Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Prince Zuko?”

The air was stale and damp. A chill clung to it, but it was nowhere near as cold as the fear that snaked down his spine as his name was spoken.

Only one person ever said it, after all. The woman who brought food said nothing, nor did the guards. All they had to offer were looks of pity in the few instances they dared to meet his eyes. Some part of him, buried deep, resented them in a way. Another part was comforted.

Neither particularly mattered.

“My prince?”

A shaky exhale, an impossible steeling of nerves, and he opened his eyes. Pain shot through his skull and he immediately squeezed them shut again, the torch held in one of the guard’s hands being a bit too much to bear.

Through his eyelids, the light faded, and he eased them open once more.

His gaze found the torch first, chasing the light hungrily even despite the pain it brought. His attention quickly shifted, though, to the Fire Sage standing a few feet away. He furrowed his brow. A Fire Sage? He had been sure that the only people who knew he was down here were his father, sister, and the servant and guards. A Fire Sage had been nowhere on the list. Perhaps because he liked to think that everything his father was doing would be against whatever doctrines the Sages dedicated themselves to.

Maybe not.

“Can you hear me?”

Zuko swallowed. His mouth was dry. His throat was dry. They were always dry.

The air was damp, and sweat clung to his hair, and the water was never enough.

He nodded slowly.

“All right, that’s good, that’s good,” the Fire Sage breathed out. “Do you know why I’m here?”

There really was only one reason. Only one he could think of, at least.

“My father?”

If the room hadn’t been dead silent, his voice might not have even been audible. It was weak and hoarse, and the eternal cold likely did it no favors. Zuko couldn’t blame the guard for wincing.

The Fire Sage pursed his lips. “Yes, something did happen to him.”

Zuko raised an eyebrow, as if goading him to continue.

The Sage glanced away for a moment before he spoke again. “Your father has been defeated by the Avatar. During Sozin’s Comet. Your sister was captured as well. The princess was never officially crowned, nor was your claim ever officially revoked, so…” The Fire Sage seemed to be at a bit of a loss for words. He squared his shoulders and turned to Zuko, solidly meeting his eyes. “Prince Zuko, you are to be crowned Fire Lord this afternoon.”

The breath that he sucked in hurt.

Fire Lord?

The Fire Sage stared at him for a moment longer, as if searching for something, before he sighed, turned to the guard, and nodded.

Relief flooded the guard’s face, transforming it in an instant. Zuko almost thought there was something wrong with him.

The door opened quickly, the guard stationed outside appearing in the opening.

Zuko struggled to stand. Vaguely, he supposed it made sense. He hadn’t stood in months. Closer to a year, he would wager, not that he had any real way of knowing. As it was, he managed to get to his knees before they gave out under him.

The two guards rushed forward. The one with the torch hovered at his side, and after a moment Zuko swallowed his pride and nodded to him. A tight-lipped smile was returned. The torch was passed off to the Sage, and the guards moved to lift him, one by the arms and the other by the legs. He supposed he had little room for embarrassment. This was hardly the worst state they had ever seen him in.

The food server was waiting outside, a wheelchair in front of her. She was wringing her hands, eyes red in the torchlight as Zuko emerged from the doorway and was lowered into the waiting seat.

For people who saw him every day, they were surprisingly happy to see him.

Whatever. It was better circumstances than usual, he supposed.

Anything was better than the cell.

The Fire Sage walked by his side, just a step behind. The servant pushed the wheelchair, flanked by the guards, and, oh, what a menacing group they must be. A Fire Sage, a servant, two guards, and a prince just as broken as the nation he was to rule.

They moved slowly up the stairs once they reached them, one guard carrying the front and one carrying the back. As they ascended, Zuko couldn’t help but admire every crack in the stone, every flicker of a torch. He’d long since memorized the same dark rocks of his cell. As they passed another torch, the warmth brushed against his skin, and he savored it.

Agni, he had forgotten what warmth felt like. True warmth, not the searing heat of white flames or the feeling he got when he was so numb it burned. It called to him, and something in the pit of his stomach that had been missing for so long tried to call back.

Finally, they came to a door. The servant slipped past them and opened it. The wheelchair was placed on the ground once more and the woman took up her place to continue pushing. They traversed through a final hallway before the Fire Sage opened the door at the end and–

Oh.

They were in the palace.

Not just any part of the palace, though, he realized. His eyes scanned the room, and something like fury flickered in his heart. Oh, his father must think himself to be quite the comedian.

It was the trophy room. The one place in the Fire Nation, save perhaps the Archives and the Dragonbone Catacombs, that held any information at all on the other nations. Jewel statues from the Earth Kingdom, carved wood from the Water Tribes, tapestries from the Air Temples. As a piece of cloth fell in place behind them, Zuko was hit with the realization that it was one of those tapestries his door had been hidden behind.

Not just any tapestry, either.

The symbols of the elements swirled around one another, forming a perfect balance with a figure at the center. The Avatar.

A depiction of the one person who could stop his father, who Zuko had sworn to help, hid him away from the world. A tapestry made by a people wiped from the face of the earth, turned into a burial shroud for the genocider’s own descendant.

Funny.

Then, they passed through another door, and the room was gone.

The corridors were empty. At least, he thought they were. He spent most of the journey focused on not going blind from the amount of light flowing through the windows. Had the sun always been that bright? He didn’t think so.

He felt them slow, and there didn’t seem to be as much light trying to break through his eyelids, and so he eased them open only for his heart to skip a beat.

They were in front of a large door, but it was one that he would never be able to forget. His gaze easily found the chip on the right side, where the paint was slightly different because Azula had once, years past, run into it while they chased one another. It felt like a lifetime ago, but he knew that this was his door.

A guard opened it, and the servant pushed him inside. She bowed to the Fire Sage, and then much lower to Zuko before turning on her heel and leaving the room, the door closing purposefully behind her.

“Someone will be down soon to get you ready,” the Fire Sage said. Zuko nodded absently. The curtains were drawn in front of the balcony, he noted.

“Outside.”

It took a moment to register that he was the one who had spoken.

There were three mirrored startles at his sudden words. “Pardon, my prince?”

He didn’t think he had it in himself to say it again, so instead he just breathed, “Please.”

It was low, quiet, but the desperation must have gotten through as the Fire Sage nodded. “Of course, sire.” The female guard took the handles of Zuko’s wheelchair while her partner moved to the curtains. As he reached them, the man, face solemn, pulled the curtains back.

Zuko winced. The light hurt.

He refused to back down from it, though. He never had before. After a moment, he managed to bob his head into a nod, and the wheelchair moved in response.

As the guard pushed him forward a bit, to where the sunlight could touch his skin, he instantly found himself reveling in it. He let its warmth wash over him for the first time in years, seeping into his bones. It had been so long since he had been able to feel the sun rise, but even this was different. It brushed against him gently, as if trying to whisper that it had missed him, too.

He hoped it had.

Zuko could have sat there for hours, and probably would have if it hadn’t been for the knock at the door. He nodded to the male guard, and a call went out, giving permission to enter. A woman strolled in, her arms filled with very expensive clothes, and from the harried look on her face, this was all as abrupt and last-minute for her as it was for him.

“My prince,” she said, bowing as low to him as she could when he was wheeled back inside. As she rose, she seemed to finally get a good look at him, her eyes widening. She opened her mouth to speak, but must have thought better of it, as instead all she did was place the clothes down. “I am here to help prepare you for your coronation this afternoon.”

Zuko nodded. A wave of pain surged through his head, and he did his best to blink it away. His mouth tasted strongly of blood. “Name?”

The woman, who looked younger and younger the more uncertain she became, stared at him for a long moment. Her throat bobbed. “My apologies, my prince. I’m afraid I do not understand.”

If every word didn’t feel like knives being run down the inside of his throat, he was sure this all would be much easier. “Yours,” he managed to say, and then- “Name.”

She looked completely taken aback, and he hoped that meant his message had finally gotten across.

It seemed it had, as she found her voice and said, “Pim.”

His gaze moved from her to the guards, straining to look over his shoulder. Ideally, they would understand what he was asking without any more words being exchanged.

“I’m Lee, my prince,” the male guard said.

“Ming,” said the other a moment later.

The Fire Sage didn’t seem surprised when Zuko turned to him next. “My name is Shyu, sire,” he said.

He nodded, and shifted his jaw a bit. His limbs were numb, but he was able to gesture vaguely to himself and say, “Zuko.”

It was kind of silly, he realized after a moment, saying his name so casually. Or, maybe it would be silly, if it didn’t make his chest ache.

Pim shifted a bit, uncertainty clear in her stance, before she asked, “My prince, do I have your permission to begin dressing you?”

Zuko swallowed and inclined his head. His throat was still dry.

As if on cue, the door opened, and the food server walked back in. She bowed as she entered, and he was able to recognize the large jug and glass held in her hands. “Water, sire?” She asked.

He nodded, perhaps a bit too eagerly. “Please.”

Something in her eyes softened, more so than he might have expected, but she filled the glass and handed it to him. She took it back quickly, once it became clear that his hands were a bit too shaky, and held it to his lips herself.

He downed three glasses before deciding it might be a good idea to not drink so much he threw up.

That was the last thing he wanted. While imprisoned, he often threw up his food, finding it nearly impossible to keep down the first few bites. It made it even easier to appreciate the extra bits of rice or komodo chicken that were occasionally snuck in. Having extra food that might actually stay in his body was always nice after the first bit didn’t.

When he would finally fall asleep, he’d wake up some time later to find his cell cleaned, and it would almost make him want to smile.

Almost.

He turned to the servant as she placed the glass on a table. “Name?” He asked her.

She whirled back to face him. Her eyes were just a bit wide, but something warmed within them. Unlike the others, she needed no further explanation to figure out what he was asking. “My name is Keeli, my prince,” she said, her voice indescribably gentle. It was like she was speaking to a long-lost family member, rather than royalty. Oddly, he appreciated it. It grounded him in a way little else had thus far. A reminder that he wasn’t just a prince, he was a person.

He wondered if his father could have done with a reminder like that.

The process of getting dressed for the coronation could only be described as unbearably arduous. He still couldn’t stand on his own, and he resented the words he could hear Shyu muttering to the guards, about how it would likely take weeks of therapy before he could walk without assistance. As a result, something that would have taken perhaps half-an-hour instead took two, spent being lifted by Ming and Lee while Pim dressed him, Keeli and the Fire Sage recruited to help. He tried not to focus on the fabric against his bruises, or the occasional spritzes of water that dusted over his skin.

Zuko refused to look down at his own body as they worked, staring straight ahead at a painting of a beach that hung on the wall. Had that been there for the first thirteen years of his life? He couldn’t remember it, but he also didn’t think his father would bother redecorating in the time that Zuko was gone.

He might not have looked at his chest or his arms or his legs, but the others in the room certainly did. Pim’s lips were pressed shut tight, wobbling ever so slightly. Ming’s eyes were glazed over, a bit unseeing, and Lee mostly kept his trained on the ground. Shyu clasped his hands behind his back, standing straight as a board, but Zuko didn’t fail to notice the way the man trembled ever-so-slightly once in a while. Keeli’s eyes were red, though no tears fell, and she never hesitated for a moment when Pim gave her another command, even when the younger woman’s voice cracked on the words.

With the way they were all acting, Zuko didn’t know if he wanted to see what he looked like.

So he didn’t.

As Pim adjusted a gold band near the shoulder, he asked, eyes still stuck on the painting, “How long?”

There was silence.

Then, Shyu asked, “How long were you down there, sire?”

He shifted, and it must have looked like agreement, because Pim said quietly, “There’s a calendar. In my…my bag.”

Keeli shuffled through the bag before pulling out a scroll and handing it to Ming. The guard raised an eyebrow, and Keeli said in a low voice, “I can’t read.”

Zuko frowned. He’d have to change that.

Ming, oddly, scowled and muttered something under her breath that sounded like, “-would’ve thought he’d-” before she said, “A few months over three years, my prince.”

The words were blunt, and for a moment he had trouble believing them. Over three years? He would be sixteen, then. He supposed that made sense. Shyu had mentioned Sozin’s Comet, and that was supposed to return the summer before he turned seventeen. Four months before, specifically.

He was probably unrecognizable, now, even if one ignored the dozens of scars that surely crossed over his skin.

That wasn’t mentioning the one on his face, either, the scar that he knew was there. While the memories of the others had faded from his mind, falling out onto the stones and slipping through the cracks, that scar was one that he would never be able to forget. The way his father had reached out, cupped his cheek as he cried, and rubbed a gentle thumb over his skin before setting his face ablaze.

A chill ran down his spine, and he shoved the image out of his mind. The scar across his eye tinged with pain.

His hair was choppy, tickling the tips of his ears, and it was never brushed. It had been shaved once, when he was first imprisoned, and had grown out since then. Over the years, he would occasionally wake to find it shorter than what he had gone to sleep, as if someone had cut it while he lay unconscious in the cell.

