Hey muffin. I've seen a lot of dragon zuko, which is amazing. But what if Zuko was a Phoenix... like... just... imagine
Katara had been right: it hadn't been much of a rematch. The Fire Prince went down under ice and snow and didn't get back up again.
It was Aang who was wrong. They could leave him, had to leave him, because--because If we leave him he'll die didn't have a hold here.
Sokka knelt down next to the Prince with the rope, grumbling about pacifists making their own problems. Then he stopped. The grumbling, and the tying. He looked at Katara.
"Guys, we really need to hurry," Aang said, fidgeting with Appa's reins. Because he didn't know, yet.
She didn't regret it. She didn't, he'd been their enemy for so long and he was trying to get Aang killed or worse, and he'd almost gotten both of them killed tonight with this stupid stunt of his--
(Why was he always so desperate? Where had those other injuries come from? Why hadn't he attacked with the rest of his fleet? She hadn't cared a minute ago, but now she could never ask him. And he could never answer.)
Sokka wasn't giving her a judging look. He understood, too. But he was giving her a you did it, you get to tell Aang look.
"Guys?" Aang called again.
"Aang," Katara said. "Zuko is... I..."
Which was the approximate point in time that the body lit on fire. Sokka scrambled backwards, spider-crab style. Katara stared. Aang jumped off Appa, and drifted down.
And started rummaging through the dying flames, and the ashes.
"Uh, Aang." Sokka said. "Aang, you have your hands all up in--in Zuko."
"Oh wow," the grave robbing (body robbing?) monk said. "I didn't know Zuko was a phoenix. They're really rare! Do you think he knew?"
"A what now," Sokka said.
When Aang stood up again, there was a tiny ash-speckled chick shivering between his cupped hands. He scratched its head with a finger. The chick... peeped. It was pretty indignant, for such a small sound.
"But we really do have to hurry," Aang said, and turned to her. "Could you hold him? He needs to stay warm, phoenixes are really not cold adapted."
And then Katara had a baby bird in her hands. Its feathers were pinkish-red and fuzzy. She couldn't feel them through her mittens but they looked even softer than mink-rabbit fur. She lifted one hand to pet it the way Aang had, but the chick cowered away. It took both her hands to stop it from tumbling down into the snow.
"And Katara?" Aang said. He was smiling in a way she'd never seen before, something that was the opposite of happy and carefree. "Try not to kill him again. Please. Most people don't come back from that. ...Avatars and phoenixes excluded. You got really lucky."
The Prince of the Fire Nation huddled between her hands, shivering. Shaking. Staring out of the cage of her fingers with wide gold eyes. He would be really easy to kill like this.
...He had been really easy to kill.
"I'll be careful," she promised.