AtLA fic: Airbender's Child: Fire 14/15
Disclaimer: I don't own anything in this story, in fact a lot of the dialogue will probably be cadged straight from the show itself, which means I own even less.
Author's Notes: You know how I said there was one more chapter to go? Here's the chapter, and . . . well . . . there's an epilogue to follow and then I'll be done. Anyhow, this is pretty much what I should have posted in the last update but didn't have finished.
It had been two hours since he was crowned Fire Lord, and Zuko had dictated, signed, sealed and sent to be delivered twenty letters to various military officials in the Earth Kingdom requesting that they immediately put a halt to hostilities and pull out, dictated three letters to be copied as many times as needed to various ages of Fire Nation colonies on the Earth continent about packing to return to the Fire Nation and determining treaties and citizenship for those who wished to remain in Earth Kingdom territory. He'd written another couple dozen to naval vessels at sea and their overall commanders of those fleets to pull back and cease their patrols outside of Fire Nation waters and letters to major cities and settlements of the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation declaring his intention on unilaterally halting hostilities, while requesting a chance to negotiate peace.
Finally, he began to write letters informing the three enclaves he knew of, informing them of his intention to remove all Fire Nation influence from the islands that had once been the home of the nuns of the Western Air Temple. That land would be returned to the people of air to do with as they wished.
Before he'd had a chance to do more than draft the initial outline of the first letter, Katara came bursting in. "Aang's back!" she shouted. "He said that the entire fleet of airships was taken by the airbenders and they're all coming back to the city."
Zuko startled the secretaries he'd managed to commandeer and raced after Katara to meet Aang. He got to the courtyard where Aang was waiting for them and stopped dead, staring. The boy was grinning, widely. The reaction to killing his father was so unexpected that Zuko blurted out, "Did you eat some of Chong's mushrooms? I know Sokka kept some."
Aang's grin instantly gave way to confusion. "What mushrooms are you talking about?"
"Nevermind," Zuko said hastily. Best not to give the most powerful person on the planet something to eat that caused hallucinations.
"Actually," Katara piped up, "I'm a little surprised too, Aang. I thought you'd be more . . ." she paused, then ploughed ahead. "Upset after killing the Fire Lord."
"Oh!" replied Aang with a cheery smile. "I didn't kill him."
"What!" rang out four voices across the courtyard. Aiko had claimed a sort of responsibility, custody and sponsorship of Azula, and the pair had clearly come in response to the news of the Avatar's arrival.
Azula responded first. "Well, Zuko, it's been nice these past couple days. I'll go inform the sages that we're going on the run in exile together."
"How . . . what . . . Aang!" Zuko sputtered. What were they going to do? Sure he'd taken away Azula's right to the throne during that disaster of an agni kai, but, "How am I going to wrest power away from my father?"
"I think we can deal with that," Katara told him. "After all, you father gave up the throne to Azula voluntarily for this imaginary Phoenix King title, right? He's essentially abdicated," she suggested. "It should be enough to rally people behind, right?"
The grin on Azula's face was still a little disturbing, but she threw a companionable arm around Katara's shoulders saying, "This is why I like your waterbender, big brother. I can respect her."
"I didn't have to kill him!" Aang shouted. He spoke hastily overtop of their responses. "I took away his bending!"
They all stopped dead and stared at Aang. "You . . ." Zuko didn't know what to say.
"What good does that do?" demanded Azula.
"No one who's not a firebender can hold the fire throne," Aiko said. "So he can't regain power." She looked a little doubtful of this outcome as well.
It focussed his mind enough for the new Fire Lord to snap, "Aang, do you remember what I told you about the lies the Fire Nation tells its people? We'll be lucky if they don't all rise up in protest over your high-handed handling of things! He'll become a martyr without even dying. My father is too dangerous and persuasive to be allowed to speak with anyone. He's manipulative-"
"I should know," Azula added. "He taught me everything I know."
Aang was looking more and more upset as they discussed the problems arising from letting Ozai live. Aiko was adding, "Everyone knows he used to be a bender. That would be enough for him to reclaim the throne anyhow. It's not like he wasn't, it was just taken from him."
