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Zuko's four or five when he begins to realize he has to leave. It’s a slow realization, trickling down to form a puddle. Zuko remembers Ace’s freedom in his childhood and can’t help but compare, can’t help but want out.
His sister has just started firebending. He's watching her call fire to life, like he did as Ace, like he now does as Zuko. But Ace never had royal tutors and he never had instruction, Ace was fire and fire was Ace.
It's not like that for Zuko, Zuko is a slow learner.
Zuko’s entire being isn’t made up of fire, not like Ace’s. Zuko learns terribly slow because he remembers being Ace. He remembers being fire, and now he’s not. The forms aren't the same and he is used to more freedom. The firebending form they are taught is rigid and boring, Zuko wants to be fire like Ace, he doesn’t want to control fire.
Zuko isn’t fire, and he mourns that.
Zuko’s sister may not be fire but the way she calls fire is close. Azula is talented and Zuko loves watching her. She's amazing.
Ace never had a sister growing up, only two brothers. Even though she's a girl, she cries less than Ace's little brother. Lala works hard and likes perfection. She likes doing what their father tells them to. Zuko isn't interested in anything the man has to say, but he listens and obeys because he has no reason not to.
Zuko remembers Ace and so he remembers Pirate Kings, and revolutionaries, and rich noble dads. Zuko also remembers Ace finding a father that was truly a father, so he's not too put out when his father proves to be poor. Zuko thinks he'll just find one somewhere else.
Zuko's mom is nice; she hugs and kisses him. They play together and she gives him attention. Zuko doesn't remember anything like this happening for Ace. Zuko cherishes it. It's best when Lala plays too, but she likes to practice with her fire more. If Zuko was as good at fire as Lala he would rather play with fire too.
Zuko also has a cousin and uncle. His uncle is the crown prince, so Zuko rarely sees him. His cousin is kind to him and gives him gifts. His father doesn't like either of them, so his sister snubs them. They leave when Zuko is 9 to go to war.
He has yet to meet his grandfather, the Fire Lord. Zuko wonders if it'll be like meeting King Neptune or more like a World Noble. Zuko looks at his father and thinks probably World Noble.
As he grows, it becomes more apparent that his father expects warriors for children and doesn't care to parent them. His sister gets praised for her prodigal firebending talent. Their father tries to put Zuko down by comparing him to his little sister, but Zuko is happy for her. He doesn't particularly care for their father's attention, let alone praise. Since Lala wants it, she can have it.
He gets frustrated quickly learning to make fire when he still remembers being fire. Zuko eventually decides it’s too much trouble and asks to learn swords. He remembers Ace thinking they're cool. Turns out Zuko is quite talented with duo daos. Zuko is pleased when his father is not pleased and doesn't praise him. His father calls him weak for needing a weapon when his fire should be enough. Zuko laughs at this, remembering the destruction Mihawk and Vista created when they fought each other.
His cousin dies. Zuko's uncle sends him a knife inscribed with the words 'never give up'. His sister gets a doll. Zuko is baffled by this choice of gift. Zuko decides that given his son just died he probably wasn’t thinking clearly. Lala burns the doll and Zuko laughs.
They overhear plans to kill Zuko while playing. Death is nothing new for Ace, everyone wanted the Pirate King's son dead. Lala is angry though, so she goes to their mom and gloats that soon she will be an only child, that their grandfather told their father to kill Zuko and he agreed.
Their mom is horrified, partly by Lala's mocking but mostly by Zuko's potential murder.
She tells Zuko she loves him and makes them both go to sleep. The next day their grandfather is dead, and mother is gone. Their father is crowned that afternoon, and uncle is still gone.
Lala is confused and lashes out more. Zuko remembers Ace lashing out to protect himself and understands. Zuko stays with his little sister and doesn't get angry or leave when she's mean or burns him. It doesn't hurt, he remembers Ace dying with a fist of magma through his chest. Lala is his sister, and he loves her.
Their father is now uninterested in Zuko. He's decided that Zuko is a failure, and nothing will change that. Zuko relishes in the little freedom this affords him. His father no longer makes him sit all day learning things; he has more time for swords now. He would feel bad that Lala now replaces him, except she likes it.
While Zuko is nominally the Crown Prince, he hasn't been officially crowned and his sister is getting all the lessons he should technically be getting. Zuko isn't sure why his father doesn't just crown Lala. Nothing in his memories of Ace helps, Ace never learnt anything of royalty or succession. Maybe when Zuko's uncle comes back from his trip he'll ask him.
