Chapter 3 (technically chapter 1 since the other two were pre beginning of story) is now out! (It lowkey sucks, but that's okay!)
Chapters: 3/?
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender (Cartoon 2005)
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Zuko & Zuko's Crew (Avatar), Iroh & Zuko (Avatar), Aang & Zuko (Avatar), Aang & Sokka (Avatar), Aang & Katara (Avatar), Ozai & Zuko (Avatar), Ursa & Zuko (Avatar), Aang & Gyatso (Avatar), Katara & Sokka (Avatar), The Gaang & The Gaang (Avatar), Toph Beifong & Sokka, Toph Beifong & Katara, Aang & Toph Beifong, Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Aang/Zuko (Avatar)
Characters: Zuko (Avatar), Aang (Avatar), Katara (Avatar), Sokka (Avatar), Toph Beifong, The Gaang (Avatar), Iroh (Avatar), Ozai (Avatar), 41st Division Members (Avatar), Zuko's Crew (Avatar), a lot more people
Additional Tags: Avatar Zuko (Avatar), Avatar Aang (Avatar), Two Avatars (Avatar: The Last Airbender), Aang-centric (Avatar), Zuko-centric (Avatar), Mentioned Ursa (Avatar), Bad Parent Ozai (Avatar), Abusive Ozai (Avatar), Ozai Being an Asshole (Avatar), Aged-Up Aang (Avatar), Might become zukaang, My First Fanfic, hope you enjoy!, This became Zukaang, Is probably very ooc, enjoy, Or don't, i can't tell you what to do
Series: Part 1 of Avatar The Last AirBender: The Shadow Within Fire
Summary:
My name is Zuko, and I am the exiled prince of the fire nation.
After an Agni Kai against my father, I was burned and banished.
Before being cast out with nothing but a boat and a crew, my Father, the Fire Lord, told me that the only way to return home was to capture the avatar.
Either way it helps to hear these words bounce off of you
The softest echo could be enough for me to make it through
—Bandito by Twenty One Pilots
.
The Crew came to this tavern as regularly as one could when chained to the seas. It was a lovely little thing, full of dusty travelers and homely patrons who knew not to ask questions. A colony, so they had drinks imported all the way back from Home. At least they helped it feel like home and, when in exile, one learned to appreciate places like this.
Taku always did his best to stay at least relatively sober—that's why he had the best drunk stories to tell. With the way Jee was drowning his sorrows in beer and glaring at everyone around him, this one was bound to be quite the anecdote.
(Fics I read throughout the day yesterday and enjoyed)
Atla
Welcome to Ba Sing Se* by Kennkirk ( @Kenn-kirk )
Lee is an Earth Kingdom refugee who has recently moved to Ba Sing Se to escape... something. But new city, new Lee. That should be the end of the story. But Lee’s got this scar that he didn’t know about, a surprise Uncle who calls him Zuko, and the Dai Li watching from his shadow.
* side effects may include but not restricted to: minortomajormemoryloss,brainwashing,loosingtime,andparanoia
So the memory suppression situation in this one is terrifying and I absolutely love it!!!
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆
ML
Purromise of the Heart by Ros3mary ( @marble-seafoam )
all the lovesqaure's reactions to adrichat plus a bonus identity reveal at the end
*Shrieks into the void* adrichat is a blessing on this world!!
as promised! link to part 1
personal favorites are starred, by the way.
everything is complete unless stated otherwise.
Zuko-Centric
*Spirit Son by imadoctornotanescalator (~136k)
Akine was quite familiar with bodies --- dead ones to be precise. He should have known something was wrong with this one, but he and Shino were so eager to be rid of it, they did not notice that there was something very wrong with it.
this fic is complete but it is the first part in a two part incomplete series (as of now) Spirit Son. ithe author is also rewriting it, but the rewrite isn’t complete either. i haven’t read the second part or the rewrite, which is why i’m not recommending them here.
one of my all time atla favorites.
The Family You Choose by TunaFishChris (~36k)
Some people are born with soulmarks. Zuko has them, but his grandfather burned them off because they "make you weak."
Team Avatar has a few things to say about that.
gaang platonic soulmark au. lots of hurt/comfort.
*we are bound, by each crime and every kindness by hyugesoo (~4k)
Todoroki Shouto dies, ice in his veins and ash in his lungs.
Zuko is born with fire on his lips and tears on his cheeks.
(or, when Shouto is reborn as a prince in a world desperately needing a hero.)
reincarnation. i read this before i knew anything about mha, so you should be alright if you haven’t watched my hero academia yet. it’s really beautifully written fic.
