children of war Chapter 1: set half the world on fire, an avatar: last airbender fanfic

[Time started: Feb 4 2015, 11.43pm; -]

/slinks away quietly in shame/ Don't look at me I had to.

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Title: set half the world on fire

Summary: We've all got our own battle-scars. - Zuko.

That was the strange thing, about war.

It never really left you completely. Even after Ozai had been defeated and Azula locked away for good and the entire world entering into a state of attempted post-war peacetime, the hollow-empty tragedies of war still sang haunting-sweet and deep along Zuko's bones, shivering down his spine like a sheet of water, and sometimes Zuko finds it hard to sleep, in the middle of the night.

Because when he closes his eyes all he sees is Azula spit-howling blue flames and Ozai defeated in dark prisons and the sight of half the palace on fire and the lives of so many people known or unknown lost to the war. Zuko sees a cumulation of his mistakes in his life unfolding itself in front of him and watches how things might've gone if he hadn't realised the error of his mistakes and continued chasing after the Avatar-

Zuko watches himself kill the Avatar, over and over again, leaving Ozai free to rule the world with his corrupted hand, with vicious fire raining down on the world like the end of life as he knew it.

Whenever Zuko closes his eyes the images sear into his mind like white-hot lightning and wouldn't go away so, yeah, he doesn't really sleep much, nowadays.

But this was not the time to worry about that, right now.

Right now Zuko was currently stuck in a peace council meeting with ambassadors from all four corners of the world with the Avatar and the rest of the gang seated next to him, and Zuko had to fight hard not to pinch the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb. Agni, these people were going to be the death of him.

On the sides of the room, lit fire-torches crackled merrily and splashed light against the ornate gold-gilt edges of the heavy red room, the thick tapestries hanging from the ceiling somber in their detail. Zuko sits cross-legged at the head of the table, because this was the Fire Nation and this was his palace and he was the Firelord, and it would only make sense for him to sit right at the front, in the middle.

Aang is serene and quiet all the way to the side, his sleet-grey eyes kind and calm; but his orange-yellow Air Nomad clothes are an unspoken reminder of the consequences of war, and the other ambassadors avoid meeting his eyes, despite him being the Avatar who saved the world.

Katara is next to him, all folded hands and swept up hair and gentle gaze, a picture of perfect finesse and sensitivity - but a Master Waterbender capable of crushing a man's heart in five seconds.

Sokka sits to the left of Zuko, eyes focused and analytical and severe, his hand never leaving the sword laid down carefully next to him, and next to Sokka sits Toph, all twelve-going-on-thirteen rebellion with a cocky smirk and vindictive eyes.

Zuko's allies and comrades from the war - his friends - sit next to him with almost the same power, almost the same dominance as him, four Masterbenders and a skilled warrior, and together they are invincible in their authority.

"So what you're saying," Zuko repeats, slow and calm, face a perfect mask of serenity and diplomacy despite the frustration and anger he feels bubbling inside, "is that you wish to be subsidised for your city's damage from the war."

"Correct." From across the thick, shiny square table a man with mean eyes and thick lips set into a sneer sat complacently, blunt-knuckled hands clasped on top of the light mahogany wood, and Zuko restrains himself from twisting the flames from the torch nearest to him from the wall and burning this man alive.

One of his fingers twitch; the torches around Zuko flare ever so slightly for a moment before receding and continuing to flicker merrily. Zuko watches as the man's eyes dart to it for a second, before sliding back and focusing on them. He was a small emperor of a small city somewhere in the north-south provinces of the Earth Kingdom, with all the ambition and all the greed and none of the power, and yet here he was, demanding reparations worth more than ten times his entire gods-be-damned town and still having the guts to act like they owned him it. Like it was their fault that the war started in the first place.

Two years after the war, and they were still cleaning up Ozai's mess.

Zuko fights to stay calm. "Neither the Fire Nation nor the Earth Kingdom will be able to afford that. What you're asking for is an impossible sum of money."

And it was; the Fire Nation would be crippled if they were to pay for such a ridiculous figure, what with their already struggling economy and half-collapsing trade market whilst they were still trying to build themselves back from the ground up.

War chews everything up; it breaks and mangles and spits out everybody involved, even the perpetrators, and as Firelord Zuko could not, would not, pay for his own country's suicide.

