AN- This is the one-shot I promised with the conclusion of Reality Café. Before you attack me for taking so long, please me explain: I sent this to my beta when she was on vacation, she sent it back to me while I was on vacation. See why it took a while? But it's hear now so enjoy it, better a late story than no story!
A big round of applause to my wonderful beta Biddy429! She was nice enough to beta two of my stories (maybe more in the future :-P ), go check out her stuff.
I always liked the Freedom Fighters and was saddened that we didn't see more of them. This is me taking what Jet said about one of the fighters (you'll find out which one soon enough) and giving him a past. Enjoy my little ATLA obsessors!
Disclaimer: Avatar: The Last Airbender belongs to Bryke, but the headcanon that started this story is mine :)
Fire. It was his earliest memory. A flame, a cry, and silence. The blazing heat seemingly devouring him and his home.
Red. The first color he can remember. The color of love and fire and life and blood. He remembers the tears streaming down his mother's face as she handed him to his older brother, telling them to run. He remembers being held up against a sturdy chest and hearing soft whispers spoken to him as he was taken from his home.
And then, he remembers the after effects, the smoldering ashes of the town he grew up in.
He was barely two years old.
-line break-
His second strongest memory was of him and his brother fishing. They had been living in a cave nearby and he tagged along so he could watch.
Kuzon was playing with his brother's helmet, twirling it and putting it on his too small head. He pushed up the top of the helmet and looked at his big brother casting the nets.
"Katsu, why did Father name me Kuzon and not you?" Kuzon asked. It had been a question that bothered him since he learned how long the name had been in his family and used by their ancestors. Katsu was the first-born, he was the heir, not Kuzon.
Katsu looked at Kuzon and smiled, "Because father was the second-born son, as was Grandfather and all before him who were named Kuzon, it's tradition. You'll name your second-born Kuzon and he'll do the same with his children."
Kuzon shifted from his spot, gazing into the water at his reflection before looking back at his older brother, "Tradition? How many Kuzons are there?"
"You're the fifth. Great-Great-Grandfather was the first, he was born before the war even started." Katsu replied as he pulled in a net.
"Before the war? Wow, but why?"
"It's just tradition, I never asked further than that. And anyway when did you get so curious about our family history?" replied Katsu as Kuzon laughed at the question.
"I don't know. Can we go back now? It's almost dark and I'm tired."
He had been four then.
-line break-
The memory that stuck with him forever was Katsu dying. In truth, Kuzon didn't know what his mother or father looked like, he'd only ever known Katsu, Katsu who had raised him from the time the village had been burned by the lawless savages.
They had managed to find a young couple in the Fire Nation Colonies who rented them a room for very little. Katsu had taken up any job he could find and Kuzon carried people's groceries for spare change.
Then Katsu got sick.
At first it wasn't enough to stop him from working, just a cough every now and then. They didn't think anything of it. Katsu got worse every day, after a week he stopped working, he had a temperature now. The family let them stay but they didn't have enough money to get a doctor to visit. Doctors fees were expensive when most of the doctors were sent off to help the wounded soldiers.
Kuzon tried to do as his brother did—get an odd job here and there—but no one would hire him, he was too young. So he resorted to stealing. At first it was just a copper piece every once in a while to buy medicine and food, but prices rose and he ended up taking the food outright.
He had come home one day to see Katsu lying on the mat he had stolen earlier, his heartbeat fluttering and his breathing short and sporadic. Kuzon dropped everything he was holding and fell to his brother's side.
Katsu's last words would haunt him for the rest of his life, "Don't live the life of a thief, I didn't raise you that way."
He was seven when Katsu died.
-line break-
Kuzon chokes back tears as he hums the song his brother would sing when he couldn't sleep. A year ago today his brother passed away. He took his brother's helmet off his head and threw it at a nearby tree, yelling at the spirits for taking his brother from him.
With tears clouding his vision he looked in his bag to see how much food he had left. None, no more money either. Looking back to the town he passed earlier, he thought about going and snatching a few papayas for lunch.
He sighed, "I haven't forgotten my promise brother, I'm not a thief." Slowly he walked over to the helmet and picked it up. An ant worm had crawled in and was trying to climb out, sliding on the slick surface of the hat.
