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They can’t actually see him stuffed under the nearest rock, can they? He’s in about as far as it goes, head-first, but everyone saw him go down here, or at least he sure hears them cluttering around.
“It’s probably just hungry!” That’s the annoying water-tribe boy. “I know I am!”
“You’re always hungry, Sokka.” That’s the waterbender.
“Hey! I’m just a simple guy with simple needs.”
Zuko tries wedging a little further, but nope, his snout is pressed as hard against the rock crevasses he can get, and it actually hurts. He tries flapping his tail closer.
“Guys, stop talking, you’re scaring it!” Oh, and there’s the Avatar, predictably. Of course, it just had to be him. how dare he, honestly, say he’s scared about Zuko? There’s everything that could be wrong wrong with that. “Hey, you can come out, little guy.”
“I’m not little!” Zuko screeches back at him angrily, but all they hear is an angry dragon roar.
A dragon, who is probably about the size of the Avatar’s boot. Which is just… great. He can’t capture him like this. He can’t do anything like this, except stay here and cower, and he’s gotten really, really tired of that feeling.
“You guys are idiots,” the latest recruit announces, and the ground shudders, and then the rock flies off him altogether, which is what he takes as his cue to try flying away.
“Wait, come back!” And that’s the Avatar, of course, always playing perfectly self-righteous, and just flies right after. They’ve been chasing him for the better part of an hour, and Zuko has no idea why. He’s exhausted, wings maybe strained and really, really just wants to sleep or scream or firebend his rage out, but he doesn’t have hands, and the ridiculous little paws he has as replacements are not exactly…
And it’s not like he can run? He can fly, but he’s so, so pathetically tiny and he can’t defend himself and it’s just him and they’ll figure out who he is and they’ll kill him or – or –
“Got him!” And then somebody has him wrapped in what would have been a hug if he were human, but right now, it’s more and intentionally restraining.
He flaps and shrieks and bites, and curses the fact that he has no teeth.
Somebody’s hand moves too close and Zuko pounces that and chomps
“Aaauugowwwww! I am not your teething toy!” the water tribe boy screeches, prying the tiny dragon’s snout off his hand. “I was just trying to feed you. Maybe I’m worrying about this the wrong way. Maybe we should eat you.”
Zuko screeches right back, spitting a fire-blast at what could have been his face. The boy dodges, and he squirms some more. He is not dying like this! Where is his uncle the one time he actually needs him? Nowhere. Oh, and now he’s going to be eaten by the Avatar’s stupid friend group? Actually, anything could eat him, and he can’t do anything and squirms and kicks some more, but whoever got a nice grip on him did it really carefully in a way his claws are pretty much useless.
“Sokka, stop it,” the waterbender snaps, “You’re scaring it even more.”
“Sokka doesn’t mean that,” the Avatar offers way-too-sweetly, leaning over him, but he’s too big and Zuko is, yes, so ridiculously tiny. No, he’s not crying in frustration, but this is ridiculous and more than his level of luck. Agni hates him. “He just says stuff like that. He claimed he was going to eat Momo, too.”
And gestures at the lemur who’s watching the show, big-eyed.
The lemur, who is about Zuko’s size now, too.
He squirms and bites some more. This is ridiculous, he’s supposed to capture the Avatar, not get captured by him. The world hates him, doesn’t it? Zuko hates him.
“I don’t think any of you guys are helping,” the one holding him – the new recruit, the little earthbending girl, says, backing away. “I know what it’s like to be completely alone. He’s just afraid.”
“Okay, fineee,” Sokka huffs, digging through their bags. “Let’s give the little monster some food. And hope it doesn’t try to eat us.”
The earthbender lets him go.
Dragon-baby instincts take over, and food comes before flight.
But seriously. Food. He’s starving.
And no, he’s not turning into Iroh.
He just, actually, hasn’t eaten much in… in a long, long time.
***
Zuko has no idea what happened to the Avatar’s bison, but the said fluffy creature is not here. which is almost relieving, but also means the travel is much longer, and they pretty much set up camps right in the middle of nowhere. The Earthbender girl bends some rocks up over her in a vaguely tent-shaped form, leaving a door open for a crawl space while the others set onto getting the real things set up.
Zuko doesn’t even know why he’s staying here, honestly, just that maybe once he figures out how to re-human himself, if he ever does, he’ll have the Avatar. It’s useful. They don’t know who he is. He can track them from a distance much better like this. It’s basically foolproof.
Oh, and he gets food.
