a/n: no matter how long you have been here, just know i'm extremely grateful for anyone who's read this fic. now here's the latest chapter.
Sometimes it felt like the days dragged on. Each and every hour was laid out just like the day before–the week before. It made time seem endless, even though Y/N knew it definitely was not. Sozin’s Comet was getting closer and closer each day. Y/N didn’t know if it was the anticipation for that long fated day or if it was some buried fire bender gene in her body, warning her of something to come. She could feel it deep within her bones. She woke up earlier and earlier each day, no matter how late her night ended up. And each day the sun greeted her with warm yellow light that made the air a little easier to breathe.
As they moved further south and into Fire Nation territory, Zuko made mention of Ember Island as a place to hide out. The island–or chain of islands, really–were close enough to Caldera City that it would be a good place for them to lay low and wait, as well as uninhabited by enough people that they could lay low.
Y/N thought it was a little risky to be living in the Fire Lord’s Ember Island house, but Zuko was probably right, this was going to be the last place anyone would look for them. Maybe Y/N was just unsettled about being back, so close to Caldera City, or maybe it was being back on Ember Island for the first time since she was 9.
Somewhere between the temple and the beach house, Y/N tired of training. It just added to the monotony, and so she just…stopped. Instead, she spent her days on the beach, sometimes alone–often with the others though–playing in the tide pools and skim-boarding on the sand. And sometimes, if she felt like she didn’t have enough time on her own to recharge, she’d leave in the night, either through her window or the front door to take a walk on the beach in the moonlight. Only to come back and wake up a few hours later, ready for sunrise.
Today was no different, though the sun was already peeking over the horizon and into her room when her eyes peeled open.
The wooden floors creaked under Y/N’s feet as she crept out of her room silently.
Each board was smooth under her bare toes, not well-worn by many little feet running across them year after year but made that way before they were even built into the house, for no doubt a hefty fee. The beach house was… cold, to say the least. It just felt like each pore of the house seeped something uninviting, reminding them that they shouldn’t be there. It wasn’t just Y/N who felt it, they all spent as little time as possible in the house.
She padded into the kitchen and struck their flint to start a fire under the stove–mostly unneeded since Zuko had joined their group–but wholly necessary when he wasn’t around to be their fire-starter. Y/N didn’t mind doing it this way, it felt nice being able to do something with her own hands for once instead of relying on the others to make clean water or heat up the food. She boiled just enough water for one cup of tea before heading out to the courtyard where she knew at least two of her friends would be awake.
Y/N didn’t like feeling optimistic. It was a terrifying feeling. There was so much riding on their success; she didn’t want to spend so much energy on hoping only to have it all dashed away if things didn’t go their way. It would be too heartbreaking. But watching Aang, she could. They weren’t even sparring and she could see the power behind every blast of fire. And she had hope for their future. She had to; she wasn’t going to lose her friends.
“You’re doing that one wrong,” Y/N said from the shadows on the porch. She held her warm cup to her chest, the breeze blowing in from the ocean was keeping the courtyard chilly until the sun could rise high enough to heat the island.
Aang didn’t seem too surprised to hear her voice. “Doing what wrong?” He asked, confused.
Zuko frowned up at Y/N from his seat on the steps but nodded to Aang. “She’s right, you have to dip further down so when you come up the fire creates more of an arc.”
Aang pushed through a few more poses before Zuko stood up and joined him. Y/N stole his seat and pulled her legs up to cross them. She watched as they moved in tandem, working though the most basic of firebending forms all the way up to a few advanced ones. Memories flooded Y/N’s head so fast it made her dizzy. She remembered sitting just like she was now, watching her two brothers work through their forms when she was younger. On chilly mornings, much like today, she would wrap herself in a blanket nest and sip on tea that was much too sweet as they worked well into mid morning. In a sudden rush of affection she realized she was doing much of the same thing, just years and years later.
Aang had learned fast. That was good. She set down her empty cup as the two boys headed back to her, both sweaty from their training. “Good job, Aang! You’re doing great!”
Aang beamed with pride. “Thanks, Y/N!
“Don’t be so encouraging, he’s still got a lot to learn,” Zuko grumbled, taking a seat on the ground next to her.
