Chapter Text
Icy winds whipped around Sokka of the Tagiuk Tribe as he stood vigil on the wall surrounding his village. He was the only one left to defend his people should the Fire Nation attack. As the last defense, Sokka needed to be decisive, unbending, strong-
“Sokka! I’m not doing your share of chores because you’re busy playing soldier!”
The irritation Sokka had been trying to keep down bubbled up at his sister’s words. So she got to skip out on chores to play with Aang and put the whole village in jeopardy, but thought she could scold him? He whipped around and shouted, “I’m not playing, Katara! I’m protecting our village!”
“From what?! The snowflakes?” Katara huffed and crossed her arms. “All you’ve done is kick out a boy with no home and stare at nothing for hours. Just give up already and come help me skin this puffin seal.”
That was completely unfair! Sokka hadn’t been the one to kick Aang out. It had been a unanimous (minus Katara and the children, but they didn’t get a say) decision of the village. Though he was just a kid and it had been a genuine mistake, Aang was still dangerous to have around. He was an airbender for La’s sake! If- When the Fire Nation followed that flare to their village, the last thing they needed was an airbender in their midst.
So why was it that Sokka was the only one who still cared?
Barely ten minutes after getting into battle stations, people started going about their day again. In the hours since, multiple people (even Grangran!) called up to him to end his vigil. So what if there weren’t any reports of raids nearby, that didn’t mean they should let their guard down! So what if any Fire Nation cruisers close enough to see the flare would have been here by now, maybe they took a wrong turn and were still on their way!
Ignoring Katara’s complaints, Sokka turned his back to her and stared out at the cove again. He’d had his back turned for too long to talk to her. What if the enemy had come into sight in his moments of distraction and-
Was that a boat in the distance?!
“Haha! Look, Katara, look! There’s something out there. I was right!”
“Uh… If you’re right, that really isn’t something you should be excited about…”
Oh, shit, right. Sokka grabbed his horn from his belt and blew it in three short bursts. As he scrambled to pull his parka off (it had gotten cold in his warrior’s uniform!), he shouted, “Everyone! To your battle stations. And stay there this time!”
Sokka wished they had the telescopes to spare after Dad and the warriors left. He cupped his hands around his eyes and squinted to try to better see the speck in the distance. It wasn’t the stark black of Fire Nation cruisers, he was certain of that much.
The scrape of someone climbing up the wall pulled Sokka away from his surveillance. He groaned at the sight of his sister clambering up next to him.
“Seriously, Katara? This is not your battle station.”
Outright ignoring him, Katara repeated his actions to look at the approaching threat. With a hum, she lowered her hands to prop them on her hips.
“I don’t think that’s a Fire Nation ship. For one thing, it’s way too small,” she said.
Sokka huffed and resisted the temptation to shove her off the wall. “Well, I don’t know! Maybe they’ve developed some sort of new technology to get our guard down and attack when we are least expecting it!”
Katara raised a single, judgemental eyebrow. “Sure, because they need to be sneaky against a bunch of elders and children.”
To Sokka absolute dismay, Grangran agreed with Katara’s assessment and signed for them both to come down to wait at the village’s entrance for their strange visitors (not potential enemies no matter how much Sokka argued otherwise).
As the small sailing boat came close enough to make out details, Sokka had to begrudgingly admit that the strangers probably, definitely weren’t the Fire Nation Navy. There were only two people on board and they were wearing Water Tribe parkas, even if the colors were a bit off. Well, still! They could still be working for the Fire Nation! Or be undercover!
They anchored their boat on the cove’s shore, then slowly approached the village. It was hard to make out what the strangers looked like with their hoods pulled up. So, Sokka was still tense. No matter what Katara and Grangran said, they were potential enemies until they proved otherwise.
“Who are you!” Sokka shouted, stepping forward and raising his club so it was clear he was prepared to fight. “What’s your business with- Augh!”
Katara smacked him in the stomach with her whole arm, pushing all the air out of his lungs and sending him behind Grangran in the process. Her elbow dug too deep into him to be anything other than intentional. Oh, he was going to get back at her for that the second the threat was gone.
“Excuse my grandson,” Grangran said diplomatically. “Are you emissaries of Agna Qel’a?”
The slightly taller of the pair faltered and a raspy voice came out of the shadows of his hood, “Huh? What? No? Why would you think that?” As he spoke, he pushed his hood back to reveal a teenager around Sokka’s age with a gruesome scar marring half his face.
While Grangran didn’t react, Katara gasped quietly. Sokka knew his bleeding heart of a sister’s guard was down now. Which was exactly what the enemy was expecting by the teenager revealing his face first! Although, it was a bit discouraging when the other stranger pushed back his hood and it was an old man underneath, not a hardened, undercover soldier.
“Your parkas are of northern design,” Grangran said, not missing a beat. “If you’re not from the North Pole, how did you acquire those and what brings you here?”
At least Sokka could rely on her to be on his side, even if he was bursting with questions. How did these strangers get parkas from the Northern Water Tribe? How did Grangran even know what they looked like?
“Oh! Well, we did get these from the northern tribe when we stayed there. But, we’re not from there. Uh-” The teenager dropped into a quick bow. “I’m Huizhong. This is my uncle, Sung, and I’m a researcher! I’ve been traveling and researching spirits and the Avatar. Sorry to intrude on you, but do you happen to know the source of that beam of light from yesterday? It seemed like it was some sort of spirit light!”
The deluge of words caught Sokka off guard, and Grangran too, since she paused long enough for the only one not processing the information overload to speak up.
“Oh! That was-” Sokka shoved his hand over Katara’s mouth and pulled back, making her stumble into him. She glared up at him, but Sokka figured it was fair payback for her elbowing him.
