In this AU:
Korra was not born the Avatar. She still exists, but as a water bender. She probably still went to Republic City and probably still joined the Fire Ferrets. Asami probably still ran over Mako with her motorbike. All of that happened, but Korra isn't the Avatar and she isn't in this story.
Harmonic Convergence, for the sake of this story, happened during Aang's time. That doesn't mean much except that there's more spirits around and also more airbenders. (That parts important. Remember that.)

Cover art does not belong to me.

Yuuri is sixteen years old when his life gets turned upside down.

He's on the lake, and it's a frosty midwinter day. His feet trace lazy circles across the ice and his breath makes clouds in the air around him.

He can feel the ice beneath him, even separated as he is by the thin strip of metal on the bottom of his skates. Below the ice, the water churns, cold and dark, and he can feel that too.

Yuuri Katsuki is a waterbender, and an excellent one too. Just don't ask him to give a demonstration or he'll forget what water even is.

None of that is remarkable however.

What's remarkable is when Minako sprints towards him, shouting his name, and slides across the ice to grab his arm with such sudden weight that he almost falls over.

Almost, but not quite. The ice is a part of him.

"Minako?" he gasps, reaching out hands reflexively to grab her shoulders and steady them both. "What are you-"

"Yuuri!" pants Minako, her cheeks flushed from the cold and her eyes wide. "Come back to the house!"

Yuuri blinks at her, alarmed. "What is it?"

"Just come!" Minako's grip tightens and Yuuri finds himself being dragged off the ice. He bends to untie his skates, but Minako grabs his feet one at a time and aggressively shoves his guards on. "No time for that!" she explains breathlessly. "Let's go!"

Then Yuuri is stumbling towards the inn, tripping over the skates that lend to such elegance on the ice and such clumsiness on land. He almost falls several times but Minako pulls him back onto his feet.

At first glance, the inn looks the same as it always does. Lanterns glow by the doorway, and a cheerful plume of smoke rises from the chimney to greet the snow-laden clouds above. Confused, Yuuri opens his mouth, before the sight of a sleek, modern-looking automobile parked on the road catches his eye.

Hasetsu is a small town on the northern tip of the Earth Kingdom. The area draws heavily from Water Tribe culture and many of its inhabitants are in fact of Water Tribe descent. It's in many ways a place between worlds, and while it welcomes many a traveler to its streets, it's location so far removed from any large cities means that it doesn't see much in the way of recent technological advancements.

In other words, Hasetsu doesn't get very many automobiles. When it does, they're usually battered trucks full of farming or fishing supplies.

Yuuri barely has time to register the lotus flower painted over the metallic blue that covers most of the automobile before Minako pushes him through the front door and into the happily lit main room of the inn.

Inside it is quiet.

That in itself is strange. Yu-topia is always noisy, bustling with patrons and friends and the constant chatter of the radio. Now however, it is silent, and none of its usual patrons are to be seen.

His parents are sitting cross-legged at the largest table, facing the door. Their eyes find him immediately, but Yuuri can't seem to read their expressions. Opposite them sit two strangers in blue robes, both larger-than-life and both with their backs to him. As Minako enters and the door swings shut, the strangers turn to look at him.

Dimly, Yuuri recognizes the garb of the White Lotus. But that doesn't make any sense. Why would the White Lotus be here, in Hasetsu? Why would they be sitting on the floor of his family's inn?

"Ah, you must be Yuuri," says one of them, an old woman with a long gray braid and a lively glint in her eye. "Please, come sit."

"I—wha…" Yuuri swallows, hard. "Um. Hello." He bows, and the woman smiles. "Uh. One moment. Please."

He can feel their eyes on him as he bends to unlace his skates with shaking fingers and only manages to turn the bow into a knot. Minako kneels to help him, her long, nimble hands swiftly undoing the tangle and pulling the skates off his feet.

"I'll be in the kitchen," she whispers, and leaves the room. Yuuri feels naked without her behind him, standing barefoot and alone in front of the White Lotus' searching gazes.

His mother reaches out a hand and pats the floor beside her. Taking the hint, Yuuri moves across the room and sits, his heart beating loudly in his ears. He doesn't know if either of the strangers are earthbenders, but he's sure they can both hear his heart whether they are or not.

The middle-aged man with steely gray eyes who sits beside the old woman reaches into his robes and pulls out a box. He sets it delicately on the table and opens it to reveal a blue velvet lining, and, resting atop that, two koi fish carved from stone. One is black with a white eye, and one is white with a black eye.

"Choose," says the man. Yuuri's brow furrows, confused. He doesn't understand what this is about, why they're here, what's going on, but he has enough sense to realize he's being tested. Sweat forms on his palms where they're clenched into fists on his knees, and he forces his hands to relax.

He's trembling. The room is silent, all eyes on him, and the fish seem to swirl together into a blur before him.

