[He glances over at her to make sure she was still listening before going on.]
He told me I was banished, and not to return unless I came back with the Avatar. The Avatar hadn't been seen in a hundred years, but if he did still exist, he was a huge threat to our stability in the war. I know now that he was probably looking for an excuse to get rid of me and instate my sister as heir, but at the time I thought... it was the only way to get my honor back. For my father to care about me again.
So I went on a mission to find the Avatar. I searched the world over for three years before I found him, trapped in an iceberg in the South Pole. Well, Katara and Sokka found him, I was late to the game. [more bitterly,] I met them by attacking their village. The Fire Nation had already taken almost their entire society, and the men were all out fighting us, so all that was left was a small village of old women and children.
Aang turned out to be twelve. Or-- a hundred and twelve, but really twelve. [He shakes his head.] He tried to be friends with me a few times but I always rejected him. Eventually when I realized that the war was wrong and I had to stop it, I left the capital to convince them to let me be his firebending instructor. They didn't accept me at first.
...It's still a miracle to me that we're friends at all.
no subject
He told me I was banished, and not to return unless I came back with the Avatar. The Avatar hadn't been seen in a hundred years, but if he did still exist, he was a huge threat to our stability in the war. I know now that he was probably looking for an excuse to get rid of me and instate my sister as heir, but at the time I thought... it was the only way to get my honor back. For my father to care about me again.
So I went on a mission to find the Avatar. I searched the world over for three years before I found him, trapped in an iceberg in the South Pole. Well, Katara and Sokka found him, I was late to the game. [more bitterly,] I met them by attacking their village. The Fire Nation had already taken almost their entire society, and the men were all out fighting us, so all that was left was a small village of old women and children.
Aang turned out to be twelve. Or-- a hundred and twelve, but really twelve. [He shakes his head.] He tried to be friends with me a few times but I always rejected him. Eventually when I realized that the war was wrong and I had to stop it, I left the capital to convince them to let me be his firebending instructor. They didn't accept me at first.
...It's still a miracle to me that we're friends at all.