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“I’ll stay here with Appa and Momo,” Zuko announced as they landed after having left the ship. He still felt a little confused and awkward after Hakoda, Bato, and Kustaa had wrapped him in strong, warm hugs, their large, muscular forms dwarfing his own to the point that he almost couldn’t be seen by those outside the embrace. It didn’t make him feel unsafe (maybe even the opposite), but he still wasn’t entirely sure how to reciprocate a hug that wasn’t from Uncle (to be honest, he still wasn’t the best at receiving even those). Then the other water tribe warriors all ruffled his hair and wished them good luck and piled extra furs on top of their supplies even though Zuko reminded them that the fire nation was always super warm and he and Aang could both regulate their own temperatures with their bending, anyway.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come?” Katara asked sympathetically as they all pulled red cloaks over their other clothing and Katara and Sokka pulled their hair into topknots. Even Aang had been growing his hair out a little to cover his arrows, as much as it pained him to temporarily go against such an important ritual of the culture for which he was the last living representative.
“I’m too noticeable,” Zuko said matter-of-factly, motioning to his very unique and obvious pattern of scarring. “I’d only be a liability.”
“You’re never a liability with us,” Katara promised him as she kissed the top of his head, “but if you’d feel more comfortable staying here, then we’ll bring you back something to eat.”
“Fire flakes?” Zuko asked hopefully. Sokka laughed. He hated those things; they were fire in food form, but it was kind of adorable how much Zuko adored them.
“Sure, I think you’re well enough for a little spicy food,” Katara promised. The group, minus Zuko, gathered to leave, and Sokka ruffled the firebender’s hair before they set off. Toph, mindful of his injuries, punched him fondly but gently in the arm. Aang gave him an enthusiastic hug, and Momo settled on Zuko’s head as they waved the rest off.
“Well, what should we entertain ourselves with, guys?” He asked the creatures, missing Naga for the thousandth time. He knew that she could take care of herself, and that she was being taken care of well by the friends that Uncle had left her with before they set off to serve tea to the earth king what felt like a lifetime ago, but he still missed her dearly, and felt almost like a part of his soul was missing.
“I guess we could start setting up camp,” he agreed, responding to Appa’s gentle lowing as he nuzzled Zuko’s body gently with his giant nose before going back to grazing.
He was setting up camp when he heard a pounding in the distance. It was a familiar one: soft thumping feet against hard-packed dirt, and he looked up, his face filled with hope but almost unable to believe it could be true, and that something could go so well for him.
But it was, and it could, apparently.
“Naga!” Zuko cheered as his polarbear dog came bounding from the nearby forest, knocking him over in an eager embrace as her tongue (which was the size of Zuko’s face) covered him in slobbery kisses. “How did you find me?” he asked.
She gave him a look that in polarbear dog-speak said did you really think I couldn’t track down my cub?
Zuko laughed. “Okay, point taken. I missed you so much, girl.”
Naga responded with another enthusiastic kiss and a disdainful sniff of his clothing, where the scent of Appa clung to the fabric. She did not like that some furry sky beast had clearly been trying to lay claim to her boy. From his position on Zuko’s head, Momo chittered defensively. He had claimed Zuko as his and he wasn’t going to back down just because some carnivorous antarctic beast was staring him down.
Zuko threw his whole body across Naga’s head, scratching her ears and peppering kisses against her nose. Here alone with his beloved companion, he was comfortable showing a sort of unreserved affection that he’d never been able to anywhere else.
The rest of the gang came back an hour later to find Zuko fast asleep and curled up against Naga, who crouched protectively over him, her big black eyes casting around for any sign of danger to her boy.
“This is the most adorable thing I’ve ever not-seen,” Toph cooed.
“It’s pretty adorable to see-see too,” Sokka agreed, as Aang stood beside them vibrating with the urge to pet the big doggie.
[]
Iroh had barely slept in these past few weeks as he trekked through the forest of the homeland that had a price on his head, but it wasn’t the fact that he was being hunted that worried him.
No, what worried him was that he was trying to find a nephew he wasn’t even sure was alive. The last time he’d seen him, he was a twitching figure in young Master Katara’s arms as they fled Ba Sing Se. The pure rage and terror that he’d felt upon seeing the boy he considered the son of his heart with a smoking crater in his chest had given him the energy to tear himself free of the Dai Li imprisoning him. Those who witnessed the event would say that he was like a one man army as he fought his way out of the city to take off after his Nephew. But it was too late, and the bison was already gone.
