in Avatar The Last Airbender. The series’ “found family” is iconic at this point, and is literally established as a “family” by Katara in the third episode. She pulls Aang back from the outrage of the Avatar state, saying “Monk Gyatso and the other monks may be gone, but you still have a family. Sokka and I, we’re your family now.”

As I’ve said before, establishing this central safety net of trusted people is essential to Aang’s healing. Still, it’s interesting to me that they insist on this group as a “family” rather than something that might emphasize “friendship.” Something along the lines of ‘we’re your friends and we’re here with you.’ I can think of several animated shows that have done as much successfully. The show withholds the word “friend” for another purpose. I’ll happily admit that Aang and the others describe each other as “friends” throughout the series, but rarely is the use of the word (through pacing, repetition, or emotional context) given a sense of gravity in those moments.

However, three scenes in the series rely heavily on the word “friend,” and each scene connects Aang more and more profoundly with Zuko, eventually revealing that the show’s entire plot hinges on the friendship between these two boys. In a series so latent with symbolism, what do we make of these star-crossed friends? The relationship between Aang and Zuko, I want to suggest, is meant to explore Platonic Love in all its depth, especially within a masculine culture that not only devalues it, but views its queer implications as inherently dangerous to the dominant power structures of an empire.

Get ready zukaang fans for a long-ass atla meta analysis...

“If we knew each other back then, do you think we could’ve been friends, too?”

The first time the word “friend” is uttered between them, Aang is perched on a branch, waiting for Zuko (who is laid out on a bed of leaves the Avatar made for him) to wake up after his blue spirit rescue. “You know what the worst part about being born over a hundred years ago is?” Aang waxes, “I miss all the friends I used to hang out with. Before the war started I used to always visit my friend Kuzon. The two of us, we'd get in and out of so much trouble together. He was one of the best friends I ever had...and he was from the Fire Nation, just like you. If we knew each other back then do you think we could have been friends too?” The scene stood out for me when I first watched it for the melancholy and stillness. We are not given a flashback like we did when Aang talked about Bumi or Gyatso in earlier episodes. We have to sit with Aang’s loss of a male friend. It echoes a veteran’s loss of a war buddy more than anything a western audience would expect in a children’s show about the power of friendship. Instead of simply mourning, Aang invites Zuko into the past with him. He invites Zuko to imagine a time before the war, a land of innocence, where they could live together. And between them there is a moment of reflection given to this invitation (...until Zuko shoots a fucking fire blast at Aang).

The wistful mood returns when the two boys arrive back to their respective beds. Aang is asked by a loopy fevered Sokka if he made any “friends” on his trip, to which Aang sadly replies, “No, I don’t think I did” before tucking away to sleep. Aang’s mournful moments often stand out against his bubbly personality, but this moment stands out moreso because its the final moment for Aang in the episode. For the first time, he doesn’t receive comfort in his dejection. He doesn’t even confide in his peers. The solemnity and secrecy of this failed “friendship” is remarkable.

It’s in the next symbolic gesture that I think Avatar reveals what’s at stake in the concept of “friendship.” Zuko, in the next scene, lays down to rest after his adventurous night, looks pensively at the fire nation flag in his room, and then turns his back on it. We realize, especially after the previous revelations in “The Storm,” that Aang’s gestures of “friendship” have caused Zuko to doubt the authority of the Fire Nation.

Now all three remaining nations have misogynistic tendencies, but the Fire Nation celebrates a specific brand of toxic masculinity, and Zuko longs to emulate it even after it has rejected and scarred him. In the episode, “The Storm,” which directly precedes “The Blue Spirit,” we see how Zuko failed to replicate masculinity’s demands. In a room of men, he disregards honorifics to speak out in the name of care and concern for people’s well-being over strategy. Though the war room was all men, we later see that The Fire Nation does not exclude women from participating in this form of toxic masculinity. (Shoutout to Azula, one of the best tragic villains of all time!) This gender parity prevents disgraced men, like Zuko, from retaining pride of place above women. So Zuko’s loving act and refusal to fight his father puts him at the lowest of the low in the social hierarchy of the Fire Nation, completely emasculated and unworthy of respect.

Since then, Zuko has been seeking to restore himself by imitating the unfeeling men of the war room and his unfeeling sister, barking orders and demands at his crew. The final redemptive act for this purpose, of course, is to capture the Avatar, who’s very being seems to counteract the violent masculinity at the heart of the Fire Nation. In most contemporary Euro-American understandings, Aang is by no means masculine. He’s openly affectionate, emotional, giggly, and supportive of everyone in his life, regardless of gender. He practices pacifism and vegetarianism, and his hobbies include dancing and jewelry-making. And, foremost, he has no interest in wielding power. (@rickthaniel has an awesome piece about Aang’s relationship to gender norms and feminism).

In addition to the perceived femininity of Aang’s behavior, he’s equally aligned with immaturity. Aang’s childishness is emphasized in the title of the first episode, “The Boy in the Iceberg,” and then in the second episode when Zuko remarks, “you’re just a kid.” Aang, as a flying boy literally preserved against adulthood, also draws a comparison to another eternally boyish imp in the western canon: Peter Pan. This comparison becomes more explicit in “The Ember Island Players.” His theatrical parallel is a self-described “incurable trickster” played by a woman hoisted on wires mimicking theatrical productions of Peter Pan. The comparison draws together the conjunction of femininity and immaturity Aang represents to the Fire Nation.

When Zuko is offered friendship and affection by Aang, then, he faces a paradigm-shifting internal conflict. To choose this person, regardless of his spiritual status, as a “friend,” Zuko must relate himself to what he perceives as Aang’s femininity and immaturity, further demeaning himself in the eyes of his father and Fire Nation culture. The banished prince would need to submit to the softness for which he’s been abused and banished. This narrative of abuse and banishment for perceived effeminate qualities lends itself easily enough to parallels with a specific queer narrative, that of a young person kicked out of their house for their sexuality and/or gender deviance.

I want to point out that Aang’s backstory, too, can be read through a queer lens. Although the genocide of the air nomads more explicitly parallels the experiences of victims to imperial and colonial violence, I can also see how the loss of culture, history, friends, and mentors for a young effiminate boy can evoke the experience of queer men after the AIDs pandemic and the government’s damning indifference. In fact, colonial violence and the enforcement of rigid gender roles have historically travelled hand-in-hand. Power structures at home echo the power structures of a government. Deviance from the dominant norms disrupt the rigid structures of the empire. Aang’s background highlights how cultures based in something besides hierarchy and dominance, whether they be queer cultures or indigenous societies, threaten the logic of imperialism, and thus become targets of reform, neglect, and aggression by the expanding empire and its citizens. Survivors are left, as Aang was, shuffling through the remnants, searching for some ravaged piece of history to cling to.

We begin the series, then, with two queer-coded boys, one a survivor of broad political violence, the other a survivor of more intimate domestic abuse, and both reeling from the ways the Fire Nation has stigmatized sensitivity. But the queer narrative extends beyond the tragic backstories toward possibility and hope. The concept of platonic love proposed here, though it does not manifest until later, is a prospect that will bring peace to the two boys' grief-stricken hearts and to the whole world.

“Do you really think friendships can last more than one lifetime?”

“Do you really think friendships can last more than one lifetime?” Toph asks before the four members of the group hold hands. Since Toph previously mourned her friendless childhood, it’s easy to appreciate this line for its hopefulness regarding the four central members of the Gaang. They long to appreciate that they’re all connected. As touching as this is, the soul-mated ‘friendship’ concept is actually uniquely applicable to Aang and Zuko.

When does Toph ask the question specifically? It’s after hearing the story of Avatar Roku and Firelord Sozin: how their once intimate friendship fell apart; how Fire Lord Sozin began, undaunted, the genocidal attack on Airbenders. After recounting the tale, Aang, the reincarnation of Avatar Roku, excitedly explains to the group the moral that every person is capable of great good and evil. While that moral could easily be ascribed to many people in the series, the connective tissue is stretched directly to Zuko in a parallel storyline. Reading a secret history composed by his grandfather Sozin, Zuko discovers that he is not only the grandson of the empirical firelord but of Avatar Roku, as well. We see how the rift between the Sozin and Roku echoed down across history to separate the airbending culture from the fire nation, and, on a more human level, to separate Aang from Zuko. The two boys find themselves divided by their ancestors’ choices— and connected by Avatar Roku’s legacy.

This is what takes their “friendship” from simply a matter of the character’s preferences to something fated, something unique from the other friendships. The rest of the found family is positioned as circumstantial in their relationship to Aang and one another. Yeah, it’d be cool if they were all connected in past and future lives, but the audience receives no indicators in the series that it’s necessarily true. Only faith holds them together, which allows room for an appreciation that your “found family” friendships might simply be the trusted people you discovered along the way.

