Chapter Text
Daiza had no children, or husband, or secret-female-lover-she-would-marry-if-Firelord-Sozin-wasn't-such-an-ass.
But she did have her bakery.
Aptly named "Daiza's", she had used the last of her barely sufficient military discharge pension and the savings from years of work cleaning the estates on the private side of the island to afford the small building on the beachside. She made mochi, beancakes, pastries - and when her sister sent her neice, Enora, up from Hira'a, they made ice cream using the recipe from Enora's favorite shop. It was a simple yet dignified life, and after getting rocks thrown at her head for the better part of her early twenties, she felt she deserved it.
Which is why she was all the more surprised when two young, but very rich children walked through her door.
Their duo was one little boy with big golden eyes, a sweet face, a large coin purse in one hand, and a little girl's in the other. The little girl was searching her displays with all the excitement befiiting a small child surrounded by desert, as she couldn't be older than four, the boy no more than six. Both of them were wearing silks that probably cost more than new oven Daiza was looking at last week, and the little boy had a strangely determined look on his face, which was 90% adorable, and 10% frightening, because Daiza worked in customer service long enough to know that where there were rich children, their rich, and likely demanding mother was somewhere nearby.
The little girl spoke suddenly. "Zuzu!! Mochi!" She reached out to take one off the display when the boy said "Azula, we have to pay for that!". The girl pouted, and did not put the piece of mochi down, seemingly resigned to hold it in her hand until it had been paid for. Daiza smiled at that, it was always nice to see children with manners- her heart stopped.
Azula. The little girls name was Azula. The young princess was named Azula.
It was at this point Daiza remembered the Royal Family was vacationing at Ember Island this summer.
The boy - Prince Zuko, son of Prince Ozai, second son to Firelord Azulon - in Agni's name what did she get herself into - approached her at the counter, took a deep breath, and started speaking.
"Excuse me, can we have some mochi please? I brought money! I'm sorry Azula started taking one before I paid for it, Mom says we have to have good manners but she's little and still learning." Then he did the most remarkable thing.
He bowed. Not too deep, but sincere and respectful in a way Daiza would not have expected from royalty.
She went to respond when the door opened again, a beautiful woman in red and gold followed by a guard scanning the room, seeing the children, and shoulders sagging as she sighed in relief.
Princess Ursa was in Daiza's store.
Rich kids. Rich mothers. Oh no.
Agni bless my soul, Daiza thought. At least Enora is down at the beach and has plausible deniability.
Princess Ursa straightened out and looked over to Daiza, giving a shallow bow in her direction. "I apologize for the interruption." Turning to the children, she continued. "Zuko, Azula. Do you remember what I told you about going off on your own?" She looked at the children expectantly as Daiza wondered what she did to anger the spirits to make this happen. Prince Zuko hung his head and said "Yes, Mom." at the same time Princess Azula said "No!" and stuck the entire mochi piece in her mouth, presumably tired of waiting.
Princess Ursa was undeterred, took a quick breath - which Daiza noted must be where the young Prince picked up the habit - and said "I told you that if you'd like to go explore the island without me, you had to tell me before you left, and be back before sundown. Did you do that?"
Prince Zuko looked to his sister for back up.
Princess Asula ate another piece of mochi.
Daiza would have laughed if it weren't for the fact that she wasn't sure if laughing at two of the royal children getting into mischief would make her guilty of "Disloyalty to the Crown and the Royal Line of Agni", and she did not want to be sent to the mining camps like that Anti-war protester from last month.
The prince returned his attention to his mother, the young princess happily munching away. "I'm sorry Mom! Azula wanted to go explore and I needed to find coins because you always say it's rude to think we should get things for free and I didn't know if we needed them and I forgot to tell you! But we found crabs! Then Azula got hungry and now we're here!" He paused for a moment, looking again at his decidedly unhelpful sister - the little princess had begun eyeing a new piece of mochi, with a look Daiza could only describe as adorably frightening. The prince turned back to his mother. "We're sorry, Mom. Can we at least get ice cream before we go back?"