Kuzon picked up the insect and set him down on the ground, the creature was looking more and more appetizing despite its small size. He was about to pick up the ant worm when he heard footsteps. He sat down against the tree and turned to watch the passers-by.
There were various whoops and war cries, then a collective silence, "Those soldiers didn't even see us taking the food, the Fire Nation's getting desperate to leave idiots watching the supplies." A distant voice boomed and the people cheered again. Kuzon sat up taller when they mentioned the Fire Nation, his home.
He stood up and peered towards the group with open ears, If they stole from the Fire Nation, I can steal it back from them. 'Then I'd have enough food to get to the next village!' the thought excited him, he hadn't had a full meal in weeks.
'Just follow them and stay out of sight.' he told himself. Using the shadows and bushes for cover, Kuzon followed the voices and tried to get a good look at who he would steal from. They walked for a while before stopping next to a tree with a rope dangling down, he looked out from his hiding spot, the oldest couldn't have been any more than sixteen. Thhey were just like him.
The little boy stayed ten paces behind them and watched them set up camp, he sat down behind a bush and set his helmet next to him. He had decided to wait until night fall to sneak some food. He looked over his shoulder at the path he had taken before closing his eyes, before long he drifted off to sleep.
-line break-
"Come on! We need to pack up, it's almost sunrise!" A voice called not too far away, Kuzon jolted up in surprise, he couldn't believe it, he had slept through the whole night! Now how was he supposed to get food without them noticing him? Quickly he grabbed his helmet and scrambled up from his hiding place to look at the group.
'Just some fruit, I just need to get some fruit while they aren't looking.'
"What do you think your doing?" A voice boomed from above him. Kuzon craned his neck to see the owner of the voice, the man was certainly no sixteen year old boy, easily six feet tall and had a tree stump bigger than Kuzon in his hands.
Kuzon stuttered as the giant glared at him, "I- I-" then he felt a hand clamp onto his shoulder from behind, Kuzon turned to the new person.
"My name's Jet. If you want some food, you don't need to steal from us! You look like you haven't eaten in days, do you have a home?" The person asked. His hair was wild, going out in all directions and he had a piece of grass in his mouth.
Kuzon shook his head, Jet sighed and kneeled next to Kuzon with a sad look on his face, "What happened to it?"
Thoughts of his brother entered Kuzon's mind, thoughts of the stories Katsu told him, thoughts of the night of fire.
'Run Katsu!' A voice cried from behind him, the heat ate at his body and red consumed his vision. He held onto the warm body as he was carried away from the heat, the screaming, the blood. He looked over the shoulder of his brother as the house behind him collapsed, trapping everyone inside to burn. Laughs penetrated the thick air as he was whisked away.
"Fire," Kuzon whispered to Jet, "burned down by fire." Jet motioned to one of the children and they threw him some food, he handed an apple to Kuzon and the three boys walked towards the camp.
"We can give you a new home, free from the Fire Nation. They've hurt us, all of us. You don't have to be alone." Kuzon furrowed his brow but Jet continued talking, "The Fire Nation killed my parents, most of our parents really. We do everything we can to get back at them, show them they can't kill our spirit. What's your name?"
'But I'm Fire Nation, would they kill me too?' "The Duke." Kuzon blurted out before he could think of anything else.
The boy with the tree laughed, "I like it! I'm Pipsqueak, that's Smellerbee and Longshot, over there is Sneers."
Kuzon looked at each boy as Pipsqueak pointed them out, they smiled and one or two gave him a short wave.
Kuzon's stomach grumbled, Pipsqueak and Jet laughed, "Let's get some food into you, then we can try to find you some clothes that aren't too big." Pipsqueak told him.
"Alright, we leave in ten minutes!" Jet called to the others, he turned to Kuzon, "We're the Freedom Fighters, right now we're headed home but there's been a Fire Nation camp spotted. They burned down part of our forest. It's our job to make them pay, if we don't stop them, they'll take down more villages."
Kuzon's eyes widened, in all his life the only history he'd ever learned was from his brother, could the Fire Nation really have been as bad as Jet said?
"I think you'll make a great addition to the Freedom Fighters, we don't tolerate any Fire Nation, they're all evil." Jet told him as they walked away.
'I'm not evil...' Kuzon told himself, but suddenly he didn't believe it.