A Stroke of Luck
Fulcon
Well-known member
The following is a fanbased work of fiction. Avatar the Last Airbender is the property of Viacom, Nickelodeon, Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Koniezko. Please support the official release.
---
Prince Zuko looked out from the ruins of the Southern Air Temple. The tall, spire-like mountains the Air Nomads had called home were still enough to give the prince in exile vertigo, but only just. A cold, stiff breeze rushed past his face, slapping him with the cold of the mountain air.
Behind him, he could feel his Uncle Iroh, the short, portly general whose warm personality couldn’t be more grating at times when Zuko wanted nothing more than to focus on his mission. His quest and purpose.
Zuko turned around from the view of the dizzying height below them. He saw his Uncle, waiting patiently but observing the massive temple with a contemplative smile, as if he were distracted. Again.
Behind Iroh, however, were the men. A collection of low merit and disgraced soldiers and sailors who had been sent on this mission to be die and be forgotten. They were rough, they were undisciplined and unmotivated, but they were what Zuko had.
Much to his endless frustration, when they inevitably failed to meet the prince in exile’s high expectations.
“Listen up,” Zuko called in his best, most authoritative tone. Trying to command the respect of the crew. “We do this the same as the other temples. Look for any hint of the Avatar. Look for potential hiding places, sanctuaries that Firelord Sozin may have missed in the initial purge. Do not disturb any of the bodies you find, even if they are fire nation. Is that understood?”
“Yes Prince Zuko,” The men chorused.
At least they knew how to agree properly. “Dismissed.”
It was not that Zuko wanted to leave the bodies of his countrymen without their proper rites. Far from it, that was one of the first things he had his crew do when they first arrived at the Western Air Temple. What he had quickly found was that the expedition on land was starting to run low on supplies before they had finished and they had to return to their ship nearly empty handed and had to make a second trip.
The Air Nomads, for all their talk of peace and respect for life, had wiped out entire armies, even with the power of Sozin’s comet. Uncle Iroh had said that Fire needed air to live, just as the power of a Firebender came from the breath; an Airbender could take both away with ease, necessitating the use of Sozin’s comet so long ago.
He had made a promise that those men’s funeral rites would come when he was Firelord, when he had taken his rightful place on the throne and had found his mother.
“Prince Zuko,” Uncle Iroh began.
“What is it, Uncle?” Zuko asked, pointedly ignoring an itch on his scar that developed whenever he got anxious. The itch reminded him how fortunate he was to still be able to see out of his eye following his lesson on respect.
“We have been on the hunt for nearly a year now,” Uncle began, following his charge as he walked into the temple.
“Yes, I know, Uncle,” Zuko replied, feeling his irritation spike. “What does it matter?”
“I have noticed that the men have not been given any real shore-leave since we have started on your quest,” General Iroh continued, heedless of Zuko’s annoyance. “Perhaps, after our expedition here is finished, you might pull into Port at one of the Colonies and allow your crew some much needed rest and relaxation?”
Zuko felt his hands curl into fists. “Uncle, they can have all the rest and relaxation they want once we have captured the Avatar.”
“Prince Zuko,” Uncle Iroh began almost reproachfully. “A frayed rope snaps at the point of highest tension.”
The prince growled to himself, coming to a halt and looking down at his boots on the cold stone walkways of the mountain. “Fine. Two-weeks shore leave after we’re done here. But I want a thorough search.”
“The Lieutenant will be happy to hear it,” Iroh said with a cheerful smile.
The temple, like the ones built in the east and the west, was built to be as open as possible. Nearly rail-less walkways would connect stone gazebo to stone gazebo. The paths and stairs that curled up the mountain had no railings. Once Zuko had gotten inside, he saw that the temple itself was perforated with windows to allow the monks of old to fly in and out on their glider staffs.
Not for the first time, he wished he could see one in action, if only to prove that they actually worked and the history he had been taught of their armies wasn’t fiction. Though how they maintained any kind of army with how utterly undisciplined they were as a people was a mystery to him.
Actually, given how they were wiped out by Sozin’s comet, perhaps the answer was self evident. Their army was a failure.
Zuko found himself looking for just a brief moment at a cluster of skeletons beneath the mountain snow, a group of children hiding behind one of their elders. As he had trained himself to do, Zuko immediately turned away and walked forward with purpose.
Just ignore them, Zuko thought to himself. Just ignore them. It was necessary, nothing to be done about it now. Just ignore them.