And normal, human-Zuko did not think like this, but dragon-Zuko thinks that’s okay, and he’s a dragon right now, so dragon comes first, right?
He just… sits here. Watching. And waiting.
And then carefully creeps closer towards the earthbender’s tent for reasons he can’t even explain, just curious about here and where she came from. Toph, he’s heard the others call her. Should probably keep their names if they’re feeding him, right? That’s just polite.
And then just curls nearby outside, grumbling at the coldness everywhere and spits fire at the ground to scorch and hopefully warm it up just a bit. His scales are fire-proof. Which is…
Relieving? It’s still sort of… strange.
But Zuko curls up, tucks his snout under his wings, and tries to close his eyes. But sleeping is impossible anyway. Relaxing is nearly impossible. Not that he’s ever been good at it, not since the night Azula came sauntering into his room sing-singing dad’s gonna kill you.
These are enemies. They could kill him. Anyone could hurt him. He’s just – small and pathetically defenseless. Not a prince, not…
Anything.
Just a tiny, baby dragon, lost and alone in this world, and mostly, terrified of his own shadows.
The little rumble is what jars him back to consciousness, and then the ground shifts, carrying him to the front opening of the earthbender’s tent.
“Hey,” she says, literally facing her back to the exit. “Mind watching my back? I’ll watch yours.”
Uh. This girl is really, really weird. Rephrase, girls are terrifying, and this one’s right on the list, but she seems sort of nice in a way Azula never was. But request is request, and Zuko could take some shelter, anyway. It’s cold out there. He sits in the doorway of his tent, carefully glances over his shoulder again, only to see the girl is… shivering.
She doesn’t have a blanket. All the others do, but she doesn’t, which strikes him as strange. But she’s cold.
And, dragon-baby-instincts or no, Zuko takes that in the sanest way possible and crawls over to her, climbing onto her stomach and sprawling across the side of her tunic.
“Wow,” Toph mutters, one arm finally hooking over his tail to snuggle him closer to her chest. “You are really warm. It’s almost as warm as being home. And don’t tell the others I said that, but one thing I miss from home is not being cold all the time. I never had a blanket out here. We tired to get one, but when we lost our stuff… I’m sort of cold all the time. But I don’t want to sound like a spoiled or pampered kid. Katara yells at me enough already. And we already lost all our stuff, anyway…”
Zuko hates that quiet, little bit of hurt and grief hurts his heart just a little. He understands every single word. After his banishment, nothing’s ever been the same. And then, when he lost his crew, his ship, everything… it really is the stupid, little things that bother him the worst.
The food – though… dragons don’t think before stuffing bugs down their throats, and it’s a horrifying little thing he’ll think about a different day. And yeah, the beds. His palace bed was so comfortable, though Toph is actually pretty comfortable, too.
Oh, yeah, not gonna think about that.
***
His brain is still half sluggish, pulled through an entire nightmare-free night, unfamiliar names and words being spoken. But his bed is really, really comfortable, so he could almost be sprawled in a nicely placed pillow-heap back at the palace, but something about that doesn’t feel quite right.
“Toph!”
And then his really nice, soft bed that he hasn’t slept on in a while moves and Zuko is ungracefully dumped onto the ground with a shriek.
“Sorry!” The voice is too high-pitched, and – oh.
Zuko, flat on his back, wings stretched painfully in the dirt, groans loudly with embarrassment.
Really-nice-bed was just one of the Avatar’s friends, and he somehow just fell asleep there because he was trying to keep her warm. Since when does he care how warm anybody is?
The earthbender mutters something while flushing a little and pulls the tent walls down.
Zuko flaps to his feet with a moan of embarrassment. And is that – ohhh. Food –
And flies out of the once-tent as fast as he can to snatch the nearest thing he can cramp in his mouth without chewing. Dragons are vaguely snake-like and apparently swallow things whole – or maybe that’s the no-teeth problem.
Sokka chases him yelling and the lemur comes to join Zuko in the nearest tree after steeling Aang’s first breakfast pick.
The Avatar just giggles and sets down to eat anyway.
The lemur flies away and carries something else up it shoves at Zuko, then backs away and just watches him.
Uh. Does it want him to eat its food? Nobody does that. What does it want?
But it doesn’t screech to smack him when he snatches it, so…
“I think we should keep him.” It takes Zuko a full minute to realize the Avatar is talking about him. “He’s a dragon, and if the other dragons are gone, maybe we should keep him safe, too. Just like we did Momo.”
The waterbender reaches to give his shoulder a squeeze, some little quiet, depressive exchange running between them. “Sure,” she says.
