Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first time it happened, Zuko was stumbling around in a fever-dream. The ocean tasted his feet, swaying back and forth as if La was drunk. The coolness of the waves tempted him, but the tea-like taste of them reminded Zuko that he really didn’t like tea. The sky was a reflection of the waters, blue and somewhat orange. Agni was coaxing Zuko to move with the swaying motions, into one of mother’s dances. This felt dizzyingly pleasant.

Time passed.

Zuko hummed, drifting.

He wasn’t sure when he fell down, the lingering fire on his face overwhelming, “How could father have done that? No one had said it was wrong. So then, did I deserve it?” His words came out slurred and unfocused. Perhaps a monster had infested his father like this burning burrowed into Zuko’s skin? Maybe Zuko was the monster and not human.

Zuko hissed, testing his limited ranger of motion. Yes, Zuko must be the monster. Maybe he was supposed to be dead, but a spirit had taken over his limbs? Otherwise, why would the healer-? The sailor? No, Zuko had woken somewhere with bandages, burn cream and knives. But the healer-sailor had thrown him into the ocean?

Zuko could crawl and slide on the wet sand. He couldn’t remember walking like a human recently. Just… drifting, dancing, and now slithering.

…So then, what kind of spirit was he?

Zuko’s face brightened with a lopsided smile. Maybe he was a dragon-spirit now? Zuko didn’t have feathers, so he couldn’t be a turtleduck. But where were his scales? Did dragon-human’s have scales? Zuko poked at his face; one half of it felt numb and unnatural.

Zuko tried to twist to inspect his skin for scales. Oh! The human cloth was hindering him from finding the rest of his scales! But as much as he rolled on the sand and over the occasional rock, the human clothes stayed on.

Zuko, the maybe-dragon, could hear La cackle-snap like seagull-crabs. He wanted to laugh too, but Zuko’s throat was as rough as salty sand. Oh! With another taste, Zuko remembered. La made nasty tea. Too much salt.

Zuko tried to scrape the taste off his tongue, but only ended up tasting rust-flavored grits. He grimaced. La wasn’t a good cook either.

Oh!

Zuko swayed as he crawled after the shiny-something. An Agni-beam on... something. Agni’s rays kept moving and Zuko couldn’t focus. Oh… this rock wave was nice and cool.

Awareness faded away.

Agni was missing from the sky when Zuko remembered that he was a human-now-dragon-spirit and could spit fire at Tui’s chill. A few sparks flew, but nothing impressive. Tui must have not liked that. Zuko curled up, his human-cloth-wrappings dry, but stiff with salt-sand itchiness. It didn’t do much against the chilly wind.

Grumbling, Zuko pressed himself deeper into the crevice where the stone-wave-wall and the salt-rock floor cradled him. He yawned, waiting for the Agni-dragon to crow and awaken the sky in rainbows. Maybe Agni could be a dragon-turtleduck. Sunrises rarely roared, but instead filled the air with multitudes of chirping. Zuko wouldn’t mind being a dragon-turtleduck-human. That sounded nice.

He drifted.

Agni was quieter today.

He hummed, trying to be a good dragon-turtleduck since he was a bad human. Where was his dragon-turtleduck flock?

Time was slippery.

Who was the spirit of the winds? They sounded upset, shrieking as the sky cried. Zuko tried not to feel guilty since the sky’s tears tasted good. It was hard to get enough of the liquid. Zuko needed it, even if he couldn’t remember why.

The sky flashed. Zuko recoiled.

Maybe he shouldn’t drink the sky’s tears if it made La and the Wind’s so mad that they summoned lighting!

Thunder rumbled.

Zuko cringed, withdrawing into the wet shadows.

He swore that he could be a loyal son. Zuko just… needed to know how. Father hadn’t believed him. Zuko was a horrible liar, so Father must have known Zuko wasn’t loyal somehow.