Zuko’s friendship is characterized differently. Both his struggle to befriend Aang and his eventual “friendship” are explicitly destined by the story of Roku and Sozin. After this episode, the series depends upon Zuko’s ability to mend the divide inside himself, which can only be done by mending the divide between him and Aang. Their inheritance symbolizes this dynamic exactly. As the reincarnation of Avatar Roku, Aang can be understood as the beneficiary of Avatar Roku’s wisdom (he should not, as many jokingly suggest, be considered as any kind of biological relation of Roku or Zuko). Zuko, on the other hand, has inherited Roku’s genealogy in the Fire Nation. These two pieces of Roku must be brought together in order to revive Roku’s legacy of firebending founded on something besides aggression.

In addition to making the ideals of Roku whole again, the two boys must tend to the broken “friendship” between the two men. As the Avatar and the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, Aang and Zuko parallel Avatar Roku and Firelord Sozin precisely. The narrative of the latter pair places destiny precisely in the hands of the former. And since both Aang and Roku expressed the desire for “friendship,” it falls in the lap of the corresponding royal to give up their imperial dreams so they can gain something more peaceful and intimate. For Zuko, this now can only be accomplished when he heals the rift within himself.

Importantly, both the previous friendship and the destined friendship between Zuko and Aang are between two men. The coming-of-age genre has proliferated the trope of homosociality (friendship between individuals of the same sex) and its eventual decline brought on by maturity and heterosexual romance. (Check out the beautiful and quick rundown of classic examples, from Anne of Green Gables to Dead Poet’s Society, made by @greetingsprophet ). The story of Avatar Roku and Firelord Sozin replicates this established narrative.

We see them playing, sparring, and joking intimately with one another. The two as young adults were intimately connected, the series explains, “sharing many things including a birthday.” Eventually their intimacy is interrupted by their worldly responsibilities and the spectre of heterosexual romance on Roku’s part.

Now, It’s not a huge leap for one to wonder if Sozin longed for something stronger in their “friendship.” We see no female romantic interests for Sozin. Instead, he continues to demonstrate his platonic allegiance to Roku. When Roku prepares to leave for his Avatar training, Sozin walks into his room and gives him his crown prince headpiece, a gesture of unique devotion that positions his friendship above his politics (which harkens to Plato and EM Forster’s ideas about platonic love that I’ll discuss in Part 3).

One might note, too, how the wedding between Roku and his childhood sweetheart provides the setting for the escalation of Sozin’s violence. “On wedding days,” Sozin writes, “we look to the future with optimism and joy. I had my own vision for a brighter future...” He then pulls Roku away from his bride for a personal conversation, briefly recapturing the earlier homosocial dynamic with his friend. Sozin describes his affection for their intertwined lives. Then he links their shared happiness to the current prosperity of the Fire Nation. He imagines the expansion of the Fire Nation, which would also expand on the relationship between him and Roku. But the Avatar refuses the offer and returns to his wife, insisting on the value of traditional boundaries (both the pact of marriage and the strict division of the four nations). The abandonment of the homosocial relationship by Roku sets the site for the unmitigated empirical ambitions of Sozin. One wonders how history might’ve been altered had the two men’s relationship been sanctified and upheld. How might’ve Roku persuaded Sozin in his empirical ambitions if he had remained in a closer relationship to his friend? In their final encounter, Sozin reacts vengefully to his former platonic love: he lets Roku die protecting the home the Avatar shared with his wife. Sozin’s choice solidifies the divide between them, and makes the grief he’s experienced since Roku left him into actual death.

Instead of Avatar Roku and Firelord Sozin finding a resolution, Aang and Zuko are ordained to reverse their friendship’s disintegration. Yes, they must heal the rift in the world created by the Fire Nation’s aggression, but Aang and Zuko must also reverse the tradition of lost homosociality within a culture of unrelenting machismo. Despite Avatar: the Last Airbender’s ties to the coming-of-age genre, the arc of Aang and Zuko’s “friendship” counters one of its most prominent tropes. “Some friendships are so strong they can transcend lifetimes,” Roku says, and it’s precisely this platonic ideal that draws Zuko and Aang towards one another in ways that are revolutionary both in their world and in the traditions of our’s. To come together, as two matured boys, to form an adult platonic love that can persist into adulthood.

“And now we’re friends.”

Which brings us to the consummation of Aang and Zuko’s “friendship.” Having resolved their previous hostilities and having neutralized the outside forces that would rather them dead than together, Aang and Zuko can finally embrace and define their relationship as “friendship.” Now, if we look closely at Zuko’s expression, we’ll notice a pause, before he smiles and reiterates Aang’s comment. My initial response, with my zukaang shipping goggles on extra tightly, was that Zuko just got friend-zoned and was a little disappointed before accepting Aang’s friendship. When I took a step back, I considered that we are given this moment of reflection to recognize Zuko’s journey, his initial belligerent response to the idea of befriending the Avatar. When he accepts the term of ‘friend,’ he reveals the growth he’s undergone that’s brought peace to the world. With these two possibilities laid out, I want to offer that they might coexist. That the word ‘friend’ might feel to Zuko and the audience so small and limited and yet simultaneously powerful. The pause can hint at the importance of “friendship” and signal something more. This reading emboldens the queer concept of “friendship” that undergirds their relationship. That the hug that follows might be meant to define the depth of the platonic love that is at the very heart of the series.

Saving a hugging declaration of “friendship” for the announcement of peace in the series is quietly revolutionary. In the twentieth century, male characters could connect in battle, on competitive teams, and through crime. “In the war film, a soldier can hold his buddy — as long as his buddy is dying on the battlefield. In the western, Butch Cassidy can wash the Sundance Kid’s naked flesh — as long as it is wounded. In the boxing film, a trainer can rub the well-developed torso and sinewy back of his protege — as long as it is bruised. In the crime film, a mob lieutenant can embrace his boss like a lover — as long as he is riddled with bullets,” writes Kent Brintnall. Aang and Zuko’s hug starkly contrasts this kind of masculine intimacy. The show suggests that environments shaped by dominance, conflict, coercion, or harm, though seemingly productive in drawing people and especially men together, actually desecrate “friendships.” Only in a climate of humility, diplomacy, and peace can one make a true ‘friend.’

In situating the’ “friendship” between two matured males in a time of peace, the writers hearken back to older concepts of homosocial relationships in our fiction. As Hanya Yanagihara has described the Romantic concepts of friendship that pervaded fiction before the 1900s. In her book, A Little Life, Yanagihara renews this concept for the twenty-first century with a special appreciation for the queerness that one must accept in order for platonic love to thrive into adulthood. She writes, “Why wasn’t friendship as good as a relationship? Why wasn’t it even better? It was two people who remained together day after day bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified.” Aang and Zuko’s relationship, despite a history that would keep them apart, reclaims this kind of friendship. Their hearts, bound together by an empyrean platonic love, are protected from the political and familial loyalties that would otherwise embroil them.

In addition to Yanagihara, another author that coats the word ‘friend’ with similar gravity and longing to Avatar is E.M. Forster, who braids platonic friendship in his writing with homoeroticism and political revolution. In Forster’s novel Maurice (originally written in 1914 but published posthumously in 1971 due to Britain’s criminalization of male homsexuality), the titular character asks a lower class male lover lying in bed with him, “Did you ever dream you had a friend, Alec? Someone to last your whole life and you his? I suppose such a thing can’t happen outside of sleep.” The confession, tinged with grief and providence as it is, could easily reside in Aang’s first monologue to Zuko in “The Blue Spirit.”

Platonic love as a topic is at the heart of Maurice. Plato’s “Symposium,” from which the term platonic love derives, is even directly referenced in the book and connected with “the unspeakable vice of the Greeks”— slang for homosexual acts. For Forster, the sanction of platonic love, both the homosocial aspect and the latent homosexuality, reveals a culture’s liberation. “If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend,” Forster wrote in his essay “What I Believe,”, “I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.” This echoes a sentiment of philial love described by Plato.

Rather than revolutionary ideals, for Forster friendships, and specifically friendships that disregard homophobia, provide the foundation for peace, equality, and democratic proliferation. When Aang and Zuko embrace, they are embodying this ideal. Platonic love and the word “friend” have a history intertwined with queer romantic love, and, while I won’t argue that Avatar attempts to directly evoke this, I will suggest that the series consciously leaves room for this association. Now, the show certainly makes no attempt to imply anything romantic between Zuko and Aang within the timeline we witness (nor any same sex characters, which reflects cultural expectations in the 2000s). And for good reason, the age gap would be notably icky, to use the technical term. (You might note, however, that the show actually allows for crushes to extend upwardly across the same age gap, when Toph accidentally reveals her affection for Sokka to Suki in “The Serpent’s Pass.”) Despite connecting queer friendships to the history of ‘platonic love,’ Avatar provides two critiques to platonic love for audiences to absorb. One is the pederasty with which Plato defined his ultimate form of love in his Symposium. Fans rightfully comment on the age gap between Aang and Zuko as something preventative to shipping them together. And beyond the fact of their ages, Aang’s youthfulness is emphatic, as I remarked earlier. Aang and Zuko are prevented from consummating their platonic love until both are deemed mature in the last moments of the series. And even then, their relationship is directed toward future development rather than conclusion. Instead of cutting away, they are allowed to exit their scene together toward a speech about hope and peace. This stands in stark opposition to the permanence of Aang and Katara’s kiss. The platonic love in Avatar, the kind EM Forster cherishes, is relegated to adulthood as opposed to other kinds of boyish friendships. The conclusion of Avatar, at least for me, actually feels especially satisfying because it settles our characters in the “new era of love and peace.” It is a beginning, and it feels more expansive than the actions the characters choose to take in the episode. Even as our characters conclude three seasons of narrative tension as the sun sets and “The End” appears on the screen, it feels instead as if their stories can finally begin. The characters are allowed to simply exist for the first time. Yes, Aang and Katara or Zuko and Mai are allowed to embrace and kiss, but it’s because the pressures of empiricism have finally been banished. They are now allowed to try things and fail and make mistakes and explore. Things don’t feel rigid or permanent, whether that be one’s identity or one’s relationships.

