Unexpected Aftermath

[Since When Was I The Hero?!]

An Avatar: the Last Airbender plotbunny

By

EvilFuzzy9

The path of a swordsman is demanding. It is not simply a fighting style, not merely a technique for using a weapon. No, the way of the sword is as much a spiritual journey as a physical one. It is a pilgrimage, a quest of self-discovery and enlightenment.

To truly master the tenants of swordsmanship – of any martial art – the warrior must refine his spirit, must come to an understanding of himself and his place in the world. He must become one with the sword, must learn to identify the sword as a part of himself, a reflection of his soul.

For the sword truly is as the warrior who wields it. Of all the many and varied kinds of weapons, the sword is, in principle and theory, one of the most simple – broken down to its most basic mechanical components, the sword is a lever and a wedge. Two of the most basic, fundamental machines in the history of civilization. And this simplicity is a very large part of what makes the sword such a flexible weapon, tactically.

"Give me a lever long enough, and I will move the world."

Of course, there have been countless, innumerable variations on the theme of the sword throughout history, and one could spend a lifetime and a half simply studying and cataloging all the myriad shapes and forms in which the noble sword has come. Like the warrior, swords can manifest in any variety of shapes and sizes. They can be specialized to a very narrow field of utility, such as the delicate but lethal katana, ideal for slicing through soft, unarmored flesh with a frighteningly preternatural ease, or generalized to a jack of all trades, useful in any situation, like the ever-reliable Swiss longsword.

And there are of course countless more obscure and bizarre kinds of swords out there, just as there are countless strange, unbelievable sorts of warriors.

The sword is the warrior. It is an expression of the warrior's ideal state of being. Unlike the spear or axe or hammer or bow or sickle or scythe or knife or staff, the sword is no tool for hunting, or woodcraft, no peasant's weapon. The sword is the tool of the warrior. It exists for war, for battle, for bloodshed alone. It has no other purpose, no peacetime utility.

Only warriors carry swords. It is the mark of a warrior, of one who has been trained and groomed to fight and kill and defend. For a warrior, one's weapon is one's life.

Your weapon is an extension of yourself. A part of your body. It is you, and you are it.

The sword is a warrior's soul. It is your identity, your brand, your life.

To lose a sword, or any weapon, which has seen you through thick and thin, aided you in your hardest, bloodiest days, and saved your skin in those desperate moments where your life hung in the balance, as on the edge of a knife, where to stray a little too far to either side would mean death, is like losing an arm or a leg. That weapon is a part of you, that sword as dear to you as a family member.

Zuko, as he sat in wait for Sokka and the others to return, thought and pondered all of this and more as he observed the long, slender, wrapped and swaddled object which rested upon his knees.

Better than most, he knew how much a sword could mean to its bearer, its master. Had not his own twin dao, after all, seen him through some of the hardest times of his life? He trusted to those swords as much as he trusted the fires which smoldered ever within him.

And his dao had gotten him through some damn sticky situations, had saved his ass where even his firebending would have failed.

In a way, though Zuko was born with the Inner Fire, there were times where he could not help but wonder if he wasn't more of a swordsman than he was a firebender. The blade he had taken up by choice, a conscious decision, an informed selection of a path in life. Where the Fire chose him, he chose the Sword.

And Piandao had taught him much, had taught him more than just a way of fighting. Back then, Zuko had been unable to see it, too focused on simply finding some way to make up for what he perceived as his failures as a firebender, as a warrior, but now he knew.

Much like Uncle Iroh, Sifu Piandao had been subtle. The man had taught him many things, yes, but many more still had he left for Zuko to figure out for himself, giving him just enough clues to work out those most important lessons on his own, once he was finally ready to understand and accept them. And Zuko was still learning, still unlocking the mysteries his master had left for him to unravel.

Maybe it was just a White Lotus thing. Being all vague and meaningful sounding as they taught you the basics, while leaving you to figure out the most important things for yourself. Certainly sounded like something that a club his uncle belonged to would do.

Shaking his head, Zuko sent a sideways glance at his girlfriend, Mai, who was boredly tossing knives at a slight indent in the wall – it looked to be about the size of somebody's elbow, maybe.

He considered what she had said about the sword which lay, wrapped up, concealed, across his lap.

"So you're going to give it back to him, then?" Mai remarked. "When they get back here?"

"Yeah," said Zuko quietly. "I figure it might be a nice early wedding gift."

