This was a thought that occured to me where all my thoughts about Zuko occur - in the shower.

---

Hair

---

Iroh had been the one to suggest the look when his nephew had healed enough to start daily grooming again.

“I think you should just shave it all off,” he said smiling. “Except for the queue – can’t cut the ties that bind, of course.”

Zuko nodded in agreement, and the barber started the fine work of pruning the burnt, patchy hair off. Admittedly, Zuko looked great shaved – he had the perfect head for the look, and Iroh beamed his approval.

Grooming the prince’s scalp became a twice-weekly ritual – his hair grew extraordinarily fast. Even so, the banished prince didn’t really look at his reflection much. He had never been terribly vain anyhow.

---

And then one day both their royal top knots had been cut.

Neither of them needed to say anything about what they’d just done. They simply got up from the river bank and turned their backs to the two bundles of hair floating downstream.

Iroh didn’t dare make a crack about how silly his nephew looked with only that cropped patch on the top of his scalp. If he was lucky, he’d be able to procure a blade and shear off the remaining hair so that it would grow back evenly.

But that was the furtheset thing from his mind at the moment.

---

Weeks later, the old general found the exiled prince sitting by the stream they were camped near, staring at his reflection in the water. He was touching his face and scalp, running his fingers through the short coarse hair that was quickly taking root.

At the sound of his soft step, Zuko looked up from his melancholy vigil and sighed.

“What’s troubling you, nephew?” Aside from the obvious of course.

“It’s… it’s nothing.” He gazed down at the water once more.

Which was Zuko-ese for “Everything. Keep bothering me about it and eventually you’ll get it right.”

The old Firebender kneeled down next to him and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. He had a whole catalog of vague ideas about what troubled his nephew, and he picked the most appropriate one for the moment.

“I’m going to tell you something a very wise woman once told me. She said that if all the people who cared about you saw only what lay on the surface, then they didn’t really care about you at all.” Iroh shifted his weight and dipped a hand into the cool water. “There are many things deep beneath the surface of the water. The woman of your dreams will see them.”

The prince started, cheeks burning. “This has nothing to do with a girl!” He snapped.

Iroh cocked an eyebrow and smirked. “Oh really?”

“It’s just… I’m just…” Zuko spluttered. His lips twisted about and he looked back down at his reflection. “Uncle, let me ask you something.”

“Go on.”

“I’m almost 17. My hair is growing out like grass in the springtime. I haven’t seen a barber in weeks, and my knife is duller than dirt.”

“And…?”

The prince screwed up his face in frustration. “So WHY haven’t I started growing any FACIAL HAIR?”

---

I think we're all fortunate Zuko doesn't have that bad 16-year-old fuzz on his face, or worse yet, the three hairs sprouting from his upper lip and chin. Eeew.

Thanks Bryan and Mike: we like our Zuzu smooth as a baby's bottom.