“Don’t help the enemy,” he hissed in her ear. She rolled her eyes, but thankfully didn’t try to fight him any more than shoving his hand away.
Grangran glanced back at them wryly, then answered Huizhong in the last way Sokka expected. “My grandchildren do happen to know the source of yesterday’s light. While I’m afraid I cannot extend the hospitality you perhaps experienced in Agna Qel’a, you may speak with them if they’re willing to share.”
Sokka’s jaw dropped. Seriously? Grangran was letting her guard down too? What, just because these strangers had supposedly stayed with the northern tribes? They could have stolen those parkas! And seriously, were they supposed to believe this Huizhong guy was a researcher? That was the stupidest cover story ever! Why would a random kid be traveling and researching spirits in the middle of war?!
Meanwhile, Katara’s eyes lit up as she bounced up next to Grangran and away from Sokka’s attempt to keep her mouth shut. “Then can we bring Aang back? I know we made a mistake, but-”
“You may offer him and our visitors dinner and assistance setting up camp for the night. But Aang is no longer a guest of the tribe, Katara, and I cannot rescind that decision lightly.”
Katara sighed in resignation, then turned to Huizhong with a bright smile. “You’re researching spirits and stayed in Agna Qel’a? That’s so cool! What was it like? Where else have you been? Oh! Right, I’m Katara.”
She started to bow, as Huizhong had, but he offered his arm in a proper Water Tribe greeting. Katara clasped his arm with sparkling eyes and a quick, smug glance at Sokka. Okay, fine, that was a point in support of his story being true, but not proof.
“And that grumpy pants is my brother Sokka. It’s nice to meet you, Huizhong and Mr. Sung!”
No, it wasn’t nice to meet them. Sokka reluctantly sheathed his club and crossed his arms to glare menacingly. He was ignored as Huizhong leaned toward Katara with a fervent look in his eyes.
“You can call me Hui. Nice to meet you too. What do you know about that light? Who’s Aang?”
Sung cleared his throat with a frown.
The intensity in Hui’s gaze lessened as he pulled away with a blush and sheepishly added, “Sorry, I’ll answer your questions too. I’m just a bit excited.”
With a satisfied nod, Sung offered his own greeting and introduction to Grangran. Their conversation was too quiet to hear over Katara regaling Hui with the story of finding Aang from the very beginning, as in from her and Sokka bickering while fishing. Was that really necessary? Grangran led Sung into the village to get those dinner supplies she offered, and Sokka was torn between following the suspicious man or sticking by his sister’s side with the suspicious teenager.
“Sokka was being a complete, sexist pig and I was so angry that I went off on him.”
Hold up, telling the weird airbender trapped in ice that she was a waterbender was one thing, but this guy? Sokka started forward, ready to cut Katara off. Her following words had him letting out a sigh of relief.
“Next thing we knew, the iceberg we landed on suddenly split open! It was a bit terrifying, really. It almost pushed us off and into the water, but Sokka’s at least good for an emergency and kept us on the ice-”
“Hey!”
“Shut up, Sokka, you’re not part of this conversation,” Katara snapped, not even deigning to look at him. Rude! “Anyways, the water from the iceberg crack started bubbling and a huge, glowing sphere of ice burst out and inside it was a boy!”
Hui interrupted with a barrage of questions, which Katara took with good cheer. This was unfair! If Sokka had interrupted like that, he would have gotten a smack on the shoulder at least. He glanced over at the village. Though he couldn’t see Grangran and Sung, everything seemed peaceful there. Well, he could trust Grangran not to say anything incriminating. Sokka was better placed here to make sure Katara didn’t spill sensitive information. There was still a high chance these people were Fire Nation spies!
Grangran returned shortly enough with Sung and some supplies in tow (and Sokka’s discarded parka which he gratefully accepted from her). With Hui’s interruptions, Katara was only just wrapping up her story. Sokka was a little proud of her because though she was acting loose-lipped, she hadn’t made any allusions to her waterbending or Aang’s airbending.
“I actually don’t know how Aang ended up in that iceberg, and survived, so we can ask him together! He shouldn’t be too far from the village, and then we can talk more over dinner. But, I don’t know if spirits are necessarily involved.”
Sokka rolled his eyes. Yeah, sure, spirits weren’t involved with an airbender frozen in ice for what was possibly an entire century. Not that he was going to contradict Katara and provide these potential spies with more information.
With a verbal promise to Grangran to be back after dinner—and a signed promise behind everyone's backs to keep an eye on Katara and these suspicious ‘visitors’—they set off from the village to find where Aang had wandered off to. Hui started answering some of Katara’s questions about the North Pole and his travels as they walked. Sokka stepped closer to listen in. Not because he was curious, of course, but because there was a good chance Hui slipped up and revealed his true intentions as he talked.
Definitely not because Sokka was also curious. No way.
It was taking everything in Zuko’s willpower to keep pace with Katara and not run ahead in his excitement to meet this Aang kid. He knew he wasn’t doing his best talking about his travels or research, distracted as he was. At least Katara was good-natured and wasn’t complaining. Unlike her brother. Jeez, what was the guy’s problem? He was acting like Zuko crashed into his village with the Sazanami and threatened his grandmother or something.
Whatever, Sokka’s bad mood couldn’t do anything to dampen Zuko’s mood. Energy thrummed under his skin. Anticipation had his heart thumping and throat growing tight. He knew better than to get his hopes up, but this was insane. Impossible. Unbelievable.
A boy trapped in an iceberg had been the source of the light? Of course spirits were involved! And who else would spirits keep in ice in the South Pole other than the Avatar? No, no, Zuko couldn’t get ahead of himself. He had to gather his facts before making any conjectures about the kid. Katara hadn’t mentioned any bending; he could just be spirit touched. Which was still the best lead Zuko had in months, so no way was he going to let himself get disappointed.
