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He’s only 12.
At twelve Zuko was running around the palace halls trying to hide from his sister and her friends. He wasn’t worried about the war or his place in it. He wasn’t carrying the burden of a race of people on his back. He didn’t have the pressure of saving the goddamn world from a power-crazed tyranny.
But this child does.
Even though he has been gone for 100 years, this child has been given the job of ending the war. The war that has hurt this child more than anyone who has lived through the start of it to now. Yet this child, who has lost more than anyone could imagine, is still so full of hope and forgiveness.
Zuko knows what loss feels like. And he knows that what he feels is nowhere near close to what this child has felt. So to preserve whatever else this child has, to make sure he never has to feel the pain of loss for anything again, he protects. He protects the child from the world of hate. He shields the child from the horrors of the world. He places a curtain on the world and conceals it from the child’s eyes. He wraps a field of protection around the child and holds on tight.
But he can’t hold on forever.
There’s still a war to be fought.
So he lets go. Bit by bit. As he’s exposing the child to the world, he will teach him.Teach how to protect and how to fight. And he hopes that it is enough. For he was twelve once. And he knows that the world shows no pity to a child.