Hakoda finds the young firebender easily enough.
The teen is sitting right at the edge of the temple, legs dangling over the side, seemingly unbothered by the drop below. He's staring absently out across the horizon, his eyes unfocused. One hand is braced against the stone beneath him. The other is open, the palm facing upward, a small flame flickering wildly in its center.
The Fire Nation Prince exhales slowly and the flame steadies briefly, only to start flickering again on the inhale.
Hakoda approaches carefully-a lifetime of firebenders being the enemy doesn't go away just because this one claims to want to help-and sits down. Not at the edge of the temple, but closer to it than he would like. He's also careful to keep a healthy distance between the two of them.
Prince Zuko ignores him in favor of continuing to stare out across the distance, and so Hakoda takes a moment to study the Firelord's son.
His dark hair is rough and unkempt, as if the teenager before him has more important things to worry about than what his hair looks like. His clothes, too, are simple and plain, though durable. The material is thin, not meant for warmth, but the boy is a firebender and probably doesn't have to worry about that-under normal circumstances, at least.
The prince's frame is lean and wiry, and there's muscle there, but the way his clothing hangs ever so slightly off his shoulders suggests that he's lost weight-as Fire Nation nobility, his clothes would have been tailored to fit perfectly when they were made.
He's still ignoring Hakoda, so the Water Tribe Chieftan takes a moment to really look at the scar on the teenager's face.
Prince Zuko's left eyebrow is completely gone. So is the outer part of his ear. Angry red flesh reaches out past where both should be only to disappear beneath that dark hair, as well as stretching towards the center of his face, stopping just short of the bridge of his nose, and covering half of his cheek. The skin around his left eye is even angrier, his gaze narrowed into a perpetual squint.
Hakoda wonders how the firebender-and prince of the Fire Nation, no less-managed to burn himself badly enough to leave a scar like this, and how old he was when it happened.
The scar is hardly new.
The firebender's breathing suddenly catches, and the fire in his hand flares before abruptly going out. Every muscle in the teen's body is suddenly tense.
Prince Zuko turns his head with deliberate slowness, an attempt, Hakoda thinks, to cover his sudden discomfort. His eyes widen, one noticeably less than the other. His breathing evens out in the next second, but does nothing to relieve any of the tension in his frame.
He turns his body so he can more easily see the man seated beside him, heedless of the distance between the precipice on which he balances and the ground far below.
For a long moment he says nothing, then:
"Is there something I can do for you?" he asks, and Hakoda can hear Fire Nation royalty both in his tone, and in the question itself. It sets him on edge, and he wonders if his daughter is right not to trust the firebender beside him.
"You left in quite a hurry," Hakoda is a Chieftan of the Southern Water Tribes, after all. His manners are hardly as fine as Fire Nation nobility, but he can hold his own. "Your-companions were worried."
"And they sent you?" There's a note of petulance there that is decidedly not fitting for the son of Firelord Ozai, and for some reason he can't quite identify this grates on Hakoda.
"Chit Sang did not seem to think it was safe to go after you," Hakoda says bluntly. If the young prince beside him is going to act like a child, then Hakoda can certainly talk to him like one. "He said teenage fire-benders tend to be both hot-headed and unpredictable. I thought it might be best if the other children gave you some space."
"Just in case," Prince Zuko's face darkens as he spits out the reply.
"You were breathing fire," Hakoda points out reasonably. "Care to explain why? And while we're at it, you can tell me why that little display of yours shouldn't have me worried about what happens the next time one of my children says the wrong thing around you."
The firebender doesn't acknowledge the veiled threat. He also doesn't immediately offer an answer, but Hakoda has waited out stubborn children before. He is, after all, Katara's father.
The silence stretches between them, till at last Hakoda thinks he might have to try a different approach on the stubborn brat sitting next to him, and then the prince laughs.
The sound is harsh, rasping, and sounds like it hurts.
"Is this what it's like?" he asks, then shakes his head. "Never mind. Yes, I was angry. Chit Sang was trying to force me into some of the more advanced forms, and I don't know any of them well enough to use them in a sparring match. I can barely get through most of them without falling flat on my face."
The prince scowls. "I was thirteen when I was banished, and I wasn't that good at firebending before then. And after-for a while it felt like starting over, only worse." He doesn't explain why. Hakoda's gaze flickers of its own accord to the scar. "I don't like being backed into a corner, and I don't like feeling trapped, especially not with fire being hurled around."
He frowns, his gaze turning back toward the horizon.
"And anyway, there wasn't any danger."
