Reader One-Shots {ATLA/LOK}

"You're Not the Last Airbender": Zuko

[A/N]: Here's another Zuko one shot (He's pretty popular, clearly), for SassySeaNuggets In this story, you're one of the last airbenders, unbeknownst to the majority of the world. Due to your mixed Fire Nation/Air Nomad ancestry which remained a secret within your family, you quietly practice your bending alone, under the protection of a select group of people. However, one day, you let your guard down in front of some other people hidden within the secret history of the Fire Nation. One of them is a lot like you, and another is someone you'd never thought to have come to love you in your wildest dreams.

One update: I wrote this when I was in a super wild state of mind during college/uni, so if there are bits of it that don't quite make sense or add up, I apologise. I think overall, that it's pretty solid, but just in case you have any questions or anything, you can totally ask me about it. Comment or message me, whatever you need - I'll gladly help clarify. ٩(◕‿◕｡)۶

One other point: I've received a few comments on this asking about Zuko's interest in the reader and his relationship with Mai, saying that he's cheating on her. When I wrote this, I set it in the period in which they'd broken up. I might have been a little off there, but for the sake of this story, just assume it takes place during that time. He was never supposed to be unfaithful to her, and I'd never advocate that he would be. In both the show and the comics, they break up and get back together a lot (as far as I know). They're teenagers. It happens. So yeah, just to keep everyone informed I wanted to note that. Thanks again and let me know if anyone has any other questions. ♡♡

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The indigo skies over the emerald colored hills were turning a fiery amber as the sun rose over the still sleeping streets of the town that sat nestled in the midlands between the Royal Palace and the rest of the Empire. Your hair blew gently in the early morning breeze as you pulled a tattered shawl around your shoulders, the soft clicking of your feet on paved stone giving way to light crunches as you turned to walk the obsidian grounds that led toward the far edge of the city, where the tallest of the cliffs made by the volcano which encased the heart of the Fire Nation provided for the perfect sanctuary for you, and what you could do.

Many people traveled through the paths coming to light beneath your feet, but few chose to stay. There was nothing but beautiful scenery here, and for firebenders, there was no distinct strategic benefits from training in such a place, lovely though it were. You smiled to yourself and inhaled, taking in the smells of gentle fires still burning in the red-roofed homes nearby mixing with fresh air, the smell of pandalillies coming and going with the changing winds. As the growing bursts of sunlight filtered through the trees, light shimmered against the soft swaying of tall grasses still glistening with dew. Your mind raced with a sense of anticipation that had long sense taken the place of fear within your heart.

You had come here before. This was the one place in the entire world that you could truly be yourself, because the people who considered you one of their own had burned any other places which you could call home to the ground.

You were a Fire Nation citizen by birthright. Both your parents were born and raised in the world of the nobility. You had run through the same streets you walked alone through that morning with relatives of the Fire Lord himself. You had played with the same women who would come to join the hunt for the Avatar, and though you wished you could sail away with them, to travel the word together, you had to stay behind.

You couldn't go with them because you were a bender. Though, everyone thought you couldn't bend at all. They were right, in some ways. You couldn't firebend. Yet they were horribly wrong in others. You certainly were not a nonbender.

You were an airbender.

You found out when you were too young to remember exactly what you had done to prove it, but you didn't care what really happened.