I do not own Avatar, at all, sadly.
Thank you to everyone that reviewed, I probably never would have continued this without you.
Zuko watched as Anchee hurled a large rock at Iroh
Zuko watched as Anchee hurled a large rock at Iroh. His son pushed boulder away with a strong blast of fire, yellow and orange flames erupting from his bronze palms. He could feel the sweltering heat on his face even from a distance, could smell the sweet smoke and the ash from when the fire hit wood and grass. The two teenagers fought ruthlessly, aggressively, stray droplets of water landing on his face, fire and earth and ice flying dangerously in all directions. He dodged several rocks and blocked several streams of fire, he was as sweaty and out of breath as the teenagers by the time the fight was over.
Anchee had mastered earthbending in their three years on the island. Three years of warm sunlight, fresh air tinged with the aroma of flowers and grass, and solid ground that wasn't covered in cold snow. He had eaten fruit for the first time in years, sweet, ripe fruit that hadn't been dried or preserved, with juice that dribbled down his chin and made his hands and the skin around his mouth sticky. Ursa had taken a liking to wild peaches, her breath and her hair and her skin smelling constantly of the sugary fruit. Kaya had developed a love of flowers, a bright, colorful plant always in her dark hair or tucked behind her ear. Iroh appeared to be the only one of his children who was indifferent to the change in landscape, but he had a feeling that Iroh would be happy to live anywhere as long as Anchee lived there with him.
The fight ended in a tie, Iroh with a flame to Anchee's throat, and Anchee with an icicle to Iroh's. They both laughed afterwards, happy and carefree, white smiles standing out against bronze skin. Their fights always ended in a laugh, in a smile, because their battles had no bloodshed, no spatters of crimson on clothes or flesh. The final battle would not end in flashes of teeth and the murmuring of compliments, it would end in death. What hurt the most was the knowledge that he wasn't sure whose death it would be. It would either be his father's, or his family's.
"It's been seventeen years Zuko." Katara whispered into his ear late one night as he stared up at the dark night sky. The stars shone like the flames of candles in the distance, white hot candles that cast a brilliant, but faint light. The land would be endless blackness without the silver glow of the moon.
"I know." He wasn't sure how else to respond, he knew, and he knew the direction the conversation was heading.
"Seventeen years is a long time." She kissed his bare shoulder, her lips cool and soft over his skin, like soothing water moving over burned and heated flesh.
"Eighteen is longer." He offered without the hope that she would agree. She was right, and he was eager to repair the damage done to the world. He only wished their children weren't part of the plan, that they weren't needed to redeem the Fire Nation and bring hope back from the ashes.
"I'd prefer twenty, but we owe it to…..to everyone." Everyone was Sokka and Aang and Toph and Iroh and Suki, everyone was family and friends and innocent men and women and children. They owed it to anyone who had existed before the inferno that had raged and turned soil and plant and flesh to ash. Plants and forests would re-grow from the soot, their life seemingly eternal, but people were gone. The airbenders and the earthbenders had been wiped out by destructive fire, lives burned away in billowing clouds of dark smoke and hot flames.
"We'll tell them tomorrow." He moved in to kiss her, but the hand on his shoulder stopped him.
"Mom, Dad….can I…" Ursa toyed shyly with the end of her braid, the flushing of her cheeks visible in the moonlight. "Can I….sleep with you two tonight? I know I'm twelve but…" He couldn't stay the smile that warmed his jaw muscles.
"Of course honey, you don't need to give us a reason." Katara scooted away from him, one of his other favorite women taking her place.
"Goodnight Dad, Mom." His little girl yawned, blue eyes closed in sleep.
Content and drowsy inside the sleeping bag, he prayed to the spirits that that moment wouldn't be his last of happiness.
"Isn't this the plan you and Mom tried last time you tried to defeat the Fire Lord?" Iroh interrupted Zuko as he explained, worry shining her son's blue eyes. He was afraid the results would be the same.
"Yes, but the last plan didn't work because Aang, the previous avatar, couldn't kill the Fire Lord." Katara said the last part softly, gave Anchee a reassuring squeeze of her hand. Anchee was seventeen, five years older then Aang had been, and five times more able to kill Ozai because she knew that violence was acceptable under certain circumstances. Aang had been too young, he had wanted to stay too innocent, but innocence didn't belong in war and he hadn't understood that. Innocence and morals were corrupted in the battles and the bloodshed.
