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The day started just like every other day- with the insistent chirping of parrokeets ringing in his ears and the very first golden ray of sunshine slowly creeping into the ruins of the Western Air Temple.
However, unlike every other day, Zuko did not start today by glaring at the sun and mourning the end of his much-needed sleep. He didn’t close his eyes again, Didn’t grant himself a few minutes to just lay there and soak up the sunlight as he mentally encouraged his body to get up.
Instead Zuko scrunched up his face in embarrassment as memories of the previous evening started hitting him like boulders. Groaning softly, he let his arm flop up to his rapidly blushing cheeks.
Oh, fuck me.
Unwilling to uncover his face just yet, Zuko blindly took in his surroundings. He was laying on the ground, just where Toph must have laid him down yesterday. And as if that in and of itself wasn’t mortifying enough, the tiny earthbender was also exactly where she had been, head placed on his shoulder and clinging to his arm like a baby koala-sloth. Zuko cringed, face still solidly hidden underneath his arm.
This is the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me.
He was pretty sure it wasn’t an exaggeration. That time Azula had tricked him into tackling Mai into a fountain didn’t even come close to this. Back then, he at least had the excuse of being tricked into it, of just trying to save his childhood crush. But now ? He’d just had a full-on freak-out over a cold bowl of soup , for spirit’s sake, crying and screaming and everything included.
He wanted to sink into the earth and die. Toph could probably make it happen, if he could just come up with a convincing argument.
Zuko had thought those dreadful days of his brain betraying him were over , but no. Of course the universe hated him, of course he’d be unlucky once again, and now he’d most likely lost every chance that these people would accept him as a trustworthy and functioning human being.
Ugh.
Another groan escaped him, though he carefully tried not to wake Toph. That would be the last thing he needed right now.
He pressed his fingers against his forehead. Maybe if he pressed hard enough, he could just erase the last evening from his head? Brain injuries were known to do that, right? Maybe if he put a dent in his brain he would stop being such a fucking idiot.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
While Zuko indulged in a few selfish minutes of wallowing in his own misery, the sun rose higher and higher in the sky, illuminating the early morning fog with streaks of light. It painted everything in a gentle gold, giving the temple an atmosphere of calming warmth and nostalgia. Normally, Zuko would have appreciated the sight. Right now, it felt like it was taunting him, a glaring reminder that he would have to get up and wake up Aang any minute now.
What was it his uncle had said, that time at the abandoned hut nestled among the earth kingdom’s endless mountains? True humility is the only antidote to shame. Yeah, right. So why was it that right now, he felt both ashamed and humiliated, huh? Explain that, old man.
The worst thing was that Zuko was certain Uncle Iroh would be able to. He would nod, stroke his beard for a moment and come up with some deep proverb that Zuko would think about for half a minute before giving up and accepting that he would never truly understand it. Then Iroh would chuckle, tell him that he would get it with time, and offer a cup of tea.
That’s how it had always been during those first weeks of his banishment, when he had been angrily stomping around a rusty ship. His head had been filled with a plethora of new and uncomfortable emotions, tumbling and grating around his mind with nowhere to go and nowhere to settle in his soul. Freakouts like the one last evening had been pretty common back then.
Uncle had called them flashbacks, or panic attacks, sometimes. Zuko had called them fucking pathetic.
It had been a cold bowl of stew . There was no reason this should have happened in the first place. Zuko lifted his hand from his face, studying it before letting it fall to his chest with a dull thump. Huh . It wasn’t shaking anymore. Small mercies, I suppose.
Turning his head, Zuko glanced around at the other figures around the remains of the campfire. Unsurprisingly, they were still asleep, though he might have seen Chit Sang shift on his bedroll. It would make sense. The older man was a firebender too, after all.
Then again, so was the Avatar, and the boy showed no signs of movement except for some soundless snores that were rustling Appa’s fur where the airbender was stretched across it.
Zuko sighed. Looked like the task of getting the mighty Avatar out of bed would fall to Zuko once again. What were the odds that Aang would agree to just act like nothing had happened? Probably not very high, but a guy could hope.
He allowed himself one last groan of misery. Pathetic.
Careful to not wake Toph or the others, Zuko pushed himself up and trudged around their sleeping forms on near soundless feet, stopping once he reached the Avatar on his bison. He hesitated. What if he just left right now? No one would ever know. Well, they would know , obviously, but they wouldn’t find him. Not if he truly didn’t want to be found. Maybe he could stay with the sun warriors? They’d seemed nice enough.