Zuko is 13 when his uncle comes back. Zuko still wants to know why his father won't crown Lala. Although Lala won't say, she also wants to know. It must be confusing for the nobles to figure out who their next Fire Lord will be.
Zuko corners his uncle with tea and Pai Sho and asks why Lala can't be crowned. His uncle looks confused. He asks why Zuko isn’t asking what he needs to do to be crowned.
Now it's Zuko's turn to be confused: Zuko doesn’t want to be crowned.
He tells his uncle that no one wants to crown Zuko, least of all Zuko. His uncle looks worried and concerned, Zuko just wishes he would answer.
His uncle is truly useless.
His uncle finally tells him that royal succession is by birth and cannot be changed unless there is a universally known major failure that makes them unsuitable for the throne, then the current Fire Lord will remove them from succession. In his uncle’s case, his failure to take Ba Sing Se, in addition to his lack of heir and wife made Zuko’s grandfather remove him as crown prince.
His uncle pauses for a sip of tea, looks at him gravely and says, “There is another way, if it is demonstrated that you are not blessed by Agni, a non-firebender for example, then you would have no claim for the throne. Losing an Angi Kai might give enough of a reason, if the loss was bad enough, as that would demonstrate a lack of blessing and personal honor.”
Zuko’s uncle seems disturbed by Zuko’s questions and is deep in thought. When Zuko excuses himself, his uncle waves him away absentmindedly. Well, what his uncle thinks of Zuko doesn’t matter, his uncle is the strange one.
He takes the information back to Lala, because Zuko isn’t good with plans. Lala is annoyed, and she agrees that their uncle really is useless. Their uncle managed to get removed from the line of succession but not in a way that Zuko can replicate anytime soon so it’s not helpful. Lala doesn’t want him affecting their country with their plan, and losing a war would be bad. Lala also doesn’t want him to lose an Agni Kai. Whether that’s because he would be burned or because then he would have no honor, Zuko doesn’t know. Zuko doesn’t particularly care what people think of him, Ace was a pirate after all. Zuko also doesn’t fear pain. Zuko keeps losing an Agni Kai as a backup plan for when he feels too stifled and needs to leave. Zuko likes his hair and would prefer not to lose it. Zuko isn’t in a rush, Ace’s life always managed to go in the right direction eventually. Zuko will just wait for an opportunity. Lala doesn’t need to be crowned before she turns 14 anyway, which is when crowned princes/princesses traditionally start participating in court matters. Zuko is 11 and Lala is 9, they have five years to figure something out.
Zuko can’t live five more years like this, maybe if he didn’t remember Ace it would be bearable, but he does. Zuko’s whole day is scheduled for him, he’s forced into formal clothes, and he can’t explore. Zuko hates living in the palace. Lala is the only good thing about it, and he’s rarely allowed near her. Zuko’s father claims he disturbs her training. Which maybe he does, but he can’t help it. He feels like he thinks Sabo felt before running away, only Zuko has a sister and Sabo had no one. Sabo also ran away at 10 and Zuko hasn’t yet. Zuko feels like maybe he’s winning some imaginary contest, but, no, he's definitely losing.
Zuko’s uncle has been seeking him out more lately. He asks weird questions about morals, and then gets visibly upset when he answers like a pirate. Zuko thinks this is funny, so he sits with his uncle drinking tea and answering weird moral questions. Sometimes they play Pai Sho, which Zuko is terrible at.
One day his uncle asks him what he would like to be when he grows up. Zuko would like to be a pirate, but the only one who can know that is Lala. When he told her, she said it’s great that her competition for the throne wants to leave.
So instead Zuko says he wants to be a captain on a ship and see the world. His uncle seems to expect something like this but still deflates with his answer.
He then confirms that Zuko wouldn’t like to be Fire Lord. Zuko is shocked by how slow his uncle is, Lala is obviously going to be Fire Lord. So Zuko tells his uncle that clearly Lala is the heir, she’s being trained and everything. For some reason this answer excites his uncle, who tells Zuko that he can train Zuko, that Zuko is first in line and the actual heir.
Zuko is starting to think something went wrong with his uncle’s brain in Ba Sing Se. His son did die, so Zuko decides its grief making his uncle act so strange. Zuko looks at his uncle in pity and tells him that his son is dead, and Lala is now heir. His uncle looks shocked and doesn’t speak again. Zuko leaves awkwardly when it becomes clear nothing else is going to be said.