Zuko’s throat hurt. The warm, humid air of the late summer was oddly soothing to it, but it still hurt anyway, pulsing with pain as if it wanted to remind him that it was there. Talking was worse, he thought. Every word burned, like a hot blade run along the inside of his neck.

In an ideal world, he would never have to speak again, but he had known for a long time that this was not an ideal world. He was quite sure it wasn’t even a kind one. There was no real scenario he could imagine, either, where the ruler of a nation, especially one despised by every other, would be able to avoid, or even really reduce the amount of talking he did.

The ruler of a nation.

Fire Lord.

The idea was still rather unfathomable, he thought. Ever since he had lost his grip on the sun, years ago, he had banished all prospects of anything but cold stone walls, deafening silence, and hot pain. He lived in that cell, and when his father finally grew tired of him, he would die in it, too.

Forgotten to the world, Fire Lord Ozai’s failure son, who rebelled against his father and paid the price, would be lost to history.

Would anyone have even known his name? Or would that have been wiped from the records, as well, until a generation later, he was nothing more than a distant memory in the back of his sister’s mind as she sat the throne.

The throne that would now be his. He was going to become Fire Lord. The one thing that had been unreachable to him, that his father had used against him for so long, was within his grasp.

The thought was exhilarating.

It was terrifying.

“Would you like to look at yourself, sire?”

He pulled himself from the recesses of his mind and nodded without really thinking about what he was agreeing to. The wheelchair was pushed toward a mirror at the other side of the room, and he abruptly realized that his old bedroom was probably larger than ten of his cells combined. Perhaps more.

He blinked, and his reflection blinked back.

It must be his reflection, because there was no other that it could be, and yet he found himself nearly unable to believe it.

Zuko, honestly, couldn’t say that he recognized himself.

His skin, which had always been a healthy pale, was sickly now, a pallor to it that turned it closer to the color of paper than any human had any right to be. His face was sunken, bones a bit too sharp and blood a bit too thin. He looked like he was dying. To be fair though, he had been, slowly, for every moment that he was in that cage, locked up like an animal.

Against the ashiness of his skin, the scar on his face was even more striking than it already would have been.

The flesh of it was mottled. Within the depths, he could just barely make out the golden iris. All of the skin was red, but it was darker around the eye, and, somehow, he knew why without being told; the day of the Agni Kai, the day his life had fallen to pieces and turned to ash on the way down, his father had cupped his cheek as he sobbed, and his tears had boiled as he burned.

His hair was thin, and the rich color it once held had faded. He wondered if he could ever get that color back. He hoped so. He liked it.

It was his mother’s hair.

Zuko was sure that the rest of his body was just as bad as what he could see. He couldn’t stand, for spirits’ sake. He had barely eaten while locked away. He would be nothing more than skin and bones now, a shell of what he once was.
He wondered if that was how the world would see him.

“Thanks,” he said. He was acutely aware of how scratchy his voice was.

Pim bowed. “Of course, my prince.”

They went to the bathhouse next, and his head was gently coaxed backward into the water. Keeli worked her fingers through his hair. She was gentle, carefully undoing knots and tangles whenever they turned up, not grimacing at the grime that must lace the strands. Her movements were practiced, methodical, as if she had done this a thousand times before. She hummed under her breath as she toiled. It wasn’t a song he recognized.

He wondered if she had been the one to cut his hair every time it grew longer.

Shyu provided a few bursts of hot air to help dry him quickly, and Keeli brushed through it again before Pim took over to pull it up into a royal topknot. Zuko didn’t really want to wear the traditional style, but there was little choice when it came to a coronation.

Bells rang in the distance.

“The coronation is ready to begin,” Shyu said, gazing in the tolling’s direction. “Some words will be said, and then you will be brought out to be crowned before the crowd and Agni.”

Zuko furrowed his brow. “Who?” He asked.

“The remaining Fire Sages. Guards. Nobles. The usual. There is a large gathering of common folk beyond the gates, as well. That’s typical for these sorts of events.”

Zuko tried to imagine it. Crowds of people, thousands of the citizens of Caldera, his citizens, standing outside of the gates, simply waiting to hear when he was crowned. The walls of the palace were tall and thick. There would be no way for the people to see it happen.

“Open them,” he finally said.

The Fire Sage blinked. “Apologies, sire. Could you repeat that?”

“The gates,” Zuko forced out. His throat burned. “Open them.” At the silence that greeted him, he added, “They are my people. Let them in.”

Shyu stared at him for a moment longer before bowing. “Of course, my prince. I will inform the Captain of the Palace Guard at once.”

As the Fire Sage strode away, Zuko turned back to look at Keeli. She gripped the handles of the wheelchair, knuckles white, but her smile was soft, and her eyes glimmered with something that almost looked like pride.

They made their way through the palace, the only noise being the distant sounds from outside, and the rumble of the wheels against the ground. Once they’d reached the front doors, Ming moved to help Keeli look a bit more put together while Zuko strained to listen to the words spoken through the doors.

“-teaches us that in our darkest times, we need only look to the Sun, for Agni will always guide His people to a brighter dawn. Now, we gather here to witness the ascension of another of His most favored line. Phoenix King Ozai’s firstborn son, and official heir to the throne, Prince Zuko!”

The cheering was deafening. The whole capital city might be out there, by the sound of it.

The doors slowly began to open. Keeli, her hair pinned back, slid into place at the handles. He could hear her take in a carefully measured breath, and marveled at the way her hands stayed steady.

Zuko was wheeled forward, and the cheering increased. Then, he was in view of the people, and everyone fell silent. They might as well have all dropped dead. The only sound was that of Keeli’s sandals against the stone as she slowly pushed him forward, her head held high.

His eyes quickly scanned the crowd. All of them, every single person there, was Fire Nation. No Earth Kingdom, nor Water Tribe, nor Avatar. Just his people.

The nobles were at the front, just a thin line of guards separating them from the common folk, but it mattered not. All eyes were trained on him. No one moved. All was silent.

As Keeli rolled him to a stop, Ming and Lee moved forward, lifting him from the chair and settling him on his knees in front of the Fire Sage, facing the people.

His people.

All was quiet as the Fire Sage moved in front of him and carefully slid the crown into his topknot.

The man backed away and opened his mouth, but the words died in his throat as Zuko raised his hand.

It was silent. He could hear his heartbeat, and he wondered if it was audible to the crowd. He grit his teeth and moved one leg so that it was in front of him. Then, slowly, he braced himself and rose to his feet.

His legs trembled. There was an ache in his knees, and he dug his fingers into his palm, trying to distract from it. This wasn’t a choice that he was really making, not anymore. He had to stand, to face the crowd; not just for himself, but for his people, for his nation.

He was on his feet. His body shook from the effort, and for a moment he wanted to sink back into the wheelchair, but he refused to yield. He was the ruler of the Fire Nation. He was the descendant of Agni, the child of His chosen line. The blood of the Sun, of the Dragons, ran through his veins. He would not fall.

He looked out at the people, and the Fire Sage picked up where he had left off.

“All hail Fire Lord Zuko!”

There was a pause, as if the world itself had stopped to listen. Then, all at once, the people repeated it, screamed it, and it was so loud that it might have been heard in Ba Sing Se. A smile pulled at his lips for the first time in over three years. Overhead, the sun shone gold, its warmth coiling around him, holding him close, raising him up.

A tear fell from his eye, and Caldera echoed with the people.

“All hail Fire Lord Zuko!”

“All hail Fire Lord Zuko!”

“All hail Fire Lord Zuko!”

Chapter Text

Zuko exited the palace a prince, and reentered a Fire Lord.

It still felt weird.

A few moments after he had been crowned and managed to get to his feet, Zuko’s legs had given out. Keeli must have noticed it just before he did, because the wheelchair was suddenly behind him, her hands around the handles. Zuko sank back into it with as much grace as he could manage (which wasn’t very much, unfortunately).

The cheers continued as Keeli slowly pulled him back into the palace, Ming and Lee flanking either side of them. Then, the doors were pushed closed, the cheers were muffled, and things were calm.

“You did wonderfully, my prince,” Keeli said. She coughed. “I apologize. You did wonderfully, my Lord .”

That was going to take some getting used to. Zuko cracked a smile. He realized, suddenly, how chapped his lips were. “Thank you.”

Keeli nodded and returned the smile with one of her own.

Shyu appeared from one of the corridors. “Your Majesty,” he greeted, bowing lowly. That was also going to take some getting used to. So many new titles .

“What else is there today?” Zuko asked. “I remember that after my father’s coronation-” His voice wobbled a bit as he spoke but he didn’t stop- “there was a ball, right?”

Shyu nodded. “Indeed, my Lord. There will be a ball tonight for the nobles to celebrate your coronation.”

Zuko nodded. 

“What of the common folk?”

Shyu’s face fell and he stayed silent. It was clear that he didn’t know.

“Er, Your Majesty, if I may?”

Zuko turned to Lee. The guard’s face turned red but when Zuko gestured to go on, he seemed to gain back a small bit of strength.

“Well, er, my Lord, during coronations, the common folk tend to throw a party of their own, out on the streets. I remember it from when Fire Lord Ozai was crowned. My mother ran a booth for food and I helped her. It’s very… lively. Don’t worry about the common folk feeling left out, though. There are plenty of festivities out there that I’m sure are planned for tonight to go around,” he explained.

“We all expected for Princess Azula to be crowned Fire Lord soon, so there were ideas for the celebration in the streets already laid out. They were there, just were hurried along, I’m sure, when word got out that you would be crowned today,” Keeli said before seeming to remember the necessity of formalities. “My Lord."

Zuko nodded and craned his head backward to look at her. “Thank you, Keeli.”

A small smile appeared on her face and she stayed silent.

Pim took a step forward.

“Yes, Pim?”

“My Lord, there are two hours left before the commencement of the ball.”

Zuko’s lips formed a tight line and he nodded. “All right.” He thought for a moment before addressing the group at large. “Could you all please accompany me back to my chambers?” He realized as soon as the words left his mouth that, if he commanded it, they would be forced to. He would rather they do it with a happy heart, though.

There were almost simultaneous waves of agreement. Then, they were walking.

They passed servants in the corridors working together to pull the curtains over the windows down, to let the light in.

The workers stopped what they were doing as the odd group passed. They would move quickly to bow to Zuko, seeming to scramble while attempting to stay as professional as possible. He wondered if the oddness would ever fade.

They finally reached Zuko’s chambers and he was pushed inside.

The door closed a moment later.

And all was silent.

The windows were still open, a gentle breeze flowing through it. It shifted the strands of his hair, caressed his face, and made him feel steadier than he had in quite some time.

"Your Majesty," Pim spoke up, breaking the silence. "If you give me leave, I will go prepare your outfit for tonight."

He blinked before nodding. "Uh, yeah. Of course. Feel free to, uh, do that."

She gave him a deep bow before disappearing through the door.

“A bath,” he said suddenly, seeming to startle the other occupants of the room. “I… I need a bath. A proper one. Before this… ball…”

“I can take you to the bathhouse, My Lord,” Keeli said. “And run a bath for you, if you wish.”

Zuko nodded. “That would… That would be nice.”

He realized it had been over three years since he’d had a bath. He wondered why he didn’t smell… awful. Instead, he detected a small hint of… citrus(?) on his skin. He remembered when he was being dressed, feeling quick spritzes of water on his body. He thought for a moment and realized that it must have been a citrus oil of some kind. Thank would explain it.

Pim and Shyu both bowed and exited the room before Keeli took her place at the handles of the wheelchair, Ming and Lee took their places beside her, and they began to move out of Zuko’s chambers.

The journey through the palace to the royal bathhouse was one that blended together in Zuko’s mind. He was most aware whenever they passed a servant, who would immediately stop what they were doing and bow, murmurs of “Your Majesty” or “My Lord” floating through the corridors. Every time it happened, Zuko felt something warm building in his chest. He didn’t know what it was.

Then, suddenly, they were there. The royal bathhouse. He furrowed his eyebrows. It looked different than the last time he had seen it.

Ming must have noticed his look of confusion, because she said, “Your Majesty, the bathhouse had a renovation about a year ago after… an unfortunate set of circumstances.”

“... What circumstances?”

Ming looked pursed her lips for a moment, something visibly straining in her throat. So, instead, Lee spoke up. “It was this hot day, as in really hot, and the water heaters forgot, I guess, so the water came in and it was already super hot, and they really overheated it, and then the, er, the Fire Lord wanted an extra hot bath, and, well, you can probably see where this is going… The whole of the old bathhouse was burned and the two water heaters were put on probation. So, they had to rebuild this place. We use coals and fires for heating water, now.” In the end, Lee’s voice had a hint of amusement to it.

Zuko cracked a smile at the idea of his father getting burned in a bath . His scar tingled, but, for once, he couldn't find any pain in it.

