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#this is forever and always an ozai hate page
hella1975 · 2 years
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one shot where zuko knows how to play a fire nation instrument and the swt wants to hear him play and he plays a song his mother taught him
i love this idea! this takes place in between ch14 and ch15, aka Just Before Everything Went To Shit :)
final word count: 1.5k words
“I have something but first I need an emotional declaration from you.” Tomkin said suddenly, and Zuko peered over his shoulder with a frown to see the other boy approaching him, grinning evilly, Nanook at his side looking just as incriminating.
“An emotional declaration of what?” Zuko asked, suspicious. Nothing good ever came of Tomkin and Nanook scheming like this. He'd only gone outside for a breath of fresh air. They’d left Weihai yesterday, sailing towards Gaoling where Hakoda planned for them to make camp properly for a while. Zuko couldn’t help how much he was looking forward to it. All the ice and sailing made him claustrophobic and for once he just wanted to feel real, normal land beneath his feet. The thought of it had grated at him as he tried to sleep that night, and suddenly, the infirmary felt far too small, the air far too sharp. He knew a few of the warriors were sat outside on deck, chatting into the night and laughing loudly every now and then, but strangely, that wasn’t something that dissuaded Zuko anymore. He felt safe around them, and when something felt wrong, he almost felt... drawn to them.
So he’d sat silently with them up on deck, pretending to listen to whatever ridiculous story Chena was telling, and no one commented on it, and Zuko could just breathe.
Until Tomkin and Nanook showed up, that is.
“You have to say that I’m your best friend over Nanook, otherwise I can’t give it you.” Tomkin said seriously, and Nanook shoved his shoulder.
“Hey,” he hissed, “that’s not what we agreed.”
“No? What did we agree?”
“What is this even about?” Zuko asked, exasperated, but there was a hint of fondness there, and he didn’t hate himself for it. He'd been with the Water Tribe for over three weeks now, and they’d all been through so much together. Zuko had grown, and hurt, and healed, and he... he thought he might be happy here. He thought that maybe he could stay, even if it was only a childish daydream.
Tomkin grinned then, before pulling something large and wooden from behind his back with an excited ‘ta-da!’.
Tulok cocked his head curiously. “Is that a tautirut?”
“That’s what I thought when I first saw it,” Nanook said, looking at the object with a smile, “but the salesman said it’s a pipa. It's Fire Nation!”
Zuko didn’t miss Chena’s mumbled ‘why the fuck-’ cut off by Aput’s elbow in his gut, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the object in Tomkin’s hand. It was an instrument, about the size of an arm, a deep wooden brown and with strings over an oval middle, and it was so achingly familiar that Zuko felt his heart sink.
It was a Fire Nation instrument on a Water Tribe ship, and that should have been enough to make Zuko feel this way. Nanook probably bought it in Weihai yesterday, maybe while Zuko was suffering through that horrifically awkward conversation with Chena. For such an instrument to even be sold in the Earth Kingdom... Zuko wished it was uncommon, but he’d seen it a lot while on the Erlong. Fire Nation ships would sink, and belongings would wash up on foreign shores, memories of crewmen who once held music nights. The pipa in Nanook’s hand had been cleaned and refurbished; someone had loved it, even after pulling it from a wreckage. It should have been enough. It should have been the only reason Zuko felt this way.
But his heart was tugging in his chest, and there was more to this than a reminder of the bloody war they sailed through.
Zuko remembered his mother, years and years ago. She had loved music, teaching Zuko easy beats on djembe drums and humming lullabies when he woke to nightmares. This memory was sunkissed, a large room of smooth stone and floor to ceiling windows that drenched every inch of the place with golden light. The room used to be used for parties, dances, but it had hardly been touched since the war started. And one day, Zuko couldn’t have been older than five or six, and Azula was a toddler who still held his hand when she walked, Mother took them to the room of sunshine.
“Come on, Zuko.” Mother had smiled at him softly, and she looked so carefree, a little out of place with the fogginess of the memory. She walked them to a corner of the room where the floor rose into a platform, instruments sat discarded and so fascinating to young fingers. Azula had giggled, reaching for a pipa that Mother quickly plucked out of her grip before she could start pulling the strings apart.
“Can you play it?” Zuko asked, looking at his mother with wide eyes. She was looking at the instrument in her hands fondly, deep in thought. She did this from time to time. This was something Zuko remembered clearly. Mother disappeared sometimes, deep into her mind, into her memories, thinking of moments of her past before it was all snatched from her.
“Hmm, well,” she said, flashing a mischievous grin as she swept aside her long robes in order to sit on the platform step, “let’s see shall we.”
And then she began to play, a fast tune, fingers moving quickly and creating a beautiful melody, and Azula clapped happily as the music filled the room. It made Zuko want to tap his foot along to it, to smile, to move, but that wasn’t proper, and Father had yelled at him only a few days ago for fidgeting too much at dinner.
