Archive of Our Own ^beta

Prince Lu Ten was a lot of things. 

An amazing fire bender. 

A great, hardworking student. 

A dutiful prince. 

An older cousin. 

An only child. 

A good son. 

Lu Ten prided himself on these things and those were the only parts of himself that he would allow most of those around him to see. But contrary to popular belief, the sixteen year old prince wasn't perfect—far from it, in fact—not that anyone else knew that. 

He snuck out. 

He went to parties. 

He flirted with people his grandfather and uncle wouldn't approve of. 

He studied other nations and learned different techniques based on theirs, and he disagreed with many of his kingdom and family’s choices regarding said nations. 

He preferred peace over violent tactics anyday and he couldn't for the life of him make the tea his mother and father loved so much. 

But none of those particular traits were the ‘worst’ of his flaws. Oh, no: those flaws of his would be nowhere near as disastrous as his worst flaws if they were ever to be discovered—his worst flaws being how he saw his family. 

Don't get Lu Ten wrong, he loved his family. Loved all of them with every fiber of his being and loved them enough that he would even go as far to say he'd likely die for them if it ever came down to it. But that didn't mean he always liked them and appreciated every aspect of their personality. 

….Oh, how he wished that that wasn't the case. 

His grandfather, Azulon, was strict to the point of being cruel and he had always favored Lu Ten’s father, Iroh, over his other son, Ozai—which probably wouldn't have been too much of a problem if he wasn't so obvious and open about it. 

And in Lu Ten’s not so humble opinion, he didn't deserve his wife, llah, at all. 

Lu Ten's grandmother, llah, was a lovely woman who loved both her sons very much when she was alive. A woman several years her husband's junior (she'd been only two years older than Lu Ten was when her horrible father and his grandfather's horrible mother arranged a marriage between her and a then thirty five year old Azulon) who was sickly, probably because her moronic father hadn't allowed her to drink anything other than tea till she was fifteen.  

She passed her love of tea onto Iroh and had always stepped in to stop any quarrels that broke out between Ozai, Iroh, and Asulon. She hadn't been afraid to stand up to him and one of Lu Ten's earliest memories was of her scolding his grandfather in a gold robe, hair up in a messy bun with one hand on her hip and a tea ladle in the other because of something horrible he had said to Ozai. 

Lu Ten silently thanked the spirits for allowing his grandmother to pass, believing that both her sons were good, decent people who'd learn from their ancestors’ mistakes. Just imagining the heart broken look she would have given his Uncle Ozai if she'd heard what he wanted to do when Zuko was born (Lu Ten wasn't supposed to know but he'd been a snoop as a child and had overheard everything).

Yes, his grandfather hadn't deserved a woman as kind as his grandmother at all. 

If there was one family member that Lu Ten could say he loved unconditionally, other than his cousins that is, it would have been his grandmother Ilah back when she was alive.

Uncle Ozai, quite frankly, creeped Lu Ten out in ways he couldn't quite explain. 

Maybe it was the weird look in his uncle’s eyes or his cold demeanor. 

Maybe it was the way his uncle never quite seemed to like him or anyone in a genuine way. 

Or maybe it was because of the way he treated Zuko. 

Oh wait, no. Actually the way he treated Zuko didn't creep Lu Ten out, it just pissed him off tremendously. 

His Uncle Ozai was cold and cruel—maybe even crueler than Azulon was , dare Lu Ten say—and downright creepy. Always giving the young prince the impression that he was hiding something. Scheming away. 

Not to mention he was an absolute bastard of a father and husband. 

Lu Ten knew that his uncle and grandfather were keeping his aunt from her family and while he didn't always like Ursa, he knew that was wrong and cruel. Especially given the fact that his own father had no such problems with Lu Ten's mother going to see her family and taking him with her. 

Which was only one of the biggest problems Lu Ten had with his father.

His father. General Iroh, Crown Prince of the Fire Nation and The Dragon of the West. The man whose wife, Zumi, was rumored to be a descendant of the water tribe.

A man respected by many. 

A man Lu Ten adored and loved. 

A man that Lu Ten, despite his mostly peaceful nature, wanted to throttle or whack upside the head at times because, in his opinion, his father didn't stand up for Zuko enough against Ozai and Azulon and he was utterly failing Azula. 

Sure, one could say that it wasn't his responsibility to be there for Zuko or Azula all they wanted but at the end of the day he was their uncle. The crown prince. The favorite son. He could do something—anything—to get them away from Ozai. But he didn't. 

No one did. 

Lu Ten felt bad for them. 

He felt bad for his aunt, Ursa, too and was much more willing to cut her some slack considering how powerless she was in her current situation. The same powerlessness his own mom often felt when his father was away and she was suddenly forced to be a different person or risk Azulon’s wraith (and Ozai’s too, if they crossed paths). 

She couldn't go home to her parents. 