“What was the coolest thing you saw- Oh, there he is!” Katara cut herself off with a beaming smile as she waved to a snow bank. “Aang!”
Zuko frowned in the direction she was waving, then nearly tripped on his own feet. It wasn’t a snow bank she was waving to. The massive, white creature would have blended in with the snow if not for its brown markings. Zuko barely noticed the boy calling out a return greeting because the creature turned its head and let out a rumbling sound. Its brown markings came down to form an arrow on its head.
“Is that a flying bison!?” Zuko shouted, louder than he should have if the wince from everyone next to him was to go by.
“You have got to be shitting me,” Sokka muttered behind him.
The boy beside the bison leaped several feet off the ground, then landed in front of them with a gentle gust of wind. Zuko’s breath caught in his throat. Airbending. That was airbending. This Aang kid was an airbender! How could Katara conveniently leave that bit of information out of her story?!
Aang the airbender smirked at Sokka as he said, “See, I told you Appa could fly! He’s just tired! Nice makeup by the way. Anyways, thank you, mysterious strang-ger.”
Aang stuttered and blatantly stared at Zuko’s face—his scar—in a way only young children did, as if he’d never seen anything like it before. Something uncomfortable twisted in Zuko’s stomach. Even when people did a double take at his scar, they were always quick to cover up for their blunder.
But then Zuko noticed the intricate arrow tattooed on Aang’s head and forgot his discomfort to exclaim, “You’re an airbending master? How old are you? Eight?!”
“Master!?” Katara and Sokka parroted while Aang shook himself out of his rude stupor and cried out, “Eight?!”
Aang laughed and propped his hands on his hips. “I’m not eight! I’m twelve! Jeez, how old are you? Thirteen?”
Zuko scowled. What right did this kid have to tease him when Aang had been the one acting like a rude toddler? “I’m sixteen, thank you very much.”
“Almost sixteen,” Uncle coughed from behind him.
Everyone froze. Heat filled Zuko’s cheeks as he turned around to yell at Uncle while the children burst out laughing. Ugh. This was humiliating.
“Sorry, sorry!” Aang said between his giggles. He held his hand out with an easy smile. “I’m Aang! I didn’t see you in the village earlier. Nice to meet you! How’d you know Appa is a flying bison?”
As much as Zuko wanted to snub his peace offering, he was a mature almost-sixteen-year-old and wouldn’t let a couple of children’s mocking get to him. He huffed and gave Aang’s hand a short shake. “Hui. You didn’t see me in the village earlier because I wasn’t there. I’ve actually been researching airbenders so that’s-”
“Ahha!” Sokka shouted, pulling Katara back as he whipped out his club. “You’ve finally gotten tangled up in your web of lies, you spy! You said you were researching spirits!”
Katara smacked Sokka on the back of his head as she pulled away from him. Zuko crossed his arms in hopes of calming his heart, which wanted to jump out of his chest. The sudden accusation scared the shit out of him. He thought he had said something incriminating!
“I can research more than one thing,” Zuko said, impressed by how level his voice sounded. He looked back to Aang with a shrug. “I’ve been researching spirits too. But it’s because of my airbender research that I recognized your sky bison for what it is. And that your tattoos mean you’re an airbending master. Unless your practices have changed.”
“No, you’re right.” Aang rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t really like to brag about it, but I’m the youngest airbending master on record, actually.”
Zuko took a deep breath, mind swimming with questions. If Aang was a master this young, surely he developed his own technique. Would he be willing to show Zuko what it was? As an airbending prodigy, could he replicate Yangchen’s air lantern? Who else would be a master at age twelve other than the Avatar?
Before Zuko could decide which question to start with, Uncle clapped his hands and drew everyone’s attention to him. He smiled and suggested they make camp before they got too caught up talking. Annoying, but valid, and it wasn’t like they couldn’t talk while they worked.
A couple of hours later Katara, Aang, and Zuko were huddled together next to the fire, camp made, dinner cooked and eaten. Their questions and stories kept getting cut short and interrupted by each other and their work (and eating) earlier, so now they were bouncing around topics, asking everything they hadn’t earlier.
Uncle and Sokka sat to the side on opposite ends of the campfire—Uncle interjecting occasionally to embarrass Zuko and correct the, frankly, harmless occasional embellishments to his stories; Sokka butting in with questions of his own when he forgot he was sulking and then making a big deal about how he still didn’t trust Zuko before returning to his sulking.
More than ever, Zuko was convinced Aang was the missing Avatar. He’d obviously been stuck in ice before the war, since he knew nothing about it and was reluctant to believe the Air Temples Zuko had visited were abandoned. Katara’s sharp looks from behind Aang kept Zuko from saying much to discourage Aang from the useless hope that he wasn’t the last surviving airbender. Well, last surviving Air Nomad airbender.
What did it mean that the Avatar (possibly) had returned? Had Zuko managed to bring back enough balance to convince the spirits to release Aang from his icy confines? Were there other airbenders out there now? Had Sarnai learned how to airbend from the flying jerboa? Or maybe Châu had from the Swamp. But wait, if freedom was back, shouldn’t his egg have hatched? Oh Agni! Zuko shouldn’t have left it behind on the Sazanami. It didn't matter how cold it was wandering the South Pole or how difficult it would have been to warm it with Uncle right there-
No, that didn’t sound quite right. Maybe Zuko had been wrong with his theories, or he’d been half right and he started the process, but the Avatar was needed to completely bring freedom and airbending back. That had better be the case; Zuko would never forgive himself if his egg hatched alone without him there to welcome it into the world.
However, Zuko wasn’t letting himself forget the minuscule chance Aang wasn’t the Avatar. After all, wasn’t Toph essentially an earthbending master at age nine or whatever? Despite being a prodigy with her element, it was obvious she wasn’t the Avatar. But then again, Toph wasn’t an airbender-
Nope, Zuko just had to wait to confirm it directly with Aang. Until then, he was genuinely enjoying learning about the Air Nomads from a primary source.
