Two combatants stand still as statues in their ready stances at opposing ends of the Royal Agni Kai Arena. Their ceremonial blessing shawls have been shed in the opening twists of the ritual combat but remain caught in midair as if the silk garments have been pinned in place. The fires surrounding the arena neither dance nor crackle, instead rigid and unmoving in a manner that should be impossible for the element that encapsulates the burning passion of life.
The stage is set.
The actors are in position.
The world holds its breath and waits.
The Fire Lord gazes upon the familiar tableau and grimaces. He'd been enjoying the break from his nightmares over the past several months and last night his sleep had been mercifully dreamless. To be so suddenly confronted with this odd presentation of what should be a well worn nightmare is unsettling, though the return of the nightmares themselves isn't terribly surprising with the upheaval his life has become. Ozai groans and runs his hands over his face.
...His scar is back.
Ozai -- Zuko? -- pulls his hands away with a confused frown. He knows he's dreaming, which is itself unusual, but more importantly... How much of what he's experienced has been a dream?
A high-pitched giggle echoes through the courtyard. "Looksy! Looksy! Come look and see what Liukshi sees!" the unknown voice singsongs.
The Fire Lord locates the source of the call high up, perched atop one of the courtyard walls. It... looks a lot like Momo, actually. Except the creature in question is completely green and a single large eye makes up the entirety of its face.
The creature giggles again before taking flight. It glides down in an easy loop of the space before alighting upon the Fire Lord's shoulder, heedless of the man's hurried attempt to back out of its path. The creature's huge eye blinks at him from a place far too close to his own face.
"Uh..." The Fire Lord places a hand against the thing's chest and carefully pushes it back to a more comfortable distance. It doesn't seem to be aggressive, merely... curious and without a concept of personal space. "Liukshi, was it?"
The creature giggles again. It seems to do that a lot. "Liukshi is me!" it chirps, "It is good to be meeting Agni's new herald!"
Still Ozai, then. Assuming he isn't experiencing a dream nested within a dream.
...He's probably better off making that assumption than not. At least until such a time as he can be relatively sure that he is awake and has a chance to reevaluate what is and is not reality.
"This is a dream," he says, testing the words on his tongue and watching large ears as they twitch in response to the sound of his voice. This is probably the most lucid dream he's ever had in his life. Not that he's had many others to compare it to, but this dream feels different somehow. "Is any of this... Are you real?"
Liukshi unleashes the loudest laugh yet. "Yes, a dream! Liukshi works best in dreams! And Liukshi is very real, little Fire Lord."
"Okay," he draws the word out as he considers what he has been told and the fact that this entire conversation is happening in an oddly lucid dream with a very strange creature that is likewise aware of residing within a dream. Liukshi is almost certainly a spirit of some kind. Probably. "And... Why am I like this?" Ozai asks, gesturing to his scarred face.
Lemur-like ears swing low before swiveling back upright. "Little herald is still setting," the spirit explains. "Men forge metal slow and then all at once. Heat and beat, heat and beat, quench and hsss! Spirits are not forged like metal. Spirit forging is done all at once and then slow, slow, slow! Spirits need time to think and feel and grow and become. Little herald is new and human and fragile."
"I... see." Maybe someday all of this spirit stuff will finally make some sense. It probably won't be now.
"Agni's Herald should be careful not to undo the Sun Spirit's work," Liukshi warns solemnly. "But! This is not what Liukshi has come to show the King of Flames' child!" The green spirit hops around to perch behind Ozai's back, blunt-clawed toes digging into the collar of his robes and small hands clapping over his eyes.
"Hey!"
"Mortals are not meant to see Agni unfiltered," the spirit says, "so Liukshi will share his eye! Look! Look and see!"
And strangely enough, he does. The world is rendered in an eerily glowing green, but he views it otherwise uninhibited by the spirit's hands.
A third figure, standing off to the side of the arena but shining like a signalling beacon, catches his attention immediately.
Agni.
"Look and see what Agni has done for the young prince!"
And the world spins back into motion as if it had never stopped. Ozai flinches. He can't see the prince's face from this angle, but he remembers this moment as the instant when the foundations of everything he had believed fell away and left him to plummet into increasingly desperate self-delusions.
"Please, Father!" the boy cries, "I only had the Fire Nation's best interest at heart. I'm sorry I spoke out of turn!"
His father remains unmoved by the plea, "You will fight for your honor."
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Agni shifts as the phantom strides past him.
"I meant you no disrespect!" the child continues, kneeling, "I am your loyal son."
"Rise and fight, Prince Zuko!" the man insists.
Agni frowns and follows after the mortal, towering unseen and ignored over the former Fire Lord's shoulder.
"I won't fight you!" the prince declares.
"You will learn respect," his father says, "and suffering will be your teacher."
His nightmares always end here, in pain and fire. He's never been able to remember exactly what happened after his father had finished speaking.
Ozai's stomach twists. He's not sure he wants to witness what must come next.
Fire blooms in the phantom's hand and the specter of the previous Fire Lord thrusts his hand forward, sending out a jet of flame with the motion. Behind him, Agni mimics the move, but where the man had kept his palm aimed straight for the prince, Agni twists his wrist away and to the right in a movement that almost looks like waterbending.
His father's flames skew to the side. The boy screams. Agni gradually clenches his upturned hand into a fist and the stream of fire dwindles to sparks.
Ozai can only feel ill as he watches his father's face twist in confusion, fear, and anger as his bending fails to heed his will.