“I wonder what an Air Nomads favorite tea would be,” Iroh mused behind him, undoubtedly stroking his beard like Zuko knew he would even though he couldn’t see him. “No, I remember, they liked Butter Tea. Butter from their flying bison! I still wonder what it tastes like...”
Zuko remembered the scroll that his Uncle managed to find somehow. It was just sitting there in the corner of a library, having collected a thick layer of dust and still somehow legible. Uncle Iroh’s excitement and enthusiasm on the subject exotic airbender teas had gone on a week. A long, nigh-unbearable, week.
The two stopped when they came to a massive door, tubes intricately spindling their way across it like overly long serpents, connected to three separate horns that looked like sea shells.
With a deep breath, Zuko huffed in frustration. He had encountered doors like this at the other temples that he had been too, but they could only be opened by air-bending. There was no way inside other than through this door, so it was obviously a vault, but he had no idea how to open them. Firebending, by the ship engineer’s guess would prove useless given how the door was made of stone.
“Maybe one day, we can see the Avatar Shrine the nomads had built,” Iroh said with a smile. “I have heard tales that it was quite a sight.”
“What if there’s a map in there, Uncle?” Zuko asked, folding his arms and glaring up at the door impotently. “Something to show the Avatar where to go and hide while he mastered the four elements in case of emergency.”
“We have found no records of any kind of map,” Iroh pointed out again, making this one for one on each vault door they had found. “Nor did the generals who lead the attacks find any mention of such a thing. If there were such a map, all those places it had marked would have been scoured and put to the flame.”
Zuko’s glare got more focused and severe. He took a deep breath and turned to walk away. “I know.”
In another life perhaps, Iroh might’ve found himself getting carried away with his explanation in an attempt to teach his nephew something, only to ignite his nephews short fuse and set his temper to a boil. However, he held his tongue this time.
The search through the temple was going smoothly. Zuko passed by his men doing a thorough sweep of every hallway and every bedroom. It was a steady routine that had been set, each of the men would go in, check this graveyard as quickly and efficiently as possible to avoid agitating any spirits that lingered with a grudge against the Fire Nation.
As what usually happened during this search, Zuko and Iroh found themselves searching the temple archives.
Prince Zuko always made it a point to personally inspect the archives; if there was a place that would have information on the Avatar, it would be here. The archive shelves reached from the ceiling to the floor, built in diamond formation. Each little cubbyhole could hold one scroll. Directly across from them was a massive arch that led out to the mountains below them.
Without fail, just as the previous temples had shown, their were almost no scrolls remaining. Zuko imagined that most of the scrolls these massive archives were supposed to hold contained information on Airbending itself. Which meant that the Fire Army had burnt them all in an attempt to stamp out Airbending and prevent future Avatar’s from learning it; especially if they missed the ‘Last Airbender’ as he was often spoken of and the Avatar was reincarnated as Water Tribe.
What few scrolls remained however, concerning their history and the philosophy of the Air Nomads had rot and been eaten through by insects. They were completely illegible, which Zuko considered a shame; he needed to learn everything he could about his enemy if he wanted to stand a chance against him.
Zuko pulled a scroll out and unrolled it; it crumbled to dust in his hands and he threw it away with a huff of irritation. Over by the stone wall of the library which was completely flush with the shelves, Iroh stood. He was not looking fruitlessly at the scrolls that had completely wasted away thanks to the cruel mistress of time, but he was looking at the wall.
No, not simply looking at the wall. He was studying it. Rubbing his chin with his finger as he peered at the smooth, blank wall with narrowed eyes that seemed as if they were trying to divine the secrets of the universe through it’s staring.
When Iroh hummed in fascination, Zuko couldn’t take it anymore. “Uncle? What’s so fascinating about that wall?”
“Well, come here, Nephew,” Iroh told him, beckoning him to come forward. “Do you see it?”
Zuko’s eyes narrowed as he tried to see whatever it was his Uncle was trying to show him. In another life, his temper might have already been set to a boil and he wouldn’t have had the patience to do as his Uncle requested. But here, he was able to persist just long enough to...see. “There’s a diamond cut into the wall.”
Indeed there was. A diamond, but one that had been sealed with the same stone that had been cut out of it, sealed so tightly that the edges pressed almost completely against the walls around it and rendering it nearly invincible.
“I suspect that it is a cubbyhole much like the shelves that surround us,” Iroh suggested. “Which means it might contain something valuable.”
Zuko’s face lit up in shock and he whirled around and saw two of the marines he brought to shore standing and spoke. “You!”