It was Uncle who cut their discussions short with a glance at the finicky South Pole sun, which had begun its descent in the sky. Katara promised to come by again in the morning—ignoring Sokka’s argument that no, she would not—and the siblings started the trek back to their village.
“By the way,” Aang said, facing Zuko as soon as Katara turned away and stopped waving back to him. “How do you know so much about Air Nomads if we’ve supposedly been gone for so long?”
Zuko blinked and ran their previous discussions through his mind. Had he really forgotten? Jeez, he had forgotten to mention it, even when the desert came up. Unable to contain his grin, Zuko pulled his bag over and whipped out Yangchen’s memoirs.
“So the whole reason I had been in the desert was to find a spirit library, which I did. And in it I was given memoirs from Avatar Yangchen!”
“Yangchen?!” Aang gasped, awestruck and excited in a way no one other than Yue had been.
Before Zuko giddily dove into the topic, Uncle stood with a long yawn. “And I believe that is my cue to turn in for the night. Please do not stay up all night talking about Avatar Yangchen, Nephew.”
Zuko blushed and Aang burst into laughter. “Do you do that a lot?”
Uncle rolled his eyes with a teasing smile. “If he has a willing victim, then yes. Feel free to cut him off whenever you get tired.”
“No way! I’m a fan of Yangchen too!” Aang said with an elated smile, effectively cutting off Zuko’s annoyed response to Uncle. “Gyatso is actually part of her school of thought! So I know some about her, but well, I’ll admit I was more interested in other things so I only learned what Gyatso said in passing that made me curious and asked more about. But what I do know, she was really cool! I’ve never heard anything about her writing memoirs, though.”
“Well, that would be because she entrusted them to her friends, Tarkik and Siniq of the Northern Water Tribe!”
Zuko didn’t have to feign his enthusiasm as Uncle retired to the tent with an exaggerated shiver. In the curve of Appa’s bulk and with the roaring fire in front of them, there was no rush to get in the tent. It was plenty warm enough here.
“She wrote them because she had recently lost her best friends and bending masters, Akari and Huizhong. The memoirs helped Yangchen process her grief, and celebrate their lives. She was going to get rid of them when she was done, but Tarkik convinced her to let him keep them and help future generations… or Avatars connect with her story.”
Aang stared, transfixed on Zuko as he spoke, but didn’t react to his stress on future Avatars. “Woah. I didn’t know any of that. But, y’know, that does line up with what Gyatso’s said. Some of the other monks used to fight him on our travels in the other nations, and that I needed to study in the temples more, but Gyatso always says that true enlightenment can’t happen without connections to the world around us.”
“That’s almost exactly what Yangchen said!” Zuko exclaimed, then winced in the direction of the tent and scooted closer to Aang to show him the opening page of Yangchen’s writings. “Wow, that’s so cool how her debates with Huizhong carried down through the years to become a philosophical cornerstone of her teachings!”
“Uh… Yeah!” Aang reached out for the book but froze when Zuko reflectively jerked it away. Shoot, no, of all people, Aang deserved to look at and handle Yangchen’s memoirs.
However, Aang pushed ahead and didn’t address Zuko’s protectiveness of the tome. “To tell you the truth, I’m not the most versed in the, well, nitty gritty of our teachings. Gyatso says I have time to dig deeper into that later. Does Yangchen mostly write about that sort of stuff?”
Zuko grinned. “I don’t care about nitty gritty philosophy stuff either. I just know the surface level of what Yangchen talks about with that stuff. No way I would have read this whole thing if that was all she talked about.”
“Does she write about her mastery? Did you know she was one of the youngest masters before me? But apparently her mastery technique was so hard that it was lost to time!”
Ha, did Yangchen write about that. Zuko didn’t have to turn to the page to share the story, but he felt bad for pulling Yangchen’s memoirs away from Aang. He made sure to angle the book between them as he shared the story, so Aang could easily see Yangchen’s tight script with the help of the fire in the fading sunlight.
At the conclusion, Aang was giggling and explaining how he imagined the elders’ expressions when Yangchen bent fire at her mastery ceremony—the same expression they made when they got pelted with cakes.
“How’d Yangchen meet Akari anyways?” he asked.
Though Zuko would love to go into that tale, enough time had passed for Uncle to be asleep. His heat signature was steady and hadn’t moved for a while, a good sign he wasn’t going to rouse.
“Actually, uh, before that, um-” What was the best way to bring this up? He should get Aang further from the tent, just in case Uncle was pretending to sleep and was eavesdropping. “Could I pet Appa?!”
Aang stared at him for a moment, jaw slightly agape, before grinning slyly. “How long have you been waiting to ask that?”
Heat filled Zuko’s face and he scrunched his shoulders up to hide his blush in the fur of his hood. “I just thought of it!”
“Uh-huh, sure.” Aang snickered as he effortlessly used his bending to pull both him and Zuko up on their feet. Not giving Zuko a chance to argue, Aang pulled him over to the massive sky bison dozing beside them. “His favorite spot is right at the base of his horns.”
Standing on his toes, Zuko could just reach to give said spot a good pet. Appa rumbled and sleepily opened his eyes to stare at Zuko. Now, Zuko wasn’t well-versed in air bison but he did know what Knowledge Seekers and narwolves enjoyed, and that was warm hands. With a quick peek back at Aang, Zuko hid his hands between him and Appa to pull some heat from the crackling fire. This time when he reached up to dig his fingers through Appa’s thick fur, the bison let out a deep, appreciative sigh. He pushed his head down and toward Zuko so he had better access to his horn.