"You mean to tell me that wasn't the firebender version of a temper-tantrum back there?" Hakoda asks, and sure, he's baiting the prince, but if there's still some danger of him blowing up on someone, he'd prefer it be him instead of one of the kids.
Prince Zuko favors him with a look. "I have better control than that. Your children are safe, Chief of the Southern Water Tribe. I've never accidentally burned someone just because I was angry."
The Avatar drops behind them without warning, startling Hakoda, but Prince Zuko never so much as bats an eye.
"Katara says she's going to kill you if you do anything to her dad," Aang offers cheerfully as he plops down on the firebender's other side with reckless abandon. Not that an airbender has to worry about falling to his death.
The older teen rolls his eyes. "Is that why you're here?" he asks. "To warn me?"
Aang shrugs. "I suppose you had plenty of time, if you really wanted to do anything." He leans alarmingly forward to look around the firebender and offers Hakoda a grin. "I also came to see if you were okay. I've never seen you set your hands on fire before."
Prince Zuko shifts his weight and looks over his shoulder at the Avatar while Hakoda resists the urge to grab him by the collar and drag him away from the ledge.
"I wasn't going to hurt anyone."
"I know that," Aang says dismissively, waving the older boy off. "But you were really upset. I've never seen you that mad before, not even that time Katara-"
He catches himself and shoots a nervous glance in Hakoda's direction.
"I'm okay." Zuko frowns. "I'm sorry I can't teach you any of the more advanced forms."
"That's okay," Aang swings his legs over the edge of the temple like he has a death wish. "It was pretty cool, watching you spar today. Even if the match didn't end well. I wish-"
He doesn't finish, but the older teen looks as if he knows, even if Hakoda doesn't.
"I'm sorry I get so nervous when we're training," Aang says a moment later. "I know it's annoying."
The prince sighs.
"I'm only going to say this once, so pay attention," he says, his voice tight, and suddenly he looks very uncomfortable.
Aang looks up, confused at first, but when he sees the look on Prince Zuko's face his own expression turns solemn.
"I was terrified of fire after I was injured." The firebender reaches up absently to touch the scar marring his face. "I was afraid of other firebenders, afraid of Uncle-just lighting a candle was enough to make me hyperventilate. I wasn't able to summon my own flames for months, and even then it was hard. Making myself practice again was even harder. And being around other benders when they practiced was even worse."
"How'd you get over it?" Aang asks, his gaze dropping to study his hands as they lay folded in his lap.
"I made myself do it, even if it scared me. For a while it didn't seem like it got any better. Then it seemed like it was getting worse. But gradually, little by little, it got easier." Zuko raises a hand and summons a tiny flame. "Now it usually doesn't bother me, unless, say, a very angry firebender is trying to back me into a corner because he thinks I'm not taking our sparring match seriously enough."
He offers the flame to the younger boy, who hesitates for a moment before bringing his own hand up beside his teacher's.
The firebender shifts position as if he, too, has a desire to meet an untimely end, and settles so that he's partially facing the younger boy. Hakoda watches as he brings his free hand to rest beneath his student's and transfers the tiny flame to the Avatar's open palm.
Aang watches apprehensively for a moment as the flame flickers, but then relaxes as it steadies. After a moment he looks up at his teacher, and smiles.
The moment is ruined when Zuko's stomach growls loudly enough for all three of them to hear it. The teen blushes, and practically jumps to his feet, but not before carefully reclaiming the flame from his student and putting it out.
Aang looks directly above them, squinting. "Must be 12 o'clock."
Zuko scoffs at his assertion. "Not for another twenty minutes. You need more practice."
"You aren't even looking!" Aang protests, and the firebender turns to stare at him.
"Why would I need to look?" he asks. "The sun's right there."
"Yeah, yeah," Aang makes a face. "I'm a firebender and I can set things on fire with a wave of my hand and feel the sun without looking at it and redirect lighting."
The prince scowls throughout the Avatar's impromptu performance. "You done?"
"And I can breathe fire," the twelve-year-old adds after a moment of thought. "Can you teach me to breath fire?"
"Sure," Zuko agrees readily. "It's all about breath control, really. We just need to spend more time meditating." He receives a groan in reply, and smirks.
Aang bounces back fairly quickly. "What about redirecting lightning? Or does that require more meditation too?"
Zuko shakes his head. "I can show you now, actually. For the record, we are not calling down lightning. For one thing, it's not worth the risk."
Aang blinks at him. "You know how to call down lightning?"
"No. That's the other thing. I can show you how to redirect it, and hope you never have to use it, but I can't actually summon lightning, and even if I could I wouldn't hit you with it, not even to practice."
Aang nods agreeably. "Katara would probably kill you anyway."
