Standard disclaimers apply.
Home alone for the holiday, so I will imagine my favorite angsting teen is as well.
The apartment was quiet as Zuko set the table for one. It was a studio, not cramped, but less than he could have afforded. Once his emancipation had gone through, he'd found that he had more money that was actually his than he had hoped for when he left his father's home. But excess for the sake of showing you could afford to be excessive was something he'd left behind with his old life and he was satisfied that the studio was his.
It was his first Thanksgiving alone, instead of sitting at a giant table with Grandfather at the head and extended family arranged in social order. His own place at the table had always denoted a low rank but nonetheless belonging to one of the most powerful families in the world. His first Thanksgiving with a slab of turkey breast from the grocery store reheated in the oven and what Sokka had enthusiastically called "can shaped cranberry sauce" instead of a four course meal prepared from scratch by dozens of nameless servants. His first Thanksgiving as nobody, instead of Zuko Agni.
Gran Gran, as she insisted he call her, had offered a place at her family table, but he had respectfully declined. He had chosen to be without a family, looked at everything the Agni family offered to even a lesser son and everything he would have to give up to keep it, and freely chose to leave it behind. Perhaps in the future he would allow himself to settle into the comfort of a family formed by friendship rather than blood ties, enjoy new bonds, but this year he wanted this.
He sat at the single place setting in a quiet apartment, a world away from what had been his birthright a year ago. He ate reheated meat and instant stuffing and jellied sauce with ridges from the can still visible. He spent his first Thanksgiving as someone with no family, no privilege, no status.
And Zuko was thankful.
This could be considered a teaser for the modern AU Zukka I have kicking around my head and will probably start on once I've finished at least one of my two current works in progress.