Princess Ursa sighed and said "It would be very rude to cause take up so much of- " she paused.
And turned towards the counter. Towards Daiza.
Agni above, the Princess was speaking to her.
"I don't mean to offend you, but I presume you are Daiza?" Princess Ursa, in that moment, looked startlingly like all of the other mothers with over eager children that frequented her shop.
"Y-Yes, your Highness."
The Princess continued. "It would be rude to take up this much of Miss Daiza's time and not buy something. Azula, I saw you sneak mochi into your pockets, so you get one more piece and that's it. Zuko, darling, what do you want?" She smiled at her son while the young Princess huffed, likely at being found out.
Prince Zuko beamed. "The sign says the ice cream is from a place called Hira'a! Can we try it? I wanna see if there's a fireflake flavor!"
Princess Ursa seemed shocked for a moment, then smiled. "Yes, Zuko, we can."
That night, Daiza reflected on the young royals. The little prince was honest and kind, if not long-suffering due to the antics of his younger sister.
He was a good kid.
Huh. Maybe there was hope for the royal family yet.
Sao knew three things about the beach on Ember Island to be life lessons.
1. Check for crab holes before you put your blanket down.
2. Be nothing short of polite around the rich end of the island.
3. Strange things happen on the beach.
Strange as in people looking as though they're the main characters of a new play but on by the local theatre having life altering realizations by the water. Nothing dangerous, per se, but it's better to presume something strange will happen at the beach then be blindsided later on.
As Sao was doing his nightly trash clean up - you'd think these rich people would want their beautiful beaches to be clean as to not invoke the wrath of the spirits, but it appears old man Sao is the only person on the island with a shred of rationale. His wife, Esen, would clean the beaches with him before she passed, so all else be damned, they would stay clean in her honor.
"Hello! Are you looking for crabs?"
Sao jumped, only resisting cursing due to the fact that the voice sounded young. Under-the-age-of-ten, young. He turned around and saw he was right, there was no way the little boy in front of him was more than eight years old, but Sao was notoriously bad with children, so he could be wrong.
"Uh, no. No, I'm cleaning."
The boy titled his head. He had rich black hair pulled up into a pheonix tail, a happy little face, and bright gold eyes. His features were noble, but after doing a quick glance, Sao realized the little boy was alone.
"You clean the beach?"
Sao resigned himself to whatever was about to happen.
"Yes. If no one takes care of the beach, the spirits will become angry. I'm the only one who cleans it."
The little boy's eyebrows furrowed. "All by yourself? That's not fair!" He stood a little straighter and smiled. "I'll help! I help my mom take care of the turtleduck pond all the time at the palace!"
The boy looked to Sao, waiting on instruction, unaware that Sao was having his third mid-life crisis over the word "palace".
Sao knew the Royal Family was staying at their estate on the island for the summer, excluding Fire Lord Azulon, who was much too busy in the capital.
(Also, Sao doubted that the man who had been raging war on the world since for near the entirety of its duration took vacations.)
Logically, this prince was Prince Zuko. Were princes even allowed to pick up trash?
Don't look a gift ostrich-horse in the mouth, Sao. He could imagine what Esen would say if she was here. "Let the little prince help - what's the harm?" She was definitely laughing at him from the spirit world.
Only for you, Esen.
"Alright. Well, uh. I have this bag. And if you seen any trash, um, put it in the bag. Got it?"
Prince Zuko nodded and began searching for trash.
They cleaned in silence for about ten minutes before the young prince spoke again.
"Why doesn't anyone else help you?"
Sao - growing increasingly conviced that this whole thing was a spirit prank - answered, "They don't believe in honoring the spirits. They believe it doesn't matter, that the spirits have abandoned us, so we shouldn't waste our time."
The prince paused. "But cleaning the beach is the right thing to do?"
Of all the things Sao thought the child would say, that wasn't it.
"Yes, it is."