“Okay, hold on!” Sokka whines, hands raised. “That thing bit me!”
“You were scaring him,” Toph answers. Her pupils are gray, which ought to mean she’s blind, but she sure doesn’t act like a blind girl.
“Are you kidding me? You were basically crushing him! Or – you know, that’s what I call aggressive hugging.”
“Well, if I hugged anyone, it would be aggressive,” Toph answers, grinning.
“If we’re gonna keep him,” Katara says – and yes, they are actually talking about keeping Zuko, which might work to his benefit. He did want to track them. “We should at least name him.”
“Come here, dragon… thing.” The Water Tribe boy waves at him. “Come on. Down. Lower. Uh… I’m running out of things that mean down.” At least one of the team-members snickers.
“I don’t take orders from you,” Zuko says moodily and looks the other way, just to make a point.
“I know!” the Avatar chirps, “We’ll get you a drink. You do drink water, right?”
Okay, that’s not something he can say no to, either. He takes that as his maybe-cue to fly down and carefully, carefully sit a short distance away, wings folded tightly and entire body tense. He wishes he could go back to when he was sleeping this morning, all safe and warm. Though he really needs to watch his back – Toph could kill him, too.
But water smells good, too, and he shoves his entire face more or less into It to drink it out.
The waterbender makes this little oh sound like she finds something pitying, that same look that Earth Kingdom girl looked at him with, like he’s something hurt and useless, and he hates how much it feels true. He doesn’t want anyone’s pity.
“Uh, yeah, I thought that thing was a baby.” Sokka again. “What in the world did that?”
Zuko pulls back with an irritated snarl of, “what?!” but everyone – except Toph – is staring at him, eyes wide. He doesn’t know why, but it makes him angry, and it’s scary, and he scampers closer to the only member that’s been labeled semi-safe.
“What could’ve done something like that?” Katara makes a vague gesture towards his snout that leaves him snarling and creeping back.
He has no idea what they’re talking about, the scar, probably – if it’s still on him now, the mark that will never go away.
“What are you guys talking about?” Toph asks. She’s leaning back, hands braced on the ground, probably habit, or maybe it’s the earthbender’s way of meditation. Not like Zuko knows really anything about them – he’s never known an earthbender personally. Obviously. “He didn’t seem hurt to me. Just scared.”
“He has this scar on around eye,” Katara answers, lifting her head to exchange a glance with the boy Zuko’s pretty sure is her brother. “Exactly like the one Zuko had.”
“Oh,” Toph answers, unconcerned. “Okay.”
“I got it!” Sokka pipes up, raising a hand. “We just name him ‘Zuko’. Because he’s – you know. Small, scaley –”
“What does that have anything to do with Zuko?” Katara asks over Zuko’s cranky, “Oh, good to know that’s what you think of me.”
“I’m not finished yet!” he whines, “And his eyes are all creepy and gold –” They are? “- and he spits fire, and has the scar. Are those enough reasons for you?”
“I agree,” the Avatar has the audacity to perk up. “But not really for those reasons.” He holds his arm out, like he’s asking something to jump on him. Zuko just sees his hand move and flinches, scrambling backwards a few feet before Momo jumps to take the offered arm.
“He’s skittish.” Katara is frowning now, brows creased, and Iroh gets that look sometimes and Zuko hates that look. “Somebody hurt him a lot.”
“Maybe his parents were nasty,” Toph blurs out, and Zuko whips around to screech at her in pure outrage. “What?” she asks, shrugging at all the looks. “You have to admit, it’s weird he doesn’t have parents. He’s a baby. If he’s hurt, it’s probably their fault.”
“Uh, Toph, everything that goes wrong in your life isn’t your parent’s fault,” Katara argues fiercely.
Toph’s face just falls and tenses into something angry as she stands up. “Maybe not in your life,” she snaps, pointing at Katara. “You should be more grateful you had a really nice, loving mom when you had the chance to.”
And the waterbender is on her feet, furious. She’s too tall and Zuko can’t even think that she’s angry at Toph, not him – he just flies, shaky and small and terrified.
Toph walks off, and Sokka is grabbing his sister’s arm to keep her from storming after and yelling.
He follows the earthbender, safely out of sight of the others and slowly, very slowly drops onto her shoulder. She’s reminding him a little bit of Mai. Of everyone he lost.