Mother gave Zuko a reassuring smile, understanding, before turning to one of the servants that were never far. She said something quietly to them, something Zuko couldn’t remember, and the memory faded out of focus here, before sharpening when the music started again, this time his mother stood with him. She picked Azula up, cradling her against her, and Azula smiled happily, small hands framing Mother’s face. Azula used to love being held like that.
“Prince Zuko,” Mother turned to Zuko, grinning as she moved Azula’s weight to be able to hold out a hand to Zuko, “will you dance with me?”
It felt stupid and immature and Zuko said so much, but the music was so lively and Mother looked so happy, and Azula began to laugh when Mother swayed her, and Zuko couldn’t remember taking Mother’s hand, but the next thing he remembered was spinning with her around the room, a grin on his lips and something light in his chest.
Zuko had forgotten that, until now.
“Can you play it?” Tomkin asked eagerly, and Zuko shuffled awkwardly. His mother had taught him a few basic tunes, but Father said Zuko was too disappointing at firebending to be wasting his free time on such frivolous pursuits. Zuko had always loved the instrument though, even after Mother left.
“No.” Zuko said apologetically, because he wasn’t about to find out if he remembered how to play in front of everyone.
“Liar.” Kanut said breezily, not even looking up from the book he was reading when Zuko glared at him. It was dark out; how was Kanut even reading anyway?
“Tui and La, you can play!” Tomkin beamed when he saw the way Zuko was gradually flushing.
“Play something for us!” Nanook joined in.
“Just one song.” Hakoda goaded with a knowing look.
“Come on, brat.” Even Chena was grinning evilly now, and Zuko mentally cursed them all, which wasn’t at all effective, because the next thing he knew, a chant of ‘Zuko! Zuko! Zuko!’ filled the deck as everyone else joined in on causing him misery.
“Alright!” Zuko snapped after a few seconds. “Fine. One song, and then you have to leave me alone for the rest of the night.”
“No deal. Here.” Tomkin said, handing the pipa to Zuko, and Zuko glared murderously at the other boy before sighing, taking the instrument. He was such an Agni-damned pushover.
It was a familiar weight in his hands, despite all these years, and the pads of his fingers remembered the firmness of the strings, the tune each was supposed to make. Zuko forced himself to ignore the way everyone was staring at him, instead focussing on what he could remember. There was one song he’d always liked, one he had once been able to play from muscle memory alone. He wondered...
His fingers began to move and the silence was broken by the soothing sound of a lullaby. It was slow, soft, and it melted against the sound of waves caressing the ship, stars twinkling down above them as if they were leaning in to listen. Zuko chanced a look up, blushing as he continued to play, and saw Tomkin and Nanook looking at him with soft expressions, eyes warm. The song was one for children, to calm them, and between each pluck of a string, it sung of family, of belonging, of love. Zuko had never truly understood how that was supposed to work; how could a simple song convey something like that?
But that night beneath the stars, listening to a soft melody as they drifted through the ocean, Zuko understood.
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tysukis · 3 years
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Hi, first(?) AU anon here. I will absolutely dive down this rabbit hole with you. I went a little overboard (sorry?). I absolutely agree with you on your Zuko take. I think we all kind of land there naturally. But I also think that Zuko would latch onto stability the moment he realized he had it. So this is kind of how I see it going down:
I think the band Sokka is part of would be solid. Just a local hit, right? But Sokka is the plans guy, and the aspirations guy, and they can do *so much better*. I 100% do not know how real life musicians work so add a pinch of salt here, but he would absolutely land them a gig as openers to a mediocre niche headliner just by sheer power of phone calls and charm. (He scripted it as much as possible, we all remember how that canon speech went when he winged it, but he knows how to put words together when he has time).
And yeah I love the idea of Zuko being an academic. I'm assuming Ozai is out of the picture for this, and the boy gets to pursue his passions instead of an expectation. Unfortunately, you mix in passion and the general anxiety of a kid who lived under intense scrutiny and you get an adult who gets tunnel vision during spring finals/prep for a conference/etc. So he doesn't quite rise to the occasion when his boyfriend drops this life changing news, he's proud but distracted, and he's already so bad at words in comparison to Sokka that it's just. Lackluster. And he probably meant to meet them at the bar/house party to celebrate after he got home but he's sleep deprived and his phone is dead because he's a disaster sometimes.
So now you've got Sokka stewing on immediate events, and being a little heartbroken because he went all out every time Zuko accomplished *anything*, even if it wasn't super impressive to Zuko himself. And maybe there's a bit of Zuko assuming Sokka doesn't need that reciprocated. He just doesn't vocalize his important needs, so Zuko assumes they're being met, you know? I like the drama of a blown up confrontation but also the idea that Sokka just confronts him sounding hurt and so damn tired of being the emotional one for that long.