Katara doesn't miss the way Chit Sang flinches when Zuko sits down across from him. She's pretty sure Zuko hasn't missed it either, but the younger firebender doesn't acknowledge it, and Chit Sang doesn't say anything either.
The rest of them aren't exactly doing a great job at pretending they're not all watching the two of them out of the corners of their eyes, with the exception of Aang, who came back with Zuko and has been chattering non-stop about redirecting lightning, and Toph, who is sitting on the firebender's other side, a very particular expression on her face.
It's an expression that says quite clearly that anybody who messes with Zuko is liable to get a face full of boulder for their trouble.
Katara's dad is quiet during lunch. She can tell by his expression he's thinking, and she can tell by the way his eyes keep darting towards Zuko exactly who is on his mind.
Sokka clears his throat, and all eyes are suddenly on him. He swallows, chuckles nervously, and turns to Suki.
"Uh," he pulls himself together and continues as if he doesn't suddenly have an audience. "You know, you should get Zuko to show you his swords. He's a trained swordsman as well."
Suki looks over at Zuko, genuinely interested. The firebender ducks his head.
"What's your weapon of choice?" She asks.
"Dual doa," he says, his voice soft, his gaze focused on his meal.
"He's amazing with them, Suki," Sokka tells her. "I bet he could give you a run for your money." For Zuko's benefit he adds, "She uses a katana."
"And war fans. I remember." Zuko's response is dry. Suki chuckles nervously. Sokka looks uncomfortable for several seconds, but quickly recovers.
"Right, but when you two fought before you used firebending, right? So Suki's never seen you fight with a sword." He turns back to the Kyoshi Warrior. "His firebending's all blasty and angry, right? Or it was back then. But his sword fighting is different. It's all-graceful and sleek and-" Sokka abruptly reddens and shuts up.
Suki rolls her eyes at him. "What? A man can't be graceful?"
"That's not what-"
"He just can't be graceful and still be manly." Katara suggests, because it's fun to watch her brother flounder. She can't tell how Zuko feels about it-he's still focused on his lunch.
"I didn't-"
"Next he'll be telling us that women are dainty flowers that must be protected," Toph supplies helpfully, and if Toph is getting involved then Zuko probably isn't too concerned. The girl always seems to have a sixth sense when it comes to the firebender's moods.
"All I said was-"
Suki laughs and elbows Sokka. "I'm interested, Sokka." She turns to Zuko. "I'd love to see your swords. Maybe a demonstration, if you feel like it."
Zuko nods almost curtly, and Katara wants to say something about being rude, but bites her tongue. It's not like she's been the picture of good manners around him.
Zuko's staring at his empty bowl as if it holds the answer to some internal debate. After a moment he shifts, stands up, and gets himself seconds.
Katara's dad watches, but what he thinks about it Katara has no idea.
Katara herself feels an increasingly familiar pang of guilt, one that she only seems to suffer more and more often the longer the firebender is with them.
She could have been nicer, at the start. Even if he betrayed her. Even if he burned Toph's feet (she's willing to admit at this point that it had to have been an accident). Even if he spent the last few years chasing her and Sokka and Aang all over the world.
Still, she had been angry. Hurt. She had thought she was getting through to him. That they had connected on some level. That perhaps there was good in him after all.
And then he had turned on them, and nearly gotten Aang killed in the process.
Katara doesn't really know what to do with all that. She's not ready to accept him fully as a part of their gang, and maybe she's wrong for that, but she can't help the way she feels.
She supposes she can make sure he gets enough to eat, at least. After all, she's not cruel, and she's pretty sure, even if she doesn't like him, that Zuko isn't evil.
His father might be, though. She still can't quite get over how calm Zuko was when admitting that his father had tried to kill him. As if it were the most natural thing in the world that his father had thrown lightning at him, not knowing that he could redirect it.
Chit Sang helps himself to seconds as well. He's still avoiding the younger firebender's gaze. Toph stirs and asks if redirecting lighting is a firebender thing specifically, or if Zuko thinks other benders could learn as well.
Zuko looks thoughtful. "Uncle said he got the idea from studying waterbending masters. The philosophy is the same: to redirect your opponent's energy and turn it against him. It involves use of the chi to create an energy path through the body for the lightning to follow. Lightning generation, though-that's something only firebenders can do, so it's possible that only firebenders could redirect it."
Toph considers this. "But if the lighting is following a path you created, maybe it only requires proper mastery of the chi?"
Sokka laughs, and gets a dirty look for it. "By that logic, you wouldn't even need to be a bender. Just have really good chi control."
Zuko frowns at the other teen over his bowl. "The problem is that if you're wrong, and it's only something firebenders can do, you're dead by the time you figure that out."