Y/N pouted. “He needs encouragement. That’s how he learns.” Y/N learned that from watching the differences between Katara teaching styles and Toph’s teaching styles.
“Speaking of firebending,” Aang kicked his feet against the edge of the steps and looked around like he was avoiding something. “How did you know about the firebending forms?”
Zuko leaned back on his hands. “I’d like to know that too.”
Y/N smiled softly. “I watched my brothers for years, religiously learning all the forms and practicing them on my own. I wanted to be just like them. I guess I still remember them.”
Aang frowned. “It’s not like you couldn’t bend on purpose.”
Y/N was surprised to see Aang look so sad. “I know.” She shrugged and looked away feeling her cheeks redden with both boys staring at her. “I just wanted to be normal so people would stop paying attention to me for the wrong reasons.” She mumbled.
“It made you a better sword fighter,” Zuko said suddenly.
“What?” Y/N asked.
“The discipline and movements. You do the same when you’re fighting.”
“I’ve never noticed, but you’re right, Zuko!” Aang exclaimed.
The thought made Y/N smile. “That was nice of you.”
Zuko rolled his eyes but let the smallest hint of a smile grace his lips.
She looked back to Aang, who still looked a bit hesitant. “Don’t worry about me. How about we go swimming? Before the others wake up!”
Aang perked up immediately. “That sounds great! Let’s go, Zuko!”
Y/N and Aang stood, both looking down at Zuko, who just stared at the ground between his feet. She could already hear him saying no, telling them that he needed to train more or meditate and didn’t have time to run off and play games.
Y/N opened her mouth to tell Aang that the two of them could still go but Zuko spoke up before her. “Yeah, okay.”
Sometimes even on those long, dragging days, it was the little things that made everything better; like playing in the surf with two of your friends.
---
That evening though, Y/N was back where she had started the day, and had decided that everyone in her group of friends, save for maybe Zuko, talked way too much. She craved those moments alone where she just had her thoughts to occupy her. Especially when she had a lot on her mind.
Y/N didn’t want to admit she felt stuck inside with Aang and Katara while everyone else was outside enjoying the evening, but she also felt guilty in turning down their request to help make dinner to just wander around on the beach until sunset. She didn’t help out much with making meals, and she felt obligated to help when she could.
So she was there, sitting on the dinner table, lotus style with a knife and a cutting board and a basket of carrots in need of chopping at her side.
“What else can I do, Katara?” Aang dumped some of the vegetables he was cutting into the stew Katara was currently stirring over the stove.
“Hmm, can you go out and get some more water to make the rice?” Aang grinned and nodded, before running out of the house towards the side of the house where there was a small barrel of collected water.
Y/N smiled to herself at the interaction and continued cutting carrots for Katara, trying not to let her mind wander, but it was hard with the monotonous work and the bad spot she was sitting in.
Just in front of her was the window where she had watched Zuko and Aang train while she made tea that morning, now it showed Zuko and Sokka doing their own training.
Y/N was struggling with more than just feeling like she didn’t belong on the Island. She didn’t know what she was going to say to Sokka, or if she was even going to say anything about her feelings at all. Without the constant traveling and the safety of a hideout, she was able to just stop and let those feelings and thoughts she had been holding back with a dam of fear wash over her.
It was all really confusing for Y/N. And hard to admit.
She didn’t want to face the awkward conversation of asking whether he could always be there for her. She didn’t want to beg him to never leave because she was so insecure. She was so afraid of losing everything and everyone that she was going to do just that because she was afraid of opening up.
What would happen if she never told Sokka she loved him back? Did she even love him back? What did love feel like?
Love with Azula felt like fire, sometimes it burned painfully, but in the good times it filled her with a warmth like never before. Zuko’s friendship felt the same, but it was less like sitting too close to the fire and more like sitting just in the right place where it didn’t dry out your eyes but didn’t make goosebumps grow on your arms. Sokka always felt like a cool breeze, one where you lift your face up to the sky and smile because it always feels like relief. But that’s not what Y/N is used to. How does she know if it’s love if it doesn’t hurt a little bit? How does she know that it's real if she doesn’t have to give all of herself until she is worn to nothing to make it work?