But on the other side you have Zuko with his internalized plan that this is his forever person, and he does go to almost every performance even if they don't play his preferred music. And he assumes Sokka is satisfied with this. Maybe because Zuko can't imagine being happier than near his family - the good ones anyway - or because he genuinely thinks Sokka and the band are happy with being local celebrities and leaving it at that. So he plans for permanence. Because he is still a disaster, Zuko probably never vocalized this beyond doing window shopping for apartments or something. Vague jokes about a wedding that Sokka laughs at/agrees with and Zuko interprets as, "Yes I am also thinking about being here with you forever." He's not the wordsmith, he's the pragmatist and love means house shopping and snuggling over takeout and planning trips to visit their distant family together, right? Sokka's confrontation blindsided him, because he thought they were on the same page, and Sokka didn't have to leave to keep playing music, why is that even a thing??
They're both justified in being jaded because they're dumb as hell (affectionate). This isn't an AU for two grown ass men who have put in therapy time, they're both young and full of their own understanding with poor communication skills.
musician au anon!!! hello welcome back thank you so much for this incredible ask, let’s GO
(I’m gonna pop this one under a read more because otherwise this post will be eight miles long lmao)
Honestly I’m wracking my brain with what I can possibly add to this because you’ve got like. A fully fledged outline here my dude and it’s a good one. Do you write? Because you should, if you don’t. I still love the alternative take of Sokka being the one to leave and honestly this pretty much cements how much potential it has. I absolutely adore how you’ve thought about just how the communication would break down between them - and you’re completely bang on the money with it as well. Zuko is fully a hot disaster and would completely just assume Sokka’s needs are being met if he isn’t vocalising them, and we know Sokka, he’s a complainer but when it really comes down to those he loves - he’s known for being pretty selfless and for putting up brave faces. I can totally see Sokka perhaps almost feeling a bit self conscious about how hurt he is by Zuko’s lack of enthusiasm. Because Zuko loves him, right? And it’s just one show, right? So maybe he’s just overreacting, right? Or maybe he’s actually not even that good. Oh no, maybe Zuko hates his music and is just waiting for the right time to break it to him gently. Oh no, oh no, oh no. I think I might have already said it at some point tonight but Sokka would absolutely spiral until he convinces himself that him leaving would be nothing more than simply just leaving before he gets left. And like you said: Zuko  is out here planning a whole future assuming that they’re on the same page, meanwhile he has no idea.
I totally buy Sokka winging his way into a supporting act spot using his charm and charisma, and yeah his speech in canon didn’t go too well but this could likely be over the phone to only one person which would probably make it easier. I was thinking about how Sokka performing would work in conjuncture with his canon almost stage fright/fear of public speaking - and I’m leaning towards the hc that he embodies a sort of persona in front of large crowds and he’s able to let that take over and act casually and confidently no matter the audience.  (source: I am someone who studied acting and excelled in public speaking most of her life despite having a chronic anxiety disorder - playing parts and speaking on stage didn’t feel like ‘me’ because I was always channeling a character either fictional or an alternative version of myself. It works, folks.)
Are we thinking he broke away from the band and went on to succeed in a solo career? As in, he felt being local heroes was a limited pathway? Or did they all go together? Who else would be in it I wonder.
I LOVE your interpretation of Zuko and how the factors under which he was raised would shape him, especially in a modern setting. He would absolutely go into tunnel vision and that perfectionist mindset he was essentially forced into as a kid would probably be alive and well into adulthood. (And yeah, these aren’t men who have been to therapy - yet! - so we’re probably gonna assume that Zuko views this as a Perfectly Normal And Healthy Way To Live And Not At All A Trauma/Survival Response.)
I’m assuming this confrontation is what leads to their break up and then Sokka going off to pursue music further? I wonder, even all their other issues aside, what Zuko thinks about him travelling so far? As you said, we’re operating under the assumption that he doesn’t understand why Sokka couldn’t continue music and stay local. Even if things were perfect between the two, I imagine they still might not see eye to eye on that, which of course would just be another breaking point for them to tack onto the list.
As for their eventual reconciliation, Kaleigh @zukkau with her gigantic brain, said earlier that Sokka being the one to leave could also tie into a whole ‘I couldn’t ask you to uproot your whole life for me’ anxiety (especially if we’re painting zuko as a bit of a homebody here; hates change, likes routine) and that sets up perfectly for a “I would go anywhere for/with you” moment. All this to say that I think that would slot into this (^) narrative nicely.
If you have (or anyone has) anything more to add or touch on I would absolutely love to hear it, I am now fully in love with this AU and all messages and mentions of it are permanently welcome in my inbox and DMs <3 
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zutaradreams · 4 years
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Day 3: Season 4 Zutara
AO3 Part 2
“Can you heal minds?” Zuko asks Katara to help him with Azula; To be continued tomorrow
“I abandoned her.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“When the news broke that Aang defeated my father, I felt victory. But when we fought Azula...well, did you feel victorious?”
She remembered how Azula writhed like an animal in chains, and how she screamed the most heart wrenching shriek, all while Zuko’s weight pressed against her as he struggled to his feet from the brutal wound that should have killed him. 
“No.”
“I was lucky, now that I think about it. I had my uncle. I had been banished. I had the freedom to understand the world in a way Azula never could. My inclinations had already been challenged, but when Azula was finally forced to face the same realities, she couldn’t handle it.”
“So you want me to take a look at her?”