She doesn’t seem to mind, anyway, offering him an arm to curl up around, which he… does. It feels instinctive now, jumping onto her arm, digging his claws into her sleeve and curling his tail around her wrist to balance himself the rest of the way, and she sort of offers her other hand to balance him, like she can’t quite figure out where to put it, and he finally remembers for the first time that, oh, yeah, she’s blind.
That’s why she never knew what the others meant about the scar, and scars probably don’t even bother her, which means, finally, the first person who won’t see him and immediately judge and realize how pathetic and stupid and… everything else he is.
She earthbends herself onto a tree-top and just sits there, feet still balanced lightly on the now giant spike, staring sort of miserably into nothing.
“I know, I’m being a jerk,” she says, finally. “But It’s true. At least Katara had parents who cared. At least she knows what she lost. I only know what I’m never gonna have.”
Zuko thinks about his own family, about his mother – gone – and his father, who he so, so desperately wants to see again, wants – but will never have. And thinks he kind of knows what both of them mean.
“They treated me like a prisoner,” she continues, “Kept me locked in my home. Hid me from the world. They didn’t even really love me. No one did. I didn’t have anyone, until Aang, and he just wanted me for my bending.”
Oh, Zuko thinks, sort of dizzily, and suddenly everything about the girl makes way, way more sense.
“And they are my friends now, you know? But sometimes, I still think if I try to be myself, I just mess everything up.”
“Yeah, me too,” Zuko growls dryly, hopping down to sit next to her, because snuggling is weird. But, really, he hates how much he mirrors it all.
“And Sokka and Katara’s dad just left them,” she continues, “And Aang never even had parents. I’m betting yours screwed something up, too.”
He remembers the floor under his knees, shaking and shaking and sobbing and begging and the blinding, burning pain on his face – and grunts a grumpy agreement, turning away.
It’s not like it’s his dad’s fault he’s such an epic screw-up, anyway. Agni just made him a dragon on top of it all – he messes everything up. That’s not Ozai’s fault. It’s his. But he can’t really say any of that in a language the girl will understand, and neither would he tell her if he had the choice.
And his mother, who is gone, and, honest, can’t really argue with that.
Yeah, they probably did. But it’s still not their fault.
He wonders if Toph would ever understand.
***
Travelling with the… Gaang, of all ridiculous things, as they call themselves, is different. Different than hunting, though Zuko never, never stops watching his back, never stops looking over his shoulder and waiting for the first person to attack him, and grows increasingly confused when it doesn’t come.
It should.
Somebody’s gonna figure out who he is soon enough and try to kill him. That’s just how this works. He doesn’t even know what they want with him. But they’re being so nice. It’s starting to freak him out.
The Avatar has nightmares. Zuko honestly had no idea, until the night he wakes up to quiet sniffling and Sokka quietly talking, sees the two boys snuggling, and just as quickly tucks his snout beneath his wing again and pretends he hears nothing at all. That’s too – too…
He doesn’t want to get attached to these people. He should go back to snuggling with Toph.
Who Katara just waves back into the group after their argument like nothing happened, and Zuko is even more confused. He’d been worried. That they would hurt her, retaliate, or something, but no, they just let her do talk and walk off without any sort of retaliation. It’s honestly really confusing.
No one he knew would’ve done that. Except – except maybe Iroh. But he’s just different.
Zuko’s mostly – okay, actually barely – slipping into the new normal. They get to Ba Sing Se, same destination as him and Iroh, and get safely inside after a brief run-in with Azula. He stayed hidden the entire time, and there were a few definite comments about how he was being completely useless, and he’s just…
Okay, their lemur is the one really being completely useless, and for the record, Zuko is not going up against his own people to keep the Avatar safe. Even if he could probably take a fire blast a lot more than these people.
But now that they’re safe and alone in their new room, Toph finally bundled beneath blankets again (so he doesn’t have to keep her warm, and that’s a weird feeling), it leaves him to just… think.
And he owes them a sort of apology or at least explanation, and misses writing, period. He misses hands, actually, and a lot of things about being human, but the ink and paper set nicely on one of the tables looks awfully appealing and he flies over to offer a very, very awkward apology letter, mostly to Toph, for hiding uselessly under her tunic and trying to not be seen and probably murdered.
Because Azula would gleefully kill the last dragon, entirely unaware that it’s her own brother, and chances are, she wouldn’t care.
One teeny, tiny little problem.
Writing is impossible. Even if he can get his little paw nicely around the brush, moving is hard, and his nicely drawn word that takes his entire arm to move instead of his wrist.
In short, he’s driving himself insane, and then topples slightly off-balance and ruins the whole paper.
