"Everything I've done, I've done to protect you. Remember this Zuko. No matter how things may seem to change, never forget who you are."
His mother's last words, Zuko thought to himself. Reassuring, yes, but also frustratingly cryptic. How would remembering who he is help his situation? Who he is seemed to be the greatest source of his misfortunes.
It had been around a month since the disappearance of his mother, Fire Lady Ursa. His father, Fire Lord Ozai, remained tight-lipped about the circumstances surrounding the woman's disappearance, scarcely acknowledging the incident at all. In the time since then, the man had grown increasingly cold toward his son Zuko, spending even less time than he had before in the boy's company and becoming more profuse with his criticisms.
Ironically, in the grand scheme of things, the Fire Lord's increasingly cruel behavior was the least of Zuko's problems.
Ursa's presence in the royal household had provided a tempering effect on Azula, his younger sister. The girl's cruel streak had been regularly curbed and her mother's provision of gentle affection had prevented a full descent into violent maliciousness. Following the Fire Lady's departure, however, Ozai had become the sole guiding influence for the girl, a fact clearly evidenced by the changes in her behavior toward Zuko.
Already prone to playing mean-spirited pranks on him, Azula had become less careful about injuring her brother, regularly subjecting him to fire-filled chases, petty theft, and verbal abuse over his many perceived deficiencies. Zuko had never felt comfortable in the royal palace, but this feeling was now accompanied by a sense that he was not safe.
Deficiencies, Zuko mused. The Fire Lord expressed displeasure with him for a variety of things, ranging from his poor academic performance to his general clumsiness to, most importantly, his seeming lack of firebending talent. Almost any other offense may have been forgivable, but the notion that a bender of royal descent could scarcely produce flames at Zuko's age could not be seen as anything but a most disgraceful failure.
The question remained, what could be done?
Sitting idly by the turtle-duck pond in the garden, Zuko ripped apart a piece of bread for the ducklings and thought back to the early days of his firebending instruction.
"Again!"
Zuko shifted his left foot forward as his right fist sprang ahead into a strike, only for a mere spattering of flames to emerge from his hand.
"Again!"
Zuko stamped his foot in frustration, wide gold eyes shining. "This just isn't working! I'm trying my best to call on my anger and frustration but no flames are coming!"
The instructor scowled before trodding back to the bench near the area of the garden where he had been practicing with Zuko. Stooping down, he picked up a withered-looking scroll before heading back to the boy.
"It looks like we're going back to the basics, Prince Zuko. Look at this."
Zuko peered at the piece of paper. It showed a diagram of a seated figure with a swirl of energy located near his stomach.
"The source of your energy concentrates in your abdomen and is released by the breath, but the breath is not everything. Anyone can breathe. What you need to put power behind it is the force of your storming emotions, the fiery drive and anger that is natural to all firebenders. You must learn to control these feelings and channel them at will if you wish to become anything more but a pathetic excuse for a royal bender."
Zuko turned away, biting his lip.
"I don't think I have what it takes to drum those feelings up whenever I want."
Shaking his head, the instructor walked away as Zuko stood dejectedly in the garden.
"That's it." Zuko murmured to himself, still sitting by the turtleduck pond.
In the early days of his instruction, the royal bending masters had often utilized scrolls and manuscripts from the palace library to demonstrate the basics of firebending theory to him. Not that it had made much difference, of course, seeing as the emotions seemingly required to power his element often escaped him.
But, Zuko thought to himself, maybe there could be something else of use in the palace library. After all, it held texts from all four nations dating back centuries, a veritable treasure trove of information he could dive into to glean insights about bending that others may have missed or neglected to show him. He had made his decision.
"It's time to make a trip…to the library."
The palace library was simply massive.
Standing on the inside of the main doorway, Zuko felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. How was he supposed to find anything here?
The main doorway opened into a precipice overlooking the lower floor area of the library, arranged in stacked levels filled with concentric rings that had the edges of staircases leading down visible toward the corners. Rows of interspersed lamps illuminated the almost cavernous room, the lights flickering off the vaunted arches of the ceiling in ominous patterns, seeming to take the shape of awful spirits and creatures he had heard stories about as a small child.