The inside of the bathhouse was much more organized than Zuko remembered it being. Lining the walls were what appeared to be a million varieties of soaps and fragrances, so many that he lost count on the second row. There were three doors on the opposite side, all leading into a separate room for the actual bathing, he supposed. There were couches around a pool in the center, the Fire Nation insignia carved into the stone. Sunlight flowed through the skylight above the pool, illuminating the water and making it shimmer as if it was a pane of stained glass.

Keeli wheeled him into the center-most of the three rooms. She stepped back to allow Ming and Lee to assist him in getting out of the coronation robes.

“My Lord, may I ask what soap you would like?”

Zuko thought for a long moment before remembering the one his mother always used.

“Orange-Lavender.”

Keeli nodded and moved from the room.

As they undressed him slowly, Zuko kept his gaze firmly off his body, like before. He did not want anyone else to see his initial reaction to how he looks.

Ming and Lee, though, can see every inch, and it is clear that it must not to be good.

In an effort to lighten the mood, apparently, Lee spoke. “My mother used to make Orange-Lavender soaps for the royal bathhouse. She did it especially when Fire Lord Azulon was still, er, around.”

Zuko’s face scrunched up as Ming pulled off yet another layer of the clothes. “You said she used to? Why’d she stop?”

“Well, er, when Fire Lord Ozai rose to the throne, he commanded that she stop making them.”

“Why?” That seemed like a random thing for his father to command.

“He said the smell was too happy .”

Zuko sat there, stunned, for a moment, before he snorted.

Ming and Lee watched him in shock. He realized that the snort was the first sort of real sound of amusement he had made in over three years.

He wondered if he’d ever be happy enough to laugh again.

“I’m sorry, but, too happy? ”

Lee grinned at the words and nodded frantically. “Yes, My Lord.”

Zuko shook his head, his eyes a bit wide. “My father was crazy.” Finally, the last piece of clothing was removed, and Zuko was left in his undergarments.

Ming and Lee shifted positions at that moment and picked him up off of the wheelchair. Lee placed his legs in the water and then Ming adjusted herself behind Zuko before gripping under his arms and lowering him fully into the water like he weighed almost nothing.

Well, considering how little he had eaten for the past three years, he supposed that he probably did weigh almost nothing.

As Ming and Lee moved to leave the room, they opened the door to reveal Keeli on her way back in. She slipped past the two guards and made her way around the bath before reaching a part of the wall on the other side where a socket was carved out. She opened up the container of soap she had tucked under her arm and poured a generous amount into the hole. Keeli closed the container and twisted the knob on the wall below the socket. There was a hissing sound and then a moment later small, soapy bubbles began to rise in the water. 

Keeli stayed silent and kept her eyes on the ground as she moved around the bath and toward Zuko. When she reached him, she hesitated for a brief moment before placing the other soaps next to him. 

“Thank you, Keeli,” he said quietly.

There was something heavy in her gaze as she nodded before bowing and leaving the room.

Zuko sighed and leaned back against the cold stone that made up the siding of the bath he was in. Pool was more appropriate. The moment his back touched the stone, he zipped away from it. He adjusted himself to make sure that he was sitting more in the warmth of the water than before.

He knew that there was no reason to act this way, but…

The cold stone on his back reminded him too much of the life of imprisonment he was leading only hours before, of a life that wasn’t his anymore but had been. 

It reminded him too much of moments when he was in that cell and felt the same searing cold against his skin as he was thrown against the wall.

“Stand up, Prince Zuko. Stand and fight. Prove to me that I was wrong, and maybe I’ll let you go…”

Zuko got to his feet shakily a week into his imprisonment. The thirteen-year-old child could see every detail of his father’s face in the light of the shirt burning a few feet away in the corner. The moment his father had walked in for his first ‘visit’ to his imprisoned son, he had sent a jet of fire Zuko’s way, catching the young boy’s shirt immediately. He had quickly taken off the fabric and thrown it in the corner to burn.

Zuko shook his head.

“Father, I can’t fight you!”

Ozai scowled and Zuko tried to stop his gaze from flickering to the small flame growing in his father’s palm.

“You are still weak , then?”

Zuko grit his teeth. He was not weak. He would prove that, he would prove to his father that he was strong , and he would get out of here, find the Avatar, and free the world of the wrath of the Fire Nation.

“No! I’m stronger than you will ever be!”

That had been the wrong thing to say .

Zuko gasped out of the memory. His breath was gone again. Why couldn’t he get any air into his lungs? Why couldn’t he breathe? Why couldn’t he fight back? Why couldn’t he escape? Why couldn’t he prove that he wasn’t weak? Why couldn’t he breathe?

There was a knock at the door that shook Zuko right out of his thoughts.

“Your Majesty? Are you all right in there?”

Zuko swallowed, took a deep breath, and called back, “Yes.” He winced. Okay, he understood, no more talking loudly, got it, thanks, body.

Zuko’s gaze turned back downward. Through the water, he could see the skin of his chest and legs and arms. 

It was all so dirty .

His body was just covered in grime and dirt and blood . He really was nothing but skin and bones, to the point where he could literally count every one of his ribs without missing one.

He pressed his lips in a thin line and forced himself to not think about how it got that way. He was not about to have another flashback in this bath.

Zuko turned and saw the small scrubber that Keeli had set next to the soaps. He mentally thanked the woman and took the scrubbed in his hands. 

Zuko lifted one leg above the water and slowly began to scrub at the knee.

It was painful work, and about two seconds in he had to stop to keep from crying out. His body was just covered in cuts that never healed right, breaks that never healed right, things that got infected, untreated burns, scars , and none of it was fun to scrub. He tried again before shakily setting the scrubber down and going at it with his hands again.

He moved down his leg, almost crying out again when he rubbed at his ankle. He supposed that was an injury that hadn’t healed right either.

Now that the adrenalin high of the coronation was gone, Zuko could feel every little bit of pain his body had to offer. And it had a lot of it.

Two of his fingers didn’t really bend right. Half of his joints ached. He wondered if whatever healer he saw would even be able to help him.

Finally, though, every speck of dirt and blood was gone. Erased from his body, being replaced with the blue-purple-black-green mottled skin of bruises that were still healing, the indents in his body from the literal hundreds of scars he had, the red marks of burn scars. 

The blood and dirt were banished from his skin only to be replaced with something that many would consider to be much worse.

Zuko took one look at the first scar his eyes landed on when he was fully cleaned, a red one on his chest, and he refused to look anymore. Maybe tonight, when he was fully alone, but not now.

Not now.

Zuko breathed in. The room smelled of Orange-Lavender now. The smell reminded him of his mother.

He cleared his throat and prepared for the pain that would come when he spoke. “I’m done!” There it was. A searing stab in his throat that faded to a pulsing ache a moment later.

Keeli appeared in the doorway first. She bowed before Ming and Lee entered, doing the same. Keeli had a towel draped over an arm and when Ming and Lee lifted him out of the water, she quickly dried him down before wrapping him in a robe she got from… somewhere. He was placed in the wheelchair a moment later.

Keeli turned the wheelchair around and pushed him out of the room.

The next hour-and-a-half went by in a flash. One moment Zuko was being pushed back to his room, the next he was fully dressed and being pushed to the ballroom.

Apparently, many nobles had offered up their own handmaidens and servants and some even their own children to just push Zuko around in a wheelchair all night . Pim had supposed, as she dressed him, that it was their way of trying to get into the new Fire Lord’s good graces.

Zuko had immediately turned to Keeli and half-asked half-told her that she was to continue doing her job of wheeling him through life. Because where had those nobles been when he was starving in a cell beneath the palace . Living it up in their little rich lives while he starved . He trusted Keeli more than he trusted any of those people, and he had only known her name for a few hours. However, she had given him extra food, against direct orders, he was sure, just to make sure that he wasn’t as hungry as he might have been. She hadn’t been one of the nobles, who stood by and watched as his face burned by his father’s hand, his whole world falling to ash with it. She was a simple servant woman who was kind enough and brave enough to give a starving boy extra food. And that meant something to him.

And so Keeli wheeled him into the ballroom. As soon as the words had left Zuko’s mouth, Pim had sent Ming off to get new robes for Keeli. Pim had put Zuko’s hair in the traditional topknot once more, slipped his crown in, and then turned to do Keeli’s hair, pulling it back into an elaborate but simple-looking braid before sending them on their way.

As they approached the ballroom doors, flanked once more by Ming and Lee, the two guards standing there slid attention. Zuko nodded to them and they opened the doors wide.

There was a blow of a horn and the room fell silent.

Zuko was wheeled forward and was very much aware of the many eyes on him.

“ Your Fire Lord Zuko! ”

The nobles all bowed as if they shared a single mind, starting with the ones closest to him and branching out to the edges of the room.

Zuko turned to the man who had announced him, who looked very shocked to suddenly be caught in the Fire Lord’s gaze, and said quietly, “Rise.”

The man nodded. Zuko could see his throat bob before he opened his mouth and called to the room, “ Rise! ”

The nobles rose from their bows and made a path for him through the room. 

Zuko decided he didn’t like this ball.

Keeli turned him around at the other end of the ballroom. Ming and Lee moved and, as gracefully as possible, lifted his wheelchair up and onto the raised platform where the throne normally sat. 

Then, the music started up again.

It was slow, traditional music. The kind that made the room feel more muffled than it already was. The kind of music that reminded Zuko of those times in the Before, when he’d be forced to go to a random ball and nobles would be pushing their daughters at him as he tried to sink into the wall and just disappear.

He hated this kind of music, but he knew that, unfortunately, he had to keep up appearances for these people.

“What happens now?” 

Keeli leaned down a bit to be near his ear. “Well, my Lord, usually the nobles will line up to talk to the Fire Lord for around one minute before bowing and walking away, and it just keeps going.”

As if on cue, Zuko looked up and saw a line of nobles forming in front of him.

A man a few feet diagonally to the left of him (and off the platform), said loudly, “ The Governor Chon, his wife Wyte, and their heiress Ateme. ”

Governor Chon stepped forward and dipped into a bow. His wife curtsied beside him before ushering her daughter forward to do the same.

The daughter was at least five years older than him, and Zuko did not like the way she was fluttering her eyelashes at him, seeming to pucker her lips. 

“Your Majesty,” Governor Chon said, rising from his bow. He seemed like a smarmy type of man. He had money, and he thought that made him better than everyone else. “It is an honor to be in your presence.”

His wife nodded beside him. She seemed like the fluttery sort of lady who he used to see clinging to the arms of men whenever he was forced to attend a ball when he was younger.

The daughter scared him the most, though. She was eyeing him like he was nothing more than a prize to be won, a way to snatch power. Her gaze went over him as if she was just scheming in her mind for how to best grab at him.

“Thank you,” Zuko forced out through gritted teeth. If they noticed how raspy his voice was, they didn’t react. The three in front of him bowed again and moved away.

As the next group of nobles approached, he looked out over their heads and saw a line of them going off into the room. He managed to suppress a sigh. This was going to take forever …

An hour in, the drinks and food were brought out by what could only be described as an army of servants.

He realized how dry his mouth was.

“Keeli, could you get me some water?” He asked quietly

Keeli nodded and moved from his side to go off toward the drinks table.

Zuko turned to the next group of nobles with tightly pressed lips. 

After going through three more families, Zuko realized that Keeli had been gone for far too long. He had the announcer hold the next group and scanned the crowd. His eyes went to the drink table first, then traveled out from it.

Finally, he found Keeli.

And someone else .

A nobleman he hadn’t talked to yet. One of those who always seemed to have a woman hanging off of his arm. He was off to the side, along the wall that Zuko was seated by, actually. His arm was in front of Keeli, pushing her up against the wall, forbidding her from escaping. Zuko could see the goblet of water shaking in her hand, a few drops spilling over the edge and onto the floor. Her eyes were wide and she was pressed up against the wall as much as possible, trying to get away from the man as much as she could. Zuko thought back to earlier, while he was being dressed for this ball, and remembered her mentioning that she had a husband and two children.

Oh, this man was in for it .

“Ming, Lee, get me off of this platform.”

Ming looked confused. She opened her mouth to speak, but Lee, who had followed Zuko’s line of sight and had seen the same thing, held up a finger and pointed at Keeli and the nobleman (who Zuko was going to call ‘Handsy’). Ming abruptly closed her mouth and narrowed her eyes. The two of them lifted Zuko’s wheelchair off of the platform. Ming grabbed the handles and pushed Zuko much faster than was probably safe for the chair, but he couldn’t find the heart to care right now.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Handsy looked up with a scowl on his face. “Can’t you see we’re busy?”

“I’m pretty sure the lady doesn’t want any part in whatever it is you’re doing,” he said, glancing at Keeli. He gave her a look , and she managed to understand it. She nodded.

Handsy snickered, eyeing the wheelchair Zuko was in. He was somehow so oblivious that he failed to notice the crown on his head. “And you’re gonna stop me?”

Zuko pressed his lips in a firm line and nodded. 

Handsy laughed out loud. “Yeah, all right, sure. What’re you gonna do, cripple? ” Handsy took a hand off of the wall, giving Keeli the chance to escape. She moved around the nobleman and stood about a foot behind Zuko.