Ideally, within the morality of the series (at least as it appears to us with no regard for whatever limits or self-censorship occurred due to its era of production and child-friendly requirements), “friends'' are maintained alongside romantic partnerships. Both Zuko and Aang’s separate romantic relationships blossom within the same episode that they declare their “friendship.” In fact, a vital plotline is the development of Zuko’s relationship with Aang’s romantic interest. While anyone in the fandom is well aware of the popular interpretation of romantic affection between Zuko and Katara because of their shared narrative, I have to point out that romantic feelings across the series are made extremely explicit through statements, blushes, and kisses. Zuko’s relationship with Katara can be better understood in the light of the coming-of-age counternarrative. While the love interest often serves as a catalyst for separation for a homosocial relationship, the friendly relationship with Aang’s love interest—seeking her forgiveness, respecting her power, calling on her support, etc—is vital for Zuko to ultimately create an environment of peace in which he and Aang can fulfill their destined “friendship.” In fact, we can look at Katara’s femininity as the most important device for manifesting Aang and Zuko’s eventual union. It’s her rage against misogyny that frees Aang from his iceberg, midwifing him into the world again after his arrested development, the complete opposite of a Wendy figure. It’s her arms that hold Aang in the pieta after his death in the Crossroads of Destiny, positioning her as a divine God-bearer. Afterwards, its her hands that resurrect Aang so that they together can fulfill his destiny. It will be these same hands with this same holy water that resurrect Zuko in the finale. Only through Katara’s decided blessing could Aang and Zuko proceed toward the fated reunion of their souls.

The importance of this critical relationship to femininity becomes relevant to a scene in “Emerald Island Players” that one might note as an outstanding moment of gay panic. Zuko and Aang, watching their counterparts on stage, cringe and shrink when, upon being saved by The Blue Spirit character in the play, Aang’s performer declares “My hero!” Instead of the assumption of homophobia, I wonder whether we might read Aang and Zuko’s responses as discomfort with the misogynistic heterosexual dynamics the declaration represents. Across the board, Avatar subverted the damsel in distress trope. There’s a-whole-nother essay to be written on all the ways it goes about this work, but the events in “The Blue Spirit” certainly speak to this subversion. It’s quite explicit that Zuko, after breaking Aang’s chains, is equally dependent on Aang for their escape. And, by the end of the actual episode, the savior role is reversed as Aang drags an unconscious Zuko away from certain death. To depict these events within the simplistic “damsel in distress” scenario, as The Ember Island Players do, positions Aang as a subordinately feminized colonial subject, denies him his agency, and depicts the relationship as something merely romantic, devoid of the equalizing platonic force that actually empowers them. The moment in the play is uncomfortable for Aang and Zuko because it makes Zuko the hero and Aang the helpless object. Aang is explicit about his embarrassment over his feminized and infantilized depiction in the play. And Zuko, newly reformed, is embarrassed to see, on one hand, his villainy throughout the play and, on the other hand, see how his character is positioned as made out as a savior to the person who has actually saved him.

At the heart of the series is not the idea of a chosen one or savior. Instead, we are saved by the ability for one person to see themselves in another person and to feel that same person equally understands their own soul. This is the ideal of platonic love. Platonic love between two matured boys—two boys with whose memories and bodies bare the scars of their queer sensitivities—is an essential part of the future of peace. Many fans have a sense of this, labeling the relationship as “brotp” and “platonic soulmates.” I simply encourage people to acknowledge that platonic love, especially in this context, is not a limit. There is no “no homo” joke here. When we remark on the platonic love between Zuko and Aang (and across media more generally) we are precisely making room for friendship, romance, and whatever else it could mean, whatever else it might become. While I find Legend of Korra lacking and in some ways detrimental to appreciating the original series, it’s finale interestingly parallels and extends this reading of platonic love in a sapphic vein. And most recently, She ra Princess of Power was able to even more explicitly realize these dynamics in the relationship between Adora and Catra. Let’s simply acknowledge that Aang and Zuko’s relationship blazed the trail: that peace, happiness, hope, and freedom could all hinge on a “friendship,” because a “friend” was never supposed to be set apart from or less than other kinds of relationships. For the ways it disregards gender, disregards individualism, disregards dominion, platonic love is the foundation of any meaningful relationship. And a meaningful relationship is the foundation for a more peaceful world. *Author’s note: I’m just tired of sitting on this and trying to edit it. It’s not perfect. I don’t touch on all the symbolism and nuances in the show and in the character’s relationships. And this is not meant to negate any ships. It’s actually, quite the opposite. This is a show about growth and change and mistakes and complexity. Hopefully you can at least appreciate this angle even if you don’t vibe with every piece of analysis here. I just have no chill and need to put this out there so I can let my obsession cool down a bit. Enjoy <3

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strrwbrrryjam · 3 years

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001 zukka, if youd like.

hi! okay, first ask, thank you for asking.

when I started shipping it if I did: ...im going to be completely honest, im new to atla, but not new to tumblr. i actually had a large tumblr that i made when i was fourteen that was dedicated to hetalia. but over the years i got bored of it, so i stopped updating it, i only looked at the blogs i followed and then one day, someone reblogged some zukka fanart, and i loved it. i knew nothing of the characters, but from the looks of each of them and how it followed the classic red-blue gays and representation that i craved as a young lesbian i decided to give it a watch, still in love with a ship i knew nothing about, so imagine my whiplash that i got when they were two people who weren't even friends until the final season, but i never got discoaurged because of all the tension and the parellels and how if either of them were female-male i definitely felt that zukka would be canon and have so much more hype.

my thoughts: im not the best at describing why i love them, but ill try. i love zukka for a lot of reasons, but mostly because... for me relationships are a partnership, you both get benefits from it where you can rely on eachother, where there is a mutual understanding between each other to the point where you know exactly what your lover needs to hear... and sometimes, no matter the mood your in, they are the only ones who can truly make you happy, and thats what i get from zukka. sokka is very much the older sibling, he goes so underappreciated for so long that when piandao tells him he should be proud of who he is and what he can do... he just doesn't believe him. now, this isnt the fault of katara, aang or anyone else, maybe a little bit hakodas fault i mean he literally left a kid with such high expectations of himself to protect the village by himself with what limited training that he had. even when they listen to his ideas, some of which are very much right but have failed to no fault of sokka like walking because appa is too noticable, katara or someone else pokes fun to these ideas for failing miserable, which they may mean in jest, but can still really hurt, so he needs someone to encourage him that sure, maybe this idea has failed, but its just a learning experience. zuko... my god he has trauma. zuko was this sweet and kind and passionate kid born into an environment where he didnt belong and he was abused for everything that he was. ursa while was a safe haven didnt do enough to protect him, as she too was powerless. his sister turned from this sweet and kind sister to someone who quickly realised that being that way makes it impossible to survive so she began to tease and taunt and turn into a mirror of their abuser. while id like to think lu ten was there for the both of them, iroh and lu ten where getting ready for the siege so they were rather busy... and azulon actively wished that ozai kill him, and ozai, fucking ozai man, is there anything else left to be said? once ursa left... everything when down and he was burned and banished for his wish to protect his people. iroh... for all my love of iroh, he doesnt understand zukos intentions or actions, he thinks hes lost his way but... he doesnt see that zuko doesnt want to hunt the avatar, he doesnt want to stay at the tea shop, what he wants is to be home. hes not safe in the watertribes, not safe in the earth kingdom and while he isnt truly safe at home, its his nostalgia(?) and how everything hes used to is at home, its where his mother memory lives... its where his the remnants of his past relationship with azula and where his baby sister is... its as safe as a home they could get. he knows people doesnt like him and he while isnt okay with it, nothing matters more than getting home. which isnt a good reason for his literally capturing of a twelve year olds, fourteen year old and fifteen year olds, but... it is for him, hes sixteen, still a kid, like the one hes chasing and he doesnt realize that the home he hopes for isnt what he thinks it is, at least not anymore. that his father doesnt love him, that his sister is no longer the sweet kid that she used to be and she too was abused, that his mum is no longer around anymore and he doesnt have a happy life or a happy family. he repeatedly doesnt listen to iroh because iroh doesnt get it. iroh grew up loved and cherished and praise while zuko doesnt, he grows up hated with no chance of change, he... is very much an asshole and doesnt listen to anyone, but hes trying in season 3. and then... the boiling rock happens. my god, its... like my favourite episodes. sokka feels like he has to go alone because he felt like he failed, its his responsiblity, it was his mistake despite the fact that it wasnt, that there were many, many adults who it the fault could fall onto, and the fact that the odds were stacked against them completely, but sokka being who he is, still feels responsible, but wants to go alone. except, zuko wont let him, he understands sokka, because thats what hes felt like his whole life. hes