Zuko scowled, shaking his head. Just get over yourself already, for Agni’s sake.
“Aang, wake up. Time for practice.”
At the slight crack of his voice, Zuko scowled harder, but he didn’t have time to overthink it. The Avatar, having never been a heavy sleeper, shot up as soon as the sentence had left Zuko’s mouth.
“Zuko!” The exclamation echoed through the courtyard, causing Aang to wince as Zuko shushed him. He adjusted his volume as he kept talking, grinning sheepishly. “Sorry. But you’re okay!”
Zuko’s face pulled into a grimace so deep it pulled at his left eye. At least he managed to barely suppress his annoyed sigh. So much for just ignoring what happened. He really, really didn’t want to talk about it. Just the thought of having to explain himself made his skin crawl and his stomach turn, and he wanted nothing more than to turn away and hide someplace that was preferably very tight and very very high up. Why did these things always have to happen to him of all people?
“Of course I’m okay. Now come on, no slacking off.”
He spun on his heel and fled around the corner to the open space they used for training. Almost immediately, he could hear Aang’s flighty footsteps scramble to catch up.
“Are you sure you’re okay? That looked like some serious stuff yesterday…”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
If he just pretended he didn’t know, maybe Aang would take the hint and drop it? As Zuko glanced at the oh so almighty Avatar, noting his confused frown and huge, worried eyes, he realized that that might just be too much to ask of the World’s Greatest Hope. His shoulders tightened as his skull prickled with discomfort, which was probably not at all helping his already flimsy act of not knowing.
“Oh, you don’t remember? You kinda-” He was cut off by Zuko’s glare, his eyes clearing in understanding.
“Ahh, got it. You probably don’t want to talk about it. That’s okay, you don’t have to!” Aang smiled.
Thank Agni. Shoulders slumping ever so slightly, Zuko turned back to walk across their empty training area. Maybe he could survive this day after all. Sixteen years was a rather short lifespan anyways, and dying of embarrassment really wasn’t the most heroic way to bite the dust. Maybe he would be spared.
“I’m just really glad you’re alright.” Or maybe not. “We were all really worried, because we didn’t really know what was happening, you know? Actually, I still don’t. But if you don’t want to talk about it that’s okay.”
Aang was smiling at Zuko, eyes twinkling with terribly concealed concern and sympathy. He had a sinking feeling that no matter what Aang was saying, the you-don’t-have-to-talk-about-it policy would not hold up for very long, whether intentionally or not.
But Zuko was prepared to draw it out until the very last second, no matter how stubborn that might seem. Because although he kind of hated to admit it, he had started to like the Avatar and his friends, even if the feeling probably wasn’t mutual. He didn’t want to ruin anything by throwing his fucked up childhood at them.
On second thought, it might already be too late for that. Wouldn’t stop him from trying, though.
“You know, I totally get it,” Aang prattled on, making Zuko’s fingers itch with irritation. He crossed his arms and squished the feeling with more force than necessary. Aang kept talking, not noticing or at least not deterred by Zuko’s discomfort. “Well, not really get it I guess, otherwise I would have known what was happening. But I understand not wanting to talk about it. You know, back when I-”
“Listen, Aang,” Zuko interrupted with a grimace, dropping his arms. “I appreciate the concern and all, but you're right, I don’t want to talk about it. So if we could please just concentrate on training? We need to work on your stance.”
Aang beamed at him and Zuko’s neck prickled. “Sure thing, Sifu Hotman!”
“Don’t call me that.”
Training that morning proved to be rather unproductive. Neither he nor Aang were fully concentrated, both either caught in their thoughts or distracted by the others slowly waking up around them. By the time Katara called everyone to breakfast, the only thing Zuko had accomplished was to make Aang stop leaping like a wannabe ballet dancer every time he kicked a jet of fire in Zuko’s direction. He had also and managed to acquire an uncomfortable lump of discomfort in his stomach, though he couldn’t be sure if the source was hunger or the curious glances he had been receiving all morning..
The others had not been subtle with their staring. At all. He had ignored them as best as he could, trying to focus only on Aang and their training, but he was pretty sure that he had seen Suki physically drag Sokka away from their training spot at one point. It had made him develop a deep sense of gratitude for the girl, but had also made him question every choice in his life that had led him to this moment.
Where did I go wrong to end up here of all places? It was a question with many answers, one more obvious than the last, and Zuko wasn’t willing to think about any of them.
