The Boy With the Dragon Tattoo

oOo

Dyslexia: I have it, if you don't know what it is expand your vocabulary.

oOo

Timeline: Season 3 Episode 5 - The Beach Time Travelling to before the First Episode.

oOo

Summary: What if the Beach episode went a little differently, and Zuko realized, he wasn't just angry at himself, but that he was wrong? If only his uncle would talk to him. When the spirits give him a fresh start, will he live up to the man his uncle believed he could be, or is his incompetence the Avatar killed? How will Aang's journey change when he isn't being hunted?

Chapter 1 - A New Face

"What are you doing?"

Anger burned in his heart and Zuko snapped at her, "What does it look like I'm doing?"

Ty Lee's voice was soft, "But, it's a painting of your family."

Zuko snarled, "You think I care?"

"I think you do," she said in a near whisper.

"You don't know me, so why don't you just mind your own business?"

She met his gaze, "I know you."

"No, you don't. You're stuck in your little 'Ty Lee world' where everything's great all the time."

"Zuko, leave her alone," Mai chided him.

That only made him angrier.

"I'm so pretty. Look at me. I can walk on my hands! Whoo!" He walked on his hands and then fell on his back staring up at the stars as he spat, "Circus freak."

Azula laughed.

Ty Lee cried, "Yes, I'm a circus freak. Go ahead and laugh all you want. You want to know why I joined the circus?"

"Here we go," Azula lamented.

"Do you have any idea what my home life was like? Growing up with six sisters who look exactly like me? It was like I didn't even have my own name," she was crying as she spoke. "I joined the circus because I was scared of spending the rest of my life as part of a matched set. At least I'm different now. 'Circus freak' is a compliment."

"Guess that explains why you need ten boyfriends, too," Mai muttered.

Ty Lee asked, "I'm sorry, what?"

"Attention issues? You couldn't get enough attention when you were a kid, so you're trying to make up for it now."

Ty Lee asked, "Well, what's your excuse, Mai? You were an only child for fifteen years, but even with all that attention, your aura is this dingy, pasty, grey…"

"I don't believe in auras."

"Yeah, you don't believe in anything," Zuko groused.

"Oh, well, I'm sorry I can't be as high-strung and crazy as the rest of you."

"I'm sorry, too. I wish you would be high-strung and crazy for once instead of keeping all your feeling bottled up inside," Ty Lee said.

"She just called your aura dingy. Are you gonna take that?"

"What do you want from me? You want a teary confession about how hard my childhood was? Well, it wasn't. I was a rich only child who got anything I wanted ... as long as I behaved and sat still, and didn't speak unless spoken to."

"My life hasn't been that easy either, Mai," Zuko snapped.

Mai scoffed, "Whatever. That doesn't excuse the way you've been acting."

Ty Lee tried and immediately failed to bring down the tension, "Calm down, you guys. This much negative energy is bad for your skin. You'll totally break out."

Zuko felt his lips curl back, "Bad skin? Normal teenagers worry about bad skin. I don't have that luxury. My father decided to teach me a permanent lesson on my face!"

Ty Lee's voice was contrite, but he didn't look at her. "Sorry, Zuko, I…"

"For so long I thought that if my dad accepted me, I'd be happy. I'm back home now, my dad talks to me. Ha! He even thinks I'm a hero. Everything should be perfect, right? I should be happy now, but I'm not. I'm angrier than ever and I don't know why!"

Azula's tone was pragmatic, "There's a simple question you need to answer, then. Who are you angry at?"

"No one. I'm just angry."

"Yeah, who are you angry at, Zuko?"

"Everyone. I don't know," his shoulders tensed.

"Is it Dad?" Azula asked.

"No, no," he said. He wasn't angry at his father.

He was afraid of him.

Ty Lee asked the smart question, "Your uncle?"

"Me?" Azula asked the next smart question.

But that wasn't it, "No, no, n-no, no!"

Mai asked, "Then who? Who are you angry at?"

Azula pressed, "Answer the question, Zuko."

Ty Lee pushed, "Talk to us."

"Come on, answer the question," Mai asked, touching his shoulder.

It was all Zuko asked could do to not hit her.

His temper broke and he spun on them all, "I'm angry at myself!"

Slamming down with his clenched fists he caused the campfire to turn into a pillar of fire, they all, including Azula, recoiled from the flames.

He watched the flames die to embers before turning his back to them and turning his back on them again.

"Why?" Azula asked.

He sighed, "Because I'm afraid I don't know the difference between right and wrong anymore."

His uncle wouldn't even look at him, much less talk to him and hadn't for weeks. .

Azula scoffed, "You're pathetic."

"Because you're just so perfect," he shot back.

Azula smiled, "Well, yes, I guess you're right. I don't have sob stories like all of you. I could sit here and complain how our mom liked Zuko more than me, but I don't really care." She looked into the dying embers, the ashes of their family portrait. "My own mother thought I was a monster." Azula's tone turned light, "She was right, of course, but it still hurt."

