Chapter Text
Summer 101 AG
It was his final meeting of the day. The sun had set below the horizon.
Before him sat the first manuscript, bound in blue. It was a mountain on his flat, barren desk, cleared for meetings. His servants, their hands always wanting to hold something, clean this, and organize that, ensured the book lied on his desk, alone. Cleanliness and organization conveyed order. Zuko didn’t remember who taught him that, but its importance was always evident to him.
Gone were the New Ozai reports and the latest insult from a rebellious colonial general.
Instead before him was the blue book.
He has read it, of course. He even enjoyed it. Nevertheless, reading and enjoying something for how it reads didn’t matter to the man across from him. He and the itch of bound bandages hidden beneath his robes reminded him of that fact, as stark as the book before him.
Across sat Minster Matsui, in control of public relations between the Firelord and his loyal subjects.
“Of course, the Fire Nation has a minister for propaganda,” Sokka had quipped when he learned about Matsui.
“He does more than that, Sokka,” Zuko said hiding behind his hands. He prayed to Agni that Matsui hadn’t heard his friend.
It’s true, Minister Matsui ran the entire department for public image. The minister and his officials curated the portraiture, wrote official missives, checked the newspapers, and even formatted his invitations. It helped that Matsui wasn’t from the former Firelord’s regime. He was a man whom Zuko sought out from a detention center. Having a public relations minister who refused to cover up corruption was a good start for the Fire Nation he wanted to lead.
Minister Matsui, Zuko had astutely observed, was unhappy.
“My Lord, this version cannot be published! If the nobility and generals find out that you were the Blue Spirit… it’d…just imagine—” Matsui continued while unfurrowing a scroll.
The man took a moment to collect himself, but Zuko had a good idea of what Matsui would say.
“The Blue Spirit is wanted for treason. My Lord, if you want to survive to eighteen, your legitimacy cannot take another hit. The people at large are weary about the Avatar, and those in power still resent him. The nobility and military will be emboldened to act against you by learning you’re the Blue Spirit, the most infamous marauding traitor of the Fire Nation after yourself and Admiral Jeong Jeong.”
Zuko sighed. Matsui was correct. The itchy bandages from the most recent assassination attempt affirmed his minister’s words. His eyes drifted back to the book.
The blue codex contained the first draft of the White Lotus proposed, funded, and soon to be published account of Aang’s life post iceberg. To Zuko’s relief it was mostly focused on Aang, with his own role in the book limited to when he actually encountered them. To his relief, there was no account of his uncle captured by Earth Kingdom soldiers from a hot spring or the time where he almost incited a mutiny.
This was only volume one of three, cutting up the Avatar’s journey to end the war according to what element he was trying to master. The blue cover and naming convention were Katara’s ideas hence the first account being called Book 1: Water. An impressive volume of over three hundred pages, Zuko found himself immersed in the events of a year ago from a completely different perspective.
The Blue Spirit section in particular was written to be an action scene worthy of any adventure scroll. Zuko as the Blue Spirit was lightning fast, master of the sword, and heroic. Then the fun stopped when the account revealed that Zuko was the Blue Spirit, and the sour taste in Firelord’s mouth returned as did reality.
The account was too heroic. He was flattered his friends had him portrayed like that, but Zuko knew the truth. He donned the Blue Spirit mask not because of justice, harmony, or peace. The idea of a captive twelve-year-old boy didn’t disgust him as much as the notion that Zhao had the Avatar, not him. The Blue Spirit was all about Prince Zuko.
It was hasty, not heroic.
Desperate, not daring.
The issue that Matsui was pointing out was the obvious one. He already was barely holding onto the mantle of Firelord while pushing for the reforms and reparations. The people were begrudgingly accepting with him, but still the military chafed under his rule. The nobility made it clear that he was their distant third choice to be Agni’s exalted.
To be revealed as the Blue Spirit, a self-serving traitor decidedly unpopular with the powerful factions, would complicate everything, to put it nicely.
That night Zuko wrote all the necessary letters to his uncle, to other high ranking White Lotus members, and to his friends explaining why his part as the Blue Spirit needed to be cut. The only lie he told was the omission of his shame: that was his problem to figure out.
