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Separation II
Title: Separation
Rating: PG-13 for language
Genre: Crossover fusion
Fandoms: Avatar: The Last Airbender and His Dark Materials
Timeline: Season One, immediately following 1x09, The Waterbending Scroll
Summary: Returning to his ship after the fiasco with the pirates, Prince Zuko stumbles across the body of a boy in the river. Quickly it is determined that the boy is alive, but that something is terribly wrong...
Warning: Inspired in part by avocado_love's Inner Nature but completely different from her story, I promise you. Original characters, who will be familiar faces for those of you who've kept up with my other works. Some foul language.
I
II
When the boy was first put into his care, the ship's medic informed the pair of royals that the odds were against him. "The loss of his dæmon aside," Corporal Daichi had said, "his burn has been infected. To be honest, I'm surprised he survived his trip down the river — if he is, in fact, a child of the colonies." The doctor seemed to think the boy belonged to a local group of child rebels who often harried the Fire Nation. "It's highly unlikely he'll make it through the night."
Prince Zuko looked down at the boy. He had slipped in and out of consciousness as he'd been carried the rest of the way to the ship. Mercifully, Daichi had administered a sedative so the child wouldn't feel the excruciating pain of cleaning and bandaging the horrible burn. It was, of course, unlikely the boy would ever regain consciousness, so perhaps his passing could at least be eased.
Zuko was barely able to conceal a shudder. He understood burn wounds all too intimately, but even he couldn't fathom being so injured that one's dæmon died, only to survive the blow. Perhaps it was a mercy that the boy wouldn't live.
Irie flew to the prince's shoulder, where she ran her beak through his phoenix tail, trying to comfort him. He reached up and stroked the striped feathers under her neck. "Just do what you can," he ordered, and walked out of the infirmary.
The boy was still alive come morning, and opened his eyes in the middle of the afternoon. His body was still wracked by fever and his voice was weak, but Corporal Daichi was still able to hear his soft call. "Ishiko? Where are you?"
The medic was unable to sedate him before he realised his dæmon was gone; the boy's anguished cry would haunt his nightmares.
In the coming week, the boy defied all logic and expectations by continuing to recover from his ordeal, though Daichi was starting to grow concerned at his insistence that his dæmon was not gone. His name, they came to find, was Kouji, though whenever anyone asked how he'd come to bear such horrific injuries, his eyes would go wide and he'd stop speaking. The men learned quickly not to ask.
It was Lieutenant Jee who spent the most time with the boy, along with his dæmon Kagami. From their conversations with Kouji, they managed to determine his age and some of his history. It was Jee who put forth the theory that the boy had been attacked by someone in his family, or even abused long-term, which would certainly explain his reluctance to name his attacker.
This subject was not one Jee or Iroh would dare to raise around Prince Zuko, who had become far too invested in the child's recovery, albeit from a distance. He refused to speak to Kouji himself, but he had issued orders that he was to be informed of any changes in the boy's condition as they happened. Perhaps this was merely a concession to Irie; like most of the dæmons aboard, she did not like being near Kouji. He was a miracle, an anomaly, a freak, this child with no dæmon, and whispers were starting to spread that the boy was a bad omen.
However, both Jee and Iroh took care to be near the boy at almost all times, and their dæmons tried to offer Kouji comfort as best they could without actually touching him. Now, the two took tea in Iroh's quarters to discuss the boy, who had been sequestered in his quarters with a variety of tests. Airi was with him to make sure he did as he was told.
"He seems whole enough," Jee told the Dragon of the West, "though it's obvious that he misses his dæmon. It's very odd."
Iroh took a calm sip of his tea. "I have a theory, lieutenant. You said the boy is a spring birth?"
Jee nodded. "He said his birthday was a month before the summer solstice." Then his eyes narrowed. "General, what are you suggesting?"
Iroh sighed. "The boy is a bender."
Jee shook his head, immediately discounting the obvious truth. "Impossible. He would have been discovered by now, sent back to the Fire Nation for training."
"Only if he was discovered as such," the aged general reminded him.
"The tests—"
"Can be thrown by anyone with half a brain," Iroh interrupted. "And the tests are designed to find firebenders."
Jee was silent for a very long moment. "You think he's an earthbender."
"It makes sense," Iroh replied. "Think for a moment, Jee. A child raised in the colonies, in danger from soldiers or pirates. All he knows is that the Earth Kingdom and earthbenders are the enemy — and it's likely he's been taught such as well." The Dragon of the West paused to take another sip of his tea. "Nobody knows how or why the spirits bestow the ability to bend. Just because previously only firebenders have been born to citizens of our country doesn't mean an earthbender could not be born in one of our colonies."
Another moment of long silence as the two men put everything together. "Does that make him the first?" Jee's dæmon asked. "Or the first to survive discovery?"
Iroh shook his head. "I do not know."
Current Location: my bed
Current Mood:  chipper
Tags: character: iroh, character: zuko, crossover, fandom: avatar, fandom: his dark materials, story: separation
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