Zuko stared at her, "Do you know where she went?"

"Father suggested he be named crown Prince after cousin Lu Ten died, so grandfather Azulon ordered Father to kill his firstborn son, you. When mother discovered it, she took your place," Azula said without looking at him.

Zuko gaped at her.

They all gaped at her.

"Father killed her?" he asked, horror filling him.

Suddenly, challenging is father felt like the least stupid thing he had ever done.

In fact, he was wondering why he had ever wanted the Avatar dead.

No wonder his uncle thought he was a fool.

"What does it matter?" Azula asked.

Zuko got in her face, "Because killing your own family is evil! Grandfather and Father both!"

"And me right!?" she asked, "You always hated me too!"

"I never hated you!" he yelled, "I was jealous of you! Fire bending came so easy to you and you always sided with them against me!"

"But mother loved you!"

"And father loved you!"

"He doesn't love me! He doesn't love anyone!"

"Then why do you want to be like him!?" Zuko shouted at her.

"Because you did," Azula said. "But you left me too."

Zuko stared at her.

And for a moment, he saw the little girl who had always been running after him and Lu Ten.

And he had never slowed down for her. He had blamed her for never slowing down once she not only caught up but surpassed him.

Was it his fault Azula was the way she was? Was it his fault that instead of being her older brother he had been too self absorbed to give her a chance?

She loves you, his mother had told him once. She just doesn't know how to tell you.

Zuko hadn't believed her then but did he believe her now?

In less than a month, Azula had lost everyone but Father.

First Lu Ten.

Then Grandfather.

Then Mother.

Then Uncle Iroh and Zuko.

Leaving Azula with no one but Father.

Who like she herself said, loved no one.

Zuko took a step back from her, "I'm sorry."

"You're sorry for what? Being weak?"

He nodded, "I should have fought him. I should have made him kill me."

"Zuko don't say that!" Mai said, voice near panicked.

"What good would that have done?" Azula asked, watching him, eyes weary.

"Because then Iroh would have been Fire Lord and you would have been heir, and maybe you would have known the difference between right and wrong, maybe the whole Fire Nation would have seen him for the monster he is."

"Uncle Iroh wouldn't have been able to defeat him," Azula said.

"Maybe," Zuko said, "Or maybe the world wouldn't have accepted an Emperor who would kill his own father, wife, and son."

"Wait," Ty Lee said. "He wasn't murdered he died of a sickness."

Zuko didn't look away from Azula as he asked, "Do you believe that, sister? Do you think the timing of it isn't strange?"

Azula stared at him, "What will you do?"

"What?" he asked.

"If you think he's evil, what will you do?"

He stared at her, "What will you do?"

She cocked her head, "Do you think I'm a monster too, ZuZu?"

For a moment, he thought he saw that lost little girl again.

And he knew his words would break something inside her if he agreed with their mother.

Or if he lied to her.

He didn't look away from her gaze, "Only if you choose to be, Azula, only if you choose to be."

She said nothing.

None of them said anything.

He took another step back, before he turned away from them all, his feet feeling heavy and light on the black sand.

"Where are you going?" Mai called.

He kept walking.

He didn't answer her and he didn't look back.

He walked along the beach, watching as the moon crossed the sky, remembering the Northern Water Tribe, the Southern Water, his actions there…

His actions on Kyoshi Island.

He hadn't just made mistakes at Ba Sing Say, and his uncle had forgiven him anyway.

Believed in him anyway, even as he chased after the love and approval of a man who could never love, who was never worth earning the approval off.

Tears rolled down his cheeks as the night grew colder. Wind shook the tall grasses, a hissing rush to meet the rolling wash of waves. When he came to the end of a peninsula, he knew he would have to turn back either the way he came or back toward civilization.

His heart protested both.

He had know one to return to, he hadn't just betrayed his uncle, he had broken his heart.

Azula would coax him back to falling in line, because what else could she do?

Zuko walked into the ocean, not sure what he meant to do.

The Avatar was out there.

Neither Aang nor Katara would ever forgive him, but the Avatar still needed a fire bending teacher.

Maybe…

Something moved in the water ahead of him.

He was only knee deep.

He should turn back, but his heart burned against it.

He kept walking into the waves as they slapped over his body.

That dark shadow rose.

Zuko had seen sea dragons before, they were green and did not live this close to shore but this shadow was black and in the shallows.

It got bigger the closer he got too it.

His feet brushed the silk soft sand one last time before he pushed off into the water, swimming toward the open ocean.

Toward the shadow that beckoned him forward. Zuko didn't think it was an animal.

He was pretty sure it was a spirit.

"Please," he asked as it began to circle him. "I need help."

A spill of ink beneath the moon brushed waves.