Now however, they were once again seated around their fire spot, everyone with a bowl of rice and fruit that they were chewing in uncomfortable silence, and it was basically impossible to keep up his ignorance. Instead, the feeling of discomfort in his chest was steadily outgrown by a bubbling annoyance that traveled in hot flashes through his limbs and settled in his fingertips. Keeping the rice from burning in his bowl was getting harder with every breath he took.
Katara wouldn’t stop frowning at him, Sokka had just unsubtly glanced in his direction for what must have been the fifth time in the past minute and all the others were staring at their breakfast like it was telling a particularly engaging story. It was infuriating . In his periphery, he saw Sokka lift his head for the sixth time.
Alright, that’s it.
“Oh for Agni’s sake, just spit it out!”
Somehow, by some twisted miracle, the heavy silence managed to get even more oppressive as everyone stopped chewing at once, and Zuko had just about had it. He was uncomfortable , he felt humiliated , and he was getting angrier by the second. It made him want to scream and pull at his hair and throw something, because he had tried so hard to make a good impression on these people, and now he was fucking everything up again and again and again .
Maybe he should just throw himself off the cliffside after all. Climb to the highest point and simply drop, or get up and take a running leap. It would be better than sitting here, awaiting judgment and not knowing what to do any longer.
The silence was miraculously broken by Haru of all people. “So, uh… Do you guys wanna, like, talk? About, uh. Whatever is going on? Because if you do, we can totally just leave… Or something…” He trailed off, pressing his lips together.
“Not really, no,” Zuko snapped, shooting an icy glare at the earthbender which he immediately felt bad about when Haru hunched his shoulders and cowered from him. He hadn’t even been there yesterday, there was no reason for Zuko to be mean to him, except maybe for his choice in facial hair. It was just that Zuko felt like he was about to burst and Haru had made himself the first target to aim his frustration at.
Mentally, Zuko resigned himself to apologize later. Even if it meant he would have to spend additional time looking at the boy’s dreadful mustache.
“Okay, no offense,” Sokka piped up, giving Zuko a feeling that whatever he was about to say would be highly offensive. But at least that would give him a good excuse to yell at him. Agni, he should really go blow off some steam before he ended up spitting fire at someone. But now that Sokka had finally started talking, leaving seemed like a bad move. “But I think you do kinda owe us an explanation after… well, that .”
Scratch that. Leaving seemed like an excellent move, because if it wasn’t for his years and years of practice, Zuko would not have been able to keep the sudden spike of hot, scorching fury within his chest and not let it spike Katara’s cooking fire along with it. Because what the fuck?
He slammed his bowl to the ground, only half-heartedly trying not to break it. “I don’t owe you shit .”
Sokka threw his hands up in a placating gesture, but Zuko kept glaring daggers at him. From the corner of his eye, he could see Teo blow out a breath before setting down his bowl (much more gently then Zuko had) and quietly wheeling himself away. The Duke and Haru followed after him.
A good choice, as it turned out, because as soon as they were out of sight Katara spoke up.
“Actually, you kind of do.”
“Excuse me?!”
Katara was frowning at him, eyes cold and arms crossed over her chest. All in all nothing new, but right now it made him want to punch something.
“We let you join us, didn’t we? After all that you’ve done to us, we had no reason to trust you, but we chose to give you a chance. But if you want us to keep trusting you, you’ll have to explain yourself. We need to know what’s going on with you, because we need to know if you’re about to stab us in the back. Again .”
Some of the anger drained out of him, but the annoyance and frustration stayed. She might have a point, in some cruel, twisted way, but that didn’t mean Zuko had to like it. And, more importantly, he still didn’t want to talk about it.
“You don’t need to know everything about me to trust me,” he grumbled, scowling at the girl. It made her fists clench against the fabric of her shirt, and Zuko knew she wouldn’t back down. Fantastic, just what he needed.
“Yes, we do. From where I’m standing, the last time you betrayed us you did so for absolutely no good reason.” Zuko barely suppressed a flinch at her words. Here they went again, rubbing his biggest regrets right back into his face. This day just kept getting better and better, and it wasn’t even noon.
“I thought I could trust you in Ba Sing Se, but apparently you forgot to mention some things during your little sob-story. Like the fact that you would run back to daddy at the first opportunity? Would have been kind of important to know.”
Zuko scowled at the ground, scrambling for something to say. Katara wasn’t wrong, and he hated it. He hated it so much, and as the shame mixed uncomfortably with the frustration in his veins he wanted nothing more than to stomp off and scream into the canyon.
