austism be blessed my boy can work a grill

...The only one without children that flames might scar, or younger women to catch a soldier’s interests.

Zuko sat by her fire and determinedly started struggling out of his wet clothes and she was still in here with him--

Zuko pulled one of her animal pelts over himself, and finished fighting off his clothes. When he stuck his head back out, cheeks still reddened from what was obviously the cold, she dropped a parka on his head.

“Dry clothes, Your Highness,” she said.

The parka was much bigger than he was. He fell asleep hoping that the camp’s men were on a long, long hunting trip.

---

He woke up again. Kanna tucked her favorite ulu knife away, newly sharpened, and stopped contemplating the alternative.

---

“I am commandeering a ship,” he said.

The crone led him across the village, all twenty paces of it, to a row of canoes.

“Take whichever one you want,” she said. “Will you need help getting it to the water?”

Zuko looked at the canoes. Looked at the ocean. Watched a leopard seal, easily the size of the largest canoe, dozing just past the ice his own ship had broken through the day before. It was frozen again, a great icy arrow pointing from the waves to the village, snow already starting to cover it over.

Beyond was blue sky and gray ocean and white ice, floating in blocks like stepping stones, like boulders, like cliffsides.

There wasn’t even a hint of gray steel, or smoke. Or any land, besides what they were standing on.

He looked down at the canoes again. Somehow, they seemed even smaller.

“I, uh,” Zuko cleared his throat. “I’ll require supplies. Before I go.”

---

They... did not have supplies. Not extra ones. This didn’t stop them from trying to give him supplies, food and blankets and anything else he could think to ask for. But each blanket was a pelt hunted by someone’s grandfather, had been inked with images and stories by someone’s mother, was the favorite of someone’s husband or brother or uncle or cousin--

They couldn’t go to the nearest market to replace things, here.

And when they talked about food, about what they could spare, they kept sneaking glances to their children, who were sneaking glances at Zuko from the huts, sticking their heads just over the snowy ledges like their fur-trimmed hoods would hide them. Their mothers and aunts shooed them away, and they crept back, like barnacle-crabs. Zuko glared, and they disappeared.

“When are your men coming back?” he asked. “They’re hunting, aren’t they?”

Oh. So that was what they looked like, when they weren’t trying to hide their hate.

---

Zuko wrapped himself up in the same blanket that night. It was printed inside with fine lines and images, telling a story he didn’t know. He wondered whose favorite it was.

---

Kanna wondered how quickly he’d wake—if he’d wake—if she built the fire up with wet driftwood and tundra grass, if she had one of the younger girls boost up a child to plug the air hole, if she let the smoke draw its own blanket down over this fire child.

---

It was hard to know when to wake up, because the sun never set. So everyone was up before him, and they all had spears and clubs and—and nets, and trap lines, and snow googles with their single slat to protect the eyes from snow blindness. Zuko had seen those once, at the Ember Island Museum of Ethnography, where they’d gone when it was too rainy for anything more exciting.

Oh. They were going hunting.

“Give me that,” Zuko said, and took a spear.

The women looked at him. One of them adjusted her googles.

“I can hunt,” he scowled.

He did not, in fact, know how to hunt.

---

“Give me that,” the Fire Prince said, and Kanna almost, almost gave him her ulu. Humans, like most animals, had an artery in their legs that would bleed them quick enough.

She kept skinning the rabbit-mink one of the women had snared.

“I can help,” he said, with less grace than most of their toddlers. Likely with the skinning skills of a toddler, too. She wasn’t going to let their unwanted visitor ruin a perfectly good pelt.

“Chop the meat,” she said, and gave him a different knife. “It’s dinner.”

“...This is really sharp,” he said a moment later, looking at the knife with some surprise.

“Is it,” said Kanna.

---

Things the Fire Prince was convinced he could do: hunt (until he realized he couldn’t tell the tracks of a rabbit-mink from a leopard-rabbit apart); spear fish (at least he could dry himself); pack snow for an igloo (frustrated princes ran hot); ice fish (the prince was a problem that kept coming close to solving itself).

