Zuko had always been luminous, more so than other members of the Fire Nation. His skin was pale, milky white. It seemed odd. Firebenders were powered by the sun and yet they were so pale. Zuko stood out even amongst fellow benders. His ghostly skin reflected the sun. Amber eyes peeked out from under his growing dark hair. They were molten, like gold placed in the protection of hardening amber and slowly mixing in, morphing the color. They spoke of intelligence and wisdom, but if one looked closer, there was bitterness and an age-old grief.
The sticky amber color was made even more apparent by the contrasting red of Fire Nation clothing. Zuko stood out even against his allies. Sokka and Katara both boasted Water Tribe blue, with dark skin and ocean eyes. Aang and Toph were both pale, yes, but Aang had loving grey eyes with warm Air Nomad colored clothing while Toph stuck with vivid green clothes and her permanent milky grey eyes. Zuko was all harsh colors and sharp words.
He still felt as though he was an outsider. He had been with the gang for months now and they trusted him, but Zuko knew he was different. He was harsher, darker. His anger was always present, but he had learned how to control it. How to push it down and keep it locked up. The gang was brighter. There was hardly ever tension. Aang with his carefree childishness, Toph with her pranks, Katara with her mothering nature, and even Sokka with his awful jokes and love of meat. They all laughed together and stood together and were like a family. Zuko didn't want to get in the way of their familial bond.
He had already lost his first family and he didn't want to risk losing or potentially ruining a second. His first family had been everything he had ever wanted. In the beginning. Then Ozai had become more strict and Azula more controlling. Ursa was the only reason he still kept a family painting hidden deep in his bag. When he was just a toddler with no sense of morality, the Palace had seemed warm, comforting, cozy. It seemed like a home. The warm colors had washed over his tiny form as he toddled around his mother.
Then Zuko began to grow up. The metals of the palace always seemed to be far too hot, burning with the flames of anger. The colors were overwhelming and Zuko had spent many icy showers trying to scrub away the layer of fire that somehow stuck to his skin. It was oppressively hot and it was hard to pull in air. Once Zuko had had enough. He spoke out of turn and voiced his opinion, something he knew the Fire Nation loved doing. Standing up against his father earned him a scar and the loss of his vision for a few weeks.
The Agni Kai against his father. It was, blurry, to say the least. Zuko remembers readiness and defiance, and then a huge blob of shock forming. Then it was pain and the smell of burned flesh wafting across the courtyard. It was red. In those few moments, everything was the god awful color of bright, vivid, sticky red.
It was refreshing to see the variety of colors worn by his new friends. They were a family. Zuko didn't want to mess that up. Besides, they were nothing to what he could've once had. Sometimes, Zuko just felt like a bomb about to go off. He wasn't meant to be with these people and he didn't belong and sometimes it just felt sowrong. He was dirty with betrayal and treason and lies. They were clean and he was dirtying them with...with sin.
But Zuko pushed through it. He ignored the voices. His father telling him he wasn't good enough. His mother telling him it was his fault she was gone. Zuko soldiered on. He fought alongside the Avatar in battle. He was graceful. His kicks cut through air and his body twisted in the forms of masterful katas. He was a firebender. He was anger in its human form. Zuko was a modern day Icarus. He jumped and kicked and punched and his mortality leaked out through the flames that left his fingers.
He drowns in the smoke that forms in his lungs. And the fire he emits puts all the stars to shame. His skin is ghostly pale and the dirty children that see him passing through old broken down towns make wishes upon the still-live embers that are lit upon his skin. His eyes are tinted with the reflection of his fire and his laughter is tinted with death. With the knowledge that he too, reeks of mortality. It is as if he already knows that he is cracking.
He is a star. He is a planet. He is the universe. He dances with the stars. The brighter they burn, the closer they are to the end, just as he is. His skin is lifelessly pale. His expressions are sad, as if no life has ever made its way into his body. As if his heart stopped beating a long time ago. And the flames of anger and bitterness turn his blood to ash and shine through his smooth amber eyes. He is a ghost, otherworldly, transcending our tangible plane. Some people must look at him twice with fear tinged eyes as they believe his translucent skin isn't real.
The flames of his mortality make people whisper in street corners and alleyways as he passes by. He talks to himself in quiet tones, mouth moving as he whispers only loud enough for himself to hear. This is only the beginning. The stars are calling to him and someday his flames will burn high enough to reach the unknown galaxies and those flames will be the same fires given to falling stars.
And when Zuko follows in the footsteps of his friends to the final war, he fights Azula and jumps in front of the lightning burst she sends at Katara. But in those moments before it hit, Zuko threw his head back and flailed his arms, laughing in the wind because there is a bitter triumph in crashing when you should be soaring. And he shot out a final blast of fire, knocking Azula off her feet and roasting her through metal armor. The lightning burnt his skin, sparking in trails across his chest, his arms, his legs. The ripped shreds of a Fire Nation banner floated by, close enough to reach out and grab. Death breathed burning kisses across fingertips where his mortality leaked out as his fire would. The setting sun painted everything in the same shades of amber as his eyes.
There is a certain allure in setting the world on fire and watching from the center of the flames.