#also: sorry for just totally ignoring your ask and going on a tangent anon dkjkfjrkr

[captainkirkk]

Asks! I can do that! Imagine if the Smitten Soldier was any sort of writer as a hobby and admits that the whole thing with the crush and the meetings and the general smitteness sounds like a great set up for a fairy tale? And starts writing it? Maybe the changling guard and the ever honest, sincere, fierce fae prince meet by moonlight chance, keep meeting in the in between hours where they can slip away. It's part wishful thinking, part dreaming. And then somebody finds the manuscript

Okay. I have a confession to make.

Do you ever just daydream idly and then spiral and accidentally Plot? Because I’ve done that. It’s not exactly what you’re suggesting (that is, SS writing out their story), but it reminded me very strongly of it, so here you go:

Zuko has been a fan of theatre his whole life. He inherited the passion from his mother, and his memories of attending plays are some of the happiest from his childhood. He especially loved the ones with spirits. 

In the Fire Nation, there is a very old tale about a spirit that stole the heart of a Fire Lord that accidentally slighted it. The Fire Lord is the soul of the Fire Nation, the living incarnation of Agni, and without their heart, the Fire Nation began to suffer. Crops withered. Livestock died. Newborns came in the dead of night, underweight without a bending spark. 

It is a very old spirit tale, so old it has passed into legend (though many people believe it to be true), and has many different adaptions with many different endings. Zuko’s favourite is the one where a person - either the Fire Lord’s child or lover or a group of loyal civilians - has to rescue the Fire Lord’s heart from the wayward spirit, and save both the nation and the monarch.

Zuko forgets about the tale as he grows older. But years later, after he is banished and returned and crowned Fire Lord, the spirit returns. And, once again, steals the young Fire Lord’s heart (for Reasons). 

Word spreads very quickly. People fear the Fire Nation will suffer once again. A great many people go searching for the Fire Lord’s heart, but they do so because they want the fame and glory of being a national hero, not because they care about what happens to Zuko.

A young soldier, who was born to a poor family of fishermen in the south, hears about the tale. Their commanding officer waves the tale away, because there is nothing anyone can do against spirits. But the young soldier can’t stop thinking about it. Because the Fire Lord is around their age, isn’t he? And his heart has been taken. That must be such a lonely and cold existence, to live without your heart. 

And so the young soldier sets out to find the heart. They don’t want glory or money or acknowledgement. They just want the young Fire Lord to be safe and strong again. And they - the only truly selfless person to venture out on this journey, alone in a ricketty boat with only their determination to keep them company - find it. 

And that’s how Zuko’s life accidentally becomes a spirit tale (or, well, more of one than it already is), that will be passed down for generations to come.