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Todoroki Shouto dies, ice in his veins and ash in his lungs.
Zuko is born with fire on his lips and tears on his cheeks.
He is one when the memories return. He remembers in flashes, hints of a life before he is Prince Zuko.
He remembers emerald eyes and the sweet scent of nitroglycerin, long black hair and sunlight glinting off glasses. He remembers children- siblings, brothers, sister- peeking around shoji corners and breaths held within their tiny chests. He remembers tired eyes, calloused hands of a weary teacher, and a smile and three words- I Am Here- that spread throughout the land.
He remembers, and his wet nurses coo as he clenches his fist on his silk sheets and cries.
When he is two, his Father visits him. There is a sneer on his face, amber brown eyes raking over his child form. When he speaks, he commands the room and orders Zuko's caretakers to tell him when his heir can start training.
His Mother stands, back straight, and tells his Father that he is too young. The backhand comes easily to his Father, Zuko can tell, almost as if it is an afterthought. He watches his Mother fall to the ground, and is reminded of another man who called himself his Father.
He gravitates towards his Mother as he grows slowly, limbs too short and clumsy. She is the opposite of Todoroki Rei. When she sings to him at night, soft voice in his large and cold room, he stares at her neck, unbent and unbroken. He remembers Todoroki Rei, remembers the curve of her nape that followed her even as she escaped their house of bloodied shoji walls and was imprisoned in white walls of a hospital.
When his Mother tells him that she is pregnant, and his Father watches them both with greed in his eyes, he looks at her neck and wonders if it would be easier for all of them if he just snaps it and kills her then.
Azula is born before he turns three, and his Father drags him to train while his Mother is still lying with blood between her legs and sweat on her brow.
He watches his tutors attempt to teach him how to move his body, how to breathe and call upon the fire within and bend. When he refuses at first, his Father laughs.
Blood tastes the same, he finds, whether he is five and Todoroki Shouto and lying bruised on tatami mats, or he is not quite three and Prince Zuko and hunched over his broken fingers on cold marble.
When his fingers heal, his Father brings his Mother to his training session, Azula in her arms. Bend, his Father tells him, or I will burn her and carve your name in her chest. Bend, my heir, and bring me glory.
Zuko watches the straight line of his Mother's back, remembers the curved one of Todoroki Rei, and feels hate fester in his gut. He meets his Mother's gold eyes, urging her to throw him to the wolves and fire, burning him and betraying him and saving him all at once. He thinks of boiling hot water on his face and a mother who was gone by the time his tears dried.
When she merely looks at him with love and understanding, he regrets that he did not kill her sooner. At least Todoroki Rei had never been a hostage, Todoroki Shouto thinks bitterly, and calls upon the flames to dance upon his skin once more.
He is proclaimed a prodigy, a wonder, for all that the fire comes easily to him when he beckons. He sees the flush of wonder on his Mother's cheeks, the possessiveness in his Father's eyes, and the pity in his Uncle's frown, and remembers the blinding smile on a boy with jade eyes as he stood across the stage and told him his fire is his own.
He spends his third year curled up on marble, hacking up his lungs and spit and blood flecked on his palm. All the while, his Father urges him on and his Grandfather eyes him like he is a puzzle. He catches his breath in between training sessions and listens to the servants titter and chatter about how his Mother was so besotted with his sister. Against his will, he is hit by memories of a snarling boy chained to a podium, red eyes hungry for people to hurt and explosions sparking against his palms. When his tutors bid him to stand and take his stance, he feels the same chains tighten around his neck.
The flames flare easily when he beckons, and his right side feels empty when ice does not spring forth.
He is four when his Uncle approaches him, tea steaming in between his weathered hands. They settle on a balcony facing the sunset, and do not speak. It is easy, and the set of his Uncle's shoulder as he blows on his tea reminds him of the back of a man who faced scores of villains for the safety of his class. The next day, his Uncle leaves for the Siege of Ba Sing Se. He melts the porcelain of his cup and does not drink tea again.
His Father becomes desperate, he can see. His Father is the second son, third in line to the throne. It chafes at him, turns his face cruel as he prowls the confines of the palace. It reminds him of a tiger cornered, and when his Father asks his Grandfather to make him heir when his Uncle's son dies in the Siege, he cannot stop the flinch when amber eyes seethe.
His body is young, but he has lived two lives. So when his Grandfather yells and rages at his Father's audacity, he knows something has to give under their fury.
