The Avatar and the Fire Lord
"I need him like water, he thinks that I'm alright. I'm not feeling human, I think he's a good guy." - Katie Gregson-MacLeod
🌊⛰️🔥🌪
"A single smile changed everything."
Five simple words written in Fire Lord Sozin's perfect scrawl. They rocked Zuko to his core. He knew where the story was going. He knew how it ended. He wasn't sure he wanted to know the rest.
He considered putting the parchment down or torching it right then and there. Either way, Zuko could walk away from his Great-Grandfather's history and live the rest of his life in ignorant bliss if he just stopped reading.
But ignorance and bliss had never really seemed to be in Zuko's cards, so he continued on the uncomfortable journey despite the violent ache rising in his chest.
In the spirit world, Aelita watched as a sixteen-year-old Sozin slipped a message to a servant while the new Avatar and Akira attempted to soothe their first meeting jitters.
"I should have known then and there that Sozin would grow to be an ambitious man," Tulan remarked somewhere between fondness and regret. "He convinced his father, Fire Lord Kazan, to have me as their honored guest during my time in the Imperial City. My Avatar and I were to be given two weeks to acquaint ourselves before we set off into the world together, and the Prince hoped that by acting as my host, he would alleviate some of the pressure from Roku. It was a clever cover."
The world shifted. Aang and Aelita stood next to their past lives on opposite sides of an open field outside the city's watchful eyes. Prince Sozin took up one end, calf-length pants cinched around his waist, beads of sweat dripping down his bare chest. Tulan and Roku panted heavily on the other. Both were a barefoot display of lean muscle in sleeveless training tops in the colors of their nations. Patches of burnt grass littered the field and rough stone lay scattered in unnatural piles.
Sozin grinned. He pivoted on one heel and kicked high, a trail of fire following the arch. It fanned out with speed in Roku's direction. The young Avatar slapped his hands together, creating a wedge to split the flames while his best friend pressed forward to close the distance between them. The Prince dropped low and swept wide once more, a new wave of ember now aimed at Roku's lower half. A wall of stone ripped down the middle of the field before the attack could make its mark. Sozin looked over the rock to find the Akira grinning at him in a 'don't-forget-about-me' manner. Tulan surged towards the wall on rolling earth. She slammed closed fist after fist against the hard rock, punching out boulders the size of a turtle duck's shell. They shot out with wicked speed and deadly precision.
Sozin's face was a wash of pleasure and admiration for the new challenge. The Prince ducked and bobbed around the flying stone, almost losing track of his friend in the process. He brushed away Roku's fire just before it made contact with his skin and caught the Avatar's fist in his hand. He pushed the other boy back, both of them skittering away from one another. He looked down as the ground beneath his feet trembled. Sozin dove out of the way just in time to avoid being crushed between two tall flat pillars of earth that jutted up and clapped together. The Prince then met Roku head-on in a flurry of fire.
"Is this the best you and your partner can do, oh mighty Avatar?"
"Please," Roku panted from behind a grin. "Wouldn't your Father be so disappointed to hear you've struggled so much against a little girl?"
The Prince cursed loudly but remained smiling. Aelita wasn't sure what she hated more - seeing just how good Sozin had been even before his prime, or thinking of how very much she was reminded of herself and Zuko as she listened to the Avatar and the Prince taunt and banter with one another as they traded nearly even blows.
Across the field, Aang just barely noticed as the faintest particles of earth began to move beneath the feet of the firebenders. Suddenly those feet were ripped out from beneath the teenage pair, the two of them tipping forward until their skulls collided together. They fell hard on their stomachs with a resounding 'oof', utterly dazed and confused.
"What the..?" Roku asked as he rubbed his now aching head.
Tulan strolled lazily to their sides. She conjured a perch of hardly visible dust with a flick of her wrist and sank onto it casually. "Don't forget boys, dirt is earth."
Sozin wanted to nod in approval but the throbbing in his head only allowed him to roll onto his back and squeeze his eyes tightly shut instead. "I think you broke my face with Roku's face."
The Akira simply shrugged. "He said 'little girl' like it was a bad thing."
Roku sputtered in his half-hearted annoyance as his new partner stood and made zero effort to help either of them up even though she was meant to be on his side. He rolled off his stomach and turned his head to check on his friend but found Sozin's gaze focused wholly on Tulan as the Prince watched her go.
"Do you think Akira Tulan is related to my friend Toph somehow?" Aang asked Roku as Fang landed once more behind them. The Avatar only chuckled as he climbed about to take the boy to see more of his and Sozin's shared past.