Unwanted Friends by FoiblePNoteworthy (~17k)
Aang knew those swords. He’d seen them every day, felt the warm, if rough, presence of their owner in all his hardest moments and coldest flights. He was a strong figure, gentle in his own way. A Firebender who still used swords.
another gaang platonic soulmate au fic rec.
Little Zuko v the World by MuffinLance (~110k, last updated 2019 dec)
Zuko finds Aang a month into his banishment. They’re both 12. Expect not-a-kid-person!Zhao, gratuitous saving from pirates (dangit Katara give little Zuko back his shirts), and some solid Appa/Zuko bromance. It is the hole in your life you didn’t know needed filling.
warning: incomplete. lots of fluff and humor alongside angst.
for reasons wretched and divine by ZenzaNightwing (~8k, series: 178k, last updated 2021 nov)
(He screamed toward the moon, they murmur, it’s a sign)
(The sun set on him, others scoff, it’s a sign)
Prince Zuko is born into rumor and bloodshed. He is raised in flames and scars.
Sozin's Comet is coming again, for Earth instead of Air, and Agni will not let it pass lightly. Not without intervention.
the series no grave (hold my body) has 4 fics, 3 of which are complete and under 15k each, while the fourth fic is incomplete and ~150k.
absolutely loved this idea.
To The Victor Goes The Spoils by LizaGreen (~27k)
Hakoda kills a Southern Raider. This backfires spectacularly. Zuko is just trying to keep four kids from dying while not being a traitor to his nation. Toph is concerned. Sokka finds himself rethinking everything he had previously considered the norm.
Or
Kuei orders all of the Fire Nation out of Ba Sing Se after Azula fails her coup. This has wider ramifications than he thought.
*half in the shadows, half burned in flames by r_astra (~4k)
“They say you tried to kill the Firelord,” Hakoda says. "Why?"
Zuko doesn’t know how to answer. Because I hate him. Because I love him. Because he wants to see the world burn. Because he knotted one hand in my hair and cupped flames against my face with the other.
Because my mother is dead.
Because my uncle is dead.
Instead, he shrugs tiredly and says: “Someone has to.”
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 18/19
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar), Toph Beifong & Zuko, Aang & Zuko (Avatar), Katara & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka & Zuko (Avatar), Suki & Zuko (Avatar)
Characters: Zuko (Avatar), Iroh (Avatar), Ozai (Avatar), Azula (Avatar), Aang (Avatar), Toph Beifong, Sokka (Avatar), Katara (Avatar), Jet (Avatar), Suki (Avatar)
Additional Tags: Angst, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff, Alternate Universe, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, Zuko has a bison, Airbender zuko, zuko uses airbending to fake firebending, and earthbending, and waterbending, fake avatar zuko, zuko is done with ozai's shit, kyoshi warrior zuko, freedom fighter zuko
Summary:
For ten years Zuko couldn't manage to summon a single flame. It wasn't until he accidentally bent air that he realised why; airbenders can't bend fire. And Zuko was an airbender.
or
zuko uses his airbending to pretend to firebend and his new personal connection to the airbender genocide kicks zuko off on a big fat field trip of self discovery where he realises that fire isn't the only element he can fake bend, competes in earthbending tournaments with toph, joins the freedom fighters, becomes a kyoshi warrior and joins the gaang
It brings him back to simpler times, when he was a child and the rain pitter patter’d against the window-glass and his mother would tell him about how the driving rain was Agni’s tears of sadness, how the warm summer rains were Agni bringing life to the fields for the fall harvest, how the thunderstorms that seemed to shake the palace and rattle Zuko to his bones were Agni’s anger. How his mother would hold him close and if he was afraid of the lightning she wouldn’t tell father or Azula.
As Zuko grew older he learned to hate the rain.
Rain was loneliness. Stopped days and distractions from capturing the Avatar. More pestering from Uncle to play pai sho or have tea but that wasn’t important. Rainy days reminded him of his mom. Of Azula chasing him in the garden. He didn’t need those distractions. Zuko didn’t spend rainy days with the crew, lest one of them try to tell him the meaning of rain.
Years passed and Zuko couldn’t look at the rain without being consumed by sorrow.
He lost everything. His crew, his mother, his family, the Avatar. All he was left with was Uncle who thought he was too weak to do anything. Too weak to protect himself and too weak to capture a 12 year old. Too weak to save his mother. He wanted to scream he wanted to cry he wanted his mom. He wanted to go home. The world never held back before, all it did was take and take and take and Zuko could take this, he could do it. Why was this the time that the world held back? And if the rain was mixed with the tears that fell from his face he wouldn’t tell Uncle.