Maybe because Zuko didn’t want the dragons dead? He didn’t want to be the only dragon-turtleduck left.

But… Uncle had killed the last two. And even when Uncle didn’t make sense, his rules were less harsh than Father’s. So, wanting the dragon’s alive might be the thoughts of a traitor.

But… Zuko wanted to be a dragon-turtleduck-spirit. He wanted a flock made of warmth-feathers-air. So Zuko cried.

Azula would have taunted him, Father would have burned the rest of his face, but there were no humans here. That was a comforting thought. Zuko relaxed, exhausted from all the emotions.

The sky’s tears were puddling in handfuls made of rock. It was much better tea than what La made. Zuko thanked the Sky, the Wind, La and Tui, and Agni to cover all his bases for needing another sip of the Sky’s soothing tears. Hopefully his prayers will be heard. Zuko didn’t have the smell-smoke sticks to carry his thoughts star-forward.

The thunder of the sky was softer now.

               Maybe it was safe to sleep?

                             There were no humans here. Zuko self-soothed in a humming purr. Only a lonely dragon-turtleduck.

                                           Everything felt strangely muffled and distant. Had Zuko wandered into the spirit world?

He drifted.

Zuko woke to the sounds of dragon-turtleducks filling the air with musical crooning.

His flock! Zuko rolled over. The stone-wave-wall had changed shapes again.

Oh!

The human-turned-dragon-turtleduck-spirit smiled.

Not dragon-turtleducks, but dragons that were turtleduck-sized! The dragons did live! They just changed their size so humans couldn’t find them! How clever! The gold one nudging at a nest of turtledove-robin eggs looked to be a bit bigger than the rest of the dragons.

Wait, if he was a dragon-turtleduck, why wasn’t he the same size as the dragons? Zuko blinked at his hand, remining himself that he was a dragon-turtleduck-spirit in a human body. No wonder he wasn’t the same size as the others.

Dismissing his differences for the moment, Zuko tried sing the same tune that the turtleduck-sized dragons were humming to the eggs.

Wait! Did he have a gift for the dragons and their babies?

Zuko scratched at his human-cloth. From his human memories, Zuko remembered pockets. Some were hidden pockets of snacks when human-Zuko would hide in the rafters of the palace.

Eventually, Zuko was able to claw out a cloth-bag of La-tea-soaked-jerky. Hopefully the waterlogged meat will be a good offering.

(It probably won’t. It’s not like Zuko’s luck would just change to be helpful.) But it was the best Zuko had for right now.

The beat and the tempo of the hatching song increased.

Zuko couldn’t stop vibrating with excitement. Good thing Zuko wasn’t human anymore. His etiquette instructor would scold him something fierce.

The eggs cracked differently than turtleduck eggs.

The first one out was as blue as Azula’s soul. No wait- Azula had blue fire, not a blue soul. She would hate anything other than red. The blue craned their delicate limbs across the salt-sands towards him.

Zuko’s heart seized and melted as the blue baby dragon gobbled up the shreds of the salty jerky, followed by fresher raw bits of meat that the other dragons offered. Soul would be a good name though.

The next egg to hatch revealed a baby dragon that was Earth Nation green. The same process as the blue Soul repeated. Shreds of jerky, followed by raw meat. She (Zuko wasn’t sure how he knew the green was a she), looked like a fallen eucalyptus-oak leaf.

A part of his mind felt like it was swirling with color-feels. Soul, the blue dragon had found one of Zuko’s ripped pockets and fell asleep. Lady Oak, the baby green, had clawed her way to where his shoulder and neck were joined. She fell asleep nuzzling his collarbone.

Nearly all the rest of the eggs hatched at the same time. None of the brown, the shinier-brown, or the remaining greens went toward Zuko, following after the older turtleduck-sized dragons and nesting underneath the older dragon wings.

