#iroh voice: i don't want to seem like i'm meddling too much so all i did was commission the play

[discordiansamba]

"zuko, we have to go see this."

zuko really regrets listening to sokka. he doesn't know why he didn't just take a page out of his early days as the avatar and just bolt when he showed him the poster. it was for a play. about him. produced by the ember island players.

agni give him strength.

and that was before he'd found out it had been commissioned by his uncle during his absence. sure. leave with your sister for a couple of months on a journey to help her unlearn all the crap she'd been fed since she was a child. come back to. whatever this was supposed to be. he guessed he should be flattered that uncle had gone out of his way to commission a play about him, but...

"okay," sokka arched a brow, "-is it just me or, or is play Zuko a lot more... cleaned up?"

everyone rapidly nodded. zuko would be more offended if they weren't absolutely right. yeah, yeah. he'd let himself go on his avatar journey or whatever. but he guessed every time he'd actually been presented to the fire nation after that, it was after uncle had the palace servants make him look less like a.... how had sokka described it? a wandering vagrant?

"i don't think play aang actually knows how to... act?" katara frowned.

"he's doing his best!" aang protested. "but yeah. he does kind of suck, actually."

"apparently he's the producer's son," suki said, "-sorry aang. you're nepotism hire."

zuko gave his friend a reassuring pat on the shoulder. that's rough, buddy.