He is awake when his Father enters his room, his Mother pleading behind him. He listens as they argue, his Mother begging his Father to spare her son's life, to disobey his Grandfather's command to kill their son- you too must suffer the pain of losing your first born- and he remembers bruises blooming on his skin and a scar cupping his face, ice in his heart and ash in his lungs, and thinks-
maybe I was always destined to die.
When his Mother poisons his Grandfather and flees the palace, leaving him with his Father and sister, he wishes he is dead.
Prince Ozai is very different from Firelord Ozai, and he finds that there is still grief in him to mourn. He sees fire flickering over a stern face, a large body fitted in a hero costume, and strong hands carefully sifting through rubble to search for survivors.
Todoroki Enji was a man of contradictions, a man who beat his wife and children but Endeavor was always gentle, if not gruff, towards civilians. He was fractured, his mind in half. Firelord Ozai has no duality. He is of one heart and soul, and he wields that like a weapon.
The lands of the remaining nations tremble under his wrath, and Zuko hears whispers of fear and unrest in the kingdoms.
His sister begins training when he is five, and Azula is every bit their Father's daughter. She is not as skilled as him when it comes to calling fire, does not have the advantage of wielding fire like a quirk, but she is cruel and aims to hurt. When they begin sparring together, she laughs when she burns him. His Father comes and congratulates her, praising her, and Zuko walks away to tend to his wounds.
He is seven when he wakes to find his sister above him, pressing a pillow over his face. When he burns her, his Father watches him, looking at him as if he has never seen him before. The healers tell them that Azula will always have the rugged scars on her body, but that she will survive. Nerve damage, they whisper, eyes averted and bodies flinching every time he breathes too loudly. She will survive, but will never be the same again.
Todoroki Shouto is horrified, thinks that he is his Mother's son, worse even, as he has crippled his sister, but Zuko meets his Father's amused gaze and snarls.
Their training is separated, and they are placed at different ends of the palace. Azula does not approach him again.
The servants shudder in his presence, and his Father's generals nod at him with respect when they find that he is the reason Azula had almost lost her arms and legs. Violence is the currency of the Fire Nation, and they think he has it in spades. His Father begins smiling at him, patting his shoulder and calling him heir once more. Flames lick at his throat, steam escaping his nose with every reminder of his brutality. He wants nothing more than to scream, tell them he didn't mean it, that he was sorry, but the words curl around the smoke in his lungs and choke him.
He remembers a boy speared to the ground by a vigilante's sword, crying out that the man is his to kill, his to exact vengeance on for his crippled brother. He remembers the empty, animalistic tinge in dark blue eyes behind glasses. He remembers, and he lets his anger fade.
He gentles his voice, gentles his hand, and the servants lose their fear when they pass him. He draws on his memories of kindness and justice, of a boy with jade eyes and freckles on his nose. He smiles.
When he is ten, he is made to attend a war council. He sits on his Father's side, his heir, and listens as men thirty years his senior talk about razing villages to the ground. Amber eyes watch him, waiting for an outburst, and he tries not to vomit as he holds his tongue. He is not a hero, he tells himself, chants under his breath, and when his Uncle looks at him worriedly he bites his cheek till he draws blood. He is Crown Prince Zuko, next in line to the throne and the entirety of the Fire Nation will depend on his strength to protect them from other nations. When he is Firelord, he will make amends, he swears to himself. He burns the names of the villages behind his eyes and vows to never forget. He loses his smile.
Us, us, us, against the world, the Fire Nation cries, flames rising with the sun and simmering in the dark of the night- low, but never extinguished.
During training, he picks up dual dao swords, remembers a vigilante who stood in front of the hero system and vowed to murder those who wielded power without conviction. He thinks of a time when people tried to stand and protect everyone, no matter their nationality, and his face twists. War is a different battle, he justifies. His palms become calloused as he spends his eleventh year slashing at air with ash on his tongue.
He is thirteen when he opposes his Father. He has let the other nations suffer under his inaction; he will not let his citizens suffer the same. He stands, and does not back down, as he rips into the general's plan to sacrifice their troops for a diversion. There is amusement in his Father's eyes, and when they stand before each other in an Agni Kai, he does not waver. He is not a hero, he thinks, but still he calls on his flames to protect.
When he falls, limbs too short and unbalanced without his ice, his Father grins. He does not scream when his Father burns the left side of his face; he laughs and laughs instead. Two for two, he thinks, and in the silent chamber with their horrified audience, his Father laughs with him.