Both Marines turned and immediately bowed. “Yes, Prince Zuko?”
“Go fetch us a pickax!” Zuko barked. “Uncle has found something!”
They hurried off to follow their orders.
---
“Watch this!”
Aang was a young monk, dressed up in the orange and yellow robes of his people. He was bald, but didn’t have the blue tattoos of those who had mastered their element. Next to him in the archives was Dorje, another monk that was a year older than him. Aang was, put politely, showing off while they had been told to fetch a scroll for Monk Samten.
They were messing around with a solid, tight wooden basket that had been carved and given as a gift to one of the monks by a woodcarver. The fun part about this box was that the lid was just a tiny bit too large. Large enough that sometimes it was difficult to get the lid off if you put it on wrong.
With the flowing, circular motion, Aang put the lid on wrong by pulling all of the air out of the basket and forcing the lid to squeeze shut. “Try to get it off!”
Dorje, a taller and skinnier student than Aang tried to oblige by pulling. And pulling. And pulling. To no avail. “Why? Won’t? It? Come off?”
Aang just shrugged and laughed. “I dunno. From some reason, you can’t open it while there’s no air in the basket.”
Dorje set the basket on the ground. With one hand, he pulled on the handle. With the other, he pushed air down against the edge he was trying to pull up. After a few moments, he succeeded, the lid coming off with a loud pop. He fell to the floor and after some confusion, he started laughing too. “That’s wild! We should try some stuff with this!”
“I know!” Aang answered. With a twirling motion, Aang jumped into the air and pulled the scroll he and Dorje had been sent to fetch from the top. He landed. “Alright, lets head back.”
“Wait, Aang, you knocked something out of the wall.” Dorje said, pointing at the wall.
“I did?” Aang asked, turning to look. “Oh yeah! Monk Giyatso told me that the Earth benders that helped build the temple were going to put in more shelves along the walls. They just barely got started before the Monks told them we had plenty. I guess they forgot to fill this one.”
“I mean, they kind of started,” Dorje pointed out, squatting down and picking up a diamond-shaped tiled that fell out.
Aang blinked in surprise. “That’s weird. Maybe we should tell the monks.”
“Yeah, probably...wait,” Dorje started with a grin. “I got an idea. Let’s a put something inside and see if we can close it up.”
Aang stopped for a moment before a similarly mischievous grin painted itself across his face. “That sounds like a great idea. They’ll never find it!”
The two started laughing. Aang began looking through the shelves. “Okay, let’s grab one of the scrolls and see if it works.”
“No, no,” Dorje shook his head. “You know what we should do? We should hide the big one.”
Aang blinked. “The big one?”
The big one. The complete compendium of Airbending penned by the first Airbenders as they learned from the Flying Bison. It was the scroll the Masters were using to teach all the students with as it had all the best teachings from all the masters rolled up into a great hole.
“Yeah, the big one!” Dorje said again, his smile only getting bigger. “Come on, it’ll give us some time off from lessons while they try to find it.”
“Well, I would like some time off,” Aang justified to himself. “Okay, where is it?”
“Come on, I saw Monk Kelsang with it,” Dorje said with a huge grin.
“We should probably get this scroll to Monk Samten though,” Aang suggested. “That way they don’t come looking for us later.”
“Good point!”
---
Several hours later, the two boys reunited at the Archives, filled to the brim with nervous energy.
Aang, for his part, now looked a lot more nervous and doubtful than his partner in crime. “Are you sure about this?”
“Positive,” Dorje beamed, holding the scroll. It was a really thick thing, looking more like a roll of fabric than a scroll, though it was wrapped in thick cloth to protect it. “We hide this in that compartment for a few days, get some time off while they look for it, and then we return it while no one’s looking and have a good laugh.”
“Well, as long as we give it back,” Aang said.
Dorje carefully slid the scroll into the shelf. Both boys became increasingly aware of how tight a fit it was as they heard the sound of fabric sliding against the smooth stone. Dorje was able to push the scroll in fairly far, though.
“Okay,” Dorje said, turning to Aang. “Do your thing.”
They placed the tile back in place and Aang pulled all of the air out of the cubbyhole and it sealed tight.
“Alright, nice job!” Dorje complimented, pulling at the tile, his fingers finding no purchase. “Nice and secure, no ones getting at it now.”
“Awesome!” Aang replied. “Let’s go.”
---
“Come on Aang, this isn’t funny,” Dorje told his younger accomplice, sweating bullets.