It would have been the perfect cover up too… if it weren’t for the damned scholars.
Three months later, the book, The Recollections of Avatar Aang: Book I Water was released worldwide (101 AG). Book II Earth (103 AG) came out two years later, and the series concluded with Firelord Zuko’s coronation in Book III Fire (104 AG.) These volumes together were commonly referenced as just The Recollections and came to serve as a foundational historical document for the Late War Period.
With its publication though came the ensuing flood of scholarship with one of the most enduring mysteries post-war, the Blue Spirit’s identity, taking center stage.
First entry in this burgeoning subsection of scholarship was the Fire Nation Colonial study by Ahn Kwok of Yu Dao University and Captain Chan, a veteran of the Blue Spirit’s breakout at Pohuai. It was a complete recreation of the arrow shot which was said to knock out the Blue Spirit on the most daring part of the escape: the showdown against Admiral Zhao outside Pohuai’s outer wall.
Excerpts from Kwok, Anh, and Eiji Chan. “Pohuai’s Longshot: An Investigation into the Survivability of the Blue Spirit’s Breakout.” Journal of Contemporary History, 19 no. 2 (102 AG): 47-85.
“According to the Avatar’s words in Book I Water, the Yu Yuan’s shot ‘knocked out the Blue Spirit, forcing me to summon dust clouds to mask our escape. Afterwards, I sat with them until they insisted that I go. I then remembered Sokka and Katara…’1
To begin unraveling the Blue Spirit mystery, first we need to determine if the Blue Spirit survived the escape. Can a theater mask from 100 AG sufficiently protect the Blue Spirit well enough to match the Avatar’s account?
Captain Chan, who claims to have taken the shot has offered up his services in hopes of being able to apologize to the Blue Spirit for his actions during the Avatar’s escape.
At the stronghold itself, cabbages were mounted up at multiple distances. First, masks manufactured in Yu Dao and commonly favored by traveling troupes in the colonies during 100AG were tested. Captain Chan took multiple shots (see table 1).
The depth of the wounds left by the arrows in the cabbages indicated a fatal wound.
We continued to test masks favored both in Ba Sing Se and even in Caldera to the same effect. A theater mask, like the one the Blue Spirit used and was portrayed in on Fire Nation’s wanted posters, cannot block a longshot from a Yu Yuan archer.
It is not this article’s objective to place doubt onto the Avatar’s words but rather to come to a sobering conclusion the Avatar never reached. The Blue Spirit’s breakout from Pohuai as awe-inspiring and important as it was, sadly also was the final mission for the person behind the mask.”
Kwok’s findings set the academic world ablaze. So far, The Recollections of Avatar Aang was remarkably faithful to reality with more and more historians finding evidence to affirm the account. Almost immediately, Ba Sing Se set out to investigate “Pohuai’s Longshot.”
Excerpt from Heng, Zhongmou. Avatar in Reality: Corroborating Avatar Aang’s Recollections Volume One. Ba Sing Se: Middle Ring University Press, 103 AG.
“One of Water’s greatest moments is the Blue Spirit breakout. The account for the most part is lively and highly detailed. The ending by contrast is brief, stating the Blue Spirit urged the Avatar to leave. The Blue Spirit is injured, but the Avatar’s behavior gives the impression that the Blue Spirit wasn’t dying.
This interpretation is challenged by a study from Yu Dao University published last year. Their findings reveal the shot from a Yu Yuan archer, as described in Water, would have killed the Blue Spirit.1
Middle Ring University couldn’t get access to Pohuai’s facilities, so we set out to recreate the arrow shot using a constructed platform matching the height of Pohuai’s outer wall. Multiple soldiers from the King’s Guard lent their skills to this recreation. Instead of cabbages though, we used sheep-pig heads to better simulate the impact such arrows would have on the human head.
Despite using multiple types of masks, our results match those of Anh Kwok of Yu Dao University. The arrow, if it hit the head and ‘knocked out the Blue Spirit’ as the Avatar said it did, would have been fatal.2 The masks cannot withstand such force even if Captain Chan insisted that Admiral Zhao ordered them to ‘knock out the thief.’3
If we take the Avatar on his word, then the Blue Spirit nobly urged the Avatar to leave them behind for the greater good before expiring.”
