Chapter Text
Soulmates are, according to Gran-Gran, a symbol of balance and peace.
Sokka thinks this is definitely an exaggeration. A hundred years ago, perhaps the bond was an example of balance. They say that, before the war, it was incredibly common for the bond to include people from four different Nations. This was not always the case, of course, as the population of the Earth Kingdom is incredibly large and it would be difficult to compare it to the population of the Water Tribes, but...
From what Gran-Gran says, even now it happens that you have a bond with people from outside your country. Most people from their Tribe have soulmates from their Tribe or from one of the other Tribes of the South or North Pole, but there are those whose soulmate is from the Earth Kingdom, like Katara, for example.
Sokka is unlucky enough to have one of his soulmates from the Fire Nation.
It's not hard to figure out. He senses his three soulmates on the edge of his consciousness (the bond always connects four people, perhaps a remnant of the fact that the four Nations once lived in harmony). And even though one of them never responds, he senses the warmth emanating from them.
One of his soulmates is a firebender.
Sokka tries very hard not to think about it, even though Fire, fortunately, never responds. Instead, Sokka focuses on those soulmates who do not belong to the countries they are now at war with – Suki and Yue.
Suki is from the Earth Kingdom. Well, more precisely, from the neutral Kyoshi Island, but she is still part of Earth.
Yue is the Princess of the Northern Water Tribe, and although Sokka has never met her, based on the messages he receives from her, he can tell that she is an incredibly wise, brave, and gentle person.
They exchange messages whenever they feel like it. All they have to do is write something on their skin, and the rest of their soulmates will be able to read the messages. Yue and Suki always respond whenever they can. Fire doesn't respond, Sokka doesn't even know their names, but that's okay because Fire is a firebender, and Sokka doesn't need firebender as soulmate.
Except that sometimes he's curious. He's curious about what kind of person they are, what their name is, whether they're a girl or a boy.
A soulmate doesn't mean a person you have to fall in love with. Sokka is well aware that it doesn't work that way. It's just a person you meet who will be your perfect complement. Someone who will be special to you, with whom you will have a special bond.
At least this is what they say.
And yet, their soulbound for some reason includes a firebender.
And Sokka really doesn't understand why.
So, one day, when Fire doesn't respond to his calls, but Sokka still senses their warmth, distant and remote, but definitely there, Sokka loses his patience.
He picks up a pen and writes a message in a place that would be perfectly visible to everyone, especially his soulmate — on his face.
The message appears during the official dinner.
Zuko is used to these messages. Sokka, in particular, writes a lot, always having a lot to say and share. Yue is calmer, always cautious. Suki writes when she feels like it, but always makes sure to respond to their messages.
Zuko never replies. His mother told him not to, and when he realized that his soulmates were not from the Fire Nation, Zuko understood incredibly quickly why he must not reply.
His soulmates are his enemies.
And that means that no matter how much Zuko would like to write back to them, he simply cannot do so. Doing so would risk him becoming interested in them, which could lead to possible treason. Not that Zuko ever planned to betray the Fire Nation; he is the Prince of his country, and his job is to proudly represent it and be as perfect as possible.
Of course, sometimes he is tempted to reply, especially when he knows that they are still aware of his presence (they probably sense him on the edge of their consciousness, in the same way that he senses them). Ultimately, however, he stubbornly refuses to write anything, knowing that if he broke his resolution and replied, it would be much harder to stay away from them.
So he doesn't write anything. He ignores the messages, which fortunately only appear on his arms or sometimes legs – no wonder, that's the easiest place to write a message. And because of this, Zuko is able to predict where they will write messages, and to keep them hidden, he hides them under his long sleeves.
But this time – this time something is wrong. He senses that specific itch when one of his soulmates writes a message (not to him, his soulmates gave up trying to talk to him long ago). But this time, the itch doesn't come from his arms, covered by long sleeves, but from his cheek.
He doesn't know what was written there.
But one thing is certain – in a moment, everyone at the table stiffens. Azula looks away, Ursa turns pale, and his father... Ozai seems furious.
