Chapter Text
Later he will realize that his decision has a lot further reaching consequences than he first thought.
Later he will find out that it was never going to happen any other way.
Later he will see how much he has already accomplished.
But that was later…
Well, there are worse ways to die.
At first, he just figured it was a weirdly shaped cloud.
He was wrong. He was very, very wrong.
(And the spirits hate him, of course, so this should not have been that big of a surprise. He can practically hear Agni laughing at him.)
So, the fluffy-cloud-monster-thing almost crushes him when it decides to land. Because of course it does. Not like there might be actual people on the ground just minding their own business. Not at all.
(Why does life hate him so much?)
After avoiding certain death by solid-fluffy-cloud-thing, he does what he does best. He disappears and goes back to work.
(It has been two months since he left the ship and his uncle behind.
He has never felt better about his life than he does now.
Turns out that leaving behind all the expectations of his supposed family and being able to disappear whenever he wants is absolutely freeing. Who would have known?
Sure, things are not perfect. He is constantly moving; he never knows where the next meal will come from or where he will be able to sleep safely, even his hair still feels too short after having cut what he had off. But at least now he has something to do (that is not just a fool’s quest).
He has taken on the Blue Spirit’s name full time. He goes out with the mask almost every night. Whether it’s attacking some petty criminals (to protect the people, the ones that everyone overlooks), just sneaking into heavily guarded and hard to reach places (because it is fun and he wants to prove to himself that he can do it), or keeping track of and annoying the White Lotus (he needs to know if they are looking for him, if uncle is looking for him; and he will not be used as their game piece ever again), but he enjoys every second of wearing the mask.
But he doesn’t hide.
He keeps his name when the mask is off; he never shies away from using fire when the mask is on.
Fire is nothing to be feared by itself; it is the people using it.
(Someday, he hopes, they will all realize it.)
But the name of the Blue Spirit has spread. They know that he fights for the commoners, the peasants; they know that his swords are known to catch fire; they know that he protects anyone he needs to, be it Fire Nation or Earth Kingdom.
For now, he will keep doing what he has started.
(Later he will see how much the Blue Spirit inspires the Overlooked -the Faceless Ones- and terrifies the ones with Power. He will see how important he is to them.)
It is time to slip back into the shadows; it is time to go back to work.)
He did not go far. Not like he even could have. It took him a week to get to the top of the Southern Air Temple, getting back down will not be much faster.
He has a reputation of sneaking into the most unlikely places (or the Blue Spirit does, probably the reason why no one can agree on whether he actually is a spirit or not), and there are not many that could make it up here. By the looks of it, it doesn’t look like anyone has been here since the comet a hundred years ago.
He did the same thing at the Western Temple (not with uncle, his uncle did not care enough to do it) and decided to continue on in the southern one.
It is the corpses, the bodies.
(Why has no one in the last hundred years come here and laid them to rest?)
He is almost finished. It has taken him at least two weeks but it will be done. It is too late for traditional Air burial rights, but he hopes that this is better than nothing. Letting the ashes be taken by the wind.
But there are also the Fire Nation.
(How could they leave their own without proper rights?)
He has almost forgotten fluff-thing by now when to figures in blue stumble near the room where he is working. He figures that these are people that arrived with the fluffy-cloud-monster-thing. They look surprised to see him; the boy (probably his age) already reaching for a weapon.
“Can I help you?” He asks before either of the kids in blue -Water Tribe? - can think of attacking him.
“Umm, yes. What are you doing here? How did you even get up here?” The boy sounds suspicious, like he actually wants a fight.
(Can’t he see the bodies, the skeletons behind him?)
He gives the two figures a look that perfectly resembles the question of you really can’t figure it out yourself? and waves his hand at the room behind him.
“And I climbed.” Like that wouldn’t also be obvious. Not everyone has large flying animals (he has a small one, he can’t use him for transport even if he wanted to; right now, he is only as long as he himself is tall).
The girl keeps staring at his scar; the boy is at least a bit more subtle about it.
(At least he is used to it by now.)
“Oh.” That is all that the boy says but has the decency to look a bit sheepish at the question and has probably realized that he did not need to try to sound threatening.
“We should go find Aang.” The girl finally states after the awkward silence, dragging the boy out of the room with her. Apparently, there is another person with them. Either that or they have named the fluffy-cloud-thing.
(He does not want to know.)
It takes him a few hours, but he has finally finished. He has not seen the newcomers again.
It has fallen dark; he figures that he will stay for the night and leave in the morning.
Unfortunately, it seems that the two blue figures and another one in orange have found the place he has been staying at.