always felt like a failure, not being able to protect his sister, not being able to protect himself so he knows what sokka is going to do, and, forces himself onto the journey. its awkward, at first, because of course it is i mean this is the guy who was chasing you for half a year and was inadvertidely responsible to two of your closest friends deaths/near-deaths. but once they get past this awkwardness, the banter very much starts when they land. and zuko. zuko who never asked for someones opinion, looks to sokka for guidance and listens and encourages sokka. for me boiling rock is peak sokka for how well he plans. sokka is able to express himself and talk and give advice and when his plan fails, zuko is there to help him through it and see it with a different perspective, and they just... the trust, its there. its already there despite how much it shouldnt be. it just works so well and then sokka defends zuko to hakoda and finally hakoda tells him what he should of and... its up from there. they are just there for each other and its... wonderful. they are both absolutely miserable people but... they make each other happy. it happens so fastly too and its just absolutely wonderful.

What makes me happy about them: honestly, i just wrote what makes me happy about them and how much i love them in the above question.

What makes me sad about them: god. how complicated it will be in the actual universe and how they will have to spend most of their lives seperate from each other. ive mentioned before that im a romantic at heart and it hurts, because despite how realistic it will be to have them seperated for most of their early religion, i mean... zuko will have to stay in the firenation despite how much it isnt home for him anymore and sokka is able to move from the southern watertribe to the northern air temple and to the firenation... so id like to think that when izumi comes around, the soon travel together, as by the time izumi is around, things are getting settled and zuko doesnt need such a close eye on everything.

things done in fanfic that annoys me: listen... i dont have anything that really annoys me, except when they play into babified(?) versions of each other, (zuko beng too soft-boy and sokka... being to "daddy" if thats the correct word.) but what bothers me is the lack of sokka-comfort, all of them have trauma. sokka, too. i love zuko. hes... just my favourite/comfort character and someone who i relate to so much, hes just... ive never related to someone more than zuko, but zukka is a more mutual relationship than anything, and i wish we had more fics dealing with sokkas trauma too.

things I look for in fanfic:

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: okay, okay, okay, for zuko, i have many, i just think zuko and sokka both have extreme pretty boy privilege, and while zuko doesnt realize the effortless charm and how pretty he is, sokka most definitely does and uses it to his advantage. so... maiko, jinko, (platonic/relationship) zutara, jetko and sukka. listen. i love yue and sokkas relationship, but they had such a short time together that i could never really ship them. i think sokka mourns her and it is very valid for doing so but i always felt that he mourned his friend and what their relationship could of grown into. also i am a diehard yueki fan.

My happily ever after for them: that they grow hold together, and are able to see their children, (yes, i said children, as in izumi, varrick and senna with trans!zuko) grow and change the world and have their own families.

who is the big spoon/little spoon: dude. dude i dont know. i want them both to be held. i want both little spoon zukka and big spoon zukka. weighted blanket zukka. all zukka sleeping positions. i like to think that like me the both of them cannot stay still while they sleep, they wake up in each others arms but end up at the foot of the bed or something.

what is their favorite non-sexual activity: god... everything, picnics, roadtrips, reading together, stargazing, sharing letters... just as long as they are their together everything is their favourite activity as they spent most of their youth and twenties and possibliy early thirties separate from each other.

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zuko-always-lies · 3 years

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So, question, because I see people saying it often that Iroh has the right to feel animosity towards Azula because she made fun of/derided Lu Ten's death (or something like that), but does she actually do that in that scene? Or does she express disdain for Iroh's reaction, which considering the culture could easily be interpreted as Iroh being the one to make light of it? (Pretty sure there's at least one instance in _Romance of the Three Kingdoms_ where one character absolutely annihilates an opposing force because his brother/father/friend dies, if we want a real-world example of the mentality. Or, like, all of _The Hagakure_.)

Does Azula call Lu Ten a coward for dying? Or does she say that Iroh is for not "getting justice" or revenge for his son's death? For not finishing the task and abandoning the cause Lu Ten died for?

Because one of these means Iroh's dislike could be justified (nevermind the fact that he wasn't present for this conversation, so if he knew about it, he would have only heard about it from Zuko). But the other is an angry/disappointed/disgusted child calling an adult out.

Good question! I think I should start by talking about what Zuko and Azula actually say about Iroh.

"The Western Air Temple"(featuring 13 year old Zuko!):

Iroh: (Iroh looks on, concerned) Prince Zuko, it's only been a week since your banishment. (Cut to a far back view shot of the 2) You should take some time to heal and rest. Zuko: (turns around and raises his voice) What else would I expect to hear from the laziest man in the Fire Nation? (Cut to a close up of Iroh's slightly appalled face as he looks down and sighs) The only way (Cut back to a frontal shot of uncle and nephew) to regain my honor is to find the Avatar. So I will.

"The Headband":

Zuko: (standing at the bars) You brought this on yourself, you know. We could have returned together. You could have been a hero! (Iroh turns a shade further away from Zuko.) You have no right to judge me Uncle. I did what I had to do in Ba Sing Se, and you're a fool for not joining me. (Iroh is silent.) You're not gonna say anything? (Enraged, he kicks a stool and bends a blast of fire at the wall.) Argh! You're a crazy old man! You're crazy, and if you weren't in jail, you'd be sleeping in a gutter!

Zuko says some pretty negative things about Iroh, right to Iroh's face!

Now, what negative things does 14 year old Azula say about Iroh? Surprisingly little, even though she clearly doesn't like him. She implicitly calls him a traitor a couple times(during times when he is, in fact, a traitor by all reasonable definitions), but never really explicitly does so. Beyond that, there's very little. This is the only thing I can think of:

Azula: So...I hear you've been to visit your Uncle Fatso in the prison tower. Zuko: (standing, incensed) That guard told you.

Which is actually way less harsh than what Zuko says about Iroh! If anything, Azula's behavior in the present suggests that she only rarely criticized, much less mocked Iroh's behavior to his face when she was younger.

Now let's turn to the meat of your question, "Zuko Alone." There are two scenes in that episode where Azula criticizes Iroh. The first comes before Lu Ten's death:

Ursa: "And for Azula, a new friend. She wears the latest fashion for Earth Kingdom girls." (As Ursa speaks, Azula picks up a doll wearing Earth Kingdom green. The Princess makes a face of disgust.) Azula: If Uncle doesn't make it back from war, then dad would be next in line to be Fire Lord, wouldn't he? (In the background, Zuko runs around practicing with his new dagger.) Ursa: (disappointed) Azula, we don't speak that way. It would be awful if Uncle Iroh didn't return. And besides, Fire Lord Azulon is a picture of health. Zuko: How would you like it if cousin Lu Ten wanted dad to die? Azula: I still think our dad would make a much better Fire Lord than (looking at the doll with disdain) his royal tea loving kookiness. (She holds out the doll and makes its head burst into flame. The screen flashes white and the flashback ends.

There are several things which seem to be driving Azula's actions here. The first is a reaction to the massive favoritism Iroh just showed toward Zuko. The second is a belief, no doubt inspired by Ozai's poisonous statements about his brother, that Ozai, who Azula idolizes, would make a better Firelord than Iroh. Finally, Azula is a confused child who is asking inappropriate questions because she's too young to understand proper boundaries. Nothing she says here is actually that serious, and I would expect a responsible adult(i.e. not Ursa) to either shrug it off, or to carefully reason with Azula in order to explain why what she is saying is problematic.

Now we turn to the other main scene, the one right after Lu Ten's death, and the one you probably actually wanted me to talk about:

Azula: (getting up and walking over to him) By the way, Uncle's coming home. Zuko: Does that mean we won the war? Azula: No. It mean's Uncle's a quitter and a loser. Zuko: What are you talking about? Uncle's not a quitter. Azula: Oh yes, he is. He found out his son died and he just fell apart. (leaning against a nearby pillar) A real general would stay and burn Ba Sing Se to the ground, not lose the battle and come home crying. Zuko: (angry) How do you know what he should do? (looking down, sadly) He's probably just sad his only kid is gone... forever.

You might note that, again, Azula doesn't say anything negative about Lu Ten. You've already noted that Iroh is thousands of miles away at the moment, so having him be "justified" in his hatred of Azula by a conversation he didn't hear doesn't make sense.