His eye heals, and as he looks in the mirror, he can almost see his hair as white and red.
Find the Avatar, his Father tells him one night over dinner, and Zuko watches his Father smile at him. My heir, find the Avatar and come back triumphant. When you find him, bring his head back on a platter and I'll gift you your precious citizens. If you kill the Avatar, I will not let them die in vain.
He is not a hero, he tells himself, and feels the weight of his convictions settle on his shoulders. He looks at his Father, and calculates the odds of killing him before he falters, and grits his teeth. His Mother is no longer around to be a hostage, but now his Father grins with too many teeth for he has found another weakness and holds it above his head.
A life for the life of his citizens, and Zuko smothers the cries of Todoroki Shouto.
His Uncle follows him, worry settling in the lines of his face, and they set sail at dawn. He spends months wandering the nations, bile never far from his throat as he sees the destruction his people, his precious Fire citizens, have caused.
When it becomes too much, he curls up in the space between his bed and the floor and wonders if his country is even worth saving. The burn scar his Father gave him is tight and heated when he thinks that, a shackle and a reminder of his promise.
When he kills the Avatar, he will make amends. When he is Firelord Zuko, he will change this world for the better, he vows, and stands up once more.
They find the Avatar in a small water tribe, and he watches the fear and hatred in the flush of their cheeks as he walks in his Fire Nation regalia.
When his name is announced, Crown Prince Zuko, their hatred morphs into all-encompassing horror. It turns his stomach, and he swallows bile and tear-filled apologies as he tells them to hand over the Avatar.
Give me the Avatar, and you will not be harmed. Give me the Avatar, and I will spare you, he urges, hoping they see reason, hoping they see the plea in his stiff face and trembling fingers. Do not make me kill you, he begs with his eyes in between the unsteady breaths he takes.
He is not a hero, but as he looks at the children back away from him in fright, he wishes he is one.
The Avatar comes quickly, easily, and he has to close his eyes when he sees that he is an Airbender. Accusations ring in his ears, frustration in the set of a boy's mouth as he tells him he is just like his father. He remembers that horrid hero licensing exam, the boy's glare half-hidden under a Shiketsu hat, and for a moment he does not see the Avatar, short and clad in orange. Todoroki Shouto sees a tall boy who wielded air like a weapon and a shield condemning him and drawing parallels to Todoroki Enji's cold turquoise eyes.
He blinks when his Uncle clears his throat behind him, and the image fades.
When the Avatar escapes, he feels traitorous relief and bites his tongue.
They chase him all over the nations, eyes turned upwards to catch a glimpse of the sky bison's tail. They fight countless times, hesitation in his elbows when he sees those grey eyes needling him with confusion and reproach.
The Avatar takes to talking to him as Zuko half-heartedly sends weak flames at the boy, heart fracturing. He tells Zuko that his name is Aang, and that he has a duty to unite the nations and protect all the citizens. His words anger him.
Where were you then, when everything collapsed? He spits, and they both hear the words he does not say.
Where were you when my nation attacked the others? Where were you when my nation fell to corruption and greed, cruelty in each fingertip? Where were you when we needed saving from ourselves?
There are tears in the Avatar's eyes when he looks at Zuko, and his apology is snatched by the winds as his group escapes.
His crew becomes restless, impatient to go home, and they whisper behind his back and say that he is a traitor to the Fire Nation. The Crown Prince is enamored with the Avatar, they jeer. Why else would he let them escape time after time, when he is a prodigy with his bending?
Traitor, they call him. Traitor Prince, even as they turn homes into charred stone and bodies into broken skeletons.
His Uncle stops him from burning them all to ashes, so he settles for burning their tongues. When the smell of scorched flesh fades from his lungs and the rage dulls beneath his blood, he stumbles away and feels his heart crumble. He had sworn not to raise his hand against his citizens, had undertaken this quest for their safety from his Father, and now he has burned them beyond repair. He looks at them, hears the screams of his sister as he lashed out with his flames and destroyed her.
He leaves.
The Avatar finds him, and he takes one look at the burns on his palms and the tears on his face and wraps his spindly arms around Zuko's head.
Come with us, the Avatar whispers in his ear. Help us save this dying world. Zuko is not Todoroki Shouto. He is not a hero, but as he thinks of frightened children and broken spirits, he wishes he is one.
The rest of the Avatar's companions protest at his presence, hatred in the eyes of the water tribe siblings. He is one of them, they hiss at the Avatar, and Todoroki Shouto remembers tatami mats harsh against his cheek and Crown Prince Zuko remembers cold marble soothing the burns on his hands and wonders why he is alive.