“Alright sugar queen, slow your roll.” His head jerked over to look at Toph as she chimed up. The little earthbender was leaning back on her elbows, her eyebrows furrowed underneath her bangs. “We know you guys had a whole thing going on in Ba Sing Se, but this has literally nothing to do with that. It’s not like Zuko is just gonna get up and sell us out to the Fire Lord because he has some unresolved issues he doesn’t want to talk about.”
She shrugged, picking at her toes like his ‘unresolved issues’ weren’t a big deal, and Zuko wasn’t sure whether to feel thankful or not. He guessed it didn’t matter, he would have to thank her later anyways for helping him out yesterday evening. Which, ugh.
Zuko almost groaned again as another wave of embarrassment hit him, coloring his cheeks a deep red and temporarily overshadowing his frustration.
It didn’t last very long though, because Katara was almost as stubborn as he was and still unwilling to give up.
“Okay, maybe you’re right, but he should still tell us what happened! We deserve to know. If things like that happen a lot with him, I don’t know if he’s even fit to teach Aang firebending!” she snapped, uncrossing her arms to point an accusing finger at Zuko, who grimaced at her statement. From across the fire, he could see Aang’s eyebrows knit together as he looked at his waterbending teacher.
“Katara, that’s not fair,” said the airbender. “Zuko is a great teacher, you know that.”
Katara grumbled in response, crossing her arms back over her chest. “Maybe so.”
Zuko felt strangely vindictive, but decided it would be the best course of action to keep his mouth firmly shut. No reason to aggravate Katara further. Instead, he silently picked his bowl of rice and fruit back up and started chewing on a juicy looking piece of mango.
If you asked him, it was about time for this breakfast to be over, so that he could hide in his room and preferably never come back out again. Maybe meditate a bit to get a grip on his emotions again. This was exhausting . But obviously the universe hated him and refused to grant him even that little wish, because of course Chit Sang chose that moment to open up his unproportionally big mouth.
“Um, not to be that guy, but what are you guys even talking about? We clearly missed something yesterday, but…”
Right , Zuko thinks. Chit Sang hadn’t been there to witness his stupid episode yesterday. Small mercies he supposed, he didn’t need a random Fire Nation criminal to know how pathetic he was, not if he wanted the royal family to keep any credibility when his uncle took the throne. He looked up at the ceiling, closing his eyes and sighing. Agni, just strike me down already. I know you didn’t do it last time, but now would be the perfect opportunity to change your mind.
Tipping his head back down, Zuko faced the other firebender and spoke before anyone else had the chance.
“I had-” A flashback, that’s what uncle always called them. “I had a flashback.” There. He said it. Chit Sang’s eyes widened for a moment before he nodded in understanding and went back to picking at his rice. Huh. That had gone a lot more smoothly than expected.
Satisfied, Zuko put two more pieces of mango into his mouth and started to chew. Maybe if he’d just said this at the beginning, the whole argument could have been avoided. (The voice in his head that brought him to this realization sounded suspiciously like Uncle Iroh, which made him scowl, but the point still stood.)
Then again, maybe not. “What does that mean?” asked Sokka, confusion clear in his voice.
He wanted to laugh, really, but all he managed was a weak scoff. Lucky guy. Maybe he should feel resentful, Zuko thought, maybe he should be raging about the unfairness of it all, that once again, he was the unlucky one. Instead, Zuko found himself glad for Sokka.
Wow, he really was starting to like them. Fancy that.
In the blurry left edge of his vision, Zuko saw movement, and turned his head to see Suki shuffling around as if she were uncomfortable, before squaring her shoulders and turning to Sokka.
“Do you remember Liu? You met her when we were training on Kyoshi Island,” she asked, voice carefully measured. Sokka looked confused, his eyebrows drawing together just slightly, but nodded in conformation. Suki nodded back and continued. “When she was young, there was a fire in her house. It was a cooking accident, nothing more, but it was big and it spread quickly. Her mother grabbed her and ran, of course, but they couldn’t make it out through the flames, so they had to hide in the basement.”
She paused, distantly staring at the ground. He could hear Sokka swallow from across the campfire. “They were trapped for hours before we could extinguish the fire and dig them out. Liu always said that those were the worst hours of her life.”
Zuko winced. Suki had said that the fire had been an accident, but he couldn’t help but wonder just how many similar fires the Fire Nation had caused all over the world. How many he had caused. How many people had they killed and traumatized, and for what? It made him nauseous to think about.
