"Psssst! Sokka, Suki! Get up!"

Sokka whines as Zuko's husky whisper pulls him from his sleep. He reaches one hand out to bat away his housemate, pulls a pillow over his head with the other. His alarm hasn't gone off yet which means it's far too early to be awake.

"Zu?" Suki says, her voice hoarse with sleep. She shifts in her spot on Sokka's left, knocking the pillow off Sokka's head with her flailing limbs. "What's happening? The kids…?"

"Oh, no, they're fine," Zuko placates before Suki can go down one of her worried rabbit holes. "Everyone's fine, it's just… Pakku's early."

Zuko watches the game through his hands. There's only two overs to go, and his team needs thirteen more runs to win. It's not an impossible feat but they're eight wickets down after a disastrous collapse of their top order. Their hopes rest solely on Jin - in at fifth and somehow still at the crease - but she’s likely to run out of balls and partners before she can pull off a win. The new Team Avatar fast bowler - Zuko is fairly sure he heard Haru call him Aang - rushes in, bowling hard and fast at Chan. Aang's fast balls are terrifying but Chan does well, connecting his bat with the ball. It goes up high, and Zuko is terrified that Chan will be caught out, but it falls neatly into the space between Haru and Katara instead, and bounces over the boundary for a four.

Sokka wakes with a groan.

His head feels fuzzy and he's not quite sure where he is. The last thing he can remember clearly is going on that supply run to Lake Logai with Suki and Zuko but he can't remember getting back home. He has a vague recollection of getting bit by a walker and Suki preparing to chop off his leg, but he also vaguely remembers Yue turning into a walker and his mother sinking her teeth into his father's neck and Zuko confessing his love for him so Sokka's not really sure if he can trust his memory.

One hour before his wedding to Crown Prince Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe, Prince Zuko looks into his bedroom mirror and sees a surprised turtleduck blinking back at him. This is surprising, dear reader, because Prince Zuko had been a handsome twenty-one year old human only moments before, dressed in the deep red and embroidered gold finery he's now laying in, getting ready for the worst day of his life.

This is where we first meet our Turtleduck Prince but it is not where this story begins. This story begins over seventy five years before either of our Princes, or their plucky and beautiful best friend, were even alive. You see, long ago the Four Nations lived in harmony.

But everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked

Zuko barely looks up from his scroll as Sokka slams open the door to his study and throws himself dramatically on the chaise lounge. Having known Sokka for ten years, and dated him for one, Zuko is no stranger to his boyfriend's flair for the dramatic.

"Zuko," Sokka whines. "Zuko. Zu. We need to break up."

That gets Zuko's attention. His writing brush clatters to the table, completely ruining the scroll he's working on, and he turns to look at his boyfriend with wide, panicked eyes. "What? Why?"

[Image ID: an image of Bitty's room from Check Please, drawn by Ngozi Ukazu. The image has been edited to resemble Sokka's room. The text reads "Checks, Chirps & Cellys; a sokka/suki/zuko college hockey au". /End ID.]

Zuko is six years old when words first appear on his skin. They appear while he's feeding the turtle-ducks with his mother; one short line on his left wrist in dark, curling ink. Zuko - who has been diligently learning to read with his mother, uncle and cousin - can't understand the writing; the characters on his skin do not match anything he's ever seen in a scroll before. "Mother!" Zuko calls, moving around the pond to where she sits in the shade of a cherry blossom tree and presenting his wrist to her. "Do you know what this says?"

[Image ID: an illustration of the stands at Faber Memorial Rink from Ngozi Ukazu's Check, Please! The words "Checks, Chirps & Cellys; a sokka/suki/zuko college hockey au" have been edited onto the boards in Samwell maroon. /End ID.]