He’s entirely blaming it on his dragon baby body when he gets mad enough to scribble all over the entire page and then just torches it. Not like –
Okay, yeah, he’ll begrudgingly admit, that human-still-teenage Zuko would’ve torched it, too. And then he’s staring at the tiny fire problem, which is the fire creeping onto the desk, and, oops, he did not mean to do that. Normal-human-Zuko could’ve put that out with a wave of his hand, but he’s stuck as a dragon and his bending abilities are virtually non-existent.
Of course it’s right there, with Zuko trying to figure out how flapping his wings right is gonna put the fire out before it burns the entire room with him inside (and Toph. He likes Toph. He doesn’t want to hurt her, which is a strange feeling) and without accidently spreading it even more when somebody jolts awake, coughing.
“Hey, wha –” That’s the waterbender, and Zuko’s next thought is oh no, she’s scary. “Hey!” And she’s scrambling from her bed, grabbing her jar of water and throws it over the fire, and him. “Starting fires in our room while we’re sleeping? Are you kidding?!” she yells.
Scary.
Zuko screeches back, no words behind the meaning, just angry and terrified and flies to the furthest, highest corner he can, backing against the wall and hissing at her.
It was an accident. Really. It’s not like he did it on purpose. Though –
She just sighs, and a few of the others are awake and grumbling, but no one else gets out of bed.
“Hey.” She’s talking softer now, but he doesn’t trust a word, curling his tail tighter around himself and shaking, because really, what can one tiny dragon do against a fully trained waterbending master? “Zuko, I’m sorry I yelled, okay? You just can’t be torching stuff while we’re out.”
He doesn’t come out.
The waterbender is still standing there, like she’s waiting for something, and maybe she could’ve coaxed some other dumb animal out, but Zuko’s not that stupid. He’s not moving.
“You can come down, I’m not – I’m not angry at you.”
Sure. Sure, she’s not. He still doesn’t move. She’s gonna get mad at him for that any second now, too, because he can’t keep anything straight or right or anything and the girl is terrifying.
“Toph?”
“What?” the kid grumbles.
“Can you get Zuko down from there? I don’t want him to stay up there alone. And – I cannot believe we named him that.”
“Your idea,” Sokka mutters into his pillow. Aang just giggles.
Toph sighs and flips her blanket’s edge up. “Hey, Sunshine on the ceiling,” she says, which is her way of calling him.
Zuko dives under her blanket and snuggles up, safely out of the scary waterbender’s sight. And really wonders why the should-be-scarier earthbender is somehow the least terrifying person he’s ever met.
Oh, and that’s all fine until he wakes, still half asleep beneath the Earthbender’s blanket – wondering what in the entire world made him decide that she’s the best place to sleep, anyway, she’s an enemy and he needs to be careful, but she’s just so, so nice – when he hears the others talking.
“He’s just so jittery,” Katara is saying, “I didn’t… I mean, Momo never gets scared when we yell.”
“He’s been through a lot,” Aang murmurs, and Zuko grumbles under his breath, tucking his head further under Toph’s arm and tries to pretend that these idiots aren’t literally talking about him. Honestly, that’s humiliating. Can’t they at least do it when he’s not right here? Also, why does the Avatar have to talk about him with so much genuine worry? It’s really confusing.
All Zuko ever did was try to kidnap him… although the Avatar doesn’t know he’s that Zuko. Which is good.
“I still have questions about that mark,” Katara murmurs, “I – I guess we’ll probably never know.”
Zuko curls tighter and hopes they never know.
***
Ba Sing Se is… not exactly the great Earth Kingdom city everyone talks about. Zuko figures that out pretty fast, though the rest of the Gaang seems entirely oblivious. Aang is convinced Appa is here, though Zuko has his personal doubts about that, too.
But, Sokka went somewhere, and slinks back miserable. He flops face-first onto his bed and doesn’t move, mumbling something about people and being annoying, with a few much-stronger words that Zuko grumbles about on principal. Sounds like something his uncle would complain about, anyway.
He misses Iroh.
But these people are nice.
Even if Momo spent hours last night trying to convince him that these people are nice, and he’s starting to understand lemur chatter far more than he wishes he could. Which is stupid.
But, Sokka looks sad, and he’s usually the person who gives Zuko food, which is Important, so he finally peels himself out of his perpetual nap – he’s getting as lazy as Uncle Iroh – and flies jumps on his back. What? It’s a perfectly normal dragon-thing to do.
