A/N: In The Search comics, Lady Ursa wrote to her former lover Ikem and family in secret, directly disobeying Ozai's orders to cut off all of her former connections permanently. Those letters were intercepted by Ursa's servant Elua and given to Ozai. In one of those letters, Ursa mentioned she wished Zuko had been Ikem's son, not Ozai's. In retaliation, Ozai declared her wish would become reality.
Thus this idea came to be. This will definitely be at least a 2- or 3-parter because chapter is mostly written now. Or a collected of related pieces throughout the story or even become a true multi-chaptered fic. But between Foxfire, Druid in Blue, and a few others, this probably won't have priority. If anyone's interested in using this idea for their own continuations, go ahead. Just let me know so I can read them too. I'm always up for a good story. ^_^
Chapter summary: In which Aang makes an unexpected friend in an unexpected place.
Chapter 1
"We are the Fire Sages. Guardians of the Temple of the Avatar."
"Oh good!" Aang said, smiling proudly and approaching the five firebenders without fear. "I am the Avatar."
"We know."
Fire blazed and Aang barely had time to dodge and deflect the flames before they hit him or his friends. Well, this wasn't exactly what he was hoping for but he wasn't exactly surprised.
"Run!" he shouted. "I'll distract them."
He heard Katara and Sokka gasp and turn to flee down the hallway behind them. Momo took flight and twirled worriedly around Aang's head before following after Katar. Good. The little guy wouldn't stand a chance against firebenders. At least Aang could bend.
Licking his lips in concentration, Aang puffed himself into the air, spun, and kicked a jet of air straight at the Fire Sages knocking them to the ground hard enough to wind them. Another spinning kick sent ash fluttering up into the air in a thick, dark cloud that hid his retreat. Without waiting for the firebenders to get the change to recover and start attacking again, Aang turned and fled on foot down a different hallway. He'd catch up to his friends sooner or later. The Temple couldn't possibly be that big, right?
Scratch that. It may not be that big, but this place was weendy-windy like a labyrinth. He he scooted down the hall to yet another hallway intersection. Oh!
"Hey guys! Follow me!"
He waved to catch Katara's eye before turning on his heel and racing down the hall towards a sharp left turn.
"Do you even know where you're going?" Katara cried breathlessly.
"Nope," Aang chirped. Rounding the corner, he slammed full on into someone. The person grunted, dropping what they had been holding with a loud crash and stumbling back a couple paces.
Startled, Aang tried to step back and blow the other person away with a blast of air that would have thrown his own body back as well. The further away from the firebenders, the better. Unfortunately, the other person reacted quicker, grabbing hold of Aang's shirt and holding on despite the gust of air to the face.
When that didn't work, Aang swung his airstaff and- it was blocked?! The person's open palm had taken the hit from Aang's staff. Long fingers curled around the wood, gripping it and spinning it out of Aang's hands with a wrist-aching wrench. Luckily, the person had to let go of Aang's shirt in order to complete the maneuver giving the young Avatar the chance he needed to flee.
"Wrong way!" Aang shouted to his friends who were just rounding the corner behind him. They all skidded to a stop, turned around, and fled back down the way they came.
"Hey! Wait!" the stranger cried.
Nope! Not waiting!
Aang led the way down the hall, around a corner, into a shadowy corridor lit only by a window at the end of the hallway. The end of the hallway?! No! They were trapped!
"Wait!" their follower cried just as the person burst into view.
A quick twist of his wrists and Aang was in front of his friend, ready to bend the person away if he had to. Next to him, Katara popped the cork from her canteen and bent a stream of water out to fight next to him. Sokka took up a position on Aang's other side, grim faced and boomerang in hand.
The stranger held his ground but lifted both hands in surrender. It was hard to see his face in the dim light but, from what Aang could see, the person looked young. A boy? Aang really didn't want to have to fight another kid if he didn't have to. He did want his airstaff back though.
"Wait, please," the person said just loud enough for them to hear. "I don't want to fight you."
"Oh, right. Because you haven't given us any reason to doubt you," Sokka snapped back sarcastically.
