5 hc + au combustion bender zuko? i loved your first post <3

attackfish:

Continued from here: [Link]

1. Iroh hasn’t seen his nephew since he left to lead the siege of Ba Sing Se more than eight years ago, more than half of Zuko’s life. Zuko disappeared from court to train as a combustion bender before Iroh returned. He has no idea what the boy even looks like anymore. But still when Pakku sends word to him asking if he knows who the young man captured by the Northern Water Tribe who tried to defend the moon could be, Iroh knows it has to be Zuko and he sneaks away from court to go find his nephew and rescue him.

2. Zuko is well treated in the North, kept in a pleasant room with good food and a comfortable bed, much more comfortable than his own quarters back in the Fire Temple, or on Zhao’s ship. He stood against his own people to defend the moon, and if he had succeeded, the Northern Princess would have lived. If he were to ask for asylum, he would have it without question. But he doesn’t speak. He has a vow of silence, but he knows that’s only an excuse. He can’t even begin the process of finding the words to say, or any words at all.

3. He is visited often by the Avatar and his companions. At first Arnook hopes that children his own age will draw the strange young man out of his shell and get him talking, but to no avail. He remains stubbornly silent.

4.Yet Aang continues to come. With his shaved head and third eye tattoo, he reminds the young Avatar of his own people, and even though he knows this resemblance is illusory, that the firebender is no more an Air Nomad than Katara or Sokka, or any of the other fragments of family he will gather to himself, he can’t help it. He still goes to see him every day, to talk to him, and try to make him laugh. Last week he made him smile. That’s something. A small victory. but a victory none the less.

5. A small steamboat slips past the Northern Water Tribe defenses and docks in a hidden harbor outside the fortress. The old man who enters the fortress under the cover of darkness goes straight for the home of Master Pakku, who wakes with an old friend’s hand on his shoulder, and a finger to his lips.