Zuko turns 13 and becomes impatient. If Zuko turns 14 without Lala becoming crown princess, then Zuko will likely be expected to contribute to court matters. The Fire Lord has put them all in an awkward position by treating Azula as the heir but not removing Zuko from succession. Zuko does not want to sit through long boring meetings with his father glaring at him the whole time.
Over time Zuko has realized his uncle seems to be trying to groom him into a Fire Lord of his choice. Whether this is because he sees his dead son in Zuko or wants to annoy his brother who stole his birthright, Zuko doesn’t care. It was annoying at first, but Zuko has learned to ignore anything his uncle says about being the future Fire Lord. His sister thinks Iroh is delusional and is insulted that he doesn’t feel blessed to have her as their future Fire Lord.
Ace had waited until he was 17 until he left home, but home for Ace had more freedom than this palace does for Zuko. Zuko needs to leave, he can’t wait for a plan or an opportunity to be safely removed from succession.
Zuko figures that if he begs his uncle to let him sit in on one of those boring meetings and then provokes someone into challenging him to an Agni Kai, then Zuko can lose and be removed from the line of succession and go be a pirate. Honestly, his father will probably take just about any reason to remove him from succession.
Something about the plan doesn’t feel right to Zuko but he’s being stifled under rules and heavy clothes and Zuko can’t take it anymore. Zuko no longer cares about having to cut his hair after losing, if he will at least be free.
Zuko doesn’t think anything too bad can happen, even if he’s not the crowned prince, he’s still a prince.
His uncle is stupidly pleased Zuko wants to participate in court matters. Zuko is embarrassed by how optimistic he is. Zuko goes to the war meeting, his plan is to get a feel for each general and then pick the one with the shortest temper.
The problem with this is that Zuko has the shortest temper.
So, when one of the generals proposes sending in fresh recruits as decoys to be slaughtered by the Earth Nation army, Zuko speaks out. Which might have been perfect for his plan, if not for the fact his father, the Fire Lord, was hosting the meeting.
Fire Nation customs are confusing and over complicated and Zuko can’t wait to become a pirate. A lot of the weird things that are done in the fire Nation are about respect and honor, lots of bowing and empty courtesies.
Zuko really shouldn’t have said anything, because the Fire Lord was hosting the meeting. By speaking out of turn he disrespected the Fire Lord not the would-be mass murderer general.
His father tells him he must fight an Agni Kai, which Zuko is fine with, but his father is smiling and doesn’t tell him specifically who he is fighting. Zuko’s father is not a nice man, and he doesn’t like Zuko. Zuko knows this and feels dread.
When Zuko turns around on the Agni Kai dueling stage and sees his father, he’s not shocked, but he is annoyed. Anyone else would win by lightly burning the prince of their nation, but Zuko knows his father won’t be satisfied with anything less than disfigurement or disability.
Zuko wishes his sister wasn’t watching this.
Zuko will of course lose the fight, but Ace remembers shitty dads and Zuko won’t beg to one. Zuko is also incidentally not a good enough firebender to beat his father, so losses quickly.
His father holds Zuko down kneeling in front of him and puts his hand over his cheek. Zuko knows what’s coming, can see it in the delight and satisfaction in his father’s eyes. Zuko doesn’t close his eyes or lose eye-contact, as his face burns away.
Zuko screams because that’s his face melting off and it hurts.
Zuko feels betrayed that fire is doing this to him, fire that he remembers being, fire that is now burning him. Distantly he hears his sister laughing slightly hysterically and wishes she had looked away. He has no feeling in his face now and all he can smell is burnt skin.
Zuko wishes he was fire so he could flame away this burn, but Zuko is not Ace so instead he just passes out.
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Zuko wakes up aboard a ship and can almost convince himself he’s Ace again, back on the Moby Dick.
He isn’t obviously, half his face is melted off.
The plan seems to have worked, Zuko is no longer in line for succession. However, his sister is not crowned.
His father is confusing.
He obviously doesn’t want Zuko to be crown prince but taunts him that if Zuko can find and bring him the Avatar then his position can be restored. Zuko is insulted that his father thinks he’s that naïve.
Or maybe his father thinks Zuko is desperate. Zuko did just get banished from the Fire Nation after all, that’s probably upsetting for people who aren’t pirates. Once Zuko is strong enough and he finds a crew, he won’t have to listen to the Fire Lord and can go wherever he wants. Zuko’s father really understands nothing about him.
Zuko wishes finding the Avatar didn’t sound like so much fun, he hates doing what his father says. On the other hand, maybe Zuko will find them and just not bring the Avatar to his father. That would really irritate him. Maybe the Avatar will even join Zuko’s pirate crew.