“Oh, hey, Zuko-who-should-have-had-a-different-name,” the boy grumbles.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, and can’t believe he just asked that, but Sokka somehow understands his little chitter of worry.
“Uuuuuggggghgh.” Okay, Sokka’s beaten him at the best groans, and screams. “People are really annoying,” he says, and goes no further.
With honestly no idea what to do, Zuko just sits beside him, folds his wings, legs, and tail, and just watches him.
The boy reaches out to pat him, and he nearly jumps at the motion, but the hand that touches him is – aside from being way, way too big – soft and gentle. Not like Iroh, but still, gentle, and it means safe and it feels like family somehow.
These people have been kinder to him than his own family has been his entire life.
Zuko tries not to think about that at all. He thinks about it a lot.
***
And then comes the most dreaded day of all week ever.
“Bath time!” the waterbeder yells with glee, bending a massive tube-full of the horrifying liquid.
Momo’s head whips around in wide-eyed horror, Zuko mirrors it perfectly, and they fly as fast as their wings can carry them.
Someone is just cackling. Is that Toph? Take that back, Zuko is definitely torching her.
And a nice gust of air brings them both down and into the splashing tub.
Momo miserably resigns himself to Sokka’s scrubbing, and Zuko grumbles in misery when Katara gets a handful of wing.
Okay, no escaping bath time.
He hates being doted on. But cleaning off is nice. His scales were really getting coated and icky.
Also, he torches the water, and that feels nice. Momo seems to like warm water, too.
Also, this is embarrassing.
***
“Is that Zuko’s tail!” Sokka squawks.
“Maybe,” Toph answers, uninterested.
“Why is it sticking out from under your tunic? What’s he doing in your tunic?”
“If you don’t like it, stop looking.”
And that’s when Zuko decides he’s officially gotten a new little sister.
***
Somebody should have told him running around with the enemy does nothing to make the nightmares go away. He dreams of Azula sometimes, of his sister’s smirking face and Iroh dropping with a streak of fire across his chest. Or of her chasing him, of being too small and tiny to do anything at all, and sometimes it’s just painpainpain and it’s his sister’s face, and he wakes panting and gasping
Or it’s just Angi Kai.
And his father. The Fire Lord. The pain, blinding and searing and burning and he’s begging for it to stop, for everything to stop, but it never does, it doesn’t even lessen –
And then he’s always waking, shaking and terrified, and it’s just…
The enemy.
The Avatar, who’s been even kinder to him than –
Zuko needs to stop thinking that. Of course, Ozai wants him home. He was just – on an important mission. That’s all. Nothing – nothing bad?
Okay, he can’t lie to himself about that, but when he opens his eyes tonight, it’s a pair of wide, gray one staring right back at him, almost seeing his soul, and he snarls and scrambles away from the Avatar’s face as quickly as he can.
“I think you were having a nightmare,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry. I know those get really bad.” And he holds his arm out, like he’s expecting Zuko to jump on him like he has to all the others, and he looks ridiculously hurt when he stubbornly keeps his distance. What can he say? He’s not insane. He’s not going to snuggle with the Avatar.
“Okay,” Aang murmurs, slinking back, “I don’t know why you’re afraid of me… but I guess I can be scary sometimes.” And he sits on his bed again, pulling his knees to his chest and somehow looking utterly dejected.
“I’m not scared of you,” Zuko grumbles, turning his head away, ashamed at the same time. “I just don’t want to like you. I still have to get you back to my father.”
And he feels so, so selfish now.
***
He’s too curious. Bright things are attractive, and instincts say case, grab, bite whenever he sees them, and he chases – just a bit too far, because some really, really nasty Earth Kingdom person has him now, and then he’s being shoved into somewhere dark, hissing and snarling and fighting.
But the grip is too tight, and his sides hurt from where they were being gripped so tightly.
And everything is dark. Somebody’s taking him somewhere, and he has no idea where, if they’re going to hand him off to Azula – please, no – or to somewhere else that he’d be hurt, or to some nasty group of people that like rare animals, which seems the most realistic.
And Zuko’s not an animal, but why would that stop someone from hurting him? It’s not like it’d be the first time.
He tries sending a fire blast at the stupid bag holding him, but it doesn’t torch fast, and then it gets even harder to breathe.
When he gets out, he’ll test the true damage of a raging dragon baby. These people had better watch their backs.
He tries biting instead. Jaws and claws work fine too, right? Zuko wiggles his claws into the burned, damaged area and starts tearing.