"I can do it, don't worry." Anchee's blue eyes shone with determination and a slight hesitance that was understandable. It took courage and resolve and occasionally hate to take another life, even if taking that life was for the best of the world, it would still hurt in the morning.
"Mom, isn't it wrong to kill people?" Ursa asked quietly from her spot next to Haru.
"It is, but sometimes, for the good of the world, a life must be taken." Zuko answered the question for her, his response better then hers would have been.
"Oh." Ursa nodded and moved closer to Haru.
"We leave today, Haru, are you sure you don't want to come with us?" They could use an earthbender, the more people there were increased their chances.
"I'm the last earthbender, if I die, so do my people. Besides, this seems like more of a family event." She agreed with him, losing the last earthbender would set the world back years, would throw off what little balance the earth had left. "I'll be here when you return." His smile was bright, but his green eyes flashed with doubt, he wasn't sure if they would return, she wasn't sure they would either.
"We'll come back." She and Zuko might not; however, she would make sure her children did. "Goodbye Haru." She hugged him, embraced her last friend from the time when war had raged their homes but they had still managed to be happy and have hope. Ursa blew Haru a kiss as they flew away. They moved through the sky slowly, Appa was older now, much older, and though she didn't know the life span of a flying bison, Appa was nearing his journey to the spirit world. She wanted Appa to live in a world that was free before he died.
The world wasn't on fire when they flew above it, her first sight of a large mass of land in seventeen years, her children's first ever. She had been half expecting the flames to be raging, the smoke thick and choking, animals and plants and people still burning, the heat intense even from the air. Instead, there was grass and there were trees, but there weren't Earth Kingdom citizens, only Fire Nation. In its own way the world was on fire once again.
She and Zuko hugged each of their children when they landed, solid ground beneath their feet that did little to make the moment any easier. The hugs and the kisses and the touches, the smoothing down of her son's hair and the fixing of her daughters' braids and hair loopies were a kind of goodbye.
The goodbyes hurt more then an injury ever would, it was as though she was admitting she would never see her children again.
"Well, well, well Zuko." His father began, his father who looked the same as he always had, a bit more grey in his hair but no less frightening. "Water Tribe children? You're more of a disgrace then I thought." His father shook his head and feigned disappointment, feigned disappointment because he didn't care what Zuko did in his life unless it involved dying, and his father would be thrilled if he did. "That one doesn't even look like you" Ozai studied Anchee's face with apathy. "but it's what you get when you're with a water whore." He bristled at the comment, his temper getting the best of him once more as his hands heated themselves with a will of their own, smoke blowing from his nose each time he exhaled. Iroh had the same reaction, blue eyes flashing dangerously, and a rush of pride struck him like a bolt of lightening. "As much as I have enjoyed this reunion Zuko.." His father never finished his sentence, the fire from his hands and the fire from the imperial firebenders said more then words could.
The battle progressed as he imagined it would, in a fast paced blur of orange, yellow, and red flames and streams of clear water and chunks of ice. He killed firebender after firebender, killed the men who were his people without remorse because they would kill his children without a second thought, kill Katara without blinking if he allowed them to live. Bodies dropped, burned bodies and frozen bodies and bodies with icicles protruding from their skin. He fought side by side with Katara, as they were supposed to have fought seventeen years ago. In the corner of his eye he watched Kaya and Iroh and Anchee dodge and stop his father's flames with fire and water, distracting him until Anchee had the right moment, the opportunity to end his father's life with whichever element she wanted, fire or water or earth. It was when Anchee caught fire and retaliated with water that his father stopped fighting, and laughed a cold laugh that sent shivers down his spine.
"The avatar? My isn't this my lucky day, I get to kill you twice." Ozai held up a hand and the soldiers stopped fighting as well. "Your past life was too weak to kill me, what about you? Can you kill me?"
"I'm going to try." Anchee tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, and the fighting resumed.
"Dad?" The frightened note in Ursa's voice sent panic through him, the fire in his hands flickered out and the water manipulated by Katara's fell to the ground, splashing loudly against the pavement.
"Azula." He had been waiting for his sister to make an appearance, but not one that involved her hand around Ursa's braid and her other cupping his youngest child's face. Azula's long, sharp nails pressed against the bronze skin of Ursa's lower jaw, not cutting the flesh but so close to drawing blood.