In the human world, Zuko continued to devour the text depicting Sozin's life, not allowing himself to slow down and think about what any of it meant or how uncomfortably familiar it felt.
"Soon the time came when my friend Roku had to leave the Fire Nation and face his destiny as the Avatar. He needed to travel the world so he could master the other elements and grow with his new Akira, but I had grown accustomed to her presence, and I quite enjoyed it."
Aelita found herself standing in the oldest section of the palace library. She could see the night sky in the windows beyond. The teenage version of the woman beside her lounged in one of the two large reading chairs before the roaring fire. She wore a simple crimson dressing gown gifted to her by Roku's mother, the light material covering her neck and shoulders. Her skin had been freshly scrubbed and her hair was still free and slightly damp and drying in the summer air. She flicked through a tattered old copy of 'Love Amongst The Dragons'.
Sozin paused between the library shelves when he caught sight of her. He stood like a ghost in the shadows as he took her in, watching as the play unfolded in the expressions written on her face. The wafting steam coming from the tray in his hands finally snapped the young Prince from his trance.
Sozin cleared his throat to announce his presence. Tulan quickly snapped the written copy shut and rose as if she meant to bow.
"Please," Sozin halted her with a grin. "I think we're past the formalities now."
Aelita grimaced when her past life blushed. "Gross."
The adult Tulan elbowed her lightly. "You didn't hear me chiding you when you happily cozied up with his great-grandson."
"I didn't hear you at all when I was happily cozied up with his great-grandson. You didn't show up until right before we stopped being cozy or happy."
The teenaged Tulan settled back into her chair. Sozin set the tray on a small table next to her and claimed the only other open seat before the fire. She glanced at the tray to see it laden down with two cups, a bamboo chasen, a kettle of steaming water, a bowl of matcha powder, and a plate piled high with mochi. She looked back at the Prince. "What's all this?"
"A late-night treat seeing as neither of us are sleeping like we should be," he explained as he set to work pouring the water from the kettle over the matcha. "You have an early start tomorrow, and I plan to see you off, but..."
"But?"
Sozin slowly set down the kettle while he searched for the right words. He picked up the chasen to steady himself and began to whisk. "But I'm not ready to say goodnight or goodbye yet."
The Prince didn't look at her again until the tea mixture had turned a bright, frothy green. When he finally glanced up, she was smiling at him softly, even more beautiful somehow than she was the first night he saw her. She picked up one of the empty cups and waited for him to pour. "Then don't say goodnight."
Sozin returned her smile. They settled back in their chairs with their cups of tea. "Are you ready to see the world?"
"As ready I'll ever be, I suppose," Tulan sighed. "I don't know. Do you think we'll be alright?" She asked. "Roku and I? It was one thing when I left my village on my own, but trusting someone else is a little bit frightening."
"If you're safe to trust anyone in this world," Sozin said genuinely. "It's Roku. You'll see it for yourself in time. I promise."
"I guess I'll have to take your word for it," she said with a small, appreciative grin. "Princess Zeisan came to wish me well this evening."
Sozin's smile faltered. "Of course she did."
"It was a kind gesture, Prince Sozin," Tulan insisted. "Much like this is a kind gesture."
"Kind is about all she's good for," the boy muttered.
The Akira only looked at him with a puzzled stare. "Why do you hate your sister?"
"I don't hate her."
"You certainly don't like her."
"Can you blame me?"
"She's been nothing but welcoming and respectful to me, so yes, Prince Sozin, I can."
Sozin groaned and swirled the tea in his cup. "You're an only child, right?" He asked. The Akira nodded. "Then you wouldn't understand. Everything has always been a competition between us."
Aelita frowned where she stood. Her past life mirrored her expression."Why?"
"That's just the way things are with siblings."
"Does it have to be?"
Aelita saw the doubt flash just briefly across Sozin's face before it disappeared. "In my family it does. Here, try one of these," he said, reaching for the plate of treats and holding it out for the Akira. He smirked once more. "Unless you're scared you'll cry again like you did with the fire flakes."
"Oh for spirit's sake, it was one time! And I'm an earthbender for crying out loud, I'm sorry that I don't have an unnatural spice tolerance like you freaky firebenders!"
The Prince laughed, deep and full-bellied. "Don't forget, Akira Tulan, you'll be a freaky firebender soon enough."
The teenage girl couldn't help but laugh with him, clearly enjoying the joyful sound as she watched him with soft, dream-filled eyes. "Hopefully not too soon."
