AtLA Crossover fic: Lost, Love
Title: Lost, Love
Author: SCWLC
Disclaimer: Owning nothing here but the plotline.
Rating: PG for safety
Summary: The Avatar's band has lost one of their number, and Daemon is the only one who can help Zuko with that loss.
Notes: This doesn't feel right to me, but it's actually a test run for a totally different AtLA crossover (with Tamora Pierce's Tortall universe if anyone's wondering), where I want to do a setup much like this, but with a different character at Daemon's end of things. This is just to sort of work out some plotting bugs and the like. So Daemon feels a little . . . off in spots, and I have no idea what to do with Jaenelle except in very small doses, so she feels really weird here to me. Anyhow, here's another one-shot for the pile. As always, if anyone wants to pick this up and make a complete fic out of it, go for it.
That Zuko boy was brooding again. Daemon knew it had something to do with the girl who had gone missing. When these strange Craft users had started popping up all over Kaeleer, it had quickly become evident how alien a realm they were from.
There was the non-Blood boy, Sokka, the self-styled leader of their group. A declaration that had received snorts of derision from all the children, but none had actively disputed the statement. There was a young warrior woman, Suki, who was involved with Sokka. Jaenelle and the other ladies from the coven had delighted in learning about the girl's best weapon, a pair of sharp-edged fans. Lucivar had approved of a weapon that could be carried concealed in plain sight like that, and that was so clearly a 'woman's weapon' he could finally train the women around him to fight without objections from the more hidebound types.
Toph, the little blind girl, was an amazing and powerful master of her Craft. She communed with the earth itself and could move it to her will. She saw through the earth around her, and through her feet. His father had actually looked quite despairing of his sense of propriety when the girl had calmly explained that yes, she could wear shoes, if he wanted to take away her eyesight.
The most powerful member of their group was a young boy, called Aang, who they had declared to be the Avatar. Apparently, he was special as the only member of their realm who could use all four of the elements. He was only twelve and had a maddening tendency to be like Jaenelle when she was the same age, in alternating wisdom and childishness. He had not suffered as she had, but Daemon had to admit that he wasn't sure he would ever become as blasé as the other children when the tattoos and eyes had started glowing that blue-white and he was suddenly faced with a frightening woman in green with tribal makeup standing where Aang had just been.
It was the last member of their group he was concerned with, however. The boy, Zuko, was a Craft user as well. His element was fire, although Daemon had yet to see him do anything more impressive than absently light the fireplace or a candle with a flick of a finger.
"You're thinking about her again," Daemon said, mildly.
Zuko shot him a sideways look. "I can't help it. It's my fault. I should have . . . I don't know. But Azula is my sister. I should have found a way to stop her. It's almost completely certain Katara's dead, and I just . . ."
"This isn't just guilt, is it?" Daemon asked, settling himself against a wall. "Your companions seem to believe this is merely misguided guilt over her death."
A sharp indrawn breath. "They're right about everything but it being misguided."
Daemon's eyes narrowed. "No, they're not. I keep seeing you pull out those combs whenever she's mentioned. She meant more than that."
"She's Sokka's sister, Aang's best friend. I've only known her for a year, and half that time I was trying to hunt down Aang and hand him over to my father," Zuko told him. "I don't have the right to . . ."
"To what?" Daemon demanded. "Mourn her? It's painfully evident you had an equally close friendship."
"Yes," said the boy, turning sharply away. "Friendship."
That was the missing piece then. "More than friendship?" suggested Daemon.
It was as though the dam holding back the words shattered. "We were lovers," the boy told him, voice cracking. "Aang . . . Aang is the world's only hope. We couldn't let him be distracted. Katara had already had to break his heart when she told him she didn't love him. If he found out that she and I were . . . before he stopped my father . . ." the boy trailed off and shot an almost desperate look at Daemon. "He can be wise, but he's just a kid, and sometimes he reacts and doesn't think. I don't always either, but . . ."
