attackfish:

Not going to lie, I read this as “Constitution bender” at first and am now terribly disappointed I don’t get to write some kind of ridiculous lawyers AU with elderly LoK era Zuko as a Supreme Court Justice.

1. So combustion bending is heavily implied to be a learned skill, and one typically associated with a certain amount of ritual. So how does a prince end up in this kind of ritualized training? He doesn’t discover a proclivity for edged weapons. Maybe Iroh sent him something other than a knife. Instead, as Zuko’s life after his mother’s sudden disappearance grew bleaker, he searched for some other useful, worthwhile skill to make up for his complete inadequacy in comparison to his sister in standard firebending. He hits on combustion bending almost by accident.

2. Ozai is overjoyed. Sending Zuko off to study a specialized form of bending is a handy way to get rid of him for a while, and with any luck, he’ll discover a vocation, or be manipulated into discovering a vocation and become a combustion monk or a Fire Sage. So this is what happens to Zuko instead of scarring and banishment.

3. Zhao holds the honor of being the first Fire Nation officer to be tasked with hunting the Avatar, and he gets all the toys. He asks for a combustion bender, and he gets one. Unfortunately, or probably very fortunately, Zuko is under a vow of silence at the time, so he spends a lot of time glaring at Zhao’s back instead of shouting exactly what he thinks of his new commander to the man’s face, and getting himself in a duel.

4. Zuko is still a prince, and at least half the reason Zhao wants him around is to have a baby royal as witness to his exploits. So he brings Zuko with him to the North Pole, and takes him on the land expedition to kill the moon. Effectively this means he takes Iroh’s place. In the lessons he has taken from the Fire Sages in the hopes that he could be persuaded become one himself, he got to hear a lot about balance and the spirits, and how doing something like destroying the moon is a terrible idea and also blasphemy, and he turns on Zhao, breaking his vow of silence to stumble his way through explaining this.

5. After Zhao kills the moon spirit and the Avatar joins with the ocean spirit, Zuko takes on Zhao and is winning when the ocean spirit hauls Zhao away. This very public fight gets Zuko captured and taken before Chief Arnook and the Avatar. They try to piece together his identity, and figure out what to do with him, but Zuko isn’t saying a word. Literally. He’s back to that whole vow of silence thing.