A determined voice cut through their discussion. "Not if we twist this just right," Katara said. She turned to Azula. "How about this? We make him into a symbol of proof that the spirits disapprove of what he's done, and gave Aang the ability to take away his bending in order to humiliate him."
"It could work," Azula said, her agile mind already finding ways to twist the truth.
"But they didn't," Aang protested. "I learned it from a lion turtle in the spirit world. I think anyone could learn it if they were a strong enough bender and-"
"You've caused enough trouble already," Katara snapped. "Azula, the main thing is that we can't afford to lie on this. It has to all be implicit."
"Sokka thought I did good," Aang sulked.
Katara and Azula huffed in unison and strode off, already composing a speech for Zuko to give the crowds that were gathering in the city to find out what had happened. Aiko watched them leave, then sat down on a bench, gesturing at Aang to join her. "Aang," she began, "The problems here are twofold. The first is that the people will only see that an invading force has disarmed and imprisoned their leader." Aang opened his mouth, but Aiko raised a hand to forestall his response. "You've taken away his bending, Aang. Do you understand what you've done? You ripped away a part of his identity, his self. Imagine how you'd feel if someone took away your bending."
"But he was going to hurt people," Aang protested, ducking the question.
Zuko had calmed considerably now that he knew he had Aiko's support in explaining this to Aang. "Aang, remember what I told you. The people in the Fire Nation don't know he was hurting people. What they've been told is that he's been protecting them. You've stripped them of their protection, and every bender on the islands is going to be terrified that they're next."
"But I wouldn't-" Aang protested.
"Do you know how many benders there are who will say they'd rather die than give up their bending?" Zuko asked.
"Aang," Aiko said gently. "I know that you hate hurting people and that you did this so that you wouldn't have to kill. But people are going to see the humiliation and not the kindness." Something that sounded like a small riot erupted inside the palace. Aiko looked up and sighed. "I'd better go deal with that. It sounds like Katara and Azula have gotten into another fight over how to treat the palace servants."
She hurried off, leaving Zuko with a much-downcast Aang. "I just . . . I don't think I have the right to choose who lives or dies," Aang said despondently. "I'm the Avatar, not a court of law."
Zuko joined him on the bench. "I know Aang. And you know that none of us wanted it to come to this. It's just . . ."
"I know," Aang told him, looking even more depressed. "I had a responsibility and I fell down on the job. Again."
He looked so sad, Zuko couldn't scold him anymore, deciding he'd leave that up to the adults from the White Lotus society to do. "Hey, it's okay. It's also pretty damn impressive that you managed to beat him without having to kill him."
"Really?" Aang asked.
Zuko smiled. "Really." Then he frowned. "You learned how to do it from a lion turtle?"
"Yep," Aang said cheerily.
"Why did I get the evil tiger seal of doom when I was in the spirit world, and you get a helpful lion turtle?" Zuko asked.
"Aang's just special that way," Sokka said from behind them.
Zuko turned, grinning, and saw Toph, Suki and Sokka all looking fine. "You're all right! What happened?"
Sokka's eyes lit up. "It was amazing!" he enthused. "The airbenders were just all, 'Fwish! Hah! Voom! Waaahh!' They just totally took over those airships!" As he spoke, Sokka's arms flailed to suit action to sound effect.
Suki was giving her boyfriend an amused look. "Toph was pretty amazing too. She ripped out the floor and made it into armour on the spot," she told him.
Grinning, the earthbender told him, "It was my job to actually stop the firebenders. Twinkletoes has his work cut out for him, training all the airbenders to do their bending right."
"Says the girl who learned how to bend by pretending to be a badger mole," Zuko told her. "Of course, you smell like one, so they probably just thought you were a midget."
Suki shook her head, then stifled a laugh. "I think Katara might be right about you two," she told them. "Really, is it so hard to say that you were worried and you're glad everyone's okay?"
He turned to her. "Suki. I was worried about you and Sokka, and I'm very glad you're both okay." He turned to Sokka again. "Especially you, what with your penchant for throwing yourself off of airships."
"Hey! I didn't even do that on purpose today!" Sokka replied.