Azula is also very angry in this scene, quite possibly the angriest we ever see her at any point. That does suggest that she's taking what's happened, either Lu Ten's death or the abandonment of the siege, very personally. I don't know enough to comment specifically on this, but you are right in that there might be cultural background which specifically proscribes the achievement of vengeance as being of particular importance, and Azula is thus outraged that Iroh failed to fulfill his duty to his son.

But that not at the core of Azula's critique here. What Azula is attacking Iroh for is that he responded to a personal loss by abandoning his duty in the heat of battle, and she is 100% right on this, not only by the standards of Fire Nation cultural but also by the standards of modern western culture. Fun fact: Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, and Robert E. Lee(screw the latter two, but that's another story) all suffered the loss of children they dearly loved in the middle of the American Civil War, yet none of them abandoned their duty. Archibald Roosevelt(another problematic figure) had two brothers die in WWII, yet he continued fighting on the front line. John W. Geary literally had his son die in his arms in the middle of battle, yet he continued commanding his unit well enough to prevail. Hell, we can even turn to Joseph Stalin here, to some extent.

Again, the core of what Azula says here is absolutely correct. Iroh is a "quitter" because he responded to Lu Ten's death by falling apart and abandoning the siege when it seemed on the brink of success, rather than continue the operation until victory. I don't think we need to go further than that to establish that Azula is entirely justified calling Iroh out here. And again, she doesn't criticize or mock Lu Ten at all, instead only attacking Iroh's reaction to Lu Ten's death.

#Azula #Iroh #Ultranos #ask #anti-iroh #Zuko #Zuko Alone #Ursa

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quarantineddreamer · 4 years

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@zutaraweek 2020 Day 1: Reunion

This is my first Zutara week since I am new to the ATLA fandom. For some reason I am very nervous to post this (I think because I spent my morning scrolling through the tag and OMG THE TALENT!!) but anyways, here it is!

Also posted on my AO3

Rating: G

Summary: “I’ll save you from the pirates” -Zuko Katara

Katara picked nervously at the corner of the scroll she bent over, eyes passing over the familiar handwriting for the hundredth time in the past hour alone. We’re boarding the ship shortly… meeting went really well, I think that any additional negotiations will… I’ve been counting down the days till I get to hold you in my arms again... by the time this messenger hawk reaches you it should only be two more nights spent apart... Love always, Zuko. The letter, detailing the success of the Fire Lord’s diplomatic visit to the city of Omashu where a few restless rebellions had arisen had reached Katara over a week ago.

The waterbender frowned as she reached for her tea -a soothing blend that Iroh had promised would help her sleep despite her worry. Still squinting at Zuko’s hurried penmanship, Katara’s fingertips found the steaming liquid instead of the sides of the porcelain teacup, and she cursed as she flinched, knocking the beverage all over her reading material.

“No, no, no!” she cried, waving her hands, pulling the water from the page rapidly so as to keep the ink from running. When at last she was certain she had managed to save the precious material, she collapsed into her chair with a heavy sigh. As she watched the shadows from the candle on her desk play across the walls of her office, she tried desperately to calm herself.

He’s probably just hit bad weather. An image of Zuko thrashing about in the merciless waves of a storm flashed in her mind. Nope! Nope! He’s, uh, just not caught the right wind. But of course, the Fire Nation vessel Zuko had boarded did not rely on a breeze and they couldn’t have run out of power, not with firebenders like Zuko to provide fuel. Not for the first time, she wished that her friends were not scattered across the globe -wished that, at minimum, Aang had been traveling with Zuko, both of them flying safely on Appa’s soft back. But Aang was with Sokka and Suki in the South Pole at the moment helping with restoration work, and Toph was in Ba Sing Se training a special force of Earth Benders to help take down the remnants of the Dai Li.

The last time Katara had felt anything close to this level of worry for Zuko, he had been lying on the ground motionless, remnants of his sister’s lightning dancing across his body. At least she had been with him then, to look after him. Now, she didn’t know where he was or what condition he was in, but she knew him, and she knew it was not nothing that would keep him from her -not with all they had fought through before...

Katara had never felt so alone, but it was Zuko who had asked that she remain behind. “It’ll only be a month!” She remembered his hand on her shoulder as he gave her a pleading look. “Please... While I am gone Uncle will need help keeping everything in check here. You’re the only person in the world I would trust.” When she had finally reluctantly agreed, the kiss he had given her had banished all sadness at the thought of his absence. What was a month apart when they had a lifetime to look forward to now that the war was over? But he was not here now to erase her fear and dispel the hard knot lodged in her stomach.

The month had gone by fast with plenty of ‘Fire Lady’ duties to take care of, but the days that had passed since his estimated date of arrival had dragged with agonizing slowness as though time itself were taunting her… Her fingers itched to drag the scroll towards her again, to scour its surface for clues. He wouldn’t just disappear, he would tell them if he was going to be late.

A soft knock on the door broke the typhoon of anxiousness tearing through her mind. “Yes?” she called.

Iroh’s face, normally so jovial, was grave as it peered into the room. “A soldier from Zuko’s guard just arrived at the palace.”

“Where is he?” She nearly choked on the question, sensing her worst fears were about to be confirmed.

“Their ship was ambushed by a group of pirates. Zuko has been taken hostage and is being held unless the Fire Nation delivers a significant sum to his captors.”

She barely heard the rest, the where, when, and how. All she knew was she was done waiting, fussing over words on paper as though that could bring him back. She should have trusted her instinct, the tightness in her chest, that had told her something was wrong. Should’ve gone with him to Omashu to begin with... She pushed her chair back and stood. “I’m going after him.”

“Katara, please, we have identified the particular ship that has him, we can send a fleet after him.” Iroh fiddled with the teacup and papers on her desk nervously.

“I can handle some lousy pirates. He’s been gone too long, Iroh! And we can’t have the Fire Nation knowing their ruler has been taken...” Already her heart was racing. She’d never admit it, but a dangerous, secretive, part of her missed this. The raw rush of adrenaline from imminent conflict was intoxicating, addictive. Diplomatic meetings had taken her all over the world, but paperwork and debate had nothing on this.

Iroh hung his head. “Peace is fragile. I am aware…” He hesitated, observing her expression intently before saying, “I suppose no one is better suited to chase down pirates, than the greatest Master Water Bender…”

“Hardly,” she quipped humbly, but he always knew how to make her smile. “I appreciate the compliment.” Already at the door she turned to ask, “May I borrow a small ship from the Fire Nation Fleet?”

“The girlfriend of the Fire Lord can have whatever she wishes.” His tone managed to be light, joking, but his eyes still held great sadness and concern.

Katara stepped towards the older man to give him a brief, strong hug, leaning back afterwards to fix him with an earnest gaze. “I promise I’ll bring him home.”

“Stay safe, brave, Katara. I will handle things here.”

“I know you will.”

Moments later she raced through the palace out into the humid night. She did not stop to catch her breath even as she stole past the guards onto the docks and untied the first boat she saw with sails -one she knew she could manage alone.

Yue watched over her and gave her strength as she furiously bent the ocean around her. Spirits help those damn pirates if they’ve so much as given him a papercut...

-----

Zuko groaned as he came to, vaguely aware of a swaying sensation as though he were about to fall, which he figured had something to do with the massive lump at the back of his head. Or maybe it was the movement of the ship he was on. He blinked, his mind slowly focusing and gaining awareness -and along with it an awful dose of pain. How long had he been out? A fog was beginning to lift inside him, but the lingering grogginess suggested he had potentially been drugged for quite some time.

His most recent memories were of chaos, arrows whistling through the air, latching onto the deck of their ship. He had tried to incinerate most of them, and had been successful, until something had struck him hard across the back and sent him instantly into the void.

Rope rubbed at his wrists and clutched at his chest as he struggled. He tried to bend, but found his movement to be too restricted and clumsy -disoriented as he was. A string of curses tumbled from his lips.

“Tsk, tsk. Not language very fitting of His Highness is it?” a voice called from the shadows of the ship’s hold.

Zuko recognized the voice… One of the advisors that had been traveling with him, Jian… Despite the remnants of drugs in his system it was beginning to become clear how their ship had just happened to fall victim to pirates and who had managed to catch Zuko from behind unexpectedly. “What do you want, Jian?” he asked sharply, glaring as the advisor drew closer.

“You are the last person our great nation should be led by,” he hissed.

Zuko’s lips curled in disgust at the man’s hot breath on his face, his nostrils flared as he exhaled smoke and frustration, pleased when Jian backed away, clearly fighting an undignified cough. “I trusted you. I thought you were helping us work to rebuild… The past year… and last week in Omashu. What changed?”

Jian laughed coldly. “This was always the plan. Your naivety will be the end of you young Fire Lord.”

“To hope for something better is not naive,” Zuko replied fiercely.

The former advisor scanned him for a moment then smirked, eyes shining with mania. “Look at where you are.” He lifted arms clad in elegant red silk to gesture at their dingy surroundings. “You will either die here, or in a cell in a Fire Nation prison unless a ransom is paid.”

