Chapter Text
Uncle used to write letters, you remember, back when Lu Ten was still alive and they were both fighting in the war.
He would write letters from the front lines, telling tales of his latests conquests—especially in Ba Sing Se—and Mother would carefully unroll the scrolls and read them out loud and laugh at the jokes you knew he laughed as he wrote.
He sent you all presents sometimes, too. Expensive Earth Kingdom jewelry for Mother, toys for you and Azula, books full of stories or special candies you’d never tried before. A knife, once, right before everything went Bad, and a doll that Azula hated and burned.
That was the last letter he wrote, the one with the knife and the doll and the news that Ba Sing Se would certainly fall soon. The letter saying your cousin died was written by one of his generals or something—you know, because you read it yourself after Mother rolled it up tight and put it on her bedside table and went to go tell Father, and it was all blunt and cold detachment and we regretfully inform you; nothing like Uncle would ever write, especially not about Lu Ten.
You didn’t think anyone could ever write that way about Lu Ten, just like you didn’t think there was any way Lu Ten could ever be dead. You just couldn’t wrap your head around it.
Everything happened quickly after that.
By the time Uncle comes home, old and weary and broken, Grandfather is gone and Mother has disappeared into the night and Father is Fire Lord and you don’t know what’s going on because no one will tell you anything, no matter who or how many times you ask. (You stopped asking Father after he got angry and hit you hard hard hard with the back of his hand and said don’t you dare speak her name anymore, in a very cold, calm voice that terrified you more than any time he’s ever yelled.)
You’re still reeling with everything that happened while Azula takes it all in detached stride; your sister and your father spread themselves out and you can’t keep yourself from shrinking, because you’re good at that, Father said, good at being small and afraid and dependent—“it’s time you learn to take care of yourself”, locked bedroom doors and stricter training regiments and silent dinners.
Uncle comes home a broken man. That’s what Azula says, what the servants whisper in the corridors when they can’t see you. What your father says at dinner one night, when Uncle is still spending long days and longer nights alone in his room.
Uncle comes home a broken man, because loss breaks people, you think. People love too much and when the person you love is suddenly gone they take most of you with them, probably. That’s what you think happened with Mother; you think she took some part of you with her and didn’t leave any of herself behind, and you think that’s what happened to Uncle—Lu Ten took all of his father’s drive and power with him and didn’t leave any of his own for Uncle to keep.
Uncle doesn’t write letters anymore, just sits and stares into teacups like he is remembering something he’ll never get back. It’s nobody’s fault.
He ignores burns marks and singed hair and hardly ever asks about your training, but that’s okay, because he talks to you and pours you tea and tells you stories and lets you rant about your lessons or your sister or your bending.
You ignore the way he walks like he is broken now and how his hugs are always a little too tight and all the whispers in the palace about how tragic or disgraceful or pathetic or sad Uncle’s abandonment of the siege and return home is, ignore the way your father frowns when you talk about him.
You’re both very good at ignoring, and everyone here is very good at looking away.
Father breaks your arm in two places when you’re eleven. Uncle raises an eyebrow at your excuse but doesn’t ask anything further.
Uncle calls you Lu Ten one night. He doesn’t say it, but you see him catch himself before he does, and try not to feel too bitter about it. Lu Ten is dead, you are not. It’s a wonder your uncle doesn’t hate you for that alone, the way father hates you for being alive when Mother probably isn’t.
(He calls you Lu Ten once, way way out at sea when you’re caught up in chasing ghosts and he’s just along for the ride, and then looks so so sorry after that you can’t even be mad, but that’s okay too. Really, it’s okay. You aren’t enough, you know that, just like no one will ever be enough to replace Mom.)
(You think you almost call him Father once, by accident. You convince yourself that you didn’t, you didn’t, because you’re loyal to your father, because he’s your father, and if you slip up like that so easily maybe you really do deserve to be banished.)
The point is, you both make mistakes and you both hurt each other but it’s never on purpose. You hurt each other because that’s what everyone does in this spirits-forsaken family, but you also think you maybe help each other, somehow—he’s helped you more times than you can count, he kept you alive those first few months at sea and he never got frustrated when you yelled at him and threw things and called him names and hurt so, so bad. You don’t know what you’ve done for him, other than getting him declared a traitor and letting him get thrown in prison.
All you do is hurt and all he does is help and there’s no way this could’ve lasted, could’ve turned out well, not in a world like this, so of course you hurt too much and cross the line and he will never help you again, never look at you, never talk to you, and his back is always turned when he lets you yell and blame and try to defend yourself, and it’s all your fault, and you think you probably deserve it. Your family has created an era of fear that Uncle tried to stop, while you just let Be Sing Se fall.