It wasn’t that she was afraid to care for him, she had made it clear that she did. It was just easier on her heart to keep him at a distance for now until she figured they were inevitably part ways. That’s how Y/N saw this all ending. Separated across oceans, back to where they came from, whatever the outcome of the war. Y/N wanted to dream of the possibilities and opportunities where they could be together in the long run, but those were just that, dreams for another lifetime. People from the Water Tribe didn’t marry people from the Fire Nation.
Everything that she learned over the last few months was that nothing was ever set in stone, so why should she and Sokka be.
Y/N stared out the window, pondering when it would all fall apart and sliced downwards on a carrot, but met nothing but the cutting board. She looked down where the knife was closer to her finger than to the carrots. She let out a little inward gasp.
“What?” Katara turned around and asked.
Y/N’s eyes widened. “Nothing.” She motioned to the cutting board. “Do you want these smaller?”
Katara eyed Y/N and then looked to the cutting board. “They’re fine. But pay more attention, I don’t know how to reattach fingers yet.”
“Yeah, definitely.”
Y/N’s eyes didn’t leave the wooden cutting board and her fingers until the others came bustling into the kitchen, all talking at once.
Y/N for the most part ignored everyone, until Sokka reached over and snatched one of the slices of carrots.
Y/N nudged his arm. “Can you wait?! I thought you didn’t like vegetables!”
“Aang got me to like carrots!” Sokka retorted, before quickly reaching around Y/N to grab another and popping it into his mouth.
“Why would you be sitting on the table that we have to eat off of?” Suki wrinkled her nose.
“Uh! Katara said I could!” Y/N stuck her tongue out.
Katara whipped around, hands on her hips. “I never said you could, I just didn’t say you couldn’t.” Katara turned back to stirring the stew before muttering under her breath, “Not like telling you no would have made a difference anyways.”
“Hey!” Y/N picked up a carrot and launched it at the back of Katara’s head.
Aang walked back inside carrying a bucket of water, to a kitchen full of chaos. Vegetables were being thrown across the room at one another, as laughter rang out. Sokka, Zuko and Y/N were sprawled on one side of the kitchen behind and under the table; with Suki, Katara and Toph only edging from behind the safety of the kitchen doorway to throw something.
For the first time in a long time, Y/N could hear the exasperation of a 112 year old monk in Aang’s usually cheerful voice.“Uh, guys, what are we supposed to eat for dinner now?”
---
Y/N was dozing against the headboard of her bed that night, when she heard the knock at her door. At first she thought she imagined it, that is until she heard a voice on the other side of the doorway. “Y/N, are you awake?”
Y/N slid out of bed and cracked open the door. She smiled and leaned against the doorjamb, a familiar feeling in her chest.
“Are you afraid that there are ghosts here too?”
Sokka grinned and nodded. “In this house? Absolutely. But I’m not here for that.”
“Oh?” Y/N raised an eyebrow.
“Come outside with me.”
Y/N chuckled. “Why?”
“Please, just come on. No questions.”
Y/N sighed and reached for an old silk robe she found in one of the closets, but her smile never left her face.
To be fair to Sokka, there wasn’t much to surprise Y/N with on an island she grew up on. But that night, the sky momentarily took her breath away.
Sometimes the simplest things were the most beautiful.
“I thought we could come out here; look at the stars a bit. I used to like doing that at home. Though it’s different. The constellations aren’t the same where I’m from.”
“I guess I’ll just have to teach you some.”
Together they laid side by side on the roof, and Y/N pointed out her favorites. The dragon, the jack-rabbit...
After Y/N had told Sokka the story of the Red Queen, some ancient fable of a powerful Fire Lady that was always one of Y/N’s favorites, they both grew quiet, Y/N asked the question that had been brewing on her mind. She worried that whatever she said would mess up the peaceful night they had been having. It felt like she was intruding on a secret that she wasn’t supposed to know.
“Hey, Sokka,” Y/N asked.
“Hmmm,” She looked over and Sokka looked about half asleep already. Maybe this would be good timing.
“Who’s Yue?”
Sokka’s eyes shot open and he sat up quickly. “What?”
Y/N could feel her face flush. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to know.
