Story [Avatar: The Last Airbender]Fire in Her Veins (Izumi Pentathlon for Fanfic Winter Olympics)

Title: Fire in Her Veins

Author: devilinthedetails

Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender/Legend of Korra

Genre: A variety of genres.

Characters: Izumi; Zuko; Iroh II; Ozai; OC's.

Summary: A compilation of stories written for my Izumi Pentathlon for the 2022 Fanfiction Winter Olympics.

Index of Entries:

Tearful Introduction. Single Sentence Ski Jumping. Izumi; Zuko; Iroh II. Family; General; Fluff; Drama. Post #2.

Her Father's Scar. Kiss and Cry. Izumi; Zuko; Ozai. Hurt/Comfort; Family; Drama. Post #5.

Rot on the Inside. Scary Skeleton. Izumi; Ozai; Zuko; OC's. Horror; Drama; Family. Post #8.

Always Welcome with Open Arms. 500 Word Speed Skate. Izumi; Zuko; Ozai. Family; Drama. Post #11.

 

Title: Tearful Introduction

Genre: Family; General; Fluff; Drama.

Characters: Izumi; Zuko; Iroh II.

Event: Single Sentence Ski Jumping.

Summary: Izumi introduces her father to her son.

Tearful Introduction

“Father, meet Iroh,” Izumi said, feeling as if her heart might burst with pride and pain as she handed her newborn son to her father and watched the tears glistening in his eyes begin to trickle down his cheeks, burning a path past his scar.

 

@pronker Thank you so much for reading and commenting! I'm so glad that you were impressed with how much backstory I could pack into this sentence (it always amazes me how much detail and emotion can fit into a carefully crafted sentence!). I think childbirth is one of those purest, most powerful moments of the human experience and with Izumi naming her son after her father's beloved uncle Iroh, that moment becomes even more profound for Izumi and Zuko. I loved that detail of Izumi naming her son after Iroh and so it was nice to be able to explore that with this single sentence story. I hope that you will enjoy the next entry in this Pentathlon just as much

@earlybird-obi-wan Thank you so much for reading and commenting! I'm so flattered that you thought this was a great sentence, and fingers crossed you will be a fan of the next entry as well

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Title: Her Father's Scar

Genre: Hurt/Comfort; Family; Drama.

Characters: Izumi; Zuko; Ozai.

Event: Kiss and Cry.

Summary: A young Izumi is curious about her father's scar.

Her Father's Scar

“Father.” Izumi stared up at her father’s face as she prepared to ask the question about which she had long been curious. “How did you get your scar? Did it happen during the war?”

“The war lasted over a hundred years, so I guess you could say it happened during the war.” A shadow flitted across her father’s expression despite the bright sunlight shining through the window by which they sat. A window that provided a spectacular view of the crimson-and-gold tiled capital as it sloped down to the sparkling, cerulean ocean. Light and shadow. Beauty and sorrow. The balancing of their world. “It wasn’t a battle scar, however. At least not in the traditional sense. It was a punishment from my father.”

“A punishment from your father?” Izumi’s pupils widened. Blackness threatening to swallow the gleaming gold of her irises. She had heard it said, even now, that Fire Nation parents were the strictest in the world, and certainly, before the war had ended, before her father’s reign had begun, Fire Nation parenting had been much more severe. Far more violent and domineering. Still, she had never heard of a parent burning a child as punishment before.

“To teach me respect, he claimed. A funny way to teach someone respect.” Bitterness flowed through her father’s voice now. He didn’t find it funny at all. Neither did Izumi. There were some things that weren’t funny. That couldn’t be turned into a joke and laughed at. Being burned on the face by a parent was one of those things. “By showing them the ultimate disrespect. By burning their face.”

“It wasn’t about teaching you respect, was it?” Izumi murmured. “It was about teaching you to fear him?”

