Blood of the Flames (Zutara)

II

Zuko

I spent my days preparing to become the Fire Lord. Preparing to undo all of the damage my father inflicted upon our nation with the absence of the Avatar to stop him.

So imagine my surprise when I found the Avatar.

Five years ago, when I was 16, I set out on an expedition with my uncle and his son, my cousin, Lu Ten. There was no goal in sight. Simply just travel the world while I still have the chance. Our boat hit some ice near the south. Then, blue light shot up into the sky.

My uncle, Lu Ten, and I told the crew we were going to investigate, and we got off the ship and into a small life boat. Then we saw him. It was the Avatar, Aang. We saved him and his flying bison, Appa. We came up with a cover and a plan to find him somewhere in the Earth Kingdom. He and Appa followed us from a distance until we reached Kyoshi Island.

There, we found trustworthy people, the Kyoshi warriors. We asked them to watch Appa for some time until it was safe for Aang to shed light on his true identity. Appa is still there to this day, but we make time to visit often. We came up with a cover story next. We met Aang, and he and I became best friends right away. My father would allow him to stay at the palace with us since he allows Azula's friends, Mai, and Ty Lee to stay there as well.

It was foolproof.

And it worked.

Aang goes by Kuzon in the palace so as to not reveal he is not of Fire Nation descent. Aang is too much of an Air Nomad name for it to not be easily figured out. He wears a headband to cover his tattoos, and before he had hair, he would wear a tight hooded wrap around his head as well.

Now, five years later, the Avatar has become a bit of a pain in my ass.

"Zuko, I need to master the other elements if I'm going to become the true Avatar one day. I can't keep working on fire when you have spent the last however many years teaching me." Aang and I are sitting in my bedroom discussing his progress as the Avatar.

"I don't know what you expect from me. I bend fire. I don't bend water or earth. And I can't very easily find trustworthy people to teach you. The Kyoshi warriors are all non-benders. In fact, nobody on Kyoshi is a bender!" I shot right back at him, as my anger and frustration overcame me. Aang is too young and naive to fully understand that I cannot simply just grab someone from the Earth Kingdom or the Northern Water Tribe to teach him.

"We'll find someone trustworthy, I know it. The Earth Kingdom will be more than willing to teach me how to bend, as long as I don't use fire at all while there. The Northern Water Tribe is terrified of Ozai and would never, so what about the Southern Water Tribe?" Aang asks me this as though it is possible.

I take a deep breath before I try responding. Then I hear a knock on the door. Our eyes go wide, and we calm ourselves. I stand up and go to the door, and as I'm walking, I turn to look at him. "We'll finish this conversation later, Kuzon."

I open the door, and I see Mai frowning. Mai and I have quite a difficult relationship. My sister has always tried to push her toward me in hopes that I may fall for her someday. I'll admit that she is a beautiful girl, but I could never love her. I see too much of Azula in her, and her incredibly dry demeanor is quite bothersome.

"Mai? Did you need something?" I glance back at Aang, who is sitting at my desk with his head in his hands.

"I... I see you're busy. We can talk some other time." She turns to leave, and normally, I would let her. Unfortunately for me, that would mean continuing the conversation with Aang that I do not want to be having.

"No, that's okay. Kuzon was just leaving, weren't you?" I turn to him as I say this, and he quickly gets up and nods his head. He says a quick and annoyed goodbye before he exits my room. I sparked up the conversation with Mai again, "What did you need?"