Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The last Airbender.
Alone
Zuko tipped the flask of water back, squeezing every last drop he could get out of it. A few warm drops landed on his dry tongue, seeming to evaporate almost as soon as they appeared. Zuko growled and tossed it aside wile reaching for his pack. Inside was the small bundle of food that the woman from the village had gave him.
Zuko felt his stomach clench at the thought of her. She had been nice to him, up until the point that he had saved her son and she had rejected him for being a firebender. His hands shook as he looked down at the neatly wrapped bundle, wondering if he should eat the food that had so caringly been packed if the person it had been packed for was a lie.
But he had to eat. Zuko's stomach rolled and he put his head in his hands, suddenly feeling lonely without his uncle there to guide him. What would his uncle say? Something about how drinking tea would calm the mind and that if he was having trouble with something, to talk it through with someone.
Zuko was alone, though. There was no one to tell.
He glanced around, seeing nothing but hot desert for miles. There was no one to tell but the vulture-rats and he would rather not approach those. He leaned up against the tree he was resting under with a frown.
Maybe, if he could not tell someone, he could write it down?
He didn't have any paper, or a paintbrush with ink. The bark of the tree dug into his back, hard and solid and permanent.
Taking out his knife Zuko began to carve into the hard wood of the tree as his ostrich-horse slept, careful to keep anything that might reveal him to be Firenation out of what he wrote. The small, careful characters blurred together in his eyes as he poured his heart into it. After he was done Zuko stood back and read through it, snorting.
"I can't believe that I just wrote that," he muttered and began to turn away, but stopped, hesitating. It seems wrong to just leave it there. The small spot at the end where he would have signed his name was empty and Zuko stared at it.
It seemed like forever before he sighed and crouched down. His dagger hovered over the blank space as he stared at it, still unsure. He glanced over at his ostrich-horse and pack, catching sight of the light blue flash of the mask that had been dislodged from its place at the bottom. His eyes hardening he turned back to the tree and etched the name deeply, deeper then the rest of it had been.
After it is done he rotated on his heel and walked to his ostrich-horse. Quickly packing his bags he mounted the now awake ostrich-horse and left, never looking back.
I have traveled the four separate lands for many years, learning and seeing things that many would only dream of.
My journeys and hardships began long before I left home, though. My mother disappeared when I was ten and my sister hated me. My father thought I was a failure and my uncle could not always be around to protect me.
At the age of thirteen I was rejected by my father and forced to leave the only place I had ever called home. After that, I began to travel the world, searching for something that I was not even sure still existed.
I have lived among the people of fire. I have seen what their anger can do. They burn and fight and challenge each other to duels to the death if they disagree. But I have also seen their kindness; their willingness to sacrifice for the nation that they have been brought up in. I have seen their inner strength as they struggle to fight on in a world where everyone but those born of fire hate and would kill them without a second thought.
I have braved the cold waters of both the north and the south poles. I have walked the icy streets of the northern tribe which glisten with a cold, dangerous beauty. I have seen their warriors fight to defend what is theirs without fail. I have also seen the south tribe, struggling on even as their sister tribe in the north forgets about them and their men leave to fight in a war that they are not even sure will ever end. I have seen their small igloo houses that they build, for they have no one trained to bend the water and ice into the fortress they need like the people in the north. Those that could had all been taken by the people of fire who feared them for what they could do.
I have climbed the treacherous cliffs and walked the empty halls that once had been home to the Air Nomads. I read their stories, what few that were not burned, and I can't help but wonder what they were like, before the war. I wonder why the people of fire would do such a thing, and why. But those who have the answer are dead and gone, their graves silent as the new generations suffer for their choices.
I have walked the land of the kingdom of earth with my own two feet, and drunk from their fresh, cold springs. I have watched as families are split apart by war and fear. My heart aches as I realize that I can walk among them, I can share their suffering and tell my stories, but I can never belong. The earth is strong, stubborn, they would never accept someone as broken as me. They do not except.
I had almost found what I had been searching for, after many years of wandering, it was almost within my grasp, and then it slipped away, like the wind through the grass. I chased after it, hoping to catch it for my own, so that I could finally go home, or at least what I thought was home, but now I am not so sure.
In my haste I stumbled across information about the Avatar and his capture at Pohuai Stronghold, held captive by General Zhao. I could not leave him there, for I knew the general, and I knew of his cruelty to his own people. I could not stand to leave a child in that man's grasp, Avatar or not.