Scanning the first floor, he spotted a clearing toward the back end with a desk and chair occupied by an elderly, red-robed man.
"Must be the librarian…" Zuko mouthed to himself
Quickly heading down the first set of stairs, Zuko made his way quickly through the openings between each layer of the many concentric rings, finding himself at the desk after what felt like ages.
"Excuse me."
The old man, skimming over a piece of parchment in his wizened hands, made no indication that he'd heard what Zuko said.
"Excuse me!" Zuko exclaimed louder.
The old man started quickly, tipping back in his chair and allowing the parchment to fly out of his hands and up into his face. He made a remarkably high-pitched squawking noise as he keeled over and barely managed to roll to the side as his chair crashed to the floor to avoid hitting his head off the burnished wood. Zuko quickly crouched down to check on him
"Are you o–"
The man shot up suddenly, eyes peering over the rim of the desk suspiciously before widening.
"Prince Zuko!?"
Zuko smiled sheepishly and scratched the back of his neck.
"That's me."
"Well I'll be," the old man said with wonder, "it's been quite some time since a member of the royal family has graced this collection of dusty shelves. What brings you here my Prince?"
Zuko shifted from one foot to the other momentarily before clearing his throat.
"I was hoping you could point me to some information on firebending."
The librarian brightened up and pulled out a drawer from his desk. After scouring through it for a moment, he pulled out what appeared to be a thin leather binder. He opened it and handed it to Zuko.
"This here is a manual detailing the texts you should find in the section of the library mostly dealing with firebending, which you'll find on the second floor down in the third ring from the outside. If you need anything else, don't be afraid to come up here and let me know!"
Zuko stared up at the towering section of curved bookshelf above him.
So these are the royal texts on firebending…
Looking down at his manual, he began to skim the titles looking for something that would seem useful.
A Treatise on Advanced Firebending Technique by Kiyi Sato.
The Standard Training Manual for Military Firebending Instruction.
The History of Firebending by Mako Kaoto.
Zuko paused. I guess it wouldn't hurt to start there. Checking the location on the shelves in his binder, he perused through the books until he landed on the one he wanted. Splaying it open on a nearby table, he began to read.
Gift from the lion turtles…
First firebenders gained mastery through tutelage from the dragons…
Taught us to fuel bending with powerful emotion…
Frustrated, Zuko closed the book. I already knew all that and reading it again doesn't help me. It just tells me that I can't fuel my firebending the way everyone keeps telling me to.
Zuko scoured through a variety of other titles, occasionally pausing with interest to peer at images of advanced firebending forms but still focusing his attention on any clues about alternative forms of firebending.
Nothing.
There has to be something I'm missing here.
He thought back to all the books on the nature of firebending that he'd picked up in the section, trying to note what was similar and different between them all. Each one focused on the same basic points of firebending being fuelled by emotion, harsh ones, and the first benders learning from the dragons. Aside from that though, he realized suddenly, there seemed to be barely any information about what that entailed. How did the dragons teach firebenders ages ago? What exactly did they tell those people to do so they could wield the element?
Zuko paused. The books. All of the books had been published within the last hundred years or so, coinciding with when his great-grandfather Sozin began the practice of hunting dragons. How could any modern author know anything about exactly what the dragons had taught benders? They'd been treated as enemies to be wiped out for sport for decades.
He knew what he had to do now. It was a long shot, Zuko acknowledged, but it seemed the only direction in which answers lay was the mystery of the dragons' existence. Hastily putting away any books he'd grabbed off the shelves, Zuko sprinted for the stairs leading up to the first floor.
"Mr. Librarian! Mr. Librarian!" Zuko shouted as he ran, huffing and puffing, up to the old man's desk.
"Do you have any books about the dragons?!"
The old man looked at him with an expression of shock, even more pronounced than the one he'd sported when Zuko first came hesitantly into the library looking for bending books. Slowly, however, his face began to sag with sadness and he shifted his eyes away from the young prince.
"Well my Prince, I'm afraid that there isn't much I can do to help you. Most valuable information about the dragons is locked up within the Dragon Bone Catacombs by decree of your grandfather shortly after the last was killed by your uncle. All that remains here are a few short texts giving some basic information about how they lived."