Suddenly Daemon understood. Zuko and the girl Katara had hidden their relationship. Now, Zuko had no more visible right to mourn the loss of his lover than the others, and less than her brother. He tried to imagine that period after the Cleansing of the Blood, when he wasn't sure Jaenelle was going to live, and having to spend that time pretending she meant no more to him than a close friend. He winced in sympathy.
Zuko was speaking again, as he pulled out the lovely combs he had been fingering so frequently. "These were my mother's," he explained. "In the Fire Nation we . . . when you want to ask a girl to marry you, you offer her combs." He traced the filigree. "I was going to ask her to marry me. I even started a Water Tribe engagement necklace if she wanted one instead."
That sense of despair, Daemon knew all too well. He'd had the ring for Jaenelle made and ready, and then she'd almost died. He'd been half convinced she was dead. Zuko didn't even have the comfort of knowing one way or the other. Just an almost-certainty. He caught a glimpse of the boy trying to control himself. But the boy didn't need control just then. He needed to let it go, and Daemon, who could only imagine how he'd feel if it were Jaenelle and himself in that situation, acted on instincts he didn't think he had any more. He wrapped his arms around the yellow-eyed teenager, and felt the boy crack, and then begin to sob.
Daemon? came an Ebon-Gray thread. What's going on?
Quickly, Daemon explained to his brother. Can you make sure the other children don't find him just yet?
At his brother's acquiescence, Daemon returned his focus to the grieving teenager.
Eventually the tears dried, and Zuko pulled away. "I should have broken down like that," said the boy. "I haven't since my mother . . . vanished."
"It's all right."
After that, Zuko seemed to find a sort of equilibrium. Daemon now often found himself beleaguered in his office by the young man, asking him questions about the administration of the Territory. Finally he had to ask, "You can't possibly find this interesting. Why do you keep showing up here?"
"Katara," the boy said as though it was an explanation. But he went on. "If we win the war, I'm going to become Fire Lord some day. I'll be the one running the Fire Nation. I . . . I've only ever seen how my father would run a country. I don't want to be like him, but I don't know how else to do it. Katara promised she'd get me in to see how Chief Arnook runs the Northern Water Tribe and Bumi runs Omashu. She even promised to get me in to see Kuei, if they ever get him and his bear back."
"His bear?" asked Daemon.
Zuko shrugged. "He has a bear. Apparently he likes it a lot. Its name is Bosco."
Daemon blinked and decided that, like many things in the strange realm these children came from, he didn't want to know. "So you are here to . . . find out another way to run a territory, because you feel it would honour Katara?"
"She told me I'd be a good Fire Lord. I . . . don't want to fail her," the teenager explained.
With that, Daemon couldn't turn him away in good conscience. That was how it came to pass that Zuko was with him as he and Jaenelle toured the Territory together. Zuko had not seen much of Jaenelle until that first day, but he instantly charmed her by saying he'd never thought he'd see eyes as beautiful as Katara's on anyone else.
Jaenelle, ever willing to be sensitive to what people meant, and having been told that Katara was Zuko's lover, accepted the compliment in the spirit it was meant, even as he blushed and tried to find another way to put it. "It's fine," she said, laughingly. "I know the way we view the ones we love is different from the way we see other people. I appreciate the compliment."
Zuko gave a strange, but clearly practised and formal bow, hand over fist on his chest. "I do thank you for your forbearance nonetheless, my lady."
Daemon shot him an amused look. "There is no need for such formality," he commented. "Although I do wonder why I have never seen it before."
Zuko leaned back, contemplatively. "I was raised a prince," he explained. "It's not defined the way it is here, but I am of noble birth. I don't act it with the others because it sometimes makes them feel like I'm trying to . . . show off."
"Ah," Jaenelle said. "So you're trying to make sure your friends are comfortable, but you're actually more comfortable with Protocol."
Zuko smiled. "Something like that." He looked a little sad, then. "Katara liked it when I treated her that way, though. She said it made her feel like a princess."
"A princess?" Jaenelle inquired.