Handsy took a single step toward Zuko and found two swords pointed at his throat.

“What the-”

“Not a step closer,” Ming said, her voice hard. She held the sword to the man’s neck so steadily, it was like she was a statue. Lee stayed silent, but his sword was just as rock-solid.

“What are you doing!” Handsy cried, trying to take a step back. When Ming pressed her sword a bit harder to his throat, he stopped.

“You are in the presence of His Majesty, the Fire Lord Zuko,” Ming said, and Zuko watched with strange satisfaction as Handsy’s eyes widened, flicking to Zuko. “You have just insulted and threatened His Majesty, so I believe it would be in your best interest to apologize .”

Handsy nodded and, as soon as the swords backed from his throat a bit, he fell to his knees in a full bow. He was whimpering out apologies, and Zuko realized with a flash of terror that if he was his father, this man’s head could be on the chopping block.

Oh, Agni …

“Rise,” Zuko said. His voice was hoarse still. He wondered when that would go away. Probably not for a long time. Handsy shot up and kept his eyes on the ground. “You are free to go, but you are never to place an unwanted hand on one of my household again, or there will be consequences.” Handsy nodded, managed out a few grateful words, and slipped away.

Keeli handed Zuko the goblet of water. It was still almost completely full. He sighed. Back to the nobles, then.

Another hour passed, and Zuko felt the sun go down. He hadn’t felt the sun since maybe two months into his imprisonment. He hadn’t even felt it this morning . But he felt it now. He felt it go down, felt night settle over the world.

As the sun left the sky, Zuko was shocked out of the stupor he had fallen into from this ball. As time went on, he kept meeting more and more nobles, and their faces all began to blend together. He started simply nodding to them after they had said their pieces. He couldn’t bring himself to speak anymore. He couldn’t think. The traditional music filled his brain and drowned everything out. The ballroom was nothing more than a mass of colors and noise.

The one thing he didn’t miss was the hungry gazes of the single noblewomen he met. He saw the way they looked at him. Just like the heiress of the first family. He was nothing more than a prize to be won in their eyes.

He hated it.

“How much longer is this ball, Keeli?”

Keeli thought for a moment before responding. “The ball lasts five hours, my Lord. It began at seven o’clock and is supposed to finish at midnight. The sun just set so… it’s almost halfway over.”

Zuko swallowed. His throat was dry again. “I need to…” His words failed him.

Keeli looked down at him. “Yes, My Lord?”

“I need to get out of here.” The surroundings were stifling now. The music drowned out everything else. Zuko shivered. The air in here was freezing . It was the middle of a Fire Nation summer, so outside was insanely hot. That made it so that the richest of the rich got the luxury of the coldest air that they could possibly provide.

The air was freezing .

It felt like the air in his cell …

“ Keeli, I need to get out of here now .”

Keeli exchanged glances with Ming and Lee who nodded and lifted the wheelchair off the platform and onto the ground. Keeli grabbed the handles and began to turn toward a door. The announcer and some of the nobles at the front of the line looked like they wanted to protest, but when their eyes fell on Zuko’s shaking form, they wisely remained quiet.

Keeli wheeled him toward a door off to the side. Lee moved ahead of them and wrenched open the door. 

The door closed behind them, and then the noise and the music was muffled. The air was warmer here. It was better .

Keeli pushed him down the hall for a few more moments before turning.

They were on a balcony. The air was even warmer. It was a small balcony, one that he had never seen before, but just happened to be there. Out here, Zuko could hear the sounds of the festivities going on at the party in the streets.

He thought of the cold air, the suffocating manner of it, the way it reminded him of his imprisonment. He breathed in the warm air of the outside, and the shaking that had built up at the thought melted away.

“I want to go to the party?”

“Are you sure, My Lord?” Ming asked. “You’re ready to return and face the nobles again?”

“No, no,” Zuko said, shaking his head. “No, I want to go to the party in the streets.”

He could tell that, behind him, the other three were exchanging glances.

“Are you… sure?”

He nodded. He glanced down at the clothes he was in. “I’ll need to change, though.” He turned back to them. Keeli, Lee, take me to my chambers, please. Ming, could you go find Pim? Tell her I sent for her. And have her bring more casual clothes with her.” Was it ever not going to feel weird to just command people? Maybe not. Definitely not any time soon.

Ming nodded, bowed, and left the balcony. Keeli turned the wheelchair around and Lee took his place beside her and they left the balcony as well. 

The corridors were near barren as they went.

“Where… Where is everyone?”

“Well, the servers and cooks are off working on the ball, I think,” Lee said after a moment. “The guards are doing their normal rounds. Everyone else, though, is probably off at the party in the streets. You know, enjoying their free time with their families.”

Zuko nodded slowly. He wondered how often those who worked in the palace got to see their families. He knew a lot of them lived in the servant quarters, but their families didn’t. And they all had families (most of them, at least). So how often did they see them…?

Then, they were at his chambers.

Pim and Ming appeared at the end of the hallway a moment later.

Pim changed him into some casual clothes. They were comfortable, and light, and currently Zuko’s favorite outfit out of the four he had worn over the past three years (prison outfit, coronation outfit, ball outfit, and this one). A flowy red shirt and pants underneath a dark maroon and golden yellow sort of tunic, with a golden yellow band around his waist, and dark shoes.

“Pim, could you possibly make my hair more casual, too?”

Pim nodded and pulled his hair out from the royal topknot. She took a bunch of it and tied it up into its own simple topknot, letting the rest of it fall messily around his head. She slipped his crown back in and stepped away, satisfied.

Keeli wheeled him over to the mirror and he looked at his appearance before nodding. Other than the complete sickly look of his skin and the gauntness that made up his body (he really needed to get some meat on his bones), he looked almost… normal. Like he hadn’t just been freed from over three years of suffering.

“All right, let’s go.”

It had taken a bit of negotiating, but the guards had eventually let them out a side gate, as long as Ming and Lee stayed with him. Zuko may have also used a voice that he may dub his ‘royal ordering voice’ as he told them that he was going out, but who knows?

Keeli pushed him through the streets, her wavy hair simply pinned back now after she had taken it down once they left the ball.

Everything was so lively . Children ran through the streets, people chatted, fireworks went off overhead. The air was warm and thick with smells rather than just the empty cold air of the ballroom. 

For a few minutes, people paid their little group no mind. After a while, though, he could see the whispers of the people as they passed. Zuko kept his eyes forward or up, looking at the streets ahead or the stars and sparks above.

He should go stargazing tonight.

He hadn’t seen the stars in a long time.

He didn’t know if he even really remembered what they looked like.

Fire moved through the air as performers went through routines. Zuko raised a hand to his nose and smelled. Still Orange-Lavender. That stabilized him.

He sniffed in again, and the smell of spices reached his nose. 

“Keeli,” he said. “Can you go to that vendor and get me some water and the lightest thing they have?” He wasn’t stupid. He knew to go easy on his body.

Keeli nodded and slipped away. She went up to the vender and spoke to him for a moment. When the man seemed to want to argue over money, she sighed and pointed to Zuko a few yards away. Zuko gave a little wave for emphasis. The man’s eyes widened and he gave a little bow in Zuko’s direction before nodding to Keeli, handing the food and water to her without any more argument.

The water was lukewarm. The food she had gotten was spice rice. Normal rice that was so packed full of spices and flavoring that it was dyed orange, with little flecks of red in it. He remembered eating spice rice before his imprisonment. It had never been his favorite, but it was good. He took a bite.

It was the most flavorful thing he had eaten in over three years. The spices burned his tongue. He felt like he was going to burn up from the heat in his mouth. It was so good …

He took two more bites and decided that he was not going to be able to stomach any more of such a spice-heavy food. He downed the water and looked to the vendor who was staring at him with clear nervousness in his eyes. Zuko nodded to the man and raised his empty cup. The man seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. He gave Zuko a smile and turned back to the next customer in line.

Zuko’s little group moved through the festival, and he knew that people knew who he was because they seemed to clear a path for him as they moved through the streets. No one approached him, but Zuko could feel eyes on him. He held his head high. He was grateful, actually, that these people weren’t like the nobles. They saw their bit of the Fire Lord and then they went on with their business. They didn’t try to stop him, or to slide in with him, or to play any sort of courtly games that the nobles played. They just… saw him.

Then, suddenly, a little girl ran up to him. He saw a woman who was probably her mother moved to the edge of the crowd go to grab her before freezing when her eyes landed on Zuko.

“Excuse me?” The little girl said. Zuko held out a bony hand to keep Ming and Lee at bay.

“Yes?” Zuko asked, trying to keep his voice as normal as possible. He didn’t need his people knowing that there was something wrong with him from the raspiness in his voice.

“Are you really Fire Lord Zuko?”

Zuko felt the edges of his lips try to perk up, and he nodded. “I am indeed.”

The girl’s eyes widened. “My mom said you were, but I didn’t think so, ‘cause earlier when I asked her if you were gonna be at the party, she said you had a fancy ball thing to go to instead.” After a moment, the girl seemed to think over her words. Then, she asked, “ Did you have a fancy ball thing to go to instead?”

Zuko nodded. “I did.”

The girl scrunched up her face. “Then why are you here?”

Zuko looked around as if checking for people watching them. Then, he looked at the girl. “Can I tell you a secret?”

Her eyes widened and she nodded frantically, her lips slightly parted in surprise.

“I did go to the ball,” he whisper-shouted. That was the least strained his voice had felt all day, actually. “But it was boring .”

Her eyes widened and she stepped back. “ Boring? But it’s a fancy ball thing! All the rick fancy people get to go! Why was it boring.”

Zuko shrugged. “All the people there just want to talk about money and marriage. It was boring. And it was cold in there. I like the warm air out here.”

“So… do you like our party more?”

Zuko couldn’t help the genuine smile that went onto his lips for the first time in three years. It was small, and it vanished after a split-second, but it was there for a tiny bit of time nonetheless. It was clear from the way they acted after it faded from his face that Keeli, Ming, and Lee had noticed it as well.

“I like your party a lot more.”

She grinned and turned to the woman in the crowd who looked like she was having a heart attack. “Did you hear that, Mama! The Fire Lord likes our party more than the fancy ball party! He said so himself! I told you we throw the best parties!” She turned back to Zuko and gave him a final beaming smile. “Thanks for coming to our party, Fire Lord Zuko! Next time, I’ll make sure it’s even more fun, so you’ll have to come again!”

Zuko nodded and watched as she gave the sloppiest (yet most adorable) bow he had ever seen before disappearing into the crowd. Her mother looked at Zuko for a long moment before he waved with his hand. She gave him a bow of her own (much less sloppy than her daughter) before moving into the crowd after her child, fading from view.

Zuko couldn’t remember ever enjoying himself this much.

Three hours later, around midnight, he reached his room. He was exhausted but had never had so much energy in his body in waking memory.

Ming and Lee helped him up while Pim got him into his nightclothes and Keeli prepared his bed. Lee lit the candles she put out and Keeli was kind enough to leave a full jug of water along with a cup for him to drink if he needed any that night. The two guards carried him to his bed and placed the wheelchair in the corner of the room. All four of them bowed to him one at a time before leaving the room, the last one of them closing the door on the way out.

Zuko sunk into the bed and felt that something was… wrong .

The bed was soft, so soft in fact that it almost hurt to lay on. He had slept on the cold stone ground of his cell with nothing but the rough fabric on his back for over three years, and now he was expected to just go to sleep in one of the softest beds in the world?

He had been laying on the cold stone ground less than twelve hours ago .

He felt his heartbeat quicken. He couldn’t do this right now .

Zuko sat up straight in bed and tried to control his breathing. And by that, he meant try to make it quiet enough that whoever might be stationed outside his door couldn’t hear it.

Zuko felt all the pillows on the bed and found the hardest one. It was one on the very bottom, firm, not too soft. It would be perfect. He tossed it onto the ground a few feet away from his bed, in the middle of an open area of the floor. He grabbed a sheet from the bottom of his bed, balled it up, and tossed it down as well. He grabbed the thinnest blanket from the bed and threw it before turning a bit and getting off the bed. The moment he tried to stand, he collapsed, thankfully falling down on top of the pile he had just created. 

Zuko fixed the messy bundle up into a makeshift bed on the floor. He crawled over to the side table where the water and candles were. He took the water jug first, then the cup, then the candles, one-by-one. He could only hold one thing at a time, and with the jug, he was stretching it. He just wasn’t strong enough to do anything, was he?

Zuko took a long drink of the water. It was cool in his throat. He moved the water and the candles a few feet away from where he was going to be sleeping.

He curled up under the blanket. His head didn’t sink into the pillow. It was comfortable, but not too comfortable. Better than a cell, any day. Maybe one day he would be ready to sleep on his bed, but that day was not today.

That day was not today.

