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awkwardpenguinproductions · 1 year

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Justification

Part 23 of the Dragon of the Yuyan

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The Fire Nation section of Wan Shi Tong’s library is ashes.

Sokka’s moaning about the tactical disadvantage this puts them (him) at, but Zuko can’t stop staring. He suddenly, keenly understands how Aang had felt seeing the unintentional (at best) desecration of the Northern Air Temple.

This is the history of my people. Thousands of years of Fire Nation history and tradition and culture, things from long before fucking Sozin rose to power and ruined everything, just gone. Destroyed.

“This is why I did not want humans, especially firebenders, in my library,” Wan Shi Tong’s deep voice comments, well laced with bitterness and disgust. “Humans do nothing but destroy each other and themselves and everything around them.”

Zuko wants to argue, he really does, but he gets the feeling that attempting to do so could potentially be hazardous to his health. Instead, he turns to face the owl spirit head on and drops into seiza.

I can’t apologize for the actions of all humans, because that is not my place, he signs, but as Prince of the Fire Nation, I can apologize for the despicable actions of my countrymen. I am deeply, truly sorry for this destruction, and this irreplaceable loss. If and when I am Fire Lord, I will do whatever I can within my power to assist in rebuilding your collection. You have my word, as Zuko of the Royal Caldera and of the Yuyan Tribe. He then folds into a full bow, forehead resting on the ashy stone floor, hands placed at an obtuse angle, and holds it for just slightly longer than he would for a reigning Fire Lord or Earth Monarch.

Wan Shi Tong’s beady black eyes are fathomless and penetrating, but Zuko gets the sense that he managed to surprise the spirit somehow.

“How interesting,” Wan Shi Tong muses. “You put much more effort into lying to me than your Water Tribe companion.”

Zuko freezes. He’s never been accused of being a liar in earnest— the only time had been the fight that had gotten Zheng transferred to Banli Squad. It’s a well-established fact in both the Yuyan Archers and Team Avatar that Zuko can’t lie for shit, and Toph takes great pleasure in reminding him of that fact every chance she gets.

I'm not lying! Zuko protests. I swear! I swear on my mother's memory!

Wan Shi Tong blinks. They stare at each other for a few endless moments, until the owl spirit hums.

"How novel––a human who tells the truth, in as much as he knows it," Wan Shi Tong declares. "Very well, Zuko of the Royal Caldera and of the Yuyan Tribe. You will ascend the Caldera Throne of the Fire Nation, and you will do everything in your mortal power to assist in rebuilding what your countryman has destroyed. In exchange, I will allow you and your companions to leave unmolested with the knowledge you seek, so long as none of you ever return.”

Thank you, Honorable Spirit, Zuko signs, then folds back into another full bow.

Wan Shi Tong makes a mild hrmph sound, almost exactly the way both the Head Librarian at the Palace and the Head Archivist at the Stronghold had, and turns away. “Come,” the owl spirit commands, and Zuko leaps up to obey.

They walk in silence through the library, and reach the planetarium just as Sokka’s voice rings out: “—we’ll invade the Fire Nation when they’re totally helpless. The Fire Lord is going down!”

Zuko slaps his forehead as he feels Wan Shi Tong’s feathers bristle.

Honorable Spirit, please remember our deal, he signs rapidly. My friend is a moron and shouldn’t have tried to trick you, but I swore on my mother’s memory to help you rebuild your Fire Nation collection. I cannot hold my end of our bargain if you kill me and my friends before I can claim the Caldera Throne.

Wan Shi Tong’s eyes narrow dangerously, and Zuko has the distinct feeling of being on the receiving end of an impressive sneer if the spirit had lips to curl. The glossy black feathers stay bristled on the spirit’s shoulders for a moment or two more, then smooth down as Wan Shi Tong sighs.

“Very well.”

The spirit glides into the room, voice ringing out. “Humans are so predictable. And such terrible liars. You have betrayed my trust, but Prince Zuko has convinced me to allow you to leave here with your lives and the knowledge you have gained. Leave now, and do not come back.”