It’s one of the common rooms, he thinks. He liked the open space better than the smalls rooms where the nomads had chosen to hide from the fire.
(There were too many bones in those rooms.)
He has barely entered the room when the one in orange -an air bender by the looks of it, how? - jumps up and runs toward him. He does not get far when a red streak flies toward the figure in orange.
(It is surprisingly easy to sneak back into the Fire Nation.
It’s been about a year since he has been on his own and he really wanted to see home again.
But even with having been banished, it looks like no one recognizes him (or maybe they just don’t care). Although, he stays near the smaller villages, helping out where he can; occasionally the Blue Spirit makes an appearance as well.
(He does not protect only the ones of the Earth, after all. He looks out for the ones of the Fire as well.)
Quite honestly, he just wanted to see how his people were doing, he wanted to help them as well.
But no one catches him, no one is even suspicious of him being there.
(Later he will find out that they knew exactly who he was. But they also saw how he is the only one of the royals or even the nobles that ever helped the common people. They pledged their loyalty to their banished prince first. They knew what he had sacrificed for them, to help them. They would show their appreciation, their loyalty to him only.)
Right now, he is making his way through the ‘ruins’ of the Sun Warriors.
(Who knew that the dragons were still around?)
At least now he knows that there is more to bending fire than what is taught in the Fire Nation.
(He always was only average at the Sozin Style fire bending. But he has excelled in the more obscure fire arts (not that anyone knew, of course).)
He has seen what he needed to. He is almost at the edge of the ruins when he catches something red out of the corner of his eye. It dives right at him but ends up wrapping itself around his arm.
It is a dragon.
Still small, maybe the length of his arm, but a dragon, nonetheless.
“Looks like he is not dead yet.” The sun warrior seeing him out of their home states completely neutrally.
“Why would he be?” He asks. The dragon is warm, and it doesn’t look like he plans on leaving.
“He’s a runt. He won’t survive on his own as a dragon should.”
(Why does he sound like he does not care?)
(Why have they given up on him?)
“Then you won’t mind if he leaves with me.”
(If they won’t take care of him, then he will.)
“Sure, do whatever you want.” The warrior almost laughs, like it’s pointless to even try.
“What’s his name then?”
“Druk.” The warrior states simply, almost sneering.
He walks away, the dragon still comfortably around his arm.
“Looks like it’s going to be just you and me.” He smiles as he strokes the scales of the dragon, the dragon purrs.
They will be just fine.)
“Yeah, sorry. He is not overly friendly to strangers.” Once they started travelling together over a year ago, Druk has become protective of his human, making sure that no one sneaks up on him or attacks from the left.
He runs a hand through his hair, might as well get this over with.
It looks like they have brought their fluffy-cloud-thing with them – a sky bison. And they seem to have adopted the lemur that kept begging him food.
(Honestly, he should have put that together a lot quicker. Well sorry if he thought that they happened to be extinct, his bad.)
He sits down near all his belongings, waiting for the orange figure -a bald kid- to do the same.
“So, who are you?” He does not want to go first. But he does get Druk to come back to him, so he knows to not attack anyone (at least not yet, you never know), and lets him settle against his side.
“My name’s Aang.” The orange figure -Aang- cheerfully states. The attack by the still comparatively small dragon did not impact him at all. His companions, on the other hand, seem surprised to see a dragon (they were supposed to be extinct as well, after all).
“And that is Katara and Sokka.” Aang happily continues to introduce his companions. The two blue figures shyly wave at him.
“Oh, and that is Appa and Momo.” The now introduced fluffy cloud sky bison thing grunts at him; he is not amused. The bison did almost land on him, after all. His dragon keeps eyeing the bison distrustfully. Momo, though, he hopes he hasn’t found the food in his belongings yet.
“Nice to meet you. So, what brings you three up here?” He figures that the ‘nice’ route will work best, but he really wants to know why the only visitors at this temple in the last one hundred years have decided to show up at the same time.
“I used to live here.” Aang cheerfully states, seemingly not realizing why that is unlikely. The other boy -Sokka- hides his face in his arms and sighs. His confusion must have been obvious so the girl -Katara- continued.
“He’s the Avatar but he got stuck in an iceberg for a hundred years. And now he wanted to see what was left of his home.”
He couldn’t help it, he started to laugh.
(It looks like the spirits are conspiring against him, great.)
(What is his life?)
The trio all looked at each other, confused. He started to laugh even harder. It took a minute for him to calm down.
He is not going to try to capture him, he does not care about that anymore (he can go home (not the palace, never the palace) whenever he wants anyways). But the fact that Avatar happens to find him is just hilarious.