The other boy jerked and lowered his arms slightly. "No, I haven't. You," he declared, pointing to Aang, "ran into me. Not the other way around."
"Oh!" Aang gasped. "Yeah. I kind of did. Sorry about that, by the way," he added with an awkward smile.
The person groaned. "Whatever," he muttered. "Look. Are you the really the Avatar?"
Aang tensed. It almost sounded like there was hope in the stranger's voice. His smile faded to a grimace. "Yes, I am," he said seriously. "Why?"
The person hesitated. "If I help you, will you get me off this island?" he asked suddenly.
Aang blinked in surprise. "Huh? What do you mean?"
The person opened their mouth to reply when voices and footsteps echoed near the end of the hall. The stranger tensed and looked over his shoulder.
"Please," he begged, returning his golden gaze to Aang and his friends. Weird. Aang could only see one eye clearly. The shadows were too dark to see the other one. "I'll get you into Avatar Roku's chamber. I promise! Just please get me off this island."
The sounds of their pursuers came closer and Aang bit his lip. He really needed to talk to Roku. But he wasn't sure if he should trust this new person. Then again, if he did trust them, he could get his airstaff back and see Avatar Roku all without fighting.
"Alright," Aang said finally. "It's a deal."
The stranger all but sagged in relief. "Thank you," he breathed.
"What?" Katara gasped. "Aang! We don't know him!"
"Keep your voices down!" the person hissed.
Instead of leading them back down to hall like Aang expected him to, the stranger moved closer. Aang stepped back warily, as did Katara and Sokka. The person stepped into the dim red light of a wall sconce and reached up to grasp the fixture.
He was younger than Aang thought he was. Older than Sokka though. His black hair was cut short framing a grim, determined face cast in odd shadows from the reddish light from the wall sconce.
Without a word, the young man yanked the wall sconce in a quarter circle to the left. With a dull thud, the wall next to the sconce thrust back suddenly and moved aside with a low grinding sound. The hidden passage was carved from a dark rock that gleamed almost like glass. Aang had never seen anything like it before.
"Woah," Sokka breathed. Neither did the Water Tribe siblings, apparently.
A loud shout jolted them out of their stupor. Their pursuers were dangerously close now. The strange young man was twitching with nervous energy when he glanced over his shoulder.
"Get in," the young man commanded firmly, returning his gaze to Aang and his companions. When they didn't move fast enough to suit him, he snarled. "Quickly!" he snapped, grabbing a handful of Aang's shirt and tossing him into the secret tunnel.
Aang puffed the air around him so he didn't land too hard. That would hurt. At least he had his airstaff back, even though his head hurt from where the stranger threw it at him. Ouch.
He turned back to see Sokka and Katara with Momo on her shoulder hurry into the tunnel behind him. The stranger hesitated long enough to pull the sconce back into place and slip into the tunnel just as the stone wall slid shut, sealing them in the warm blackness. Then a small flame bloomed in the darkness of the cavernous tunnel revealing the young stranger. He held his handful of fire up a bit so he could see them all and-
Oh. Oh wow. Aang felt his heart drop to his feet and clutching his recovered airstaff close to his chest. No wonder he'd had a hard time seeing the stranger's left eye. It was just a thin, golden slit barely visible past the dark red-brown burn scar covering half of the young man's face. It must have hurt incredibly bad. Hopefully it didn't still hurt. Could the person even see through that eye, or were they blind? How did that happen? The guy was a firebender. So how...
"Move," the stranger muttered, ignoring the shocked silence around him and moving through their group so he was in the lead. "Keep your voices down. Sound can carry in here."
"And where is 'here' exactly?" Sokka demanded suspicious. At least he kept his voice down.
"A lava tube," the stranger replied. "There are a lot of them here on Crescent Island." He moved his flame to examine something etched into the stone but didn't stop to study it in detail.
"Why's that?"
"Island?" the stranger drawled, obviously rolling his eyes. "Volcano? Lava? Why do you think?"
Sokka huffed and crossed his arms. "I don't know," he grouched. "I'm Water Tribe. I'm not from here. That's why I asked, jerkbender."
The stranger stiffened, but said nothing. Aang winced. He hoping the guy wasn't biting his tongue. That tended to hurt.