Zuko smiled and warmth filled his chest. He totally understood the devotion Yangchen’s words held for her own sky bison, and how Akari struggled to resist throwing herself into Shosha’s furry coat. Zuko had half a mind to do that himself.
“Wow, you have a magic touch!” Aang praised, breaking Zuko out of his thoughts.
Right, this was supposed to be an excuse to put some distance between them and the tent. Zuko forced an awkward smile, then went around Appa’s massive head to pet his other side. Once Appa closed his eyes again with a rumbling hum, Zuko brought his hands back to himself and turned to face Aang.
“Are you the Avatar?”
Aang froze and the color draining from his face had nothing to do with the temperature.
“Because I’ve been researching spirits and airbenders and the Avatar in search of the missing Avatar. I’ve met a lot of people I’ve thought could be the Avatar, but nothing’s ever lined up so perfectly before. You’ve been in ice for a hundred years, you’re an airbender, you’re an airbending master, your mentor raised you on a previous Avatar’s doctrine, and I read plenty of descriptions of the Avatar’s powers that the mysterious blue light that shot out of your iceberg sure sounds like it came from the Avatar spirit.”
“I- Uh- Well- Yeah… I am.” Aang acquiesced with a deep sigh as his body drooped. “It’s not that I was trying to hide it or anything, but it’s still kinda new to me. I only found out a few weeks ago- Or. I guess a hundred years ago, now… Wait-” His head shot up, eyes wide. “Missing Avatar?! Has no one known what happened to me this whole time?”
Zuko forced himself to take deep breaths. He couldn’t lose his cool right now. This was a pivotal moment. He found the Avatar. He did it. Something everyone thought was impossible.
This was only the beginning, though. He needed to get Aang on his side, the Wings’ side, so they could work together to end the war and bring balance back so his lóng egg would finally hatch.
“Yeah, I suspect you disappeared not too long before… Well, before the Air Nomads were gone. And I think very few people outside the Air Nomads knew you specifically were the Avatar. Not to mention no one knew if you survived or not. For the longest time, people have been waiting for the cycle to continue, or have feared it was completely broken.”
Aang stumbled a step back, struggling to process the information. Oops, Zuko probably should have softened that blow some…
Rubbing his hands over his face, Aang fell against Appa to take comfort in his fluff. “And it’s been a hundred years? That’s- I can’t believe- Wait, then why have you been looking for me, uh, for the Avatar?”
This was a pivotal moment and it needed to be handled with finesse, care, and the truth if there was any hope of Aang agreeing to work with him. Yes, Zuko could do this. He’d spent enough time with Kavi and Jae to understand the delicate balance of being Fire Nation and working against the war. Finesse. Care.
“I’m Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation,” Zuko blurted out. Like an idiot. Oh Agni help him. But Aang wasn’t running away screaming. He merely stared at Zuko in confused shock. No going back now.
“I’m not actually a scholar named Huizhong, obviously, since I just said I’m not. Um, this has been my cover to help my search for the Avatar. You see, I was actually banished from the Fire Nation for, er, disagreeing with my father. That's not important right now. But the terms for coming back home was finding the Avatar. But- I’m not your enemy! I swear! In my research, I’ve discovered the truths of the war and that the Fire Nation is in the wrong and how amazing and peaceful the Air Nomads were! I’ve been working since then to try to bring balance back to the world! Obviously a big part of that is ending the war, so, if you come with me, we can work together and end the war and bring peace and freedom back!”
“Uh. Okay. Wow. That’s… a lot…”
“Sorry, I’ve never done this before, well, once, but she already half figured me out and we hadn’t just met, but-” Zuko snapped his mouth shut and forced himself to think before he spoke more, something Yue in particular scolded him a lot about.
Aang was still staring at him with a shocked expression, leaning against Appa for support. It was better than getting angry or scared. Zuko hadn’t completely bungled this yet.
“I know this is a lot to process. I’m not trying to pressure you into aligning with me or anything right now. But I really wanted you to know the truth before we got any closer. It wouldn’t be good to build our relationship on lies. If you want to have a future relationship, of course. I hope you will, I really want to work together, of course. But. I’m shutting up now.”
Aang started to tremble. Oh no, was he holding back tears? Was he scared? This was- Aang hid his face in his hands as he burst into uncontrollable giggles. This wasn’t the reaction Zuko expected. The giggles continued far past Zuko’s patience, but he forced himself to cross his arms and wait for Aang to compose himself. Maybe this was a weird shock response.
Eventually, Aang stopped laughing long enough to catch his breath. He wiped some tears from his eyes, but they were from laughing too hard rather than any sort of negative emotion. “You said you’ve been traveling for how long again? How have you not ruined your cover yet? You’re horrible at this!”
“Hey! My cover has been impeccable! You try meeting the person you’ve been searching for for three years and see how well you handle explaining yourself!”
Aang frowned thoughtfully. “Sorry, guess that was kinda inconsiderate of me. I don’t know if I’d do any better sharing such a big secret either… Probably not so great, now that I think about it. I hadn’t even told my friends that I was the Avatar yet before I-” With an uncomfortable cough, Aang pushed himself off Appa to give Zuko a consoling pat on the shoulder. “Thank you for trusting me with the truth, even though we just met. It couldn’t have been easy.”
For some reason, Zuko would prefer if Aang went back to laughing at him. He wasn’t sure how he felt about this child acting so mature. Zuko definitely would not have reacted like this at age 12. (And if he was honest with himself, he probably would not react like Aang now.) Instead of addressing that, Zuko shrugged off Aang’s hand and stepped back.
“Well, like I said, it needed to be done. Um, do you want to hear about Akari and Yangchen now?”
Aang snorted and shook his head. “How about in the morning? I don’t think I can handle any more new information tonight.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s… fair.” Zuko winced.