So. That's the truth of it, then.
Father hadn't meant to maim him that day.
Father had meant to kill him and only Agni's intervention had stayed his flames from doing greater damage.
His father must have intended 'suffering' to be a far faster teacher than an indefinite number of years at sea chasing spirit tales like he'd deceived himself into believing during his youth.
Ozai chokes back the hysterical laughter crowding his throat.
The previous Fire Lord's phantom storms away from the platform, shoving aside any spectators too slow to get out of his way soon enough.
Agni kneels and places a hand briefly over the unconscious prince's ruined face before withdrawing. In the next instant, Agni disappears just in time for a cadre of healers to fill the space around the young teenager, working hastily to triage the injury and begin preliminary treatment.
"Look and see what Agni has done for spirits!" Liukshi cries.
The scene suddenly shifts around them to the same spirit world forest clearing in which Ozai had first spoken with Agni. There are even more spirits gathered than there had been during Ozai's time there. The spirits range in all manner of sizes and shapes but Agni still commands attention, impossible to ignore thanks to his inherent brightness and his position standing alone in the center of the gathering.
"I will pay my debt," Agni is saying, "I do not mean to cheat this council's judgement."
"But?" demands a snarling feminine spirit. She looks human -- Water Tribe, specifically, with dark eyes and midnight hair -- though her height and ferocity would rival Avatar Kyoshi. "Stop stalling, King of Flames! The council has reached its decision. Oath or no, it is your duty now to bring about the same sacrifice of the Fire Lands' royal line as was made necessary of Yue of the Northern Seas."
"La," pleads a small boy with white hair and pale eyes from his place half-hidden by the larger spirit's skirts, "let Agni speak."
The tall woman glances down into the large, clear blue eyes of the shorter spirit before offering a rough nod. "As you wish, my moon," La says, though she still scowls, crosses her arms, and leans back on her heels, gaze trained on the Sun Spirit.
Ozai has just enough presence of mind left to wonder if La is also considered a spirit of 'changing faces.'
"You seek retribution for the death of your favored, and you will have it," Agni declares, "but I would ask the council to consider an alternative that will not only offer you redress for the injury suffered but also to restore that which you lost. More, I would offer you the means to prevent such a situation from repeating itself in the future. I would offer each of us the opportunity to reclaim a piece of what we have all lost.
"The current charter has failed," the Sun Spirit says without apology, "The compact before it was cast aside because our conflicts were destroying the world we had invested so much in building, but this one has allowed a spirit to be killed by mortal hands. Its demands are too great, its restrictions too strong. We are not meant to be mortal, we should not be barred from influencing the world we have created, and these should not be the only options we allow ourselves: to be wholly a part of our creation in a manner counter to our essence, or to be removed by all but the barest connection to that which we have borne. The first charter was unsustainable. The second has been damaging. I am presenting a new compact for the council's consideration.
"If it is accepted, it would open the means through which Yue of the Northern Seas could be restored among the living. In exchange for her revival, I would ask that with the exception of Ozai of Second Fire, who is the mortal that authorized the attack on the Northern Seas, Kuzon the Uniter's line be spared."
Tui stares at Agni with wide, hopeful eyes. La seems stunned. Many of the gathered spirits whisper to each other in scattered conversations.
Agni holds up a scroll. "My proposed charter regarding the mortal world." The Sun Spirit holds the scroll out to La. "If it meets this council's approval, will you hear my words and the details of my plan for repayment?"
La frowns at the offered scroll, glances around at the hushed ring of spirits, and returns her gaze to the scroll in Agni's hand. The Ocean Spirit sighs and accepts the scroll. "We will consider what you have presented, King of Flames."
"That is all I can ask," Agni says, "Thank you, Master of Seas."
La scoffs and rolls her eyes.
"Look and see what Agni has done for the Line of Kuzon!"
The scene returns to the Agni Kai arena in the palace. The prince is already kneeling. Agni stands tall at his father's shoulder.
"I won't fight you!" the prince declares.
A second manifestation of Agni suddenly appears between the phantom Fire Lord and the prince. Both of Agni's forms go unnoticed by the royals.
"You will learn respect," his father says, "and suffering --"
The four ritual torches at the corners of the arena dedicated to Agni flare high and burn bright white. As if that is their cue, the two manifestations move together. The one behind his father places two hands on his shoulders and another set of arms sprouts forth to grab the man's sides near the end of his ribcage. The one in front likewise gains a new set of arms, grasping the man's hips and placing a hand each on his head and chest.
Ozai watches as his father gasps and Agni forces the man to his knees.
Light spills from the phantom's eyes and mouth in a manner that matches the way Sokka has always told his rendition of the Hundred Year War's final battle.
The prince scrambles back in shock.
Ozai feels ill again.
This does not stop at the removal of his father's firebending, he knows.
Whatever else Liukshi might have wished to show him, he may never find out. In the next instant, the world shatters around him.
Ozai could swear he shatters with it.
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The Fire Lord wakes up in his own bed only to instantly twist to the side and vomit over the edge of the mattress. Ozai coughs, sobs, and, not knowing what else to do, he chokes out, "Agni!"
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Tall lady La with little kid Tui at her side as depicted by artist PoisonousCephalopod. [https://ia802704.us.archive.org/1/items/tui-and-la/Tui%20and%20La.jpg]
"Changing Faces" by PoisonousCephalopod
View the original full-sized post on AO3
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