“I’m trying!” Aang said desperately, throwing streams of air at the tile. “I can’t get air in there!”
But the tile would not let air in and there were no handles to grasp to give the boys leverage. The tile was stuck and the scroll was locked in there. Forever.
“Here, let me try,” Dorje pushed Aang aside and started trying to force air into the compartment himself. But he was without success. “Great. Just great! I never should have let you talk me into this!”
“What?” Aang asked in disbelief. “This was your idea and-!”
“What’s going on here?”
Aang’s heart stopped as Monk Giyatso rounded the corner of the shelf, the old monk’s white mustache moving from side to side as he twitched his mouth.
“Uh...heh...hehe...” Aang rubbed the back of his head.
They explained what had happened, for they were caught. None of the other masters were able to retrieve the scroll either, the compartment so tightly sealed no air could get inside. so they had decided to simply ask an Earth Bender to retrieve it the next time one visited the temple in a few years.
For their punishment, Aang and Dorje were made to replace the scroll, writing each stance, form, kata and their explanation under the careful and watchful eye of one of the Airbender masters, forced to reference and read every single scroll of Airbending and Airbending Philosophy as they did so. Both of them produced a scroll.
It was this learning experience that allowed Aang to invent his own Airbending technique, the air-scooter and gain his tattoos at the tender age of twelve, three years later.
---
Zuko swung the pickax himself, breaking the tile with the steel tool. A violent hiss of air followed and the prince felt it flow past him in a violent current. With his fingers burning candlelight, he looked into the hole. “Uncle, there’s something in here!”
“Can you reach it?” Iroh asked.
“I think,” Zuko started, reaching into the hole and feeling his fingers brush fabric, he pulled at it. “I got it!”
He pulled the fabric, bringing the parcel toward him and gingerly pulling it out of the hole. At his gesturing, the crew members that had gathered around gave the prince space as he set it down on the ground started unwrapping it.
Zuko’s unscarred eye got as wide as a dinner plate as he looked at it. “It’s a scroll.”
Iroh fell to one knee and reached forward, carefully and gently touching the paper. “It’s fresh.”
Carefully, Zuko began to unroll the ancient scroll. On it, he saw forms. Movements. Stances. Katas and their explanation. He was able to skim the philosophy of each move-set.
“It’s an Airbending scroll,” Zuko said, almost reverently. “Uncle, do you know what this means?”
“That we can study another form of bending on the ship?” Uncle Iroh asked.
“It means we have an advantage!” Zuko cried. “When we finally meet the Avatar, we’ll be better prepared to bring him down! Uncle, we actually have a chance!”
“This is true, Prince Zuko,” Iroh replied with a thoughtful nod. “Understanding your enemy is the first step to defeating him.”
Zuko could not, no matter how hard he tried, stop himself from smiling, joy lighting a blaze behind his eyes. “How has the search gone through the rest of the temple?”
The Lieutenant took a step forward. “All men have reported their sweeps completed. They haven’t found anything.”
Zuko didn’t have it in him to scowl in disappointment. “Secure this scroll and bring it back to the ship. If it’s damaged in anyway, I’ll have everyone’s head. Then, we’re heading to the colonies for two weeks shore-leave!”
The halls of the temple echoed with the cheers of the Fire Nation.
---
Author’s Note: This is a project and idea that’s been with me for a long time now. This idea of what would happen if Zuko simply, well, as the title says, give up. First, I got to lay the groundwork for Zuko’s decision because at this point in his life, him simply realizing it’s hopeless would be so totally and completely out of character that it would only work for a crackfic.
My other projects, sadly, must be put on hold. I’m sick of the entire Self-Insert genre and, to be blunt, I’m out of my depth. I realized it when I wrote that last chapter of SHINOBI: The RPG that I am so completely, absolutely and utterly out of my depth that writing the thing wound up not being something I can do. I just have no experience with romance beyond what I’ve read in my self-help books and, well, there’s nothing like the real thing. That said, it will be finished and I will happily answer any questions to those who PM me about what I had planned moving forward in case the worst happened.
I hope you guys enjoyed it!
Shout out goes out too Melden V, Anders Kronquist, Ray Tony Song, Volkogluk, Aaron Bjornson, iolande, Martin Auguado, Julio, Jiopaba, Hackerham, Tim Collins-Squire, Maben00, Sultan Saltlick, Ventari, PbookR, Seij, ChristobalAlvarez, Aenor Knight, Apperatus, EPiCJB19, Seeking Raven and Handwran. You guys are awesome!
