#spooOOOoooky halloween everybody!🎃

[the-badger-mole]

A Gift

Another year, Zuko told himself. Another year and he could put this house, his father and his sister far behind him. He just had to wait another year and he could leave and find a job and start his life. It might be tough, but he'd sleep on the streets if it meant he could finally escape this place. He threw himself on his bed and screamed into the pillows. He missed his mother. He missed his uncle. He missed who he was before everything went horribly wrong. Or rather got horribly worse, because his life had never been right.

"I wish someone would take me away from here," he muttered. His cheek still stung from where his father had backhanded him for some slight or other. It hardly mattered what he did. Ozai would find a reason. The only thing he could do to fight back was to meet his father's eyes with that stoic gaze that infuriated Ozai so much. Zuko had left his father seething with rage as he walked off calmly to his room. Azula had poked her head out of her room when she heard Zuko come up the stairs, and she shot him a look of such contempt, as if he were a pile of dog crap she'd just stepped in.

"How did you disappoint Dad today?" she sneered at him. Zuko just ignored her and locked his bedroom door behind him. He had a bit saved up. By the following year, it might even be enough for a deposit on a crappy apartment. Zuko knew that the chances were better than good that Ozai would throw him out as soon as he was of age, and he had done his best to prepare himself for that since he was 13. Back then, he thought he could move in with his uncle, but that wasn't an option anymore. Iroh had left him some money in his will, but Zuko wouldn't be able to access any of it until he was 21 without Ozai's permission. So he would have to find a way to survive until then.

The wrong brother was dead, Zuko thought bitterly for not the first time. The wrong parent was dead. Everything was just wrong. But there was little Zuko could do to fix it until his next birthday.

Sighing, he reached down and pulled out a well worn book from under his bed. It was a collection of fairytales his mother had read to him and his sister when they were very young and untouched by his father's blatant favoritism. Ozai would set the book on fire if he knew that Zuko had it. Fortunately, he hadn't been interested in setting foot in his son's room in years, and Zuko's mother had kept the book on his shelf. Now it was almost falling apart, and Zuko's heart broke for the day when it would be too delicate for him to open again. Tonight, he opened to one of his favorite tales, about a boy who was whisked away from his evil, unappreciative family and ended up married to the queen of the fairies.

"I wish it was real. I wish someone would take me away from here," he whispered again.

His windows flew open with a burst of wild wind. The curtains fluttered erratically, before settling again. There was someone standing in the window. She was shorter than Zuko by a good half foot, but as she looked down at Zuko from the window, her presence seemed to fill the room and dwarf Zuko. She wore a dark cape with a dramatically flared collar. It glinted in the dim light of Zuko's room, and he realized that there were gems sewn onto it. Her skin was bronzy brown which offset her icy blue eyes startlingly. She was beautiful, the way a predatory cat was beautiful. Zuko was frozen in fear, which only grew sharper when she smiled at him. She looked like she was up to no good. Zuko knew who she was immediately. She looked just like the illustration in his mother's book.

"You're the Goblin Queen," he whispered. She nodded her head once. Zuko took a step backward. "I must be dreaming."

"You're not," the Goblin Queen assured him, her voice was wry and throaty, almost like she was laughing at him. "I heard your wish, Zuko."

"My...wish?" he repeated.

"You wanted someone to take you away from here," she said. "I'm here to deliver." She pointed out the window, but the lawn and the street beyond it were gone. Instead, he was looking out across a browning field of wheat that led to a labyrinth, and in the distance, a castle perched on a dark mountain.

"What?" Zuko shook his head, breathlessly.

"You will go there," the Queen said. "To my castle. If you are worthy, you may stay." Zuko swallowed nervously and looked at the Queen.

"And if I'm not worthy?" he asked. The Queen's eyes glinted in what Zuko couldn't decide was mischief or malevolence.

"You can turn back," she said. "Perhaps your father will let you live to see 18. I doubt it, though." Zuko's nostrils flared and he clenched his fists at his sides, but he didn't otherwise react to the threat. The Queen seemed amused at him. He turned away from her and looked out over the labyrinth.

"You should get started." The Queen came up behind him, running her hands up his shoulders, and murmured in his ear. "It's farther than you think, and time is short." She took Zuko's hand and turned him to face a tree with a ticking clock fixed to it's trunk. "You have thirteen hours to solve the Labyrinth and make it to my castle, or you'll be lost forever to your world and this one." The Queen leaned up and kissed Zuko's cheek, then she stepped back, fading into the air.

"Good luck," she said, before she faded completely out of existence.