That didn’t stop him from searching, however, finding any clue he could find. Unfortunately for him, the avatar’s group had been rather more elusive these past weeks than they had when Zuko was still actively chasing him. As soon as Iroh had a real reason to hunt the avatar besides just following his wayward nephew, and the little airbender had seemingly disappeared without a trace. The irony would be funny if it weren’t so painful.
Although, part of Iroh was afraid at what he might find if he did manage to meet up with the avatar. As long as he was still searching, he could hold onto the hope that Zuko had somehow survived. But if he found them, and they had to look at him and tell him that his Zuko was dead, and that they likely didn’t even have a body to return to him, it would break the last bit of Iroh that still held any faith in the goodness of the world. For him, Zuko was the goodness of the world. If that goodness was gone…
Iroh couldn’t even consider the possibility. He refused to. His boy had beat the odds before, and he would do it again- he had to. He’d dealt with so much; his father’s abuse, his mother’s disappearance, the disgrace of an Agni Kai that Ozai had the audacity to insist was an honorable duel, the permanent disfigurement and disability that he’d left him with, and his subsequent banishment. Then, to add insult to injury, he’d stopped growing at thirteen, when he’d never been particularly tall to begin with. While Iroh thought it was adorable (and certainly didn’t mind not being the shortest living adult in the royal family), he knew that it had only added to poor Zuko’s trials.
And after all that, he still was such a good boy, and he managed to make the right choices despite the world trying its best to drag him down. He loved his sweet Zuko so very dearly, and he would see him again, or die in the attempt.
He pulled his cloak over his head and entered another small town to seek out potential gossip that might lead him to the avatar. So far, it had been a bust, but he was not going to give up, not ever.
It seemed the spirits were shining on him, finally. Some locals were talking about how their children had snuck out to a party in a cave with some child named Kuzon who taught them all to dance.
“It seemed rather fishy to me,” one parent was saying. “I mean, I talked to one of the teachers, and do you know what they told me? His parents were named Wang and Sapphire Fire. If those are their real names, I’ll give up spice for the rest of my life. I mean, did they really think that anyone here was that stupid? That’s like going to the Earth Kingdom and insisting your name is Dirt Rock. It’s honestly insulting that they thought we’d fall for it.”
“I heard they were just a bunch of hooligan colony brats with no adult supervision. I don’t think they were thinking too far beyond finding the nearest travelling circus, or whatever the half-breed riff raff gets themselves up to these days,” another said. Iroh leaned in closer, pretending to browse a produce stand so that he had an excuse to linger.
“I don’t know,” a tired-looking middle aged woman began. “They certainly weren’t a good influence, to be sure, but I haven’t seen my On Li so happy since her father was killed in the war. Perhaps a little tomfoolery here and there isn’t such a bad thing.”
“Whatever the case, we’re just lucky they didn’t stick around. Maybe one night of nonsense won’t hurt our children, but in the long run it would only be harmful for them to hold onto such things as joy and fun and hope. This war has been going on since long before we were born and it’ll likely persist long after our children are dead,” a stern-looking man harrumphed.
“No need to be so dour,” the final member of the group- a short, pale woman with the richest-looking clothes, although rich was certainly relative in this case- contributed her bit. “We’ve taken Ba Sing Se. It can’t be long now.”
“And what about after we win? Do you think there won’t be rebellion? That our resources won’t be stretched too thin by trying to maintain a reluctant empire?” The dour man spoke up.
“Shhhh!” the first parent who had spoken snapped. “Do you want the town guard to catch you saying such treasonous things?”
“Pshaw! The town guard are a useless bunch of louts who are unhappy that they haven’t been paid in a month,” the dour man rebutted. “If you ask me, it won’t be too long before they realize that more and more of our tax money is going to keep being funneled straight into the pockets of the military industrial complex and not into their own, and pretty soon we’ll be left to fend for ourselves on these streets. Not that that would necessarily be a bad thing.”
“I must say that I hope you’re correct,” On Li’s mother sighed. She was a struggling widow, and she was quite tired of being harassed by the local police force. So far she’d managed to keep them from forcing her way into her bed, but she knew that if they ever did decide to push that far, nobody would be able to stop them. “You know, it’s a real shame that Blue Spirit fellow never stopped into any of the towns in the homeland. I heard that law enforcement always did behave better after he’d spent a few nights in town.”