He did not do a good job of easing Aang into this. Hopefully it wouldn’t matter, so Kavi and Jae would only hear about his success. They were going to be so surprised when he came back with the Avatar on their side. Ha! See if they ever shooed him away like this again!
“Well, you’re welcome to join us in our tent for the night," Zuko said. "Appa’s warm, but the pelts Ms. Kanna lent us really do their job.”
“Yeah, thanks. But I think I’m going to stay out here and think a little by myself first, if that’s okay?”
“Of course that’s okay! You don’t have to ask me for permission to process all this.” Zuko felt ridiculously bad for piling this all at once on a twelve-year-old, Avatar or not. Seriously, what had he been thinking? He was such an idiot. “You can let yourself in whenever you’re ready. Don’t worry about waking Uncle, he could sleep through a rampaging komodo rhino.”
Aang grinned and waved Zuko off, then settled back into Appa’s side with a pensive expression. He would probably be out here thinking for a while.
Zuko knew he wasn’t falling asleep anytime soon. The only reason he was retiring was to give Aang some semblance of privacy. If he gave him room to think by himself, that looked good, right? It proved Zuko wasn’t lying about not forcing Aang to join him, right? It felt like something Kavi would do; it had to be the right call.
Except.
Almost an hour later, Aang’s heat signature started to move not toward the tent to turn in for the night but away from the camp. Zuko sat up frowning. He wasn’t running away, was he? Appa wasn’t moving, so surely not.
But… It wouldn’t hurt to follow him and figure out what was going on.
“Vindication!” Sokka shouted, quickly shushed (and probably smacked) by his sister.
“Stop celebrating bad things just because you’ve been proven right!” Katara hissed.
“But Katara,” Sokka whined. “I was right. You and Grangran ignored my very reasonable suspicions and I was right!”
Katara sighed. “Fine, whatever. I won’t doubt you next time. But can we please focus?”
Thank you, Zuko thought with a huff. Even with his breath of fire and heatbending, he was freezing from hiding outside Katara and Sokka’s home as Aang repeated everything Zuko had confided in him.
Zuko wasn’t sure how he felt about the whole thing. On one hand, he felt incredibly betrayed by Aang immediately running off to question his story and intentions. But on the other hand, it was a reasonable response for a kid stuck out of time. Aang didn’t know the political landscape of what was basically 100 years in the future for him. Regardless, it still stung that he didn’t take Zuko at his word.
“Besides, you’re not right if everything Zuko said is true!” Aang argued, not that it made Zuko feel any better. “He’s not a spy or the enemy or anything. He wants to stop the war!”
“Of course everything he said isn’t true! He’s Fire Nation! They’re evil!” Sokka scoffed. “He was just saying whatever he could to get you to trust him so he could drag you to the Fire Nation with him.”
Aang’s heat signature shifted uncomfortably. “You weren’t there. He really sounded genuine. Besides, an entire nation of people can’t be evil. One of my best friends is- was from the Fire Nation!”
“Maybe that was true a hundred years ago, but, Aang…” Katara trailed off uncertainly.
“Listen, you came to us because you don’t know anything about the world right now, right?" Sokka said. "We might not have heard anything about Prince Zuko or his banishment or his quest to support or disprove what he said, but we can tell you that the dad he ‘had a disagreement’ with? He’s the Fire Lord. And he’s a real piece of work.”
What did Sokka know? He lived in the middle of nowhere at the bottom of the world. He didn’t know anything about Zuko’s father. He didn’t.
“Nothing good will come from delivering yourself into the Fire Lord's hands.”
It wasn’t like Zuko was planning on going straight to the Fire Nation! The first step was rendezvousing with the Wings and planning accordingly with them. Aang’s return was going to totally throw a wrench in their current plans. Wait, shit, he hadn’t mentioned the Wings at all to Aang, had he? Would it help or hurt Zuko’s case if he revealed himself to clarify things now?
“But, if Zuko really wants to end the war, then surely he won’t just give me to someone bad?” Aang asked.
Okay, maybe it was best to let Aang keep talking. This was possibly not him not trusting Zuko, but his way of dealing with how overwhelmed he felt. Which was entirely Zuko’s fault for saying too much.
“That’s putting too much trust in a prince of the Fire Nation!” Sokka said.
Katara sighed. “Aang, I understand that you had a friend from the Fire Nation and want to think the best of Hui- Zuko because of that. But you really don’t understand what the Fire Nation has done while you were frozen. I mean, just to start with, there’s a reason I’m the only waterbender in the village. I’m the only waterbender left in the whole South Pole! And it’s top secret. If the Fire Nation ever found out, they’d kill me… Like they killed my mother.”
Well shit. Somehow Zuko had forgotten about the waterbender raids Kavi had educated him on after meeting the Southern Water Tribe fleet. Of course Katara and Sokka were especially distrusting of Zuko’s intentions. Their mother had been killed by the Fire Nation and Katara was in hiding. However, Zuko hadn’t been the one to make those orders and definitely wouldn’t snitch on Katara now. They shouldn’t be judging him for his nation’s crimes!
But judge him was exactly what they did.
Zuko curled into himself with a twisting stomach as Katara and Sokka continued telling Aang every horrible thing the Fire Nation had done in the past century, starting with the Air Nomad genocide they’d previously been downplaying to spare Aang’s feelings. Now they went into detail of the lies that had been told, the thoroughness of the attack, and linking it to current military campaigns and to Zuko.
It wasn’t fair! Everything they said was true, of course. Despite the war actively happening around him, despite meeting so many people displaced and affected by it… Zuko had been thinking of things in the abstract. Of wanting to expose the truth of the Air Nomads, of wanting to bring peace to bring airbenders back. To hear it laid out so plainly for Aang’s understanding… Zuko was more certain than ever that he was right to be against the war, to not believe in the Fire Nation’s rhetoric of saving the world from itself through its rule.