“Fear was respect for my father. A not uncommon belief in the Fire Nation at the time.” Her father sighed. Then went on as if telling a story that had happened to someone else, “I had begged my uncle to be allowed to attend one of my father’s war meetings. He made me promise to keep quiet. To not speak. But I couldn’t be silent when an old general proposed to use new recruits as fresh meat for bait. I had to speak out against sacrificing an entire division like that. Against betraying soldiers loyal to the Fire Nation.”

“You were right,” Izumi declared fiercely. She could feel the fire rising in her veins. In her blood. She was her father’s daughter, after all, and she would carry the memory of his scars now. “It is wrong to sacrifice an entire division like that.”

“Yes.” There was a haunted look in her father’s eyes. “But I had spoken out of turn, Izumi, and, back then in the Fire Nation, people cared more about not speaking out of turn–about knowing one’s place and staying in it–that they did about fighting for what was right. Standing up against injustice. It was one of the ways we had lost our way since Sozin’s reign. We thought that honor was about avoiding the shame of speaking out of turn–of stepping out of our proper place–but we had forgotten it was really about the conviction to stand up for what is right and just. So, because what I did was seen as a dishonor, a disgrace, I had to fight an Agni Kai. I believed it would be with the challenge whom I had challenged. The general I had insulted. But it was not.”

Spellbound by this terrifyingly true tale, Izumi gaped at her father.

After a long pause heavy with memory, he continued, grim as a gravestone, “It was my own father I was expected to duel. I couldn’t bring myself to fight him.”

“I wouldn’t have been able to bring myself to fight you either, Father.” Izumi was sniffling into the sleeves of her robe. She hated how weak the noise made her sound.

“You’ll never have to.” Her father dipped his head to kiss her furrowed brow. “I’ve made it illegal for any adult in the Fire Nation to duel a child in an Agni Kai. Besides, I love you far too much to fight you like that, my dear.”

He kissed her forehead again then went on to relate the final horror of what had happened to him so many years ago, “My father had no such compunctions, however. When I fell on my knees before him in front of all those courtiers hungry for my tears–my shame–and begged for his forgiveness–”

“He burned you,” whispered Izumi. Trying and failing to blink the searing tears from her eyes. Feeling them scorch a path down her cheeks. Drip onto her golden glasses. A wet, radiant grief. “On your face. In front of all those people. The monster.”

“Yes, he did.” Her father’s fingers brushed across her cheek. Wiping away her tears. A gentle gesture in stark contrast to violent brutality his own father had displayed. A breaking of a cycle of abuse and shame. “You don’t have to worry. I would never leave such a scar on you.”

“On my face?” Izumi leaned into her father’s touch. Seeking and finding comfort in it.

“On your face.” Her father patted her cheek. “On your heart. Anywhere. And I will try to not to let it happen to any child in the Fire Nation on my watch. I’ve made it against the law for any parent in the Fire Nation to burn a child in the name of discipline or teaching respect.”

“I’m not afraid you’ll burn me.” Izumi kissed her father’s scar. Tenderly. Revering him all the more for the suffering he had endured at the hands of his father and how that suffering had only made him more attuned to the pains, fears, and griefs of others. More compassionate when it could have made him crueler. Harder. More ruthless and eager to hurt as he had been hurt.

Sensitive to how scars–particularly from lost Agni Kais–were seen as marks of weakness and shame in the Fire Nation, she added with a quiet fervor, “And I think your scar is a mark of your honor and strength. It’s your father who was weak and should be ashamed of himself.”

“My father will never feel such shame, I’m afraid.” Her father drew her to his chest in a hug so that she could hear her heartbeat in her ears. “It is a mark of the truly lost that they cannot feel such shame. To most of us, shame is a pinprick of guilt from our conscciences, driving us to be better. To repent and reform ourselves. The lost ones like my father never feel such guilt and so will never experience remorse or a desire to change. They will persist in being unapologetic monsters until the day they die.”