"I've seen enough," Aelita insisted to the grown earthbender beside her, turning away from the scene that felt too raw. She walked out of the library and into the hall of a Fire Nation home she didn't recognize, unaware that Aang was watching nearly the same scene from Roku's eyes.
"Look at him," teenage Tulan whispered to the Sozin as they hid in the shadows outside the Avatar's childhood room. She peaked around the doorway to see him standing before his bed unmoving, all of the treasures and relics of his life up until then spread before him. "Does that look like someone ready to travel the world with a stranger?"
"You've been here a fortnight and you've thoroughly kicked his butt on more than one occasion. I'd hardly consider you a stranger anymore."
"Prince Sozin-"
"Just Sozin. When it's only us, just Sozin."
"Oh, that was smooth," Aelita was forced to admit.
Tulan merely nodded while her younger self flushed. "Talk to him, Sozin. Please. For me. I-I want us to be the best team we can be, and I want him to be happy."
"If you're this nice to Roku all the time, you're either going to give him a big head," Sozin smirked as he ducked out of way from the Akira's swing. He held up his hands innocently. "But I'll go talk to him. For you, Akira Tulan."
The Prince of the Fire Nation slipped into his best friend's room as if he hadn't been there the entire time. "Hey, why aren't you packed yet, all-powerful Avatar?" When Roku didn't so much as look at him, Sozin failed his arms in legs in a set of exaggerated fighting moves. "Come on, show me how it's done using all four kinds of bending."
Roku only glanced over his shoulder to the Prince and sighed. He sank onto the edge of his bed. Sozin sat beside him."I started packing, but then the Fire Sages told me I won't need any worldly possessions anymore."
"Tell that to your partner. Have you seen how many bags she made me stuff into your carriage?"
Roku chuckled. "I did. But...she still seems so much more ready for all of this than I am. It all happened so fast. Everything's gonna be different now."
"She's just had a little more time to adjust than you have," Sozin insisted after his conversation with the girl the night before. When the nerves had yet to fade from his friend's face, the Prince reached up and removed the flame headpiece that had been passed from generation to generation up until then. He placed it into Roku's hands. "Here, hope you're at least allowed to have this."
The Avatar went wide-eyed. "But this is a royal artifact. It's supposed to be worn by the Crown Prince."
Sozin closed the other boy's fingers around the piece. "I want you to have it."
Roku blinked but a small smile crossed his face. He slipped the circular base of the crown around his top knot and secured it in place. He and the Prince stood. They wrapped one another in a final embrace. When Sozin left the Avatar to finish packing, a radiant earthbender stopped him at the door.
"Just Tulan," Aelita heard her past say as she climbed onto the back of Gamabunta. "When it's only us, just Tulan."
"Hey," Aang blinked when he realized he was back on Fang, soaring through increasingly familiar skies. "We're almost at the Southern Air Temple!"
"This was the first stop on Tulan and I's journey," Roku remembered with a small smile. "It was the place where we were trained to master airbending. By starting our training with the element new to us both, would walk on even ground, and grow humbly side by side. And humbling our time together was."
From a temple window high above the clouds, Aelita watched as a still sixteen-year-old Roku and Tulan collided mid-air on borrowed gliders, both clad in orange and yellow robes identical to the ones she had grown used to seeing on Aang. She leaned out the window to see them land in a tangled heap of leaves and limbs when they crashed into a tree growing off the side of the mountain. A bald young monk with kind grey eyes laughed merrily from a ledge above them.
"Who's that?" Aelita asked.
"A dear friend of someone you love," Tulan said, smiling fondly as the monk disappeared to mount his sky bison and fly to their rescue."Monk Gyatso."
"No way. Like, Aang's guardian Gyatso?"
Tulan was still watching the young man when he emerged from the clouds on Norbu's back, her eyes a little far off and distant. "The one and only."
The sun shifted in the sky to show the passage of time. When the three teens emerged from its glow, they took to the sky with confidence and ease on their gliders, hooting and hollering in innocent eighteen-year-old glee.
"Hey Gyatso," Roku called to the still-grinning monk now soaring in the middle of their little formation. "You wanna see a new glider trick?"
The Avatar didn't wait for an answer as he looped upside down in a series of rolls. Gyatso scoffed his eyes at the simplicity. "Check this out!" he shouted back. With a hard tug, he heaved himself up until he could stand upright on his glider, balancing on the wooden frame.
"He's air surfing!" Aang cheered. "I can't believe I never thought of that."
"He's air surfing," Aelita nodded in awe. "I can't believe Aang never thought of that."