Especially not when it was for as unjustified and selfish and foolish and stupidly greedy a reason as this.

The man sitting across of him sniffs; he stretches back, places two hands over the paunch of his belly. "But as the leader of the nation who very clearly started this war in the first place," he drawls, "should you not find it your responsibility to pay for the damage that your country and its people have inflicted upon the other states and their innocent citizens?" He grins yellow-crooked teeth, all crooked and mean and blunt-sharp edges.

Zuko's fists clenched around his heavy dark Fire robes; his eyes burn vicious and golden and angry.

"But of course," the man smiles, and his eyes shine oily and slick with dirt-greedy glee, "my city is also under the Earth Kingdom's name, and so they must surely want to aid their own people in the repairment of city damages. Perhaps Lord Zuko could discuss with the young earthbender here on how you two may want to split the cost?"

It took all of Zuko's willpower to not set the man across from him's green-and-gold robes on fire; out of the corner of his eye he sees Toph, two people down from his left, scrunching her face up in obvious disdain and displeasure. The torches around them flared erratically; the earth down beneath them shifted.

The man's smirk remains unchanged.

Viperleech. How dare he suggest that Zuko owed his pathetic little self any semblance of an apology. What had happened during the Hundred Year War, it had been Ozai's doing, not his.

And whilst Zuko had been left to deal with the repercussions; the accomplices, the betrayers, the loyalists, the country staggering under the weight of their own crimes, Zuko owed the bastard sitting across from him absolutely nothing, and neither did Toph. Agni, she was just a representative, she wasn't even part of Earth Kingdom royalty!

He and his friends had ended this entire god-forsaken war. If anything, they should have been the one getting owed, instead of them owing people. Together, they each probably had more experience being on the front-lines of bloodshed more than anybody else at the table combined. They had sacrificed so much, to end this war for the world.

Zuko thinks back to his nightmares and to his own little sister locked up in chains and his entire family in ruined shambles and all the nights spent panicking alone in his room and the taste of blood and fire and death still lingering acrid in his mouth, and Zuko wonders bitterly if things were ever going to change for the better.

(Zuko doesn't think so. But he prays.

He prays so hard, for all of them.)

"I hope that you can understand," Zuko starts out slowly, carefully, "Lord -"

"Lord Tengi," the man supplied.

"Lord Tengi," Zuko continues, "that such a request could not possibly be accepted by either Fire Nation nor Earth Kingdom. Not only is the figure you have asked for ridiculously large-"

And here Zuko stares straight into Lord Tengi's eyes, gaze steady and burning like a fire, and Lord Tengi's smile falters; time to show him just what he and his friends were capable of. "It is also thoroughly, and completely unjustified."

Zuko smooths back the silk along the arms of his robes like they were battle armour; they were slippery under his palms, slithering out from his grasp like water, and Zuko flexes his fingers.

The torches burn orange-hot under his control.

The rest of the ambassadors sitting around the table are silent; they watch the exchange between Lord Tengi and Firelord Zuko with his allies with cautious eyes, and the air hangs thick and tense in the spaces of the seconds that follow.

"Unjustified?" And Lord Tengi tilts his head, motion slimy like fish entrails crushed in a person's palm on a hot summer day, "How so?"

And it is here that Toph finally speaks up.

"Unjustified in the sense that at least half the money you are demanding to receive will probably go into your own gods-damned pocket instead of to your city, and the other half into wine and women and gambling, as well, you greedy old geezer." Toph snarls, and leans forward with all the solid weight of a rock, milk-green eyes not focusing on anything in particular but still managing to pin Lord Tengi down with its gaze.

Zuko can feel the rumble of the earth beneath them vibrating through his feet.

He sighs a little to himself, before his spine hardens to steel and he straightens out and prepares for a fight.

The bloodshed of the war was over.

But the battle hasn't been won yet.

This is so not what I'm supposed to be working on right now. Damn me and my terrible life habits.

I had been intending on this fic to be a stand-alone at first, but now I think it would be cool if it was a series, with one chapter for every one in the Gaang. Though I'd probably get lazy after this. Eh.

Please rate and review! I love reviews; they make me smile :)

[Time ended: Feb 6 2015, 12.52am; -]

EDIT: Edited on 8th Feb