Title: Ashes in the Wind 0/?
Author: Yami no Kaiba
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Rating: R
Pairing: Zuko/Aang
Length: 431 words

Summary: AU: His forefathers sought the Avatar to capture and contain him in order to continue this war – now Zuko, adopted Prince of the Fire Nation, must find the Avatar to stop the slaughter of his Nation's people and set right the balance once more.
Disclaimers: I do not own the characters or the concepts of Avatar: The Last Airbender. I do wish there was a Book 4 though.
Note: This is an AU. Expect the unexpected.

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Generations ago, the Avatar, the great hope for peace and balance in our world, vanished without a trace.

Fire Lord Sozin pushed forward with his vision of a world united under one great Nation. For a hundred years, our world has been at war, a war started by the Fire Nation. Through the waning reign of Fire Lord Sozin and throughout the life of his son Fire Lord Azulon, the Air Nomads were destroyed to the last child, the Southern Water Tribe was decimated, and the Fire Nation's colonies in the Earth Kingdom grew numerous as the red-clad armies marched further inland.

But recently, the tides of war have shifted – seven years ago, with Fire Lord Azulon's assassination by his second son Prince Ozai, and his first son Prince Iroh's recent defeat and loss of his own son Lu Ten at Ba Sing Se, political turmoil within the Fire Nation's corrupted heart had taken the steam out of the Fire Nation's continual march forward, as a battle between brothers broke out for the Fire Nation's throne.

For five years, the Fire Nation was fractured as Fire Lord Ozai sat on the throne, and Prince Iroh lead a cunning underground assault against Ozai's rule with the help of those loyal to him from his campaign at Ba Sing Se.

And while the two brothers fought, the Earth Kingdom's armies pressed forward, taking their occupied villages back. Now bolstered with a fresh navy from the Southern Water Tribe, and hope being stirred once more in the beaten people as the army's victories were sung, the Fire Nation started losing ground at an alarming rate.

Two years ago, the battle between brothers ended. With Fire Lord Ozai's defeat, Fire Lord Iroh took the throne. Fire Lord Iroh attempted to seek peace after his coronation, sending messenger hawk after messenger hawk to Ba Sing Se. But as the days crept into weeks, and the weeks into months, the Earth Kingdom gave no reply except to press forward in the reclaiming of their lands.

Now the Earth Kingdom has taken back all of their land. The descendants of the citizens of the first colonies formed a hundred years ago have been driven back across the sea.

And still the Earth Kingdom and Southern Water Tribe's armies do not relent, as the great wooden ships of the Southern Water Tribe fill their decks below with the green uniformed soldiers of the Earth Kingdom and set sail across the sea.

It is in the aftermath of the first invasion of the Fire Nation Islands that our story begins...

--TBC