You hear news about Ba Sing Se from a gleeful Azula, about how the Dai Li (“protectors of the city’s cultural heritage”) brought the walls down at her command, how people cried, people shook, people gave up or fought back and got burned and people (the girl you went on a date with maybe, the solider who always sat at the back corner table, the kid who tossed a ball at you the woman who smiled when you took her order the man who waved the morning you opened the new shop) died.
You think vaguely about that little village you stopped at, back when you were alone and tired and starving, and wonder if Li’s brother is okay. You think about Uncle’s knife, the way the kid smiled and then threw it back at you and turned away and wonder if you’re worthy to even pick it up anymore.
(You think probably not.)
Uncle used to write letters. Uncle used to send you gifts and take you to the beach and bring you tea when you’d forgotten to keep yourself warm; he used to hand out advice like secrets and teach you things without you realizing it; he helped you hang on when you collapsed and dreamed and woke up new and comfortable right before you threw it all away.
Uncle will never write letters again, will never look at you or talk to or smile at you again because he loved you and you loved him and you turned around and stabbed him in the back anyways because you are stupid and blind and loyal to the wrong person—you run and run and run through the corridors of the palace and down the front steps and through streets because—
Father didn’t bother to tell you, Father didn’t bother to tell you anything other than I’m proud of you, I see how much you’ve changed, welcome home and Azula never bothered to tell you because Azula knows you, and knows this is so so much worse than knowing—traitors are executed, this is the way it has to be, we have to set an example, the Fire Lord can’t be lenient just because he’s his brother, you know this, she croons, and you didn’t, you didn’t know, why did no one tell you, spirits.
You are out of breath and shaking by the time you make it down and see the small crowd of people—small, only a select few powerful nobles and generals, much smaller than it would be if people knew this was happening right? This few people wouldn’t show up to honor his death if everyone knew about it, if you knew about it (if you knew about it you would have gotten him out, damn your honor and your country and everything else you traded Uncle for, you would have gotten him out).
“Uncle,” you yell, shoving your way through the crowd; Father turns to look at you from his balcony, high and mighty and terrible but you don’t care, can’t care, all you can see is chains and fire crawling up and up and up and everyone watching, doing nothing, nobody never does anything, nobody ever helps, “Stop, what are you doing? Please, you have to stop.”
There are guards, probably, tugging at your arms and holding you back when you try to bend the fire away, away from him, you try to yank your way free and wait, you say, wait you can’t please you have to stop—
Uncle hears you.
Turns to look at you. Softens. Smiles. He smiles at you through the smoke, like he’s sitting across from you with a cup of tea and no care in the world.
I forgive you, his eyes say. I forgive you, I love you, I’m sorry, there’s nothing you can do.
You can hear his voice saying Prince Zuko even when you were far from home and hardly royalty, saying a man needs his rest and the secret ingredient is love and there is no shame in crying, run through it one more time, it is okay to fail, I think of you as my own—
He isn’t saying anything this time, just looking and smiling and his eyes are wet as he closes them and tilts his head to the sky like this is the end, like this could ever be the end.
“You can’t,” you say, “stop, you can’t—you can’t go—please, I’m sorry I’m so sorry,”
The guards hold you in place, even when you go limp in their arms, and you shake and you cry and you don’t deserve forgiveness.
The Dragon of the West burns quietly, bright and brave and true. He does not make a sound, and you cannot look away.
Azula finds you later, on your knees and bent and feeling like you will never be able to get up again.
“Zuko.” She says, and you look up; all the people are gone. Uncle is gone; he is ash.
He is ash.
“He was your uncle too,” you say, paper thin and tearing.
“He was a traitor.” She says, but her voice is quiet.
“He was trying to save us,” you say, “save our nation from treachery.”
There is a very long pause, “Well, he failed.”
“Yeah.” You agree, staring at ash and and cold cinders that will never light again, “We will burn ourselves to the ground.”
Your father doesn’t seem surprised when you show up on the day of the eclipse. He doesn’t seem bothered by it at all, like you are still the six year old who’s hand shook when you were hit, the thirteen year old who would go to hell and back for him, the sixteen year old who let uncle be led away in chains. You are none of them anymore, and you are all of them.
You are a child, you are a prince, you are an exile, motherless and fatherless and a traitor to your country.
“He was your brother,” you say, shaking and steady and hating all at once, “I was your son.”
“Was,” he says simply, a liar a killer a monster who would kill his own son, kill his own brother, exile his wife, “now, you are traitors. Both of you. And I’ve found that exile is far too light a punishment for traitors.”
The sun is back, and he splits the air around you and tears through it. You catch and it flows through you and back the other way.
You have no family anymore. You are alone.
“My uncle is dead,” you say to the Avatar and his friends; you stand before them, tired and cold with a singed arm and nothing left to lose, “I’ll teach you firebending.”