Choose .

Black, or white? What's the right answer? Is there a right answer?

Tentatively, Yuuri reaches for the white one, then draws back and moves his fingers towards the black one. He picks it up and frowns. No, this is wrong. He sets it back down.

Something's wrong. What's wrong? Why can't he choose?

Push and pull. Life and death. Good and evil. Ying and yang.

"I...I can't," stammers Yuuri, his voice cracking. He withdraws his hands and clutches at the fabric of his pants, trying to ground himself in reality.

The woman narrows intense blue eyes at him and leans forward. "Can't you?"

"I can't. I can't pick. They don't—I can't pick one."

The man's spine straightens just slightly. A smile tickles the corner of the woman's mouth. "And why not?"

Yuuri wets his lips. His mother reaches out a reassuring hand to brush his arm. "Because they—they go together. I can't take one. They're two halves of a whole. To take one and not the other would be…" he trails off, not really sure what exactly taking one would be.

The man and woman exchange looks. Then the latter smiles and reaches a hand across the table towards him even as the man closes the box and hides it back in his robes. Tentatively, Yuuri extends his own hand, and the woman takes it.

"Do you know who we are?" asks the woman. Her eyes are sparkling like the ice when the sun is high.

"You're the White Lotus," Yuuri murmurs.

"Yes," she smiles, both hands now cupping his. Her grip is startlingly firm for an old woman's, firm and warm and surprisingly comforting. "This is Daiko. And my name is Katara."

Yuuri's mouth is suddenly very, very dry. "K-Katara? As in…"

She inclines her head. "Yes. Do you know why we're here?"

Yes. It's obvious. They're here because—

—no! That doesn't make any sense. I'm just a nobody.

Stop lying to yourself. You know what this is about.

"N-no."

"Well, Yuuri," says Katara. "As you may know, the world has yet to reveal its new Avatar."

Distantly, Yuuri hears someone gasp from inside the kitchen, and another voice quickly shushing. "Y-yes?"

"Until today."

Yuuri knows. He knows. He's not an idiot. He figured this out before she said it, but he's still in denial. It just doesn't make sense. How could he—?

"It's an honor to meet you," smiles Katara. "Avatar Yuuri."

Yuuri's pretty much mastered waterbending at sixteen. Katara offers to teach him, anyway. Says they should fill in the gaps, since he's the Avatar and all.

The Avatar. Yuuri is the Avatar.

It all feels so surreal.

Yuuri is sixteen when he packs his bags and leaves home. The last night before he goes, his mother cooks katsudon and Mari stares at him all through dinner without saying a word.

The next morning is cold and bright, the sky perfectly blue and the sun reflecting off the snow that's piled on the side of the road. His parents hug him and kiss him and make him promise to phone once in a while. His mother writes the number down on a piece of paper just in case he forgets.

Minako and Yuuko and Takeshi are all there to see him off. He can see the faces of all of the neighbors peering through the windows and halfway-opened doors. Yuuri bids them all goodbye with a swelling feeling of anxiety in his chest, and finds himself swallowing back tears.

He's about to get in the car when Mari finally says something. Her hand on his shoulder stops him with one foot in the door, and her eyes are intense even set in the careful aloofness of her expression.

"I always knew you were special, Yuuri," she says. "Be careful out there." Then she hugs him, and that is the point where Yuuri loses the battle to hold back his tears.

Katara is already in the car when he climbs in. She offers him a smile and squeezes his hand as the door shuts and Daiko starts the engine. Yuuri's fingers fumble for the window crank, his whole body shaking, but he manages to get the window down so that he may better see the faces of his family and friends.

"We love you, Yuuri!" his mother shouts, blowing him a kiss. "Good luck! Stay safe!"

"Don't forget about your little family!" calls his father, wiping a tear from below his eye.

"I won't!" Yuuri replies, his voice cracking. He says it again for good measure, almost screaming it. "I won't forget!"

The car turns a corner and they are all lost from sight.

Yuuri buries his head in his hands and cries.

"It's time for you to learn earthbending," Katara declares after he's spent a year under her tutelage. Yuuri doesn't argue with her, even though the dark voices in his head tell him that his waterbending is not yet good enough (will never be good enough).

The Lotus debates over who should be his teacher. Lin and Su Beifong are both far too busy, and their mother dropped off the map ages ago. After a while, they decide on Celestino.

Celestino is a kind man, middle-aged with long brown hair and a mind as grounded as the earth he bends. He is patient and gentle with Yuuri. With him as a teacher, Yuuri soon finds comfort in the solidity of earthbending. He grows to enjoy the shift of earth beneath his feet almost as much as he loves the scrape of his skates over ice. The thing that proves most significant about Celestino, however, is that he already has a student.