Can you heal minds, his desperate letter had asked her. It was the first letter they’d received addressed to her. All the others went to Aang. But Zuko wrote her a letter that told her Azula’s madness was now her permanent state. His worry for his sister bled off the page and seeped into this evening meal they shared. He wanted to know if there was any hope for her at all. 
Another time, when there was less on his mind, she would tell him she was worried about Aang too, and the new darkness thriving inside him since he stole Ozai’s bending away. Another time, she would admit she was afraid of him. 
“If you’re comfortable with it. I just want to know if her brain is suffering some kind of physical trauma, or if it’s all mental.”
“I’ll do it. First thing in the morning.”
“Thank you, Katara.”
She shuddered. The last time he said that she had started his heart back up in her hands. That whole battle would forever be something only the two of them understood. 
Azula didn’t acknowledge her at all when she went to see her the next morning. She just stared at the metal bars of her cell door.
“We have to lock you in,” a guard said. “Just yell if you need to get out.”
She swallowed down the bile. She could be strong. She could do this for Zuko. “Hi, Azula, I’m just here to make sure you don’t have any injuries.” 
Azula didn’t move. 
“I’ll, um, start with your hands.” Katara reached for one, but Azula ripped her hand away and screamed. Katara jerked back. She was deathly afraid Azula would shoot a wave of fire at her, but she didn’t. She only screamed. The sound reverberated off the damp walls of her iron cell and surged the fear Katara had struggled to suppress. 
Then as suddenly as she started, she stopped. Katara exhaled deeply. “I’m sorry I grabbed you. I wasn’t thinking.”
Azula didn’t respond, but as Katara looked into the blank depths of her eyes, she realized Azula’s hair was a knotted mess. Matted clumps collected at the nape of her neck, and jagged bangs fell in her eyes. “I bet no one’s done your hair, have they?”
So Katara came back with a wide-tooth comb, special soaps, and hair oils. She spent two hours bending water through her hair and detangling the weeks-old knots, smoothing her hair back to a healthy condition. Azula didn’t fight her once, and it gave her the perfect opportunity to probe healing hands against her temples. It would hurt Zuko to know there was nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that could be fixed with her “magic water”. 
When she finished, Azula lifted her fingers and ran them through the freshly-combed strands. “Mother,” she called, the first word she had spoken all day. 
“No, it’s not Mother. I’m a friend of Zuko’s.” 
Azula smiled. “Zuzu.”
“Yes, Zuzu. Get some sleep. I’ll be back later.” 
The spices on the chicken burned the back of her throat. She tried some of the soup to wash it down. 
“So, no physical trauma.”
“Not that I saw.” 
He struck his palm into his forehead. “I don’t know what to do for her. I’ve had all kinds of sanatorium physicians talk to her. None of them recommended anything but keeping her locked up for the rest of her life!” 
“While I do admit she isn’t stable now, I don’t think it’ll be like this forever.”
“You always have hope.” 
She rolled her eyes at him, though she didn’t take offense. “Do you know why I have hope right now?”
“Why?”
“Because she smiled when I said your name.” 
The next day, Katara combed Azula’s hair, and after, she gathered it all in her hands and styled it into a neat topknot. 
“I have something for you,” Katara said. She didn’t ask Zuko for Azula’s crown. She wanted to stray away from the influence of their father and recover her memories of her mother. Those memories seemed to be from a more pleasant time. She brought with her one of Ursa’s hair combs and held it out for Azula to see. 
“Look, it’s Mother’s.”
Azula tentatively held her palm out. Katara placed the hair comb in her palm, thinking about how excited she would be to tell Zuko over dinner that night. Then her fist clenched around the comb, and flames erupted from her hands. The melted comb flew towards Katara’s head along with a burst of fire. She ducked as Azula bent formations randomly around the cell. 
The guards got her out of there as fast as they could. 
“I should have known it would be a bad idea as soon as you asked for that comb. Azula hated our mother.”
“Zuko, it’s not your fault.”
“Did she hurt you?” 
“No.”
“Are you sure? Her guards told me it was the most she had firebent since she was put in there.” 
Her face lit up, despite it all. “Maybe that’s a good thing! Maybe it’s good for her to get all that anger out.”
“I’d agree...if she was directing the flames far away from you.” 
“You don’t have to worry about me. You have enough to worry about, Fire Lord.”
He shook his head at her. “I worry about the nation as my job. I get to worry about you recreationally.” 
She tried a different strategy on the third day when she went to do Azula’s hair. This time, she wouldn’t mention Ozai, or Ursa, just--
“Zuzu sent me to check on you.”
“Zuzu.”
“He wants to make sure you’re eating.” She wasn’t. Her untouched food usually stayed right where the guards dropped it off, and nobody was going to force feed her. 
Katara picked up a spoonful of oatmeal. It looked terribly unappetizing, but it was food, and Azula’s cheeks were looking rather sunken. She pressed the spoon to Azula’s lips and watched her swallow the bite. She wouldn’t hold the spoon herself, no matter how many tricks Katara tried, but Katara did manage to get her to eat every bite. 