“You don’t believe us?” Aang -the Avatar, apparently, because why not? – actually looked slightly sad at that.
“Oh, no, I believe you. I just think that the spirits love messing with me and I somehow should have seen this happening.” His eye (yes, just the one) is slightly wet from all the laughing.
“Well, anyways. Who are you then?” The elder boy seemed to want to move on to a different topic.
(No matter where his travels led him, he always kept his own name.
It might make him more recognizable and easier to track, but he does not care.
He is not ashamed of where he is from.
(They are still his people.)
So, he refuses to hide who he is.
(He does not want to lose that too.)
Besides, not many of the commoners in the Earth Kingdom even realize the significance.
(The name for one of Fire, the name of the prince, the banished prince.)
But the work of the Blue Spirit has made most at least a bit more comfortable around the ones from the Fire Nation (not counting the soldiers, the faceless ones), so even if they do catch on, it rarely causes large problems.
And if it does, he can always just use his talents of disappearing without a trace.)
“My name’s Zuko. And this is Druk.” The dragon puffs a small -but oh so colorful- flame toward the group. His way of a greeting. Sokka shrieks and almost falls over, Katara seems a bit shocked as well. Druk just huffs quietly in a way that slightly resembles a laugh.
“So, how did you guys get up here?” Aang seems genuinely curious, not noticing his friends’ reactions toward the dragon.
“Climbed up. We’ve been travelling around and decided to see what was up here.” He is not bringing up the skeletons of the dead air nomads (they might have been the air bender’s family, after all) to a twelve-year-old.
“You have been traveling alone?” Having gotten over the shock of the fire breathing dragon, Katara seemed a bit sad at the question she asked.
“Yeah.”
(He is not thinking about all the family that has left him behind. Not at all.)
(He does not need them.)
“Hey, you should come with us. We are going to the North Pole. You could travel with us.” The kid is too cheerful and way too trusting of complete strangers that he has just met.
“You don’t even know me.” Should start with the obvious. And considering the reactions of the others to the fact that a literal dragon can breathe fire, they likely will not react well to the fact that he is a fire bender.
(Never mind the prince of the fire benders.)
(He works best alone anyways.)
“Besides, you seem like a good guy.” The sad look on Sokka’s face made it clear that he was thinking about the bodies he took care of before even Aang could see them.
“And I bet you could help us defeat the Fire Nation. Because that’s what we are doing once Aang is ready.” The boy continued as if he were sure that absolutely anyone would jump at the offer.
(If only they knew who he was.)
(This is so going to blow up in his face.)
“Trust me, you don’t want me.” There are so many reasons why this is a bad idea.
“I think we can decide that for ourselves. We would love to have you with us.” This time it was Katara that voiced her opinion with a small smile.
(Katara saw someone who was responsible. Someone who could help her take care of the other two. Someone who does the right thing even when it is not on him to do it. She saw someone who could do the hard thing, even go up against the Fire Nation with them.
Sokka saw someone who could protect them. Someone who could help him keep the other two out of trouble. Yes, he has been eyeing those swords that were sticking out of his belongings. Despite his reservations about a fire-breathing dragon, he could see how protective it was of his friend, not letting the trio near him; they could have that protectiveness too.
Aang saw someone who could be his friend. He reminded him of his friends long gone. He reminded him of Kuzon who also had a dragon. He saw someone who could help him remember the past.
(Everyone always wants something, even if they themselves don’t completely realize that yet.)
(If only they knew who he was.)
They should have known that these things were never simple.)
Some wind picked up through the room they had gathered.
(It was not the air bender.)
(But their will was clear, the Southern Winds; they want him to go with the Balance-and-Order.)
The spirits always did like to get in the middle of things they had no reason for being in.
(There is a reason why he does not like any of the spirits; he respects them, it does not mean he has to like them.)
(They have messed with his life too many times. They are never kind. And now they want to use him again.)
(So, if he is going to do this, then he will do it his way. No more being a piece in someone else’s game.)
“Sure, I don’t have a real destination in mind right now anyways.” He sighed. He looked his dragon in the eyes, he seemed to know that his human is just going to use the situation for his advantage as well.
(He is not doing it for them.)
This way he can keep a track of what everyone with their own games is up to.
This way he can make sure that his people are not destroyed alongside the guilty.
This way he can keep his people safe.
“You guys want some dinner?” Variations of the word ‘yes’ were heard; he and Katara got to work.
Some light conversation and getting to know each other went around. They all seemed content and they left together in the morning.
He should have known that it would all blow up in his face later.
They should have known that this was never going to be simple and easy.
Later, they will have to face the consequences.
But that was later…