The Guider Effect ☼ Zuko || ATLA

The Ekkona

"General Iroh, sir, Prince Zuko ordered that you stay with the airbender until he returns." The guard announced. Iroh hummed in response, too focused on his game of Pai Sho to even look up and acknowledge the two. The guard then nodded and left, shutting the door behind him.

"I'm going to kill your nephew if he doesn't end me first." Kireina huffed, taking a seat across from her elder.

"Prince Zuko was not always like this. Believe it or not, he was a very sweet and charismatic kid. Sadly, he has lost himself." Iroh replied, placing a tile down on the board. "But you are here now, you will guide him. It is your destiny."

"Iroh... do you know something I don't?" Rein asked, picking up a tile and placing it randomly on the board. She had no idea how to play Pai Sho, but figured the best way to get Iroh to talk was to engage in something he enjoyed.

He shook his head but the truth was, he did know something Rein didn't. Being part of the royal family had its perks like having information that the common folk did not. Granted, Iroh was skeptical at first about the stories Ozai had shared with him but the more time Kireina spent with him, the more he realized that his brother wasn't lying.

It all started over a hundred years ago when rumors circled around the nations of an airbender girl touched by the Avatar spirits. The monks claimed she was the first of her kind, she was said to be the chosen one. They started to call her the Ekkona.

Iroh's grandfather, Fire Lord Sozin, became alarmed once the rumors reached the Fire Nation. Now not only did he have to worry about the Avatar stopping his plans for domination, but a second powerful being as well. No one knew the full extent of the Ekkona's power but according to the monks, she was part of a prophecy that was destined to be fulfilled. This is what led Sozin to annihilate the Air Nomads, he called it 'killing two birds with one stone'.

After the Nomads were virtually exterminated, the rumors of the Ekkona died down until they were nonexistent. That is until no new Avatar was reincarnated after a hundred years. The new Fire Lord, Ozai, grew suspicious as time went on with no leads to which he sent hundreds of soldiers to each Air Temple in search of evidence that the Avatar was still alive. It was to his surprise when his men returned from the Southern Air Temple with stacks of scrolls detailing a powerful bender known as the Ekkona. The monks had studied her for years, keeping her at the all boy temple to keep a close eye on her and the Avatar in one place.

Ozai conducted a thorough investigation into the Ekkona, spending years completely infatuated with her. He analyzed endless information about her prophecy but it wasn't until he found his father's journals that he learned why she was created.

It was said that Rein was to infiltrate the Fire Nation through their most vulnerable source, which at the time was Prince Azulon. A young, impressionable teenager on the rise to great power. The Avatars' spirits designed the Ekkona to gain the trust and love of Azulon so she could guide him away from the destiny his father, Sozin, bestowed upon him. Thus bringing peace back to the nations and ending the war.