Then Azula threw it all up. Katara patted her back as she cried and murmured soothing words as she expelled all the oatmeal and painfully heaved up bile after the oatmeal was gone. Katara used her waterbending to wash away the mess. She would need the guards to bring more food and water. 
Azula sat in the middle of the floor with vomit in her nose, on her clothes, stuck to her mouth. “Is he okay?”
“Who, Azula?”
“It smells so bad.”
“You just threw up. Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”
“Is he okay?” she asked again as Katara used her sleeve to clean Azula’s face. 
“Let’s make sure you’re okay.” 
“That’s what happens when you disobey. Suffering will be your teacher. Did you see his face?”
His face? “Zuko?”
“Did you see his face?”
“Yes, Azula, I saw his face.”
“Is he okay?”
She patted her back again. “Yes, he’s okay.”
Azula stopped crying long enough for Katara to get her to drink some water. Soon after, she got some more oatmeal and fed her a quarter of the bowl to prevent her stomach from getting too full and have the same thing happen again. 
“My name’s Katara,” she said to her because it dawned on her that Azula might not know. “I’m Katara. You’re Azula. You’re okay. Zuko’s okay.”
Azula said nothing. 
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” 
“I appreciate all the time you’re putting into her care.” 
“Of course.”
“I should be the one to do it.”
“You don’t have the time,” she reminded him. “But maybe you could go to see her. You seem to be the only one she cares anything about.” 
“She hates me. She doesn’t want to see me. She shot me with lightning.” 
But she didn’t mean to. She was aiming for me. “If you have the time, go see her.”
“I will.”
“Promise?”
“Katara--”
“Come on, Fire Lord.” 
“Fine. I promise.” 
On the fourth day, she talked and talked, trying to coax some sort of response out of Azula. It was a bit like talking to a baby, talking and talking to someone who couldn’t reply. Azula stared blankly at her as Katara styled her hair, changed her linens, fed her small bites of food. 
“I have an older brother too. Can I tell you a secret? I love him more than anyone in the whole world. If something ever happened to him, I don’t think I’d be okay. I’d go on, but part of me would be missing for the rest of my life.”
Katara was young. Until she was fourteen years old, there hadn’t been a world outside her family and her village. She loved everyone she met; they’d become a part of her family, but Sokka was the one she’s spent most of her life with. Until she started her own family, he would always be the most important to her. They would always understand each other better than anyone else.
She was lost in thought, wondering what everyone else was up to, spoon feeding another bite into Azula’s mouth, when Azula reached out and burned the wrist of the arm holding the spoon. 
“You will learn, and suffering will be your teacher.”
Katara cried out, but Azula’s fiery hand grasped her harder. Tears of pain sprang to her eyes, and she wrenched away from her just in time for the guards to pull her out. One of the guards delivered a blow to Azula’s head, and Azula fell limply to the floor. 
“You didn’t have to do that!” Katara shouted at him, while the rest of her could only register the white-hot pain surging from her wrist. Against her better judgment, she looked down. The sight of the blistering, bloody skin made her stomach turn. She needed to work on this quickly. 
“The Fire Lord must be notified.” 
“No, please the Fire Lord is busy.” 
“He told us to inform him immediately if any incident like this occurred.” The guard critically glanced at her wrist. “It clearly has. You have to be taken to the palace physician at once.”
“I can heal it,” she insisted. She just needed some cool, clean water. She didn’t need a physician to rub salves on it, or Zuko to tell her never to visit Azula again. This was just a setback. It didn’t mean there wasn’t any hope for Azula. Just like it didn’t mean there wasn’t any hope for Aang. 
She did end up agreeing to see the physician, so long as she was given a chance to heal it first. She soaked the blistered skin in cool water to soothe it and set to work on healing the skin. It was not as easy as when Aang burned her while he was learning. Those burns were minor compared to this one. She was able to ease some of the pain and keep the blisters from thickening, but the physician would need to rub a salve on it to prevent infection. The physician also had the proper bandages. 
The physician, named Sazura, was bandaging the wound when Zuko came in dressed head-to-toe in his Fire Lord regalia. “She burned you?”
“Just a little bit on my wrist.” 
“The guards said she held onto you and wouldn’t let go.”
“I was able to get away from her. It’s okay, Zuko. It’s just a little burn.”
Sazura added, “My Lord, with Lady Katara’s accelerated healing, I expect it to heal completely in less than a week.” 
This information did nothing to calm the worried look in Zuko’s eyes. Once the physician finished wrapping Katara’s wrist, she recommended the lady get some rest. It was the only other medicine she prescribed Katara. Zuko offered to walk Katara back to her room. 
“I’m not tired.”
“Then take a walk with me.”
“Don’t you have work to do?” It was the middle of the day. Zuko was usually stuck in back-to-back meetings, pouring over documents, seeking advice. He never had time to walk in the middle of the day.
“Not right now.”
She agreed to go with him. They ended up wandering into some part of the palace she hadn’t had the chance to visit in her relatively short stay. It was a grand room filled wall-to-wall with tapestries of the history of the Fire Nation. 