Iroh smiled. His nephew always did have a strong sense of justice. He still does, he reminded himself. No sense thinking of Zuko in past terms when he would see him again soon.
“That’s not what I heard, though,” the pale woman in the newest kimono spoke up. “Why, I have a friend whose cousin lives in Jang Hi, and he said that the Blue Spirit and the Painted Lady destroyed a weapons’ factory that was polluting their river.”
Iroh stood up straighter. He had a destination. He didn’t spare another thought to the group, or the dour man who was loudly claiming that spirits were a load of komodo-rhino dung. He had a nephew to find.
[]
They’d just left Jang Hi, and Katara and Zuko were laughing at the memory of the guard’s faces as they’d been terrorized into compliance by the combined force of the Painted Lady and the Blue Spirit. Katara hadn’t let him participate in blowing up the factory, stating that his wound was still too fresh, but she had let him swing his swords around and bend some fire at the soldiers threatening the villagers later that day. Considering that Zuko’s fire had been coming out in a plethora of rainbow colors lately for some odd and unknown reason, that combined with Katara’s excellent theatrics convinced them quite well to leave the poor people of Jang Hi alone.
“Yeah, yeah, you were amazing,” Sokka interrupted after about a half hour of them giggling like children and congratulating each other on their performances. “You two should totally start a theatre company together.”
The two did not seem to pick up on his sarcasm. “We’d be good at that,” Zuko agreed sagely, his hands fiddling with the pile of furs Katara had wrapped him in. “I mean, the Ember Island Players are somehow in business, and we’re way better actors than they are.”
An hour later, with Zuko’s lecture on the fine points of costume design and the undervalued importance of good lighting in any theatre production, and Toph was starting to wish she was deaf as well as blind.
And he just. kept. going. By hour two, Toph had moved on from ‘wished she was deaf’ to ‘wished she was dead.’ But Katara was hanging onto his every word with wide eyes, and the little earthbender couldn’t bring herself to interrupt since this was the most comfortable she’d ever seen Zuko with them. His features were lit up and his hands were moving wildly and there wasn’t a trace of his normal shyness.
“So, while there’s definitely something to be said for adapting older plays for modern audiences, you have to be very careful not to lose the spirit of the play and should probably consult a number of experts before you-”
They were cut off by Naga’s loud bark from down below. Since the Polar Bear Dog couldn’t fit on the saddle, Zuko had told her to meet them at their next location, and they’d stayed low enough that they could keep an eye on her and make sure she still had their trail.
“What’s wrong?” Sokka asked. “Is there a threat?”
“No,” Zuko shook his head rapidly, making his floppy hair fall into his eyes. “That’s her happy bark.” He looked pensive as he tried to figure out what might have caused it.
“We should go check it out, just to be safe,” Aang said, as he angled Appa towards the ground.
As they neared the ground, Zuko’s eyes widened and he nearly threw himself down from the saddle and into the arms of the waiting figure. And he would have, if Sokka hadn’t held him back.
“That’s Uncle!” Zuko declared, struggling to free himself from the taller boy’s grip. As strong as he was, it was a futile effort, since Sokka was big enough (or Zuko was small enough) to pull the little prince into his lap and trap him there with his arms and legs.
“I know, but wait till we land, buddy,” Sokka scolded. “You can’t just go launching yourself off of flying bison.”
As soon as they reached the ground, Sokka sighed with relief as he released the spring-loaded bundle of eager energy and Zuko shot like a rocket towards his Uncle. Sokka stretched his arms out in front of him and groaned- even still weakened by illness and injury and only a few inches taller than Toph, the kid was strong.
“Uncle!” Zuko practically flew into the old general’s arms as the Dragon of the West bawled openly. “I was so worried! I thought you were being taken back to the fire nation as a prisoner!”
“People forget, my nephew, that the old dragon still has teeth,” Iroh laughed through his tears. “So I escaped and came to find my sweet child.”
Zuko was so happy to see him that he didn’t even protest at being called ‘sweet’ or ‘a child.’