"A very nice wedding gift," Mai murmured, her thoughts doubtless going to the sword her boyfriend had brought here all the way from the palace.

It was quiet for a moment, nothing being said between them. Mai just sat there, fiddling with a gleaming, cold stiletto.

At length, however, after sitting there in silence for a minute or two, she spoke again.

"I've never seen anything like it," she remarked, and her voice had a hint of something to it, something that Zuko only heard on a select few occasions. "That sword, I mean."

Her eyes, as shining golden as the ornament Zuko wore in his hair, gleamed as she talked.

"I don't mean the shape or the quality of it, of course – it's good, maybe the best of its kind, but that's par for the course when you're talking about a Piandao original." Mai shook her head. "No, it's not the quality of it that's unusual. Rather, it's what it's made of. Or," she added, her lips curling in a thoughtful frown, more expression than she usual showed in a whole day dancing across her face in these few moments, "to be specific, what it ISN'T made of."

Zuko gave her a curious look.

"What do you mean?" he asked her. "I mean, I know that Sokka said it was made from a shooting star, but I don't see..."

"Zuko?" said Mai. "I've seen metal from meteors – most old Sun Warrior weapons were made with ore extracted from space rocks. And those weapons? Nothing special, really. It's just iron. Nothing meaningfully different from what you could find by digging in the earth."

"Huh?" said Zuko intelligently. "But, Sokka's sword—"

"—is some kind of strange, unique metal or alloy," said Mai. "Trust me, Zuko. I know a lot about weapons, and I know a LOT about what weapons are made of. Whatever that sword was made from, it wasn't just from any sort of regular meteorite."

Her brow furrowed, and she seemed to be deep in thought. Mai was almost never this passionate or talkative – the only other place Zuko had seen this side of his girlfriend was in the bedroom. Most other things just didn't arouse her interest.

"I... I don't know," she muttered, contemplative. "I mean, the only kind of weapons I've ever heard about that were anything like this sword... well, they're all from old spirit stories and myths. Magic, blessed weapons from another realm, another plane of existence entirely. A sword like the one you're holding should only exist in the realm of fantasy."

Zuko hummed thoughtfully at this.

"...well, he IS friends with Aang," he said, shrugging it off. "This kind of thing just sort of... happens, when the Avatar is involved. I mean, Sokka's first girlfriend turned into the MOON."

Mai stared at him. Her expression was blank. It would have been unreadable to most, but Zuko could see the utter disbelief written all over her face.

"What."

Zuko chuckled quietly to himself, remembering with slight amusement how Mai had reacted to hearing the story of Princess Yue, or at least as much of it as Zuko himself knew. It was certainly a fantastic, outlandish tale, and if Zuko hadn't been there and also heard the story as well, afterwards, from Uncle Iroh, he probably would have dismissed it as false out of hand.

These were strange times, though. Times when legends straight out of yore, figures of the sort which most had believed existed only in songs and old folktales, walked the earth again, alive and real for any to see. People there were like heroes of yore, masters of their elements, sages and bandits and saviors and villains.

It was times like this when Zuko truly realized just how fantastic the tale of his own life would be to most people. It was at times like this that he understood that they lived in an age of legends still.

Sokka was one of them.

And so was he.

It was a strange, surreal thought for Zuko to ponder, but not a dismaying one. Rather, it heartened him, made him want to laugh out loud.

They truly did live in such strange and wonderful times, he mused.

At that moment, the door opened.

Zuko smiled, and stood up.

Sometime between their last appearance in chapter nineteen and the events of chapter twenty-one, Aang and Katara, needing to make room for other characters, had seemingly vanished from the Gaang's house, along with Momo. They had not been doing anything particularly interesting, of course – or, at least, nothing strictly relevant to the ongoing narrative of this tale – aside from maybe putting forth a token effort in looking for Toph, briefly, but other than that, they had probably just been amping up the oogie factor.

Or having tea with Pong.

Who can say? Whatever they had been doing, clearly it had been either unimportant or else not appropriately entertaining.

They were out of the way, not at the house. That's the important detail. Anything more would just be filler. Like this tediously self-referential meta-narrative thing I have currently got going, for instance.

But, anyways, the point is that Aang and Katara were NOT at the house, and were NOT present for the events of the past couple of chapters. I feel it is important that we establish this, for what happens next.

(Also because I kinda forgot about them when I wrote those chapters but SHHH THAT IS A SECRET)

Now, when Aang and Katara returned home after... I dunno, maybe a few rounds of tonsil hockey, or whatever you want to imagine...