"Show off!" Tulan snorted from a little ways below Gyatso. She blew out a gust of wind just strong enough to knock him off balance. The monk stumbled in the sky as his glider fell out from under his feet. He reached out with clumsy hands as he dropped, catching the edges of his friends' gliders. The Avatar and Akira managed to hold his weight between them but just barely. They lost control of their flight and with three shouts of panic, they dropped lower and lower until they landed with a heavy thud on the flat training grounds of the Temple below. They laughed madly together this time when they realized they were all indeed alive and in one piece.
"That's amazing!" Aang dreamily sighed from his seat on Fang. "I can't believe you two were friends with Monk Gyatso just like I was!"
Roku could only smile. "Some friendships are so strong, they can even transcend lifetimes. Tulan and I spent years mastering airbending, building valuable relations, and learning about the spirits. From there, we traveled to the Northern Water Tribe."
The world around Aelita had changed once more to another place familiar to her. A short distance away, a twenty-three-year-old version of her past life sat in quiet meditation before a beautiful koi pond, the fish inside a mirror image in a never-ending black-and-white dance. Tulan's hair had been cut shorter, and her face was now heavy with freckles. She wore a thick parka and a necklace of heavy wooden beads from her time in the South.
"This is the Spirit Oasis inside the North Pole."
"It is," Tulan nodded while her other half allowed his current life to witness his struggles with this hardest element. "Waterbending was especially challenging for Roku, but in time, he mastered it as well. Before I knew it, another four years had passed."
Aelita couldn't hide her slight grimace. "The Northern Water Tribe was a little bit... backward until recently, even if you weren't there to learn waterbending. What did you do for four years?"
Tulan smirked as the waters of the Spirit Oasis rose like a living thing to wrap gently around the meditating woman. "I had ways to occupy myself."
Aelita blinked and the Akira was gone.
"I spent a year in the Spirit World."
"A year?"
"Yes," The adult explained as months passed in another blink. "The North and South Pole were once home to portals that connected the two worlds until a time long, long ago when our past lives saw fit to close them. But, that's a tale for another time."
Aelita looked out into the Oasis again, her past life sat once more where she had previously been. This time, a twenty-four-year-old Roku charged into the wintergreen with a hoot and holler of pure joy. While his current life watched on in the distance, he all but threw himself at Tulan, wrapping the Akira in his arms and tugging her up as she came back to her body. They laughed together like giddy children as he spun them in giddy circles. A crowd of proud-looking waterbenders watched on from the Oasis entrance as Roku finally set his partner back on her feet. He smiled and gripped her shoulders as if he were afraid to let go. "Welcome back, old friend."
Gamabunta appeared behind the grown Tulan and the two Akira's climbed onto his back. The elder spoke as he began to dig.
"Finally, it was time that I taught Roku earthbending. But, the peace and stability Avatar Kyoshi had brought to my land was beginning to crumble," she said as they emerged on the other side of the world in the remnants of a tattered settlement along the edge of the Si Wong Desert. The young adult version of herself stood amongst the dust and debris, Roku a short distance away as he looked through the remains of what Aelita deduced was a black-market animal trading post. He lifted two cracked halves of a large, scaly red egg. A small growl from a partially buried basket by his feet caught both of their attentions. Tulan jogged to the Avatar's side as he blew away the sand with a gentle gust. Wrapped tightly around one another like a bonded pair was a dragon hatching and a baby badger mole. The adult Akira smiled softly, but only for a moment before the world shifted once more. It stopped somewhere along the green slopes of the mountains outside her village. "Though I was a servant of the world and the spirits, I still felt fiercely protective over my people. Where they needed me, I went."
A twenty-five-year-old Roku stroked the muzzle of a fully grown Gamabunta. He stood by as his friend embraced her gradually aging parents, her traveling dress hiding the thin plates of armor beneath it. She made her sniffling mother smile when she promised to bring back some sort of trinket from the northern coast. Her smile faded when she turned her back to them.
"I don't like this," Roku reminded her. "I should be going with you."
"No, you shouldn't," she insisted. The Avatar bent down on one knee and cupped his hands. She placed her foot in his grip and allowed him to help hoist her onto Gamabunta's back. She looked down at him as she settled in for her journey. "If King Jialun and Queen Guo Xun's war for resources makes it outside their own borders, you'll need to be the one to stop it. And I won't have time to train you if I'm busy stopping a different war. You're finally making strides in your earthbending, Roku."
"You don't have to say finally like that."
Tulan smiled wickedly at her partner. "Don't miss me too much, old friend. I'll be back before you know it."
