Prequel to (maybe Prequel #1) to the story "Zuko's One. I'm having loads of fun writing this series and have found real inspiration from it lol. Hope you enjoy!
He always listens with rapt attention whenever his mother tells him about how she met her One.
Ursa's voice carries the story as if it were a love song.
"And there he was," she breaths, "and I felt like my entire being was on fire and I couldn't see anyone but him. I saw the string knot itself before my eyes." She ties an invisible cord in the air. "The stars in the sky never seemed so bright; the air I took in was never fresher. The flowers seemed to bloom and I lost myself in his eyes."
She sounds almost wistful and she looks out the window. The sunlight makes the gold in the walls shimmer. The crown on her head, however, glints fiercely.
"Is that how you knew?" he asks. His mother presses a kiss to his cheek.
"Yes, my little dragon, that was how I knew."
"Did he know too?"
She pauses and gives him another kiss. "He did." Her eyes grow sad. Her voice comes out smaller, "He always did."
"Will I know too? Do I have a string?" Ursa notes the fervent enthusiasm in his voice and she smooths back his ink black hair and caresses his cheek.
"Only if you are always a good little dragon," she smiles, "will you promise me to always be good?"
"Does that mean I get the red string?"
She grins, a mirthful laugh escaping her red-painted lips, "Yes, it does."
"Then I shall be good!" he declares, his small voice slightly booming and resonating against the smooth white and gold marble walls. "And then I will meet my One, the way you father met."
Her smile grows pinched and she caresses his check once more. Her voice is strained as it always is whenever they reach this part of the story. But Zuko is too young too notice it.
"Yes. That is how we met," the statement is cold and void of conviction. Zuko, bless his little heart, disregards it and demands she tell him the legends of the red string and Ones. She obliges and before long it is time for midday tea.
He is twenty-two and has given up hope of the possibility of him having the red string. But that is the least of his present concerns. He has another mission in life and there is no time for love or even the notion of it.
Besides, he sneers at the thought, who could love him with such a scar on his face? He might have been considered attractive once, possibly, he wasn't so deaf to the rumours at court. Wasn't blind to the way girls and women would look at him before, especially if that one girl was Mai.
Zuko groans as he looks out at the expanse of frozen tundra before him. A cloud blocks the already pale sun as he continues to think of Mai. He thought once that she was his One, but isn't it supposed to be painful to be separated from one's true mate? He doesn't miss Mai; at times he forgets that she even exists.
When he thinks of the stories his mother would tell him he cannot picture Mai's face as his One. Strangely, and only on the rare instance that he ponders if he does have a One, does he feel the lick of a sea breeze against his face and the scent of water lilies fill his senses. He finds it disturbing if not intoxicating. But he does not think of this often enough, or even for longer than fleetingly, that when it is gone Zuko hardly misses the feeling.
Then, as if by some miracle of Agni, he sees the bright beam of white light. It extends beyond the coming clouds as though the sun has buried itself beneath the snow and is turning the world upside down. He knows immediately what it is. He feels a strong urge, a pull, to make his way towards that direction. The Avatar has returned and Zuko, after three long, miserable, arduous, years has finally found him.
He can almost feel the humid heat of his home, of Caldera, on his skin as he turns to yell at his Uncle.
"The Avatar! We have found the Avatar!" Then he shouts at his crew "Move! We cannot afford to lose him!"
He turns his face back in the direction of the fading light. His fingers tingle and his entire body is racked by a single shiver. Finally, he had completed his mission. His scar burns a little. Finally, he return home.
His ships comes upon a decaying, debilitated village.
"The once great Southern Water Tribe," his Uncle wearily states, "any Avatar we find here will be very old."
Zuko swallows back a bit of bile. He was aware that the Avatar could be more than a hundred years old. The thought of fighting and capturing an old man never sat well with him. But Zuko had promised to use as little force as possible, and to treat the Avatar with respect that is owed to him.
Zuko, despite his upbringing, still believes in some semblance of balance that should exist in the Four Nations. Maybe Iroh had wormed his way into his mind; maybe he still remembered all the stories that Ursa would tell him about the once great but peaceful Air Nomads.