***
His escape goes as far as someone figuring out he can only breathe fire and then they just. Tie his mouth shut. And then his front claws when he keeps trying to dig them through the rope, even if they aren’t sharp enough, but he’s basically just squirming.
Typical.
But he still feels so useless and he’s so angry and he can do nothing. He’s just stuck here waiting and entirely helpless and where is Iroh that one time Zuko needs him –
And an air-gust zips overhead, knocking everyone hovering nearby back, and the Avatar is standing there, staff in hand and glowering fiercely.
“Give my dragon back, now!”
The thieves or whatever they are don’t, obviously, and Aang just goes at them. blowing and water-whipping and uprooting a few rocks to throw them. he’s angry, and he’s fighting, and Zuko watches, stunned and hurt and a lot of… other messy things.
Aang would fight – for him?
What he couldn’t have given for his dad or sister or anyone to do fight for him, and it had to be The Avatar who cared enough. His enemy. Who cares more about him than his own family.
Once the cage-door gets open – they locked him in a cage maybe there are parts of the Earth Kingdom that need to be burned to the ground, he cannot believe they did that – he flies to the nearest orange and yellow hide-out, and decides to think about how his fastest flight to safety was crawling under Aang’s outer-tunic a very different day.
***
“I think he strained a wing.” And Sokka is poking at him all over until it’s almost annoying, but everyone is hovering, even Momo, peering over Katara’s shoulder with wide, worried eyes, and far too many hugs to go around.
“I’m fine,” Zuko tries whining, flustered and embarrassed.
But the Gaang has been more his family than his own ever has been, and maybe ending the war isn’t such a bad idea, and it’s a good thing Iroh isn’t here, because Zuko has no idea how he’d explain that to him. Iroh’s son died fighting to capture this stupid city. Zuko isn’t even sure he believes in the war anymore.
“Guys, I think we’re overwhelming him a little,” Katara tries.
“Thank you,” Zuko begs her.
“I told you humans were bad,” Sokka offers pointedly.
That’s one thing Zuko’s not arguing with, though the fussing is a bit… uncomfortable, to say the least.
And then there’s a knock at the door that has everybody freezing. “It’s safe,” Toph interrupts before the first person can panic, even of Sokka already has his boomerang out and Katara is reaching for her bending and Aang his staff. “I know him. He’s an old friend”
Zuko could swear he smells something familiar. Which is an altogether very, very strange feeling. He can tell people apart by smell. Okay, not thinking about that either.
The Water Tribe siblings get the door, and right in front of them stands none other than his uncle, who just offers a way too calm, pleasant smile.
“I know you weren’t expecting to see me,” he offers. “I’m merely here to see if you’ve heard from my nephew. I’ve been looking for him.”
“Oh,” Zuko grumbles crankily from his perch, “Nice of you to show up now, uncle.”
And then the man’s eyes go to him, and he’s suddenly acutely aware of being sprawled lazily across the Avatar’s lap, tail in Toph’s shoulder where she’s sprawled right beside him. And suddenly remembers all the princely stuff and scrambles to his feet as fast as he can.
“Well, we haven’t seen that Zuko,” Aang is starting to say, but his uncle’s eyes are already zeroing in on him, widening a bit with… recognition.
Zuko tiredly resigns himself tot eh inevitable and scampers forwards, offering a dragony, weak “Hi, uncle.”
And Iroh laughs. “Zuko? It’s good to see you.”
He’s here, and Zuko kind of – maybe – forgets all the rest of what’s happening around him and flies to the person who did more in raising him than anyone except – maybe, maybe – his mom, though hugging when his legs are tiny and all he really has is wings is pretty much difficult.
Also, he’s small enough Iroh can hold him easily in one hand. Oh, he must be happy about that. He used to complain that Zuko outgrew him too fast. But he’s too actually happy to even be grumpy about it right now, or think about Sokka’s jaw basically on the floor.
“And, look, you’re small again.”
“Hey!” Zuko whines up at him, even if he’s way, way to content to roll happily on his back like a mishappen kitten. Maybe cats and dragons aren’t so unalike. That’s embarrassing.
“Hold on,” Sokka asks, completely hysterical, “You’re telling me that thing is Zuko?! As in our crazy, fire-shooting ponytail guy-Zuko?”
“Hey!” Zuko yells at him, too.
Iroh laughs some more. “Yes, that’s the one,” he replies calmly, rubbing at Zuko’s scales. Which feels amazing. Aang was doing that earlier to finally get him to calm down, and it felt so nice. Which sounds crazy, but it really did. Dragon senses too, okay? “Oh, your eyes are exactly the same.”