Wan Shi Tong turns and leaves, leaving two growling foxes behind. Sokka scrambles back over to the mechanism in the center of the room, frantically turning the dials until the planetarium shows a total solar eclipse. He scribbles down the date, and then they all book it for the rope they'd used to enter the library. As Zuko climbs up the rope hand over hand, he feels eyes on his back, and turns to find Wan Shi Tong's fathomless gaze directed at him. He bows his head to the spirit, and Wan Shi Tong nods back.

They emerge from the top of the library spire into a blinding sandstorm, and are forced to hug the outer wall of the spire as they rappel down. When they reach the ground, Zuko forces Sokka and Katara to shield Aang while he carefully navigates the base of the spire to find Toph. He literally trips over her as she's huddled on nearly the opposite side of the spire from the rest of the group. He grabs her arm, taps it's Zuko on her shoulder, and shields her from the wind and sand with his body as he guides her around the rest of the spire to join the others. Sokka shifts to nudge Toph snugly beside Aang, and Zuko takes position beside Katara on Aang's other side.

It's two hours before the storm finally dies down, according to Zuko's sense of the sun. They're very nearly buried in sand, and Zuko's scar stings like it hasn't in years, but they're alive.

They're alive, but when they dig out and look around, Appa is gone.

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awkwardpenguinproductions · 1 year

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Occupation

Part 18 of Dragon of the Yuyan

Read on AO3 | Series Masterpost

Zuko is not at all prepared to find Omashu draped in red and half plated in iron.

He is also not prepared to come face to face with one of his sister’s childhood friends.

It's only Zuko's experience blocking arrows with his dao that keeps him from being shot full of senbon before Aang brings the scaffolding down between them. Then they're found by the Omashu Resistance, and really, Zuko would love to hear just why this King Bumi, whom Aang had talked up as an amazing earthbender, would just… not defend his city from invasion? Like at all? Zuko can't wrap his head around it.

When the Resistance decides to retreat, Sokka comes up with the most bizarre cover Zuko has ever seen. The population of a city is transformed into a plague-ridden, shuffling horde, and he has the rogue thought that when the war is over, the Water Tribe warrior should try his hand at playwriting.

Zuko doesn’t have time to dwell on it, though—he’s trying desperately to keep up with an airbending Avatar bound and determined to find his friend. Tree-running (rather, roof-running) in Omashu is awesome, and he has got to bring Kai and Jiyoti here sometime, but by Agni is he going to be so fucking sore tomorrow. He finally catches up to Aang when he stops to free an enormous goat gorilla that the dumb kid addresses as Flopsie.

At this point, Zuko doesn't even bother trying.

He grabs Aang's collar before he can jump onto the creature's back, and forces him to turn around.

What in Agni's name do you think you're doing? He signs furiously. Do you have any idea where B-U-M-I actually is?

The face Aang pulls in response is not helpful, you little brat, and Zuko pinches the bridge of his nose.

Think, airhead! He demands, ending the command with a hard flick to the center of the blue arrow. You've been here before. Contrary to what it looks like, the Fire Nation didn't completely rearrange the city. Where's the city jail? Where's the place where the worst of the worst people are kept? That's where you'll find B-U-M-I.

Aang takes a deep breath and lets it out, ruffling their clothes as he accidentally airbends. "Okay, I know where to go."

They clamber onto Flopsie’s shoulders, and Aang guides the goat gorilla through the deserted city streets to the peak of the mountain. Through the bamboo and plywood scaffolding, Zuko can see the in-progress iron statue of Ozai that stands at the top, and can’t resist flipping the thing off with both hands. Thankfully Aang doesn’t notice.

Around the back at the foot of the statue stands a portable cell, similar to the one at Huzhen, and Zuko has to swallow down bile at the reminder. This one has a retractible roof, and Zuko is very puzzled as to why until he catches sight of the crane standing nearby, and the fucking metal coffin hanging from it. Spirits damn his people’s ingenuity.