He puts his cutlery aside, and Zuko does everything he can to hide how scared he is right now.
“Zuko,” Ozai says. “What is this?”
“It's...” Zuko raises his hand to his cheek, as if hoping to guess what is on his face, what one of his soulmates has written. Or maybe he just wants to hide the message, ignore it completely.
The itching continues. The message is getting longer. Not only that, but he also feels an itch on his left arm, a sign that one of his soulmates is replying to the message, perhaps to reprimand the one (Zuko is almost certain it's Sokka) who came up with the brilliant idea of writing something on his face.
Ozai grabs his hand, pulling it away from his cheek. His eyes turn to where Zuko knows the message is.
“What is this, Zuko?” Ozai asks, tightening his grip on his wrist. “Not only are you a disappointment when it comes to your bending, but your soulmates are a disappointment too? Is this all they know how to do, behave like uncivilized savages?”
Zuko doesn't dare look at Azula. He knows her soulmates would never do such a thing. Mai and Ty Lee know how to behave. The last person neither Zuko nor Azula has met yet doesn't send many messages either.
“I'll make sure this never happens again!” Zuko says quickly, trying to suppress the fear growing inside him. “I promise!”
“This should never happen,” Ozai replies. “You are the Fire Prince. You are someone who should represent us. What if this kind of message appeared when you were surrounded by others, servants or guards? Or in the presence of Fire Lord Azulon?”
“I'll make sure it never happens again!” Zuko assures his father. “I'll write to them– I'll tell them never again–”
“You'll write to them?” Ozai repeats mockingly. “Yes. You'll write to them and tell them never to contact you again. This kind of behavior will not be tolerated here. You will not associate with them. Ever again.”
“Yes!” Zuko says quickly. His wrist, where Ozai is holding him, throbs with pain. Zuko almost feels as if his father is about to break it.
He glances at his mother in panic, but Ursa sits where she was, pale and terrified.
Azula somehow finds a pen (the very fact that she has it makes Zuko wonder if she is in contact with Mai and Ty Lee more often than she admits) and holds it out to him. Since Ozai is still holding his right wrist and has no intention of letting go, Zuko grabs it with his left hand.
For a brief moment, the gesture seems natural. Apparently, when he was younger, he tried to reach for everything with his left hand, but since such a thing was unbecoming of the Fire Prince, he was quickly taught not to do so.
The gesture quickly ceases to be natural when he tries to write something just below Yue's message.
Sokka, Yue wrote in her beautiful, elegant handwriting. Writing on our faces and directly calling one of our soulmates is not very polite.
Zuko almost feels like laughing. Of course it's rude.
But he doesn't laugh. He doesn't laugh because Father is still holding his hand, squeezing it even tighter, impatiently.
Don't write to me ever again, Zuko begins, incredibly slowly, in an incredibly crooked manner, because he simply cannot write with his left hand. He hopes his soulmates will be able to read something from this message. I will not respond to you. Ever.
“It would be best to break this bond, if at all possible,” Ozai states. “We should get rid of them.”
“Ozai!” Ursa objects. “Zuko has never met them.”
“And he never will. Just like he'll never write to them again,” Ozai yanks his arm, pulling Zuko up from where he was sitting. “Understood?”
“Yes, Father,” Zuko confirms quickly, blinking his eyes to chase away the tears that are beginning to gather under his eyelids. “I won't write to them ever again, I promise, it won't happen again–”
“I don't need your pathetic assurances, Zuko,” Ozai hisses. “I need you to understand that this situation will never happen again. I need you to learn respect for others, for our country, for the Fire Lord–”
“I will learn!” Zuko says quickly. “I am loyal, I will not do anything to harm our country, I will not do anything that–”
“We'll see about that,” Ozai replies.
And then he clenches his hand.
The pain explodes suddenly, emanating from his right hand, from his right wrist. Zuko tries not to scream, but it is so sudden, so unexpected, but the pain is suddenly too much and...
“Ozai!” he hears Ursa's voice from afar as she stands up abruptly, knocking over her chair. “Stop this immediately!”