Zuko snorted, a small flame escaping his nose. He wished, not for the first time in his life, that he had managed to master more fire breathing than that -something that would be useful in his current predicament- but that had always been more Azula’s specialty despite all of Uncle’s efforts. “Money? That’s what this is about?”

“That is only the beginning,” he whispered conspiratorially. Beady black eyes danced in lantern light as he regarded Zuko with intense hatred. “One day soon, the rightful Fire Lord will return to the Fire Nation throne and he will make you pay for your treasonous actions.”

Zuko rolled his eyes. Great, another Ozai loyalist. Just his luck that one had been insidious enough to work his way to this point. Maybe he was naive, though if Katara and the rest of his friends had taught him anything, it was that trying to find the good in others would never be a bad thing. He had everything to thank for their belief in that. Katara… He shut his eyes for a moment as a wave of longing washed over him. Arguably he had been in worse situations than this, but it had been years since he had faced them without her by his side. If only he had let her come along…but he had been so afraid to leave the Fire Nation unattended with all its troubles placed solely on his uncle’s shoulders.

A knock at the door interrupted Zuko’s thoughts of the Water Bender and the ache that he felt burying itself in his chest knowing she would be worried at his delay. He regretted the stress he would put her through. While Jian went to open the door Zuko tried to subtly tug at his bindings again. If he could just get enough motion in his fingers to firebend and weaken the rope… With Jian distracted he frantically tried to summon enough of the element, fighting the last of the drug’s haze...

“Yes?” Jian asked impatiently of the visitor to the hold, a short, skinny pirate with a large, floppy hat that Zuko could see extended beyond even the width of Jian’s frame that blocked the doorway.

Almost there… Zuko wiggled his wrists in small circles, wincing when a small jet of fire nearly set his pants aflame, missing the ropes entirely. Fortunately the hold’s wood was damp enough that the floor remained unlit. The firebender took a deep breath and tried again, thankful that Jian was still busy discussing something with the pirate at the door.

An image of Katara practicing her bending came to mind. He recalled the graceful, delicate, intention with which she waved every muscle in her hands. On his second attempt to burn the ropes he was careful to control his digits more precisely, and his efforts were rewarded when he felt a small heat pass along his palms and hit the rope.

The sounds of Jian bidding the pirate farewell and closing the door encouraged Zuko to rush his final pass at burning the ropes off. He fought back a hiss of pain as he felt flame pass over the delicate flesh on the inside of his lower arms. Seconds later when he gave the bonds one last tug and felt them fall away his injury was forgotten. He remained carefully still as Jian turned back to him, waiting for the perfect moment.

When the advisor strayed within arm’s reach Zuko suddenly lunged, seizing him by the shoulders and spinning the man, head-first, into the nearest wall. Jian collapsed with a soft, surprised exclamation and a solid thunk of skull colliding with wood, and Zuko, breathed a sigh of relief.

Wasting no time he rushed for the door, throwing himself through the opening and shooting glances down the short hallway. Luckily, it was clear. Quietly, he sealed Jian in the cell and padded softly towards a set of stairs illuminated with pale moonlight. He had no idea what awaited him on the deck. Whatever it was he would handle it then, though he had to shake Iroh’s admonishing tone from his head, ‘You never think these things through!’

When he emerged from the belly of the ship he was prepared for an immediate onslaught of pirate swords and other weaponry, but despite what he was sure were Jian’s desires, these were not Fire Nation soldiers. The crew was gathered around a makeshift table and their drunken cackles and bickering carried loudly above even the sea breeze and persistent slapping of water against the hull.

Zuko crouched behind a wooden crate and scanned the deck. There were more than a dozen pirates playing cards in the moonlight and who knew how many more aboard the ship. With the moon shining brightly in the sky Zuko knew Katara would have been a force to be reckoned with, but he could not say the same for his firebending, and he was disappointed in how weak he felt -from hunger, thirst, likely concussion, and not to mention residual effects of whatever Jian had been using to keep him unconscious.

He was contemplating the slim likelihood of stealing away unnoticed with one of the small boats tied to the side of the ship when the gull-rat squawked at him. At first, he ignored it -at any given moment any seaside town or boat was always under the assault of the persistent creature and its horrible fecal habits- but when it continued to tilt its head at him in curiosity he recalled the companions the pirates he had met several years ago kept…The gull-rat’s call was louder the second time and Zuko swore as its owner, walking away from the card table with a fistful of coins and a drunken grin, blinked at the sight of the prisoner wandering freely.

It was really not his day. Zuko sprinted for the boat he had been eyeing early, bending a blast of flame at the ropes that held it to the main ship and hoping he would not be far behind the vessel as it crashed loudly into the ocean below. The gambling crew were all armed now, and though a few teetered from the effects of what was decidedly not the calming tea Iroh was always drinking, many looked formidable opponents. A circle was already closing around Zuko who searched desperately for an opening.

The Fire Lord managed to dodge two pirates who swung rusty blades at him and pushed back three more with a ball of flame. Seeing an opening in the ranks, he dashed wildly for the side of the ship, glancing back only once when an arrow whizzed past his shoulder.

Once was one time too many. He crashed right into the short, skinny pirate that had stopped by his cell to speak with Jian and they collapsed to the deck in a painful twist of limbs. Before Zuko could roll away the short pirate had pinned him and grabbed both his wrists.

-----

“I’ll save you from the pirates,” she whispered, grinning as the confusion on his handsome face turned to joy when she removed the ridiculous hat she wore so he could see her. His smile was everything, she hadn’t realized just how much she had missed it -instantly warming her from the inside out.

“Katara!” He sat up and pulled her into a tight embrace, kissing the top of her head and breathing in the smell of her hair.

She was disappointed when he broke away to stand. It was understandable though. The pirates were racing towards them -even the gull-rat was giving chase.

“I knocked a boat into the water, if we can just swim to it…” Zuko eyed the railings of the ship unhappily, no doubt imagining the long drop.

“And then what?” Katara asked, drawing water from the ocean and forming two whips over both her arms.

“We, uh, we go?” Zuko offered.

She fought back a bubble of laughter. “You really don’t think things through. Zuko, they can just chase us! They’d catch us in no time in this larger ship. Was that really your plan?”

He fumbled for words, cheeks flushing furiously with embarrassment.

Katara lashed out at the first wave of pirates, tripping them with one long tendril of water. “Zuko, you’re a firebender, set the ship on fire!” She looked away as a stray pirate broke rank to try and shoot them with his bow. A jet of water aimed sharply by Katara eliminated that immediate problem. “You are the Fire Lord, how did you not think of this?” This time the laughter escaped her, his befuddled expression too cute to take.

“I, uh.. Okay, I’m pretty sure I have a concussion... and potentially still some drugs in my system?” he admitted, punching the air with his fists, sending fire at the pirates and the sails of the ship. Soon the entire deck was dancing with the dangerous orange glow.

“That’s our cue!” Katara declared, and grabbed his hand. “Ready?” She stepped up onto the railing of the ship and he followed.

They balanced precariously for a moment, her hair spinning wildly in the wind, before jumping into the air, stomachs dropping for a brief exhilarating second before Katara froze a wave to slide them towards the empty boat bobbing in the waves. A miscalculation on her part landed them in frigid ocean water that stole both their breaths away.

Katara was first to pull herself into the boat, flopping wetly into the wooden hull. She giggled at the sight of Zuko, hair spiked every which way by the ocean, arms flung desperately over the side of the boat kicking furiously to pull himself into the raft. Taking mercy on a Fire Bender out of his element, she helped him aboard. Together they looked back at the burning pirate ship, observing the frantic shadows of the crew moving about with buckets of water. Still, Katara did not wait long to begin moving their vessel to the small cove nearby where she had anchored her Fire Nation ship.

Only when they were confident that no one had pursued them to the sandy shores and were safely sailing towards home aboard her borrowed ship did they rest, allowing the wind to do the work for them. They collapsed, laying on the deck, staring skyward at a ceiling of stars, and Zuko gently pulled Katara against him. She reveled in the familiar beat of his heart beneath her as she settled her head on his chest.

She felt him shake as he laughed quietly. “I still can’t believe I didn’t think, to... Burn the ship?”

Katara reached for a small bit of water and it glowed as she reached a hand back to touch the side of his head. “Better?” she asked after a moment.

“Yeah, much. Thank you…” he sighed and leaned his scarred face into her healing palm. “I can’t say this was the reunion I was imagining.”

“I don’t know…” She looked up at him, the beginnings of a soft smile tugging at her lips. “We’re even now,” she teased, bumping him playfully. “And it was kind of fun... Reminds me of how far we’ve come.” How different things were since the last time they had encountered pirates -and not just his hair, though thank the spirits for that.

“Just another day in the life of the Fire Lord I guess,” Zuko replied wistfully, a hand playing with the end of one of her curls.