A chill ran down Zuko's spine deep beneath the Temple. The words on the parchment refused to go unread. "I'm not ashamed to say I had more than one motive when I ran to the aid of Akira Tulan's people. I already knew what I envisioned for my legacy, even if I had planned to go about it differently then."
The smell of sea salt was almost overwhelming as Aelita took in the signs of the tsunami-ravaged village along the Earth Kingdom's northern coast. In the remnants of a ruined town square, her past life argued with a still-bruised and bandaged elder.
"If the spirits didn't curse us, then who did?" The man demanded to know, gesturing to the devastation around him as his people worked to bury the few bodies they had managed to reclaim from the sea. "The Grand Lectors say the Northern Water Tribe controls the ocean. You can't tell me this doesn't reek of their doing!"
"I can tell you, Magistrate, because I know the Northern Water Tribe," Tulan patiently insisted. "I know Chief Rohan. He is a kind man and a wise ruler. He wouldn't lay waste to a territory he has no qualms with. He wouldn't bring unnecessary war to his people."
The man scoffed. "You think you know, Akira Tulan. You've spent too much time out and about in this world! You've ignored the word of our King! You've ignored the threats our people face!"
"Then enlighten me, Magistrate," Tulan half desperately pleaded after getting nowhere with the man. "What has the Earth King said? What threats do we face? Who would be so reckless as to stand against the home of myself and Kyoshi?"
"How dare you!" The Magistrate seethed. "How dare you compare yourself to Avatar Kyoshi! You don't even deserve the legacy of Akira Ragnar, and he was a Southern Water Tribe brute! A thug! Avatar Kyoshi always had the best interest of the Earth Kingdom at heart while you...you..."
"Have been based in Tu Zin for the last two years," she reminded him. "Shutting down illegal trade, keeping the peace between Ba Sing Se and Omashu, and teaching the Avatar earthbending. And now I'm standing in your village, and you're the only thing stopping me from helping your people."
Aelita was almost certain the man was going to explode but a disheveled woman in tattered, water-soaked clothes came shouting. "Magistrate! Magistrate!" She yelled, stopping to point toward the decimated harbor. "Fire Nation ships! Fire Nation ships flying the imperial flag!"
Tulan's breathing hitched. The Magistrate glowered at her. "I told you girl. Half our ships are still out to sea in safe waters. The rest are on the bottom of the ocean floor. We're ripe for the picking unless our mighty Akira does something!"
She didn't bother to respond. Instead, the young earthbender raced to the waters edge. Sure as the woman had claimed, three Empire Class Fire Navy ships had dropped anchor a safe distance from the shore. A contingent of smaller, man-powered boats paddled towards them, filled to the brim with Fire Nation soldiers.
The younger Akira fell to her knees in the sand. Even after ten long years apart, she knew the man standing at the front of the closest boat.
"It had been three weeks since Sozin's last letter," Tulan explained. "We had made a point to keep in contact as we could whenever Roku and I would be staying in one place long enough for a reply to find us. He had never once mentioned sending a small fleet to the Earth Kingdom. He certainly hadn't mentioned that he'd be leading them."
The man looked more like the Sozin that Aelita knew from portraits and sculptures. His face had grown more sharp and he was no longer clean-shaven. His eyes were serious as he studied the coastline, but they softened when they found Tulan. He launched himself from the boat before it came to a stop, wading through knee-deep water. When the earthbender didn't rise, he offered her his hand. "Hello, Akira Tulan."
"I hadn't known she'd be there," Zuko read. "But I had hoped. She was on the other side of the Earth Kingdom training Roku the last I heard from her, but I had set out shortly after her most recent letter to lay eyes on an island I hoped to seize from the Water Tribes. When the tsunami struck, I saw an opportunity, and I took it. Internal conflict was stirring under King Jialun's rule. By lending my aid when the Earth King refused to give his own, I was able to plant seeds and ideas in both their nation and my own. Seeing the Akira after ten years apart was an unexpected bonus. I had missed Tulan more than I was willing to admit."
Aelita could see unmistakable feeling on the young earthbender's face. She could see it because she recognized the relief and adoration in her eyes. Tulan didn't care that there was an audience. She threw herself at Sozin the moment she realized he was real.
The sudden show of affection caught them both off guard. Sozin instinctively wrapped his arms around her but was knocked off balance by the force of their embrace. They toppled backward into the shallow waters, the Akira landing unceremoniously on top of the firebender.