"Hey," Aang said, hoping to stop the animosity before it got too bad. "I'm Aang. This is Katara," he said, gesturing to the Water Tribe girl who waved, "and that grouch over there is Sokka."
"I am not a grouch," Sokka griped.
"That's nice," the stranger said in curt voice without any interest.
"So...?" Aang said,
"So what?"
"So what's your name?" Aang chirped hopefully, hopping with a little burst of air so he could walk next to the stranger.
The person turned his head so his good eyes could see Aang's bright smile. Golden eyes blinked dully then turned away and the silence held for another minute.
"Zuko," the person mumbled.
"Zuko," Aang said, trying out the sound of the name. "I like it. It's nice to meet you Zuko. Thanks for helping us."
"I'm not doing it for you," Zuko said, his voice rough and gravelly. "You promised to get me out of here, remember?"
"About that," Sokka spoke up, "why do you want to leave? I mean, you're a firebender," he said, gesturing to Zuko, "in the Fire Nation," gesturing to the ground, "on an island with an erupting volcano and," he waved at their surroundings with a wry grin, "lava tubes."
Zuko shot a disgruntled glare over his shoulder, his scar half hidden by the flickering shadows created by the flame in his palm. "You're a special kind of stupid, aren't you?" he said in a flat voice.
"It was an honest question!" Sokka said, offended. "Geez. Obviously you don't like us very much."
"Obviously."
"So how do we know you aren't leading us into a trap?" Sokka shot back.
"Would you rather go back up to the Temple and get captured by a bunch of pompous batchfires?" Zuko asked, looking back with an expression of genuine confusion.
"No," Katara said quickly, placing a firm hand on her brother's shoulder to silence him. "But really, thank you for helping us."
Zuko hesitated for a moment before turning and continuing down the tunnel. "Don't mention it," he mumbled.
They walked in silence for several minutes before arriving at a staircase that spiraled up into the air above their heads. Zuko paused, head tilted back to stare into the darkness above them. Then he took a deep breath, adjusted his stance, and punched a ball of flame straight up startling Aang and his friends. Up and up the fire went until it eventually burned out despite never reaching the top of the staircase.
Zuko groaned audibly and ignited a new flame in his hand. "I hate steps," he grumbled while making his way to the stairs. "Come on."
Aang was really fond of stairs either. But hey, to each their own. Aang much preferred flying up stairs with his airbending. Much fir efficient, not to mention more fun. The wind on his face and he thrill of freedom as he sped by were what he lived for. Steps were just boring. Ugh. Not to mention they took forever to climb.
"So," he said, controlling his breathing.
"Do you begin all your sentences that way?" Zuko griped.
Huh. Did he? He never noticed. "Never thought about it before," Aang replied thoughtfully. "Anyway, as I was saying, about this place. Do the other Sages know it's here?"
Zuko shrugged. "Some do," he said easily. "Avatar Roku built this after he destroyed the original Temple."
"Wait. Avatar Roku destroyed this place? I thought it was a temple for the Avatar," Katara gasped in surprise.
"It is," Zuko said, nodding. "I don't know all of the details," he admitted, "but I know he did it on the winter solstice while in the Avatar State."
...oh. Awkward.
"Sorry," Aang said shyly.
Golden eyes flashed to him in confusion, glittering in the red-gold firelight. "For what?" he asked, bewildered.
"For destroying the Temple before," Aang said.
Zuko narrowed his good eye. "I thought you came here to see Roku," he said.
"Well, yeah." They'd already said that. Kind of.
"Then how can you see someone if you are that person?" Zuko said.
"A mirror."
The soft slap of skin on skin echoed in the empty stair chamber when Zuko covered his face with his free hand.
"I don't need this right now," he muttered.
Zuko barely spoke after that until they finally began nearing the top of the stairs.
"We're almost there," he said. "Remember, keep your voices down and don't do anything stupid."
"Why do I feel like that was directed at me?" Sokka said, clutching his cramping side.
"Because you might actually have a speck of brains up there somewhere, I guess," Zuko replied.