Zuko breathed in as he closed his eyes, and caught a whiff of the candles. He realized that they were scented. He furrowed his eyebrows and breathed in again before a small smile found its way onto his face as he recognized the scent.

Orange-Lavender.

Chapter Text

Zuko fell asleep for the first time at one in the morning. Then, he promptly woke up thirty minutes later in a pool of sweat. It was so warm here. He grabbed the edge of the blanket and pulled it off. He didn’t trust his legs to be strong enough to kick it off. He hadn’t really used his legs in over a year, he was sure. He breathed in the cool air being pumped into the palace. It wasn’t as cold as in the ballroom. Far from it, actually. More like the temperature one would get from a small breeze on the summer air. He realized then that he hadn’t felt the wind in over three years. That was a strange thought. 

Sleep found him again.

“Father, please, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, you were right, you were right, please, just let me go!”

There was silence. Then, a moment later, a voice came from above Zuko.

“You’re begging me?”

Zuko shivered, keeping his eyes on the ground before he nodded shakily.

“Yes.”

He was completely unprepared for the foot that came flying at his stomach. Zuko couldn’t resist letting out a cry as he shot back and smacked into the cold stone wall.

“Pathetic,” Ozai hissed, his footsteps echoing in the room as he slowly moved closer. “You’ve not even been here a month , Prince Zuko. This proves to me that you are just as weak as I always knew you were.”

There was a flash of light and then pain .

Zuko sat straight up and slapped a hand over his mouth before he could scream. If he screamed, his father would know . His father always knew…

Zuko’s eyes burned with tears that slipped down his face. He took deep breaths through his hand before pulling it away from his face slowly and easing his eyes open, wondering if there was any room in his cell tonight.

There wasn’t. Because he wasn’t in his cell. His eyes were used to the dark, they adjusted immediately. His gaze moved from the painting of the beach on the wall ahead of him to the candles beside him. They were completely burned out.

He could tell from the light level that it was still the middle of the night. Knowing him, he had only been asleep for an hour at most. That was how it always was.

Zuko reached for the water and got a cup, lifting it to his lips and downing it in two gulps, trying not to wince at the ache it caused in his throat.

Zuko scrubbed at the tears streaks on his face. He was shocked by how soft the fabric was on his skin. Was it silk? Probably. He wouldn’t be surprised.

He slowly got back down, his head against the pillow, and closed his eyes.

He was asleep seconds later.

An hour-and-a-half later, Zuko twitched in his sleep, his face contorted as he fought off the demons plaguing his mind. Coincidentally, they all had the face and the voice of his father… If he woke up, well, he had become a master of covering his screams, so no one was any the wiser.

Zuko had lost contact with the sun two months into his imprisonment. He hadn’t seen the light of Agni in weeks, he had been in the cold that entire time, he had gotten scarily used to his conditions, but the moment he felt the connection snap still burned bright in his mind.

Zuko sat in his cell. It had been maybe a week since he had stopped counting the days. He wasn’t sure exactly how long it had been since he had stopped. He wasn’t counting .

His father had visited the day before. That was probably why he didn’t feel like moving right now. He was scared that he would irritate whatever injury he had surely gained the day before. 

The day seemed quiet. Calm. Strangely calm. Zuko felt something inside of him, something that knew that something was going to go wrong today. He just didn’t know what it was.

Then, around mid-day, he found out what it was.

One moment, he was just sitting up against the wall, counting the cracks to pass the time, the next moment he was on the floor, writhing in pain.

The two guards were in the room in seconds. They were speaking to him in hushed tones, but he couldn’t hear them over the pain , over his own screams .

Then, one of the guards slammed a hand over his mouth to keep him quiet. This wasn’t as bad as when his father had burned him, but it was a close second. This was a searing pain across his whole body. Zuko spasmed, and the guard that wasn’t keeping him quiet held his arms down on the ground to keep him from moving around too much. He was sure that it wasn’t that difficult. He was way below weighing what any thirteen-year-old should at this point, he was sure, let alone a prince .

Zuko felt tears stream down his face as he felt something inside of him change . Something just… snapped . It just… wasn’t there anymore.

Finally, the screams faded, and the guard slowly removed his hand. Now, Zuko was just gasping, sweating, shaking. His body ached .

He realized, suddenly, what was wrong.

“What happened to the sun?” He murmured out the question. The guards exchanged glances.

Zuko let out a sob. “I can’t feel the sun!” He cried. “I can’t feel it, it’s gone, I can’t feel it, I can’t feel it-”

For the first time since he had come down here, Zuko didn’t know that night if he went to sleep before or after the sun had gone down.

He didn’t stop sobbing before he fell asleep that night.

Zuko didn’t feel the sun as it came up that day. He had felt it go down the night before, but he had been awake. He had been aware . He didn’t wake with the sun that morning. Maybe one day, he would.

But not today...

Not today...

Zuko woke up to a knocking on his door. He wondered why he was so warm . The cell was never this warm, unless his father was there, with fire in his hands, malice in his eyes, and a grin on his face. The thought made his body go cold and shaky. He squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn’t do this right now, please , father, please, just let me rest, I’m so tired , father-

“ Your Majesty? Are you awake? ”

There was a muffled voice through the door. Zuko’s eyes shot open, and he saw a ceiling that wasn’t just stone. Where was he? Was he dead? Had his father finally killed him, finally ended it? Was he finally free of that life he had been leading (if you could even call it a life )?

He squeezed his eyes shut as he sat up before opening again and looking around. There were the burned-out candles next to him and the half-gone water jug, and there was the blanket over his legs. When had he pulled that back on? He couldn’t remember.

He realized, suddenly, that there was someone waiting for a reply on the other side of the door.

“Yes,” Zuko responded, and he winced at the pain it caused him. He would give anything to get the pain that came whenever he spoke to go away.

The door opened and revealed two people that Zuko didn’t recognize. He could see the flash of confusion in their eyes before they converged down on him.

Their hands were grabbing at him, and they weren’t gentle enough, and he could feel the pain of whatever injuries he had gotten in the last two months, probably, flaring up. 

“Put me down, please,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady despite the aching in his body. The servants bowed their heads and lowered him to the ground. Zuko watched as they hovered close to him, and he didn’t recognize any of them. He knew what they were here for, but he couldn’t let anyone else see his current state right now. He didn’t want them to, and for the first time in years, what he wanted mattered .

“My Lord?” One of the servants asked, waiting for instructions. They all acted like he was going to blow them off if they took even one step out of line. He supposed that, after working for his father, they had probably come to expect that. Zuko was going to have to work to show them that he wasn’t his father. He wasn’t . He didn’t want to be, and he wasn’t going to be.

“Could you… Could you please just… leave me?”

The servants all bowed. One of them seemed to think for a moment before asking, “Is there anyone you would like for us to send for, My Lord?”

Zuko thought for a moment before nodding. “Yes, please.” He fell silent before realizing they were waiting to hear who. “Erm, please send for Keeli, the, um, servant girl, as well as Ming and Lee, they’re, um, guards, and Pim, she, uh, I think she works with clothing?” He sounded like he had no idea who he was talking about, but the servant nodded, bowed again, and left the room with his companions.

Zuko realized as he was alone that there were probably multiple people with those names in those professions. Especially Lee . There were a million Lees and a million more Kuzons. Lee was even more popular in the Earth Kingdom, but it was still pretty common in the Fire Nation.

Thankfully, though, the servants seemed to know which ones he was talking about, probably from yesterday when he was being pushed around the palace.

Ming and Lee arrived first. They bowed to Zuko before moving closer and carefully lifting him off of the ground, placing him on the bed. He could have smiled at the way they knew exactly how to hold him without irritating his still-healing wounds too much. He could have. He didn’t.

Pim arrived next, clutching some clothes in her arms. She bowed as best she could with the load in her arms.

“My Lord,” she said when she rose. “I have three different outfits here. I’m not… sure of your preferences, yet, so…” She trailed off.

Zuko shrugged. “I’m not sure I really have preferences, to be honest.”

Pim seemed to try and stifle a laugh (which she managed), but the smile was still there as she set the clothes down.

As Zuko was looking over the clothes, which Pim called ‘ business-casual ’, Keeli appeared in the door. She gave a low bow before approaching, making sure to close the door behind her.

“Your Majesty,” she said.

“Good morning, Keeli,” Zuko said, nodding to her.

She sputtered for a moment before nodding her head and saying, “Good morning, My Lord.”

Zuko turned his eyes to her and realized, suddenly, how hungry he was. He was used to being hungry, of course, but now he had the ability to actually do something about it .

“Keeli, could you go get me something to eat?” He asked. He knew he could just state it, could just command it, but it felt better this way. “Something… small. And light. I don’t think... I don’t think I can handle anything more right now.”

Keeli nodded quickly, gave a bow, and left the room.

Zuko had selected the second outfit, one that looked fairly comfortable but had a professional air about it, after asking for the input of Ming and Lee (who both looked very taken-aback when he asked their opinions). Keeli appeared again about ten minutes later with a tray of food as well as a new jug of water. She laid it out for him. She really had chosen simple food. There was a very small helping of rice with two small slices of what looked like some type of fruit, as well as a few pieces of what looked to be some sort of meat.

“What kind of fruit is that?” Zuko asked, staring down at the orange slices.

“Mango, m’Lord,” Keeli responded. She must have seen his eyes turn to the meat because she pointed at that and added, “And the meat is Komodo sausage.”

Zuko hummed. He hadn’t had sausage in quite a long time. Over three years, in fact. Huh. Fancy that.

Zuko took a small bite and reveled in the flavor. There was so much of it. And the meat wasn’t dry . It was cooked perfectly. So perfectly, in fact, that Zuko thought he might cry. The rice was the same thing he was fed in prison, but, Agni , if it wasn’t better than the rice he had eaten down there… It was actually moist . There was flavor, real flavor, not just something that was thrown together and could just as well have been fed to the rats.

If he didn’t cry at the sausage or the rice, well, he was damn well about to cry at the fruit. It was so sweet and so juicy and the flavor just exploded in his mouth. It was like the sweetest thing he had ever eaten, and Zuko had devoured both slices within the span of the next thirty seconds. 

Zuko wanted more, it was just so good , but he knew that Keeli had been logical in her choice of portion size. Anything more and he would probably be throwing up soon enough, and he didn’t want to empty his stomach, and he also didn’t want his throat to burn any more than it already did. 

He turned to Keeli, gave her a nod, and said, “Thank you.”

Keeli’s lips pressed into a tight line and she nodded before reaching forward and silently handing him a cup of water. Zuko accepted the cup gratefully and drank the water. He frowned as he handed it back to her. The water was good, cool and soothing, but it had washed away the lingering taste of the mango that had been left in his mouth. That was unfortunate.

Keeli left to put the tray away as Pim began to get him ready. She was much faster with it this time around, and barely slowed down when she peeled off his nightshirt to show the scars across his chest and back. Barely . Ming and Lee shifted him when Pim needed them to. Zuko wondered how fast they would be at this in a few weeks.

As Ming and Lee sat him down on the edge of his bed, Keeli reemerged in the doorway. She gave a bow and entered the room. Zuko wondered how she was able to open and close the door so quietly .

“I want to call a meeting today,” Zuko said. “With the… With the council.”

Ming nodded, bowed, and was gone a second later. She reappeared less than a minute later, bowed , and closed the door behind her. “The council is being notified, and the meeting is scheduled for about thirty minutes from now.”

Zuko nodded. “Thank you, Ming.” He saw Ming breathe out some sort of sigh, but she accepted his words of gratitude simply with another nod.

There was silence before he spoke.

“Pim.” The woman in question turned to him. “You asked me yesterday where I… where I was for the past few years.” Pim swallowed but nodded shakily. 

“Yes, my Lord, I did.” She paused before seeming to dare to ask a question when she added, “What… What of it?”

“Well,” Zuko began, shifting a bit and digging his fingers into the soft fabric of the comforter of the bed. It was so squishy . “Do you know about what happened a little over three years ago?”

Pim pressed her lips into a tight line and shook her head. “Not… particularly. I mean, most of the palace knows that you spoke out in your father’s war room, but nothing more than that. You kinda just… disappeared. Then yesterday you were suddenly back. There were theories, of course, but I don’t really think any of those were right…” She glanced at Keeli who gave the smallest of nods, her eyes trained on the ground.

Zuko took in a deep breath. “Well, I did speak out of turn, so, er, that’s correct, I guess. My… My father was very angry. He said that I had to take part in an Agni Kai to regain my honor or… something… I thought he meant I had to fight the general, so I agreed.” His throat was tight and tears were welling up in his eyes at the memory, but he pressed on. “I was a fool .”

There was complete silence. No one except for Zuko and Ozai probably knew all the details, so even if most of the people in this room had seen him in that cell, they didn’t know everything, and they were clearly very interested.

“I turned around at the Agni Kai and…” He swallowed, and it hurt. He wiped hastily at his eyes. “I turned around, but instead of the general, I saw my father .”