She cursed while he laughed. Tulan scrambled off of him and pulled him to his feet as the last of his men climbed from their boats to wait for his orders. She jerked her wrist and sent a breeze his way just strong enough to blow the water from the fine uniform she had never seen him in. "You're here. I can't believe you're here. Why are you here?"
Sozin caught her hand and held her eyes with his own. "To help," he said simply.
"She looked at me as if I hung the stars in the sky," the Fire Lord wrote and Zuko hated that he could picture the same expression on the face of a grey-haired girl.
Tulan watched as the young man she adored bowed to the shaken Magistrate and offered his sympathies and support."Sozin had been Fire Lord for two years by that point, and he encouraged international relations more than any of his ancestors before him at that time. He encouraged his people to seek wisdom and connections outside of the Fire Nation, and to my knowledge, he offered aid freely and avoided conflict both inside and outside his borders. I had no reason to question his motives, and his arrival backed my claims that the Earth Kingdom had little to fear. With the extra hands and his gifted supplies, I was able to focus on what I did best as the Akira. I worked with the local spirits to tend the battered land, and I gave the villagers peace as I helped them mourn their dead. Thanks to Sozin, I was able to win the faith and backing of not only the Magistrate, but the entire region."
"It was all just a part of his plan," Aelita cooly remarked as time passed in rapid succession and the town before her gradually appeared less grim. "Sozin wanted to make the Fire Nation out to be the greatest civilization in history so that the war could be our way of sharing our greatness with the rest of the world."
"It was," Tulan agreed with the girl. "But affection can be blinding."
Under the glow of a then-full moon, the Magistrate thanked both the Fire Lord and the young Akira time and time again. Sozin, the picture of diplomatic humility, only apologized for not being able to stay longer and swore that a secondary relief fleet would be there before the month's end. Tulan did much of the same, promising that when she returned, she would come with the Avatar. The grateful man bid them a final farewell and left the two alone at the edge of the village. Gamabunta snorted and swiped his massive paws back and forth across the ground, eager and ready to reunite with Roku and Fang.
Sozin grinned at the impressive beast. "I believe that's your call to get moving."
"I guess so," Tulan sighed. "Roku will be sad he missed you."
"And I'll be sad I missed him," Sozin admitted. "But I've already been away from the Fire Nation long enough. My people need me." He said as he gently caught the trembling girl under the chin and forced her to meet his eye. "Just like the world needs you and Roku."
Tulan offered him a bittersweet smile. "We'll find our way back to one another soon."
The Fire Lord stepped closer to her, shortening the distance between them until they were nearly breath to breath. "Is that what the spirits whisper in your ear, Akira Tulan?"
"It's what my heart whispers to me, Sozin," she said as her lips gingerly brushed his own. "Because I believe our fates are somehow intertwined."
Aelita walked away without waiting for her past life. Tulan lingered in the past a moment longer.
"Roku continued his training while I was away," she explained when she caught up to her current life. They walked through the Earth Kingdom in a matter of steps until they came to a halt in the mountains just beyond Tu Zin. "I left him under the guidance of my own earthbending master, Sud."
The two Akira's watched as Roku, nearly twenty-six and far from the too-gangly boy he had once been, moved barefoot and bare-chested beneath the glowing sun. He swung his arms in quick motions across his body to bend a large piece of earth, riding up the side of the mountain. An older earthbender matched his movement and pace, his skin dark and his face determined. The two competed for speed, weaving through the towering trees as if they were merely minor obstacles. Sud seemed to overtake the boy in no time flat.
"He was uncompromising, stubborn, blunt," Tulan described her old teacher the same way Roku remembered him to Aang. "And a lifelong friend."
Roku was lost from sight as the two raced through the thickest part of the brush. Sud crested the mountain and brought his landmass to a skidding stop, tossing his hands in the air in an apparent victory until he realized he wasn't alone. The Avatar already sat there, reunited with his Akira, her hair now pinned in the buns her young incarnation had come to know her with. Roku poured himself and his partner steaming cups of tea. They shot one another a wicked grin before offering the third glass to their teacher.
"We spent another two years in the Earth Kingdom. It was bitter work," Roku explained to Aang as the Avatars found themselves flying above the edge of the Wulong Forest. Beneath them, Tulan sat on Gamabunta's back with Aelita, the four of them watching as the grown pair battled the forces of an approaching tidal wave with shining blue eyes.
"But the results were worth it," Tulan assured the girl behind her as she and Roku flowed easily from element to element, a seamless duo forged by time and trust.