But that was why it wasn’t fair. Zuko didn’t agree with the war or its motivations, not anymore, not since he learned the truth. How dare they judge him by his nation’s wrongs.
“Guys, thank you for explaining everything,” Aang said, cutting off Sokka’s rant about the earthbender work camps he heard about—and was clearly misinformed on! Not that it made the prisons any better… “I understand why you think I shouldn’t trust Zuko, but even if he’s the Fire Nation’s prince, he’s just a kid like us. He didn’t have any say on what his family’s done, and being out in the world by himself must have turned him against the war!”
The crushing grip on Zuko’s heart lessened. They’d only known each other for half a day, but Zuko felt like he and Aang had forged a bond through Aang’s element. Same as Zuko felt a connection to Sarnai, Châu, and even Teo, he felt it with Aang too. Zuko wasn’t an airbender, obviously, but he’d come to accept that (though not outright acknowledge) his heatbending and mission connected him to the element of freedom in a way no other firebender could.
Aang must have felt it too, felt the hot current of air connecting them, and nothing Katara or Sokka could say would erase that feeling.
At least. That’s what Zuko foolishly hoped.
“Ha!” Sokka's abrupt, mocking laugh sent a sharp lance of dread down Zuko’s spine. “Maybe I’d give it to you that someone could turn against the Fire Nation if it were anyone other than Ozai’s son. Trust me, Aang, there’s no way someone raised by that psychopath could turn out good. One time, I overheard Dad say that Ozai killed his own nephew to get the throne!”
Zuko could not hear anything over the buzzing in his ears. He felt disconnected from his body as the buzzing traveled to his extremities. Was he breathing? Maybe not since his lungs were burning. He needed to breathe, but wait, not too loud-
Father didn’t kill Lu Ten. How dare this- this uncivilized, ignorant child spread unsubstantiated rumors he didn’t understand the weight of. Father wasn’t a psychopath. He was reasonable. Harsh sometimes, sure, but he had to be for any hopes of Zuko learning to be a proper heir and-
Sokka’s words filtered through the haze muddling Zuko’s senses. He was picking up steam, making sure Aang understood every bad thing the Fire Nation had recently done was at Father’s command, and how that obviously reflected on Zuko as a person. How dare he! Zuko wasn’t a bad person because of who his father was- Father wasn’t a bad person either. He made mistakes, was just ignorant of the truth of the war—no one ever taught him otherwise! He had no reason to learn about the world as Zuko had in his banishment. He wasn’t bad, he wasn’t evil, he-
“Okay, I think I get it now,” Aang interrupted in a quiet voice.
Screw this.
Zuko shot to his feet and snuck out of the village the way he came in, careful to avoid any huts with moving heat signatures in case they noticed his shadow slide past. He was sick of hearing these children foul the Avatar’s opinion of him based on other people’s actions. The least they could do was ask him to better explain himself rather than judging him from Aang’s recounting of their conversation!
He was one person, or okay, two if he counted Uncle, but they weren’t a threat! Well, they absolutely were plenty enough to take on the entire village if they tried to hurt them, but- That wasn’t the point!
He hadn’t done anything to deserve this distrust.
Didn’t these stupid children know what they were jeopardizing with their falsities? Without the Avatar, Zuko was never going to end the war and bring balance back to the world. They didn’t need Aang like he did. How dare they convince him that Zuko meant him ill.
So fine. If Aang wanted the second opinion of others, Zuko would have to take him to people who were more trustworthy than Ozai’s son.
There wasn’t really any precedent to help a guy when he woke up from a century long nap, but Aang felt like Gyatso’s teachings had him well-equipped to handle the situation. It was no different than going to a new city, right? Gyatso always said the best way to get to know and be safe in a new place was to make friends, be observant, and trust his gut. Which was what Aang did even before he realized he had washed up not only on an unfamiliar shore, but in an unfamiliar time as well.
He may have fumbled a bit when exploring the warship ruin, but he had just been told he'd been asleep for a century. Anyone would fall for a booby trap when grappling with a revelation of that magnitude.
Aang left without a fight because as much as he wanted to keep hanging out with Katara and get Sokka to forgive him, his gut told him he would do himself no favors if he argued. It was his gut that told him not to go too far, which was obviously the right call when he heard Katara calling out for him a few hours later. So, then, it was also his gut that said he could trust Zuko.
The thing about trusting your gut, though, was that it needed enough observation to back it up. Gyatso always said, ‘Trust your gut, but not on an empty stomach!’ He did mean it literally sometimes, but it was mostly a metaphor to not blindly trust others when lacking information.
So no matter how genuine Aang believed Zuko was, he needed to know more about this place, this time. Aang considered waking Zuko up to ask him more questions, but that would still leave Aang to trust everything Zuko said about the war. Even if he was against it, his perspective would be different from Katara and Sokka’s. The best way to prove his trust wasn’t unfounded, Aang had to go to his other friends.
(And he could also confess he was the Avatar. Aang might have failed to tell his friends before he ran away from home, but he wasn’t going to make either mistake again.)
To Aang’s overwhelming relief, Katara and Sokka took the ‘I’m the Avatar!’ thing way better than he feared. Although, to be fair, it was vastly overshadowed by the ‘Hui is a prince of the Fire Nation’ thing.
All talk of the war in their earlier discussions had been neatly sidestepped, something Aang noticed but didn’t address. Such a heavy topic wasn’t good for building friendships. He figured they could talk about it later. Aang wished later wasn't now, when he was still coming to terms with the fact the world thought the Avatar was gone for a lifetime because of him.
