Opposites Attract (Zuko x Reader)

🔥 prologue ❄️

Y/n POV:

My name is Y/n L/n. I am a Waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe.

My father was killed in the Hundred Years' War against the Fire Nation. My mother lost her mind with grief. She lives, barely a shell of her former ebullient self, in the igloo Dad built for our family a long time ago. I and the other women of the tribe take care of her, but I couldn't bear to live there any longer. Now I live with my cousin and best friend Sohta and his family. I do my mother's jobs plus a few more of my own, helping with the fishing, hunting, cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the children for the tribe. Somehow, I still find time to spend with my other friends— Sokka and his younger sister Katara.

The two lost their mother Kya to a raid several years ago, before all the men left for war. She was kidnapped and murdered, and now with their father gone in the war, Sokka and Katara live with their grandmother and practically raise themselves.

Sokka is training himself to become a warrior. In my opinion though, the only thing he's actually becoming is a circus clown. He's even got the makeup.

Katara, however, is a Waterbender. She was believed to be the last amongst our village since the Fire Nation took all of them away. They took her mother because she told them she was the last Waterbender instead of Katara.

But a few years ago, I discovered my powers. My Waterbending was abnormally late to reveal itself, but ever since then I'd trained with Katara to try and master our element in case the raiders came back.

Katara was a nice girl. Sometimes a little too nice. She was super friendly to everyone she met. She was loyal to the end. She loved spending time with people. She never held a grudge against anyone.

Well, anyone except for the raider who'd taken her mother.

Me, on the other hand... not so much.

I preferred solitude. It took a lot to gain my trust. I could forgive someone for a wrong, but I rarely forgot. Luckily, no one in the tribe had ever actually gotten on my bad side. The only things I beat up were snowman dummies while training.

Our tribe was small. It consisted entirely of women and children, plus some elderly who couldn't fight. The healthy men were all off fighting the Fire Nation. I vaguely remember the day they all left. Sokka had tried to go with his father, but he was too young. Hakoda had told him to take care of the tribe in his absence.

I had hugged my father and waved goodbye to him as he boarded the ship. He had waved to me and mother from the stern until the ship faded out of sight.

It was the last time Mom and I would ever see him.

A year later, a message arrived. It listed the names of all the injured, missing, and killed from the Southern Water Tribe.

Our little village was only one tribe in the entire confederation, so only two or three were listed as injured or missing. I'd been holding my breath as one of the village elders read the names, and let it out in relief as my father was not on the list.

"There has been one warrior from the village killed," the elder said, his face falling with sadness.

He looked at me, his blue eyes meeting my e/c ones, and I knew even before he said it. My knees weakened.

"F/n L/n," he said.

Gasps echoed through the crowd. A cry escaped my mother, and a few women gathered around her to comfort her. They didn't have much luck.

Sohta, Sokka, and Katara came up to me with consolations, but they were all in one ear and out the other. I was going numb. My mind shut down to grief. I only let myself cry for my father late that night, after everyone was asleep.

Things only got worse from there.

The news of my father's death tore my mother to shreds. They'd been in love ever since they were teenagers. They deserved to have a happily ever after and grow old together. Instead, the cruel hand of fate put an abrupt end to their love story.

I tried as hard as I could to comfort my mother, even as I went through the same pain she did. She had nightmares every night, during which I woke to find her crying and screaming his name. Neither of us slept much. She stopped leaving the hut. Eventually, she began incoherently babbling and mumbling. The only clear word I could catch was F/n's name. She barely ate, drank, or bathed, despite my insistences.

And if I thought that was bad, the real madness was just starting.

Around five months after the news, I woke to my mother roughly shaking my shoulders.

"M-Mom?" I asked, still half asleep and rubbing my eyelids.

"F/n!" She said, smiling maniacally and staring into my eyes, but her own were empty and broken.

She shook me harder. "F/n! You're here!"

I sat up, grabbing her cold hands on my shoulders. "What? Mom, it's me! Not Dad!"

"F/n!" She repeated, tucking a strand of h/c hair behind my ear. "I knew it! I knew you weren't dead! They said you were, but you're not! You're alive!"

"Mom..." my legs shook as I tried to move. She was seriously scaring me now.

"You've been gone so long..." she murmured. "I've missed you so much. Y/n has, too. She's grown a lot... she looks so much like you..."

I shoved her hands off my shoulders and grabbed her, looking into her broken eyes.

"Mom! Snap out of it! It's me, not Dad! I'm not F/n!"

She stilled for a moment, and I bent some water out from the drinking jug, forming it into an orb and dropping it onto her head, soaking her.

Mom jolted. "Y/n! What's going on? Why am I wet?"

I drew in a shaky breath, quickly bending the water out of her hair and clothes and tossing it outside before she got too cold. "You... you were shaking me, and calling me Dad's name..."

"Oh, sweetie," she said. Her eyes were the same, empty and broken, but with some semblance of control now. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to."

"It's all right, Mom," I said, walking her back to her cot. "Go back to sleep."

But it happened again the next week.

Mom broke down crying in my arms after I'd snapped her out of it with more water to the face.

"You have the same eyes..." she sobbed as I gave her the blanket.

The third time though, she wouldn't stop. Not even after two giant water orbs popped over her head. She just kept yelling Dad's name in my face. Panicking, I froze her wrist to the wall and ran away, getting help from my aunt Chuya and Sokka and Katara's grandmother.

I haven't slept in my house since.

It took a lot to scare me, but that definitely counted as more than enough. It was hard, seeing the townswomen care for my mother and try to cure her insanity, but it never worked. Every time I made eye contact with her, her fits started up again. Eventually, every time I saw her, I had to wear a hood covering the top half of my face. I had no choice but to hide from my own mother.

Our house was emptied, made into an impromptu asylum for my mother. I visited her everyday, bringing her food, drink, and clothing, but by this point she'd even forgotten my name. Dad was all she remembered.

Every time, I walked away from that hut with a bigger hole in my heart. And I came to the same conclusion as Katara.

This was the Fire Nation's fault. They had taken everything from me.

And I trained, in weaponry and in Waterbending, with one singular goal in mind.

I was going to make them pay.