"Great going," Toph said. "All that about not wanting Zuko to know and you just blurt it out."
He'd almost lost Sokka. Just like before at the Northern Air Temple. With a wrench, Zuko brought himself under control. "So you really do have a falling from heights death wish," he said to Sokka.
"I do not!"
"You're not fooling anybody, you know," Toph told him. "You wanna burst into tears and hug him."
Sokka's eyes were wide and he backed away. "There won't be any hugging. Especially not in front of my girlfriend."
"Why?" Zuko asked, smiling in spite of himself. He really ought to be going back to his letter-writing and let the enclaves know it was not only safe to live in the open again, but that they could certainly reclaim their old temples. But this was too tempting. "Are you not certain enough in your manhood to hug? I'd be a little nervous too if my girlfriend made me wear a dress."
"It was a warrior's uniform!" Sokka shouted.
"That's designed for women to wear, and it has a skirt and-"
"When did Snoozles wear a dress?" Toph asked, perking up.
"I'm gonna go see Appa," Aang said, realising that he really wasn't needed right then.
By the time Katara, Azula and Aiko had arrived back in the courtyard, Aang was long gone and there was a four-way wrestling match going on between Sokka, Zuko, Toph and Suki. They were suddenly blasted apart by a combination of air and water. Zuko never found out what happened to everyone else, because Aiko had two fingers pinching hard on the cartilage of his ear, and dragged him off, lecturing the whole way about the dignity of the royal family. The sound of a similar lecture from Katara aimed at her brother, Suki and Toph faded into the background.
Azula followed, laughing. "Really, Zuzu?" she said in one of Aiko's all-too-brief breaks. "I can't imagine what Mai ever saw in you, let alone Katara."
"What's up with you and her anyhow?" He asked, "Ow. Aiko, please, ow, I'll come quietly."
His older sister let go of him and sent him stumbling without breaking stride. "See that you do," she said firmly.
He scrambled after her, but still turned back to Azula. "Really, I'm curious. You're best friends with her all of a sudden and I'd really like to know if you're corrupting her into quietly killing me."
Oddly enough, Azula paused before answering his question, looking thoughtful. "I can respect her," she said finally. "I can respect her and I can trust her." She looked at him, then continued quickly to forestall the answer on the tip of his tongue. "Katara's not like me," she said, "But where it counts, where I respect her, she's just like me."
"What!" Zuko said, staring blankly at her. "How is Katara like you in any way?" He listed points off on his fingers. "She's kind to everyone, trusting to a fault, helpful, optimistic-"
She cut him off. "Optimism is just another way of refusing to admit that you'll lose, Zuzu," Azula told him. "I was better than you because I refused to admit losing was a possibility when I went into a fight. You always expected to lose. Even the first time we sparred you expected to lose." She shook her head at him. "It's why I couldn't respect you. Katara? Katara refuses to even consider that she'll lose. She just steps in and if things look bad, she refuses to give in.
"And when she's fighting for something she wants or believes in, when she's defending something important, there is nothing she won't do." Azula looked at him, a sort of frightening calm and self-assurance in her eyes. "When it comes down it, no matter how much she hates her bloodbending, killing the plants and hurting people, she will do whatever she has to." She smiled a little at Zuko. "It's something she and I share."
He felt a little horrified. What was this lens his sister was seeing Katara through? "Katara would never-"
"Katara would," Aiko interrupted. "Oh, what she considers to be the point where something is necessary isn't the same as Azula's or mine or anyone else's. She's a lot like Aang in that respect. But if Katara had been the Avatar, Ozai would have been dead the day of the invasion because Katara would have let nothing stop her from her duty."
An image flashed through Zuko's mind of Azula, broken on the courtyard ground, taunting Katara and being suddenly dangled in the air by Katara's grip on the water in her body. Katara wasn't ruthless like Azula, she just would do whatever was necessary to do what she thought was right. And if that meant she had to kill, she would do it without hesitation.
"Okay, but you're being civil to me now," he said, "What changed?"
"I told you that," his younger sister informed him. "Omashu. For the first time you went into a fight with me refusing to lose." She smiled at the memory. "You were everything I had wanted in a brother at that moment, Zuzu. You were fierce and strong and . . . and I remembered when you were like that before."