 “I wish you wouldn’t see her again.”
“Zuko, please don’t lose hope.” 
“Katara, I can accept that I’m never going to get my sister back. I can make peace with that. I don’t want anything to happen to you. You don’t need to risk yourself for a lost cause.”  
“I don’t think she’s a lost cause! You don’t either! I know you don’t. You never would have asked me here in the first place if you thought she was.” 
“I want her bending taken away, just like my father.”
“No!” Katara shouted at him. “You can’t do that. You don’t get to decide who gets to bend and who doesn’t. You don’t understand how dangerous that kind of power is.” There were tears in her eyes just thinking about it.
“What do you mean?”
It felt like a betrayal to even say it out loud. “Aang’s not the same.”
“Not the same how?”
“He has these awful dreams at night. He swears they’re memories of your father’s life, and when he wakes in the middle of one of them, he’s merciless and sadistic and destructive. He’s terrifying, and there’s no snapping him out of it until he wakes up completely. No Avatar has ever taken another’s bending before. There’s no one to help him understand the consequences of what he did. There’s no one to help him heal. You can’t ask him to do it again.” 
“Then I won’t.”
“Thank you.” She hugged him. She needed a hug. 
“We’re going to figure out what’s going on with Aang,” he assured her, rubbing his hand soothingly along her back. “I wish you’d told me sooner.” 
“He wanted me to keep it a secret.”
“That’s too much of a burden to put on you,” he said gently. She knew she needed to pull away from him soon, but his arms were too comforting. “Is that why you came here? You thought if you could figure out how to help Azula, you could figure out how to help Aang?”
She squeezed him tighter one last time before she let go. “No. I came here for you.”  She looked down at her bandaged wrist and sighed. “I didn’t think the end of the war was going to be like this.”
“Neither did I. I imagined a lot less chaos.”
“Yeah, I was hoping for more parties. Some nice festivals.” 
“Wouldn’t that be nice?” he mused along with her before he steered the conversation back to reality. “When Azula burned you, was it an accident, do you think?”
“No. I wish it was. She said ‘suffering will be your teacher’ like she knew what she was doing.”
Zuko tensed, and his eyes turned cold. “What did she say?”
Did she even need to repeat herself? From his reaction, she was sure he already knew. “‘Suffering will be your teacher.’ She said it before a couple days ago when she threw up after eating. What does it mean?”
He didn’t reply at first.
“Zuko, what does it mean?”
“It’s what my father said before he burned me.”
An answer to a question she never asked, though she wondered a million times. Zuko, how did you get your scar? Now so many more questions. He was gone before she could ask them. 
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bellatrixobsessed1 · 4 years
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The Final Agni Kai (A Terrible AU Fanfic that literally no one asked for!)
This was totally going to be the battle between Sie and Zuko in the cabbage fic but I couldn't pass having the fire siblings do this.
Summary: Agni Kai AU where instead of actually fighting the Agni Kai, Zuko and Azula play a monoply-uno hybrid from Hell.
The sky is heavy with smoke and an odor of sulfur. Sozin’s comet paints the mid-afternoon sky a shade of orange-red. Azula, stares up at said sky--she is daydreaming about just leaving everything behind to become a J-pop idol. 
“By decree of Phoenix King Ozai, I now crown you Fire Lord…” But it is hard to do that when the fire sage keeps blabbing on and on. And it is twice as hard when a wild flying bison swoops into view. Suddenly feeling as though she has run out of time, she turns to the sage and asks, “What are you waiting for? Do it!”
Azula had been rather vague so he isn’t sure what he is supposed to just do. All he knows is that he can’t let his dreams just be dreams. Just do it! Azula’s voice echos in his mind. But in his mind she sounds more motivating than angry. 
Appa lands in the courtyard and Zuko dramatically jumps off of him. “Sorry, but you're not gonna become Fire Lord today. I am.”
Azula laughs, “you're hilarious.”
“And you're going down.” Zuko informs her.
“That was my line.” Katara whispers. 
“Sorry.” Zuko replies. 
The fire sage, recalling Azula’s words--just do it!--begins to ignore the interrupting duo and brings the crown closer to Azula’s messy topknot.
She lifts a hand and then the rest of her body. “Wait!” And then to Zuko she says, “You want to become Fire Lord? Fine. Let’s settle this. Just you and me, brother. The showdown that was always meant to be. Monopl-uno!” She whips out a game board and a deck of cards and slaps them onto the ground. 
“You're on!” 
“What are you doing? She’s playing you. She knows she can't take us both, so she's trying to separate us.”
“I know. But I can take her this time.” Zuko declares. 
“But even you admitted to your uncle that you would need help facing Azula.” Katara protests. Also she does not want to have to wait through a game of Monopoly, that game is boring as hell even if it is mashed together with Uno.
“There's something off about her, I can't explain it but she's slipping.” Zuko rubs his chin as he takes in the disheveled sight of his sister. Her hair is a mess and her eyes are tired. “Hmmm...can’t quite put my finger on it.” She flashes him an uncanny and feral smile. “Nope. No idea.”  He makes his way across the courtyard. 