There were gasps all around, and though they were immediately muffled, Zuko didn’t care. Maybe one day these people would understand that they didn’t have to hide their emotions around him.

“I didn’t fight him, I… I couldn’t . He was my father . So, he… he…” Zuko’s words failed him and his eyes burned again as he gestured vaguely to the scar stretching across a third of his face. He saw out of the corner of his eye as Pim covered her mouth. Ming had an arm wrapped around Lee whose eyes were closed, and Keeli was shaking slightly but looked determined to see this story through. 

“When I woke up and realized what had happened, and was told that I was banished and had to find that Avatar to ‘regain my honor’, I just…” He balled his hands into fists in the softness of the comforter beneath him and stared down at his feet intensely. “I just couldn’t . I went up to him and I told him that I was going to find the Avatar, and then I was going to help them defeat him.” Zuko chuckled dryly and raised a hand to rub at one of the burn marks near his shoulder that he had gotten that day. He didn’t know why he was laughing. It wasn’t funny. “I was so stupid . So, so stupid… ”

Zuko breathed for a moment, gathering his bearings. No one dared to speak.

“I was captured and locked away in a cell. I didn’t know then, but I guess it was under the palace the whole time. My father would come down every so often to… talk. Actually, we didn’t do that much talking. I… You can probably figure out what happened instead.” He could only assume that Pim nodded because he didn’t bother looking back up. He was on a roll in this story, and if he stopped he didn’t think he could start back up again.

“I was thirteen when I went down there, and I’m past sixteen now, so I was down there for a bit over three years.” He sighed. “It… honestly didn’t feel that long. I think after a few months, all the time just blended together into one long period of just… pain. That’s the best way to describe it.” He gestured to Ming and Lee. “They were two of my guards. They alternated with two other ones that I… haven’t met yet. Officially, at least.” He waved a hand at the server girl who was the only one other than Zuko who had managed to not start full-on crying yet. “Keeli was one of the two food servers down there.” 

He remembered the day before.

“Yesterday, the Fire Sage, Shyu, came down there and told me that… that the Avatar had defeated my father and my sister, and that I was to be crowned the new Fire Lord. And, well, I guess you know what happened from there.”

There was a heavy silence over the group. Then, Pim spoke. Her voice was thick with the tears still streaming down her face.

“You were… You were thirteen? ”

Zuko nodded, his eyes still trained on the ground. He had said his piece. He couldn’t bring himself to speak anymore. His throat ached from the amount he had spoken during the story.

Then, suddenly, there were arms around him.

Zuko stiffened for a moment, and he almost pushed her away. Pim was being as careful as she could, but it seemed that her embrace of him had been on instinct more than anything.

She pulled herself back and her face was so red it looked like she might explode. She bowed her head and shook a bit.

“I-I’m sorry, my Lord, I wasn’t thinking, I-”

Zuko blinked. “It’s… It’s fine, Pim, I…” He felt his face burn a bit. “I kinda… liked it.”

Pim’s eyes widened.

“I just… I haven’t had a hug in… in years.”

Pim nodded. “Still, my Lord, I was out of line. I won’t do it again without express permission.”

Zuko knew that he was not going to be able to fight her on this. The staff in this palace had it ingrained in their heads that they were less. Less than the nobility, less than the royal family, less than the Fire Lord . While Zuko knew that he had a higher status than them (of course he did he’s not stupid ), that difference in status didn’t make them any less human than he was.

There was a knock on the door. All eyes turned to it and Zuko gave a small nod to Ming who called in her smooth, confident voice, “Come in.”

The man that was in the doorway bowed low and said, “Your Majesty,” before taking a step closer. “The council is gathered in the war room.”

Zuko nodded. “All right, I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

As the door closed, Ming and Lee converged on him, lifting him up and off the bed as Keeli pushed the wheelchair over from the other side of the room. Zuko was placed into the wheelchair and Pim held open the door as Keeli wheeled him out. Pim gave a quick bow before turning and going down the opposite side of the corridor, disappearing around a corner a moment later.

Zuko braced himself as they moved toward the war room. The last two times he had been in there, he had spoken out in a meeting and been forced to fight an Agni Kai, and he had stood up against his father and been captured, sentenced to that prison cell. Zuko wondered where that cell had come from in the first place. Had his father always had it? What was it originally for? 

“What would you like us to do while you’re in the meeting?” Ming asked as they turned a corner.

Zuko took in a breath. The air was warmer as they passed a window. He hadn’t thought about what they would do. Normally, the war room was just for the council, the Fire Lord, and whatever royal family was permitted to be in attendance. No guards, no servants, just the higher-ups. Zuko frowned. Well, he was the Fire Lord, wasn’t he? He could, literally, do what he wanted. Thinking of that, he responded.

“I want you all in there with me,” he said.

Lee, who was flanking them on the left, literally tripped and almost fell into a sprawl on the floor. In hindsight, the guard had probably been expecting anything but that. Well, they’d all just have to learn to expect the unexpected when it came to him, he supposed.

“Are you… Are you sure , Your Majesty?” Keeli asked after a moment. 

Zuko nodded firmly. “I am.” He paused before continuing, “The men in there… They all served my father. Everything he did when it came to this war. I don’t… I don’t know exactly what he had planned for when the comet came, but I’m sure it was bad. They all were going to stand by when that man wanted to sacrifice a whole division of new recruits. Agni, that man is probably on that council . I just…” His words gave out. “I want to have people in there that I feel I know . You all are the closest thing to people that I think I can… can trust .” 

The other three were clearly very shocked by his words, but they nodded nonetheless and stayed silent.

Zuko dwelled on his last words.

Trust .

Trust was a strange thing.

Zuko didn’t trust anyone, but if he had to choose people he did , the three walking near him would definitely be on that list. As he was wheeled down the hallways, Zuko found himself wishing that he could trust people. It would be some sort of solace in this strange new situation he found himself in.

But he couldn’t.

Trust was a strange thing.

People said it was strong, but it wasn’t . It was so easily broken that it might as well be made of an already-shattered pane of glass.

Zuko had trusted his mother, and though she hadn’t expressly betrayed him (in fact, he was sure Ozai had mentioned once during a ‘visit’ that Ursa had been banished in exchange for saving Zuko’s life), she had still left him behind. She had still left . Everything had fallen apart after that.

Zuko had trusted his uncle. Uncle Iroh. When he was younger, taking vacations on Ember Island, or just hanging around the palace, he was always able to rely on Iroh. His uncle had promised that he would always be there for Zuko. Zuko had understood when Iroh went away to war, and he had understood when Iroh had returned after Lu Ten’s death. However, when Iroh had returned, he had been a shell of a man, broken, despairing over the loss of his beloved son. Then, a year later, after barely talking to Zuko at all over those months, Iroh just left . Went off to try and go on a Spirit World journey or something, and just didn’t come back. Zuko was sure that his uncle had returned at some point, but it must have been after Zuko was locked away. Either way, Iroh had promised to be there for Zuko, and then he hadn’t . Zuko understood why he wasn’t there, but it still hurt nonetheless.

And then, finally, Zuko had trusted his father . And look where that had gotten him . Burned, banished, thrown in a cell for years.

So, yeah, Zuko had decided barely a week into his imprisonment that he was done trusting people. And that was not going to stop now.

He blinked and was startled by the sight that greeted him.

The side entrance to the war room. The one used by the Fire Lord.

He had snuck in here only three years ago, and yet it felt like a lifetime. He was younger back then. Innocent . He wasn’t burned and cut and scarred and broken back then. 

My, how things changed.

“Ready, my Lord?” Keeli asked, shaking him out of his thoughts. Zuko swallowed. His throat was dry. He nodded.

The two guards at the door held open the curtains and bowed their heads as Keeli pushed him into the room, Ming and Lee just behind them.

The curtains closed and Zuko realized that the flames that the Fire Lord was meant to sit behind weren’t lit. He wasn’t going to try to light them, either.

“Bring me down to the normal floor,” he said quietly, trying to make sure that the council couldn’t hear him. “I don’t… I don’t want to be back here.” Maybe one day he would sit back there, but not until he could light the flames himself . Which might be never , he thought bitterly. 

Ming and Lee nodded and worked together to get him off the platform. Keeli followed and took her place at the handles.

“Lee, light the flames, please,” Zuko said. “We’re still gonna need some light in here.”

Lee nodded and shot a quick burst of fire at the end of the line. The flames caught and followed the train of black powder all along to the other side of the room. Zuko turned away as the flames got bigger. 

“Make sure I’m turned away from those when we stop,” he breathed out, his eyes on a dark pillar. 

“Yes, my Lord,” Keeli said.

They were moving again, and then Zuko was turned and in his wheelchair, in front of the war council. They all watched him with such scrutiny it almost hurt .

Zuko took in a deep breath and focused on the heat of the flames behind him.

He was really not going to like this meeting, was he?

Chapter Text

Zuko had, in all honesty, always thought that being Fire Lord at a war meeting would be great . He’d be in charge, and he’d have a whole council to help run the country.

He realized now that there was a fatal flaw with this system of government.

The Fire Nation had been made to where the only people who counseled the Fire Lord were the royal advisor (if there was one) and the war council. The war council. That… probably wasn’t the model of a perfect government. Because, even if there was peace, there was always the presence of war . He’d have to figure out how to fix that.

Right now, though, he just needed to figure out how to survive this meeting.

As soon as he came into view of the council, the men surrounding the table rose to their feet in unison.

Zuko resisted the urge to squirm as their eyes followed him. He saw most of the eyes staring at him widen a bit as they realized that he was not on the Fire Lord’s platform, instead being on the normal floor with the rest of them. Zuko was a bit impressed by how they were able to keep their faces complete expressionless masks. It would probably be a useful skill to learn, now that he thought about it.

Keeli positioned him directly in front of the council and Ming and Lee stood on either side of her. Zuko wondered how formidable they looked, with the fire flickering behind them, staring ahead as if these people hadn’t just been the leaders of the offending side of a worldwide war.

Zuko knew that the war had to end. When he was able to think coherently, it was one of the things that he thought about the most while imprisoned. He had realized as soon as the general said all those years ago that they should just sacrifice soldiers that the war didn’t just hurt the rest of the world, it hurt the Fire Nation too .

If the Fire Nation was so great, and was just sharing their greatness with the rest of the world, then they shouldn’t be sacrificing soldiers, let alone new recruits. If the Fire Nation was being hurt by this war, and yet they were winning , what was it like for the Earth Kingdom, for the Water Tribes? For the Air Nomad, Zuko bitterly thought, making sure not to make it plural. After all, there was only one left: the Avatar.

As he lay awake last night, Zuko’d had a revelation of some sort.

He thought about how the servants and the guards and all the common people were, well, just as human as he was. He had realized that a while into his imprisonment, when he started noticing the extra food Keeli was giving him. Last night, though, he had realized that if the common people of the Fire Nation were just as human as he was, then so were the people of the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes . And their lives, all of their lives, were affected by this war. That had to end now.

So, here Zuko sat in front of the war council, in front of men who all wanted this war to continue (because of course they were winning ), ready to tell them that he was ending it.

“Sit,” he said when he broke out of his thoughts from a light tap on the back of his shoulder from Keeli. It was discreet, she had been careful of that, he was sure, but it was there.

The men all bowed their heads and slipped down into seated position. They all did it so cleanly that they nearly made no sound at all. It was actually kind of impressive, he thought.

“My Lord,” one of them said, standing up. Zuko nodded to him, swallowing to try and force down the lump in his throat as the man’s piercing brown gaze turned on him.

“You are?” 

Zuko recognized the man, of course, but he couldn’t place a name. In fact, there are very few people he could probably see and place a name to that he knew from the Before. He knew Ozai, obviously. He was sure he could recognize Azula if he saw her (not that she’d give him the chance to get it wrong). He knew Ozai , obviously. His mother was always cemented in his mind. Uncle Iroh , though… He didn’t think he even remembered what his uncle looked like in the Before. He most definitely would not be able to place it now.

“General Chung, sire,” the man, General Chung , replied, and then seemed to wait for the signal to continue.

Zuko gave a nod to him to go on.

“I speak for all of us when I say that the council is very ready to see how you rule this country. We eagerly anticipate your reign for many years.”

They had clearly chosen the best actor, the best manipulator out of all of them. But they didn’t know what he knew. He had spent over three years in a cell with only Ozai for occasional company. Ozai, who was one of the most skilled liars in the world. And even before that, he had lived with Azula , who was the best manipulator and the best actresses in the whole of the world. He would probably still not be able to tell when his sister was lying (she surely only got better with age), but, still, living with her lies for so long made everyone else’s lies look unbearably weak.

Maybe, though, he was getting too cocky. He probably wasn’t that good at telling a lie from the truth. 

Honestly, it was probably just the fact that he knew , deep down, that this man, this council , was lying . 

These people had supported his father and the war. Agni, they benefited from the war. They didn’t care for how it affected the common people (no matter the nation), they just cared for themselves and the glory that winning might get them.