“I love you, Father.” Izumi melted into her father’s embrace like snow in spring. Wrapping her arms around him. Offering what sympathy and solace she could. Apologizing for a horror that had been inflicted on him before she was born. Before she took her first breath.

“I love you too, sweetheart.” Her father’s words echoing against her eardrums. A promise that she would never have to suffer as he had. That he would protect and never harm her. That she was safe in his arms.

 

@earlybird-obi-wan As always, thank you so much for reading and commenting on my Avatar fanfics! My heart always breaks for Zuko when Iroh relates the story of how Zuko was burned and exiled Zuko really did suffer so much pain and trauma just for being honest and doing the right thing that it always makes me sick to think about it, but it makes me feel a bit better knowing that he did get a happy ending and got a chance to rule the Fire Nation (doing a much better job of it than his awful father ever did). I definitely head canon Izumi as being very sweet when it comes to her father and her father as being very loving with her (not at all being an abusive father like his own was) and I am so happy both of those came across in this fic. Next chapter will feature more abusive Ozai, protective Zuko, and curious Izumi!

@Emperor Ferus Aww, thank you! Many hugs to you too, my friend

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Title: Rot on the Inside

Genre: Horror; Drama; Family.

Characters: Izumi; Ozai; Zuko; OC's.

Event: Scary Skeleton

Summary: Nine-year-old Izumi has a question for Ozai.

Rot on the Inside (Scary Skeleton)

“Take me to see the former Fire Lord Ozai,” Izumi ordered in her most imperious tone as she strode up to the imposing, armed guards standing stiff sentry at the gates of the prison where her paternal grandfather had been confined since before her birth. Since her father had taken the throne. Since the Avatar had stripped the man who had once proclaimed himself Phoenix King of his firebending abilities.

It was this latter fact that had most sparked her curiosity. Intrigued her as much as it unsettled her, because Ozai might be the only person in the world who could answer the question of how it felt to lose one’s bending abilities. Most made her want to meet the monster that was her grandfather even though her father had long ago forbidden her from visiting his own father.

The guards exchanged uneasy glances. Then the most senior among them spoke with a hint of apology in his voice that told Izumi she could get past these sentinels if she was clever and fierce enough. “Fire Lord Zuko has forbidden anyone to see that particular prisoner without his permission, princess.”

“Who says I don’t have my father’s permission?”A question. A careful misdirection. Not exactly a lie. She could always plead that to her father if he ever found out about this visit to the prison, which she devoutly hoped he did not. Izumi arched an eyebrow. Drew herself up to the maximum height allowed by her nine years of age. Shot the senior guard a withering look learned from her mother, who was a master of gazes that sliced like knives.

The senior guard appeared even more disconcerted at this frosty inquiry. Wavered for a long moment in indecision, and then came to the conclusion that Izumi wanted. That he should lead her to her grandfather’s cell. Even if he did warn her in a mutter that this was on her own head if anything went wrong.

“Leave us to talk in private,” Izumi commanded the senior guard once he had finished escorting her to her grandfather’s cell. The black-haired and black-bearded man hunched behind bars did not look so much like the terrifying villain of her childhood. More like a broken creature who could no longer endanger anyone. Though, no doubt, her mother would caution her that appearances could be deceiving, especially where former Fire Lords were concerned.

“Yes, princess.” The guard hung the flaming red-orange torch in a bracket beside the cell to provide Izumi with illumination–the former Fire Lord Ozai could never again use fire as a weapon; the Avator had ensured that–and bowed to her before retreating out of earshot. Out of sight.

Izumi was alone with the monster who had burned and scarred her father’s face. Yet, she wasn’t afraid. Wasn’t trembling. Although perhaps she should have been.

“Ah, so my granddaughter comes to visit me at last.” The monster’s eyes were amber gold as they fixed on her. He had been ruler of the Fire Nation once. Radiant in his power. Surrounded by sleek comforts and cringing underlings. Now he was reduced to nothing. Trapped in a bleak, austere cell. She didn’t feel sorry for him. He deserved every bit of his punishment by the torment he had inflicted on the world. On her father. “Your father doesn’t want us to meet, you know. That’s not very filial, is it?”

