4. A Friend's Unusual Pet

If there was one thing that could be said about Aang, it was that he had some very strange pets.

The normalest of them Hawkie, who was, in all fairness, Sokka's pet. Messenger hawks were common all over by the time the war was over and done with, a mix of inbreeding with local bird species and their owners just leaving them behind making them widespread. Even so, Hawkie was a pretty weird messenger hawk.

He had been bought in a perfectly average apothecary in some smallish Fire Nation town while the gang were undercover, and he'd been pretty normal to begin with. But seriously? When in the name of all things spiritual did anything around Aang (or any of his friends for that matter) remain normal? Try never.

Hawkie became a weird bird the minute he took to sitting on Appa's horns with Momo, cawing at odd hours of the night when Momo would wake up to cause a ruckus and just....basically being Momo's twin. And when he delivered his first message, to the Bei Fong's no less. It was a wonder he didn't end up on the dinner table, honestly.

Momo was by no means normal either. He was the one surviving flying lemur. And why he, of all his species, had lived, no one really knew. He just had, and Aang had added him to the group without hesitation. The lemur was generally good natured, but he was also extremely protective of those he considered a part of his family. That included Aang, Appa, Hawkie and apparently (as one unfortunate soul learned) Zuko.

To quickly summarize how the gang figured out Momo approved of Zuko, it consisted of one of the Earth Kingdom officials mouthing off unnecessarily at the Fire Lord, to begin with. Aang had risen from his seat, prepared to snarl at the man in defense of his best friend and lover, but Momo had beaten his to it. The little flying mammal had leapt off of Aang's shoulder, rocketed through the air, and bitten the man as hard as he could on his shiny bald head. ....Repeatedly.

He had then turned around, flown over Aang, landed on the arm of Zuko's throne, and proceeded to make himself comfortable in the Fire Lord's lap. Everyone had just sort of stared for a minute, before breaking out into raucous laughter. (Well, everyone but the man Momo attacked. He didn't find it too funny.)

But by far the oddest pet Aang owned was Appa, the flying bison. The name seemed innocent enough, but that was before you met the ten foot tall, to weighing, six-legged, shaggy, horned, cinderblock-toothed, animal. Then he seemed very, very, very intimidating.

Zuko knew better though. Appa was harmless, he wouldn't hurt a fly unless you hurt him first (or came at him with fire, but he was getting better about that). In fact, Zuko was rather fond of the large animal, which mystified everyone else, friends or palace attendants alike. There were various reasons the Fire Lord liked him, of course, some of them sensical and some of them...not so much.

For one thing, if you really thought about it, Appa was the first of the group Zuko had ever really interacted with. His first ally on team-Avatar, if you will. He'd freed the flying bison and in return, gained the beast's trust, and as was later found, his loyalty too. When Zuko had attempted to join their group, Appa made it ever so clear he was on the prince's side, and did his best to convince the others that he wasn't so bad. Really.

Appa was also a really nice pillow. The nights in the Western Air Temple got seriously cold sometimes, and the meager blanket Katara had given him (later replaced once she was done with her bitchy phase) wasn't exactly warm. Appa however, was more than happy to provide both a comfortable bed and a warm blanket to sleep under, so long as Zuko didn't mind Hawkie and Momo curling up with him. Which he didn't. (If one can't tell, Zuko has a serious soft spot for animals.)

Something else Appa was, was a very loyal creature. Once he considered you a friend, he was more than willing to help you in any way he could. When Aang disappeared (off to visit a lionturtle they later learned) is took a single word from Zuko and the flying bison was in the air, scouring the land for its little master. He even flew steadier because he knew Zuko wasn't completely used to flying yet.

There were a million reasons Zuko loved Appa, and there were certainly enough reasons Appa liked Zuko almost as much as he liked his own master. One of those being that the other teen was Aang's lover, that was definitely a factor. Some days the Fire Lord could be found just sitting in the stable especially made for Appa, petting the bison and reading some kind of document or other, just wanting the animal's company. The stable boy (a young kid named Tahi) was used to it by now, but had almost screamed the first time he saw them. (He'd never even seen the Fire Lord before then.)

But there was one reason overall that Zuko loved Aang's odd choice of animal companions. That reason might be considered sappy by most, but when he told Aang the Avatar had just laughed happily and kissed him, so he didn't feel too bad about it.

He liked Hawkie because it was Hawkie who came bearing the messages that Aang was coming home. He liked Momo because Momo always came flying into the throne room and landed on his knee, chittering away, telling him in his own way that Aang would be there in moments. And he loved Appa because it was Appa who he would see in the sky, flying towards him, bearing his lover back home.