Violent Delights, ATLA

chapter nine, beautiful scars

09
BEAUTIFUL SCARS

ZUKO STARED INTO THE MIRROR reflecting his current state; an angry, confused, fifteen-year-old boy with most of his left side covered in bandages from the incident. He could only see things clearly from the right side of his vision and hear things clearly from the same side too. The scorching fire born from the very palms of his own father rendered his left side hideous. He just knew it. The whole world sank into an abyssal darkness for him after his father burned the left side of his face. He could vaguely recall the events that led up to this moment.

He disrespected a general in the meeting room. He was forced to face in a match of Agni Kai not against the general, but against his father, Fire Lord Ozai. He dropped to his knees and begged for forgiveness. His father smiled. His father walked up to him with an understanding face and the prince believed he'd show mercy. His father touched the left side of his face and burned. Zuko screamed and wailed in sheer agony at the hot, HOT, HOT flames eating away his skin, melting it rapidly as if it had mistaken his skin for candle wax and it drooped down to his left arm, spreading the burns, spreading the fire, spreading the pain. The next thing he knew, the world turned black and he woke up with the family physician beside him, informing him it'll take months for his burned wounds to heal and reading aloud a message that declared his banishment from the Fire Nation — only able to return when he finds his honour upon finding the Avatar.

It had been too much to take in. The pain. The news. The facts. He was no longer Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation but Zuko, the exiled prince of the Fire Nation with nothing to be proud of except for the weight of his punishment on his shoulders, his honour long gone from his grasps. His goal now? He supposed it was to find his honour again and return with a new spark of proudness — of proving to his father that he would never disrespect him again and that he had done the impossible.

Zuko will search every nook and cranny of this god forsaken world for the Avatar, even if it will cost him his life.

And yet, layered over his brand new determined goal steeled inside of his head, was the hurt that came with the realisation that his own father had struck a permanent scar on the majority of his left side. He couldn't see in one eye. He couldn't hear in one ear. Despite being patched up, all he could feel was pain.

And pain was a hideous wolf baring its razor sharp picket-fence white fangs at him, leaping inside his ribcages through its spaces and tearing his own heart apart from the inside. Gnawing, chewing, masticating mercilessly turning what was once warm as the summer cold as the winter. Then it would flee to his mind and dig its claws into his pink brain, darkening it with blood red and sending Zuko into a spiral of a headache. Not only was the pain mental, it was just as agonising as it had been physical. On his left side, he couldn't stop burning. He couldn't stop feeling like he was still burning. The excruciating pain tearing his body from the inside out when the fire hit.

Zuko squeezed his right eye shut. When he reopened it, he saw the vague figure of his father in the mirror. Towering over him, amber eyes glinting with disapproval and disgust, lips curled down to a frown and Zuko had never felt so small before. Then he swore he could hear words leaving his father's lips:

YOU ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH. EVERYTHING YOU DO WON'T SUFFICE. YOU FAIL AT EVERYTHING IN LIFE. I MAY HAVE GIVEN YOU ONE MORE CHANCE BUT YOUR SUCCESS WILL BE EXTREMELY SLIM. YOU ARE DESTINED TO FAIL. TO NEVER COME BACK TO ME. WAKE UP CHILD AND TAKE A GOOD LOOK AT WHAT YOU ARE.