[]
Iroh held Zuko close, his chin curled protectively over the boy’s head as one hand rubbed his back soothingly and the other subtly assessed his nephew’s ribcage, concerned at the amount of weight he’d clearly lost. He was sure it was probably due to circumstances out of anyone’s control, but if he was wrong and the avatar’s group wasn’t feeding his nephew properly, he would bring down all the wrath of the spirits upon them, last hope for the world be damned.
Luckily, there was nothing to worry about. The little mismatched group looked upon his Zuko with such unabashed fondness that it warmed Iroh’s old heart. He was so glad that Zuko had finally found people his age who appreciated him, and that he apparently felt comfortable enough to show such open affection in front of.
“I was so terribly worried for you, my Nephew,” he said into Zuko’s hair, which was already a couple inches longer than when he’d seen him last. “When I saw you fall… I don’t think I have ever been so frightened in my entire life.”
“I’m alright, Uncle,” Zuko promised, speaking into his chest. Weeks of constant walking and living off the land had trimmed Iroh’s normal paunch to the point where it was just hard abdominal muscles, and he could tell that this displeased Zuko, if his nephew’s pouty little moue of displeasure was anything to go by.
“Do you miss my soft belly, my Nephew?” he laughed, the tears finally starting to slow down a little.
“Just missed you,” the little prince mumbled. Despite the fact that he knew his Nephew hated being so short, Iroh was incredibly grateful for it in that moment as he picked Zuko’s entire body up and cradled his child close to him. He wished he could keep him safe here forever, and that he would never have to go back out to experience more of the horrors of the world. His poor Zuko had already seen far too many for several lifetimes.
“You healed him?” he asked the waterbender as he reluctantly ceded to Zuko’s grumpy demands to ‘put me down, Uncle!’
Katara nodded.
The surprise was evident on her face as Iroh bowed, deeper than royalty had ever bowed for any commoner, deeper even than Iroh himself had ever bowed to his father when he was the firelord.
“Thank you,” he croaked, his voice hoarse and so, so full of gratitude, hands and knees on the floor as he genuflected before her.
“It… it was nothing.” She was clearly uncomfortable with the focused attention, the show of respect that bordered on near-manic devotion “Besides, he saved Aang. It was the least I could do.”
“It was so very, very far from nothing, Master Katara. For me, it was everything. For me, my Nephew is all that is good in the world, and knowing that he is alive and breathing is the only thing that gives me the courage to wake and greet Agni each morning.” Next to Iroh, the good side of Zuko’s face and neck blushed deeply, and he gripped Naga’s fur as he tried to figure out how to handle his Uncle’s show of such raw vulnerability. Now that the initial delighted shock of seeing him had worn off, he was excruciatingly aware that they were the center of the group’s attention.
The moment hung heavily, nobody quite knowing what to say next. That is, until Toph stepped forward, gleefully punched Iroh in the arm, and said “it’s good to see you, Uncle.”
[]
The campfire that night was a jovial affair, and Zuko leaned into Iroh’s side, his Uncle’s arm around him as they discussed their plans going forward.
“I think it wise if I was to ride Naga during our travels, and we can meet up at our next location each night. That way Naga isn’t alone, and I don’t have to burden your poor bison with the extra weight,” Uncle said. Then, as an afterthought, “even if I have trimmed down.”
The group laughed, except for Zuko, who rolled his good eye. He still wasn’t happy that Uncle had burned off the belly that made such an excellent pillow.
“I’ll ride Naga with Uncle, so he won’t be alone,” he decided.
“Sorry Zuko, but as your healer I can’t let you do that, it would jostle your injury too much while it’s still not completely healed,” Katara informed him, apologetic but clearly unwilling to budge.
Not that Zuko wasn’t just as stubborn. He opened his mouth to argue when Uncle put a placating hand on his shoulder.
“I think it best to listen to your doctor,” he told Zuko gently.
“But-” Zuko began, but Katara interrupted him.
“Shh!” she ordered. “The adults are talking.”
“I’m older than you!” Zuko yelled, and Katara’s face flushed with embarrassment as what she’d just said caught up with her.
“Oh Spirits, Zuko, I’m so sorry!” She didn’t have time to say anything else, as Zuko grabbed the pot of dishwater from its place near the campfire and tossed the liquid in her direction.
It was obviously an unwise decision to start a water fight with a waterbender, and as Iroh watched these children shriek and laugh and drench each other as they forgot their troubles for a moment, he felt something long-broken inside of him finally, finally begin to heal.