Chapter Text
A Solstice Carol
Avatar Roku was dead: to begin with.
Most people were certain of this, especially in Roku's homeland of the Fire Nation, where they tended to take a keen interest in the matter and could also be called the world's foremost experts on killing, having done it for a century on the scale of entire civilizations. That, of course, included the banished Prince Zuko- at least, the part about the certainty and the keen interest, and only before this afternoon.
The people of the Fire Nation knew that Roku was supposed to have died over a century ago, before the start of Sozin's Glorious Campaign to Bring Enlightenment and Civilization to the Barbarian Hordes (or 'the war' as it was usually called it). But Zuko himself has witnessed (or, rather, glimpsed before making a prudent exit from some conveniently-melted chains moments before a volcano exploded under his feet, in was his worst afternoon in at least a month) Avatar Roku himself destroying the Crescent Island Fire Temple. This had left Zuko with, he felt, some understandable doubt on the status of Roku's survival. The matter was further complicated by the fact that Zuko had come to Crescent Island chasing the newer Avatar- the Airbender, the bald kid, and -- most importantly -- Roku's reincarnation.
But then, this Air Nomad child was supposed to have been born at most two months after Roku's death over 110 years ago. But, if so, he was the youngest-looking old fogy on the entire planet and even more immature in behavior than Uncle Iroh. Slightly. In certain ways.
It was a very confusing matter, and merited a great deal of thought. Zuko was tasked with capturing the Avatar before he could return home- only one Avatar, the terms seemed to imply, which was good if there were two running around now as it increased his odds of success. And so, as a responsible young exile, he was giving the situation all due consideration. In his cabin on his ship. On his cot. In the dark.
Which, he could at least admit in the privacy of his own mostly-shaved head, might look an awful lot like sulking.
Not that he was sulking. Grown-up princes didn't do that.
"Prince Zuko," Uncle Iroh said as he eased open the cabin's squeaky door, "why are you in here sulking? It's the night of the Winter Solstice, and the cook made patjuk porridge for everyone to celebrate with!"
"Uncle?" Zuko sat up and blinked against the harsh glare of reddish muted light that was invading his sulking-space. "What does bean porridge have to do with anything?"
"In some of the Fire Nation colonies, it's eaten to celebrate the new phase of the year." Uncle Iroh stepped fully into the room and smiled. "We might have had a- er, stressful day, and tonight is the longest night of the year, but the days of light are returning. If we honor it properly, we should have good luck!"
Zuko snorted his disgust, disbelief, disquiet, dissatisfaction, dissent, and dismissal, making it a very distinct snort indeed. "I don't need luck, and I can honor the solstice by thinking on today's events and finding a way to capture the Avatar!"
Uncle gestured at the dark cabin around them. "Nephew, we have had quite a bit of luck already. The crew was able to repair the ship from the damage Zhao inflicted, you escaped an exploding volcano island with only a few bumps, and we're safely back in Earth Kingdom waters in accordance with your banishment. It can't hurt now to honor the solstice and show some gratitude for the forces that looked after us today. Come, join the crew in the mess?"
Zuko frowned at the thought that he had anyone to thank for the day's disasters, most especially the part where an Avatar who was supposed to be dead exploded an island. "If the spirits are so interested in the affairs of mortals, then they should leave some coal for me all wrapped up under my shrine so that I can run the engines that are nearly out of fuel after today's chasing!"
"Are you saying you deserve coal for Winter Solstice?"
"Yes, Uncle! I deserve lots and lots of coal!"
"Prince Zuko," Uncle Iroh said in a voice that was approaching a reproachful tone, "you know what they say about people who do not properly honor holidays. They get visited by three ghosts in a dream to have their attitude readjusted, and certainly no one wants another one of those tales."
"Bah," Zuko barked. Then he added, "Humbug!"
"And what is a 'humbug,' nephew?"
"A term commonly used by sailors to describe a hoax or fraudster." Zuko shifted to peak over at his uncle. "That's a real thing. Look it up."
"Fascinating. I'll be sure to ask the crew about it. When I celebrate the Winter Solstice with them. In the mess. Which you are of course free to join if you don't want to be haunted by ghosts." Uncle Iroh waited another moment to see if Zuko might change his mind after such a heart-felt plea.
"Humbug," Zuko said again, and sealed his fate.
At last, his uncle left, leaving him alone.
Zuko's ship was on a course towards a port in the Fire Nation colonies where it could replenish its supply of coal and spare engine parts. As it happened, that same port was where a certain Lord Ukano had landed, with his family and a half-dozen armies, to oversee the invasion of Omashu scheduled for next week and take control of the city. As such, Ukano's teenage daughter, Mai, was dealing with the Winter Solstice in the most torturous and agonizing way possible.
She was having dinner in a restaurant on a holiday.