She couldn't leave Ozai—a man she had never wanted to marry in the first place. She wasn't loved and respected by her husband like Ilah and Zumi were. 

She wasn't happy, like they mostly were. 

Sure, she was a bender and the avatar’s granddaughter unlike Ilah and Zumi but that could only get her so far. Especially when, if she tried anything against Ozai, she could be executed and her children endangered.

Lu Ten liked his aunt. 

She was fire-y but soft and kind, and she loved Zuko with all her heart and would do anything to protect him. She treated the staff well and got along with his mother and father, and he could tell that despite her raw deal that she loved him too. 

But he couldn't overlook the fact that like his own father, Ursa let her fear of Ozai and distaste for how he was cloud her judgment of Azula. 

Now, Lu Ten didn't doubt that Ursa loved Azula. He knew his aunt loved his little cousin—had seen it in the way she so lovingly tended to her when she was sick when Ozai couldn't even be bothered to acknowledge her when she was like that. But that didn't mean that his aunt was perfect. 

She still let her fear and distaste of Ozai color how she saw Azula and that made things difficult sometimes—especially since Azula was a troubled child, due to her father and grandfather's terrible influence (but she wasn't a lost cause. She wasn't. Lu Ten knew she wasn't). 

Lu Ten loved his family. 

Loved them so much it hurt sometimes.

Everything he did was for his family—he was perfect, because his family needed him to be. But while he loved everyone in his family (even his grandfather and uncle Ozai—though he didn't show it often—), he loved his little cousins the most and wasn't even ashamed to admit it. 

Zuko was a shy, quiet, and sensitive kid who was a bit of a geek who adored theater and was trying to learn how to sword fight. He loved spending time with his family (at least those who were nice to him) and his and Azula’s friends, and he loved animals. Which was why Ursa and Lu Ten had taken to calling him ‘Little Turtleduck’. 

Azula, on the other hand, was energetic and easily bored and struggled to understand her own and others’ emotions. She was impulsive and had a bad temper. But she could also be really sweet when she wanted to be, though she showed that side to few . She loved learning everything she possibly could about the war and different fighting techniques, and she always had a new exciting game to play with Zuko, Lu Ten, and her friends— which, depending on what exactly she had thought up, could quite often get her in trouble. She was a spitfire and a damn good fire bender, even at her tender age.

Which is why Lu Ten affectionately called her ‘Fire Bug’. 

(Another thing to be noted about Azula? She hated dolls . Which Lu Ten seemed to be the only one to notice). 

Azula also liked showing off, because that's usually how she got any attention from people. Good or bad. Which is what led to the beginning of the end of the Fire Nation’s Royal Family.

It had all started on a morning like any other. Except, not really, because this morning Lu Ten and his cousins were the only three royals in the Palace. 

Zumi was off visiting her family. 

Iroh was at war. 

Azulon and Ozai were off doing some kind of royal duty that Lu Ten hadn't bothered asking about because all of that bored him too much when it was those two talking. 

And Ursa was…

Well, Lu Ten didn't know where she was but he did know she was out of the castle and he wasn't going to tell anybody about it. It was nobody's business but her own and if she needed time to herself, then she was going to get time to herself. 

Nonetheless, all of those events corresponding with one another had left the young prince in charge of a seven year old Zuko and a five year old Azula. Both of whom were fighting for his attention as he tried to study for his next test and finish the lunch the servants had brought while he also tried to get them both to calm down and eat. Needless to say, he was feeling way beyond just a little ‘stretched thin’. 

“Ten! Ten! Look!” Azula demanded. “Look what I can do!”

Zuko gasped and Lu Ten silently counted to ten in his mind, hoping it would help prepare him for whatever he was about to see that hopefully wouldn't stress him out more than he already was. 

It didn't.

Because nothing in the living world or the spirit could have prepared him for the sight of little Azula, his baby cousin, waterbending her soup into the air with a gleeful smile on her face as Zuko and a servant who had just walked in gaped at her. 

Suddenly, Lu Ten wasn't feeling stressed anymore. No, he wasn't feeling anything anymore—he was numb. Completely and utterly numb as he looked at the soup floating through the air and the servant who'd gone white, to Azula's proud smile and Zuko’s astonished one. All he could really think to say was “ Shit.”

Lu Ten must have blacked out after that because he didn’t remember a thing between then and now—now, where the doors of the Dining Hall were blocked off and locked. Now, where Azula and Zuko were watching him with wide, startled eyes as they clung to one another at the table—eyes that would occasionally flicker back to the unconscious servant on the floor.

The servant Lu Ten had knocked out with his bending, apparently. 

He remembered doing no such thing but he wasn’t denying that he had likely done it. 

The servants didn’t like Ozai. 

Most of them didn’t like Azula, either. 

And Azula had just waterbended. 