Zuko had explained a system of governance, and what all the terms were and meant in his homeland. Daemon found himself a little disturbed at the place women, even their witches, seemed to have, but was drawn in nonetheless. The rest of the way they discussed the different ways in which nobility functioned in Kaeleer as opposed to the Fire Nation and what Zuko had seen of the other nations.
That evening, Zuko retired to his own room, and Daemon curled up with Jaenelle in their own bed. She sighed. "I feel so bad for him," she said.
"I know," Daemon told her. "I couldn't help but think of after the cleansing of the Blood when you were so . . ." he trailed off, remembering. "And how I'd feel if you hadn't been able to come back."
"But I did," she said, gently stroking his hair from his eyes. Then they didn't do much more talking.
The next day, they made their way through the town, talking to the inhabitants, speaking to the local authorities. Daemon watched aware that Zuko was taking mental notes. He was a little amused when Jaenelle got him a pad and joined him in making notes, then becoming absorbed in the unusual symbols the visitors used as their writing.
Then one of them mentioned a girl in blue with dark skin who had been spotted with the kindred wolves in the area. The wolves' den was fairly close to the village and the people had seen the girl take up residence in a clearing that was apparently close to the wolves. Daemon hadn't been paying very close attention to Zuko, but he'd been getting the location out of the man so that he and Jaenelle could check up on this stranger.
The moment the man had finished his directions, Zuko had taken off at a dead run for the woods. Daemon and Jaenelle exchanged glances, and took to the air after him. Most interesting to watch was when, tired of pushing through crowds and ducking around the people who were there to gawp at Jaenelle and had stopped in the streets to watch the pair air run after the teenager, Zuko leaped into the air, clearly boosted by his fiery craft, landing on a rooftop. Watching him run across the slanted and uneven surfaces, leaping from building to building, Daemon could almost believe the boy to be part Eyrien.
Zuko wasn't paying attention to anything but his destination however, vaulting off the last rooftop, which was very close to the forest, and taking to the tree branches with ease.
"Do you suppose he's got some Eyrien in his background?" Jaenelle asked, echoing Daemon's thoughts as they were forced to land in order to keep him somewhat in sight.
Ahead of them, Zuko's voice could suddenly be heard. "Katara! Katara!"
Daemon held his breath. Hoping, on the boy's behalf that it was who he thought. To have a hope like that, and for it to be crushed, would be a terrible thing.
There was a long silence. A horrible silence. Another call sounded, this one more despairing. "Katara!"
There was another pause, and then, hesitantly, "Zuko?" It was relatively soft, but the boy seemed to hear anyhow. In a flash he'd changed direction, and Jaenelle and Daemon, racing after him, were treated to the sight of Zuko launching himself out of the tree with sheerest gymnastic grace to land beside the girl in tattered blue clothing.
"'Tara?" he said, reaching for her hesitantly. "Are you . . . are you okay?"
"Zuko?" she breathed.
He was frozen, as though he didn't quite dare touch her. Daemon knew the feeling. He knew how it felt to wonder if it was just a dream, or, even if it was real, if he would shatter her if he so much as laid a finger on her. "I'm here. Sokka, Aang, Toph and Suki are all here. Did . . . did Azula throw you in too? Are you . . ."
"I . . . I'm fine. Now. They . . . the pack found me. One's a healer and she . . . she fixed me up. She only just finished recently."
Jaenelle softly muttered next to him, "Would you two kiss already?" His lips twitched in spite of himself. He was in sympathy with her on that. The suspense was killing him.
"But you're okay? I mean . . . you're not hurt anymore?" Zuko asked, his hands flexing as though he wanted to touch her but was resisting so as not to hurt her.
"I'm fine," she repeated. "Zuko . . ."
The dam broke and the teenagers fell into each other's arms. Daemon heard a suspicious sniffle from Jaenelle. He turned to her, and saw she was looking teary-eyed at the reunion. "It's so sweet," she said. Daemon couldn't disagree.
Below, on the forest floor, the pair of lovers lost themselves in their reunion, letting the rest of the world briefly fall away.
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