Zuko Studies Other Styles Of Bending To Prepare For Fighting The Avatar... Ends Up Teaching Them To Him

Zuko studies Other styles of Bending to prepare for fighting the Avatar... ends up teaching them to him instead

His father doesn’t even give him the news of the banishment in person.

No, there’s no last meeting between them, no chance for Zuko to have another memory of the man besides the last vivid sight he sees with his left eye before it’s burned: cold eyes and a hot hand reaching towards his face.

Instead, there’s a letter, a scroll written in red ink and curvy letters his father didn’t even bother to write himself and Zuko can’t read because his remaining working eye is still blurry. In the end, it’s Uncle that reads it out to him, his voice steady even as his hands shake when he tells him the terms of his banishment, the words wavering slightly when he gets to the bittersweet part of the promise of his returning honour- but only if he comes back with the avatar in chains.

Uncle’s voice eventually fades to nothing, giving its place to the distant sound of the sea around them he only then picks up (and isn’t it just cruel, how they didn’t even wait for him to wake up before putting him on a ship and sending him away) and there Zuko is, thirteen with only his Uncle for support and with a task most would deem impossible. 

Zuko is a child. He’s scared and in pain and half-blind and half-deaf, but he is also very, very stubborn and doesn’t know when to give up.

He studies. Not just fire styles, but all forms of bendings that there are because he’s going to fight the master of four elements, so wouldn’t it be stupid if he only knows one? He reads waterbending scrolls, goes through katas meant for the rock-hard body of an earthbender; and learns to jump high and take feather light steps that make no sound like a airbender. 

He becomes a sort of master in all. He can’t bend the sea or earth or air to his will, but he learns all their moves. Can go from the fluidity of a river to the steadiness of a mountain, and even let his body move with the freedom of the wind. It’s only then, when his flames are free and fluid and steady all at once; and painted in many colors other than the usual reds and oranges, that he starts to master fire too.

Then, he finds the avatar.

Spirits, He’s a kid. Naive and innocent like he was once, long ago before there was a war room and a scar on his face and only a ship in his command. He’s not even a master of four elements but just an airbender.

That’s when it hits him. 

It’s a 12 year old the fire nation wants dead, another child his father is going to burn and brand and destroy, and that’s the slap he needs to the face, an ice cold blow against the years old burn of his scar that finally wakes him up, and that’s when zuko decides- he’s going to help the avatar. 

he’s going to teach him how to bend but he’s not going to instruct him through just his fire bening- he’s going to help him all three elements he needs to take the firelord down. 

(or AU where Zuko was born in the wrong country, because if he was anything but a firebender, he’d have been a genius on par with Azula.

He still might be. His talent just needs another teaching style before it can bloom.)

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idea for a fic I’ll probably not write… so anyone interested?