Zuko felt sad that the last two eggs didn’t hatch, but maybe this was a common grief for dragons and not just turtleducks. He yawned, mimicking the other hatchlings. For a moment, Zuko envied that the other babies had a wing to sleep under. He was simply too large to fit.

Soul and Lady Oak were sleeping. Zuko curled up around them and dropped into slumber.

Zuko woke, feeling ravenous. The flock was feeding the baby dragons again. Zuko imitated them, feeding the blue and green dragonette’s his remaining shreds of jerky. The three of them returned to sleep.

Idly, Zuko noted that the main flock of the dragons was gone but wasn’t quite as bothered by it as he would have been the day before. Soul, Lady Oak, and the unhatched eggs were still with him. Zuko crawled into Agni’s light, relieved to find that he didn’t need to hunt just yet. Long, skinny fishes were swimming in an upside helmet. Where had the helmet come from?

Zuko fed Soul and Lady Oak first, testing to see if they preferred raw or flash-cooked saury-eels for breakfast. Both versions were eaten with enthusiastic delight. Their small stomachs were quite bloated afterward. Both Soul and Lady Oak delighted in rolling in the guts of Zuko’s leftovers. Zuko tore a bit of his sleeve and used sky-tears to clean off the blood and slime.

Soul and Lady Oak fell asleep in the same pocket as Zuko inched closer to the abandoned eggs. Both were cold and lifeless, so Zuko gave them a tearful send off to Agni.

The next week continued in pattern of step 1: wake, step 2: eat trapped fish from the previous night’s tides followed by step 3: take a nap or step 4: explore the island Zuko could now recognize that he had washed up on.

His fever might have broken at some point, because Zuko could now realize that he was at least mostly still human. Still, becoming a dragon-turtleduck would’ve been an awesome afterlife to wake up to. Zuko wasn’t quite convinced that he wasn’t delirious. His bending wasn’t working correctly and Uncle said bending didn’t work in the spirit world. Was Zuko in the spirit world? If so, where was Uncle or Mother?

If this was the spirit world, was Uncle still back on the Wani? Did he miss Zuko? Did Zuko miss Uncle? Yes… but if Uncle found Zuko, what about Soul and Lady Oak? Would Uncle kill them too? Azula would because Soul and Lady Oak were attached to Zuko instead of her. Azula liked to gloat over the deaths of the turtleducks. This would be no different. Uncle never brought his kills to Zuko or showed off his kills to Zuko. So, if Uncle met Soul and Lady Oak, would Zuko’s little dragons just go missing? Or would Zuko have a chance at persuading Uncle to let Soul and Lady Oak live? Surely there was no glory in killing beings so tiny and new to the world? Were the dragons that Uncle killed the last of the larger dragons? Or were they the size of Soul and Lady Oak?

Zuko had a hard time determining what exactly his feelings about the issue were or should be, but at least he could warn Soul and Lady Oak to stay away from other humans in the meantime. Even or especially Uncle, since Uncle would be the only family member maybe looking for him.

Perhaps it was a good thing that Zuko had been marooned. He had so many traitorous thoughts, that maybe it was good for Zuko to be believed dead. This way Zuko was no longer a human prince with all the required rules that such a role required, but Zuko was instead an adopted dragonette caretaker.

Soul and Lady Oak nuzzled him, calming Zuko’s tumultuous emotions. His smile was a little crooked and a lot less numb than it used be. Soul and Lady Oak preened and darted off to present their most recent catch. This time it was little crab-snails. Soul and Lady Oak seemed to really enjoy the taste of the slimy creatures.

Chapter Text

 The next time a hatching happened, Zuko met a fisherwoman and her daughter. They were bringing offerings to the dragon-spirit shrine, the only human structure on the island. Both looked to be young, the woman about Lu Ten’s age if he had lived and her daughter about 4 or 5 years of age.

