where the past can't reach us // zuko x reader

Chapter Two - Goodbyes

By the time the next lesson came around, the sadness had transformed into insurmountable rage. It wasn't just this situation on its own - though having to denounce my nation in front of the very people who had destroyed it was bad enough. It was more a build-up of everything I'd endured in this country, all the hate directed at other nations, all the insults, all the lies. This was just the last straw.

Thankfully, I could just fake a twisted ankle in order to not participate in the next lesson - it was just bending practice (or regular martial arts in my case, since I couldn't bend). I was sent up to the library with another girl to work on homework instead.

That day, I took out my books as usual, hoping the work would distract me. It did not. If anything, it made me even angrier. The lies, the propaganda was everywhere, permeating every page of every Fire Nation textbook. Maths questions about finding the speed of a Fire Navy warship, Biology texts about the Fire Nation's genetic superiority, not even mentioning the required reading for Literature.

I couldn't focus. Emotions swirled around in my head, an inferno of shame and despair and rage. Intense, all-consuming rage, rage to an extent I had never felt before. I hated this country and everything it stood for.

They had come for my people. An entire race, human beings with homes and beliefs and best friends, mercilessly slaughtered at the hands of Sozin. Pacifists that had, even with the Avatar, never been a threat to anyone. All wiped out, dead.

And then, what made it all the more painful, they had the audacity to lie about it. Making the Air Nomads out to be stupid and uncivilized - simultaneously an empty mountain wasteland full of dumb hippies, and a violent nation threatening the Fire Lord with a full-fledged army of its own. It was trash, complete and utter nonsense, all of it.

I hated the Fire Nation, and I hated not being allowed to say that out loud. I wanted to scream it from the rooftops, to rip up all the textbooks, tear down all the propaganda posters. To blow up the tanks, sink the ships, break the walls. To destroy every reminder of the pain this country had brought to me, and so many others. To get my revenge. I wanted this place to burn.

"(y/n)!"

The girl's voice broke through my train of thought.

"(y/n), what on earth are you doing?"

"Huh?" I asked. I wasn't doing anything...

"The table!" she cried. "Look at the table!"

The smell of burning wood suddenly hit me, and I looked down to see that somebody had lit the table on fire. With growing horror, I looked at my hands, and realised that it was me.

//////

When (y/n) came home, she was relieved to find both her parents in the lounge.

"Hello dear! How was school?" asked Mayako cheerfully.

"Mayako... Tomin... I need to tell you something."

"What's wrong, (y/n)?" asked Tomin.

"Well... I think I should just show you," (y/n) whispered. She hesitated, then held out her hand. After a few seconds, a small flame appeared on it.

"Wow, (y/n)... I thought..." started Tomin. He didn't know what to say.

What he saw worried him. For two years, he'd been convinced that the mysterious Air Nomad child he had taken in couldn't bend, a thought that brought him great relief. If she couldn't bend, that would be easier for everyone - no hidden abilities, no awful punishments when the truth inevitably rose to the surface. However, after what he'd just seen... This was much worse.