Things the Fire Prince could actually do: mince meat, increasingly finely; gather berries and herbs, once he stopped trying to crush them; dig roots, under toddler supervision; mend nets, after the intermediary step of learning to braid hair loopies.

“Can’t I take him ice fishing again?” asked one of the women, as she watched Prince Zuko put as much apparent concentration into braiding her daughter’s hair as his people had into exterminating hers.

“Wait,” said another woman, sitting up straight. “Wait wait wait. I just had an idea.”

---

Three words: Infinite. Hot. Water.

---

Summer was coming to an end. The sun actually set, now, and the night was getting longer, and colder. The salmon-otter nets were mended and ready. The smoking racks were still full of cod-lemmings. The children were all a little older, the women all a little more used to doing both halves of their tribes’ chores; a little more used to not watching the horizon, waiting for help to come.

The Fire Prince was staring at the canoes again.

“Are you actually going to try leaving in one of those?” Kanna asked.

“...No.”

“Come on, then; someone needs to watch the kids while the women are hunting.”

She didn’t leave him alone with them, of course. But she could have.

---

Elsewhere, the war continued.

The moon turned red, for a moment none could sleep through; they did not learn why.

The comet came and went, leaving their castaway prince laying on the beach, his breath fogging up into the night sky above him, as the energy crashed from his system as quickly as it had come. Above, lights began to dance in the sky; Zuko pulled his hood up, so none of those spirits—children, dead too soon—got any ideas about kicking his head off to be their ball.

The war had ended. The world didn’t feel any different; no one in the south would know until spring came again.

---

It makes Zuko’s stomach turn, all of it, and so instead of fulfilling his duty as the future Lord of Caldera, he’s sneaking around the city in hopes of killing enough time that he won’t be back until well after the sun has gone down and the fanfare is over and he can avoid his father long enough to return to the duties he cares about doing. Like leading training for the soldiers or listening to the troubles of the town’s residents.

Or, if he’s feeling dangerous, fantasize about sailing the open—

He doesn’t get a chance to finish that thought as something—no, someone knocks him on his ass.

“Oh, shit. Sorry, dude.” Zuko feels his hood slip off of his head as he falls, which is almost immediately followed by low gasps and whispers around the market’s main square. He winces as he shifts on his ass, jumping back in surprise as a scarred and tan hand shoots into view. Even knowing who he is, most people wouldn’t give a second thought to helping him get off the ground, instead simply choosing to skirt around him and duck their heads lest Zuko summons his dad to make them suffer the consequences of Zuko’s own free will and clumsiness. No, he’s not bitter about it, thank you very much.

Anyway, back to his current situation. 

In front of him is an outstretched hand, and when he follows the hand up to see who it belongs to, he can’t see their face with the sun’s rays creating a halo around their head. “I promise I don’t have scurvy or anything, dude.” Zuko feel a flush spread across his cheeks, not realizing how much time has gone by, as he reaches out to grab the stranger’s hand. Since Zuko is having the worst luck of his life today, the moment he’s standing in an upright position he trips over his own feet and topples forward into the strangers chest. Zuko feels his flush deepend as the stranger catches him around the waist, causing more muttering to break out around the town square.

Azula is definitely cackling about this somewhere.

Zuko hates that he really, kinda deserves it.

When he finally musters up the courage to look up and thank the stranger—y’know, because he’s a decent human being—the words get caught in his throat. The stranger is a very handsome, yet very unassuming individual, despite his stature. He’s wearing a simple deep blue tunic that does nothing to hide the myriad of tiny scars that are littered across his collarbone and chest. He’s wearing tiny silver hoops in his ears that give off a slight glint in the sunlight, and his hair is shorn close to the scalp from his forehead down. His eyes are a beautifully deep shade of brown, that Zuko has to stop himself from drowning in.

