Ursa: Sometimes I look back and try to understand where it all went wrong. Blaming everything on Ozai would be easy, and maybe I should, but they’re my children as much as they’re his — so I can’t help but feel some responsibility for what’s happened to them. Zuko and Azula suffered so much and made so many poor choices...and I wasn’t there for them...
Hakoda: Well, you know what they say.
Ursa: That there are no bad children, only bad parents?
Hakoda, partway through taking off his pants: I mean...I’m sure they say that too. But I was thinking more along the lines of, ‘Third time’s the charm.’
Sokka: Azula has mommy issues and thinks she’ll never have a loving parent and Zuko still sleeps with a candle because he’s afraid Ozai will attack him. Go.
Consider: Post-canon Zuko wakes up in the body of his childhood self, the morning of That War Meeting. Would he still speak against the plans, knowing his fate? What do you think he would do differently the second time around?
"Turned away at the doors, Zuzu?"
"Shut up, Azula," her brother sulked. But sulked weirdly, after staring at her too long and too wide-eyed, not like she'd surprised him but--
But like he hadn't expected her to be there. At all.
He turned away. ...He turned back. "Hey, Lala? Do you think you could help me practice that one set?"
He didn't meet her eyes.
She narrowed hers. "Which set?"
"The one I'm bad at."
She scoffed. Pushed away from the wall she'd been leaning against. "That's all of them, Dum-Dum."
He didn't shout or stomp or yell about the nickname. His lips twitched.
"It's okay," he said. "If you're afraid you won't be a better teacher that my instructor..."
It was the most obvious manipulation ever.
Perhaps if he proved an adequate firebending student, she'd work on his courtly survival skills next. Honestly, it was good that not even Uncle Gets-Cousins-Killed had been fool enough to take Zuko into that war meeting. She could only imagine how terribly that could have gone.
"Keep up," she said, and turned her steps towards the training grounds.
He did. There, and during the katas she ran him through.
Azula kept her eyes narrowed.
"Hey," he asked, "do you know how to bend lightning yet?"
As if he could have missed it, if she'd been able to get more than sparks. "I will soon," she said.
"You will," he agreed, and flowed through his next set. The one she'd only just mastered.
Father didn't notice how weird Zuzu was being. Uncle never noticed anything. Zuko ate dinner and asked a servant for seconds and didn't stutter or flinch or lose his appetite when father asked, coolly, what he'd done with his day. Azula's shoulders tensed, because one mention of how she'd squandered her own training time teaching him--
"Azula hogged the training grounds. For hours," Zuzu scowled, exactly like a petulant thirteen year old.
Exactly like he hadn't been acting all day.
By the time Father was looking her way, Azula had her usual smirk in place. "I'm sure there would be room for both of us," she said, "you're not afraid of a little friendly fire, are you, brother?"
Zuko sulked. And ate his seconds, like he was enjoying each bite. There was something in his eyes, like a joke no one else was getting.
---
Father died that night. A heart attack. There were the faintest of burns to either side of the treacherous organ; the royal physician hypothesized that he'd grabbed at his chest, fingers burning hot in his final moments; so hot they'd only exacerbated the problem.
The royal physician would never have been brought any victims of lighting strikes. Those that occurred in the capital did not generally require a doctor in the aftermath.
Zuzu ate a hearty breakfast.
He didn't order seconds. Azula gave him points, at least, for not being tacky.
---
The sages named Iroh as regent.
They named Zuko as Fire Lord.
"No," the tiny Fire Lord in his perfectly miniaturized Fire Lord robes said, sitting at the head of his war council. "We're not doing that. And I'll be reviewing all recent battle plans, as well. What's this I hear about a division of new recruits being deployed to the front?"
He did not mention how he'd heard of the 41st Division. No one asked.
"Prince Iroh, surely--" one of the generals tried to appeal.
The young Fire Lord's regent was looking as startled as the rest of them, for a moment. Then he sipped his tea, and smiled.
"Your Fire Lord is correct, of course. A change in our leadership--a change the other nations may mistakenly view as weakness--will necessitate a change in our strategy."
"Now," said their lord, "what, exactly, is our overall objective in this war?"
War, the new Fire Lord decreed, was not an end unto itself.
---
The new Fire Lord continued to have time, to pretend to be trained by her. Azula watched him. Adjusted her footwork. Did not tolerate, and was not offered, any commentary on who was teaching who.
"What did you do with my brother?" she asked, as they flowed from one set to the next. As her hands, poised to throw fire, just so happened to be pointed his way.
He missed a step. It didn't look like an act.
"I'm, uh. Right here?"
She didn't bother to dignify that.
He didn't bother to look worried about her hands, one movement off from a true attack.
He looked around, then grabbed her sleeve, and tugged her further from any walls that may hide ears. The royal family's private training grounds were wonderfully large, and wonderfully open.
"It's me," he said. "It's still me. Just. More of me? Longer of me?"
She narrowed her eyes. A familiar expression, by this point. "Explain."
"...I found the Avatar," he said. "And this is definitely his fault, but--but I guess it started at a war meeting, when I was thirteen."
Happy Pride Month to everyone around the world! Stay safe and happy! Love you all!
Special congratulations to some of my favorite queer characters from my favorite games.Thanks to them, I've found it easier to accept myself as queer too.
whumpee who knows that they are only worth keeping around as long as they are useful. they run about, doing the chores, waiting on caretaker's hand and foot, even as anxiety eats them alive. what are their expectations? what does caretaker want from them? how can they prolong their stay? everything is a transaction, but caretaker keeps allowing them things they shouldn't without some very special favours. whumper only used to grant such privileges— food on the table, consistent sleep on the daily, warm baths everyday— in exchange for extremely good behaviour and— things they'd rather not think about.
so this freaks them out like nothing else. they're afraid, out of their mind with the fear that racks up and up— for what is given can be snatched away at any time. they can't let themself get used to it.
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