That it was the supposedly one of the finest dining rooms in the colonies and part of a luxury inn complex -- said to have once hosted Fire Lord Azulon himself -- didn't make it any better. She was slumped over her plate, trying to not die of boredom, while her parents maintained a siege against her little brother to make him eat his food. Little Tom-Tom, in retaliation, launched a counter-assault by throwing the ginger-soaked rice-balls that he didn't want to eat because they were an unfamiliar shade of green. Mother squealed, Dad groaned, and Mai shifted her head to let a rice-ball sail past without touching her.
Around them, the rest of the dining room was raucous from all the people -- mostly the highest-ranking members of the Omashu invasion force -- trying desperately to make the best of being trapped in public during a holiday. There were no other teenagers, and certainly no other toddlers, so despite the setting there was a certain cheer in not being as unfortunate as Future-Governor Ukano's table.
Mai hated this.
She hated being in public.
She hated holidays.
She hated family dinners.
She hated the Earth Kingdom.
She hated being so far away from anyone she actually liked.
She hated the fact that she didn't have a choice about coming here, about it being a holiday, about the stupid sun deciding to work peasant's hours during the winter, about the danger her family was going into, about all the damage done to her life by the stupid Glorious Campaign to Bring Blah Blah Blah Blah Yadda Yadda Blah Yadda Boo.
"Mai," Mother said as she shoved a small rice-ball filled with sweet bean paste into Tom-Tom's mouth, "you should be more cheery. It's the Winter Solstice, a time of celebration."
Tom-Tom spat out some bean paste and started crying.
"Yes," Dad added as he apparently gave up on this particular siege and elected to start eating his own rice-balls. "A proper celebration will start our time in the colonies off right, ensuring us good luck. If things go well, we should be living in the Omashu Palace within a month! Doesn't that sound nice?"
Mother frowned. "Not that we believe in luck or the power of the spirits to stop the Fire Nation's advancement. But we do take strength in the traditions that our Fire Lords don't outlaw." She changed her strategy with Tom-Tom, stealing one of his rice-balls and eating it while glaring at him.
Tom-Tom's eyes went wide and he stopped crying. He jammed one of the remaining rice-balls into his own mouth in a kind of challenge that stood alongside the greatest of history's Agni Kai matches.
Mai sighed. "I don't care about living in a palace."
"Are you sure?" Mother's eyebrow arched in a way that always made Mai want to shave her own off. "Now that the Avatar exists again or something, Prince Zuko might actually fulfill the terms of restoring his honor, possibly, eventually. Then he would live in a palace. And don't think I gave you the bedroom with the big windows facing that palace because it lets you watch the sunset."
"Whatever." Mai speared a red rice ball with a chopstick, making the bean-paste filling ooze out of the wound before she stuck it in her mouth and chewed. "Everyone knows it was never fair terms. Ozai will just come up with some other excuse to make Zuko's life miserable. And anyone else who sides with him."
"The Fire Lord," Dad put in, "will surely judge his son fairly, just as he has judged his daughter and all his servants- including us. The first-born daughter of the governor of the largest Fire Nation colony will make a good match for the Crown Prince, eh?"
Mother nodded. "Although I still think it helped to leave shades off her windows."
Mai shoved a rice-ball in her mouth to avoid having to say anything. Her parents obviously didn't want their optimistic little bubbles burst, and she wasn't inclined to waste her time trying.
"So," Mother finished, "try to be happy. At least for one night." She glanced at Tom-Tom. "Or the Kemurikage will come in their one-eyed masks and shadowy cloaks to drag troublemakers away screaming to the Fog of Lost Souls, and Tonyan the Gift-Flinger will only throw ashes at your household."
Mai thought about pointing out that she didn't believe in the Kemurikage (anymore) or Tonyan the Gift-Flinger. But she refrained. She chewed, avoided making eye contact, and vowed in her rich and spiky adolescent heart that she would never allow herself to be happy. That was a path that led only to pain. What other people saw as opportunities for ascension and success were just traps that led to oppression, and she had already seen one optimistic person get his foot trapped in the bear-trap of life.
It was just as well she didn't say anything, as she had never spent time conversing with sailors, and so had no idea that a 'humbug' wasn't an especially musical form of multi-legged pest. And if you couldn't add a humbug to the kind of thoughts Mai was having, all the fun went right out of it.
The Winter Solstice was the longest night of the year. For unknown reasons, it was also the time when the natural world and the Spirit World most overlapped. Some learned scholars blamed this on the moon, who had always been known for her terrible work-ethic and really needed to be fired and replaced.
This overlap enabled all kinds of fantastical occurrences.
And when you threw in the realm of dreams, which everyone knew could transcend both time and reality, things just plain got weird.
Zuko quickly drifted off during his non-sulking, thoughts of Avatar Roku and the bald Avatar-kid dancing through his head like winged candy people. Likewise, Mai's parents had put Tom-Tom to bed and scampered off to have a traditional yuja-fruit-enfused bath together, so she decided on an early bedtime for herself as well before she could overhear anything that might let her view her parents as people. Both teenagers spent a while lying in the dark, alone with their dark thoughts, as reality slowly ebbed into something that was almost sleep. But the realm of dreams wasn't the only world that was overlapping their own.
