Title: Life on Fire
Author: creepy_crawly
Rating: PG-15
Warnings: Does Zuko being Zuko count as a warning?
Disclaimer: No own. No money. No shame.
Summary: Zuko was born in fire, and, in fire, he will die.
Zuko was born in fire, and, in fire, he will die.
He knows this, knows it to be true, like it's been stamped on every cell of his being. Fire is life and destruction, and no one knows this better than a fire-bender. While the Sun has given them the light of life, the strength to survive, he also demands rigid obedience and anger, and, in the end, he always demands sacrifice.
It's a sacrifice every fire-bender realizes from the first time he or she consciously creates flame. Creating flame out of nothing but pure force of will hurts, hurts so much, like tearing part of your body away. And the aftermath hurts, too. Creating fire is one thing.
Controlling it is something else entirely.
Nobody really controls fire, truth be told. They just offer it an alternative path, charm it into doing what they want, for the moment. Like a snake tamer, the fire-bender always knows that his or her beloved flames are more than willing to snap at any weakness. Fire is the element of power, mostly because it demands power of its adjutants. You must be strong to worship fire, must be willing to give everything up for it.
Fire-benders are not the masters of flame; flame has mastered them instead.
It is a secret that they will take to their graves, that the power they project is merely servitude. But it's not a grudging servitude. No, there's yet to be a fire-bender born who won't bow before the flame and let it walk through his or her body. And there's not been a fire-bender yet who hasn't opened his or her palms to the roar of the flame and the burn of the heat, knowing that their time is at an end. Fire is a caring master, if a harsh one. Mistakes are rewarded with agony and scars, yes, but success…! Oh, the joys successes bring!
There's nothing like releasing a well-born fire into the world, wielding it how you will, knowing that the power is yours. It's like balling up all of your anger, all of your fear, all of your anguish and hurt, and then letting it stew. Then, like lancing a boil, you let it all go, all at once, in a rush of heat and pain and fear.
When Zuko lets go of his fire, it's little like dying and a little like being born, all at once. He hurts inside, more than he will admit, even to himself, and the fire burns so bright, so hot. He can feel it ripping away from his soul, out of his body, and through his veins. It's like reliving the pain and hurt and fear and anger all over again, and it hurts even more the second time. And then the fire erupts from his hands, so hot and so pure. It hurts, hurts so good.
The feel of the fire, burning clean and free, is the best sensation Zuko has ever experienced. It's like…like…like all the pain he's ever felt, suddenly gone, suddenly disappearing in a whirl of heat and glory and light and beauty. Because the fire is beautiful, freed from the imperfect weakness of this frail human frame. Fire is strong and immortal, a purifying element. It burns out the imperfect, destroys the weak.
Fire conquers; it is not conquered.
And it's light, and warmth, and safety. It protects its wielder, bites the untrained hand. It warms him, protecting him from the other elements. Enough heat can melt stone, can make air boil, can make water disappear. It destroys whatever it feels like, but it doesn't destroy Zuko. It goes where he asks, and burns who he wants. It doesn't burn him, but sits in his hands like a tiger cub. It's warm and soft, and, sometimes, he fancies he can feel it breathing, can feel a heart beating within the flames.
And, like a tiger cub, it can lash out unexpectedly.
Fire loves Zuko, and, some days, he thinks that it's the only thing that does. For whatever reason, the fire thinks he's worth obeying, if even just for this moment. Fire may not be loyal, but, then, if there's one thing that this life has taught Zuko, it's that nothing is loyal.
He's been bitten by fire before, anyway.
Fire-benders are in constant danger—not from others, but from themselves. Fire-bending erupts—sometimes literally—much earlier than any other bending. Zuko first started bending the fire around him when he was eight months old. Infants and toddlers are in enough danger from themselves, as it is. Adding fire into the mix? Well, it's little wonder that his mother forbid candles or lamps around his nursery until she could find a flock of nurses who could fire-bend fast enough to protect him from himself.
Most fire-benders start training around four or so, when keeping them away from any and all sources of flame becomes downright impossible. They are taught to control other fires before they even begin to think of creating their own. For two years, Zuko lived near fireplaces and ovens, fire-bending to his heart's content, letting the enslaved fires teach him to love the flame.
But wild fire is something different.
When he was six, he was locked in a room with his father. Nothing in the room—except the two of them, and their clothing—was flammable. It was bare, except for Zuko and Ozai. The light trickled in from a sunlight carved in the stone ceiling.
They were locked in there for over six hours.
In those six hours, Ozai tore his son down, doing everything but physically attacking him. He taught Zuko to hate, to hurt, and to want to give some of that hurt right back. It was the way his father had taught him, and his father before him, and his father before him. It shouldn't have taken so long, but Zuko had too much control.
Ursa and Iroh had succeeded in impressing upon the six-year-old boy the danger of the fires he would one day wield, and the need for control and responsibility. And Zuko was naturally controlled. He buried his anger and his hurt, internalizing it, holding the heat boiling inside him beneath sight. Though he wanted to cry because of the things his father was saying—even did, at one point, tears coming in steaming trails down his face, leaving scalded lines behind—he fought his fires back, held the hot anger and burning pain in his blood.
And then Ozai did something.
To this day, Zuko cannot recall what it was his father did or said that made him lose control. Whatever Ozai did, though, it had the desired effect. Zuko screamed angrily and lashed out, using one of the complex forms Uncle Iroh had taught him. And this time, fire tore from his palm, angry and hurting and wanting to hurt whoever had dared hurt him.
It is only thanks to Zuko's extreme innate control that Ozai does not bear a scar like the one he gave his son.
That first experience with wild fire, born of his spirit, born of him, opened the floodgates within Zuko's soul. After that day, fire raged in Zuko's blood, hot and wild and hungry. It kept him warm in the cold nights, gave him light in the darkness, and protected him from the hurt that others offered him. In a way, fire became the father Zuko had never actually had.
And so Zuko, like so many fire-benders before him, came to regard himself as born of the fire. He has sworn his life to his protector, now, and feeds himself to it as it demands. He trusts it, because his trust is rewarded, but he never turns his back on it. Fire is only as loyal as he is strong, and he knows it.
He also knows that one day, he will let the fire take him.
It is stamped on his every cell, this truth, this knowledge. Every fire he creates reminds him that it will take him eventually, and every fire he bends reminds him that he will gladly melt into that warm, agonizing embrace. After all, he has trusted fire to keep his life.
How can he not trust it to bring his death?