Zuko glanced back the beach, he hadn't realized how much time had passed, how far he'd gone.

Too far to go back.

He would drown, especially as the riptide tugged him further out to sea.

The thought did not scare him as it should.

He took in a deep breath, then dove down beneath the surface.

The water was so dark he should have been able to see anything, but the dragon glowed with it's own light despite the ebony of it's scales.

'You see,' the dragon stated, it's massive jaw not moving as its words spoke into his mind.

It's body surrounded him.

"Please," Zuko said in a release of bubbles.

The dragon rushed him, but did not eat him.

He felt a release as he grabbed on to the dragon's mane behind its horns.

His spirit left his body, and the lifeless husk drifted down into the depths.

Zuko's spirit rose out of the water with the dragon, and he wondered if this what it was like to be the Avatar. The stars spun above them as they flew south. The sun streaked across the sky like a comet. Again and again and again, day and not reversing as they soared through the sky.

He recognized the ice as they dipped back beneath the clouds, recognized his ship, himself as the dragon perched tower unnoticed by occupants of the ship.

The dragon lowered its massive head and Zuko slid off watching his younger self twirl around the ship with swords trying to burn off the anger that would never let him go.

"Zuko, you must decide how you wish to live your life. The Avatar cannot be found and you have not lost your own honour. My brother may be the Fire Lord, but even he does not have the power to take that from you," Uncle Iroh said as he watched his young nephew with worried eyes.

This was before hope and disaster had sang into the skies, before he had even turned sixteen. They had spent nearly a year in the South, exploring ice caves and deserted areas that even the Southern Water Tribe didn't bother with.

His younger counterpart ignored Iroh like the fool he had been.

Like the fool they both were.

Uncle Iroh sighed, "One day, you will see that perhaps exile was not a curse but a freedom."

Zuko, the spirit, felt his heart tear.

If only I had listened.

'What would you have done differently?' the Dragon asked.

Zuko watched his swords twirl as his uncle sighed and turned away.

"Everything, I would have changed everything. I would have listened to my uncle," he said.

Iroh paused looking toward where Zuko and the dragon were, but he looked through them, unseeing.

'So shall it be,' the Dragon said, then it took Zuko between its jaws.

He didn't scream, not until the Dragon flew at the spinning swords.

His younger self screamed too as he was thrown bodily off the boat.

They screamed together.

"Zuko!" he heard his uncle yell above him as he smacked into the icy water.

The ebony dragon still had him its teeth, pulling him down and down, beneath the surface, beneath the ice.

Zuko lost consciousness, and yet he was no longer afraid.

oOo

Iroh watched his younger brother with something akin to hatred.

Watching his brother scar his own son in front of an audience, had been among the worst things he had ever witnessed.

His cold dismissal of his son's death.

Even Azula looked shaken.

Iroh wondered if she had imagined Zuko to be a traitor, to willfully abandon her, but now that he was gone, truly gone…

Even Azula who idolized her father, saw the monster in Fire Lord Ozai as he dismissed the news to continue on with the war council.

Iroh sat beside his niece and gave no sign that he noticed her clasped fists throughout the meeting.

He did, however, stay with her as they left.

"How did he really die?" she asked quietly, not looking at him as they walked into the royal section of the palace.

"There was a spirit," Iroh said. "I glimpsed it, he was pulled too deep, taken beneath the ice. He couldn't have sank that quickly even if he had dived and started swimming."

She looked up at him, her golden eyes uncertain, "Why would a spirit take my brother?"

"We were in the South," Iroh said. "You know what our family did to the Southern Water Tribe."

She looked away, and let the silence stretch, before saying, "The world is out of balance."

Iroh's heart squeezed, hope for his niece flared impossibly in his mind.

"Good night, Princess," Iroh returned softly.

Azula hesitated, looking at him again with an unreadable expression, "Good night, Uncle."

Iroh sighed, rubbing his face, weary down to the marrow of his bones.

oOo

Zuko woke to the slimy tongue of some giant beast.

He sat up wiping at his face, "Ugh."

Then he froze, not believing what was beneath is fingertips. Searching his face, then feeling his ear…

There was no scar.

He looked down at his hands wondering if what he was feeling was wrong. But there was nothing visibly wrong with his hands, aside from the tattoo of a black dragon winding up his arms. Its grey slitted eye stared up at him with definite judgement.

"Sorry," a familiar voice said. "He means well."

Zuko looked up, seeing first the Avatar's giant air basin, then the Avatar himself, perched on an ice block.

"I'm Aang," the boy said, smiling as if they had never met before.

Zuko blinked at him and introduced himself, "Lee."

"It's nice to meet you," Aang said with a giant smile.

Zuko had not the slightest idea of what the dragon had done, but he wasn't about to take this second chance for granted.

oOo

KEYnote: Aang didn't set off lights this time.

oOo

AN: Thoughts, dragons, or feedback pretty please?