Until the next time!
~Fulcon
---
Prince Zuko looked out from the ruins of the Southern Air Temple. The tall, spire-like mountains the Air Nomads had called home were still enough to give the prince in exile vertigo, but only just. A cold, stiff breeze rushed past his face, slapping him with the cold of the mountain air.
Behind him, he could feel his Uncle Iroh, the short, portly general whose warm personality couldn’t be more grating at times when Zuko wanted nothing more than to focus on his mission. His quest and purpose.
Zuko turned around from the view of the dizzying height below them. He saw his Uncle, waiting patiently but observing the massive temple with a contemplative smile, as if he were distracted. Again.
Behind Iroh, however, were the men. A collection of low merit and disgraced soldiers and sailors who had been sent on this mission to be die and be forgotten. They were rough, they were undisciplined and unmotivated, but they were what Zuko had.
Much to his endless frustration, when they inevitably failed to meet the prince in exile’s high expectations.
“Listen up,” Zuko called in his best, most authoritative tone. Trying to command the respect of the crew. “We do this the same as the other temples. Look for any hint of the Avatar. Look for potential hiding places, sanctuaries that Firelord Sozin may have missed in the initial purge. Do not disturb any of the bodies you find, even if they are fire nation. Is that understood?”
“Yes Prince Zuko,” The men chorused.
At least they knew how to agree properly. “Dismissed.”
It was not that Zuko wanted to leave the bodies of his countrymen without their proper rites. Far from it, that was one of the first things he had his crew do when they first arrived at the Western Air Temple. What he had quickly found was that the expedition on land was starting to run low on supplies before they had finished and they had to return to their ship nearly empty handed and had to make a second trip.
The Air Nomads, for all their talk of peace and respect for life, had wiped out entire armies, even with the power of Sozin’s comet. Uncle Iroh had said that Fire needed air to live, just as the power of a Firebender came from the breath; an Airbender could take both away with ease, necessitating the use of Sozin’s comet so long ago.
He had made a promise that those men’s funeral rites would come when he was Firelord, when he had taken his rightful place on the throne and had found his mother.
“Prince Zuko,” Uncle Iroh began.
“What is it, Uncle?” Zuko asked, pointedly ignoring an itch on his scar that developed whenever he got anxious. The itch reminded him how fortunate he was to still be able to see out of his eye following his lesson on respect.
“We have been on the hunt for nearly a year now,” Uncle began, following his charge as he walked into the temple.
“Yes, I know, Uncle,” Zuko replied, feeling his irritation spike. “What does it matter?”
“I have noticed that the men have not been given any real shore-leave since we have started on your quest,” General Iroh continued, heedless of Zuko’s annoyance. “Perhaps, after our expedition here is finished, you might pull into Port at one of the Colonies and allow your crew some much needed rest and relaxation?”
Zuko felt his hands curl into fists. “Uncle, they can have all the rest and relaxation they want once we have captured the Avatar.”
“Prince Zuko,” Uncle Iroh began almost reproachfully. “A frayed rope snaps at the point of highest tension.”
The prince growled to himself, coming to a halt and looking down at his boots on the cold stone walkways of the mountain. “Fine. Two-weeks shore leave after we’re done here. But I want a thorough search.”
“The Lieutenant will be happy to hear it,” Iroh said with a cheerful smile.
The temple, like the ones built in the east and the west, was built to be as open as possible. Nearly rail-less walkways would connect stone gazebo to stone gazebo. The paths and stairs that curled up the mountain had no railings. Once Zuko had gotten inside, he saw that the temple itself was perforated with windows to allow the monks of old to fly in and out on their glider staffs.
Not for the first time, he wished he could see one in action, if only to prove that they actually worked and the history he had been taught of their armies wasn’t fiction. Though how they maintained any kind of army with how utterly undisciplined they were as a people was a mystery to him.
Actually, given how they were wiped out by Sozin’s comet, perhaps the answer was self evident. Their army was a failure.
Zuko found himself looking for just a brief moment at a cluster of skeletons beneath the mountain snow, a group of children hiding behind one of their elders. As he had trained himself to do, Zuko immediately turned away and walked forward with purpose.
Just ignore them, Zuko thought to himself. Just ignore them. It was necessary, nothing to be done about it now. Just ignore them.
“I wonder what an Air Nomads favorite tea would be,” Iroh mused behind him, undoubtedly stroking his beard like Zuko knew he would even though he couldn’t see him. “No, I remember, they liked Butter Tea. Butter from their flying bison! I still wonder what it tastes like...”
