Work Text:
To say that Piandao has not heard of Prince Zuko before would be a lie. He had met Ursa in Hira’a before her marriage while he’d been travelling, which is probably why she writes to him about the prospect of training her son in the art of the sword.
Now, he’s had parents write on their children’s behalf before, and he’s always given the potential students a chance before deciding whether or not he’d give them lessons. He also has no standard fee, mostly because that would exclude a lot of students who, despite their passion, would have no way to afford his lessons. Piandao has no illusions about his talent – his name practically sealed his fate and, to be honest, he rather likes it that way.
It’s a bit unexpected, though, to have an old friend catch up with him casually, with only a single-line request to take on her son as a student. He’s not entirely against the idea, if a bit confused – isn’t Prince Zuko supposed to be a firebender? He isn’t used to having benders as his students – the more common trend tends to be a non-bender with something to prove. Not that he has anything against non-benders, of course. He’s a non-bender himself, and he really did prove to be one of the best swordsmen in the nation.
But back to Zuko.
For his curiosity’s sake, he responds to her request in the affirmative, and is greeted by a ball of excitable nerves at the end of the week, with a slightly more amused mother in tow. His bow is formal and immaculate, like it’s been practiced to the point of perfection – not an inch lower or higher than it should be, even though the boy is practically vibrating with anticipation.
He poses the usual question, of course, and Ursa has seen his methods before in her old village, so she stays silent in the background. Zuko scrunches up his nose a little in thought but after taking a moment, responds haltingly but sincerely.
Piandao takes in the child’s earnestness and honesty, and the intuition that has always served him well tells him that if he rejects Zuko as a student, he’d be making a massive mistake that couldn’t be amended. So he accepts, and tries not to grin too openly when Zuko practically jumps for joy. It’s been a while since he’s had a student this passionate about swordfighting lessons, but Piandao has to admit, he’s a little interested to see how this will go.
“Ursa, you never told me why Zuko wanted to learn the art of the sword.”
She sips at her tea and shrugs lightly. One of the few things to remind him that she wasn’t actually raised by nobles. Though, he supposed, technically, with her heritage, she was born into nobility. It’s a shame that people hate Roku now.
“He thinks he’s not a good bender,” she says softly. “He is, just… not compared to his sister or his father.”
“Princess Azula is a prodigy,” Piandao observes. Ursa nods. “Isn’t it to be expected that as someone who isn’t a firebending prodigy, he would naturally fall behind?”
She snorts and says somewhat bitterly, “Try telling Ozai that.”
Piandao files this along with the other things he’s been adding to his list of things that seem suspicious about Zuko’s life in the palace. None of them add up to anything good, save that he enjoys theatre. There’s to be a production of The Monkey King in a week or so, and Piandao wonders if he can convince Ursa to let them all attend.
He hums noncommittally, and looks over outside the window at the young prince, who is studiously painting the landscape, occasionally looking up like he means to turn around and shaking his head a bit before turning his gaze to the paper and pots of paint once more. It’s like perfection is the minimum he has to achieve, and Piandao is a little alarmed at the realization. Who teaches a seven-year-old that the best is the only acceptable result?
“He’s much better at calligraphy than I expected,” Piandao comments.
Ursa sighs.
“He could be a scribe if he chooses, with that talent. Or an illuminator for the royal archives. Ozai wanted to cut those lessons when he discovered that he was better than Azula at them, said that Zuko could use that valuable time practicing his bending. As if he doesn’t nearly drive himself to exhaustion already.” The last part was muttered, but Piandao’s keen ears pick up the words as though they’d been shouted. He chooses not to comment.
“I don’t see why not,” Piandao agrees. “It’s honest work, and it would keep him humble. It’s up to him, in the end, and he has enough time to decide.”
Ursa nods, shoulders relaxing a miniscule amount. Piandao counts this as a success. It’s small, but it’s a step forward nonetheless.