So I donned the mask of blue that I carried with me as a reminder of my mother. It was the mask of a water spirit and her favorite character in a play that we used to watch together. I snuck in at night bearing only my two identical broadswords as protection and freed the Avatar without being discovered, though we did not get out as easily as I got in.
It was only later when I again began my wanderings through the kingdom of earth again that I learned of the bounty placed on my head, both as the man and the man behind the mask. I was a refugee, and a marked man. In order to survive I had to steal from others, but I made sure that everything I took was from people who would not need it, and gave the extra to those who could not get it for themselves. They called me thief, and I ran. I guess they were right.
I am a confused wanderer, trying to find my way in life.
I am a man who hides behind a mask because I am too afraid of showing the world my face.
I am a person who has fought my entire life for something that I now know I will never have.
I am the one who the Firenation calls The Blue Spirit.
Years later when the roads were better traveled a merchant was wandering down the same lonely road that the banished prince had once followed, he found a strange tree a little way from the road, and etched deeply into the tree was a story.
After reading most of it the merchant dug into his wagon to pull out paper and ink to write down what was etched. When he reached where the name was singed he almost gasped in shock. The Blue Spirit was a legend among the people of the EarthKingdom. Some said that he did not even exist, wile still others claimed that they had seen him at night, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, hidden behind his grinning mask of blue and white.
None knew what he had done to gain the bounty on his head and the anger of the Firenation but there were many stories as to why.
The merchant grinned as he added his own ending to the transcript, intending to publish it or at least spread it around. He wondered if the Blue Spirit was still alive, and if he was, if he would read what he had recorded.
And so we see that though Blue Spirit vanished into obscurity and unsure legend he was truly real. He did indeed rescue the Avatar as the records have reported and he has wandered the land, not just as a masked wanderer and warrior, but as a man looking for his place. He did indeed steal from those who had more than enough and gave to those who had little.
Where ever he is now, who ever he his, I and many others respect him and what he has done for the world. He gave us hope in a time when things were so dark that the Avatar alone could not chase it away.
Fire Lord Zuko sighed again and rubbed his head in a futile attempt to chase away the headache. The many stacks of paperwork piled around him seemed towering to his overworked mind. He groaned as a loud knock came from his door but he called for whoever it was to come in.
One of the younger servants of the palace walked in, carrying a scroll tied in red ribbon. Zuko looked at the scroll wearily. Great, it was another peace of paper that he had to read.
"Who is that from," Zuko asked.
The boy shook his head, "The Avatar dropped in and gave it to me, said that you should read it."
Zuko shook his head again. Sometimes Aang really got on his nerves. He took the scroll and shooed the boy out wile he unrolled it. After reading through it a small smile spread over his face and he got up, heading for the door.
"I had nearly forgotten that," he said quietly.
Maybe it was time for him to take a vacation to a certain city called Ba Sing Se.
The merchant nearly cried in relief as he closed down for the night. Ever since that transcript he had written down had been released he had been swamped with questions that he didn't have the answer to. He closed the door to his small house behind him with a sigh and was about to go up the stares when a knock came at the door. He froze, looking back uncertainly, but figured it would be rude to leave someone just sitting out there.
He walked back to the door and peeked out, but there was no one there. Frowning he opened the door the rest of the way and looked out. Seeing no one either way he shrugged and was about to go back in when his foot kicked a sack sitting on his doorstep.
Blinking at the small sack he wearily picked it up and opened it. Inside the pouch were a small pendant and a note. The merchant pulled out the pendant and examined the design. It had all of the four nation's symbols engraved inside a circle, together. He flipped it over. On the back was a single message, separation is an illusion.
The merchant put the pendant back in the sack and pulled out the note. At the top of the note was the drawing of a very familiar mask. He read the short, eleven word message.
Thank You,
I had forgotten what it was like back then.
He glanced up at the rooftops, somehow instinctively feeling the eyes watching him. And there he was, the moon rising behind him, glinting off the grinning mask, The Blue Spirit. The man behind the mask inclined his head ever so slightly to the merchant.
The merchant blinked and the Blue Spirit was gone, as if he had never been there. He looked down at the pendant and the note clutched in his hand. The last gift of the Blue Spirit, and it was the message of peace.
"Maybe he was a Spirit, after all," the merchant said softly as he drifted back inside.
Out in the city a man wearing a blue mask with two twin broadswords strapped to his back slipped through the night once again, unseen.
This just popped into my head and I had to write it down. I hope you enjoyed it.