Chapter Text
The first time he woke up on the poor, hunk of metal excuse of a warship with half of his face still seeming to be on fire, Zuko felt nothing.
That period was quite short. Soon, he was angry, most notably with himself. He had disobeyed his uncle’s orders and had showed shameful weakness in front of Father and all of the spectators at the Agni Kai. The only thing that he could do to come back home was to capture the Avatar, a non-existent entity at this point (just like his honour, and oh the irony).
All this to say that the first year on the Wani was stressful. It was stressful for Zuko who didn’t know how to deal with any of his feelings, or the fact that he was in charge of people who were probably planning mutiny every week (yes, he knew he was a bad captain, he wasn’t that stupid). It was stressful for Iroh because his nephew was spiralling down a well of manic anger and being on a warship just reminded him of going to the siege of Ba Sing Se (and those were not nice thoughts). It was stressful for lieutenant Jee who was the first in line to deal with the tornado of brattiness that was their supposed captain, all while having to manage the rest of the crew who had all various amounts of disobedience within them. And it was stressful for the rest of the crew who had been embarked on short notice for a journey that they would likely never get out of, and of course the Prince didn’t make things pleasant for them either.
After a year at sea, Zuko’s anger started to slowly simmer down. His fire, already weak from his slight fear of fire, became even weaker. Soon all he could do was light a candle, and that was it. At practically fifteen, he was slowly losing the will to do anything.
His encounters with Zhao certainly didn’t help, always pestering him with the fact that he would never go home and how much of a useless heir (and human being) he was (all in the most polite, saccharine way so that Uncle could never reprimand him). He just started not going out of his room and barely eating his food. He felt as if he would slowly disappear with no one even remembering he existed.
That wasn’t the case for Iroh, who had grown slowly concerned to extremely worried about his nephew’s behaviour. He felt very hesitant towards bringing Zuko to the Sun Warriors, what with his loyalty to Ozai still running strong, but he knew that if he did nothing, the boy who had practically become his son would be lost for good.
So Iroh managed to bring Zuko to the Sun Warriors’ island (after much convincing) and they met said Warriors. Their Chief wasn’t to happy with him for bringing a stranger, most notably the son of the Fire Lord to them, but after seeing the shell of a human being that Iroh had brought, he quickly accepted their stay.
The next day, they went to meet the Masters, and Zuko almost got a heart attack at the sight of the two dragons. But Iroh managed to get him to do the Dragon Dance that he had begrudgingly learnt the night before, and once ended, the two dragons opened their mouths and released their fire.
At this moment, Zuko felt two things: fear and awe. Fear, because two bloody dragons had popped up and were spitting fire at him (and his uncle), and awe, because their fire wasn’t like anything he had ever seen. It wasn’t just red, orange, yellow or even blue-ish like Azula’s. No, it was also green, blue, purple, lilac; it even had a bit of white in it!
Something clicked in his head, all those talks of not always using his anger for fuel by Uncle started to make sense. Fire wasn’t this angry, skin burning thing that could only be used to hurt, fire was life, both in its good and bad ways. And at this moment, Zuko felt something he hadn’t felt probably since Mother disappeared.
He felt at peace.
His firebending was finally back and stronger than ever, which was saying something, and funnily enough, it had a few hues that hadn’t been there before (it was subtle, but definitely there if you looked hard enough).
The peace didn’t last for long. When they got back on the ship after promising not to tell anyone about the Warriors or the Masters, stress decided to slam Zuko in the face like six earthbenders doing a choreographed routine. But this time, he didn’t shout as much, scowl as much or even glare as much. This time, he tried to get along with his crew, even if it was just a little.
He started learning how to do basic mechanical repairs with Aiko, a tall, buff woman who kept bumping her head in every doorframe and probably didn’t know the meaning of the word subtlety. He learned how to cook with Kazuto, an average looking man with too much energy (probably because of the inhuman amount of caffeine he was absorbing) and a penchant for sour food. He learned how to use a spear with Genji, a bloke from the colonies who liked to jump off of staircases and had a fine taste for liquor. He learned how to actually read a damn map with helmsman Kyo, who liked to collect calligraphy brushes but never used them and should probably stay away from the kitchen, as he always broke something which would get Kazuto to set him on fire. He learned how to pickpocket and haggle thanks to crewwoman Furora, who definitely had a tendency to lie face down on the ground in everyone’s way when she could, and was definitely NOT addicted to fire flakes. He learned how to take care of komodo-rhinos and messenger-hawks thanks to Shoji who liked to read scrolls about local legends and hated wearing gloves (“I don’t care if it’s unsanitary to clean a cage barehanded, gloves just aren’t natural!”). Even lieutenant Jee taught him how to maximize his voice so that it could be heard miles away (after promising that he wouldn’t use it to scare the crew, no he wouldn’t use it to get back at Zhao for the tsungi horn incident, NO HE WOULD NOT USE IT TO…).