It soon becomes apparent that Prince Zuko’s talents lie very much in the sphere of ‘valued by nobility or upper middle-class but apparently not the royal family’, and when Ursa suggests that her son attend lessons with him all year round, he practically leaps at the opportunity. By the second year of Zuko’s education under Piandao, he can admit that he’s become far more fond of the boy than he’s ever let himself become with any of his other students.
He regrets nothing, though. Zuko clearly needs more adults in his life who are proud of his progress and achievements, and if that approval doesn’t come from his father, Piandao is more than glad to step into that role, if only temporarily. It soon becomes apparent that Zuko’s worries about not being a particularly great student are completely unfounded, though.
Zuko excels at calligraphy and painting. His brushwork is immaculate, far more than Piandao would have expected of a grown adult, and yet he seems to have no pride in his talents.
“If you weren’t a prince, you could sell these and earn fortunes,” he jokes. “As it is, they are fit to belong in galleries.”
The prince blinks a few times rapidly and smiles. “Father said that a prince would have no use for painting, but he let me continue my calligraphy lessons. Mom said that it would be important to have good penmanship if I’m to write to generals.”
Piandao has his own thoughts about generals, but he keeps them to himself. He’s not a fool, and he isn’t going to speak of treasonous things with a nine-year-old of all people.
“Hm. Sensible of her, though I have no doubt you could contribute as much to our nation’s archives with your skills in illumination. Painting has more purpose than simply recreating life, though,” he adds. Might as well sneak in a lesson while he’s at it. “It’s a way to express your freedom as an individual, as a person. No two works of art are the same, even if the subject is. A person’s painting speaks more of their nature than most would assume.”
“How come?”
Piandao leads him to his personal gallery, lined wall-to-wall with his previous students’ creations. Zuko inhales sharply, clearly impressed by the sheer number of framed works in the hall, and immediately runs over to the first one he sees. Piandao follows silently, shaking his head and trying not to laugh at his enthusiasm.
This particular painting was the creation of his first student, and Piandao often finds himself returning to this room to observe how far he’s come. The firey colours of dusk fading into rich indigo-blue star-dotted sky with the light silhouetting the peaks of mountains visible from his estate, faint pinpricks of light spotting the canvas where lanterns had once been released into the night to celebrate the birth of the boy standing in front of him.
“It’s beautiful,” Zuko murmurs, and Piandao smiles.
“It is,” he agrees easily. “Looking at it, how does it make you feel?”
Zuko tilts his head, carefully considering his response. “It feels like home,” he says hesitantly, eyes darting to watch for a reaction, but Piandao just nods.
“Most of my students have said as much. They aren’t wrong, either – I was gifted this after my student had left for war.” Xiaoli had written to him that she’d rather the painting well cared for than subjected to the messiness of war, despite how homesick she felt looking at it.
She hadn’t returned from the front lines, but that was something Piandao was used to hearing. Most Fire Nation soldiers were unprepared for the reality of active combat, since they were generally at the tail end of their teen years. He hopes that Prince Zuko won’t face the same fate, though as someone of his status he could opt out of the mandatory period of service.
Piandao tries not to think too much about it. He’s already gotten too attached to the boy.
“Oh,” Zuko responds quietly, and he remembers that Prince Lu Ten had been on the front lines for about a year now with General Iroh, besieging Ba Sing Se. He refrains from elaborating. “They seem pretty talented.”
Piandao doesn’t correct his use of present tense.
Early into Prince Zuko’s lessons, Piandao had clocked that the boy was left-handed. This wouldn’t have been a terrible issue, simply some amendments required to the weapons he used to favour a left-handed grip, rather than a right-handed one. Piandao has forged several such blades before, it isn’t even an issue at this point.
He’s a little confused by the fact that his father’s expectations, in addition to his mother’s encouragement, have left him ambidextrous. Each line of calligraphy from his right hand is followed by an equally precise line from his left, and the same applies to everything else the prince does.
