au where zuko and iroh actually were in a traveling circus before getting to ba sing se and zuko is a master juggler who performed to crowds for money

like... imagine the gaang gets a day off and they go into a village to get food or sum and they see that a circus is performing and aang and sokka are like “oh my god can we please go Please” and katara says no but then toph starts asking too just to annoy katara and with all of

them looking at her she just rolls her eyes and says “fine” and sokka immediately starts theorizing about whag they will potentially see in the circus acts hes like “what if there’s someone with two heads” and “oh my god do you think theyll have those bears dancing on beachballs”

and aang will immediately bring up how sad that is for the bear and katara will agree and sokka will be like “yeah but it’s so cool! how do they balance like that”

so then they get to the circus. sokka is now deadset on seeing a bear dancing on a beachball and then the lights for the opening act turn on and standing in the middle of the stage is Fucking Prince Zuko with three swords on his back that he immediately draws, effortlessly+

tossing them all up into the air and JUGGLING THEM. zuko is in a fancy sparkling red outfit standing on one foot JUGGLING SWORDS. after a split second the swords seem to catch on FIRE. sokka doesn’t doesn’t think he breathes the entire time zuko is under the spotlight. he’s still

in a fair amount of shock even after zuko’s performance is over and when asked about the circus the next morning he doesn’t even Mention the ten bears that did ballet atop giant beachballs