Aang vaults from Flopsie’s shoulders, with Zuko on his heels, and races to the closest window.

“Bumi! Bumi!” He hisses.

The gaunt, droopy-skinned face of a very old man with mismatched green eyes and wild, pure white hair appears behind the bars.

“Aang, is that you?” He asks in a creaky voice, bushy white eyebrows lifting in surprise. “Where did you come from?”

“We’re here to get you out!” Aang hisses, furiously examining the portable cell for weak points, ranting in hissed whispers as he does. “What’s the matter with you, Bumi? Why didn’t you fight against the occupation? Why didn’t you escape when you had a chance? We talked to Yung, and he said you decided not to do anything!”

“Listen to me, Aang,” Bumi cuts in. His tone isn’t anything Zuko can recognize as angry or harsh, but it immediately shuts the airbender up. “There are options in fighting called jing. It’s a choice of how you direct your energy.”

“I know!” Aang snaps, and if Zuko wasn’t standing guard, he would’ve given the brat a whopper of an arrow-flick for talking to a much older master in such a tone, childhood friends or not. “There’s positive jing when you’re attacking and negative jing when you’re retreating,” he counts on his fingers.

“And neutral jing, when you do nothing!” Bumi adds, grinning beatifically. Zuko takes one look at that grin and knows that every disparaging story he'd heard about Omashu's king being insane is absolutely true.

“There’s three jings?” Aang splutters.

“Well technically there are eighty five, but we’ll just focus on the third,” Bumi replies. “Neutral jing is the key to earthbending. It involves listening and waiting for the right moment to strike.”

Like the Yuyan, Zuko realizes. Yuyan combat and archery both rely heavily on watching and waiting for the right moment to shoot or strike. Zuko didn’t know that there was an actual jing for that.

“That’s why you surrendered, isn’t it?” Aang asks softly.

“Yes, and it’s why I can’t leave now,” Bumi answers.

Aang sighs heavily, and leans his forehead against the metal. “I guess I need to find someone else to teach me earthbending.”

“Your teacher will be someone who has mastered neutral jing,” Bumi explains. “You need to find someone who waits and listens before striking.”

The wooden platform they’re standing on creaks as more weight is added, and Zuko can hear the rhythmic marching of Fire Nation guards. He grips Aang's shoulder.

"I hear it too, Zuko," Aang says. "Bumi, are you sure you want to stay here?"

"I have to, Aang, but I'll see you when the time is right," Bumi replies, and his smile doesn't seem nearly as addled this time. Then he peers at Zuko before grinning in a thoroughly unsettling manner.

Thankfully, the marching guards draw closer before Bumi can say anything, and Zuko takes the opportunity to yank Aang away to hide in the closest shadow. He covers the kid's body with his own, trusting in his dark brown and green Earth Kingdom clothes to prevent Aang's bright yellow and orange gi from being seen.

Getting out of the city is absolutely nerve wracking, especially considering that they have a giant goat gorilla tagging along that is absolute shit at stealth. Zuko can't decide if it's a miracle or simple incompetence that keeps them from being stopped by any guards, but they manage to sneak back out of the city without mishap, and then it's simply a long and bone-jarring ride on Flopsie's shoulders to the rendezvous site.

It's full dark by the time they get there, and Zuko immediately hops down, takes off his dao, and begins stretching out the stiffness from the ride and the crazy roof-running he had to do while Aang fills in Sokka and Katara.

Yung stomps up to the group, looking even more grave than usual. "We've got a problem," he states baldly. "We just did a headcount."

"Oh no, did someone get left behind?" Katara asks worriedly.

"No, we have an extra," the general replies, pointing over to where poor Momo is being hugged to death by a toddler in Fire Nation colors with a shock of dark hair and tawny eyes. There’s something familiar about the kid, but Zuko can’t figure out what it is.

Katara immediately goes gooey over the kid, and takes charge of him for the evening, making sure he's fed and kept clean. Once he's freed from the baby's grasp, Momo takes refuge on Zuko's shoulders, hissing every time the kid comes close.