"Hello Zuzu." Azula applied more pressure and Ursa winced, tears threatening to spill from her big blue eyes. "Such a darling little girl Zuko, looks nothing like you." Kaya and Iroh and Anchee were still fighting with his father, there was a large, sudden burst of orange across the courtyard.
"Let my daughter go." Katara growled, like a mother bear did when her cubs were threatened.
"I wasn't talking to you wench." Azula continued to study Ursa's face. "Tell me dearie" She crooned, cold and calculating and manipulative. "What's your element?" He could tell from the gleam in Azula's amber eyes that she thought she already knew. Azula had looked at his daughter's Water Tribe color hair and Water Tribe color skin and Water Tribe eyes and assumed his daughter was Water Tribe in every conceivable way. She thought his daughter was a waterbender, and there wasn't any water within bending reach.
"Fire." Ursa's words were accompanied by a stream of fire, fire that Azula wasn't expecting and didn't have time to stop or dodge or even react to. She cried out in rage and pain and fury, and there was the distinct smell of burnt flesh and singed hair and Ursa was free and running towards them as fast as she could. "Mom!" Ursa threw herself into Katara's open arms; he moved in and kissed the top of her head, his attention drawn to his eldest children.
He turned just in time to see Kaya freeze Ozai's feet to the ground and Anchee stab an icicle into his father's back. The sharp end of the ice protruded from the front of his father's chest, a trail of red dripping down Ozai's pale skin. He reached back for Ursa, but found Katara already had a hand clapped over the twelve year old girl's eyes. His father wasn't dead, no, in the throes of death, blood trickling from the corners of his mouth as he sent a weak stream of fire at Anchee that she dodged with ease, a jagged rock lodging itself in Ozai's chest beside the icicle. His father attempted to summon another flame from his dying body, but Anchee sent a gust of wind that blew him into a wall where he sunk to the floor, finally dead, the world finally free.
"It's alright Katara." He said softly, in disbelief, his body in shock as he found Katara's wrist and lowered her hand, allowed Ursa to see. "It's over." Katara embraced him suddenly and kissed him, a kiss of celebration, their tongues meeting warmly and touching; he heard Ursa giggle and it took him a minute to realize she wasn't giggling at them. When he and Katara parted, he saw that Iroh and Anchee's lips were sealed together as his and Katara's had been. It seemed appropriate; Aang had never gotten Katara, now Anchee had his son.
It was funny how fate worked out.
"So…" She took Zuko's hand in hers, the hand that was still warm from the fire he had been using to fight with. "How's it feel to be Fire Lord Zuko?" She watched her three children sit with their backs against one of the walls of the courtyard and rest. Kaya sat with Ursa in front of her as she redid her younger sister's braid, slender bronze fingers nimbly weaving the strands of dark hair together. Iroh was attempting to fix Kaya's hair loopies, and Anchee was laughing at his poor hair styling skills. They seemed not to understand the gravity of the situation, because they had never lived a world that was free, they had only known the cold of the North and the carefree days of running among the ice and the restrictions of never being allowed to leave the snow. They had never known the world before and couldn't be excited about the return because to them, everything was new and unfamiliar.
"It feels great." Zuko pointed a hand at something off in the distance. "Who're they?"
"Haru! Hi Haru!" Ursa squealed and called out, darting up and off the ground before Kaya could finish her hair, the perfect half of a braid coming undone, her dark hair loose and flowing. It was Haru, Haru and a group of people, about twenty or so. She wasn't going to ask how he'd gotten off the island, she was simply glad to see him.
"Haru…." Her words caught in her throat when she caught sight of the men and women with Haru. They had green eyes, green eyes and olive skin and brown hair, they were Earth Kingdom, earthbenders, the fire hadn't destroyed everyone.
"Turns out the islands weren't all uninhabited." He smiled at her, a cheerful smile on a cheerful day. "Fire Lord Zuko" Haru bowed and Zuko laughed. "What're you going to do now?"
"Well…" Zuko wrapped his arm around her waist. "If I'm going to be Fire Lord, I'm going to need a Fire Lady." Zuko gave her hips a squeeze. "That means we'll have to get married Katara." He added as an afterthought, and she couldn't help but smile. Seventeen years and three children and he was finally asking the question.
It was a beautiful day for the beginning of the world.
So this is the end, yes, please review if you read, and I might be tempted to write something again. ;)