Zuko didn't care. He'd latched onto the idea of the dragons helping him somehow like a lifeline and he'd take whatever he could get.
"Whatever you have, tell me where to find it."
Zuko plopped to the floor beside a shelf deep within the rings of the library's third level. A thin tome lay spread out on his lap, and he began to read A Brief History of the Dragons.
In times long past, the dragons lived in abundance throughout the Fire Nation, even being seen in other regions of the world as they often traveled…
Dragons most often journeyed through the world in pairs, either of siblings or as mates. Their familial structures closely mirrored our own, with the two parents of a child serving as its protectors and teachers until it could care for itself. Even after a young one reached maturity and departed to make its own way, families would sometimes reconvene…
Contrary to what one may expect, seeing as the dragons were the first firebenders, they were largely averse to confrontations. They would viciously defend their kin and territory when threatened but largely avoided contact with humans unless absolutely necessary. Apex predators, their numbers were never great enough to result in frequent scuffles amongst themselves over food and space…
Zuko scratched his head incredulously. What this book was saying went against everything he thought he knew about the dragons.
Averse to confrontations? Not interested in dominion?
As long as he could remember, he'd been told that the power of firebending, and thus the Fire Nation, came from the storming emotions and conquering spirit possessed by the people. If the dragons were the first firebenders though and told to be the most powerful, how did they fuel their abilities? If what he'd read was true, they didn't use anger or a thirst for power to drive themselves.
Firebending comes from feelings.
What did the dragons feel? They seemed to love their families and want to protect them. They didn't go out of their way to fight and destroy the life around them. Gears turned rapidly in Zuko's head.
Would this actually work?
He moved into a meditation position, crossing his legs and folding his hands between them. Taking a deep breath, he started to focus. According to the words of his old teachers, along with his breathing, he'd need to stir up feelings of frustration and anger to light a flame. Zuko would often recall his hurt and angst over Azula's torment, but those feelings would sputter out. No matter what, he couldn't bring himself to forget that she was his little sister and that they'd once shared a close bond.
"C'mon Azula, catch me if you can!"
Zuko circled fast around the large tree in the center of the royal garden, the sound of Azula's little feet pattering after him.
"Zuzu I can't! You're being unfair!"
The Prince chuckled to himself and switched directions, turning back around the tree and speeding past Azula. Surprised, the small girl stumbled and fell back on her foot, nearly tipping into the turtleduck pond.
"AAAH!"
No splash came. Zuko had caught his sister by her sleeve and pulled her back onto the bank. They both slumped over and she leaned onto his shoulder.
"Thanks, Zuzu."
Zuko smiled to himself, reveling in the warmth of the pleasant memories from his early childhood. His breathing eased, and he continued to think.
"Zuko, come back to shore! You'll get caught up in the waves!"
The Prince didn't listen. He continued to swim out into the ocean, his mother's voice coming from the beach growing fainter.
"I can do this." he gritted out.
Pushing forward despite the burning in his arms, he didn't notice the large wave heading straight toward him. Looking up too late, he couldn't avoid it crashing over him. His vision became blurred and he felt himself being swirled around by the currents under the water, sweeping him back toward the shore.
Desperately, he started to tread water and broke the surface, turned around quickly, and made his way to shore. Stumbling onto the beach, he could hear someone running toward him.
"Zuko, you have to be more careful! If you'd been in deeper water, who knows if you'd have been able to break the surface as quickly as you did!"
Looking up at his mother, Zuko shot up and enveloped her in a hug.
"I had to try mom."
Peace enveloped Zuko, almost like a haze of warm energy was floating around him lazily. He continued to breathe and imagined himself pushing the energy out of his core along with the breath and into his hands. Surprisingly, he began to feel a strong, steady warmth in his palms.
Opening his eyes, Zuko looked down at his hands. Burning steadily was a moderately-sized flame, crackling almost…happily? It was a deep orange color and maintained a defined teardrop shape, vastly different from the puttering, cold, reddish flames he'd managed to produce thus far.
"Wow." he breathed out in wonder.
This was promising.