It's after dinner that the messenger hawk arrives. The baby (the Governor’s son, Mai’s brother) is to be exchanged for King Bumi, and while Zuko is glad that the child seems so highly valued by his father, he can only wince at the thought of Ozai’s reaction to such a tactically stupid move.

Noon the next day finds the four of them standing at the foot of the unfinished statue of Ozai, the baby strapped securely to Sokka's chest. Katara and Zuko flank Aang, with Sokka and the kid safely in the rear, and Zuko has to stomp hard on his instinct to keep his hand on the grip of his dao. Sokka had floated the idea of the trade being a trap this morning, and with every moment that passes as they wait for the other side to show up, Zuko finds himself in growing agreement.

Finally three figures appear on the other end of the scaffold and stride forward. Three teenage girls, one immediately recognizable as Mai in the lead, flanked by a brunette in pink and…

Fuck. FUCK.

Azula.

Zuko employs every single trick the Yuyan and court life taught him to keep himself from visibly reacting. His sister looks almost exactly the same as she had over three years ago. Same smooth black hair arranged in a topknot with locks falling artfully to frame her face, same cold polished bronze eyes, same military trim appearance and royal bearing. She looks amazing, sleek and powerful, and Zuko is absolutely scared shitless at the sight of her.

Mai and Aang call across to each other, then Azula turns and says something to Mai, and Zuko knows that whatever she's saying is bad news for his squad. He's frozen, though, because if he so much as twitches Azula will notice, and she'll pounce like a tigerdillo.

"The deal's off!" Mai declares, raising a hand. The metal coffin containing King Bumi is hoisted rapidly up and away, and Aang starts forward with a cry of "Bumi!"

Azula lunges into a horse stance and sweeps her arm forward, a line of blue fire following her extended fingertips and racing in a roaring inferno towards Aang. In the same moment Zuko draws his dao and sprints forward, and as Aang dodges Azula's strike Zuko takes control of the flames with his bending and sweeps them away with a swipe of his blades. The expression on Azula's face is hilarious, but he doesn't have time to appreciate it properly, because she immediately goes on the attack.

Azula fires arrows of blue flame almost as fast as Kai shoots in the Archers’ speed drills. Zuko blocks them with his swords, the steel glowing as it becomes a medium for his own bending, sending back his own swipes of orange flame that Azula dodges with annoying flexibility. Her eyes are wide as she does, though, and he knows that he’s caught her off guard.

Zuko smirks at her, and glories in her furious glare as he lashes a fire whip through the air at her with his right blade. She dodges by leaping into the air and returns with an axe-kick that lays a long line of blue fire to fall on his head. Zuko spins a shield of orange flames to block the attack, and when they die away Azula stands panting through gritted teeth.

Zuko is breathing hard as well, suffused with a savage sort of triumph at managing to fight his prodigy sister to a standstill.

“A Firebending Master traveling with the Avatar," she muses, tone light but gaze sharp. "How treasonous. Mind telling me your name so I can make sure it's stricken from the records? You'll be dead, of course, so it'll hardly matter to you anyway."

As far as you're concerned, I'm already dead, so I'll pass on that, thanks, Zuko thinks, settling deeper into his stance in preparation for her next attack.

"What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?" Azula sneers, moving her hands, folded with only the first two fingers out straight, in curves around her. The air crackles, and blue-white sparks follow the movements. "Let me fix that!"

She points her right hand at him, and a jagged bolt of fucking lightning erupts from her fingertips and races towards him.

FUCK FUCK FUCK!

Zuko drops to the wooden floor of the platform, gritting his teeth and feeling all of the hair on his body standing on end as the lightning roars over his head.

"ZUKO!"

His squad sounds absolutely panicked, and Zuko knows for a fact that the panic will hit him later once they're all safe and as far away from Azula as possible. He glances up through his bangs at his sister, who is sheet white and staring at him with wide eyes, and immediately jumps to his feet and bolts, not bothering to sheath his swords. Appa is waiting at the edge of the platform, and Zuko runs right off the edge and into the saddle.

