Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: the last airbender. I idolize the people who do. I am not responsible for any trauma you may experience when reading this piece of purely fan-made fiction.
A/N: another drabble-type-oneshot-thing. I can't stop writing these things. This one's kind of short but it may end up going further. It's more a vignette than anything else, I guess. Like House on Mango Street except easier to understand and with better characters xD (Three cheers for Mike and Bryan!) You'll like this more than you liked that book. I promise you.
There is only a bit of Zutara here. Basically, the whole thing focuses on Zuko's decision to leave, kind of, and how Katara is the one who really keeps him from breaking down while he's in the fire nation. There's probably more I could have added to it, but I wanted to focus on this particular aspect of Zuko's ...mentality before leaving the palace. He goes a little insane, I guess.
So here it is:
To Live and not to Breathe
The Avatar is alive.
There are a million reasons why Zuko finds it hard not to scream this at the top of his lungs. Months of staying silent through war meetings, and talks, and palace gossip brings the young prince near his boiling point.
"The fire nation will prevail, once and for all, without the avatar to hold us back." He's alive.
"The boy was weak. Weak people will always get vanquished." He's alive.
"Didn't you hear? The prince didn't really kill the avatar. Princess Azula gave him the credit." He's ALIVE!
Of course, when he first came back, he wanted no one to know the other side of their supposed victory in Ba Sing Se. A fear had always kept him quiet that his father would somehow find out and persecute him. Now, tired of living a lie and posing as a good royal, Zuko wants nothing more than to show these people just how stupid they are.
Anything to prove them wrong.
But Zuko knows he would ruin his plans by speaking out.
So, when anyone brings up the avatar's death, Zuko remembers back to the cave under Ba Sing Se. Every time the lies start to suffocate him and choke him, he remembers a time when he could be completely honest and not worry about illusions. Every time his blood starts to boil in anger, he remembers her cold hand on his scar and her thumb on his lips.
But the memories begin to fade one night as he walks down the gilded hallways of the palace.
The bright red of the walls blazes a signal into his mind as the gold on everyone's robes burns sunspots into his eyes and Zuko finds the memories to be too dull and faded with overuse. The palace starts to overwhelm him with lies and anger and Zuko knows he needs something to put them out-something to counter the brightly painted illusions of the fire nation capital-something to break through weeks of red and gold.
He suffocates around the bias of his so-called peers and family and nothing is cold enough to shock him out of his angry stupor.
It gets harder and harder to remember a time when he was able to breathe freely in the cool and dark. Zuko realizes that he needs to leave.
As he cruises through the air above the clouds after the day of black sun invasion, with the wind licking his face, he knows he has found a solution. The fresh air above the ocean is almost as cold as her hand.
A/N: Another one down! I may end up adding to this one. Put in Katara's POV before Zuko comes to join them. It was a bit boring though. It may end up not happening.
Thanks to AvidZKtJo on youtube for the inspiration for this one. She makes a zutarian think. You can see in the series how much Zuko needs someone who will take him for both sides of his character (The good and the bad) and so far all the girls in his life will only see or accept one over the other. He needs to find a person who will let him confess to anything he needs to. Katara is the only one who has seen both sides of him, and being in that cave was the only time that he ever was completely honest.
I tried to focus on how Zuko longs for an honest environment and how he needs to get out of there and find it with the avatar.
REVIEW!!
-Fishy C: