attackfish

Summary: Ty Lee begins Avatar Zuko's airbending training. Takes place in the same universe as "Banner".

Author's Note: Wow, I actually wrote a drabble just because. I haven't written like that for a while... Anyway, this arose out of a conversation with

weirdlet in which we both agreed *SPOILER FOR LEGEND OF KORRA (highlight to read)* ~~that the way Korra's first airbending lesson went was the exact same way Zuko's would have gone were he the Avatar.~~

The Spinning Gates

Zuko remembered the way learning to firebend had been, the slow agony, and endless, painful fight just to grasp at the edges of mastery. And he remembered the way water had leapt into his hands, and how earth had answered his call.

Ty Lee stood at the other end of the room, past the painted gates. "Azula will be missing me soon. I have to go back."

Fury buzzed in Zuko's ears, familiar and safe. The weeks hidden away in the hold of a merchant ship, smuggled into her home like a package, all to be taught by her... "You're just going to leave?"

He remembered his tutors telling him when he was little, and Azula was rushing past him in leaps and bounds in their training that he should picture the person he most wanted to burn alive at the place where his strikes would land. And he remembered not being able to see anyone, until the helplessness and rage filled him up and it was his own face he saw on the other side of his fist.

And his fires had died at the sudden joy of having made them.

Shrugging, Ty Lee glanced at the door. "I'm sure my sisters will be happy to teach you."

Zuko groaned in disgust.

"Before I go..." She smiled. "Your uncle mentioned you've done some airbending before. Make the gates spin."

Zuko swirled his arms and blasted air into them. They whirled.

"My great grandfather brought this here from the Western Air Temple as a spoil of war." She said. "All hail the conquering hero."

Zuko watched the gates spin. "What is it?"

"It's a teaching tool. You're supposed to slip past the gates as they move, without letting them hit. You. It's supposed to teach you to sense the air and move with it." She bent more air into it and cartwheeled towards it. "Watch." She stepped into the spinning gates and spun with them, from gate to gate, weaving her way through. She leapt down and spread her arms wide in front of him. "You know why I'm going right? I don't want her coming here looking for me and finding you."

"So you're just going to go to Azula and lie to her, and go hunting me with her, while you know where I am the whole time?"

"I've been lying to her for years," Ty Lee shrugged again. "You can't fight her. This isn't something you can force. Remember how when you were hunting the Avatar, and nothing you did brought you any closer to him?"

Zuko tried not to think about the fact that he was going to have to fight Azula. And he tried not to think about the way when he was hunting for the Avatar, he had pictured the Avatar's imagined face instead of his own. "Because I am the Avatar." Both faces were the same now.

"Yes, exactly." She sent another jet of air into the gates. They spun faster. "Now, you try."

Zuko squared his shoulders and charged in, past the first gate. A moment later, the second gate smacked him out of the circle and onto his back. So he pushed himself up and charged again. Ty Lee was the sort of person who could dance through life, change direction, floating, but Zuko knew if he gave himself over, the winds would spin him far away from where he needed to go.

"It's a real shame I have to leave," Ty Lee told him thoughtfully. "My sisters are going to have a lot of fun with you."