Author notes: This story came from Masako Moonshade's challenge about Zuko getting a pet. I'm dipping my toes into being an author for the first time. It's ironic that I didn't pick the fandom that I'm most familiar with, isn't it? At least my lack of familiarity with the characters shouldn't show too badly, since this story is so short.
The Foxcat Kitten
Zuko admired the foxcat.
It obviously wasn't every animal that would put up with sparks, flames, occasional assassination attempts by people who were supposed to be friends (or worse, family), and a dearth of, for lack of a better word, creature comforts like food. So when a ginger and crimson foxcat decided to follow him around, despite the fact that he didn't know where his next meal was coming from, let alone the foxcat's, he didn't expect it to stick around long.
Until, of course, he found his carefully wrapped up- and hidden, damnit!- mask, laid out in the center of a city street. Normally that wouldn't have bothered him all that much- the part that annoyed him was that his mask was face down on the ground with the foxcat sitting inside it, like the mask was a bowl and the foxcat a pathetic, sad, pitiful offering to the spirits. And the part that made him literally steam in every sense of the word was there was a sign around the foxcat's neck that read "Will Kill For Food" and a small pile of coins at its feet.
Zuko admired the foxcat. That didn't stop him from giving the coins to a charity and the foxcat to a lively couple who fostered lots of orphaned childern. The foxcat gave him a look of deepest disgust as he left it on the doorstep after hanging a sign around its neck that read "Too Smart For My Own Good".