The two were about to leave, when Soul and Lady Oak perked up, projecting an image of their own hatching-hunger followed by an image of the nearby-cliffs-plus-music to Zuko. This image-to-mind sharing felt a work-in-translation, but it was happening in his head. Hello migraine. It was also lovely in a way. Zuko didn't have to talk to anyone the entire time he had been on this island, and now Soul and Lady Oak were asking him to invite the fisherwoman and her daughter to a hatching?

“Wait,” Zuko rasped, startling the woman badly. She stared at him wide-eyed and pale.

Her daughter gasped in delight, “Momma, look. He has little dragons!”

Zuko bobbed his head in acknowledgement, gesturing to his blue dragon, “Soul”, and pointing to his green dragon, “Lady Oak.”

The mother guided her daughter into a bow, “What do the dragons ask, Lord Spirit?”

“Swear no harm… to dragons,” Zuko rasped.

Immediately the mother swore, “This humble servant Li Yoko swears that she will do no harm to any dragon.”

Charmingly, her daughter copied her mother, “This hum-ble ser-vant Li Hibi swear that I will no harm any dragon. Big or little.”

Zuko pointed to the cliffs, “Follow there.”

Immediately Li Hibi ran and latched onto Zuko’s leg, much to her mother’s dismay. But this was a good human child (loved by her mother), so Zuko offered his hand instead. Li Hibi switched to his hand, chattering as she followed where Zuko walked. Zuko perked up as he heard what Soul and Lady Oak already knew. Another hatching hum-song.

“Listen to the dragon music,” Zuko shushed the child, watching as the mother followed, “Hatching is soon.”

Wide-eyed, both strangers knelt into the sands as they saw the dragon-flock. The awed eyes of the Li women assured Zuko that neither intended harm to the dragon-flock or hatching eggs. Humming along with Soul and Lady Oak, he gestured to the Li’s, “Sing with please?”

Delighted, Li Hibi, did her best to mimic the tune. Her mother was much better, even adding the words of a nursery song. Zuko felt the image-color-pleasure-music impressions from the dragon-flock vibrate in his mind and in the air.

Soul and Lady Oak curled into the shoddy mess of his hair.

The first egg hatched, a little brown heading for an elder bronze dragon. The second egg hatched, a green like Lady Oak who crawled all the way to Li Hibi. Zuko passed the girl and her mother some of the fish offerings from the shrine. Crowing in delight, Li Hibi looked adoringly at the little green dragon in her hands.

A little gold hatchling gobbled up Li Yoko’s offering, before curling into a tiny fish-basket that was attached to Li Yoko’s belt. Li Yoko’s delicate hands petted the thin golden wings, looking disbelieving that she was allowed to do so.  

“A dragon, I’m petting a dragon,” Lin Yoko marveled quietly, “Hibi-chan, be a bit more gentle to the dragon.”

“Yes, momma.”

Lin Yoko bowed to Zuko again, “What now Lord Spirit?”

Zuko pointed to the green and gold hatchlings that had adopted the two humans, “They are yours to keep safe, to keep hidden until a Fire Lord who loves dragons returns to the throne.” Which might as well be never with Fire Lord Ozai and Azula. Without Father’s influence, it might be possible that Azula would allow dragons to exist once more in the Fire Nation.

Li Yoko bit her lip, “My Lord, I do not know how long I can keep this secret safely.”

Zuko blinked his good eye, slow and calm like his dragons. Where would dragons outside of this island be safe? Zuko prayed to Agni for an answer. One arrived in a flash of thought. This wasn’t making it any easier to believe that Zuko hadn’t crossed the boundary of the spirit world. And if Zuko was already dead, then Zuko didn’t need to worry about being executed.

“I will travel with you and the three unhatched eggs to your village. Once the three hatch, Agni will guide us.” Just like the likely-Agni prompting had said, the dragon-flock abandoned three living eggs at the end of the hatching. Zuko carefully scooped some warm sand into the base of his fish-catching helmet and gently laid each still-pulsing egg into the helmet. Zuko carefully cushioned the sides for the eggs.