Zuko knew better than to say any of this, though. So, instead, he chose to say, “I am grateful for all of your support.” It hurt to say those words, beyond just the normal ache that he was quickly becoming accustomed to.

Chung nodded and sat again.

“What is the current status on the war?” 

Zuko was trying to sound as professional as possible. In front of anyone else in his staff, he would try to be as human as possible. He wanted the common people to know that he was going to try and be their Fire Lord, too . However, in front of these people, he had to be more than a person . He had to represent something. He had to show that he was strong . He was quite sure (as in quite hopeful ) that these men didn’t know where he had been for the past three years, but the last that they saw him, he was on his knees, screaming as his father burned his face. He needed to show that he was stronger than that.

He wondered if his scar made him look more menacing to them.

One of the men stood up. Zuko turned his eyes to him and the man gave a small bow.

“War Minister Teru, at your service, Your Majesty.” Ah, now Zuko understood why the rest of the council had elected Chung to speak first. Teru was much more obvious about his dislike for Zuko than the man before him had been. “We suffered a defeat during Sozin’s Comet when the Phoenix King Ozai and the Crown Princess Azula were both captured by the Avatar and his associates, who also took down the air fleet, which made it so that we were not able to complete our goal of burning the Earth Kingdom to the ground.” Zuko felt his blood run cold. Burn the Earth Kingdom to the ground? That was what his father was going to do? Ozai had gloated about it over the past few weeks, occasionally, but Zuko had thought he was bluffing, just trying to get a reaction out of his son. But to hear that it was real? That was terrifying .

“Go on,” Zuko said, forcing the words out.

“Despite these setbacks, we are certain that as long as we don’t let up on the war effort, we can retake Ba Sing Se and finally finish this war, officially achieving victory for our glorious Fire Nation,” Teru finished, jabbing the point of his shoe at Ba Sing Se on the map in front of them.

Zuko blinked. “You want to… continue the war?”

The councilmen all turned to him as Teru’s eyebrows furrowed. This man wasn’t very good at hiding his emotions, either.

“My apologies, Your Majesty, I don’t understand your confusion.”

Zuko’s fists tightened. “The Avatar defeated my father and my sister. The war is over.” He resisted adding a ‘right?’ at the end. No use in appearing childish in any way.

“The war can still continue, my Lord. Just because Phoenix King Ozai and Crown Princess Azula were defeated does not mean that the Fire Nation was defeated,” another man said as Teru stepped back and sank into a seated position.

“I don’t think you’re hearing me right, War Minister,” Zuko said. “This war is not continuing.”

“My Lord, the Fire Nation is winning this war,” one more pressed. “Your Majesty wishes to just throw all of it away, all of the benefits we are reaping, the spoils we are retrieving each and every day as we march through more and more of the Earth Kingdom?”

“No one is truly benefiting from this war,” Zuko said as firmly as he could. “Our soldiers die every day, the common people suffer-”

“The common people can suffer for the sake of the greater good of the Fire Nation,” another man growled. 

Zuko was losing them. He could see it on their faces. They were slowly beginning to realize that he was a teenager . A teenager with a lot of power, sure, but a teenager nonetheless. 

“The common people are the Fire Nation!” Zuko exclaimed. He didn’t wince at the pain caused from the increased volume of his words. He didn’t .

“What would you know?” Zuko recognized this man when he turned to face him. He didn’t know the man’s name (he would find out after the meeting that he was General Bujing, who happened to be the Head General in the council which was just lovely ), but he knew him. This was the general he spoke out against. The general who came up with the plan to use new recruits as bait, the plan that Zuko sacrificed everything to stop from coming to fruition. “You’ve never met the common people . You just spent the last three years off being… being pampered by your father away from the rest of society, and you’re still nothing more than a spoiled brat! ”

Zuko was shaking, because the tone of voice gave him a vision of his father, standing in the dark cell, a single flame flickering in his hand for light as he reminded Zuko once more of what a disappointment he was .

“My Lord…” Ming’s calm voice shook him out of his thoughts. Bujing seemed to realize that he had made a mistake, but the man was less afraid of Zuko than he should be. It made Zuko feel… small . 

Zuko’s mind was going haywire. These people were never going to respect him. Never . He needed to replace them. His thoughts moved to that. He needed to replace them, but he couldn’t . He needed a council, and these men had more power than most people in the Nation. He needed reliable people, but he didn’t have any, so he had to keep this council together until he was able to replace them all.

And, in the meantime, he might as well just change the council up completely. Make it like governments he had read about when he studied under that one tutor when he was younger… Zuko couldn’t remember his name, he had disappeared about two months into teaching Zuko, but he had always been the most interesting tutor. The man had always focused on making it so that Zuko’s lessons were from a worldwide perspective. He was actually probably the reason why Zuko started thinking that maybe the war wasn’t a good thing. Then, one day, he was just gone . Zuko had a small idea where he might have gone.

Ozai did like to banish people…

His eyes moved to a man at the end of the council’s table, at the other side of the room, watching him with eyes that seemed to look right at his very core. Zuko squirmed under the gaze. The man’s hard eyes reminded him of his father’s. The floor swayed a bit.

“Meeting dismissed,” he managed to say. Keeli, thankfully, took that as a signal, and he was suddenly being turned around and pushed out of the council’s view. He heard them get up as soon as he was out of view. Ming and Lee lifted him onto the Fire Lord’s platform and Keeli pushed him out the door and suddenly they were back in the corridor.

When they were back in Zuko’s room, there were three people waiting.

Lee suddenly squealed and moved from Zuko’s side to embrace one of them (a woman).

He stepped away from her and both of them had a wide grin on their faces. Lee turned back toward Zuko and his eyes widened, his face going red.

“I… I apologize, my Lord.”

The edges of Zuko’s lips itched to go up, though they didn’t, and he nodded. “It’s all right. Who… Who is this?”

Lee’s throat bobbed and he nodded. “This-” He moved the woman in front of him, and she gave a wave, her face like an apple- “is my little sister, Tyne.”

“Nice to meet you, Tyne.”

She seemed shocked to her core by his words before her smile widened. “Actually, we already know each other.”

Zuko blinked. “What?”

Her face reddened. “Well, kinda… I was one on the other guard shift for you over the past few years, along with Anzo over there.” She pointed to a man standing a few feet away. Anzo gave Zuko a firm nod. He seemed like the calm type of person.

“Oh, I thought I recognized you all.” His eyes moved to the last man. “You… You were the other food server, right?”

The man nodded and gave a small bow. “Gun Ta, at your service, my Lord.”

“It’s nice to officially meet you as well.” Zuko’s gaze moved over the three new additions before he asked, “Is there… a reason why you all came here, though?”

“What, like meeting you officially after hangin’ around you for three years wasn’t enough?” Tyne asked. 

Zuko felt a smile tug at his lips again, but it fell away again a moment later.

“Actually, Your Majesty, I came to meet you because I wished to before I moved,” Gun Ta said. Zuko’s eyes widened a bit.

“Where are you moving to, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Gun Ta blinked. “Of course not, Your Majesty. I’m moving to Tofule Island, on the west side of the homeland, to pursue my dreams of becoming a chef and opening a restaurant now that I’ve saved up enough money to buy a house.”

Zuko nodded. “Congratulations. I wish you the best.” He put away the reminder in his head to (anonymously) send some money to the man to help with his restaurant. Maybe if Zuko was ever over there for business, he could visit the place.

“What about you all?” He asked, turning to the others.

“Well, I’ve been wanting to officially meet you for quite some time,” Anzo said, wringing his hands together.

“And I just came along cause I didn’t wanna be left out!” Tyne exclaimed, her eyes gleaming. Zuko wondered if she was always this peppy.

A thought appeared suddenly as his mind wandered back to the war. “I need one of you to gather up information on war prisoners being held by the Fire Nation.”

Anzo gave a small nod. “I will, my Lord,” he said.

Anzo and Gun Ta both bowed and were out the door so quickly Zuko thought for a moment that maybe he had just imagined them all. Then, though, he saw Tyne talking to Lee off to the side, and he was brought back to reality.

“I also bring news, Your Majesty,” Tyne said after the door closed.

“Yes?”

“Princess Azula was beaten in battle by the Avatar’s waterbending master and is now being kept by the Avatar and the Earth King in Ba Sing Se,” she explained. “One of our spies delivered the news upon return to the homeland.” 

Zuko blinked. Azula? He hadn’t seen Azula in over three years… He wondered how much she had changed. She was always… strange… in their younger years. Like there was something wrong in her head. She was very skilled, and she enjoyed scaring thing, hurting things. Like the turtleducks in the palace pond. Like her friends. Like Zuko . And she was their father’s favorite for that. His attention fostered her behavior and her firebending. When he had last seen her, her flames were a blinding white color. He wondered what they were now. Her goal had always been to get to blue. He wondered if she had achieved that yet. He wouldn’t be surprised. Her fire got hotter every day.

“Azula?” He breathed.

Tyne nodded, her foot tapping against the floor. “Yes, my Lord.”

“How… How is she?”

Tyne chuckled sheepishly, tugging on the ponytail she had looped over her shoulder. “Just as scary as I’m sure you remember.”

Zuko shivered. “Ah.”

A moment passed before Zuko took a deep breath and spoke.

“Do I… have an office? I can’t… I can’t remember…” He knew his father had done his work as Fire Lord somewhere , but he wasn’t sure where .

Lee nodded. “Yeah, it’s, like, right below us, I think.”

“I need to… to go there.” He turned his head around to look at Keeli. “Could you… take me there?”

Keeli’s cheeks grew red. “I don’t know where it is.”

Lee waved her off. “Don’t worry, I’ve got it. Follow me!” He turned to his sister. “Actually, Tyne, could you take my place guarding His Majesty while I lead the way?”

Tyne nodded, the corners of her mouth quirking up seemingly involuntarily. Zuko wondered if she was always smiling. That must take a lot of effort.

Keeli pushed him through the corridors behind Lee, who looked very professional for a man leading a disabled teenager to an office.

“Here we are, my Lord.” Lee pushed open the door and Zuko was wheeled inside, Tyne and Ming following them inside.

The office wasn’t as big as Zuko thought it would be. Granted, it was still enormous , but, knowing his family, he had thought it would be much more grand than it was.

The right wall from the door was almost all windows, though the curtains were drawn across them, so there was only a bit of sunlight streaming through the cracks.

“Keeli, can you open the curtains?”

She was there a moment later, pulling back the curtains. Tyne moved to help, holding the curtains in place as Keeli tied the red fabric back with a golden rope hanging from the wall.

Zuko moved his eyes from them as they did their task to continue observing the rest of the room. Right across from the door, there was the desk. It was big, that was for sure, made of some kind of dark wood with golden accents. He could see that the chair (which matched the desk in wood) must be so cushioned that one could just sink right into it. He remembered the bed from last night and realized that he might need to work his way up to this chair, with its soft red cushions and regal carvings in the side.

In front of the door, there was a large open space filled only by a deep maroon-colored rug. There were two chairs set off in the left corner nearest the door, and Zuko realized that it must be for if there were ever guests or if he ever had to have a meeting. One of the servants would probably move it over for whoever had to sit down.

The room lightened as Keeli and Tyne tied back the final curtain. In the back left corner (the one without the chairs), there was a potted plant that was what he imagined his height had been when he was thirteen. It looked like a lavender plant, but the flowers were shorter and an off-white color.

“What plant is that?” he asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

“Um… it’s a citrus lavender bush, I think,” Tyne replied. “Mother used to grow them when she made the Orange-Lavender scents for the palace. The essence from the flowers makes the Orange-Lavender. It makes the room always have an undertone of it if it’s grown correctly.”

Zuko smelled in deeply, and realized she was right. He could smell the Orange-Lavender draped in the air. A smile tugged at his lips again, but it didn’t appear. Not yet.

Zuko’s eyes moved to the desk again. More specifically, his eyes moved to what was on the desk. There was a neat pile of papers on the right of the chair behind the desk. He felt his heart sink. That’s a lot of paperwork. Zuko knew that it must be for him. After his father and sister were captured, after the war ‘ended’, there was probably so much work for him to do that he would be drowning in it.

His gaze shifted again, and he felt his blood run cold.

Because there, on the left wall, just hanging and looking down at him, was a painting of his father.

The cold, hard eyes of the man in the painting stared down at him, stared into his soul. Zuko felt himself go pale, and he wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. His hands gripped the handles of the wheelchair and he shivered. He felt cold. He swallowed, and it hurt, and he wanted to wince, but he couldn’t, because that would show weakness, and his father would not like that. His father wouldn’t like that, he can’t show weakness, he can’t show weakness, he can’t show weakness, he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe…

“My Lord!”

A hand on his cheek pushed and forced his face away from the painting. He blinked, and instead of the calculating gaze of Fire Lord Ozai, he was staring into the concerned ones of Tyne and Keeli. In the corner of his eye, he could see Ming and Lee perched on the two chairs from the corner, covering up the painting with a curtain that they had gotten from… somewhere…

“My… My Lord?” Tyne asked carefully. 