Gold. Predator… yeah.
“W-w-wait!” That’s Sokka, and then Katara and Aang are fumbling on top of each other, and then Aang pushes forwards with a panicked, high-pitched “you mean, that is Zuko?!”
“I know my nephew anywhere.”
“Zuko just… turned into… a dragon?” Aang asks, coming closer. He somehow seems the least concerned. Which is crazy. He’s the one Zuko’s been after for, well…
A long time. A very, very long three years.
“I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t see it for myself,” his uncle replies.
Zuko rolls over to look at them, jumping onto his uncle’s shoulder, which – actually is ridiculous, and childish, and he’s finally starting to feel ridiculous for how he’s been acting. Like a dragon, not a prince. And he is still a prince.
Oh, and also, now that they know who he is…
That’s not good. That’s what he’s been afraid of from the beginning, though Aang doesn’t look angry. The Water Tribe duo are just gaping at him, but none of them look overly hostile, and Toph, for her part, barely even looks surprised.
Though she is twelve – maybe it just doesn’t show.
“Hey,” Aang says, and holds his arm out like he has this entire time, “Remember that time I asked if you thought we could have been friends?”
Yes. He could never forget. That entire interaction, that Aang saved his life where he’d never expected or seen even simple kindness from anyone shook something unrepairable inside him. With a moment of great reluctance, he takes a wing-flap and jumps to the hand reaching out for him, scampering carefully up the orange cloth to a more stable ground. And really, really hopes his uncle isn’t upset about that Zuko’s betraying their nation, and he can’t believe he’s thinking about it. Seriously. Or, at all. He feels awful. But…
Aang giggles. “Yeah! I knew we could.”
“Okay, hang on!” Sokka sounds hysterical. “You just found out that thing was Zuko, and you’re still gonna let him jump around on you?”
“Yeah. Why not?” How can he sound so chipper? It’s unsettling. “I mean, it was pretty obvious – I didn’t know, but I wondered.”
“Oookay, can we back up to the, Zuko became a dragon question?” Katara asks, hands raised, flushing furiously, and he immediately decides he doesn’t want to know what she’s thinking about. Bath Time comes to mind. Ughhh.
Momo just chitters, confused.
Zuko just does his best shrug imitation.
“Yeah, it was pretty obvious,” Toph shrugs, flopping face-first onto her bed. “Fire-breathing dragons when dragons are extinct?”
“How does that mean this one is Zuko?” Katara asks, pointedly raising an eyebrow. “Don’t you think you should have said something?”
“No,” Toph says to her pillow.
Aang laughs again.
“I’m glad you didn’t,” Sokka whines, raising his hands and backing away. “Because this is, too weird. Way, way too weird. I mean, Zuko? That Zuko? This thing is so small and – and cute!”
“Hey!” he yells, offended.
“I think you insulted him,” Aang offers.
“Sorry,” he offers, unapologetic, “But right now, I’m gonna need a few minutes to get my head on straight. Seriously, Zuko?!” He just about screamed the last bit, and even Momo grumbles uncomfortably.
“That explains why he was so jittery with us,” Katara muses, “Except Toph. Which also makes sense.”
She’s too calm about this. He thought they’d figure it out and probably kill him or lock him up or something equally… unpleasant. Not to just stand there, staring at him, stunned but not really angry. Why aren’t they angry? He almost wants to beg them to be, because anger is familiar and it’s normal and not safe, but he knows how to handle it. Even if it’s just painpain and more pain. That makes sense.
This… doesn’t?
Is that what having friends is like?
“If there’s room, I’ll make tea,” Iroh offers, way too happily.
“Uh. Yeah, sure, why not,” Sokka whines, “At least it’s not the Fire Nation’s crown prince respawned dragon baby.”
Katara smacks him.
“I might have some things to explain to my nephew about his… new form.”
“I’m getting the feeling this is all your fault,” Zuko snarls grouchily.
***
First time he’s seen hands when he tried to move in a while, and the firebending sparks are there, the energy inside him humming when he reaches out, letting a brief little puff of heat off his palm, just to see, and it’s amazing.
Even if not having wings is… strangely… grounding.
Sokka’s supposed to be the one with bad puns, not him
But. His hands are human, and he’s human, which means…
Oh, everyone looks much, much smaller than he remembers, and Momo, instead of being about his size, is just sitting curled nearby and blinking way, way, way up at him.
“I’m going to bed,” Zuko decides miserably and decides to think about this a very different day.