The three of them headed back to Li Yoko’s fishing sailboat.

They made good time, even with small pauses to feed the two newly-hatched dragons. Arriving at the tiny village, no, it was more the size of a hamlet with barely ten buildings altogether, Zuko mimicked how Li Yoko climbed out of the boat and watched her tie it to a makeshift dock. Trailing her with a remaining handful of fish, other hamlet-dwellers watched Zuko enter the area with wary eyes.

Li Yoko bowed to an aged woman, “Grandmother, the dragon-shrine was inhabited once more. Lord Spirit has three eggs yet to hatch.” As if on que, Soul and Lady Oak stretched their wings and launched into the air. Several people swiftly hid their surprised eyes or the pointing fingers of the closest child.

“Will all swear secrecy for the safety of Agni’s firstborn star-cousins?” Zuko repeated the words of the Sun Spirit. (Cousins? As in not Agni’s firstborn?)

The elder’s wrinkled face wrinkled more (was the Grandmother smiling or frowning?) before bowing, “This humble village swears to Agni first as it should be. This aged soul will so swear.”

Those in hearing distance immediately chorused, “To Agni, we the children of the elder, will so swear.”

Zuko knelt and looked at the height of Agni, “This humble servant brings a gift to Agni’s children. The dragons will choose their chosen.” At Agni’s direction, Zuko started humming. The dragon-flock flashed into existence, startling both the aged and the youthful as they returned to sing the hatching song. Li Hibi started singing her mother’s lullaby and slowly, the rest of the hamlet villagers joined in.

A brown dragonette hatched as two boys crowded closer. Zuko handed them both a fish. The brown chose the boy with crippled arm. The next egg to hatch was brown, but shinier like bronze-gold. The bronze hatchling chose the older boy with brown-grey eyes, old enough to be drafted (like the 41^st) really, but the odd limp in one leg is how the older tanned boy must have avoided conscription.

The third egg revealed a blue-as-the-sea darling who traveled to the wide-eyed grey eyes of a girl who looked a little like an aged-up Ty Lee with a broken nose. The blue hatchling crooned as he(?) gobbled up the pocketful of frog-crickets.

Zuko shifted awkwardly as he quietly instructed the brand-new caretakers of the feeding schedule for their new companions. Not long after that, Zuko relayed the instructions that certainly hadn’t come from himself.

“For the sake of your young dragons, will you travel to the ruins of Agni’s Sun Warriors?”

“I so swear!” The boy with the lame leg, breathed without a second thought. The other children followed suit. Li Yoko bit at her cheek and adverted her eyes. It was obvious that she and the parents of the others were hesitant to promise that the children could go immediately.

The elder Grandmother hit the floor with her walking stick, “We shall all leave with Agni’s guidance! This aged soul does so swear.”

The younger adults sighed in relief as they chorused, “To Agni, the children of the Elder, will so swear!”

The rest of the day, the hamlet dwellers proceeded to pack up. Even as the children were sent to sleep in one building, the adults continued to bustle. Zuko yawned as he helped the four dragon-companions feed their hungry hatchlings every two hours. At some point he must have drifted off to sleep. As Agni crested over the horizon, Zuko stretched awake. Staggering to his feet, Zuko felt himself gape a little as he watched the other houses be pulled apart! Zuko shook himself and offered his help, which was accepted gracefully by the Grandmother of the village. One house was for the children to sleep in, another was for the Elders and Adults to sleep in shifts, and the third was being used as storage as the seven other buildings were to become raft-boats.

Zuko’s fretting about the process led to tea-soup and a conversation with the Grandmother of the village.

“My husband’s cousin Kuzon worried how often small homes like ours were burned in Fire Lord Sozin’s hunts,” The Grandmother, Li Haruka, took another large swallow, “So he and a few friends invented a way where wooden homes could be folded and adapted into the structures of boats.”