Zuko remembered the scroll that his Uncle managed to find somehow. It was just sitting there in the corner of a library, having collected a thick layer of dust and still somehow legible. Uncle Iroh’s excitement and enthusiasm on the subject exotic airbender teas had gone on a week. A long, nigh-unbearable, week.
The two stopped when they came to a massive door, tubes intricately spindling their way across it like overly long serpents, connected to three separate horns that looked like sea shells.
With a deep breath, Zuko huffed in frustration. He had encountered doors like this at the other temples that he had been too, but they could only be opened by air-bending. There was no way inside other than through this door, so it was obviously a vault, but he had no idea how to open them. Firebending, by the ship engineer’s guess would prove useless given how the door was made of stone.
“Maybe one day, we can see the Avatar Shrine the nomads had built,” Iroh said with a smile. “I have heard tales that it was quite a sight.”
“What if there’s a map in there, Uncle?” Zuko asked, folding his arms and glaring up at the door impotently. “Something to show the Avatar where to go and hide while he mastered the four elements in case of emergency.”
“We have found no records of any kind of map,” Iroh pointed out again, making this one for one on each vault door they had found. “Nor did the generals who lead the attacks find any mention of such a thing. If there were such a map, all those places it had marked would have been scoured and put to the flame.”
Zuko’s glare got more focused and severe. He took a deep breath and turned to walk away. “I know.”
In another life perhaps, Iroh might’ve found himself getting carried away with his explanation in an attempt to teach his nephew something, only to ignite his nephews short fuse and set his temper to a boil. However, he held his tongue this time.
The search through the temple was going smoothly. Zuko passed by his men doing a thorough sweep of every hallway and every bedroom. It was a steady routine that had been set, each of the men would go in, check this graveyard as quickly and efficiently as possible to avoid agitating any spirits that lingered with a grudge against the Fire Nation.
As what usually happened during this search, Zuko and Iroh found themselves searching the temple archives.
Prince Zuko always made it a point to personally inspect the archives; if there was a place that would have information on the Avatar, it would be here. The archive shelves reached from the ceiling to the floor, built in diamond formation. Each little cubbyhole could hold one scroll. Directly across from them was a massive arch that led out to the mountains below them.
Without fail, just as the previous temples had shown, their were almost no scrolls remaining. Zuko imagined that most of the scrolls these massive archives were supposed to hold contained information on Airbending itself. Which meant that the Fire Army had burnt them all in an attempt to stamp out Airbending and prevent future Avatar’s from learning it; especially if they missed the ‘Last Airbender’ as he was often spoken of and the Avatar was reincarnated as Water Tribe.
What few scrolls remained however, concerning their history and the philosophy of the Air Nomads had rot and been eaten through by insects. They were completely illegible, which Zuko considered a shame; he needed to learn everything he could about his enemy if he wanted to stand a chance against him.
Zuko pulled a scroll out and unrolled it; it crumbled to dust in his hands and he threw it away with a huff of irritation. Over by the stone wall of the library which was completely flush with the shelves, Iroh stood. He was not looking fruitlessly at the scrolls that had completely wasted away thanks to the cruel mistress of time, but he was looking at the wall.
No, not simply looking at the wall. He was studying it. Rubbing his chin with his finger as he peered at the smooth, blank wall with narrowed eyes that seemed as if they were trying to divine the secrets of the universe through it’s staring.
When Iroh hummed in fascination, Zuko couldn’t take it anymore. “Uncle? What’s so fascinating about that wall?”
“Well, come here, Nephew,” Iroh told him, beckoning him to come forward. “Do you see it?”
Zuko’s eyes narrowed as he tried to see whatever it was his Uncle was trying to show him. In another life, his temper might have already been set to a boil and he wouldn’t have had the patience to do as his Uncle requested. But here, he was able to persist just long enough to...see. “There’s a diamond cut into the wall.”
Indeed there was. A diamond, but one that had been sealed with the same stone that had been cut out of it, sealed so tightly that the edges pressed almost completely against the walls around it and rendering it nearly invincible.
“I suspect that it is a cubbyhole much like the shelves that surround us,” Iroh suggested. “Which means it might contain something valuable.”
Zuko’s face lit up in shock and he whirled around and saw two of the marines he brought to shore standing and spoke. “You!”
Both Marines turned and immediately bowed. “Yes, Prince Zuko?”