"Before?" he asked.
"When were were little," Azula said, slipping an arm into his own. "When I could trust my big brother to protect me from the things that scared me."
He could remember that too. He could also remember when it changed. When Ursa had begun taking him to her enclave and he heard over and over that he was somehow evil by an accident of birth, when their father had seen that Azula was more talented than he was and decided his son wasn't worth his time just because his daughter was a better bender. When they both absorbed their lessons growing up too well.
"I'm sorry," he told her.
"I'm not," she said frankly. "I'm still proud of my achievements. But I can respect you now, and if there's one thing Aiko's explained to me, that's a big part of not being stabbed in the back."
Shaking his head in complete disbelief, he said to Aiko, "I'm really impressed. I guess you were right to stay behind."
"Once I'd convinced her that most people actually don't get betrayed by their friends, she was willing to consider that the betrayals she'd suffered had a little more to do with her attitude and the company she kept," said Aiko. "It's something I learned from Thuan."
For the first time, the three children of Fire Lord Ozai made their way together in perfect amity to the balcony used for making speeches to the public. They thrust a speech at him and Zuko found himself in the unenviable position of trying to sound like he'd written a speech he'd just been handed moments before. He listened to the sages announce him and rapidly scanned the parchment to get some idea of what it was saying.
So he stood, looking down at the crowds amassed in the square and read off the parchment. "People of the Fire Nation, I bring you news of the defeat of the Fire Lord Ozai at the hands of the Avatar. But more than that, I bring you the news that we of Sozin's line have angered the spirits. The hundred years' war was a grave error of our people. The teachings that the Earth Kingdom has been planning an invasion of our shores was a lie. The teachings that the Water Tribes have been ravaging our coastal towns was a lie. The teaching that the Air Nomads declared war upon the Fire Nation and met our armies in battle was a lie.
"I have seen the orders sent by my great-grandfather, my grandfather and my father to raze our own cities to the ground. They did it because they wished to complete the extermination of the people of air, and chose for there to be no witnesses to the deaths of innocent men, women and children by the soldiers of our people."
He paused as shocked murmurs began to circle the plaza. From his balcony he saw some people defiant in the face of what they believed to be lies from a usurping banished prince, some were grief-stricken at the losses all over again and some yet were simply confused. He raised his voice a little more and continued, the paper telling the story of the last hundred years as seen by the world outside the Fire Islands.
Then came the crucial moment, the one that would make or break his years as Fire Lord, and would make or break the acceptance of his people that the war was over and that the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes could be trusted. "I said that the spirits are angry, and I know this, because the Avatar Aang has been granted the ability to remove the bending from the former Fire Lord, Ozai. Rather than simple death, he will spend the rest of his life aware that his actions angered the spirits so, he has had part of his very essence, his firebending taken from him."
The crowd gasped, almost in unison and fell silent. "With this in mind, with the humiliation of the line of Sozin, I have declared that we will no longer fight in this war that was started a hundred years ago! No longer will our ships patrol outside of Fire Nation waters and no longer will our people settle on the lands held by the Earth Kingdom. Even now, our fleet of airships have been repulsed by the Air Nomads, in defence of the Earth Kingdom.
"To foster understanding and a return of the fourth nation to its rightful place, I have already declared that the islands surrounding the Western Air Temple are once again the domain of the Air Nomads, to do with as they wish." He took a deep breath, cursed Katara silently for scribbling at this point, Tell them something so they'll be nice when the troops and officials arrive in a week, and hoped he wouldn't mess up.
"In a week's time the forces of the other three nations will arrive here in order to begin discussing treaties. I ask you, my people, to understand that these are not savages, or the enemy, but merely people. People like you who have lost much to this war. I ask that you all help me bring our Nation forward into the kind of greatness and prosperity only peace can bring!"
Somehow, amazingly, the speech worked. Eventually he made his way back inside, the cheers still resounding, and ran straight into Katara. "You're getting better at that," she told him.
"You're a lousy speechwriter, you know that?" he told her, slinging an arm around her shoulders. "Seriously. 'Tell them something'? What was that?"