Dual blades, then, Piandao decides promptly, and leads him to the forge at the end of his training. Now nearly eleven years old, Zuko looks just about as excited to cross this milestone as he has since he’d stepped foot on Piandao’s lavish estate.
Blacksmithing is a rather demanding task, which is why he prefers to teach this particular skill towards the end of his term of teaching rather than somewhere in the middle. His students generally learn the importance of treating one’s blade well by this point, so Piandao trusts that they can communicate their preferences precisely and help him sketch out measured diagrams that are ready to be moulded by the time they pick out their metal.
Prince Zuko has been his student for a shorter period than he’s used to, but the firebending lessons he has in addition to the rest that Piandao teaches have been a key factor in his development as a master in wielding the sword. Piandao is incredibly proud.
Zuko chooses the dual dao, as he’d suspected, and easily chooses the metal to form his blades. He has clearly paid attention to Piandao’s lessons about minerals, as he chooses to form an alloy of the two blocks of material before pouring them into the moulds. He boosts the flames with his bending, doing his best to keep the temperature steady and hot before carefully extracting the bowl from the furnace and inspecting the mixture before gingerly pouring it into the mould.
The material sizzles as it enters the tub of water, and Piandao carefully observes as Zuko hammers away at the edges and runs them over a file till the ends are keen enough to cut through thin air.
The handles are fitted, and Zuko chooses to use his mother’s gift of golden fibers to form the tassel at the end. Piandao provides him with the sheath, a personal gift that is clearly appreciated for its full value (and received with a giant – and unexpected – hug), and he has to admit that the set is one of the best he’s seen made.
On the day he leaves for the capital, Zuko bows to him formally. “Thank you, Master Piandao,” he says.
“It was an honour to teach you, Prince Zuko,” Piandao replies, equally formally. “Don’t forget, just because you’re a master now, you still have to practice regularly.”
“I won’t,” he promises, and that’s the last that Piandao hears of him for two years.
He’s in the town doing a grocery run when he hears the news.
“I’m sorry, the prince is what?”
The merchant look surprised but delighted to have someone to gossip with. “Terrible business,” he whispers. “Apparently he’s only allowed to return when he has the Avatar in tow. General Iroh took pity on him or something and decided to join.”
“Is – is that supposed to be some sort of… oh, Agni, you’re serious,” Piandao mutters, horrified. “Isn’t the prince thirteen?”
The merchant shrugs, clearly uncomfortable that Piandao isn’t the regular wide-eyed variety of townspeople but the one who asks serious questions. Piandao sighs and relents. He wants to run the Fire Lord through with his sword, but until that’s a definite possibility he’d rather not draw unwanted attention to himself.
“I apologise, I’m afraid I have other errands to complete,” he excuses himself bluntly, not caring to bow. He can’t bring himself to perform etiquette now –
He needs to write to Iroh.
Sokka is his first student in three years, and it strikes Piandao how much he’s missed teaching. He still receives the usual flow of overconfident teens looking for glory in battle and instantly rejects each of them, unwilling to send another child into battle if he can help it. Shu Jing is removed enough from the mainland that unless anyone is particularly remarkable, deployment is far away from the front lines.
It’ll be interesting to teach a friend of the Avatar, he thinks, but couldn’t possibly predict how interesting it actually turns out to be.
Sokka’s creativity and complete refusal to be shoved into a box is fascinating, and his enthusiasm to learn the art of the blade reminds him of another boy he’d taught some five years ago that he misses dearly. He knows that however short his time had been with Zuko, it will be infinitely more so with Sokka. Still, he’s intrigued, and resolves to do one thing he’s never asked of his students so far – push them right to the edge of their limits.
It helps that Sokka’s an excellent warrior.