Strangely enough, his uncle has decided to join Zuko in his banishment. Zuko again can’t decide if this is in protest against his uncle's brother, or support for Zuko. Or maybe his uncle has finally given up and decided to stop with politics altogether. Zuko hopes so, his uncle isn’t so bad when he’s not trying to furtively influence Zuko to be Fire Lord.
Zuko is disappointed he didn’t get to say goodbye to his sister. By the time he woke up they were already out of fire nation waters. Apparently, his father wants him gone as soon as possible. He’ll write her a letter once he no longer has to wear bandages over his eye. His depth prescription is terrible, he walked into a doorway this morning.
Azula would probably think he was writing under distress if he sent a letter using his current handwriting. She would also come rushing in to save him, more out of a desire to be able to lord it over him than out of any fear of his safety. He already misses his sister; too bad she didn’t want to join his pirate crew. She said something about how the only person she’ll ever kneel for is their father, which doesn’t make sense because Zuko doesn’t want his crew to kneel to him. Well maybe she’ll change her mind when she sees his crew doesn’t kneel to him.
Zuko has trouble deciding how to cut his hair. He doesn’t feel like he lost his honor and he also doesn’t want to reject the Fire Nation, but he is no longer a possible heir to the Fire Nation and needs to show that. Ace never had this much trouble over his hair, Zuko doesn’t feel like it’s fair. He eventually decides to keep his hair long but not wear it in a top knot. Hopefully this will be seen as a renouncement of titles but not loss of honor or rejection of the Fire Nation. It was an annoying hairstyle anyway and now Zuko doesn’t have someone else to do it for him. Although if he wears his hair loose it’ll get into his eyes, so he’ll wear it in a low ponytail at the base of his neck.
While Zuko would have preferred not to be disfigured in order to be free, he’s pleased with the results and is excited to recover so he can explore the ship. His uncle sits with him and drinks tea all day, he seems to think Zuko needs reassurance. Or maybe he thinks Zuko is vulnerable enough to listen to Iroh’s encouragement to not give up, that one day he’ll be able to come home and can reclaim his birthright. Unfortunately, Zuko thinks it’s the latter, not the former. His uncle has been insistent that Zuko is still a prince, calling him “my prince”. Zuko doesn’t really care if he is still a prince but it's annoying to constantly be called that.
Either way he milks his uncle for all the information he can on where they’re going and who’s on board and in what capacity. His uncle thinks he’s being reassuring when he tells Zuko that all the men on board used to serve under him and are still loyal. Instead Zuko is horrified to realize his crazy uncle could order them to do anything and they would agree. Playing nice with his uncle just became more important.
His uncle introduces him to the ship’s captain, Lieutenant Jee, who seems to somehow have no respect for Zuko despite never having met him. His uncle must have said bad things about him. If Zuko could afford it, he would be glaring at Iroh.
The Lieutenant seems to nominally follow his orders, but Zuko is sure he would report back to his uncle and double check any order too nonsensical. Zuko will have to come up with reasonable excuses for all his orders now, or rather no one has seen the Avatar in 100 years, Zuko can go wherever he wants and call it “searching for the Avatar”.
His uncle also tells him about their helmsman, an elderly man named Taosa. Their engineer is called Rikem, and their cook Jaraom. There are four firebending soldiers and 2 non-firebending soldiers whose job seems to be chores. His uncle tells him random crew gossip, which he would care about if he didn’t already know these people are loyal to his uncle and he can’t trust them.
The ship is unnamed, or if it has a name no one knows it. Zuko is pleased he gets to name the ship; he names it Flame’s Liberation, for obvious reasons. Iroh seems to think it means something else and gets a weird look in his eyes. The look might be pride but that makes no sense, it’s literally named after Zuko’s freedom from being a Fire Nation prince, what’s there to be proud of. So long as he doesn’t make Zuko change it, he doesn’t care.
Zuko originally wanted to name the ship after Azula, but decided she might try to kill him if he did.
When Zuko asks his uncle where they are headed, he learns they are going to the Western Air Temple. Zuko is fine with that, it’s close and seems interesting. The Western Air Temple is on the way to the Northern Water Tribe which Zuko wants to see before his father gets it into his head that they need to die. Come to think of it, he should also visit the Southern Water Tribe before they die too. He’s not too worried about the Earth Nation people dying out before he can visit, there’s lots of them and they are surprisingly enduring.
Good thing the Avatar could be anywhere. Zuko can’t wait to never find them and keep looking.