When you have a plot bunny in your head but you aren’t sure where it’s trying to go...
Zuko was born with nine lives. Not in the cutesy, octopus cat way people always talk about, of an animal that’s just good at always landing on its feet and getting out of a tight spot--though Zuko is very good at both those things, too.
No, Zuko was born in the very heart of midwinter in the darkest part of a moonless night with nine marks to show his disfavor freckled under his left eye.
His first life went to Ember Island, when he was too young to really swim by himself but too fascinated by the waves to know yet that he shouldn’t. And it took Azula two lives to learn to play gently enough to break but not too much. (And Zuko is pretty sure the second time was an accident. Her face had been so hard and angry and pale.)
He wasn’t old enough to realize what the marks signified until the Fire Lord burnt the tally off his face, presumably using up another life in the process. Zuko didn’t know for sure, though, since he couldn’t see the count anymore, even if he did finally remember it as a truth and not a dream when Agni sent him back with a sad, sparking admonishment about using them up too fast.
Zuko learned then the particular difficulty of knowing he had lives left to spare, but never knowing how many. Because Zuko was born with nine lives like a cat in both the literal and figurative sense. And the line between the things that kill you and the things that just get you most of the way there is often harder to see than you’d think.
Was that bout of sickness after leaving a merchant’s table food poisoning or poison? Did the famed Yuyan Archers intend to knock him unconcious, or did they actually hit their mark? What are the normal marks of surviving an explosion, and what are the signs of death giving up her grip on his body? And the Avatar--Zuko has built up the resiliency and strength of his body, but he has died with a shattered back and punctured lungs before. He thinks he remembers how it feels.
Where does this go then? What comes next?