The student's name is Phichit Chulanont, and he is the most energetic person Yuuri has ever met. Phichit is three years younger than Yuuri. He has deep brown eyes that are full of light. He had boundless enthusiasm and positivity. And, very quickly, he becomes Yuuri's best friend.

The prize of Phichit's belongings is a camera. When he first pulls it out, Yuuri is surprised, because not a lot of people have those things. They're expensive, and bulky, and most people find them unnecessary. Not Phichit, though. The camera is practically attached to his body, and at every opportunity he whips it out to snap a photograph. Yuuri loses track of the amount of times Phichit's arm wrapped around his shoulders and dragged him into the shot.

"Smile!" demands Phichit, holding them together so close that their cheeks are touching. One of his hamster-mice crawls from his hair to Yuuri's. The camera clicks and there's a flash of bright light.

On his deathbed Yuuri will still wonder how Phichit manages to align the lense perfectly without looking. A 'selfie', he calls it, and they always turn out perfect.

(Yuuri suspects there might be some magic involved, but he's too afraid to ask.)

"YUURI!"

Yuuri awakens with such a start that he falls off his bed and lands with a thump on the floor, his blankets tangled around him so that he can't really move. Blearily he flails his one free hand about on the nightstand until he finds his glasses and slides them on his face.

"Phichit? Wha—?"

Phichit is sitting on the floor by Yuuri's dresser, several of the drawers open and the clothes within spilling out. In his hand is one of Yuuri's skates, and he's enthusiastically waving it about close enough to his face to make Yuuri nervous.

"You ice skate?!"

"Uh...yeah. What are you doing in my dresser?"

Phichit glances at the mess he made and has the decency to look sheepish. "Oh, sorry. I was looking for Ubon."

"For...what?"

His friend holds up the hand that isn't currently occupied with Yuuri's skate. In it is a reddish ball of fur. "Ubon."

Yuuri sighs. "Of course." With some difficulty, he manages to extract himself from the mess that used to be his bedspread. "I thought you knew that I skated."

"No?" Phichit's eyes suddenly light up, and Yuuri, with a sense of resignation, knows what's coming next.

"Are you any good?"

"I mean…"

Phichit is across the room in seconds, kneeling in front of Yuuri and clutching his shoulders. "Will you teach me?"

Yuuri blushes and looks away. "I don't know, Phichit, I—"

" Pleeeeeaaaaase."

Yuuri sighs. He knows Phichit well enough to know that his friend won't take no for an answer. "Ok."

" Yes!" Phichit skips across the room and places Ubon in her cage. Then he grabs a handful of Yuuri's clothing and throws it at him. "Get dressed! Let's go!"

"Wha— now ?"

"Yes, now!" The earthbender shoves a hat over his ears even though it's only autumn, caught up in his romanticised image of ice skating. Yuuri heaves another sigh.

Phicht may be an earthbender, but being around him is like being caught up in a whirlwind.

(Yuuri secretly loves it.)

Celestino bows to him, and Yuuri bows back. Phichit snaps a picture from behind them.

"Congratulations, Yuuri," says Celestino, a smile on his voice. "You've mastered earthbending."

Yuuri returns the smile, his cheeks flushed from the final duel of his training. He's twenty years old, taller and more muscular. The pudge of his youth has fallen away, though hints of it linger in his cheeks and along his jawline. He looks stronger. He feels stronger.

He has mastered two elements, and it is only now that Yuuri truly accepts in his heart that he is the Avatar.

Water. Earth. Fire. Air.

Fire.

Fire .

Yuuri is a waterbender.

Yes, he's the Avatar. Yes, technically that means he is also an earthbender, and an airbender, and a firebender. But at his core, Yuuri is water, the same way Avatar Aang was air.

Fire is rage and glory. Passion and life. Fire is bold, it is confident, it is unapologetic.

Yuuri is many things, but he is not fire.

The White Lotus tries many teachers. None of them fit.

In the end, they give him to the former Fire Lord himself.

The Fire Palace is large and grand. It is trimmed with gold in the shape of dragons, the inside carpeted with fine red velvet over dark burnished wood, the columns carved so that they appear to be in the process of being consumed with flame.

Even though the title of Fire Lord officially belongs to Izumi, Yuuri still imagines that he would meet Zuko in the throne room, shrouded in shadows on a vast throne. This proves an inaccurate assumption.

They meet in a small reception room. A square table sits in the center, surrounded by cushions. There's a small throne on a raised dais at the opposite end of the room, but it's unoccupied. Instead, the room's only inhabitant, former Fire Lord Zuko himself, is sitting at the table, his long gray hair swept over his shoulders as he calmly sips his tea.

Yuuri thinks he might faint.

"Ah," says Zuko, looking up as Yuuri enters, alone. "You must be the Avatar."

Yuuri swallows and bows deeply, his heart in his throat. He doesn't know the etiquette in this situation. Katara had assured him that Zuko was a kind man, and Phichit had reminded him that they had been close friends in his past life, but Yuuri is not Avatar Aang and this is the former head of the Fire Nation, after all.