Waterbended in a world where all airbenders and most, if not all, waterbenders were dead. A world where the airbender avatar had disappeared without a trace only to be born again and again—dying young a rumored ten or more times since then, both with ‘help’ from the Fire Nation and without it. And Azula, his little wild child of a baby cousin who was just five years old , had just waterbended in front of both him, her brother, and a servant who could tell anybody. A servant who legally had to tell a guard or the Firelord himself if she saw such a thing. 

Legally, Zuko and Lu Ten himself had to tell a guard or the Firelord about this. 

But Azula was a child. 

A child. 

A CHILD. 

(It wouldn’t matter, Lu Ten knew. He’d seen it from the hidden scrolls he’d found when exploring the palace).

Azula was a child.

And she had waterbended. 

If Zuko and Lu Ten didn’t tell, they’d be committing treason. But could they live with telling? Lu Ten knew that Zuko wouldn’t be able to once he’d realized what he’d done when he was older and Lu Ten—

Azula was his cousin. 

His baby cousin. 

He’d held her as a baby and had helped his aunt change her diapers. He’d witnessed her first steps and laughed his butt off when her first word had turned out to be a swear word she’d learned from Ozai, who’d been mortified for once. 

She was five years old.

She was family. 

Surely her grandfather wouldn’t hurt her?

(He had never hurt her. But he’d never particularly been nice to Ozai, either, and being a waterbender— being the avatar— was definitely a worse crime in the Fire Nation’s eyes than being a disappointment of a son).

Surely someone would protect her? Surely Lu Ten could go to someone with this information and not regret it?

Lu Ten loved his family. 

But he knew what they were like. 

His grandfather would kill Azula without hesitation the moment he found out she was the avatar, like his own father had done with Avatar Roku. Azulon had no love for Ozai and he certainly had no love for Ozai’s favorite golden child—especially since Lu Ten’s grandmother was no longer around to stop him from doing it. 

Ozai would say everything would be fine with a straight face, only to immediately turn around and hand over his own child in the pitiful hopes of gaining favor with his father and he wouldn’t even feel bad about it. Not if it got him what he’d always wanted—not if it got him the crown. If he became the next Firelord because of it, then who was he to weep over the dead child he’d only had because he saw Zuko as a disappointment from birth and needed a backup plan. 

Zumi, Iroh, and Ursa would be different—but they were unpredictable when it came to Azula. 

Ursa would kill to protect Zuko. But Lu Ten couldn’t be sure she’d do the same for Azula.

Lu Ten’s father loved Zuko like his own son and would do everything in his power to keep him safe, as he would with Lu Ten,—but would he do the same for Azula?

Lu Ten’s mother would run away with Lu Ten if he was the one who’d become the avatar, and she’d likely back up his father if anything happened with Zuko but would she do the same for Azula? Azula who his father didn’t really seem to like, Azula who Ursa loved but couldn’t control, Azula who Lu Ten knew scared his mother. 

Lu Ten loved his family.

But he knew that most of them would either be a direct threat to Azula at worst or be unpredictable at best when it came to her. 

And that was a risk he couldn’t take. 

So he did what he had to do.

Azula was in danger. 

She was in danger as long as the Fire Nation knew where she was. 

Azula was in danger and didn’t even know it because she was five, and had been able to freely show off her abilities without fear before. 

But now Azula was the avatar and didn’t know it, didn’t know that she had signed her own death warrant the moment she had shown off that she could waterbend in the Fire Nation Palace— and if Lu Ten had it his way, she’d remain oblivious to it all as long as he breathed. 

And to do that, he had to get little Azula out of the Fire Nation and do it fast. Preferable before anyone else found out what she was. 

So he packed his bags and hers, making sure to pack light and nothing too obviously Fire Nation and he tied up, gagged, and hid the servant who’d seen everything in a place where he’d be found soon enough but not too soon. And then, after Lu Ten remembered in a panicked haze that Zuko had witnessed everything too, he packed his bag as well—because Zuko was in danger now as well. 

He’d likely be blamed by Ozai, and maybe even Azulon, if they came back to find that Lu Ten and Azula were gone and if the servant told what he’d seen—what Zuko had seen—he’d be blamed and shamed for not stopping the avatar from escaping. He’d be branded a traitor and banished at best and Lu Ten didn’t even want to think about what would happen to him at worst. 

And if he wasn’t blamed?

Well, Zuko was prophesied to bring great power to Azulon's own lineage. 

Lu Ten wasn’t about to let anyone turn either of his cousins into a weapon or hurt them. He had promised himself and his family that he would be a good cousin when his cousins were born and he intended to keep that promise.

(Was it really any wonder that he’d taken his cousins and ran with what he knew?).

Azula was the avatar, Zuko was to bring great power to Azulon's own lineage, and Lu Ten, the perfect Prince and firstborn of his generation, was responsible for protecting them from the world and their very own family. 

So they ran and the Fire Nation cousins disappeared like the avatar once did—becoming Lee, Lula, and Loto Cha.