Across a swath of ocean, both Zuko and Mai were jolted awake by the sound of a ringing bell.
Zuko thought it was part of the alarm system in his ship, something that could be activated from the bridge in the event of an emergency, but there was only the sound of one bell, not the full series he would expect throughout the ship's cabins and corridors. Mai, meanwhile, groggily wondered why her parents would be ringing the suite's summons-bell instead of just letting themselves into the room, and hoped fervently that they were dressed.
Separated by a swath of ocean, both Zuko and Mai rose from their beds and opened their doors. Blinding light battered them like storm winds, but they stubbornly pushed back against it and stepped through their respective thresholds-
And together entered an oppressive temple chamber dominated at the far end by a tall statue of Avatar Roku at the center of cascading wreaths of flames, all made with gleaming gold.
When they could tear their eyes from the statue, Zuko and Mai turned their gazes to each other. A moment of confusion held its breath in the space between them, and then exhaled recognition into them both. Zuko was taller and harsher than Mai had last seen him, changed least of all by the scar that dominated one side of his face, but the rest she could recognize as an older version of the visage she'd gazed on so many times with whatever the 11-year-old version of lust was. Mai was also much different than Zuko's last memory of her, but her changes were those of refinement, of becoming more of what she had already been, all the subtle differences working together to form a new power and confidence and sharpness, and for the first time he looked at a woman the way he had looked at some of the nicer and more shapely knives in his armory.
They reached for each other.
"Welcome to my temple," the statue of Roku said in a gravely voice as it walked down from its platform. It descended the short staircase, each step turning more of the gold into flesh and hair and fabric. "I am Avatar Roku, and I have brought you here for-"
"The Avatar! Rawrgh!" Zuko made a flying tackle at Roku, but instead of performing a takedown of an old man, he went sailing straight through him as if he wasn't there.
Mai winced at the subsequent crash. As much as she liked Zuko, he had always had something of an impulse-control problem.
"Ah," Roku said with a sigh, "I suppose I should start by noting that I am dead. Think me of me as a ghost- or perhaps a spirit? Hopefully that will help you understand you can't capture me. The Avatar Cycle has moved on, and my spirit has reincarnated into the Airbender Aang. Do you understand?"
Zuko once again roared and tried to tackle Roku, once again flying straight thought him as if he wasn't there, although this time he had the new experience of tumbling down the stairs. (It wasn't any less painful.)
Mai wasn't sure what was going on, but she felt like she should be backing Zuko up. She used to want to kiss him before she gave up on happiness, after all. "If you've reincarnated, how are you here? Shouldn't you be a muscley bald monk soldier with a bladed staff?"
Zuko rubbed his head as he got back to his feet. "Muscley bald- what? The Avatar is just a child! And his stick only has glider wings in it. But he is bald. Not that there's anything wrong with that."
"Oh. Well, that's what I get for trying to stay informed from the Palace Notices." Mai turned back to Roku- or Roku's Ghost or the Roku Impostor or whatever. "My point stands."
Zuko glared at Roku, information starting to come together in his head. "When I saw you today, it was coming out of the room where the Avatar child had gone into. You two aren't allowed to be in two different places, are you?" That was disappointing, but he was used to disappointment. And it still left him with one opportunity to capture the Avatar and restore his honor, which was more than none, so he was still ahead of last year.
Roku (for it was he, more or less) looked down at Zuko and Mai. "If we try to reconcile all the visitations from past Avatars with how reincarnation is supposed to work, we're going to be here all night and no one is going to be happy." Before either teenager could speak, he quickly added, "Yes, I know neither of you is ever happy. That is actually the point of tonight's activities. Let it suffice to say that I am Roku, I am dead, the Air Nomad Aang is alive and healthy and the only Avatar as far as universal balance is concerned, and you two are in serious trouble."
Zuko took a Firebending stance.
Mai looked offended.
Roku nodded. "It is true. The two of you have both dishonored the Winter Solstice, resulting in visitations by ghosts. We seek to reclaim your spirits for honor and love."
Zuko winced and pinched the bridge of his nose in an attempt at relief. "How is my uncle always right about these things?"
Mai raised her hand. "I'm excused from ghost stories. I have a note from my Mother. She says they give me ideas."
Roku turned his gaze upon her with the heaviness of one who lived through toil and betrayal, and then failed to live through death. Even more intimidating was the fact that he was almost twice her height. "I am the Ghost of Solstices Past. Your past. As the two of you have lived intertwined lives, so is the reclamation of your humanity intertwined." He swept his hands towards the room's dais, where the golden flames from his statue remained standing like a door. "Behold, our journey begins."
Zuko turned to run and Mai patted her pockets to see if she had any knives handy, but the gilded sculpture of flames came to life, their metal surface glistening with their rapid movement, and grew to swallow the whole of the massive room. They covered their faces to protect themselves from the glare, but then they were struck by a familiar scent, a mix of sulfur and fresh sea air and gunpowder and spices, and they both looked again in wonder.
TO BE CONTINUED