He grasps forms after a single demonstration and repeats them perfectly, no detail leaving his mind as he uses every little part of his environment to his advantage in a spontaneous spar. Perhaps Piandao is a little bitter about having sand thrown into his eyes, but he can admit that it’s a clever move – especially considering Sokka hadn’t really known that it was simply a spar.
Still. In the spirit of training exercises, he’d held out for long enough – before said environment had betrayed him, and the snapping of twig gave his position away.
Piandao wipes away sandy tears as he watches the Avatar’s group leave his estate, and a sudden urge seizes him that has him turning to Fat.
“Would you mind giving Sokka a white lotus tile from my Pai Sho set?”
“Are your eyes alright?” he asks instead, already heading towards the study.
“They’re fine.” Right when he says this, his eyes start to burn. Piandao swears under his breath. “Okay, maybe they’re not so fine. Just… give Sokka the tile, I’ll go and wash the sand out.”
The other man hums and does as he’s asked. Piandao sighs and trudges towards the gates. He tries his best not to rub his irritated eyes and make the situation worse, and it’s a very near thing.
Perhaps he should have the sand cleared from his estate after all.
“Wait, wait, wait – you know Zuko? But you never said anything about training the prince of the Fire Nation!”
Piandao shrugs. “I didn’t think it was particularly worth mentioning at the time.”
Sokka splutters. Zuko himself is in Iroh’s tent, probably waiting for the man to wake up. “You – what –”
“He said you could have been mistaken for an experienced fighter,” Piandao says, and Sokka halts in his stuttering to blink rapidly, stunned. “I’m glad to hear that you kept up with your training.”
The boy goes beet red, and Piandao chuckles.
“Thanks,” Sokka mutters shyly. “I just – I’ve sparred with Zuko this whole time and I only clocked it when I saw his scabbard. And put it together now.”
Piandao frowns. “What scabbard? I heard that he lost his swords when his ship blew up.”
“Yeah, I’m going to yell at him about that again later,” – and before Piandao can even process the comment, Sokka has already moved on, “The one with the fancy filigree, with dragons on it? I should have known that was your thing.”
“My thing,” Piandao repeats. “He said he needed a new pair when he dropped by the estate to forge a new set.”
“Yeah, because he only took the swords with him to his ship. I guess people didn’t think much of it because the looked decorative, or something.”
Piandao snorts. “He forged those at twelve, I doubt they looked ornamental in the least. Incredibly practical and durable blades, of course, but purely functional.”
Sokka blinks. “Huh. So how did he end up learning the art of the sword from you? Did the Fire Lord send him to your academy because you were the best in the Fire Nation, or something?”
“The Fire Lord – he was Prince Ozai that time, really – wanted Zuko to have nothing to do with non-benders’ weapons,” Piandao corrects. Sokka’s eyes flash.
“That’s crazy! Even Azula knows not to underestimate non-benders.”
“Hmm. Princess Ursa – Zuko’s mother, that is – snuck him out to the estate for lessons, and she convinced Ozai that it would be good for his bending and education. He stayed at my estate for a year and I taught him most of what he knows, save firebending.”
“Explains why he was so hung up on how he’d been lagging behind for a while,” Sokka mutters. “He said that the tutors in the palace hadn’t been very helpful, and that he only made progress under Iroh’s lessons.”
Piandao has no doubt the kind of instructors Ozai had hired to teach his son.
“That explains much,” he says instead. “I was simply surprised that he still has the scabbard, is all.”
“Oh, no, he’d carry it literally everywhere if Katara let him. But it would be a dead giveaway, because no random kid wanders around with such high quality weapons unless they’re rich of pinched it off of someone rich.”
Piandao finds himself agreeing. Even in his days before he’d opened his academy, he hadn’t really been able to afford the swords he’d made.
Still, as he leads Sokka to the tent where his friends are staying for the night, he can’t help but wonder what the future would look like, if it’s in the hands of these kids.
Piandao decides that he’s willing to wait and see.