Filial piety. A cornerstone virtue in the Fire Nation. The lack of it was supposed to be a key failing in a child–even if that child was a grown man. Perhaps especially if that child was a grown man. But didn’t burning and scarring on the face negate any filial piety owed?

“You burned and scarred his face.” Izumi remained standing. Didn’t sit on the cold, hard floor though he did. Felt the need to be above him. To cast a long shadow over his body. “That wasn’t very fatherly, was it?”

“On the contrary, it was very fatherly.” The monster’s words were silken–like the threads of a spider’s spun web–and Izumi’s stomach knotted as bile blazed up her throat. “It was to teach him respect and obedience through suffering, the best teacher.”

Izumi didn’t trust herself to respond to this frightful sentiment without vomiting her revulsion all over the prison’s flagstones.

“Oh, don’t tell me he has raised you to be soft as he is.” The monster gave a tight, thin smile at what must have been Izumi’s visible discomfiture. “It’s Izumi, isn’t it? And I hear you are a firebender even though he married that non-bender Mai. I do try to keep up-to-date on current events and family affairs despite being confined to this cell. Since you are a firebender, you may not be a complete disappointment to me. Especially since you have chosen to visit me. That interests me.”

“I have a question for you.” Izumi pushed her golden-rimmed glasses up the bridge of her nose.

“Always happy to advise my descendents.” The monster’s mouth twisted.

“The Avatar took your firebending away from you.” Izumi gazed down at the monster. Seeing him for the vile creature that he was. “How did it feel?”

“I had a daughter once. Azula. She was my favored child.” The monster didn’t answer Izumi’s question. Just broke into an uninvited, unprompted reminisce. A reminisce that couldn’t even be called fond since a monster couldn’t be capable of fondness. The monster cast an appraising glance over Izumi, making her shudder despite her determination not to be a coward. “She was very sharp. Very ruthless. A true prodigy. You remind me of her. I’m not allowed to see her any more.”

Azula had been a prodigy once. Now she was kept in an asylum for her own safety and the safety of others. She had been driven insane by her father’s burning ambitions and her own.

“That doesn’t answer my question.” Izumi planted clenched fists on her hips. Hoping she appeared imposing and confident rather than terrified. Quailed in any way by this man who had hurt her father more than any other.

“It’s a difficult question to answer.” The monster stroked at his dark, pointed beard. “Tell me, Izumi, do children still carve and burn ember squashes for Fire Festival?”

Ember squashes. Grown and harvested from fertile, volcanic soil. Izumi remembered cutting frightening faces–to scare away evil spirits–and lighting them with her parents every year to celebrate the Fire Festival. She was sure that a million other children across the Fire Nation did the same with their parents. It was an ancient, honored custom, and good fun besides.

“Yes, of course.” Nonplussed, Izumi nodded.

“Ah. Good to know that my son hasn’t destroyed all our most sacred traditions.” The monster couldn’t seem to resist another spiteful shot at Izumi’s father before adding an almost off-handed answer to her question, “That is how it feels to be stripped of my firebending powers. It is like being an ember squash after Fire Fesitval has come and gone.”

“You feel burned out?” Izumi’s forehead furrowed. Trying to unravel her grandfather’s remark. “Like the candle inside you is extinguished?”

“Worse than that.” The monster shook his head.

Izumi wondered what feeling could be worse than that. Before she could ask, however, her grandfather went on softly, “When your firebending is taken from you, you feel hollowed. Like an empty husk of yourself. Like your entire identity and being has been stolen from you. Like you are worthless. Nothing. Forgotten and left to rot on the inside. Fit only to be devoured by wild, scavenging animals. It would have been more merciful, I tell you, for the Avatar to have killed me in our battle than for me to go on living without my powers. Death is a mercy sometimes.”