But Suki wasn’t done talking, so Zuko pushed the thoughts far down, where they could churn in the back of his mind along with all the others that crept up on him only in sleep and soaked his dreams with shame and guilt.
“Ever since that day, she tries to avoid tight spaces wherever she can, because sometimes, they make her feel like she’s right back in that basement, just waiting for the ceiling to collapse on her. That’s what a flashback is,” Suki finished, frowning at her rice in deep thought. Zuko could imagine what she was thinking. Fire Nation prisons weren’t exactly known for their wide and open cells, and Suki knew this from personal experience.
“So, you’re saying that she’s afraid of tight spaces because they make her have those flashbacks?” Sokka asked.
“Well, yes, but they were a bit different than…” she turned to Zuko, eyebrows furrowed, and he could already feel defensiveness rising up within him. Was she saying that he was lying about having a flashback? Why would he do that? Why would he pretend to be even more pathetic than he already was? But Zuko didn’t get the chance to ask, because Hakoda spoke up, and just like every time he did, it immediately grabbed the attention of everyone around.
“Not everyone reacts to traumatic experiences the same way. So it would be perfectly normal if your friend’s flashbacks are different from Zuko’s. If he says that’s what it was, then it is not our place to question him.”
Zuko looked up at the man, and was unsurprised to find him already looking back. His face was kind, understanding but not pitying, and Zuko didn’t know what to feel.
It reminded him of Uncle Iroh, who had also talked about his episodes like they were the most normal thing in the world, even though Uncle had watched his only son be crushed to death by earth benders and never woke up screaming. Agni, how he missed his uncle.
The silence around the group was broken by a laugh. His eyes ripped away from Hakoda’s to land on its source.
“Yeah, right. What kind of trauma could the Prince of the Fire Nation possibly have experienced?” Katara’s voice was laced with bitterness as she spoke.
“Katara...”
The others were wincing, looking pointedly between Zuko and Katara, and he was just so tired of this . He should have just left when he had the chance. Shouldn’t have woken up Aang, just climbed up the cliff and run.
He knew he had a visual reminder of the worst experience of his life painted across his face, they didn’t have to remind him.
But Katara just scoffed. “I found my mother’s dead body after the Fire Nation killed her in our home! Aang woke up after a hundred years to find out his entire people were gone, and we’re both doing fine! He has one training accident and acts like it’s the end of the world. Maybe he just needs to man up!”
What?
“Katara!”
Zuko couldn’t even hear what Hakoda was saying. She thought that… what? He’d always just assumed they knew. After all, it seemed like everyone else did, even some random citizens in a tiny Earth Kingdom village in the middle of nowhere. “His own father burned and disowned him!”, the man had yelled, right after he had tried to save them. If even he had known…
How could they not know?
“-and Bato knew what could happen before he got burned. If something like this happened on accident-”
“It wasn’t a training accident.”
Hakoda’s words stopped at once, leaving them in silence yet again. Everyone was staring at him, and Zuko felt the need to elaborate.
“I mean- It wasn’t during training. Well, I guess it wasn’t really an accident either. So. Uh.”
On second thought, maybe he shouldn’t have elaborated. Or elaborated differently. Because now, everyone was still staring, but they were also frowning and blinking in various states of confusion. Except, he noticed, for Chit Sang.
Which made sense, he guessed. He probably knew already, like everyone else.
“What- what does that mean?” He could practically see the cogs turning in Sokka’s head.
Zuko contemplated his choices. He might as well tell them now, right? They would find out anyway sooner or later. It was a miracle they hadn’t already, and Zuko wasn’t sure if he should be thankful or not. If they had known, maybe this whole dumpster fire of a conversation could have been avoided from the start.
“I was fighting- or, well, I was ordered to fight- an Agni Kai. A duel between firebenders.” The others were still just staring. What’s their problem?
He gestured vaguely in the direction of his face. “I lost.”
Which was obvious. He didn’t know why he even added that. Why was he always so bad at explaining things? Zuko scowled, and stuffed some rice into his mouth. Maybe this way he would stop embarrassing himself.
“But wait,” Aang spoke up, “I thought you had to be off age to fight in those, right? You’re barely sixteen now !”
“Yeah, well, apparently those rules don’t apply when your father is the Fire Lord and orders you to fight him.”
Toph suddenly started coughing next to him. Zuko turned to her, furrowing his brow in concern. “Are you okay?” Her eyes were watering slightly as she thumped on her chest, trying to regain enough breath to speak.