The academic world scrambled to corroborate Kwok and Heng’s results to resounding success. The arrow shot was recreated in Caldera, Agna Qel'a, Omashu, Yu Dao, Cranefish Town, and Wolf’s Cove to the same results. A theater mask couldn’t stop an arrow from inflicting fatal injuries.
The leading Earth Kingdom theory on the Blue Spirit’s identity builds off the arrow tests of the previous years.
Liu, E'xu. “Earth Kingdom Resistance and the Blue Spirit in 100AG.” Ba Sing Se Journal of Post War Studies 3, no. 1 (104 AG): 88-105
“Many people were inspired by the Blue Spirit’s actions at Pohuai. Clearly, the very first person who donned the mask of the Dark Water Spirit died heroically, and their actions went on to inspire thievery from the rich as observed in the Southern Earth Kingdom in the same year.1 If reports from the incarcerated former Dai Li agents are to be believed, an imitator also freed the Avatar’s Air Bison, Appa.2
(Footnote No. 2: Oddly enough Book II Earth glazes over how exactly Appa was freed from Lake Laogai, and there is no mention of the Blue Spirit in The Recollections after Pohuai.)
This article is focused on the first iteration of the Blue Spirit and the evidence that points to them being a member of the Taku Underground. Based in Taku, which was mostly ruins after Firelord Azulon’s bloody conquest of the city in 25 AG, the rebels were composed of ex-Earth Kingdom soldiers, war orphans, refugees, and the odd Fire Nation deserter.3 The prominent fighting style of these fighters was the dual dao sword, the same as the Blue Spirit.4
Next, these rebels all grew up under Fire Nation occupation and thus were exposed to the Fire Nation’s re-education policies and culture.5 This would have included exposure to Fire Nation art explaining the Dark Water Spirit mask from the Fire Nation play Love Amongst the Dragons.
The Taku Underground were very active during 100AG slowing Fire Nation supply lines and were crucial in warning King Bumi about the Fire Nation’s imminent attack on Omashu.6 Such feats point to a robust information network. With such connections, it is possible they could have been some of the first to find out the Avatar was imprisoned at Pohuai.
This paper does recognize that this theory does have some flaws. Why send a lone actor on infiltrating the most heavily guarded stronghold in the Earth Kingdom?
Regardless, the Blue Spirit being a member of the Taku Underground deserves more consideration in academia, and as always, May the Blue Spirit Rest in Peace.”
Summer 104 AG
It was excruciatingly hot. The same heat that once made his mother ask the servants to pile her hair up high and his sister complain about the absence of ice cubes in her drink. Being a firebender only insulated one from the heat so much.
“It hasn’t been this hot in years,” he complained.
Around them on the road, people huddled underneath the shade of the shoddy market stalls, and the hot, thick air was heavy with the scent of livestock.
“The Fire Nation’s always been hot, Zuko,” Aang said full of cheer at his side. Currently, the two are on the main footpath into one of the Fire Nation’s port cities, Higashiura, dressed in disguises seemingly designed to make someone swelter.
It was Aang’s first visit alone to the Fire Nation in a long time. Katara and Sokka were in the South Pole soothing over an internal dispute, the Kyoshi warriors had been hosting Mai for a few weeks of training, and Toph was preparing her metal benders for an upcoming exposition in Cranefish Town where everyone would join up.
Zuko’s original plan was to stay in the palace working up until when he had to fly out, but Aang, in true airbender fashion, arrived after breakfast four days before the Firelord was set to leave.
“What do you have planned for us this time?” Zuko only had to ask.
“I was thinking we could go,” Aang paused for dramatic effect, “undercover.”
“You’ve spent too much time around Sokka.”
Naturally, that conversation led to Zuko to where he was now: on a road outside of Higashiura sweating in a common soldier’s armor, helmet, and eyepatch per the insistence of his head of security. Aang wasn’t looking much cooler wearing the same disguise.
“Undercover?” Zuko questioned again out loud. He had gotten a thrill out of it when he saw himself in his “disguise” but now? Zuko was annoyed at the heat and at himself for thinking this would go off without a hitch. The Firelord and the Avatar were the two most recognizable people in the world! One vendor might not notice but the third one might.
