Due to a comment made earlier, I have chosen to post five drabbles together. Updates will continue as planned.
It has been almost a century since the people of air died, and finally, finally it is time to act. The babe would be stillborn; no spirit is slated for rebirth. The mother may die, or perhaps not, it is hard to say. But he will displace no one with this. It is finally, finally time to act.
He slips past his guards. They forget- he is the one who does the impossible.
The barrier between the spirit world and mortal realm is thin, fading ever more each day. He steps through as though it weren't even there.
He's reborn.
There is a reason spirits are first purified in Agni's fires, their past lives- memories, deeds, everything but their core self- burnt away. There is a reason they do not choose their own lives.
There is a reason the spirits do not interfere with the lives of mortals.
The baby is supposed to be dead. The mother is supposed to be dead.
The midwives know this, but keep it to themselves. The father looks at his infant son, sneers, and thrusts the child away. No effort may be spared on the woman, but the child...
Ursa names her son Zuko.
"He was lucky to be born!" Yes. He was.
Despite what he truly is, Zuko doesn't remember everything right away. His days are wrapped up in his mother, who loves him, her miracle child who survived being born nearly six weeks too early, and his father, who can barely stand to look at him.
He is a serious child, who tries to run before he can truly stand up, and stares at decorative swords hung on the walls instead of candle flames and fires.
He is almost three when Ursa becomes pregnant again. Zuko dreams of his sister-that-was, and waits.
Baby Azula screams when Zuko enters the room, and fusses when Ursa holds her. She was an easy birth- too easy, the servants whisper among themselves, but never where Prince Ozai might hear them. She is Ozai's favorite child; she smiles and coos at him, unlike his son, who simply stares.
Despite the baby's screams, Zuko is fascinated by his little sister. He thinks she should have brown eyes, somehow, and when her dusty blue eyes turn gold, nothing fascinates him more. The nurses don't know how he is always getting into her room. They lock the door, after all.
The children do not play well together. Zuko remembers having a sister- something he dreamt, obviously, because he's only ever had Azula for a sister- who was happy to see him, and wanted to spend time with him, and listened when he talked about blades.
Azula pouts and threatens tears when she sees him, and her first words were 'Go 'way, Zuzu'. She stares at fire, and when he tries to talk to her about knives, she swats one hand at his face. Their mother tells her that it's rude, but she does it anyways.
She'll grow out of it.