Sokka sobers. "Fair point. Toph? Don't go trying to redirect lightning, okay?"
Toph scoffs. "I was just making conversation. Pretty sure that of the two of us, you're more likely to get yourself killed testing the theory."
Katara snorts. Sokka sticks his tongue out at her before trying a different approach. "What about waterbenders? If the technique is based on waterbending style in the first place, they might have an advantage."
Zuko shrugs. "If it's about chi control, sure. If it's about being able to control lightning-"
"They'd be just as dead." Katara finishes for him. Zuko nods.
"That boy is half-starved."
It's Hakoda who says it, but only once the teen in question has left the table, Toph not far behind, to start on the dishes. Katara and Sokka both turn to stare at him, surprised, while Chit Sang looks uncomfortable and Suki perplexed. Aang frowns.
"I was initially surprised by how little he was eating, when we first got here," Chit Sang admits, after a moment. "Teenage firebenders, you know?"
It takes him a second to realize that the rest of the table doesn't actually know.
"Care to elaborate?" Hakoda asks.
Chit Sang looks a bit sheepish. "Firebending is about harnessing the energy within to produce a flame. Energy that needs replaced, just like with any other kind of exercise. Firebenders, especially good ones, tend to burn through a lot of energy, so they tend to eat more than non-benders. And teenagers, well they're still growing. Still learning the extent of their power. Still learning control. Testing their limits..." he trails off and scratches his head. "But nobody seemed surprised when he didn't ask for seconds, so I didn't say anything. You really didn't know?"
Katara shakes her head. "He never said anything."
"I knew." Aang says. All eyes turn to him. "I mean, I knew, because he said firebending burns a lot of energy, and I get hungry a lot more since we started training. But I never noticed he only ever gets one helping." He looks up at Katara, eyes wide. "I never even thought about it."
Sokka lets out a huff of air. "It's not like anybody told him he couldn't have seconds. I get seconds all the time. So does Aang."
Katara's pretty sure it's not that simple. She resists the urge to sigh. "So how much is normal for a teenage firebender to eat?" she asks.
Chit Sang shrugs uneasily. "At least twice what he's been eating since I got here," he admits. "It depends on how fast he's growing, how active he is, and how much firebending he's doing."
"He's pretty active," Sokka offers. He looks worried.
Toph snorts in disgust as she sets aside another dry bowl.
"They gossip worse than a bunch of old women," she says, and Sparky's heart rate immediately spikes. "Yeah, they're talking about you. So why didn't you tell us you needed more food?"
Spark freezes, nearly drops a bowl, then passes it to her with unsteady hands. An admission of guilt, speaking more plainly than words ever could.
He takes a breath, and because it's Toph asking, and she's more curious than angry, he relaxes.
A little, anyway.
"We lived as refugees, for a while," he says. "Uncle and me. After I stopped chasing Aang. The first time. Before Azula nearly killed Aang."
"Okay," she says, because he's faltering.
"Even when I was exiled, I never really had to go without. There was always enough to eat. Always clean clothes, and new ones when the old wore out. A bed to sleep in-I kind of took that for granted, you know?"
Toph takes another dish from him and starts drying.
"And suddenly we had nothing. We had to beg by the side of the road just to be able to buy food." Sparky's voice is low, as he talks, like gravel scraping against stone. "And we weren't the only ones. There were people everywhere with nothing. Some leaving behind homes, family, everything. And people took one look at my face and assumed that I was one of them-a refugee, fleeing the Fire Nation's war and its horrors."
He sighs. "I got used to eating less, because I had to. Now-"
"Starving yourself won't help them." Toph points out reasonably, when he doesn't continue. She shifts so that her elbow rubs against his, briefly.
"I know that." She's pretty sure she's scowling, but equally certain he's not angry at her.
"So we fight. We stop the Firelord, or at least, teach Aang so he can do it. And we stop the war. And we make things right for everyone who's suffered as a result of this damn war."
Sparky laughs, a huff of air through his nostrils. "Pretty sure it's not that simple."
"Simple? Sure it is!" Toph sobers slightly. "Easy? Not so much." She frowns and tilts her head. "Uh-oh. Chit Sang's unveiling your tragic past."
He's already gone as she barely catches the bowl he's shoved at her, and so help her, Toph is going to kill one of these grown-ups if they don't quit trying their level best to give their resident firebending former prince a heart attack, even if one of them is related to Katara and Sokka.
Author's Note: Are we still having fun? Hope you're not looking for much in the way of a plot, because that's clearly not happening here.
Disclaimer: Avatar: The Last Airbender does not belong to me.