Hunts on the dragons and the last of the air benders. Zuko nodded to show that he understood and continued to listen carefully.

The wrinkled, spotted skin of the elder’s old hands finished the tea-soup with a large ‘slurp’. Setting it aside, the Grandmother patted a package in a satchel next to her, “Agni says that this is meant for you sun-child. This hidden face guided my husband then, and he will guide you in the future.”

Zuko, Soul and Lady Oak unwrapped the knitted layer. Zuko inhaled, “This… looks like…”

“The mask of the Blue Spirit. A child of Agni blessed by La.”

“Not the Dark Water Spirt?”

Parchment-frail skin stretched in a smile, “The Blue Spirit goes by many names: some secret, some slander, some true.”

“I always cared about the Dark Water Spirit,” Zuko whispered, a confession carefully omitting ‘loved’ with ‘care’, “He was my favorite part of Mother’s favorite play.”

“Spirits do reflect the care that they receive. I know this mask would be in good hands in yours.”

Shakily, Zuko stood up to bow properly, “It would be a great honor.”

Chapter Text

The third time, technically his fourth hatching happened two months after the hamlet dwellers were accepted into the Sun Warrior’s hidden civilization as their own clan. Ran & Shaw’s coils were the walls surrounding the humming wild firelizards. It was because of Ran and Shaw telepathic translations that Zuko now knew that Soul and Lady Oak preferred the term ‘firelizards’ over ‘dragonettes’ or ‘mini dragons’. The two dragons also confirmed that gold and green firelizards were the females of their species. Ran and Shaw helped Soul and Lady Oak express their ancestral memories. Agni had thinned the veil between the stars so that three separate flocks could fly ‘between’ the stars to visit Agni’s firstborn, only for the firelizard colonies to find tragedy by flying too ‘late’.

Ran and Shaw were the last known firstborn of Agni’s dragon children.

But after a month and a half living with the Sun Warriors, Zuko had been granted the exclusive knowledge that multitudes of Agni’s firstborn were waiting for Agni’s blessing to hatch. He was forbidden by Agni, Ran and Shaw to not reveal this knowledge until it became relevant.

Two weeks after Zuko’s arrival to the hidden civilization, a wild gold firelizard had appeared, ready to clutch and nest in the volcano sands. Eighteen eggs were laid! (The other two clutches had 8 eggs in the first nest and twelve in the second). A month later, the hatching was nearly happening and everyone was vibrating with excitement. All ages, from toddlers to the eldest of elders planned to be there and celebrate. Thanks to Ran and Shaw, Zuko and the Chief had advised everyone to be ready with a handful of easy-to-digest offerings, just in case.

 As the hatching song started, a few sang the lyrics of Li Yoko’s lullaby. Others hummed or sang a Sun Warrior lullaby, adapted to the hatching hum-tune. The Sun Warrior lullaby was more about dragons than the sails of the wind and tide, but both songs felt wonderfully well-matched.

(“Harmonious or melody may be the word you are looking for,” Li Yoko later told him, smiling as one of the chief’s sons wrapped an arm around her waist.)

All eighteen successfully hatched. Nine chose to bond with humans. Two were adults, formerly from the hamlet, both matched with blue firelizards. The chief’s third son had matched with a bronze firelizard. The chief’s eldest grandson had matched with a green and a brown firelizard. Three more browns matched with some of the younger Sun Warriors. And the last of the clutch to bond with a human, was gold. She matched with the Sun Warriors’ favorite sweets-baker.   

Chapter Text

Much to the dismay or bemusement of the various individuals of the Sun Warrior Tribe, Zuko spent most of his time ‘infringing’ on Ran and Shaw’s sacred areas. Personally Zuko liked the quiet, inaccessible nest. Well all the Sun Warriors had claimed it was inaccessible, but it wasn't that difficult of a climb for Zuko. Zuku wondered if some of the Sun Warriors would consider it a scandal or an offense that Zuku spent his time (sleeping) in the dragon nest, carefully refraining from touching any eggs.