He and Azula stand on opposite ends of the courtyard, kneeling as you do before beginning a game of monopl-uno. It is always best to start any board, card, or any kind of game by kneeling before your God and asking for protection lest the game transform itself into Jumanji and you find yourself stuck in a jungle forever. 
This is what had happened to Jet. He has been stuck in the Foggy Swamp, which is also a jungle, ever since. He is now a backwater redneck. But this is no surprise being as he already liked to chew on straw prior to being transported into the jungle to live out the rest of his fuqboi existence. 
“I'm sorry it has to end this way, brother.” 
“No you're not.”
But she really is. She actually hates monopl-uno, in her foggy state of mind, she had momentarily forgotten this. But she cannot back out of this now. “I am so.” She whispers quietly.
“Are not.”
“Are too.”
“Are not.”
“Are to.”
“Are…”
Luckily Katara is there to get them back on track. The only thing more boring than Monopoly is reading approximately six pages of ‘are not’, ‘are too’. Even more boring than that is pre-algebra. Thank Raava, that math does not exist here. “Will you two just get on with it!?” She asks.
Azula passes out five uno cards and a fat stack of monopoly cash. For every green card, the player receives $500. For the blues the player gets $100. Yellow cards earn the player $50. And red earns the player $20. 10’s & 5’s are a free for all, Azula and Zuko snatch as many as they can. 1’s are distributed by wiping out a Candyland, whoever draws Queen Frostine gets to steal all of the 5’s. Azula bites Zuko as he reaches for the last one dollar bill. He retracts his hand quickly. 
It settles in that Azula is losing her shit.
If no one draws Queen Frostine by the game’s end then the 1’s burst into flames and are claimed by the void that manifests itself as a third player in the form of a sentient piccolo, that plays truly awful covers of Rammstine’s Du Hast and Smashmouth’s All Star the whole time.
With dread, Azula notes that, “Colonel Mustard has murdered Mrs. Scarlett with a candlestick in the billard room.” 
Zuko grips his head in stress, knowing that this means that Azula has to move her gingerbread man to the next purple square. This ends the game.
No one has drawn Queen Frostine. 
The 1’s burst into flames and a piccolo rises.
The first notes of Du Hast echo through the courtyard, terribly off key.
Katara has a wicked urge to puncture her own earholes just to end the madness.
Why did Colonel Mustard have to murder her with a candlestick. If he would have just used the wrench then they might have had a chance to draw Queen Frostine!
Far, far off in the distance Sokka, Suki, and Toph fight a different kind of battle. They play Battle Ships, but they use actual ships. Except the ships are not water ships but airships and they are in the sky and the bombs are real.
Suki is uncomfortable with this. 
It is Toph’s time to shine. She can use echolocation to cheat. 
Aang and Ozai also fight. But their fight is different. It is a battle of wit. They have chosen several popular debate topics including women’s rights, religion, which economic model to follow, and whether or not pineapple belongs on pizza. 
Pineapple does not belong on pizza. 
Neither does cheese, because cheese is gross. 
In fact, pizza does not belong on pizza because pizza is gross and no matter what Aang is still a vegan and Aang is not sure if a good vegan should be eating pizza. 
Iroh finds himself a tall mountain and yodels atop it until the militia stationed at Ba Sing Se submit. 
But none of this is as important as Azula declaration, “go fish!”
Zuko cusses and picks up a goldfish. He curses again. Drawing a goldfish means that he has to pull a block from the jenga tower and that rickety thing is already very close to collapsing. Azula smirks as he nears an old and vacant house in Capital City. It is the same one that they have been stealing boards from since they were children. 
It is on its last legs. 
A bead of sweat drips down Zuko’s forehead as he tugs at the board. The whole house bobs precuriously. Azula and Katara take several huge steps back. They, in fact, stand approximately one-hundred feet from the building, which is a safe number when practicing social distancing. 
Zuko yanks the board free and the building groans. He clenches his jaw. But the building remains up right. 
“Ha! Take that, Azula!” He says loudly. The building shakes at the sudden noise and it topples. He has done this to himself. Now he has to draw six more uno cards and one more go fish card. 
“So, how have you been?” Zuko makes small talk as they walk back to the coronation courtyard. 
Azula thinks that it is a stupid question, she is obviously in a state of mental torment. “Oh, I’m fine.” She replies nonchalantly. 
“Yeah, me too.” He replies. “I read this really cool book the other day.”
Azula hasn’t, she has been stress eating cherries and pacing around her bedroom. “I read one too.” She lies. 
“Which one.” 
“Oh...you’ve never heard of it. It’s a really underground novel.”
They reach the courtyard, Zuko draws his uno and go fish cards. It is still his turn so he rolls the dice. “Yahtzee!” He declares and Azula flinches. She moves her gingerbread man to an orange square and picks up a trivial pursuit card. She relaxes a little, upon remembering that she is a trivial pursuit expert. 