“I will,” Ozai replies calmly, “once Zuko learns respect.”
Some time later, after visiting a doctor who treated his broken arm and burns–
(“It's nothing serious,” Ozai said. “It's just your wrist, it's not like you won't be able to use your fingers or that you'll stop being a bender. So stop crying and act like the Fire Prince you're supposed to be.”
(“I'm sorry,” Ursa said, looking at him with tears in her eyes. “I'm so sorry, Zuko. I should have stopped this, but I never thought Ozai would...”)
–Zuko stands by the mirror, trying not to cry. He looks up at his face, at that damn message from Sokka. It hasn't disappeared; messages from soulmates remain until they are read by all of them.
Zuko bursts out laughing as he reads the message.
Hey, Fire Nation, Sokka wrote. Would you like to talk to us sometime?
Below, he added:
It would be nice if you stopped ignoring us.
It's just two messages. Two short sentences, such short sentences, which clearly show that Zuko never spoke to them and never replied to their messages...
Two messages. Two sentences.
Despite this, it is Zuko who has suffered because of this message. He is the one whose wrist is currently radiating pain, making every movement, even the smallest, seem like torture.
Before his eyes, the message fades and disappears. All four of them have read it.
Carefully, trying to use his right hand as little as possible, he curls his left hand. Yue's message is gone, as is his.
Sokka, Yue, and Suki engage in conversation.
Why would that be rude? Sokka asks. Fire is ignoring us.
Maybe they have reasons for doing so, Suki replied.
The other messages are different, clearly responding to his request.
Don't exaggerate, Fire, Sokka wrote. You can't forbid us to contact you. And you can't just decide that you won't talk to us.
Sokka, Suki wrote. You can't force someone to talk to us.
In my opinion, I absolutely can. Don't you think it's unfair that only Fire is silent? I'd like to meet them too. We don't even know if it's a girl or a boy!
Zuko snorts as he reads Sokka's small tirade. Sokka really likes to send a lot of messages and write a lot sometimes.
Even though Zuko is well aware that he shouldn't write anything, that he should leave it as it is, his hand reaches for the pen.
Sokka. Suki. Yue, he begins to write, clumsily, with his left hand. My family doesn't want me to talk to you.
Silence.
And then, after a moment—
Bullshit, Sokka writes, and seriously? Who taught him that language? Sokka is younger than him, after all. Who cares what your family thinks about it?
Zuko takes a deep breath, gathering his courage.
Don't write to me, he writes slowly. The pen keeps falling out of his hand. Never again. My father saw the message. He was unhappy.
So what? Sokka asks. Messages don't disappear, which probably means Yue and Suki haven't read them yet.
Sokka, Zuko writes. My father broke my arm because he read your message.
There is a long, long silence.
Are you serious? Sokka asks, and Zuko can imagine his fear.
The previous messages disappear. Suki and Yue must have read the messages too.
Is everything okay? Yue asks.
If you tell me where you are, I can try to help you, Suki writes. We assume you are with the Fire Nation, but if you tell me where you are, I can ask the Council of Elders to send someone to you. You don't have to live with someone who hurts you.
Zuko almost bursts out laughing as he reads the message.
For obvious reasons, that will never happen. Zuko is the Fire Prince, he lives in a palace. Besides, it's not like he's being hurt here. Ozai hurt him, yes, but Zuko deserved it. Zuko is the one who just wasn't good enough, who didn't make sure his soulmates knew how to behave.
Exactly, Sokka writes quickly. I'm so sorry, Fire, I didn't know. I'll ask Dad for help. You may be Fire Nation, but that doesn't mean you have to stay with your abusive father.
Zuko blinks in surprise. This is the first time he's heard (seen?) anyone refer to Ozai that way. Besides, it's incredibly inappropriate, Ozai is only trying to make Zuko better...
I agree, Yue writes in her beautiful, elegant handwriting. Where are you, Fire? What is your name?
Zuko stares at her words for far too long.
He doesn't move. His left hand clenches around the pen as he fights the urge to respond.