“Go fetch us a pickax!” Zuko barked. “Uncle has found something!”
They hurried off to follow their orders.
---
One Hundred and Two Years Ago
“Watch this!”
Aang was a young monk, dressed up in the orange and yellow robes of his people. He was bald, but didn’t have the blue tattoos of those who had mastered their element. Next to him in the archives was Dorje, another monk that was a year older than him. Aang was, put politely, showing off while they had been told to fetch a scroll for Monk Samten.
They were messing around with a solid, tight wooden basket that had been carved and given as a gift to one of the monks by a woodcarver. The fun part about this box was that the lid was just a tiny bit too large. Large enough that sometimes it was difficult to get the lid off if you put it on wrong.
With the flowing, circular motion, Aang put the lid on wrong by pulling all of the air out of the basket and forcing the lid to squeeze shut. “Try to get it off!”
Dorje, a taller and skinnier student than Aang tried to oblige by pulling. And pulling. And pulling. To no avail. “Why? Won’t? It? Come off?”
Aang just shrugged and laughed. “I dunno. From some reason, you can’t open it while there’s no air in the basket.”
Dorje set the basket on the ground. With one hand, he pulled on the handle. With the other, he pushed air down against the edge he was trying to pull up. After a few moments, he succeeded, the lid coming off with a loud pop. He fell to the floor and after some confusion, he started laughing too. “That’s wild! We should try some stuff with this!”
“I know!” Aang answered. With a twirling motion, Aang jumped into the air and pulled the scroll he and Dorje had been sent to fetch from the top. He landed. “Alright, lets head back.”
“Wait, Aang, you knocked something out of the wall.” Dorje said, pointing at the wall.
“I did?” Aang asked, turning to look. “Oh yeah! Monk Giyatso told me that the Earth benders that helped build the temple were going to put in more shelves along the walls. They just barely got started before the Monks told them we had plenty. I guess they forgot to fill this one.”
“I mean, they kind of started,” Dorje pointed out, squatting down and picking up a diamond-shaped tiled that fell out.
Aang blinked in surprise. “That’s weird. Maybe we should tell the monks.”
“Yeah, probably...wait,” Dorje started with a grin. “I got an idea. Let’s a put something inside and see if we can close it up.”
Aang stopped for a moment before a similarly mischievous grin painted itself across his face. “That sounds like a great idea. They’ll never find it!”
The two started laughing. Aang began looking through the shelves. “Okay, let’s grab one of the scrolls and see if it works.”
“No, no,” Dorje shook his head. “You know what we should do? We should hide the big one.”
Aang blinked. “The big one?”
The big one. The complete compendium of Airbending penned by the first Airbenders as they learned from the Flying Bison. It was the scroll the Masters were using to teach all the students with as it had all the best teachings from all the masters rolled up into a great hole.
“Yeah, the big one!” Dorje said again, his smile only getting bigger. “Come on, it’ll give us some time off from lessons while they try to find it.”
“Well, I would like some time off,” Aang justified to himself. “Okay, where is it?”
“Come on, I saw Monk Kelsang with it,” Dorje said with a huge grin.
“We should probably get this scroll to Monk Samten though,” Aang suggested. “That way they don’t come looking for us later.”
“Good point!”
---
Several hours later, the two boys reunited at the Archives, filled to the brim with nervous energy.
Aang, for his part, now looked a lot more nervous and doubtful than his partner in crime. “Are you sure about this?”
“Positive,” Dorje beamed, holding the scroll. It was a really thick thing, looking more like a roll of fabric than a scroll, though it was wrapped in thick cloth to protect it. “We hide this in that compartment for a few days, get some time off while they look for it, and then we return it while no one’s looking and have a good laugh.”
“Well, as long as we give it back,” Aang said.
Dorje carefully slid the scroll into the shelf. Both boys became increasingly aware of how tight a fit it was as they heard the sound of fabric sliding against the smooth stone. Dorje was able to push the scroll in fairly far, though.
“Okay,” Dorje said, turning to Aang. “Do your thing.”
They placed the tile back in place and Aang pulled all of the air out of the cubbyhole and it sealed tight.
“Alright, nice job!” Dorje complimented, pulling at the tile, his fingers finding no purchase. “Nice and secure, no ones getting at it now.”
“Awesome!” Aang replied. “Let’s go.”
---
“Come on Aang, this isn’t funny,” Dorje told his younger accomplice, sweating bullets.
“I’m trying!” Aang said desperately, throwing streams of air at the tile. “I can’t get air in there!”