“What’s the tallest piece on a chessboard?” Katara reads the card.
Azula rolls her eyes, this is an easy one. “It is the King.”
Zuko Googles the answer just to be sure that Azula isn’t lying again. 
Katara winces, “correct.” 
Azula flashes a smug smile as she passes go and collects $200. She is glad that she did not have to answer a Guess Who question. Those always throw her off. 
Zuko stands up, it is his turn. He throws down a green skip. This time Azula curses. He then throws down a green reverse card so it is his turn again. Azula snarls. He realizes that he has no more green cards so he picks up a Go Fish card. It is an angelfish. Angelfish act as substitutes for yellow cards so he is stuck with it. Having none of her own, but having the mindstate of one, Azula literally turns herself into a wildcard and flops down onto the deck. She changes it to blue. 
She always changes it to blue.
She has no blue cards, but she never changes it to anything but blue.
She reclaims her human form and draws a Go Fish card. 
It is a clownfish. 
Which makes sense because she played herself (clownfish substitute red cards only), she is the clown in this situation. 
Zuko smirks and throws down a blue seven. 
Azula is about to throw down a blue three, when Zuko brazanly shouts. “No draw fours today? What’s the matter, afraid I’ll reverse it!?”
“Oh! I’ll show you a draw four!” Azula shouts. She lifts her blue drawfour as well as four scrabble tiles--one for each letter of her name, except she is missing the ‘u’ so instead she has Azla--and powers her draw four up with them. 
A is the first letter of the alphabet so Zuko has to not only draw four cards but another two extra. And since Z is the last letter he also has to draw twenty-six extra cards. By this time the deck has run low so he has to pick up a twelve of spades which amounts to twelve green uno cards.
To figure out what number each represents they must spin the twister spinner and consult the magic eight ball. 
“Nooooo!” Zuko screams as she throws the cards down. 
Katara bites her cheek. She doesn’t like cheating to win, but she is pretty sure that Azula had swapped out her ‘u’ scrabble tile for a ‘z’ while Zuko was messing with the Jenga tower. So she doesn’t think too much of it when she completes Zuko’s Connect Four line. 
“Zuko!” She yells. “You forgot to say, ‘I’ve united the four!’” 
Zuko pumps his fist and says. “I’ve united the four!” This nullifies the power up Azula has used on her draw four. It balances out so he only has to draw four uno cards. 
Azula’s face bunches up in disgust as she gives the twister spinner a flick. 
Right hand on blue. 
She places her right hand on blue and the twister board tells her to move her top hat to the chance square. Katara picks up the chance card and reads “go directly to jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.” 
Azula blinks several times. She is trapped, with nowhere to go. She sadly makes her way over to the grate, overwhich they have constructed a jail out of a cardboard box. The word ‘JAIL’ (though Zuko accidentally spelled it ‘JAYL’ at first so that was crossed off and ‘JAIL’ is written beneath it) is written in big red marker. Katara doodled a star under it in pink gel pen. 
Azula sadly lifts the box and sits under it, clutch her knees to her chest as Zuko passes go, collets his $200, and uses it to buy a candyland card. A smile lights up his face, he has drawn Gramma Nut! That means he gets to discard exactly three uno cards. 
He sets them on fire and shouts “uno!” 
He throws his remaining card, a blue five, onto the deck. 
From within her jail cell, Azula shrieks. She sets the jail on fire, marches up to the unused chessboard, flips it over, and throws the pieces at Zuko “I hate this game! This is a stupid fucking  anyways!” 
Zuko and Katara slap each other high five. Unbeknownst to them, Momo swoops down. “But you forgot to play Bop It before saying uno, which means that your victory is null.” 
Zuko slaps his forehead. 
Azula’s eyes grow wide. 
This means only one thing…
One terrible thing…
Azula swallows as she removes Don’t Wake Daddy from the box. The siblings stare at each other. If at any point, daddy wakes up, Ozai will materialize before them and win the game. “Here, you do it!” Zuko says to Azula. She very carefully takes the tweezers and as steady as she can, attempts to extract the wrench representing the funny bone.
But Azula is already shaken from her loss and the stress of losing her friends. She accidently touches the rim and the game buzzes. 
She and Zuko weep as they both take turns pressing the alarm clock. Daddy springs up and Ozai appeared before them to reclaim his Fire Lord crown. In leaving his debate, Aang has automatically won. Ozai’s bending yanks itself from his body, as he had bet it before the debate started. Aang cheers!
Another airship explodes as Toph cackles. 
Ozai begins to weep for he might be the Fire Lord again, but he has no fire. 
Neither Zuko nor Azula are the Fire Lord. They both hug each other and cry as Katara plugs her ears. 
The piccolo still plays Rammstine. 
Ozai also cries because, even though he is Fire Lord in title, no one is going to listen to him since he is a non-bender. The Fire Nation will fall into anarchy unless the siblings can work something out. 
Aang also weeps because her realizes that, Ozai is still the Fire Lord so he is still going to have to defeat him somehow.
Truly, nobody has won here. 
Nobody except Iroh and Toph.
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