...Well, whatever the case, when they returned home, it was to find Sokka, Aang's friend and Katara's big brother, tightly embracing Zuko, Aang's other friend and Katara's alleged secret love interest, while Mai and Suki looked on. Toph, for her part, was just standing there, and it was kinda hard to tell when she was or wasn't "watching" something, for obvious reasons.

And even as Aang and Katara stepped in through the door, slightly bemused at the sight of Sokka embracing the Fire Lord (and when had Zuko showed up?), the young warrior then planted a kiss on Zuko's lips, exclaiming

"Thankyouthankyouthankyou!"

in an excited tone of voice.

If Aang and Katara were stunned by this, then Zuko was downright gobsmacked.

...though Mai, Suki, and even Toph looked a little too interested in what was currently happening.

"Wait," said Aang, his voice catching the attention of the others, who finally noticed his and Katara's presence, and his brain struggling to keep up with everything he was seeing. "When did we find Toph?!"

Momo chose that moment to pop a fuzzy, big-eared head out of Aang's robes, churring and chittering at the assembled group in quite unperturbed manner.

Sokka, letting go of Zuko, turned around to face Aang and Katara. He was beaming brightly, seemingly completely uncaring that not even a second earlier he'd had his lips locked with Zuko's.

"Oh, she showed up a while ago," he said, somehow managed to sound both excited and dismissive at the same time. "But look what Zuko found!" he then exclaimed.

He held up a sword, a straight black jian of peerless craftsmanship. It was a weapon they knew well, even if their acquaintance had been brief.

"Is that really... your sword?" said Katara, unable to believe what she was seeing. "I thought you threw it over the side of that one airship?"

"Yeah!" said Sokka, nodding his head so fast and hard that almost Katara worried he would sprain his neck. "But Zuko found it!"

He all but squealed this last part, and for a moment he looked nearly torn between hugging his sword or hugging Zuko. But then he simply shook his head and smiled.

"You're like the best pal a guy could ask for!" Sokka told Zuko, turning around to beam at the Fire Lord.

Zuko simply nodded, slowly, weakly. His face looked like it was uncertain whether it wanted to be red or white or green, and his skin was tinged with an interesting chromatic patchwork; splotches of magenta, and puce, and violet, and eggshell, and olive, and peach all coming together to form a collage of mixed, confused emotions.

"Don't mention it," was all he said, the words weakly spoken, his voice cracking just a little. He schooled his expression into one of relatively benign indifference, but he could not hide the fact that he now had something of a hundred yard stare, and was trying to look anywhere but Sokka.

He was also kinda slouched over a little, kinda awkwardly slumping his torso forward in a strange way, which Katara thought was weird because Zuko usually had very good posture. And now that she thought about it, the Fire Lord's cheeks also looked, at second glance, to be more ruddy pink than anything else.

How strange.

Katara wasn't sure what to make of this.

Though Mai, Suki, and Toph certainly seemed to have their own opinion of the recent events, if their variously intrigued and... intrigued... expressions were anything to go by.

Katara got the feeling that she did not want to think on this too long or hard, for the sake of her own innocence. Which was in and of itself a very strange, oddly specific feeling to get, but there you have it all the same.

Better to leave well enough alone and move on to less confusing matters.

Like what the slush was going to happen with that whole arranged marriage deal.

A/N: Yaaaay! Sokka FINALLY has SPACE SWORD back! :D

I hope that makes you happy, Neverlookingback! (and wow, that was a sudden, MASSIVE influx of faves, follows, and reviews for this fic, and I didn't even do anything...! I guess there just must have been a lot of people browsing fanfiction dot net for their Labor Day, huh?)

Also, since I've been hinting at a lot of interesting yuri-ish feelings between Toph and Suki for the past few chapters, I figured I might as well get some equal representation in here for those BL fans. Plus, I can somehow easily imagine Sokka just getting so emotional and excited over something like getting Space Sword back that he just smooches Zuko.

(and then gets all freaked and grossed out when he comes down from his high and realizes what he did, but that is a tale for another day. maybe, I dunno, we'll see how it develops when I get to the next chapter)

Poor, poor, confused Zuko. XD

OH ALSO, why not check out (AND REVIEW MAYBE?) my latest maybe-just-a-oneshot-maybe-I-will-continue-it-thin gy, As One Fey. It's technically a crossover, but I wonder how many of you can figure out what it's a crossover with?

And how soon? :P

TTFN and R&R!

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