In the Dragonbone Catacombs, Zuko's heart hammered in his chest while he continued Sozin's story. "I stayed busy in those two following years. Twelve had passed altogether since I last saw Roku and Tulan side by side. When they returned to me, they were a fully realized Avatar and Akira. But I had changed as well."
Aelita stood with Tulan along the edges of what she could only assume was once the throne room though it was far smaller and less imposing than the one she knew. There was no wall of fire before the dais, and the space seemed almost inviting as a twenty-eight-year-old Roku burst into the room, dressed once more in familiar Fire Nation robes, his gifted crown still pinned in place. "Sozin!" He beamed with open arms. "Or should I say, Fire Lord!"
"Customarily, my subjects bow before greeting me," the man on the throne pretended to scowl but the look quickly faded into a grin as he rose. "But you're the exception."
The two laughed as if nothing had changed between them at all because, at the time, nothing had. They met before the throne in a tight embrace similar to the one they shared before the Avatar's departure.
"After all those years, he was still my best friend," Roku explained to Aang from their side of the throne room.
The two men pulled apart and held one another at arm's length, taking in all the growth of one another. Sozin was still broader than Roku but not by nearly as much, and the difference in height between them had shortened to only a small margin.
Looking at the Fire Lord, Aelita thought he reminded her far more of Zetzu than he did Zuko.
Roku smirked. "There's someone else who wants to see you, Sozin, though I am a bit hurt you wrote her more often than you wrote me," he said, pretending to be offended as the doors to the throne room opened wide.
Tulan stood tall in the entryway in a dress of Earth Kingdom green, the wooden Air Nomad necklace hanging from her neck. Her skin was painted gold from years spent in the sun, and blue beads gifted to her during their with the Water Tribe helped to hold her hair back in two buns. Her face was heavily freckled and her smile radiant. "Hello, Your Highness."
"All it took was one smile. It drove my Father mad," Zuko read, back aching as he soaked in his family lore. "He never saw me marry or produce an heir before he died. I had refused every potential match he presented me. I'd accept no other bride. My little sister had been born a disgrace and bending-less disappointment, so I knew I faced no threat to my inheritance even when I defied his rule. Illness took him two years before I realized I was in love with the Akira."
Zuko tossed the scroll away and buried his head between his legs. He breathed in slowly, deeply, willing himself to keep down his dinner. Fate was a cruel, fickle bitch, because he already knew that the story on the paper didn't have a happy ending.
Akira Tulan wasn't the woman his Great-Grandfather ultimately ended up marrying, no matter how much he claimed to love her. But Zuko needed to know why. For his sake, and Aelita's, even if he wasn't sure he'd ever be able to bring himself to tell her what he had learned. When he was certain he wasn't going to puke, he picked up the discarded scroll and began to read once more.
"All that was left was to convince her she that was mine."
In the ghost of the past, Aelita and Aang both watched as the Fire Lord abandoned all sensibility, dignity, or protocol. Roku happily stepped aside as he was all but forgotten entirely, his partner already lifting her skirts and running. Sozin met her halfway, catching Tulan as she threw herself into his outstretched arms. The Fire Lord held onto her like a lifeline. When he finally spoke, his voice was hoarse and just a little bit breathless as he made a promise he couldn't keep. "I'm not ever letting you go."
"She loved him," Roku told Aang. "And he loved her. And as their friend, I couldn't have been happier. I saw the best in them both. I loved them fiercely. And I never once considered that things could end badly. I had always believed that when love was real, it would find a way."
"It was one of the few beliefs that Roku and I didn't share in the end," Tulan explained to her next life, having just recounted the words of her old friend as they watched the Fire Lord spin her into the next memory.
Aelita found herself standing in the middle of an early summer celebration. Her heart thundered in her chest when she saw the eager crowd part for a woman in an elegant crimson and white kimono.
Roku and Sozin stood side by side at what she quickly realized was an alter. Aelita held her breath as the woman approached.
"Ta Min," Tulan explained and the young Akira let out a sigh of relief when she realized she wasn't looking at her past life, but a beautiful woman who oddly reminded her of Aang. Her kind eyes were trained wholly on the Avatar. "Believe it or not, there had been a time she didn't even he was alive, but Roku was very persistent. I was thankful for it. Through their marriage, I gained another dear friend."
The blushing bride and groom turned to face Akira Tulan, the young earthbender utterly resplendent in Fire Nation red. As she began to pray and plead to the spirits to bless the happy couple, a simple golden band glittered on her slender hand.
Aang had yet to notice it.