"Aang, we got him, go go go!" Sokka shouts, as Zuko sheaths his blades and lets a shaken-looking Katara check him over.

"Appa, yip yip!" Aang commands, flicking the reins. Appa roars and soars away from Omashu, and Zuko glances back to see Azula, Mai, and the girl in pink who can only be Ty Lee watching them go.

They land behind a mountain nearly a mile away, where the refugees from Omashu are waiting. Ukano's son is being reluctantly held by one of the Omashu women, who eagerly gives him up to Katara.

"We're going to start heading to Ba Sing Se," Yung declares perfunctorily.

Aang nods. "We need to return the baby to his family."

Zuko takes a deep breath and raises his shaking hands. We need to wait to do that until Princess Azula and her friends have left the city. It's too dangerous with her still there.

"Is that who that blue-fire girl was?" Sokka asks, waving absently as the former citizens of Omashu begin moving out.

Zuko nods, grimacing. I did say that she'd been declared a Firebending Master at thirteen, didn't I? The lightning-bending was new, but not terribly surprising, considering that it's a trait of the Royal Family.

"Why is she here now?" Katara asks, holding the baby close. She looks pale, and Zuko wonders what he'd missed while focused on Azula.

If I had to guess, the Fire Lord probably decided after the defeat at the North Pole that the Avatar is too much of a threat to remain at large, Zuko explains, trying to ignore the slimy feeling that always comes with trying to think like his megalomaniacal father. He probably sent her to capture Aang and either bring him back to the Fire Nation alive, or kill him. With the Comet arriving at the end of the summer, the next Avatar would be way too young to be any hindrance to whatever plan he has to utilize it.

"So we need to stay as far ahead of her as we possibly can, if we want to keep Aang from being flash-fried to a crisp," Sokka decides.

Zuko nods. That would be best, he agrees. As far as I know, there's no way to block lightning. You either get out of the way or you're toast. One hit and it's over.

All three of his friends look green at the thought, and Aang grips his staff tighter.

"We still need to return the baby," he says. "We can wait until nightfall, and I can just fly over, drop him off, and fly back."

We'll need to find a good vantage point to see when Azula leaves so that we know when it's safe for you to do that, Zuko signs.

They do exactly that, and when Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee leave the city just before sundown, Aang straps the baby to his chest as snugly as possible, and carefully glides toward the city. Zuko, Katara, and Sokka wait with Appa and Momo, and as soon as Aang returns, they turn south and fly away as fast as Appa can go.

They make camp at the northern edge of the massive southern swamp a couple hours after midnight. Zuko tries to insist on taking watch, but is overruled ruthlessly by both Katara and Sokka. He spreads out his bedroll, lies down, and stares at the stars.

Fuck. He'd known that he'd eventually have to see Azula again, you can't challenge the heir to a throne without actually coming face-to-face with them, but. He can't actually believe that she's here, in the Earth Kingdom. And she's mastered lightning. The tiniest part of him that is still her big brother, still her Zuzu, is incredibly proud. Only the best of the best firebenders, usually only members of the Royal Family, are able to do that, and the fact that she can, as young as she is… but the greater part of him, the part that had spent the majority of his childhood being tormented by his sister and father, is absolutely terrified. There's no defense against lightning. As he'd told his squad earlier, all it would take is one hit, and that's it. Game over.

He can't let Azula anywhere near Aang. If her actions today have shown anything, it's that she's still the same cruel, ruthless girl she was when he was still living with her. Maybe the brunt of that can be blamed on Ozai and his own cruelty, but right now, he has to focus on keeping his student, his friend, safe from her. Maybe once the war is over, there'll be a chance to see if there's any way to lessen Ozai's mark on her, but for right now, she has to be treated as the major threat that she is.

He doesn't sleep that night.

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#atla #atla fanfic #awkpen productions presents #dragon of the yuyan #part 18 occupation

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