“Such a mercy could be arranged.” Her father’s voice was hard as his steel swords. Making Izumi start because she hadn’t even heard his footsteps approaching down the hallway. She had been too focused on the monster’s words. She had neglected to be aware of everything occurring around her. A mistake. An oversight. “I would not have a problem executing you if you wished it, Ozai.”

“Oh, but the Avatar wouldn’t like that at all, son.” Son. The monster would still speak to her father as such. Still claim him as such. Still seek to dominate him in that fashion. “You know he thinks all life is precious. Worth saving. Even a life as rotten as my own. And we both know that you do the Avatar’s bidding. You are the Avatar’s Fire Lord. Your way of restoring balance to a shattered world, is it not?”

Her father didn’t snap at this bait. Turned a stern face on Izumi instead and ordered, “Come along, Izumi. I didn’t give you permission to visit here. We’re leaving now.”

Izumi, more than happy to escape the monster’s presence, began to follow her father down the corridor away from the cell but froze when her grandfather tossed out a final taunt. “I advise burning and beating to deal with a child’s disrespect and disobedience, but you know that, don’t you, son?”

“I don’t require your cruel parenting advice, Ozai!” Her father roared, and Izumi could feel the scorn emanating from him in waves. Waves that seemed to shake the stones beneath their feet like an earthquake.

In a quieter voice, he addressed her. “Let’s go, Izumi.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulder. She was trembling. Not at her father’s fury but at what had aroused it. The sheer, unrepentant depths of her grandfather’s evil and cruelty. The pleasure he derived from his own remorselessness. An unfathomably spiteful, wicked nature. A truly perverse disposition.

With a gentle hand on her shoulder, her father steered her out of the prison. Into the warmth and the sunlight all Fire Nation citizens craved to feel on their skin.

He didn’t speak to her again until they stood on the crimson cobbles of the sun-streaked square outside the prison gates.

“When I forbade you from seeing Ozai, it was to protect you, my dear.” Her father was surprisingly mild considering she had defied him and snuck around behind his back. More sorrow than anger etched into his expression. “I did not want him doing to you what he did to his own children.”

Izumi’s eyes dropped to her shoes as she whispered, “I know that he is a monster, Father. That he burned and scarred you. You told me that. Years ago.”

“Yes, he burned and scarred me.” Her father’s finger drifted up to touch the mark his own father had left on his face forever. “But I was the luckier of his children. The one he hurt less. Broke less. Though he didn’t realize it at the time. Neither did Azula or I.”

“The luckier of his children?” Izumi was astonished and puzzled enough to lift her gaze from her feet. To stare in bafflement up at her father.

“Yes.” Her father reached out. Cupped her chin. “I have a beautiful wife to be my lifelong companion. A clever daughter to be my heir. Friendships to enrich my life and bring me joy. A nation to rule and improve. To pour my passion into. All Azula is left with is herself and an asylum because herself and her own advancement is all Ozai ever taught her to care about. Her own glory was all she ever learned to focus on, and when she couldn’t have that glory, she was robbed of her sanity too.”

Izumi swallowed the lump that swelled in her throat. Changed the topic to a less painful one. “Am I to be punished for visiting Ozai, Father?”

Her father pulled her to his chest, and she drew comfort from the warmth of his arms around her. The strength of his steadily beating heart that thumped like music in her ears as he held her against him. “I think meeting Ozai is enough punishment for any child or adult to endure. It’s certainly harsher than any punishment I would ever give you, my dear.”

“I won’t visit Ozai again, Father. I promise.” Izumi returned the hug. Stood on tiptoe to kiss her father’s cheek. “I had one question for him, and he answered it. I never need to see him again. I never want to see him again.”