"Not many people can say that they had the Fire Lord as their best man and the Akira as their acting Priestess," Roku recalled fondly to the boy. "And it made for some entertaining dinner debates when we were all together. You see, Tulan and Sozin's wedding was meant to take place just a few short months after my own, and neither could agree on just what sort of role they wanted me to play in their day. Both wanted me to mimic their position in mine."
Aang sucked in air so hard he nearly choked. He whipped his head toward his past life. "Their wedding? They were engaged? Like - like Zuko and Aelita? Or Zetzu and Aelita? Or Zuko - Zetzu - my head hurts." The monk groaned as he rubbed his temples.
Zuko felt much the same as he followed along with his Great-Grandfathers recounting of events and the engagement he casually seemed to gloss over, the first terrible sight of what was to come.
"On wedding days, we look to the future with optimism and joy. I had my own vision for a brighter future."
Young Tulan remained close to Sozin as they navigated the crowd of nobles mingling about the celebration for Roku and his bride. They received many of their own congratulations and well wishes. Those were accepted with warm smiles and thanks but after some time the Fire Lord steered the Akira in the direction of her partner.
"Excuse me," Sozin said to the beautiful woman on Roku's arm. "May we borrow him for a moment?"
Ta Min had never been one to deny Sozin or Tulan when they called for her new husband. "It's not very traditional," she teased, reaching up to place a kiss on Roku's cheek. "But, okay."
She threw herself back into the celebration without noting the confused expression on the earthbender's face. Tulan allowed her love to take her hand and lead her out of the party onto one of the palace's upper balconies. Roku followed along equally lost.
"What's on your mind?" He asked when the three were alone and Sozin had shut the door behind them.
The Fire Lord wasted no time. "I've been thinking hard about the state of the world lately."
Tulan tensed along the balcony railing but the Avatar only laughed at his friend's timing. "Sozin, it is my wedding! Have a cookie. Dance with Tulan," he said with a wink, clapping his hands on Sozin's shoulders. "Lighten up!"
"I know, I know," Sozin sighed, shrugging from Roku's grip. "But just hear me out. Right from the start, I was destined to be Fire Lord. And although we didn't always know it, you were destined to be the Avatar. And," he said with a soft smile as he looked at Tulan. "You were destined to find me, and I to find you. The Akira and the Fire Lord. It's been unheard of until now. Doesn't it seem like an amazing stroke of fate that we all know each other so well? That we've come together so perfectly? Together," he paused on a hopeful wind. "Together, we could do anything."
The air on the balcony suddenly felt thick and heavy with oncoming tension.
"Yes," Roku said slowly. "We could."
"The Fire Nation is enjoying an unprecedented time of peace and wealth. Our people are happy, and we're fortunate in so many ways. But in the Earth Kingdom," Sozin turned to Tulan and took his hands in hers. "You yourself have expressed your mounting worries and frustrations over King Jialun. He's still at odds with Queen Geo Xun and the rest of Omashu, and their tensions don't show any signs of easing any time soon. He silenced the Earth Sages shortly after your journey began because he knew you were young and in no position to oppose him. He did nothing to help you after the tsunami struck Chenbao and the people blamed the Northern Water Tribe. You were forced to leave Roku's earthbending training to someone else while you prevented the start of all-out war and still, what did he do? Send spies to the North and Sole in an attempt to cause a rift between the tribes for his own benefit."
Tulan fought the sudden urge to deny the words even though they were undeniable. "Where are you going with this?"
"I've been thinking," Sozin explained, gesturing to the city beyond the palace gates. "That the Fire Nation should share their prosperity with the rest of the world." He looked past his bride to his oldest friend. "In our hands is the most successful empire in history. It's time we expanded it."
Tulan appeared too stunned to speak. Her partner, on the other hand, snapped at the Fire Lord. "No! The four nations are meant to be just that: four."
"Roku," Sozin said, stepping suddenly between the Avatar and Akira. "You haven't even stopped to consider the possibilities."
"There are no possibilities," Roku insisted. Turning on his heel, he stalked back off towards his celebration. "This is the last I want to hear about this."
"And it was," Tulan admitted. "For Roku, at least. But things were different between Sozin and I. I wasn't as righteous as the Avatar. But, many an Akira were not. Figures like Akitaru were an anomaly. Akira Ragnar..." She trailed off as the Fire Lord turned his attention back to his bride. He held out his hand and waited to see if she would take it. "Akira Ragnar was possibly the truest embodiment of what it means to be the shadow who lives between the light and dark of this world."
Aelita watched with bated breath as her past life looked at the man before her as if she were truly seeing him for the first time.
But all it took was a single smile to change everything.
"And I was so very much like him."
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