Zuko doesn’t go outside in the rain after that until months later.
“Don’t you love the rain?”
Zuko blinked, looking at the voice beside him. A boy with dark skin and dark hair tied into a warrior’s wolf tail grinned at him. His heart did cartwheels and skipped a few beats.
He looked at his hands, droplets of water from the drizzling rain on them. “I do!” Aang said brightly.
Toph shrugged. “It’s just water, I don’t know what the big deal is.”
Sokka sighed. “I know that, but what about you, Zuko?”
He pondered for a moment. “I think I do.” And he really did.
That was the last moment of serenity he got before Toph threw a blob of mud at Katara’s head. That was when the mud fight started, and when it was all over they were dirty and wet but they were laughing and Zuko could not care less.
The rain was a family smiling before the end of the world.
IDK if im ever going 2 finish this so here's an unedited preview of an atla fic I was working on.
I'd definitely have to restructure if I want to finish it but here's what I got so far. Mostly just the gaang visiting past Zuko events
I.
"The Air Nation--"
"Nomads." Aang instinctively corrects at the same time Iroh interjects placidly.
"--must have something pointing to the Avatar's location."
"My nephew, when would they have had time to--"
"The cowards must have planned the Avatar's disappearance. There has to be something!" Zuko, because the small, bandaged child was Zuko, stomped through the Western Air Temple pushing open doors and sweeping dust from murals in aggravated gestures.
Iroh sighs heavily but follows the boy. He walks like a shadow behind Zuko, hands folded into his sleeves. Sometimes his gaze catches on a mural or shadow, but it never settles on Aang or his friends, no matter how they shout or call for attention.
"What are you planning on finding here, Prince Zuko? The Air Nomads were peaceful people, they do not have a war room full of intelligence, nor a Lord's office of correspondence, especially not after 100 years."
Zuko whirls around to give his uncle an irate glare, not nearly as effective as the ones he would give three years in time. The bandages cling to the left side of his face, and if Aang squints he can see some kind of spotting through them. Zuko is breathing heavily already.
"I will find something! Anything!" His hands fist by his sides as he snarls. "Father trust-- Father tasked me with finding the Avatar and I will." Zuko turns sharply and his fists tremble.
"Of course, Prince Zuko. I merely wanted to know your plan of action." Iroh approaches Zuko gently, like a wild animal, carefully places his hand on Zuko's right shoulder. "This place is remarkably well preserved. If there is something to recover, you will find it."
Zuko doesn't say anything, just nods once. His shoulders are drawn tight around his ears still. Iroh looks down at Zuko, tenses, and says more mildly than Aang thought possible considering: "Your bandages need changing."
"They can wait." Zuko says, shrugging off Iroh and heading into one of the Western Temple's many hallways.
"This is weird, right?" Sokka says as Iroh follows Zuko away.
"Why are we even here?" Toph asks, "This is the Western Air Temple, my feet don't lie, and we weren't anywhere close to here before..." she trails off.
"Where were we?" Katara asks. Her hands have been hovering by her waterskins.
"The better question is where are we," Sokka says.
"The Western Air Temple!" Toph huffs.
"No, I mean, yes, but Iroh and Zuko acted like they couldn't see us, and you know Zuko would've made a big deal out of us being here."
"Not to mention Zuko is like, four years younger than he should be!" Aang says.
Sokka and Katara turn confused faces towards him.
"This Zuko is my age," Aang clarifies, "He should be..." and the thought escapes Aang, how old Zuko should be. Aang just knows that it isn't this.
"Don't tell me this is some more Spirit Mumbo Jumbo!" Sokka throws his hands up in the air.
"Maybe," Aang allows, "But it doesn't feel like the Spirit World."
"Whatever, we aren't going to figure anything out by standing still." Toph marches towards the hallway Zuko and Iroh had disappeared in and, belatedly, the rest of them follow.
As soon as Aang's foot touches the tile past the threshold, he is no longer in the Western Air Temple.
"Okay, yeah this is weird." Sokka says.
Aang has to agree. They're in the Dragon Palace just as suddenly as they were in the Western Air Temple.
"Great!" Katara hisses, "We're in the heart of the Fire Nation! And for what--"
"Shut up!" Toph interrupts. They all quiet and soon voices come into focus.
II.
"Please Uncle!" That... sounds kind of like Zuko. "If I'm going to be the Firelord one day, I should know what goes on in the War Room!"
"I have already said no, nephew."
Iroh and Zuko round the corner, and once again they don't seem to notice the out of place group hovering at the edge of the hall.