“Yue.” The word sounded flat and foreign on her tongue. Maybe that wasn’t how you actually pronounced it? Some of the Water Tribe names and words were hard for Y/N’s mouth to form. If she could, she flushed deeper. “I heard you talking about them when I was hurt. I was in and out of it, so I don’t remember much, but I remember the name.”
Sokka suddenly looked very sad. Which was… odd because Y/N just thought that Yue was a Water Tribe spirit much like the Fire Nation had Agni.
“She’s the moon spirit,” Sokka whispered, his eyes cast down on his wringing hands.
Y/N eyes were wide. Why was he acting like this? “Oh. I figured she was a spirit or something. It sounded like you were praying to her, or something.”
“Yeah,” Sokka choked out. “Something like that.”
That’s when Y/N noticed there were drips of water on Sokka’s hands. Tears.
“Sokka?” Y/N said softly. She reached forward and–yup those were tears, dripping on their hands.
“She was a girl I met at the Northern Water Tribe when we first started traveling.”
“I thought she was…”
“She is.” For the first time, Sokka looked up. The pain in his eyes was unimaginable. “But she was still a girl when I met her.”
Sokka launched into a story that sounded more fantasy than real, but the look on his face, the sadness in his features, Y/N knew he was telling the truth.
“She was blessed by the moon spirit when she was born, it was the only reason she was alive. But when we were in the Northern Water Tribe—Zhao, a Fire Nation commander killed the moon spirit and all the water benders lost their bending, forever.” Sokka shivered. “It was scary, the moon was gone in the sky and we were helpless to fight the Fire Nation. It would have changed the tide of the war.
But she was selfless. She knew that she was the only hope for her tribe—for the world—and she sacrificed herself to save all of us. So now she’s the moon spirit…I guess. I don’t know, she’ll always be Yue to me.” Sokka’s voice trailed off with a sniffle. Y/N didn’t know how to respond.
Sokka sent a longing glance upward. The moon was just past full, waning in the far distance but still bright and round in the sky. “I think–I think she heard me that night. And she knew how much you meant to me, even then. And she saved you because…” Now it was Sokka’s turn to flush. “I don’t think I could live without you.”
Those words made Y/N’s chest burn. Her arms and legs tingled in relief as if all the tension in her body began to melt away. Y/N reached out, wiping a stray tear off of Sokka’s cheek. “Me either,” she replied instantly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you sad.”
“’m not. Sad, really. I miss her, but it’s easier to always know where she is. She didn’t have a lot of choice in her life, but this was something she had control over. If she hadn’t become the moon spirit, the war would have ended right there. So her sacrifice meant that, you know, Zuko is our friend now and Aang has a chance at beating the Firelord and you have a place in all our lives. She made all of this possible.”
“Sounds like we have a lot more to be thankful to her for than just saving little old me then, huh?”
“You would have liked her.”
Y/N nodded and peered at the moon above them. “I do like her.”
No one else needed to know that after the two of them went inside and off to bed, that Y/N hung halfway out her window to get one last look at the moon. Y/N swore as her eyes closed and sleep overtook her that the moon shone a little brighter. Maybe that’s how the moon said thank you. Y/N’d never tell anyone that she whispered a small thank you too, to the girl who lived among the stars.
a/n: don't be shy, come talk to me in my askbox and tell me if you liked it
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In “The Beach”, Zuko brings Mai a scoop of a pink dessert served in a paper cone. Based on the Fire Nation’s cultural influences and Mai’s sarcastic response of “really refreshing” when he drops one, I think Zuko brought the two of them some shaved ice. Shaved ice is a popular desert throughout all of Asia, with each country having its own take on the treat and different toppings. In its most basic form, shaved ice is finely crushed frozen water or milk flavored with a sweet syrup. If I had to guess, the shaved ice that Zuko bought was probably guava flavored.
Since this post is pretty plain, click below to see pictures of different shaved ices throughout Asia.
logging onto tumblr like heyyy i'm thinking about the same character i've spent the past few weeks thinking about. no change here. just wanted to let yall know
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this takes place early in zuko’s reign while he’s still trying to figure out what’s the person he needs to be for his people and sokka really goes there and says “they don’t need you do be anything but yourself”