Soon enough, Zuko actually got along with his crew. Sure some still didn’t like him much, and he still was an almost sixteen-year-old brat (“As all teenagers are” once said Jee to one very drunk crewmember), but things were more than bearable now. Zuko had even started to use his bending to compensate for his bad eyesight and hearing on his left side by finding a way to feel the heat that people emitted. It was easier to feel firebenders, but he managed to get the hang of it and could soon know where someone was, as long as there wasn’t a wall between him and them. It came in handy when the final mutiny happened with an especially quiet crewman trying to stab him from behind, closer to his left side. Zuko managed to dodge to encounter with only a light scratch and the crewman was dropped at a neutral port after a thorough beating by Aiko and Genji, and a loss of most of his money courtesy of Furora.
Though there was something Zuko had been thinking about lately: his banishment. The fact that finding the Avatar was a fool’s errand had hit him one day waking up, and he had spent the rest of the day in his room. It wasn’t the fact that it was impossible, he already knew that, it was the fact that his Father had knowingly given him this impossible task. That fact had never managed to get to him until now, and he slowly started to evaluate everything in his life.
Every single encounter he ever had with his Father was unpleasant.
That’s because you’re a useless idiot who’s brought him nothing but shame since the day you where born.
But that didn’t make sense, because he remembered Azula being just like him until she got her firebending.
That’s because she’s better than you. She got her bending at four while you got yours at seven. You always were a fucking weakling and he could see that clearly.
Then why didn’t Mother and Uncle treat him like that too?
Mother abandoned you. And Uncle is just a fat old man who’s using you to compensate for his dead son.
But if he sees me as his son, that means I’m worth something.
That’s a low bar. You’re not useful to him. You’re not useful to Father because you’re a weakling. He said suffering would be your teacher, but it seems you haven’t suffered enough.
But can’t he see that I’m loyal to him?
You’re not loyal! If you were, you would have sent a hawk about those Sun Warriors, about those Dragons, about that uncle of yours who’s pretty much a traitor by knowing about them and not doing anything. But no, instead you frolic around on that excuse of a ship, learning useless and downright degrading skills from lowlifes and insulting him by still being alive.
So… I’m not loyal?
And yet you should be.
I’m a disgrace?
Not that you should want to be.
But then, what do I want?
That last question, he didn’t know how to respond to it.
*****
Soon after his seventeenth birthday (celebrated with a LOT of alcohol, courtesy of Genji and Furora who managed to get a great barrel for a very cheap price), they were back at the South Pole. The familiar cold hit them again, and after a few days, only the firebenders stayed out on deck.
Genji was in the process of getting Furora away from the training part of the deck, while Uncle sat there playing whatever old people game he played and drinking tea. Zuko, for the most part, was just enjoying watching Genji struggle even lifting Furora who was trying not to laugh. All of a sudden, a glowing white beam shot to the sky in the distance. That got everyone’s attention.
When they arrived at the small Water Tribe village, Zuko discovered that the Avatar was a kid. A twelve-year-old kid. Now that… wouldn’t be good for his current treasonous thoughts that had become more and more frequent. Nevertheless, Zuko was not one to back down. His ship had gotten quite damaged after the kid went in the Avatar State, so they had to go to a port. Unfortunately, this port had Zhao in it.
After the impromptu Agni Kai he somehow got himself into, Zuko knew two things. One, Zhao couldn’t get his hands on the Avatar, because that was his ticket home and the only thing that had kept him going for three years, and because Zhao was just creepy and Zuko did not want any kid in his proximity, Avatar or not. And two, trying to capture the Avatar was the only thing he could do with his life. As previously stated, it had been the only thing keeping him going before and after that breakdown he had. He felt like he didn’t have a choice, and it wasn’t like he could do anything else. A small part of him just hoped that the Avatar and the two Water Tribe kids who went with him would play it safe and not attract any attention.
Of course, the Spirits decided otherwise. The Avatar was on Kyoshi Island, and Zuko felt obligated to get him. He decided to bring a bit of energy into his “performance” as the guy chasing them. After all, if he was going to do something he wasn’t even sure he wanted to do, he would at least have a bit of fun with it (he also hoped that the trio would pick up on the slight hints to not be seen so much by the Fire Nation). As such, to the Avatar and his friends, he was pretty much the version of himself during his first year at sea, which meant using Jee’s vocal coaching. That whole Kyoshi Island debacle only ended in the village the trio was in being burned down, and because he felt guilty about that, he was glad that the kid had used the Unagi to stop the flames, even if it ended up with him and his crew getting very wet.
A few days after finding the Water Tribe girl’s necklace on an earthbender prison (seriously, did none of them get the fact that they were in danger if caught?), his uncle got captured by earthbenders, and while he did see the Avatar’s bison in the sky, Uncle definitely took priority. No one would blame him for that, right? Although he did go to the village in the area, which turned out to have been where the Avatar had been staying.
He managed to track him, and it turned out they were heading straight towards the bloody Fire Nation of all places. At this point, Zuko was ninety per cent sure that they didn’t have any survival instincts. He apparently didn’t have any either, because the Wani stayed on course, straight to Crescent Island. The fact that Zhao was present in the area, yet let him pass didn’t sit well with him. He was up to something.
But Ozai didn’t raise no quitters, so Zuko continued. He felt a headache coming.