“I mean, I’m not saying you should do it again… ”

“Not without you... “Never without you,” he promised -and to Katara’s delight, sealed the oath by placing his lips against hers.

#zutara #zutara week 2020 #zuko #katara #reunion #zuko x katara #zutara fanfic #zutara week #zutara fanfiction #ao3 fic #b writes #zukos-calming-tea

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zukkatrash · 4 years

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atla pirate au

(soley based on me misreading a diff post and now wanting to see mai in a keira knightly getup) (also everything i know abt pirates is based on the pirates of the caribbean, treasure planet and black sails and hasty 2 am googling) (also also big fucking shoutout to @s-suki for helping me with this)

the gaang's ship - aka The Avatar

yue is captain!!! (@s-suki ur brain is huge and i luv u) so from what i know being a captain is a looot abt politics and u know our girl yue is good at that, not to mention how much her crew loves her bc she gives everything for them

sokka is navigator, one look at the stars and he knows where they are instantly, he charts a course in record time, captains have in fact fought over him but he is nothing but loyal to his captain!!!

aang spends at least half his time in the sails, as lookout and keeping knots secure(? idk shit abt sailing haha) he’s also the fastest one they got, no matter if he’s running, swimming or paddling a small boat

suki is the best fighter they have bc of course she is (also theres no misogyny in this bc i said so) grown men shit themselves when they see her / also shes boatswain (the boatswain was in charge of a ship's anchors, cordage, colors, deck crew and the ship's boats, and would also be in charge of the rigging while the ship was in dock)

toph! makes! bombs! also if u give her a gun that u found thats been underwater for three months and u give her like 2 hours, not only is it completely functional afterwards but it somehow works better than before?

katara is quartermaster and shes def like 30% of how yue keeps her crew in line

haru is ship cook (i know this has zero connection to canon but have you considered boi soft and warm like bread)

teo is the ships carpenter (highest ranking if they got more than one)

jet is a fighter obvs, also him and sokka do NOT get along but yue has this real icy stare that makes them both shut up immediately

smellerbee is dating toph and yue is not opposed to their relationship but does make sure theyre not around eachother too much when explosives are also near bc those 2 def get up to some wild shit

longshot is obvs the best shot they have and is the other lookout

appa is a parrot and he spends all of his time being adorable

momo is still a lemur and just steals so much shit

on to the firenation

ozai rules over a whole ass port/island or smth idk but like all the pirates have to deal with his fucking bullshit

zhao is his 2nd in command and yue at some point guts him 😊

azula is of course captain of her ship and she rules with an iron fist

mai is first mate (making any possible future betrayals that much worse)

ty lee is ship medic and just constantly gets underestimated in fights and wins like right away

zukos life motto on azulas ship is 'i hate it here' bc his job is basically everything nobody else wants to do (until! he is no longer on the ship. does he get pushed off the ship to drown? does he leave in the night with all the valuables he can carry and a map of a great prize? idk, YOU DECIDE)

more thoughts on zuko:

i dont think he’d join the gaang right away after he’s no longer with the fire nation but would first like half-die on some island (even if he didn’t get kicked off, i just imagine he’d do smth drastic like think he can sail a ship without getting lost just bc he’s spent a lot of time on a ship but like, honey no, navigation isnt as easy as it looks) bc zuko alone u kno

iroh is still his uncle in this, but zuko doesnt know that, so he thinks he’s just this weird hermit guy that finds him and takes him in

zuko is like "what does he want? what his secret agenda? how will this guy use this against me?" and iroh is just like "boy! eat something but also are u like okay? u want some cryptic advice thats consisting of 60 ocean metaphors?"

iroh does tell him hes his uncle tho and that he left when zuko was really young and he wasnt the only one who ran from that house that day...

URSA IS ALIVE!

she had been banished by ozai and threatened with zukos murder if she had stayed, ozai wouldve killed her but he knew he couldnt take her in a straight fight and if she had been the type you could assassinate they wouldntve ever gotten together anyway

now shes vibing with iroh and lu ten, because yes lu ten is alive (listen if there is any feasable way of my boi to be alive he is!!!)

also they’re def supporting everyone who opposes ozai as asafely as they can on whatever weird remote island theyre at

once zuko joins the crew of the avatar, sokka laughs like straight five minutes abt zuko thinking he could navigate his stolen boat after not even learning how to properly read a map, not to mention everything else that goes into navigating and zuko is like "fuck u" and sokka is like "lets show u how to read a map so this doesnt happen again" still with tears of laughter in his eyes, and maybe later when hes been on the crew for longer and maybe saved sokkas life in a fight, sokka teaches him abt the stars too and cue zuko pining after the way too beautiful guy trying to explain constellations but zuko just keeps getting lost in his eyes and being hyper aware of how close sokkas arm is when he points out specific stars

the reason zuko joins them in the first place is bc the avatar is the only crew that could protect him against azula and ozai and they’re the only ones willing/able to go up against the fire nation

also katara is the first to see zuko after he parted with the fn and she like immediately has a sword to his throat and boi just fucking faints

maybe jee is also a captain in this bc i really like it when the wani shows up in fanfics and maybe they’re not on good terms with ozai but they’re flying under the radar bc its just a small ship and they do bring in their percentage so maybe zuko joins his crew before he goes to find the gaang?

now some general thoughts:

the dai lee is the chinese navy out to get them all

miyuki is one of their highest ranking officers and gives the pirates a run for their money, but weirdly never goes to chase the Avatar

hakoda is also a captain but he’s working under ozai to take the operation down from the inside (also yes of course his husband bato is also there with him ^^)

kue is absolutely some weird hermit guy

once again big thanks to @s-suki for helping me with this check out their blog theyre great! (theyre on break rn tho but dont let that deter u!!)

if anyone wants to add to this PLEASE do!!! also if anyone draws or writes smth for this please please please tag me bc i would love to see it!! (also i will love u forever ♡)

#atla #avatar the last airbender #avatar #atla pirate au #pirate captain yue #like kellin u were GALAXY BRAINING yesterday!!!#i think if anyone draws her with a pirate hat and one of those flowy shirts ill drop dead on the spot #also i refused to go to sleep 3 times to write this haha #this idea had me up till like 4 am haha

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is-that-another-soulmate-au · 4 years

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Me? Combine two soulmate AUs and add in an animal hybrid AU????

Of courze, buckle up buddies this is gonna be a bit if a bumpy ride

Dream soulmate/soulpairs AU/Soulmate Ribbons AU/Animal Hybrid AU

Dream: Basically like last time you cant control when you visit, you cant see them, you cant say your name or where you're from. But this time its a legit group dream. In the dream your soulmate(s) will have a ribbon around them apposed to the simply blurred soulpair(s)

Ribbon/animal hybrid: with the ribbon au it ties in with the animal for the most part. You're born with a ribbon tied around your animal feature, whether it be at the base of a fluffy wolf tail, the end of a cat/lemur tail, at the base of cat ears/bunny ears, on any type of horns. Regardless of where it happens to be tied, it cannot be removed, it can be burnt or singed but it cant be cut or removed. The color of your soulmates nation appears after you meet your them, and you can then see the color of yours around them during dreams

So basically Zuko's 12th birthday he goes to sleep and in his dream there are three people with one surrounded by a pale white ribbon.

"H-hello?" He called out.

"Hi!" A cheery voice called out

"Im assuming you're all.. not my soulmate, because I'm 8" a slightly annoyed young girl called

"Your a soulfriend for me!" A chipper Boys voice broke through, the voice of the bright figure

"Uhm, I know I can't know your names, but I'd like to be able to distinguish between all of you... uhm,"

"Call me Bandit" the younger girl called out

"You can call me Oshi"

"And uhm..."

"I'll call you turtleduck" zuko interrupted him

"What? Why that?"

"Uh, well, I have a turtleduck pond by my home and I like it there, and uh, your my soulmate so..."

"Oh! Uhmm... what should I call you?" The boy paused a moment

"Sunshine? Maybe?"

"Yeah! Sunshine!"

"Alright, so, Bandit, Oshi, Turtleduck, and Sunshine?" Oshi piped in

"Yeah," bandit hummed "by the way, whats a turtle duck?"

"Ill show you one whe-"

"Im blind"

"What? Oh, im sorry, I didnt know. Well, if we ever meet I'll let you hold one. I'm sure it'll get the idea across."

"Youre blind?! That sounds so cool! I bet your other senses are heightened" Oshi chirped at the thought

"Yeah, and so is my bending! I can see with me bending, but im not too good at it yet"

"You're a bender? I dont know if we can find out what kind" Turtleduck mused

"Let me try... im an earthbender!"

"Woah! Cool! So you use earthbending to see?" Zuko questioned

The rest of the dream was fairly blurry to him. He ran to his mom to talk about his dream, going on about Oshi, Bandit and Turt; he shortened turtleduck because well, he wanted to.

