Prologue
The sun beat down on the Isle of Fire as it crested Agni's Peak, reaching the corners of every house and stealing away the chilly night breeze, leaving citizens to sweat and burn in its wake. The Fire Island citizens went about their day as they normally did, selling wares in the streets or heading up the steaming volcano to make their meager living mining rocks. Long ago, if the tales Zuko's mother told him and Azula in hushed tones were true, their tiny little island used to be a great nation. A nation where his father would have ruled as king, a country where learning to firebend was encouraged rather than prohibited, an empire where you could walk down the streets without passing a frozen corpse, its eyes glaring at you as it thawed out in the heat of Agni's rays.
No one dared hope for that nation to return. Not anymore.
Instead, they kept their heads down and sold their products in the streets or trekked up the volcano with a heavy heart and a pickaxe in their hands like Zuko had been doing for almost 11 years. Like he was doing right now.
"How much further do we have to go?" Azula called down, sending a spray of pebbles into his face as she shifted to look at him. Zuko gripped his pick tighter as they tumbled past him, glaring up at her as he spat dust out of his mouth and into the bubbling puddle of lava below them. Knowing his sister, she probably did it on purpose so he would fall and she could reclaim her place as Mongke's favorite taste tester.
Poisonous witch, he thought, but his face remained neutral and his response stayed civil. Just like his father taught him.
"Sun's starting to rise," he mused, squinting at the beacon in the sky, "I'd say we'll get to the patch before it hits noon."
"Ugh." Another spray of rubble as she ripped her pick out of the side of the volcano, pushed it back in, and pulled herself up a couple more feet. "This is ridiculous. I'm going to be late to my lesson Lo and Li at this rate. I can't believe-"
Zuko ignored her complaints, they hadn't changed a bit for the past couple years, and followed closely behind, watching carefully in case she missed a step and he needed to catch her before she started to slide. It had only happened once before, but even though she had adamantly stated she had it under control after he dragged them both to safety, Zuko refused to let her climb underneath ever again. Even if it meant he had to deal with spiteful rocks in his face and biting remarks every once in a while, he refused to risk it.
He pulled himself to the top of the volcanos plateau and lay on the ground next to Azula as she struggled to hide her heavy breathing. Zuko didn't bother covering the harsh gasps that burst out of his chest from the rigorous climbing so early in the morning, but he did hide his wince with a cough that dispelled a little bit of the ash stuck in his throat. His leg ached, strangely cold compared to the boiling heat, but he resisted the urge to grip his knee until the pain subsided to avoid Azula noticing. She would give him the look he'd come to expect whenever she thought he was being stubborn and tell him he should stay home, despite the two of them knowing perfectly well they wouldn't meet their quota if he didn't climb Agni's Peak every morning.
"The view never gets old," Zuko said as he sat up, staring at the city miles beneath them, bustling with hundreds of people at they woke up and got ready for yet another day of monotonous living.
"The climb to see it every morning sure does," Azula retorted, swinging her legs over the edge in a careless way that made Zuko's eye twitch.
He watched as dots of blue made their way through the swarms of red, parting the crowds like oil and water as citizens practically trampled each other to get out of the path of the Ocean Empire soldiers. Zuko stood and turned away as the dots converged on one house, having seen enough red for one morning.
"Come on," he said, gathering his bag and pick, grateful that he was miles away from town and couldn't hear the screams he knew were soon to follow. "We're not going very far today."
"Destiny awaits," Azula responded drily.
It was almost funny how two people could be so right, yet so wrong.