Still, it's not like any of the Sun Warriors knew that he was the Prince of the Fire Nation. Otherwise Zuko would have to spend so much more energy on avoiding new assassination attempts. Speaking of attempts to kill him (whether it was on purpose or not) when Zuko was swept overboard, did the Wani survive the storm? Was it an assassination attempt on both of them? Was his Uncle still alive? Why had Uncle and him even been on the cranky creaky old ship anyway? Uncle had said something about telling Zuko when he was more lucid.

To find out Zuko would have to leave Ran and Shaw and the Sun Warriors. But if he did so, the Sun Warriors had threatened, well, many things depending on the individual. Some said that he could never leave, some had said that he should leave and never return, but all of them were concerned about him telling others the secret of the living dragons. Never mind that Zuko was just as dedicated to the safety of the fire lizards who are basically dragons in miniature.

Eventually, Ran and Shaw confronted Zuko about it, letting him know that he could always return to their nest. Which was honestly relieving. Zuko needed to know and he was already as healed as he was going to get. And apparently Uncle had lied that he was the last dragon killer to protect Ran and Shaw, So Uncle should be relatively safe to seek out.

Zuko didn't bother with goodbyes, figuring that some of the Sun Warriors would try to make him stay. Under the covers of darkness, Zuko left on Shaw’s back. Shaw left him about a half a day’s travel from the next human settlement.

So the ‘human settlement’ was an abbey full of nuns in the Earth Kingdom that made perfume? Was this how nobles changed their smell at court?

At least they were able to give Zuko a place to sleep for the night. The next morning, the nuns gave him directions and supplies to reach the nearest fishing village in exchange for escorting a couple of nuns heading there to trade food types. 

Soul and Lady Oak were good about remaining out of view, making a game to imitate the sounds of the morning songbirds. Zuko was getting better at spotting their blue and green scales. Once ‘seen’ by Zuko, Soul or Lady Oak would vanish, reappearing elsewhere in the trees.

When they finally arrived, Zuko started to ask if any Fire Nation ships had been seen nearby recently. This was treated with a lot of suspicion until Zuko said he was trying to find out what had happened to his Uncle. Trying to elaborate just made Zuko frustrated and he wasn't sure if they were talking about the same conversation anymore? Because suddenly a number of Earth Nation citizens were super sympathetic and telling him not to throw his life away? That if he wanted revenge, he should join the army when he was old enough.

Baffled, Zuko demanded if anyone had heard news about the Wani and why it had set sail. 

Apparently people did know about the Wani. Not why it had set sail, but how it burned. What?! Specifically that the Dragon of the West had been sailing on it and burned the ship down in an Earth Kingdom port. 

“I heard that the Dai Li were tracking the Dragon of the West as we speak.”

“I heard that the Dragon of the West was declared a traitor to the Fire Nation.”

“He was what?!” Zuko sputtered in disbelief.

“That's so unlikely and unrealistic.”

“Not if the Fire Lord saw the Dragon of the West as a threat to his throne.” 

Zuko groaned, burying his head in his hands, “The Dragon of the West burned down the Wani? I thought he retired.” Uncle certainly hadn't been the same since he came home. What would have made him mad enough that he would burn the Wani?!

“What about the other people on the ship?”

“Burnt down with the ship and good riddance.”

Zuko nearly lost control of his fire. Those were his people, that these barbarian Earth-citizens were saying that his people were dead and they were cheering about it. Fortunately Soul and Lady Oak reminded him of their existence and Zuko just slipped away from the crowd. Surely at least some of it was lies, but how much was a lie?

Troubled, Zuko decided to hunt down the truth from his Uncle. The first was to confirm facts. So, find the port that the Wani had last docked at. 

…What was the name of that port?