His friend | Prince Zuko x OC

Prologue

EDIT: Thank you for almost 200k views. I'm currently editing this story since my writing drastically changed from 2020 and I'm enthusiastic about new ATLA adaptation. I'm going to stick with original idea (and fix some details, thanks to critiques from past), I hope you will enjoy it!

Let's get to the story!

First time in months Lyra didn't feel dizzy after waking up. You could spend a whole life at Western Air Temple, but buildings turned upside down will always trigger same feeling.

Southern Air Temple was calmer. There were more kids around, but they didn't bother anyone. Monks and children spent days together, practicing their bending.

Lyra spent most of her time with Aang. After she came in visit with her father, a council member from Western Temple, Aang was the only child who caught her attention. Even though he was only twelve, kids considered him too powerful to play with them. It was unfair.

"Do you want to play?" Lyra approached Aang, who was standing next to his flying bison. Appa was friendly, but she preffered to watch him from far away.

"Sure. You have some new trick to teach me?"

"I was thinking about something else. Maybe a race? We didn't have one for days."

"I don't know, I don't feel like that now." Aang sighed, looking in direction where other kids were playing. "Monks say that I must learn new tricks as soon as possible."

"Do you want to learn them? It's fine to take a break, Aang. You're just a child."

"So are you, yet you know all these cool tricks!" Aang yelled and started jumping around her. "Tornados! Manipulation of air! I can't do those and Monks insist-"

"How about this," Lyra interrupted him, "I can teach you some cool stuff about other nations. You need to know everything about them, right?"

_____

Every night before going to bed, Lyra and Aang would have made few circles around Temple. It became their routine for the past few weeks.

"What do you think would happen with the fire nation now?" Aang asked, eyeing Lyra carefully. It didn't take him long to catch up with all events around world. "How do they expect me to stop them? I didn't even master airbending yet!"

"Things aren't looking pretty," Lyra answered honestly. There wasn't point in lying to Aang and giving him false hope. "But will menage. We always do."

"It's just... I don't want you near Azulon either. They are dangerous."

"Azulon won't hurt me, Aang. As long as I'm in contact with him, there won't be any greater danger."

"You can't guarantee that. I'm supposed to save the world, I'm Avatar-"

Lyra pulled out a letter out of her robe. "Do you know what is this, Aang?"

"A letter."

"Proposal letter." Aang started at Lyra for a few seconds before she continued speaking, "Sozin wrote this to my dad. Azulon is hitting age for marriage, and he wants me to be his wife."

"But he's older than you!"

"Two years don't make much of a difference. I won't accept it, Azulon is  same monster as his dad, but it's safer to have this on myself until comet passes."