 

@earlybird-obi-wan As always, thank you so much for reading and commenting on my Izumi Pentathlon! I'm so glad that you found this to be a great response to the Scary Skeleton because I really wanted to look at a monstrous person in this story, and it is hard to think of a much more terrifying, monstrous person than Ozai. I see Ozai as absolutely evil and abusive for how he burned Zuko and to me had a large role to play in driving Azula to madness when she was only a teenager. In my head canon, Zuko and Izumi have a very loving relationship and they aren't shy about showing each other affection or communicating how much they care about each other. So I am so happy that their love and care for each other shone through here. This next entry will hopefully showcase still more of that mutual love and care, and I hope that you will enjoy it

@Nehru_Amidala Thank you so much for reading and commenting on my Izumi Pentathlon!I agree that Ozai was a truly terrible and abusive father, and that is a huge part of what makes him such a chilling villain to me. How much he abused his own family. Made him a tyrant not only on a global scale but also in his personal life. I absolutely think that Zuko would be a billion times better at being a father than Ozai. I imagine that he was influenced by Iroh in terms of how he tries to act as a father and that he would never want to be abusive to Izumi in any way. Basically, I like to picture Zuko overcoming the cycle of abuse in parenting Izumi and having a really close relationship with her that is overall super sweet. And the next entry will feature more of that father and daughter closeness between Zuko and Izumi!

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Title: Always Welcome with Open Arms

Genre: Family; Drama.

Characters: Izumi; Zuko; Ozai.

Event: 500 Word Speed Skate

Summary: Izumi will always be welcome in the Fire Nation.

Always Welcome with Open Arms (500 Word Speed Skate)

“You don’t have to go, my dear,” Izumi’s father told her softly as the two of them sat by a palace pond feeding turtleducks at dusk. It had been her father who had first taught her how to feed turtleducks.

“I do, Father.” Izumi tore her bao bun. Tossed the pieces into the water. Watched the quacking turtleducks peck at the damp chunks of bread. “It was you who advcoated for the international student exchange program as a way of promoting peace and understanding between the nations. What will people say about you if your own daughter doesn’t participate in the program when she is age-eligible?”

“It doesn’t matter what people say about me.” Father cracked a crooked grin. “I’m sure I’ve heard and survived worse criticism.”

“I don’t want to be the cause of any criticism for you or Mother.” Izumi leaned over. Kissed her father on the cheek. A devoted daughter of the Fire Nation. Determined to make her parents proud. “Besides, I do want to travel. Explore the world. Learn more about all its different cultures and peoples. How will I ever do that if I do not leave home? Immerse myself in other societies and perspectives by living within them?”

“If you want to go, you have my blessing.” Father grasped her shoulder. Squeezed it gently. “I just don’t want you to feel that you have to go. That you are being forced out of your home by duty or by anything else.”

“I don’t feel forced out of my home.” Izumi bit her lip. Felt the weight of her father’s legacy. How he had traveled the world and been part of saving it as a teenager. Wondered if she would ever be able to live up to that legacy. Asked, voice breaking for the first time, “Were you afraid to leave home when you were thirteen?”

“I was afraid but I didn’t have a choice.” Father’s tone echoed the breaking in hers as he stared at the mango setting sun staining the sky with streaks of mauve and violet. Fire Nation sunsets were the most spectacular and stunning in the world. “When he burned me, my father banished me as well. Declared me an exile until I captured the Avatar.”

Izumi’s throat was dry. She couldn’t reply to that. Didn’t know how to do so. Words failed her at the most inopportune moments.

“Your situation is very different than mine.” Father kissed her furrowing forehead. “You have a choice to stay or go. I am not exiling you. Will never exile you.”

“I will go.” Izumi offered her bravest smile. “But I will come back. I promise, Father.”

“You will always have a home to return to, my love.” Father gathered her into an embrace warm and comforting as a soak in the thermal hot springs of Ember Island. “No matter how far and long you roam, your mother and I will be waiting to welcome you back to the Fire Nation with open arms.”