"But Uncle! I don't--I need the experience. I'm already so far behind, this will give me a real foundation! My tutors are..." Zuko trails off.
"He doesn't have his scar!" Sokka exclaims, pointing.
"Sokka! That's rude!" Even though her hands still hover by her waterskins, Katara doesn't pass up the chance to berate her brother.
"What, they can't see us, apparently."
"Scar?" Toph wonders, and Aang opens his mouth to inform her but looking into both of Zuko's troubled golden eyes stops him.
"Yeah, Zuko has a, uh, scar... doesn't he?" Sokka starts.
"Well." Katara says, looking at Zuko with the same intensity Aang feels. "He doesn't have one now."
Zuko's face is unblemished and smooth as porcelain. His eyes are wide, his brows upturned. He's still Aang's age, which shouldn't matter but--
Iroh has stopped walking, and Zuko beside him. Zuko bites his lip and looks away and Iroh puts his hands on both of Zuko's shoulders. "Okay, okay. But you have to promise to stay quiet. No interruptions."
"Yes! Of course! Thank you, Uncle!" Zuko bows, quickly, obviously excited by the turn of events and the two pass by the gang without taking notice of them.
As Zuko passes a shadow covers his face, falling over his left eye and Aang can't decide if it reminds him more of bandages or a burn.
Zuko and Iroh pass through a door, and this time none of them hesitate to follow on their heels.
Once again the moment they pass the threshold they are in a new place.
"Oh, yeah that's a scar!" Sokka says.
III.
Zuko ignores him of course, stomping his way down the gangplank of his ship into a port Aang doesn't recognize. He's scowling, like always, and Iroh is conspicuously absent from his side. He marches onto the dock work, catches sight of something and ducks behind a thick wooden post.
Aang knows his friends are as surprised as him, and Zuko seems to be surprised at himself too, because he shakes his head and stalks forward again as if hiding had been instinct, not choice.
Aang surveys the docks, tries to find what had startled Zuko, but a voice rings out before he catches sight of anything.
"Zuko! Fancy meeting you here." The voice fills the space like oil on water and Aang turns to catch Zhao striding towards Zuko like he owns the port.
"Zhao." Zuko says, begrudgingly, folding his arms across his chest. He catches himself and puts his arms to his sides.
"Commander Zhao," the man corrects as he sidles up next to Zuko. Zuko rolls his eyes and continues forward.
"I knew those two were in cahoots." Sokka points, rudely, at the two.
"Cahoots?" Katara asks.
"What two? Who's Zhao?" Toph asks, and Aang looks at Toph who has her arms crossed over chest, defensively. Aang blinks and slows his pace--because they're following Zuko, of course--so her shoulder brushes his when they step.
"He's a jerk!" Katara says.
"Yeah, he sieged the North Pole and killed, uh..." Sokka trails off, his face a picture of confusion.
"I think... the moon spirit?" Aang offers, but he can't quite remember it.
"I don't need an escort---Commander Zhao," Zuko yells, his voice cutting into their conversation.
"Please. What trade do you think a banished traitor would be able to get without me here?" Zhao's voice was still oil-slick as it weaved through the conversation.
"This is a neutral port!" Zuko hisses, "And our stipend is good enough--"
"And that's why you've had to make twice the stops you normally do, or do you just like the view?" Zhao asks, and Aang sees him turn a grin towards Zuko.
Zuko fumes, taking two steps away from Zhao and turning the full force of his glare onto him. "So you've been stalking us!" He accuses.
"Keeping an eye on you, like I was asked to." He says, closes the space between the two of them again. "Listen, I'll negotiate a fair price for your supplies." He says, ducking his head closer to Zuko's like he's sharing a secret.
"I don't need your charity!" Zuko yells and tries to put space between them once more.
"And who's pay are you going to cut this time?" Zhao asks, "Surely your own budget can't take much more... restructuring. Maybe the navigator's. If it's enough to make him jump ship, then I'm sure you can step in and compensate. Well, not that he'll be able to find a posting elsewhere, serving on the Wani had become quite the black mark on your resume I hear." Zuko's fists tighten, and he loses the fight to keep them by his side and crosses them over his chest.
Zhao takes this as a victory, drapes his arm over Zuko’s shoulders like an old friend and starts steering him in a different direction. “Have tea with me, Zuko, we can look over your finances together.”
“Tea sounds lovely, Commander,” Iroh’s voice cuts through the conversation as easily as the man himself inserts his body between Zhao’s and Zuko’s. Zuko’s startled face fades away as they step across the dock.