“Yeah, I’m good. I guess I must’ve choked when you said that you were fighting your father in an illegal fire duel like it’s no big deal!”
He cringed. Yeah, maybe that hadn’t the best choice of words. Not a surprise, really, words had always been Azula’s forté.
“Um. Well, I guess I wasn’t really fighting him,” Zuko admitted, scratching his neck. He was pretty sure he saw Chit Sang put his head in his hands, but was distracted by Hakoda.
The man was looking slightly horrified, but there was relief in his voice as he spoke. “So it wasn’t your father?”
Zuko almost groaned out loud. Why couldn’t he just say this right?
“No, it was . I just wasn’t really fighting him.” He licked his lips. He needed to explain this better, otherwise they would never be done with this conversation. And Agni , did he want to be done with this conversation.
“I mean, he was my father, and I was thirteen, I couldn’t exactly fight him, you know? It’s not like I had a chance . And I didn’t even want to. So I just-” He gestured vaguely, probably clarifying absolutely nothing. “-got on my knees and asked for mercy.”
His chuckle sounded awkward even to his own ears. “Obviously that didn’t work. He said I dishonored myself and banished me to find the Avatar.”
“You’re not a very good storyteller, are you?” Chit Sang asked from where his head was still halfway propped on his hand. Zuko bristled. Not because Chit Sang was wrong, mind you. Zuko knew he wasn’t good at explaining things.
A look around the camp confirmed this. Aang looked close to confused tears, and even Katara had dropped her hostility and instead looked utterly lost.
“Did I… Say something wrong?”
Chit Sang laughed, the booming sound echoing through the temple. Zuko scowled. This wasn’t funny . And apparently, the rest of the Gang shared this sentiment, at least going by the outrage in their expressions. Sokka’s head looked like it might actually combust.
“What do you mean he banished you?!”
“You weren’t even fighting back and he burned you anyway ?!”
“Excuse me, come again, you were how old ?”
“But people didn’t even know I was still alive back then…”
“How did it even come to that?! What did you do ?”
In the end, it was Suki’s question that stood out among the overlapping shouts. Zuko put down his bowl with a sigh, finally giving up on his breakfast. The rice was getting cold anyway, and with his luck he would probably burn it if he tried to reheat it.
“I spoke out at this war meeting when I was thirteen. I wasn’t even supposed to be in it, my uncle smuggled me in under the condition that I wouldn’t say anything. But obviously I was stupid and didn’t keep my mouth shut. By speaking out, I had disrespected the Fire Lord and was challenged to an Agni Kai,” Zuko finished with a shrug. He could already see Sokka opening his mouth to respond, but Chit Sang beat him to it.
“Don’t sell yourself short, highness. Rumor has it you did much more than just speak out.”
“What does he mean, Sparky? Man, we really gotta work on your story-telling skills after this, it’s like plucking pebbles from a badgermole’s toes.”
Toph nudged his shoulder with her own, but didn’t break the contact afterwards. Zuko found he didn’t mind.
“Um, well. This one general had this plan, where he- well, he said that he wanted to use a division of new recruits- called them fresh meat -” Zuko shuddered at the memory, “as a diversion. As bait, basically. So a different division could come in from behind and win the battle, while the enemies were, uh… distracted .”
Zuko took a deep breath, lifting his chin. “I know I shouldn't have spoken out against the plan like that. It was foolish, and stupid. In the end, it didn’t even change anything for the soldiers. They died anyway. But, even with everything that happened, I don’t regret it, and I would do it again if given the chance.
“Yes, what the Fire Nation is doing is bad. Yes, we need to stop them. But those soldiers? They’re just following orders. They just… love and defend their nation.”
At its core, this was why Zuko had chosen to join the Avatar. To save the people of the Fire Nation from the Fire Lord’s tyranny. Because it wasn’t his people who were choosing to commit war crimes, at least not all of them, it was his father. And he needed to stop him.
The others were staring at him. Again. But now, it didn’t make him want to run and hide, but instead made him lift his stubbornly higher. Let them look. This was the one choice in his life that he didn’t regret making.
“You know,” Chit Sang started thoughtfully, and Zuko turned his head to see a tiny smile on his lips. “You would make a pretty decent Fire Lord, even if your public speaking skills could use some work. Maybe I won’t emigrate to the Earth Kingdom after all.”
The laughter that followed was enough to wash away any leftover tension, taking the remaining discomfort and embarrassment in Zuko’s chest with it. He smiled to himself. Maybe he still had a chance with them after all.