But the tile would not let air in and there were no handles to grasp to give the boys leverage. The tile was stuck and the scroll was locked in there. Forever.
“Here, let me try,” Dorje pushed Aang aside and started trying to force air into the compartment himself. But he was without success. “Great. Just great! I never should have let you talk me into this!”
“What?” Aang asked in disbelief. “This was your idea and-!”
“What’s going on here?”
Aang’s heart stopped as Monk Giyatso rounded the corner of the shelf, the old monk’s white mustache moving from side to side as he twitched his mouth.
“Uh...heh...hehe...” Aang rubbed the back of his head.
They explained what had happened, for they were caught. None of the other masters were able to retrieve the scroll either, the compartment so tightly sealed no air could get inside. so they had decided to simply ask an Earth Bender to retrieve it the next time one visited the temple in a few years.
For their punishment, Aang and Dorje were made to replace the scroll, writing each stance, form, kata and their explanation under the careful and watchful eye of one of the Airbender masters, forced to reference and read every single scroll of Airbending and Airbending Philosophy as they did so. Both of them produced a scroll.
It was this learning experience that allowed Aang to invent his own Airbending technique, the air-scooter and gain his tattoos at the tender age of twelve, three years later.
---
Present Day
Zuko swung the pickax himself, breaking the tile with the steel tool. A violent hiss of air followed and the prince felt it flow past him in a violent current. With his fingers burning candlelight, he looked into the hole. “Uncle, there’s something in here!”
“Can you reach it?” Iroh asked.
“I think,” Zuko started, reaching into the hole and feeling his fingers brush fabric, he pulled at it. “I got it!”
He pulled the fabric, bringing the parcel toward him and gingerly pulling it out of the hole. At his gesturing, the crew members that had gathered around gave the prince space as he set it down on the ground started unwrapping it.
Zuko’s unscarred eye got as wide as a dinner plate as he looked at it. “It’s a scroll.”
Iroh fell to one knee and reached forward, carefully and gently touching the paper. “It’s fresh.”
Carefully, Zuko began to unroll the ancient scroll. On it, he saw forms. Movements. Stances. Katas and their explanation. He was able to skim the philosophy of each move-set.
“It’s an Airbending scroll,” Zuko said, almost reverently. “Uncle, do you know what this means?”
“That we can study another form of bending on the ship?” Uncle Iroh asked.
“It means we have an advantage!” Zuko cried. “When we finally meet the Avatar, we’ll be better prepared to bring him down! Uncle, we actually have a chance!”
“This is true, Prince Zuko,” Iroh replied with a thoughtful nod. “Understanding your enemy is the first step to defeating him.”
Zuko could not, no matter how hard he tried, stop himself from smiling, joy lighting a blaze behind his eyes. “How has the search gone through the rest of the temple?”
The Lieutenant took a step forward. “All men have reported their sweeps completed. They haven’t found anything.”
Zuko didn’t have it in him to scowl in disappointment. “Secure this scroll and bring it back to the ship. If it’s damaged in anyway, I’ll have everyone’s head. Then, we’re heading to the colonies for two weeks shore-leave!”
The halls of the temple echoed with the cheers of the Fire Nation.
---
Author’s Note: This is a project and idea that’s been with me for a long time now. This idea of what would happen if Zuko simply, well, as the title says, give up. First, I got to lay the groundwork for Zuko’s decision because at this point in his life, him simply realizing it’s hopeless would be so totally and completely out of character that it would only work for a crackfic.
My other projects, sadly, must be put on hold. I’m sick of the entire Self-Insert genre and, to be blunt, I’m out of my depth. I realized it when I wrote that last chapter of SHINOBI: The RPG that I am so completely, absolutely and utterly out of my depth that writing the thing wound up not being something I can do. I just have no experience with romance beyond what I’ve read in my self-help books and, well, there’s nothing like the real thing. That said, it will be finished and I will happily answer any questions to those who PM me about what I had planned moving forward in case the worst happened.
I hope you guys enjoyed it!
Shout out goes out too Melden V, Anders Kronquist, Ray Tony Song, Volkogluk, Aaron Bjornson, iolande, Martin Auguado, Julio, Jiopaba, Hackerham, Tim Collins-Squire, Maben00, Sultan Saltlick, Ventari, PbookR, Seij, ChristobalAlvarez, Aenor Knight, Apperatus, EPiCJB19, Seeking Raven and Handwran. You guys are awesome!
Until the next time!
~Fulcon