The Avatar tells them that he needs a firebender to teach him, to instruct him on how to harness the fire within, and they settle into an uneasy alliance.
The earthbender approaches him one night when the water tribe siblings are coiled around the Avatar, as if to take him and run. She is blind, he realizes, but she sees wisdom beyond her years.
You are troubled, she says, takes her hand and traces his face. He lets her, and when her fingers touch the burn on his face he feels his breath hitch.
He tells her he is a traitor, that he has spent his entire life training to save his nation and cure this world of taint. He does not utter his treacherous thoughts that his nation is the taint in this world.
She tells him he is not the Avatar, and that is a slap to his face. You are not the Avatar, she repeats, her blunt voice unyielding, that is not your burden to bear.
She leaves him unmoored, unsettled, and he presses his back to a tree and tries to breathe.
The next day, the water tribe siblings stare at him with a little less rage and the Avatar smiles like a boy with jade eyes and freckles on his nose. The lump in his throat chokes him, and he looks away.
Months later when they rescue the water tribe siblings’ father, he feels cold steel enter his voice. He leads them against his people, his citizens, and when they see him they flinch away from his golden eyes.
One guard is braver than the others, and asks him why he has forsaken them. He tells his prince that even when his crew had returned, tongues burned and betrayal in their eyes, his Father had not branded him a traitor. Zuko startles at that, wonders if his Father had taken one look at the destruction he had wrought on the people he had sworn to protect and laughed. He wonders if his Father had felt amusement or pride at Zuko's anger, and taken credit for raising a son exactly as volatile as him, a cocktail of fire and rage and arrogance.
He remembers diamond-hard blue eyes, fire flickering on sharp cheeks, and Todoroki Enji laughs at him from the grave.
The guard begs his prince to see reason, to come home, to bring glory to the Fire Nation once more. Zuko looks at the rest of the guards, sees betrayal and hope warring in their faces, and feels the chains of his conviction- I am not a hero, I am not a hero, but I must save them, can't you all see that this war is wrong wrong wrong- tighten around his neck like a noose. They do not understand now, he justifies, but they will. When he becomes Firelord Zuko he will mend this broken world, he tells himself, trembles, and his promises feel like thin ice in his hands.
He looks at sunken cheekbones, sunken eyes of his people, the words of his crew rattling in between his lungs-
Forgive me, he chokes, and escapes.
They make camp at night, and he staggers away from the others and tries to breathe. Traitor, traitor, traitor runs circles in his mind, and he clutches his chest and cries.
It is not the Avatar that approaches him when he runs out of tears, nor the earthbender. It is the father of the water tribe siblings, and he takes one look at his curled up form and falls to his knees and bows deeply in gratitude.
You are more than your family, he tells him sadly, more than your nation. Child, you are more.
Zuko stiffens when the man embraces him, but when he is not met with fire on his face and a punch to his gut, he melts and mourns.
In between shuttered breaths and in the confines of the man's embrace, he finally voices his thoughts after fifteen years of this life.
Why am I alive then, he gasps, and feels fire in his veins and misses ice in his lungs. He is tired. What else is there to live for?
Let me die, he says with the next breath, let me rest.
They do not let him die.
He is sixteen when he faces his Father, the Avatar by his side. They channel lightning and fire and water and earth and air.
His Father looks at him, and laughs until his dying breath. My heir, he wheezes, I didn't know you had it in you. You win, he says, as if it is by his will that he is crumbling to dust before Zuko's eyes.
Zuko feels hatred and grief battle in his chest, and steels his back. His people look at him as if he is a god, a savior, and he looks in the mirror and sees nothing but a murderer.
He is sixteen still when the crown rests heavy on his head, and the chains on his neck tighten once more. Behind him, his sister eyes him with fear and hatred, red scars crawling up her limbs, and he wishes he had let her kill him nine years ago.
The Avatar unites the nations and protects the citizens, and Firelord Zuko is a wise and just leader for his people. He learns how to shift his lips as if he is happy, learns how to stifle the sobs that escape his clenched jaw when he remembers jade eyes and scorched earth, learns how to pretend he doesn't stare at the cold marble floor of the palace and wish he was dead.
There is no more war, and when he finally, finally takes his last breath, there is a smile on his face.
Zuko dies, fire in his veins and blood in his lungs.
Todoroki Shouto is born with fire in his hands, ice on his brow, and screams.