They dont meet up until later that year, after his mother had left him he was found crying

"Sunny?" He heard Bandit call out

"Huh!? Oh hey guys, sorry, im fine" he sighed "I- I lost my mom just last week"

They all comforted him and then pulled the conversation to different topics, Turt talking about going hunting with his dad and getting hit wolf tail caught on a fishing line. Bandit talked about her earthbending and how she learned how to use her badger tail to bend as well. Oshi all the while hovered as close as the dream would let her, it felt similar to a motherly protection and he appreciated it greatly.

The next time they saw eachother was about two nights after his banishment he was found pouting but quickly came out it the pout when he heard Turt calling out

"SUNNY! Sunny! Hi! Oh Tui! Hi Bandit! Hi Oshi!"

"Hey Turt!" The girls called out "Sunny, whats got you down?"

He sighed "i left the firenation today"

"Woah woah, hold on, why did you leave- oh were you from there? Why would you leave?" Oshi pried.

"Uhm, I was banished for losing an agni kai against my dad"

"An Agn- thats a firebending duel! Your still just 13!" Turt cried out

"Yeah, well, my dad doesnt care about that, he made sure I'd remember that by burning me, now i have to find the avatar before I can return home"

Their conversation lasted for what felt like several blurry hours. When he woke it was to Iroh walking in with some tea. Zuko shot up and managed to get his blanket caught in his horns "AAAGH!" He growled out "help... please" iroh simply chuckled and untangled the blankets from Zuko's horns

"How was your sleep nephew?" Iroh asked as he started to pour them some tea, handing Zuko his cup.

"I talked to Oshi, Bandit and Turt again" he mumbled while bringing the cup to his lips and blowing some of the steam away.

"Thats good, were you able to discuss your banishment? I'm not sure if the dreams will let you, my soulmate and I have never met nor have we ever left our nations"

"Yeah, I was able to tell them everything, well the banishment and" he motioned to his now healing eye wound.

They had met a few more times over the next three years, Oshi revealing that she has a lion tail that is most certainly not as clumsy as Turt's consistently caught wolf tail.

About a week after Zuko arrived at the southpole and managed to lose the avatar there was another dream

"Sunny!" Turt sounded angry

"Uh, y-yeah?"

"You visited my tribe today" the ribbon around Turt was red

"Oh, uh yeah, I'm sorry. Did I hurt someone, I wasn't trying to, I just needed to grab the avatar"

"YOU DONT NEED THE AVATAR SUNNY!" Turt was fuming "youre chasing the avatar for what? The love of an abusive father?"

"Hes no-

"He is Sunny! I dont know the full extent of it. But if he broke your horn, burnt you, and then BANISHED YOU all for speaking out of turn, then that spells abusive!! That level of abuse and your level of wanting to be back says clearly that you were neglected and abused, what the FUCK Sunny!"

Zuko was frozen but it wasnt silent

"We've been trying to tell you this Sunny, your dad is terrible and you deserve actual love, your uncle is a much better dad than him, and you know it" Oshi piped up

"Yeah, I know but-"

"And! If I ever get my hands on him, it'll be his last day alive. Mark. My. Words" Bandit cracked her knuckles

The dream went on for a while longer with the trio eventually convincing Zuko he shouldn't search for his fathers love by capturing the avater. Turt managed to convince him to join forces with the avatar the next time he saw them. The next time he met up with the avatar was on Kyoshi Island, where he entered the town without his armor or helmet, and instead wearing casual garmets.

"What are you doing here Zuko?" Katara growled at him with the hairs on her tail standing on end. Aang was behind her with his lemur tail flicking angrily.

"Well, im not here to capture you if that's what you think. I came to join you"

"Why would we ever believe that?" Aang's voice was nearly as angry as Katara's

Sokka was beside Katara in a similar stance but had yet to respond

"Well, I honestly don't expect you to believe me, unless any of you happen to be Turt, Oshi or Bandit." He paused "look I was burnt and banished at 13 by my own father just for speaking up in a war meeting about how cruel it was to sacrifice new recruites for a bigger win, and my father sent me out to find the avatar." He sighed "i would have continued but Turt and Oshi managed to help me understand where I was wrong in thinking and made me see just how abusive my dad is"

"Sunny?" Sokka finally spoke but was matched with one of the Kyoshi warriors

"Huh? I mean, yeah they call me that, wait are you Turt?" He then turned to the warrior and saw the lion tail "Oshi!?" He stepped back in a moment of surprise.

"Oh my gods Sunny what the hell!" The wolf and lion laughed

"Wait, Zuko is the Sunny you've been talking about!?" Katara and Aang said in unison.

From there out Zuko was a part of the team. Suki having to stay behind for the time being. The group traveled via Appa or by boat. Katara, Sokka and Iroh having lengthy in depth conversations about waterbending and pai sho. He may or may not have been making an attempt to recruit them both slowly but surely.

When they met Toph she put two and two together so fast. "You're Sunny and Turt!" She exclaimed before they duo could introduce eachother

"Wait! Bandit!" Thay said in unison

"The one and only Blind Bandit!" She said proudly.

After meeting with her Zuko became acquainted with a chaotic good type younger sister as apposed to his own chaotic evil. Toph would often launch herself into his shoulders, grab his horns and say "onward noble dragon steed!!" Which he didnt mind so he never complained much.

Let's fast forward to the desert. While Sokka Aang and Katara went into the library to explore, Zuko and Iroh stayed behind with toph to protect Appa, when the Sand benders arrived while the Library was sinking the two firebenders fought off the sandbenders until the trio emerged and they ran off. Zuko, however had fought practically tooth and nail to keep appa there, dodging sand and blasting fire to distract the benders when they tried to use the sand beneath his feet against him. He collapsed from the exhaustion of not only fighting with a dozen benders in their element, but also the heat of the sun. Iroh on the other hand asked Katara for a bit of water to make sure he didnt collapse as well.

"Zuko!" Aang cried out when he watched Zuko collapse in the sand. They all got back on Appa and made their way out of the dessert.

Not long after they stopped at a small body of water to rest and wash up Appa so he wouldn't be shedding and attracting anyone Zuko taking a hot minute to get his strength back. They were approached by a couple who happened to have a baby on the way and Zuko nudged Aang "we should take them with us, yknow, spread some joy"

So they flew the couple with them to Ba Sing Se with them. They managed to get in to tell the earth king their invasion plan, as well as taking down the dai li with the proof of the drill right outside the wall. Without having the advantage of the Kyoshi disguises Azula didnt manage to gain the upperhand against Ba Sing Se, and in turn she had no idea about the invasion plan. Aang had his crisis at Ember island before the invasion and met the lion turtle just before they had to leave.

When the invasion began Zuko and Aang both went off to the city, Zuko in his blue spirit get up with his swords on his back literally being dangled in the air by Aangs weirdly strong ass tail. When the landed on the roof, it was still a bit until the fire kicked off. So they were dodging fire balls while running towards the palace, however right before they went into the throne room Azula appeared. She went to shoot fire but was shocked to see no fire come out. Aang smirked and bended the earth around her to keep her in place.

They went in to Ozai, Zuko drawing his swords and Aang readying himself to fight a powerful bender who possibly had skills other than bending. But they were met with a practically powerless man who didn't take long to defeat, taking his life wasn't the option, however, Aang knew that, and so he took his bending away, to the absolute awe of Zuko who watched the blinding light for a moment before shielding his eyes.

After the success of the invasion Iroh took the throne when Zuko told him he was simply not ready. However Iroh made a deal with him, he would be firelord for all of 5 years, set the ground work for Zuko and let his nephew take up some studying in the other nations as well as his own to figure out how he would rule after the 5 years were up.

And he did, he gathered as much information from the other nations, all with Sokka joining with him. He spend a year at the south pole, helping rebuild the place, he spend a year at the northpole studying the scrolls available, he spent a year going to each large earth kingdom city, and then he spent his fourth year in the firenation reading every scroll he could. One night while in his room reading through a pile of scrolls he leaned onto Sokka's shoulder for support, but Sokka took the scroll out of his hands "alright enough reading for you tonight, come on little dragon its bedtime"

Sokka's tail was absentmindedly wagging side to side as he helped his soulmate undress and get into more comfortable clothes, of course getting the cloth stuck on those pesky horns a couple times. But soon they were both laying in bed with Zuko resting his cheek against Sokka's chest while Sokka ran his fingers through his hair.

They could stay like this forever. And wouldn't you know it, after Zuko took the throne he proposed to Sokka and the two were soon married, the Wolf and the Dragon.

At the wedding Toph and Suki were the first to show up, bringing gifts, Suki gave them a pair of gold fans, one with a turtleduck on it and the other with a sun on it. Toph on the otherhand had brought a dagger with a dragon carved on the blade and a wolfs head on the handle.

>another marraige wrap up? Of course, its me what else would I do?

#RayMakesSoulmates #i will die on my endless soulmate au hill #soulmate alternate universe #soulmates #ambassador sokka #atla sokka #sokka x zuko #sokka #atla zuko #prince zuko #zuko #zukka #fire lord zuko #suki #atla toph #toph beifong #canon who?#lets throw the whole canon away shall we?#canon divergence

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