Everyone knows the story. The exiled prince who saved his nation and helped to lead the world into a new era of peace, the Fire Lord so kind and just that he was loved by all, the man who was unmotivated by greed and so, at the ripe age of sixty-five, stepped down from the throne and passed the crown on to his daughter, Izumi.

Everyone knows the story. Not everyone finds themselves alone in a room with the legend who is supposed to teach you to firebend.

Yuuri's been bowing for a while now. He's not really sure what to do, and it's just easier to keep his head bowed and his eyes fixed on the floor.

"Please," beseeches Zuko. "There's no need for that. Come join me."

Yuuri straightens in time to see Zuko gesture to the seat across from him. He does as he's bid.

"Tea?" questions Zuko. Yuuri nods meekly.

"I'm Zuko," says he, as if Yuuri doesn't know exactly who he us. Yuuri can't look him in the eye, and instead focuses his gaze on the wizened hands that steadily pour the tea with practised ease. It's jasmine, from the smell of it. Yuuri wonders distantly if anyone from the White Lotus told Zuko that jasmine is his favorite, or if the two of them just happen to have the same taste in tea.

(A voice in the back of his mind wonders if Aang liked jasmine. He ignores it, because he's not Aang. He's Yuuri.)

Yuuri accepts the cup that's pushed towards him. Automatically his hands wrap around it, but he doesn't drink. It doesn't feel proper.

"Yuuri," says Zuko after a pause. "I don't want you to be afraid of me."

Yuuri stiffens and finally lifts the cup to his mouth.

"In fact, I was hoping perhaps we could be friends."

"I'm not Aang," says Yuuri before he can stop himself. Horrified, he bows his head and stares at his knees.

Zuko lets out a surprised sort of chuckle. "No, you're not," he agrees. "That's why I want to get to know you. I already knew Aang. I want to know Yuuri Katsuki."

Yuuri finally sums up the courage to meet the old man's gaze. The eyes are kind, edged with laughter lines and spun of molten gold.

"What do you like to do for fun, Yuuri?"

Yuuri blinks. His hands open and close around the tea. "I like to skate," he says eventually.

Zuko smiles.

They're out in the courtyard. Yuuri's supposed to be demonstrating what firebending he can do.

It's not going well.

Zuko takes one look at Yuuri and the measly whiff of smoke that's all he can manage and hums quietly.

"I think," he says, his golden eyes seeming to stare into Yuuri's soul. "That perhaps it is time we payed a visit to the Sun Warriors."

"Welcome back, Avatar," says the chief. "My father told me stories of your last visit." Yuuri's uncertain how to react to that so instead he bows politely.

"I'm honored to be here," he says, and he means it. Very few people have set eyes on the forgotten civilization of the Sun Warriors.

"Well, you're certainly more polite than the last one," snarks the lanky old man who stands behind the chief.

Yuuri flushes and looks away.

"I suppose you're here to learn from the masters?" queries the chief. Yuuri nods, and the man gestures towards the fire that roars behind him. One of the Sun Warriors removes a small flame and hands it to Yuuri, and tentatively he accepts.

"Climb the mountain to meet the masters," instructs the chief. Yuuri gulps, already struggling to fuel the tiny flame.

This is going to be difficult.

But he can do it. He has to.

Silhouetted by the setting sun, Yuuri reaches the top of the stairs. Slowly, deliberately, and very conscious of the eyes below that watch him intently, he lifts his hands up to the sky, the flame flickering and glowing like a shining heart.

Then the dragons come.

Yuuri never learned the dance, but it doesn't seem to matter. When the dragons come, his body moves on its own, shifting and spinning with elegance he's earned from years of skating. His movement flow like water, his hair lit like flames by the dying rays of the setting sun.

When he finishes, the dragons engulf him in a column of fire, and Yuuri is frozen at the epicenter of a new understanding.

As he descends to the pavilion below, Yuuri can feel the fire beating beside his heart. When he returns to the palace and Zuko asks him what he learned, Yuuri inhales that fire and, with a hand outstretched, produces his first ever flame.

Phichit talks like this? with all the weird punctuation? like he's online? Help I tried to stop him and it didn't work.

Ok so Zuko was not supposed to be Yuuri's fire bending teacher. Katara was supposed to be the only character from the original series to make an appearance. But I couldn't think of any YOI characters who would work as a teacher for Yuuri, aside from Celestino and Viktor, the former of which I already used and the latter...well, you'll see.

Please imagine that Zuko and Yuuri go ice skating together. Enjoy that image.

Thank you for reading! I hope you liked it. If you did or you didn't, drop me a review to let me know what you thought!

(No promises on when the next chapter will come out but I'll try to get it out as soon as I can.)