But he can't do it. He can't just tell them who he is, where he is. One, they would hate him. Two, it would be practically tantamount to betraying his country.
So he just stares at the words appearing on his left arm. He silently watches as his soulmates try to convince him to reveal his name, to let them help him.
He watches for a long time until Sokka, Suki, and Yue realize that even if he has read the messages, he is not going to reply to them again. That he is not going to tell them anything more, that he has broken enough rules already.
After a long, long time, Sokka asks a question that makes Zuko hesitate and reconsider his rule of not replying to his messages.
Fire, Sokka writes. I understand why you don't want us to write messages in easily visible places. Something like this will never happen again. But tell me at least one thing. Are you a he or a she? I can't keep thinking of you as they.
Zuko doesn't reply.
But he thinks about that one question, considering all the possible options, whether he should lie to keep them from knowing who they're dealing with. Or maybe he should just ignore this message, just like he ignored many others.
Late in the evening, just before going to bed, he grabs a pen and, on impulse, writes one short word.
He.
Life goes on.
Sokka never writes any more messages on his face. However, that doesn't stop him from writing to Suki and Yue, sometimes even to Zuko.
Zuko, just as he has done for years, does not reply.
Instead, he does everything he can to ignore his soulmates. But late at night, when no one can see him, he rolls up his sleeves and reads the messages from Sokka, Suki, and Yue. Sometimes he allows himself to imagine that he would tell them the truth, that he would hide nothing from them, that they would be equals, and that their bond with Zuko would be as strong as the one the rest of them had with each other.
But in the end, reality wins out. Zuko is well aware that he simply must not speak to his soulmates, that he must not try to contact them. It's bad enough that his soulmates are not from the Fire Nation.
So he remains silent, a mute observer of what is happening around him.
Sokka's mother dies as a result of the Fire Nation's raids. Zuko knows that the woman was not a Waterbender, that the Last Southern Waterbender was a girl named Katara, but he still does not correct Fire Lord Azulon when he holds a banquet celebrating the death of the Last Southern Waterbender.
And that is precisely why Zuko should not associate with his soulmates. If he were a proper Fire Prince, he would have told the Fire Lord the truth, mentioning that the Last Southern Waterbender is still alive and could become a threat to them in the future.
Instead, Zuko remains silent.
Uncle Iroh goes to Ba Sing Se, and Zuko, instead of being happy that they are continuing their goal of showing the other Nations their greatness and glory, feels relieved that it is Ba Sing Se that is under siege and not Kyoshi Island.
Lu Ten dies.
Uncle Iroh decides to break the siege. Rumors reach the palace that Uncle Iroh has changed, that he has aged in an instant, that he has gone mad with grief, that the Western Dragon has become a shadow of his former self.
Ozai raises the issue, informing Fire Lord Azulon and asking him to consider changing his successor. Fire Lord Azulon, according to what Azula later says with a cruel smile on her face, does not agree and wants Zuko dead.
This never happens.
Fire Lord Azulon closes his eyes never to open them again, and Ursa disappears in the middle of the night.
A few days later, the Fire Sages place the crown on Ozai's head.
Zuko still doesn't write to his soulmates, even though sometimes he wants to tell them about everything that's going on. Even though sometimes he wants to share with them that he feels so lost, so alone.
They would understand him, probably.
Yue is the daughter of Chief Arnook. A Princess. She knows what it's like to be royalty, she knows what it's like when everyone has such high expectations of you.
Sokka lost his mother. He knows what it's like to wake up knowing he'll never see her again.
Suki is still young, but in the future she will be the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors, she has been chosen for this and is being trained to be the leader. She knows what it's like to have a duty to protect her people.
But Zuko doesn't write to them. He stubbornly refuses to write to them, not allowing himself to believe that there might be a future where they could be friends.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter whether Zuko writes to them or not, because not much time passes before Ozai's hand reaches out toward him and his body is engulfed in flames, making Zuko understand that, soulmates or not, Zuko will never be enough for his father.
Apparently, he still hasn't learned respect, even after all these years.