Katara snorted and held her brother back. Aang patted his friend's shoulder to help calm him down and keep him from attacking Zuko. They needed all the help they could get right now. Thankfully, Zuko ignored them and kept climbing to what looked like a featureless ceiling.
Now that Aang actually looked at it, the stairs dead ended at the ceiling. There wasn't any door or sliding panels or anything like that that Aang could see. But then again, that wall at the start of the tunnel had looked pretty solid and unremarkable too. So who knew?
Oh. There was another sentence that began with 'so.' Maybe Zuko was right about that. Neat.
Speaking of Zuko, the firebender climbed up to the ceiling, pressed his free hand against the smooth, glassy black stone and breathed. A brief burst of flame flickered around the edges of a rectangular slap above him followed by the low grinding sound as the stone moved aside.
Woah. Aang was loving those trap door things. So cool!
He puffed air through his feet and shot up towards the exit, only to find himself grabbed and yanked back into the darkness.
"Idiot!" Zuko hissed at him angrily. "Do you want to get caught?"
"Uh, no," he mumbled awkwardly.
Yeah, he probably should've checked first to be sure they were alone before going up there. Like what Zuko was doing now. Whoops. At least Zuko was doing it, so it was still okay.
With a sigh, Zuko closed his hand around the fire, smothering it, and climbed out of the stairs and into the empty chamber. Once on the solid floor, he turned to help each of them climb out too. How nice.
This room was brighter, lit by lamps along the wall and several windows. Windows. Oh no!
"It's almost sunset!" Aang cried.
Zuko swallowed thickly and nodded, following Aang's gaze to one of the windows. The red sun was dipping closer and closer to the far horizon. It was almost touching the sea now. With a grimace, Zuko got to his feet and closed the stone slab door, sealing it in place with his bending.
"You didn't exactly arrive at a decent time, you know," he grumbled. Dusting himself off, he glanced at to his right and stilled, his expression falling into despair. "No," he whispered. "No, no, no! Damn it, no!"
Startled by Zuko's distress, Aang turned and saw the firebender racing to a large door of stone and iron and pounding his fist on it in frustrated disappointment. Woah! Oh, wow!
"Hey! We had a door just like that at the Air Temple," Aang gasped, bursting into a smile. "There were lots of statues of previous Avatars in there and Avatar Roku's eyes glowed. It was so cool!"
Katara giggled despite the situation. "It was kind of cool," she agreed. Then her smile faded to a frown. "But you could open that door with your airbending. I don't think airbending will work on this door."
"It won't," Zuko said, stepping back from the door and gazing up at it with a forlorn expression. He looked defeated. "It requires a fully realized Avatar or five firebenders firing simultaneous fire blasts to open it." He sighed and his shoulders drooped. "They must have sent someone to close it when they saw you coming."
"You say that like it was open before," Sokka said, casting an odd glance at Zuko.
"It was," the firebender replied. "The Fire Sages almost always have the door open. It was part of our- their duty as servants of the Avatar to observe Roku's statue for any signs of the new Avatar's return."
"Our?" Aang said, hopping of a small breeze to Zuko's side. "Are you a Fire Sage too?"
Zuko dropped his gaze for a moment before turning to Aang. "Not by choice," he said wearily. "I guess you could say I'm an acolyte-by-force." Stepping back from the door, he straightened and pinched the bridge of his nose obviously thinking hard. "Alright. So I can't just let you in because of course that would be too easy. Nothing in my life is ever easy."
Aang snickered. "You started that with 'so,'" he teased with a friendly smile.
Zuko rolled his eyes and groaned.
"Aang," Katara said. "Do you think you could fly around the building and through a window into the chamber maybe?"
With a sigh, Aang shook his head. "No. There's only one window for the sunlight to come in and it's too small for me to squeeze through. Momo probably could though."
Katara's shoulders drooped and she placed a hand on his shoulder. "Oh. I'm sorry, Aang."
"Well, if we can't open the doors the traditional way," Sokka said suddenly from the far wall holding the remains of a wall sconce in his hands. Since when did he get over there? The Water Tribe boy held up the bag of oil from the unlit lamp. "Why don't we try something a bit less traditional?"