The prince looked confused, again. "My mom says doing the right thing is never a waste of time. She says we have to respect the spirits." He stopped, then smiled. "Maybe they just need their moms to tell them that, and then you won't have to clean the beach alone anymore!"
He was looking at Sao now, wide eyes hopeful, like he really wanted to know if it was a good idea.
So Sao said "Maybe."
Then he watched as the little prince happily put another napkin in the bag.
At one point, Sao had asked how old the little Prince was, confirming he wasn't as bad as he thought with ages, as Prince Zuko announced he was about to turn nine.
He spent the rest of night cleaning with the prince, who had asked Sao if he had ever seen the play Love Amongst Dragons, deciding to relay the entire plot since Sao had not seen it.
"But don't go see it here! The Ember Island Players butcher it every year!"
Well, Sao thought, strange things do happen on the beach.
By the end of every summer, half of Ember Island's residents had one new story or another about the young Prince Zuko.
Hyn, a maid in the royal estate, sat at the local tavern one night after the royal family returned to the Caldera and told everyone about how when Prince Zuko asked her what her favorite part of the beach was, she told him she liked the seashells. That morning, as they were preparing to leave, the little Prince found Hyn and gave her not one, but two pretty white seashells and said "Thank you for telling me about them!" with a short bow.
Hyn had never gotten more than curt orders from Prince Ozai.
Suru, who owned a porcelain shop by the water said that Prince Zuko had come into the store and complimented his fire-lily and dragon tea set, then asked if he could have the name of the shop to give to his Uncle, because he thought his Uncle might like the tea set too.
Suru gave him a business card and hoped that either Princess Ursa had a brother, or that, Agni forbid, if the Dragon of the West entered his shop, he would not blame Suru if the little Prince exaggerated how nice the set was.
Ingi had the most interesting story - her sons, Jiru and Tiso had come running into the house one day to tell her that when they were at the beach that morning, some of the older kids tried to pick on them, but they made a new friend when another little boy told the bullies to go away. They wanted to know if he could come inside so they could get the sand out his cut, because their new friend got pushed into the rocks for defending them.
They neglected to mention that this new friend was Prince Zuko and that he was standing on their porch, covered in wet sand with cuts on his knees.
Needless to say, Ember Island had made up their mind about the young prince. They knew he was good.
Then Prince Lu Ten died in Ba Sing Se, Firelord Azulon died in Caldera, Princess Ursa disappeared, and summer vacations stopped.
Years later, in the same tavern, a Royal messenger came to the Island and told them their prince had been banished for cowardice and disrespect.
The residents of Ember Island did not believe him.
Two days later, a young man named Nazao sat down in the tavern. He was (past tense) a guard at the palace. He was stopping in Ember Island on his way back to his hometown, offically because his mother had become very ill and needed to be cared for, and unofficially because he had been stationed at the door of both the War Council and the Agni Kai Chamber. He couldn't stomach another day in the same palace where the kind, lonely, moral, abused, and undeniably good prince got burned by his father for trying to protect his people.
He told them the story. The truth. "Prince Zuko is not a coward." He said. "Prince Zuko has more honor and courage than all of the war ministers in the Caldera combined."
This, the residents of Ember Island believed.
That night, Daiza came up with a new flavor of ice cream, made with chunks of fire flakes mixed in. She did not name the flavor, although she made it a point to have the flavor be their special on the Prince's birthday every year.
Sao continued cleaning the beach, but added a nightly prayer to Agni that the Prince be protected. He didn't just clean the beach for Esen, anymore.
Hyn opened a shop selling seashell jewelry. She had two very special white seashells on the windowsill in her home, and every night lit a candle next to them, with a prayer.
Suru made a new tea set. It had the likeness of a young red dragon encircling the top, with forty-one fire lilies on the rest of the teapot.
Ingi explained to her sons what had happened. Two years later, when Jiru got his conscription notice, Ingi asked her son for two things. "Stay alive" she said. "Make our prince proud."