Disclaimer: Everything Avatar: The Last Airbender belongs to someone else. This is only for fun and completely fan-made and there's definitely no money involved.
AN: It started out as a way to keep my mind busy during boring Latin classes and got scribbled down… a little storyline starting right after 'The Beach'. Then I got to see the eps up to 'Nightmares and Daydreams' and nothing fit anymore. But: suddenly it changed and grew and became a huge thing that ate away at my time and managed to keep me up hours and hours to write. I got the later parts done, the end and the middle still missing, and the first tiny bit is still set after 'The Beach'. No idea whether I'll ever finish it, in case I don't, consider this a oneshot.
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Daybreak found Zuko inside the still smoking ruins of the house overlooking the small private beach of the royal family. Ash and coal had stained his clothes while walking through the remnants, retracing his steps from a decade ago. To the east more smoke rose from the small fires that had completely ruined the expansive mansion of some admiral who would be less than pleased when he returned. Zuko hat set both places on fire, but while he understood why he did it in case of the admiral's place – petty revenge and the anger that constantly boiled inside him – he did not entirely understand why he had burned down the house he had spent some beautiful summers in.
Did he burn it like the proverbial bridge, making sure he could never return? He kicked aside a still-glowing piece of charcoal, savouring the heat around him, the fire that slumbered, waiting until he awoke it again. The last weeks it had felt like there was fire inside him, too. Constantly. Gnawing at his insides and oh-so-ready to burst into life on the outside.
With a sigh he stood and frowned, tried to wipe the dirt off his clothes. Stray strands of hair fell into his eyes and he pushed them back. His bangs – as well as all of his hair – had grown long enough to fit into a neat topknot again, showing his identity as a son of the Fire Nation. Yet most of the days he found himself putting the golden clip with the small flame of the royal family aside, leaving his hair loose. He vaguely remembered the time when he had shaved most of his scalp everyday and his fingers softly touched the scar across his left eye.
At first, the doctors tending to the ugly wound had shaved half his head to prevent any hair from touching the burned flesh. He had kept it that way, even shaved off more to keep the symmetry, only leaving the topknot itself. To see the scar that might have been concealed. To see it everyday, whenever he looked into any kind of mirror, until he no longer flinched at its sight.
Did he wear his hair down to hide the mark of his banishment?
Angrily he pushed the strands back, out of his face and blinked into the morning sun, feeling the fire grow in strength inside him. Breathing heat in and out, he turned and followed his own footprints through ash and soot. Passing the half-collapsed rooms of the once beautiful house, he suddenly stopped.
His mother watched him out of the half-lit shadows. When he stepped closer, he recognized the picture – once painted on finest paper in ink. Now it was only made of the most ephemeral remains, but still mostly intact. Her warm eyes, now ashen, watched him out of a strangely pale, slightly crinkly face. He lifted his hand without thinking, just knowing something suddenly hurt just beneath his breastbone, hurt unlike a cut or a burn or even the boiling anger residing in his breath. His fingers touched the picture ever so slightly…
…and it crumbled into flecks of dust.
He stumbled backwards, turned and fled out of the house. Only to almost run into Azula.
She had shed her informal clothing from the evening before and changed into the black and red robes of a princess, her hair neatly done in a topknot with only her two trademark bangs framing her pale face.
"Zuko!" she exclaimed in that kind of tone she had perfected that told the listener she was slightly angered, but far too aloof to let it show. "What are you doing here?"
"Walking round the ruins. Looking for stuff."
He strode past her and behind him she made a small, 'tsk'ing sound.
"Digging around in still-smouldering ruins with parts that could collapse any moment. Feeling suicidal today?"
He heard her footsteps following him and ground his teeth. "No."
"Then… still feeling angry?"
He tried to ignore her and not to snap at her on the way down to the docks. But what exactly did he feel?