The first thing he hears is the shocked yelling of indignation from below him. He sees a figure waving frantically in his direction. Takes note of the spear in the figures hand. Hm, a warrior perhaps. But aren't all the men of the South fighting at sea? Maybe this one is still young, maybe he is lame and cannot fight. Zuko dismisses him almost as soon as he sees him. He is really no threat despite the war paint on his face.
The young man, Zuko now sees that could be around the same age, is lanky and sinewy. His body speaks of many days without food. If this had been another time Zuko would have felt sorry for him. As the warrior draws, no lunges closer, Zuko even feels a sense of familiarity with the other boy.
The waterboy's attack is futile. Zuko has been trained in combat before he could even run properly. He moves as fluidly as the element of the other boy's people. He dodges, evades and deflects with the grace of a honed, true fighter. But he doesn't attack. He cannot spare to waste his energy on such a menial fight. And to be frank, if he can help it, Zuko would rather tire out his opponents than fight for all that he is wonderful with his bare hands and swords.
He doesn't even use his fire, feels as if he would break something fragile in this place if he even so much as lights a spark.
The waterboy grunts and growls and tries his best to best him. But his footwork is choppy and Zuko finally breaks it with a single, swift knock to the boys ankles with the spear the warrior had dropped not two seconds before.
The boy protests but his body is tired and he staggers as he tries to get up. Zuko thinks he would make a worthy opponent should the day ever come. But as he looks down at the young man he hopes it's never the case. If this village were to cooperate in delivering the Avatar to him he would even send them a gift of food to keep them well feed for a good couple of years.
"Stay away from them you beast!" the boy sneers, "haven't your people done enough?"
He has spirit, Zuko will give him that, but he is already wasting time by stopping to look back at him. He sees the other boy recoil at the sight of him. His words ring louder in Zuko's mind. 'You beast.'
Zuko growls, "Don't you know when you've been beat? Now, enough of this, where is the Avatar?"
The young man's face gives indication that he knows what, or whom Zuko is referring to, and so the lie is too easily detected as he says, "There is no Avatar here. Just women and children, and some of us that were too young to follow our warriors in the war against your kind."
Zuko whips his face to look at the crowd that has gathered from a distance. He sees the truth in the other's words. The gathering is composed of mainly women and their children. Some of the children are only in their tweens; the boys barely coming into age. There is a small handful of actual children younger than ten years of age. His stomach clenches in disgust at the sight; he didn't know just how little they were thriving. If this war didn't end soon they would die out entirely.
But that is why he was here. If he had the Avatar then his father might put an end to the madness that was the war. He had to hope that Ozai would see reason once The Avatar was in control of the Fire Nation.
His eyes skim once more over the crowd and then the world stops and he feels as though he's been set aflame. She is too far away to make out her features but in that moment she is the only thing he sees. He notices that her hair is pulled away from her face save the two beaded loops that hang by her temples. She is dressed in a heavy parka but it seems to be too loose on her figure that he fears there is too much chill that rests in her bones.
He walks without thinking, grows closer and notices more about her. She is small, and she looks entirely frail. As if made of porcelain or glass. Her skin, the color of the caramel syrup that he drowns his morning cakes in, is reddened in places where the wind seems to slap it. And her eyes. The color of the ocean on a sunny summer day on Ember Island make him want to dive deep into them and never come back.
Then he feels it entirely. He feels the constriction of his heart as he draws closer. Feels the blooming of emotions make their way into their heart like flowers blooming in early spring. And he knows. She is his One.
He feels like throwing up. This couldn't be. She shouldn't be a daughter of La. He is repulsed by the thought. Then he remembers the Legends. Agni and La. Husband and Wife. The knot in his heart makes its way to his throat. No. No. No.
It couldn't be. He is snapped out of his reverie as she lunges forward and he sees the same candor in her stance like the one he saw in the still strewn figure of the young behind him. They had to be siblings.