It was horrible. It was terrifying. It made it hard to hold on to the hope Aang wasn’t the last Air Nomad no matter what anyone said. None of it made Aang believe he was wrong in trusting Zuko. The Fire Nation had done horrible things, but nothing Katara and Sokka heard had been about Zuko doing horrible things.
“Okay, I think I get it now,” Aang said to bring Sokka’s lecture to an end.
Sokka shut his mouth and leaned back with a smug smile, assured he had Aang convinced. Katara leaned forward, sympathetically reaching out to hold Aang’s hands in comfort. Aang gently pulled away. He took a deep, centering breath. They had lived a different life than Aang and their different experiences painted their view of Zuko, but that didn’t necessarily make them right.
“You’re not wrong by being wary or even scared of the prince of the nation that’s hurt you so much. But, we all met Zuko already, even if he was going by a different name. Take away all the things about the war that he had nothing to do with, and just judge him based on what we know about him.”
Aang smiled hopefully at his friends. “Does he really seem like someone who would try to hurt me because I’m the Avatar or Katara because she’s a waterbender?”
Katara frowned as Sokka crossed his arms and glared at the ground. When Zuko had still been Hui, they’d had no reason to hate or fear him. Surely even Sokka, who had been suspicious of him all evening, recognized the respectful way Zuko spoke of his travels. They never stayed on any one topic for long, but it had been obvious that Zuko met a lot of people and experienced a lot of different cultures in his travels. Honestly, he’d sounded a lot like an Air Nomad recounting their adventures. Someone like that couldn’t be evil.
“Well…” Katara started to say, but Sokka quickly cut her off.
“He could be lying! Just acting to trick us all!”
“Let me talk,” Katara scolded, smacking her brother’s shoulder before turning to Aang. “You said he admired Avatar Yangchen, right? Had read her entire memoir? I suppose, maybe, that’s good evidence to support your idea that he’s not lying… Can’t imagine a proper Fire Nation prince admiring the previous Air Avatar.”
Sokka groaned and dragged his hands down his face. “Which could still be an act! How do we know he read the whole thing? Aang said he just shared something from the first few pages. Or even if he did read it all, he could have done it to help him try to take down the next Air Avatar!”
This wasn’t getting them anywhere. Aang got the information he needed, but there was no way he was going to convince Katara and Sokka that they were wrong about Zuko. He could leave and ignore their worries but… They were his first friends in this time. Aang didn’t want to part on bad terms or leave them to worry about him (he wasn’t ever doing that again).
“How about you guys come back in the morning like you originally planned, and then talk to him about being the prince yourselves? If you still think he’s trying to trick me, I won’t go with him. But I really don’t think that’s what’s happening here.”
Katara nodded, immediately agreeing to the idea, but she wasn’t the hard sell. Both she and Aang turned to Sokka, eyes wide and pleading. He held out with his grumpy glare for a few moments longer. Then he fell back, catching himself on his hands planted behind him with a drawn out groan.
“Fine, if you’re still so convinced after hearing everything the Fire Nation and Zuko’s father have done, I suppose I can hear him out.” Sokka paused, then tilted his head with a grin. “And if he’s really a champion for peace, then he should have no problem with us coming with you to make sure he sticks to his word!”
Wait, what?
“Sokka!” Katara exclaimed, as shocked as Aang was by Sokka’s declaration. “Are you saying we should go with them to the Fire Nation?!”
Sitting up straight again, Sokka gestured his hand at Aang. “He’s the Avatar. The world is screwed if Prince Zuko is lying! And then even if he’s not lying, there’s no way I’m letting Aang walk into the Fire Nation without friends on his side.”
This was a serious discussion, Aang knew that, but he couldn’t help cupping his chin in his hands and cooing, “Aww, Sokka, I’m your friend now?”
“Shut up! That’s not the point!”
Katara grinned and leaned closer to poke at her brother. “Weren’t you just calling him a traitor this morning?”
“Well, I was wrong. And- None of this is the point right now!” Sokka jumped to his feet to point down at them. “Either Prince Peace lets us go with you, or you don’t go at all! And that’s final!”
“Alright, I’ll see you two in the morning then!” There was no containing his dopey grin as Aang jumped to his feet. “Thank you for helping me. And caring about me.”
Sokka grumbled and crossed his arms, as if that could hide his faint blush and shy smile. Katara, however, also stood and put her hands on Aang’s shoulders with a worried frown.
“Even if we think it’s possible that Zuko is okay… I think you should stay the night with us, just in case.”
Aang stepped forward between Katara’s arms to squeeze her in a tight hug and got a shocked laugh out of her. Snickering, Aang bounced back to the entrance of their hut with a wink. “It’s fine, don’t worry! Besides, I left Appa behind and I don’t want him to worry. Really, I’ll see you guys in the morning!”
Aang left the village in high spirits. He’d felt a little—well, a lot—overwhelmed by Zuko revealing his identity and making Aang truly realize he’d been gone for a century. There was still a lot Aang didn’t fully understand, he knew that. Only experiencing the world beyond the South Pole was going to help Aang understand what it was like, but Aang felt prepared to face anything new, secure in the knowledge he wouldn’t be facing it alone.
Gyatso would be so happy to know Aang made such good friends already. Hopefully he could also count Zuko as a friend. They had a lot of important things to do, with this war and all, but maybe everyone would be alright taking a quick stop by the Southern Air Temple… Even if the Air Nomads really were gone like everyone insisted they were, Aang could still introduce his friends to his home and Gyatso in other ways.
A smile pulled at Aang’s lips as he thought about showing Zuko around the Southern Air Temple. Though he’d explored the others and read Yangchen’s memoirs, there was still a lot he didn’t know about Air Nomad culture. He’d probably be super excited to get a full tour with someone who could explain everything to him. And he could tell Aang more about Yangchen too and-
Something hard hit the back of Aang’s head.
Everything went black.