“It’ll be like old times,” Aang answered. Zuko sighed. “I could just chase you in the courtyard or spar if you wanted to relive that,” he said. Aang shook his head.
“I meant with Kuzon.”
Oh.
Aang was so integral to their friend group and to their world that sometimes Zuko forgot that his friend was from a different time and remembered the Fire Nation differently than everybody alive. Zuko privately hoped that maybe one day he would have rebuilt his country into something that resembled Aang’s memories.
Aang had continued talking. “Kuzon and I used to have days where we’d sneak off from his parents’ house and spend the whole day in town. I got a in a lot of trouble but sneaking around was worth it.”
Zuko had any and all information brought to him about Kuzon when he first learned of him. He was Aang’s age born in the southernmost isle to a local scribe. The last mention of Aang’s Kuzon was an execution order dated from 6 AG. There was nothing to Kuzon beyond his name, two scrolls from a parochial records office, and the grief-tinged memories only Aang kept alive.
“Besides, it’s not like we can do whatever we want as the Avatar and Firelord, but as Kuzon and Li we have a chance!”
Zuko decided he would play the part of undercover Firelord well for Aang’s sake.
“Alright, alright, where to first?”
Aang grinned despite the heatwave, and they were off.
There were a few hiccups of course like when Zuko realized he was only carrying platinum coins straight from the mint which a soldier wouldn’t have or when Aang almost sneezed his helmet off, but Zuko had to admit this was fun.
They got fire flakes, watched street performers, and bought trinkets to bring back to the rest of their friends.
By the time it was late afternoon they were on their second noodle shop sitting outside, their table almost in the street. The whole block was coming alive as the day winded on with university students, teenagers, and children crowded the streets and shops.
Zuko, after taking his fill of people watching, was buried in the expansive menu looking for Uncle’s favorite. Maybe there was some way he could get one box all the way to Ba Sing Se intact. It might be impossible, but Zuko would at least try.
“Hey Zuk-Li, look!” Aang got his attention. “Li” turned to see four kids playing at the stone fountain close by. One wore a Blue Spirit mask holding sticks for swords alongside a boy who had painted an arrow on his head. They were “pursued” by children in red paper hats bearing an ink scrawled Fire Nation insignia.
One of the “soldiers” took a much smaller stick and threw it at the “blue spirit” promptly causing the “blue spirit” to dramatically fall to the ground and “die” while the blue arrow kid ran a little further away.
“Come on, Ming! You can die better than that!” one of the “soldiers” complained taking off her paper helmet. “Let me be the Blue Spirit this time.”
“No way! You take forever to die,” Ming said taking her mask off in turn. The kid dressed as the Avatar rejoined his friends only to add that he thought he should be the Blue Spirit.
“Well, if Itsu wants to be the Blue Spirit, I get to be the Avatar then,” Ming countered. The soldier girl pouted while the other soldier tried to barter for the Avatar role.
“Looks like you’re pretty popular,” Aang said, eye still on the group.
“Don’t just say it like that out loud,” Zuko grumbled. Uncle’s noodles were temporarily forgotten.
“I’d thought you’d be happy the Blue Spirit is being more accepted?” Aang’s face was unreadable.
Was he? Zuko was glad that Aang was being accepted, but the kids and the entire world didn’t know the truth. In the years that followed the White Lotus’ and Aang’s memoir Zuko blocked a lot of the Blue Spirit speculation out, only reading the academic articles Matsui sent him regarding it.
He didn’t need to be told how it would be a public disaster if it were found out… would it? Politically maybe he could hang on with his friends’ help…but personally Zuko didn’t want anyone to know besides them. It was easier to sever that part of him off and pour all his energy into work.
But looking at the kids playing, they included an “Avatar” character. The Blue Spirit was important to the Avatar. The two were linked, Zuko realized. The attention Aang gave to the scene all but confirmed that fact.
“Did you almost die after I left you?” Aang asked him after he only gave silence to the last question. The kids were now trying to show Ming how to fall more dramatically. Aang grimaced at the sight.