Sokka loomed up out of nowhere. "It was Katara being crazy. I told you she's crazy. Why you didn't listen to me, I don't know."
"I thought you knew. It's the hair loopies," Zuko told him with a smirk. "Don't you remember?"
"I thought I told you to never make me think of my sister as a girl again," Sokka told him as he dragged Zuko into another wrestling match in the corridor.
"Boys," Katara, Azula and Aiko chorused, rolling their eyes.
"Again," Aang complained, "Why am I being dragged into this? I didn't do anything."
Zuko grinned at his best friend. His guy friend who got guy stuff. "Girls," they responded in the same disgusted tone.
"Excuse me?" Toph asked. "Why are you lumping me in with Sweetness, and Bitchy One and Two?"
Before it could all descend to total mayhem, Zuko's secretaries caught up to them and had him off writing letters and edicts while the others were left to their own devices.
For the next week, he barely saw Katara, who had handily taken command of the palace household, Sokka and Suki, who had handily taken command of the returning army, navy and air force, Toph, who had taken to bullying his finance minister in particular and the other ministers in general, or Aang, who had vanished in short order to begin carrying news to the various enclaves that they now had a sanctioned homeland they could begin to rebuild and nomadic routes they could reestablish.
In fact, he pretty much solely saw his two sisters, because they were the only people who were trained in governance who could actually help him with policy.
Then suddenly his major-domo and staff returned and Katara was forced to relinquish the reins of the palace household ("Except for the despicable lack of formality reappearing in my absence, she did well," the man admitted), Sokka and Suki passed the military back to Zuko's generals (many of who were actually newly appointed to replace the monsters in the old guard), Toph had bulled her way to handpicking someone to handle things the way she thought they should be done (Having developed a twisted sort of love-hate friendship with Azula in the process that resembled her friendship with Zuko more than a little) and Aang had come back at the head of a contingent of airbenders bent on meeting the new Fire Lord themselves.
The amassed crowds of people of all four nations were gathered in the square to see Zuko's second, somewhat more official, coronation. He was waiting for his cue to step out and address the crowds when a familiar face appeared. "Mai! You're okay!" he said. Habit reared up for a moment, and Mai noted the abortive step forward he took.
"I see the Dai Li's work hasn't totally worn off," she said with a wry smile.
Zuko looked at her a little sadly. "You know," he said, "If my memories hadn't been so fractured when I caught up with the others I'd probably be kissing you right now."
"Don't try to make me feel better," Mai told him. "You're not really good at it."
He chuckled. "I know. But it's the truth. Katara and I weren't dating until after I thought we'd already been dating."
"You always were entirely awkward," she told him affectionately. "I'm sorry too."
They stood, staring at each other.
"Toph, would you . . ." Azula said, gesturing in Katara's direction. The stone floor leapt at the earthbender's command, and the princess said, "Would you two kiss goodbye or whatever you're going to do so that we can all know you've done it and get on with our lives?"
He wanted to, badly. He did wonder, because Mai had been a great girlfriend. She was funny, supportive in her own way and a magnificent sparring partner. It didn't hurt that she was just as fit and pretty as Katara. Then he looked at Katara, whose eyes promised death to Toph, Azula and him as well if he actually kissed Mai, and said in unison with his ex, "No."
Toph let Katara go, and she told him, "Good choice." Then she turned to Mai. "You too. You know I'd've had to kill you if you'd gone through with it."
Mai nodded. "I know. If our positions were reversed I'd be the same." She smiled at Katara. "Just keep an eye on him. He needs a keeper sometimes, you know?"
"I know," Katara told her with a grin.
"Why does everyone say that?" Zuko complained.
"Because you do, buddy," Sokka told him, slinging a companionable arm around his shoulders.
"You're just lucky I have to give a speech," Zuko told him. "Or there'd be a bruised Water Tribesman heading for the healers right now."
Then he stepped out for his speech to the sound of Sokka muttering, "You wish."
Prologue Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six Part Seven Part Eight Part Nine Part Ten Part Eleven Part Twelve Part Thirteen Part Fifteen
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