#*chefs kiss* boutta go play dh1 for the fifteenth time since ya boy still can't run dh2

[flatstarcarcosa]

@autistic-council-spectre

@therailwayarms

OKAY SO, it hit me the other week, like. thematically, right? zuko + regaining honor.........dishonored. hello??? 

but i had to go deeper and holy fuck did i ever??????

so for starters, it’s defs one of those au’s where instead of like a creative split of media, it’s just. “dishonored but the main characters are the atla cast instead of corvo and them”. 

the outsider has taken an interest in our royal fire family. he acts as if the affairs of humans mean nothing to him, but if anyone bothers to do the research, you can see he’s marked others in the family tree. 

azulon, notably, was not marked. 

sozin was, and used the powers of the Mark to start this setting’s take on the 100 year war. i have a background lore HC that he also marks a lot of the ‘airbenders’, and that the concept of an ‘avatar’ is something only they have, and it has to do w/ being marked. (the windblast power is clearly a placeholder for airbending, yfm?)

anyway. 

iroh was marked for a while, secretly. he went from being a normal commander to suddenly The Hero Of The Nation thanks to it, and no one aside from himself, the outsider, and his son knew. 

lu ten’s knowledge of his father’s mark is what got him killed. overseer’s mistakenly thought he was the one with the power due to his knowledge, and they murdered him for it. 

iroh killed about half of those responsible before he realized that not only is it not going to bring his son back, it’s also only going to reinforce the views the overseers have.

he piled his runes and his bone charms at a draped altar and sat in the candle light smelling burning chamomile until the outsider showed himself, and he renounced him. 

he gave up the mark, and the power, and he was the first human to ever do so. 

meanwhile, ozai has been watching his brothers successes from the sidelines and growing ever more frustrated with being unable to match it. 

one night, he awakens to a world balanced on end and awash in blackness, and the outsider taunting him by asking what would you do if you suddenly had the power to achieve your goals? 

he hides his own mark, for a time. he’s unable to completely hide it from ursa, and she is unable to accept it. she is unable to truly accept that the outsider is real and not a children’s fairytale designed to make kids behave, and she agrees not to involve overseers in exchange for ozai ‘banishing’ her and releasing her from a life she never really wanted. (she loved him ((because fuck what the comics say)) yes, and she loves her children moreso, but she never wanted to be royalty.) 

they swear to each other one day, they will reunite. perhaps not as partners, but maybe as free souls. and perhaps friends. 

he promises to care for the children. 

it is the first promise he breaks. 

ozai is plagued by the outsider. 

tortured. 

every time he closes his eyes, the black eyed bastard is there. 

is this all you can do with my gift? he asks. 

you were a dark soul all along, you just needed the proper push, he says. 

ozai suffers for years from exhaustion. he is unable to stop the outsider from visiting his dreams, and when destroying every shrine his soldiers find does not help, he resorts to refusing to sleep. 

it drives him mad, and will eventually lead to his downfall. 

at the height of his father’s madness, zuko is banished for speaking out of turn at a war meeting. his father holds him down into the smoldering embers of a fire in his office, and banishes him from the lands. 

the second night of his banishment, zuko awakens to a word balanced on end, and awash in blackness. 

“this is not the first time i have been with your ilk,” says the outsider. 

he marks zuko in spite of his protests, and it is here zuko learns that his uncle once carried the gift. 

“he calls it a gift,” says iroh sadly. “but really, it is a curse. i am sorry he has paid you visits.” 

iroh is now the one that begins to lose sleep. 

the outsider’s mark did not turn him into a maniacal tyrant, but he knows he chased the glory of being the dragon of the west because of it. he knows without the mark, he would not have slaughtered dozens of men in a blind rage. 

he knows the mark turned him into the worst version of himself, and he loses sleep with abject terror of what the worst version of his nephew could possibly be.  

in the end. 

he had no reason to worry. 

zuko turns out to be the one who should have been marked the entire time. the one who can turn the curse into a gift. 

among his journey, zuko discovers that while the outsider can visit whomever he chooses, and invade the dreams of mortals, 

so too can his family line. 

there is something inherent in this royal family, they can wander into the void when they sleep in the way that others sleep walk. 

ozai drove himself mad thinking the outsider was tormenting him, when in reality, he was the one trespassing in the other’s living room, and getting mad at the outsider being present. 

ozai’s control over, and power with the mark wanes the more mad he drives himself. 

zuko’s strengthens with every lesson he learns about the magic that enriches his lands. 

#txt.txt #nonship au: dishonorable #i might actually do a fic series for this ngl #i love the ideas so far............... #also the possible parralels or w/e of aangs people truly turning the mark into a gift #whereas zuko's family always made it a curse #and it going back to roku or w/e?????????? #and it's why zuko can understand it in ways no one before him could.................. #*chefs kiss* boutta go play dh1 for the fifteenth time since ya boy still can't run dh2