Zuko’s mouth was already running trying to steer Aang far away from that line of thinking. “It wasn’t a theater mask that night!” Aang’s frown faltered. “Those are made from ceramic or even paper. The mask I wore was for display ideally on a wall. They’re metal to hold all the gilding though the one I wore obviously wasn’t gilded—” He realized he was rambling. “Anyways, my mom loved them, and I took her favorite one with me…”
“I really thought with all those studies that you were really hurt and never told me all this time. That I left you to die, and we almost never became friends.” Aang let out a deep breath that rustled their menus and chopsticks. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am.”
“Yeah, the worst part wasn’t the concussion it was the lectures from Uncle afterwards,” Zuko continued, focusing on four-year-old details because he didn’t know how to convey how hard it was to accept that people loved and worried about him even with all the ugly parts included. How thankful he was day in and out that they continued to do so.
How does he unlearn love as conditional?
It was so much easier to pretend the bad things he did was another person entirely. Aang’s menu crushed by anxious hands reminded him that the division between Zuko and the Blue Spirit was only real in the recesses of his mind.
Zuko, the Blue Spirit, was important to Aang.
He takes a breath to steady himself, and Aang repeated his question, “How bad?”
So, Zuko tells Aang how he slept the whole first day. How his uncle almost made the decision to bust his door out of worry before he emerged with a nasty bruise on the second. How the next days he laid in his dark room to ease the pain while Uncle forbade high stakes prison breaks. How his uncle held his hand when he thought Zuko was sleeping.
“But you’re alright?”
“I’m alright,” Zuko affirmed. In that moment, he felt it too. He would tell his friend as many times as he needed.
“So, your uncle said no more prison breaks, and you did Lake Laogai and Boiling Rock anyways?” Aang asked, a hint of a smile appearing in anticipation of what he knew Zuko would say next.
Zuko rolled his eyes. “I may have selectively forgotten some of his advice back then…”
The Avatar pitched his voice to sound gravelly and ditched the helmet to show off his furrowed brow, “Always going in without a plan, Prince Zuko. Very unwise if your great-grandfather has anything to say about it.”
“I should have never told you that,” he insisted, trying and failing to look annoyed at Aang’s sub-par Roku impression. This was so much better than Aang’s sudden crushing guilt about the blue spirit and him.
“Anyways, I’m ready to—Kuzon, your helmet,” Zuko realized and Aang’s eyes grew wide at his mistake. They’re not the only ones. The kids that sparked their conversation were already pointing, and their waiter, who had been walking towards their table, stopped in his tracks.
Zuko consciously told himself to enjoy the next three seconds of quiet, anonymous mundanity before all hell broke loose.
In that time, Aang turned to their awe-struck waiter.
“Do you think we can get these to go?”
Aang and Zuko, well more Zuko than Aang, waited anxiously for any reports about the Blue Spirit to come out from their undercover outing in Higashiura. There was nothing despite them discussing it out loud in public, forgetting themselves in the process. No, all the reports were about how the Avatar and the Firelord spent a day in a port town undercover which Matsui, of course, sold as a charming story of Zuko and Aang being men of the people. (It was one of his easier spins.)
Several weeks later, Aang receives a package from Zuko. Inside was a journal article with part of the conclusion underlined:
Excerpt from Grand Fire Sage Shyu, “Spirits of the Fire Nation: The Blue Spirit.” Decrees of the Fire Sages, 1054, no. 3 (104 AG): 1-35.
“Numerous, rigorous studies have been carried out indicating the Blue Spirit could not have survived the Pohuai escape, but none have considered what is very possible in a world renewed by the Avatar’s influence: that the Blue Spirit was never a human in the first place.1
The Fire Nation, only now under Firelord Zuko’s leadership, is opening their hearts and minds to the spirits. Considering the Nation’s disrespect under previous Lords and Sages, it is not improbable that spirits, including those of the Fire Nation, began to act of their own accord.
In The Recollections of Avatar Aang, the Avatar receives guidance from past Avatars and aid from the Ocean Spirit.2 It is the opinion of the Fire Sages of the Fire Nation that the Dark Water Spirit too offered his aid for the sake of balance and peace for the world…”
Zuko’s neat calligraphy wrote out a small message at the foot of the scroll.
“I think we’ll be fine.”
Aang agreed.