And he does not want fight back at all, his body cannot make itself even think of placing the wrong hand on her body. Her frail body. He sees the way her wrists are too bony, thinks if she throws one punch at him that her hand will snap off. Her cheeks are too hollow and he wonders that if she were to smile if they would crack at the pull of it. Her hips just out beneath the parka, the form of them too wide, too fertile in their baring, but lacking in flesh that would make them supple to his hand.
She runs past him and goes to the figure that is still lying on the snow. She looks up at him from where she kneels. His heart skips a beat and he has to look away. He misses the way her eyes light up and her knees buckle even more as he looks away. He misses the way her hand goes up to her stomach as heat pools at her core.
He misses it but he also feels it and he cannot bring himself to look back at her. It couldn't be.
A younger boy, Zuko sees he is not older than seventeen emerges from behind the crowd.
"Please cease your fighting!" he pleads. "It's me you want. I'm the Avatar. Leave them alone."
His voice wavers but there is enough conviction that Zuko steps forward and takes him without hesitating. The Avatar is not an old man, but Zuko still feels uncomfortable in using force to make him comply. There is something vulnerable in those grey eyes of the Airbender that Zuko is almost reminded of himself at that age.
His scar itches. He strides away with the Avatar in makeshift chains. And he refuses to look back even as his One shouts after the Avatar and and throws a string of curses on his name and in the name of the Royal Family.
He has met his One and it is with the heaviest of hearts that he wishes it had been someone else. Someone that he could have freely loved. He tries to throw the thought of her away from him.
The Avatar escapes him not a day later, rescued by his One and her brother. They fly away on the Avatar's bison, like a picture of some fairytale book.
Zuko looks long after the large dot in the sky, pictures his One in the air above him, clothed in blue, as celestial as he imagines her to be.
He is enraged and miserable all at once. The Avatar has escaped him. His home is further away from him still. He can no longer feel the heat of Caldera. He fumes and stalks off to his rooms.
He feels the sea breeze against his face; his nose if filled with the scent of water lilies. He is resentful. He is longing. Longing for a face he can't caress, a body he can't hold, and lips he can't kiss.
His body revulses at the pain of being away from her now that's he's found her.
So he must capture the Avatar. He must find a way to make it possible to be near her, to see her, to maybe one day finally have her for his own. If there can only be peace between the Nations once the Avatar is captured then so be it. If that is the only way that both his heart and mind can accept his One then so be it.
Iroh does not question his search for the Avatar after that. But Zuko figures that Iroh knows the real reason that he obsesses over finding the airbender, even if, and it is much to his surprise when he discovers it, he is truly chasing after a waterbender.
Two birds with one stone, as his uncle would put it.
6 months later
It isn't until years later, years after that last time that his mother told him stories about Ones, that Zuko finds out the truth. His father, the cruel, cold, unrelentless man had never been his mother's One. She had been taken from her One, breaking an engagement, on the request of his grandfather because of her lineage and connection to the Avatar.
His grandfather had forsaken the sacredness of Ones for the sake of his lustful son and his own need to prove himself above Roku once again.
Zuko felt sick as he put down the scroll. He wonders if that's where Ozai's madness began. Agni is never kind to those that forsake his ancient laws. Is there a stain of that disfavor in him? Is it also in Azula?
He silently vows to track down the man one day and pay a blood debt. His mother, this man's One, was gone and he could only imagine the shattering pain of losing that kind of bond. His own heart aches whenever he thinks of his own One; whenever he denies Her it feels as if the world around him is crashing.
He writes the man's name down on another piece of parchment and days later he finds himself in the palace library looking for any information that he can.
The man was in the theatre and performed for many years. He gained some notoriety and had once been engaged. There is a line that is cut out, and Zuko assumes that it is his mother's name. His stomach lurches. The records go cold after a final entry of his life that places him on Ember Island.
He hides the records of this man's life behind an old cabinet. Makes another solemn vow. He will find Ikem and make things right. He owes his mother that much.
Then, he makes another vow to himself. That night he leaves after facing his father. He goes out in search for his own One. He vows to make things right after what he did, after he betrayed her in those thrice damned Crystal Catacombs. He owes himself that much.
They will meet again. He will make things right. And this time, he swears he will never let her go.