The image of a halo around this guy’s head seems fitting in this moment, because Zuko’s almost positive he’s an angel. The stranger chuckles. “Thanks. Most people call me Sokka, though.” Oh no, he’d said that out loud. “Yeah, dude, sorry.”

Oh no.

Zuko quickly straightens his posture, using his free hand to dust off his robes. The guy—Sokka—hasn’t quite let go of his hand yet, and though it’s slightly awkward for a first meeting, he can’t say he minds the contact. Zuko clears his throat before responding, “My apologies, I am usually not so out of it.”

Sokka’s reply has an air of confidence latched onto it. “So, you’re saying I’m special.” Zuko takes a moment to answer. He takes in the broad, strong shoulders and soft way Sokka’s eyelashes splay across his cheeks when he blinks and the scar that trails from under his left eye in a diagonal down to his chin and possibly his neck. He takes in deep freckles and deep brown eyes and Zuko can’t help but be swept away.

“We just met,” Zuko replies. “I do not yet know if you deserve that title.” When Sokka smiles in response, it only serves to solidify Zuko’s thoughts. He doesn’t think he’s ever been taken quite so quickly with someone he just met. On a whim, Zuko lightly squeezes Sokka’s hand where it’s still in his grasp.

“Yet?” Sokka’s grin widens, showing off a dimple in his left cheek. Zuko wants to kiss it. “So, you wanna see me again?” 

Unfortunately, they’re knocked into by a group of kids who are likely rushing to spend their weekly allowances on dried candy and poppers. Shaken out of their bubble, Zuko takes in the side glances and whispers of those who witnessed the exchange and internally winces. He cannot let this get back to his father.

“I’m afraid I’m in a bit of a hurry. Duty calls.” Zuko ignores the way Sokka’s eyes seem to land on the royal crest that’s embroidered into his collar where his cloak has slipped off his shoulders. Damn Ozai for branding essentially all his clothing. In a moment of boldness, he asks, “Are you from around here?” For a moment, Sokka doesn’t answer, and Zuko takes the time to mentally berate himself from acting like an idiotic teenager with their first crush.

“Not exactly,” is what comes out of Sokka’s mouth when he finally replies. There’s a glint in his eyes as he answers, something Zuko isn’t quite sure he’s understanding the meaning behind, but he ultimately decides to ignore it. “Tonight’s my last night in town. Y’know, duty calls.” He says, resting his hand lightly on the sword at his hip that Zuko had honestly failed to notice. It feels like an inside joke, the way Sokka smirks as he completes the action, but Zuko also chooses to ignore that. His father would be having a conniption if he could see how comfortable he was acting with a complete and total stranger. With a pirate. “How about you meet me at Aunt Wu’s later tonight? It’ll be my treat.”

There are shouts coming from down the street, and when Zuko turns around he can see the unmistakable figures of his father’s guards marching their way down the street in his direction. Inwardly he curses himself for getting too comfortable, forgetting that he’s literally next in line to be Lord of Caldera and yet here he is holding hands and openly flirting with a lowly commoner. He goes to turn back towards where Sokka has gone quiet behind him, but is stopped in his tracks when the man in question steps into Zuko’s space and places his lips behind the shell of Zuko’s ear.

“Sorry to cut this short, darling, but that’s my cue. Meet me at seven.” The way Sokka’s breath hits his skin gives him goosebumps, and he just barely stops himself from shivering in response. “Don’t keep me waiting, my lord, otherwise you might hurt my feelings.” And just like that, the pressure of another body along his back is gone, and when Zuko turns around to respond, Sokka is already gone, lost in the crowd of blues and browns and reds. He sighs, barely hiding his annoyance when the guards stomp up behind him.

He turns, doing his best to put the most bored expression he can manage on his face. “Did the high and mighty Fire Lord run out of executions to hand out and finally realize I was missing?” When the guards don’t respond, simply part and turn back in the direction of the palace, Zuko sighs again as he begins the trek back to what he knows is going to be an earful of bullshit.