“Get it out of here,” he said, and it was hard to say, and the words were strained, and they hurt . “Get it out, please, please , get it out, get it out, get it…”

Ming and Lee pulled down the painting and carted it out of the room.

“What’s going on?” A deep voice from the doorway asked.

Tyne’s eyes flicked up and widened a bit. “Anzo?”

“Hello, darling. What’s… going on?”

Steps moved around the wheelchair and then Zuko’s gaze moved to Anzo as the man walked into view.

“Your Majesty?”

The words directed at him shocked him out of his stupor, and Zuko realized suddenly that he couldn’t breathe. Spots danced in his vision and he desperately gasped for air, but none of it would actually go into his lungs.

There was a hand on his shoulder, suddenly. Zuko could feel the calluses on the thumb that was brushing against his neck. He blinked and looked into the chocolate-brown eyes of Anzo.

“Breathe with me, my Lord. In-” He breathed in slowly, but didn’t feel like he had gotten any air- “Hold-” He did- “Out.” He repeated the actions with the man in front of him before he got control over his breathing again. Anzo smiled gently and stepped away, removing his hand from Zuko’s shoulder. “There we are.”

Zuko licked his lips (which were still really dry) before saying, “Thank you. How did you… How did you do that?”

Anzo shrugged, looking away. “My sister once had a boyfriend who… wasn’t the nicest. After they… broke up… she had a bit of a… reaction… whenever she saw him in public, so I learned how to help calm her down.”

Zuko nodded. He could tell that there was a deeper meaning to his words, but he couldn’t figure it out for the life of him. His eyebrows furrowed. “Wait… Why were you even here in the first place?”

Anzo pulled out a stack of papers from under his arm and held them up. “I retrieved all the information on war prisoners in the Fire Nation.”

Keeli wheeled Zuko behind the desk. Tyne pulled the regal chair back and Ming and Lee reappeared to pick him up and place him on the chair before pushing it in. Anzo set the papers in front of him before moving away.

“My Lord, would you like lunch?”

Zuko looked up at Keeli and nodded. “Yes, please.”

She gave a bow. “I’ll send for it.”

Zuko thought of the cold gazes of the generals, admirals, the war ministers on the council, who wanted him off the throne and had enough power to try and do it.

Then, suddenly, he thought of his father. And his mother . And his grandfather .

It was simple. Almost sweet. Just a few drops in a drink, and that’s it. A cloudy liquid that smelled of cakes and seeped into the bloodstream and slowed the heart and closed the throat and fogged the mind and ended the life…

“Keeli, I want you to observe the chefs while they make the food. Make sure that there is no… tampering.”

Keeli blinked before her features softened and she nodded. “Of course, my Lord.” She bowed again and disappeared through the door.

The other four guards all bowed as well before disappearing through the door, lining up to guard the office outside.

And just like that, Zuko was alone.

He smelled in, and the Orange-Lavender from the citrus lavender bush hit his nose, calming his nerves a bit.

He turned down to the papers in front of him and pushed the stack back before pulling off the top one. His eyes fell to the words on it and scanned them. He had been terrified that maybe, after three years, he wouldn’t be able to understand them, but…

He could still read .

A tear fell from his eye before he could stop it. This was something his father hadn’t been able to take from him. He wiped at the drop before it was even all the way down his cheek.

Zuko shook himself away from the wave of elation and moved back to the contents of the paper. Information on war prisoners in the Earth Kingdom colonies. Zuko sighed. This was gonna be boring .

Keeli arrived about thirty minutes later with some lunch and a pitcher of water. She pointed at one of the two dumplings and said it was vegetable and that the other was meat. There was a small bowl of spice rice as well as a few small pieces of fruit. Keeli explained that they were pitted cherries.

Cherries had always been Azula’s favorite.

The dumplings were small, so Zuko managed to finish all of his food. Keeli left halfway through and returned a few minutes later with a refilled jug of water, which she left on the table along with the cup he had been drinking from when she took the dishes to be washed.

Zuko spent an hour in silence as he moved through the papers slowly, before stopping at one. His eyes widened. He didn’t know there were war prisoners there… They must be important…

Zuko steeled his resolve and when Keeli came in five minutes later to see if his water needed to be refilled, he had her call the other four in as well. 

“What is it that you need, my Lord?” Ming asked, her voice calm and strong as always after they had all bowed and entered the room.

He looked down at the papers one more time before turning his gaze back up to them his eyes steely. 

“I want to go to the Boiling Rock.”

Chapter Text

“How long should it take to get to the Boiling Rock?” Zuko asked as Keeli wheeled him through the palace corridors.

“Well, your grace, if you want to take a ship, then I’d estimate about a week,” Ming said. “I used to work there in transfers so I had to estimate travel times a lot.”

“You said ‘ if you want to take a ship ’? What do you mean by ‘ if ’?” Zuko asked, turning to face Ming, who was flanking his right side.

“Well, there are always the war balloons, er, the blimps, right?” Tyne said from Zuko’s left. “You could get to the Boiling Rock in, what, a few hours? Didn’t Princess Azula do that at some point?”

Anzo nodded. “She did.”

Zuko blinked. “ War blimps?”

“I mean, if the war is ending… It is ending, right?” Tyne glanced at Zuko as she asked the question. His thoughts flew to the war council and their lack of regard for the common people of all nations who were suffering from this war. He nodded as firmly as he could. “Okay, yeah, so if the war is ending, then those blimps will probably be used for leisure and travel now, anyway, right?”

“Plus,” Anzo butted in. “There are only the small and medium-sized blimps now, anyway, and the medium ones were designed for recreation of the royal family or highborn.”

Zuko furrowed his eyebrows. “What… What happened to the… the ‘big’ ones?”

“Fire Lord Ozai used all of them during the comet and the entire fleet was destroyed, your grace,” Anzo replied. Out of all of them, Anzo looked the most put together. His hands were folded neatly behind his back, his eyes straight forward, and he had an imposing presence very befitting of the ideal soldier or officer. Yet, despite this, his presence was also… calming, in a strange way.

“Lee, could you run ahead and make sure the blimp is ready when we get there? And, uh, can you get Pim there, too? Ask her to bring some sort of outfit that’s… less formal, but still like… professional. I’m sure she can find something. Make sure someone brings my papers as well, please, I should work while we’re traveling.” Lee nodded at the request and broke off from where he was (next to Keeli, on her right) to walk faster. He turned down another, smaller hallway that was often used by the staff of the palace and disappeared from view. Anzo took a step backward from where he was on the left of Keeli to stand a few feet behind her instead, covering the back end of their small procession himself.

“Do we have to go through the city to get to the blimp?” Zuko asked.

“Yes, my Lord,” Anzo said. 

“If you would like to get to the Boiling Rock and back before midnight tonight, my Lord, then I would advise taking an alternate mode of transportation, like the palanquin,” Ming said from her position less than a foot behind him on his side. “It would be much faster than us walking through the city, and much safer .”

Zuko bit back a sigh. He really didn’t like palanquins. They were quite useless, why would you need to use manpower to get people around like that? It reminded him of stories of slavery in parts of the Earth Kingdom millennia ago. Agni, the soldiers used animals or walked themselves, Zuko didn’t need to be carried in an overly fancy chair, with curtains drawn to keep him inside and to keep the common folk out .

Suddenly, he had an idea.

“No, no, I want a carriage,” he said, before wincing a bit when he realized how much of a child he sounded like. “Animal-drawn. And no side streets, either. I want to go directly through the center of the city, on the main road to the airships.”

To their credit, no one was surprised, though he saw Ming raise her eyebrows out of the corner of his eyes while Tyne’s eyes widened on his other side.

“My Lord, if I may…” Keeli trailed off, waiting for him to give her permission to speak. It made him want to scowl. As long as he was in charge, he didn’t want anyone to be scared to speak.

“Go on.”

“May I ask why you’d like to go through the center of the city?”

He supposed that the animal-drawn carriage made sense. It would be much faster than a palanquin, and wouldn’t require someone to literally bear the weight of him on their shoulders.

“There has been a war going on for the past one-hundred years,” Zuko said quietly, his eyes on the stone tiles that moved below the edge of the wheelchair in front of him. “The world has suffered, but the Fire Nation has suffered, too. Those people out there, my people, have had to deal with Fire Lord after Fire Lord who doesn’t care for them . I… I don’t want to be any closer to my father in anyone’s mind than I already am. I… I want to show everyone out there that… that I’m different.” He straightened his back a bit. It was aching in his shoulder. “They’re all people, they’re all human , and I’m their Fire Lord. The only way I can be a good one is if they help me become one. I need to show them that I care. This is one way I can do that.” After he had finished, there was silence. He bit his lip and said, “Sorry if that didn’t make any sense.”

Ming nodded slowly beside him. “Don’t worry, your grace. It made perfect sense. I promise.”

Tyne grinned widely and broke the calm air about them as she exclaimed, “I don’t think you have to worry about the people not liking you, though, your grace. They already like you! After you opened the gates for your coronation and left the ball for said coronation to come to the party in the streets on the same day , you’re already in the good graces of the common folk as a whole, I’m sure.”

Zuko felt something flutter lightly in his chest and he almost cracked a smile. Instead, he turned to Tyne and said, “Thank you.”

Her smile brightened even more and she gave a small, sloppy bow that he thought was probably supposed to be bad if the overexaggerated flourish was anything to go by. “Of course, your Majesty .”

If anyone was going to make him smile or laugh for real for the first time in years, he was betting on Tyne.

“Tyne, you may want to be a bit more respectful when we’re around other nobles,” Anzo said, his deep voice ringing out through the corridor.

Tyne raised her hand and held it back behind her toward Anzo, where Zuko couldn’t see it. He heard both Keeli and Ming try to cover up their snorts, and Zuko whirled his head back to look at what Tyne was doing. 

She wasn’t looking at Anzo, but she was holding her hand up behind her and had her middle finger up at the other guard, her face very smug about it. Zuko settled back into his chair as her hand dropped and he blinked a few times and wondered to himself how he had never realized how human these people were. They joked around with each other, seemed more like real friends than Azula and her friends ever had. Azula and her friends had been forced to be together. These people chose to be like friends, chose to be friendly with each other when they didn’t have to because they were all working together.

It was a strange change of pace from what he was used to back when he lived in the palace (and obviously it was a change of pace from what he was used to over the course of the last three years, but he didn’t really want to think about that right now. Every time he did, it didn’t end well). He found that he liked it. 

Zuko had never really had a real friend, except maybe Azula when she was still too young to show her prowess at firebending and, therefore, still too young to be reached by their father’s influence. Was this how friends were supposed to act? Not trying to kill each other every few minutes? That was a strange concept. Or, maybe, he was the one whose concept of friendship was strange.

He probably was.

They reached the front doors, finally. There were guards stationed at the doors (as there should be, honestly), and they gave him a bow before pulling open the doors and gesturing their group outside. Tyne disappeared off to the side to get a carriage, moving off into a side hallway as Keeli pushed him into the outdoors. 

Ming actually groaned when she saw the steps before she seemed to resign herself to her fate, gesturing to Anzo to help her and together the two carried Zuko down the steps. It took a few minutes, but they made it to the bottom relatively quickly. Zuko guessed that he probably didn’t weigh that much, though. The bulk of the weight was probably in the wheelchair itself if he was being honest. He would never admit out loud but those three years in that cell had most likely made it so that he was a bit smaller than he should be for his age. 

He realized, suddenly, that Keeli was gone.

When they reached the bottom of the steps, Zuko heard the clop of hooves against the stone and turned his head to see Tyne sitting on the front of a carriage, holding the reins of the dragon-moose that was pulling the carriage.

“They insisted on giving me the most regal carriage, and also tried to supply their own riders, and so I just stole this one when they weren’t looking instead,” Tyne said, hopping off of the front of the carriage after she brought the animal to a halt. “I thought you’d want this one more, your grace.” She gestured back at the simple carriage behind her.

Zuko looked at it fully for a moment. There were no unneeded gold embellishments on the sides, it wasn’t a shocking red that popped out from everything else. It wasn’t overly large, either. Probably just the normal amount of room. He would guess maybe four people could fit in there if their elbows were touching. Instead, the carriage was dark brown wood, with deep maroon accents along the edges formed into the shape of small flames. He nodded. “I like it. Thanks, Tyne.”

Tyne grinned widely and bowed to him.

“Are three komodo rhinos enough?” Lee’s voice rang out through the courtyard. Zuko could see members of the staff looking out of the windows across the palace out of the corner of his eye, all of a sudden, but he ignored them in favor of turning to where Lee was coming from. Lee was holding the reins of three komodo rhinos out as if offering them.

“They should be,” Ming said. “Tyne, you control the carriage, Lee, you go in front of the carriage, and Anzo and I will flank the back. Keeli can sit with Tyne on the front of the carriage when she gets back.”

The others all nodded together. 

“What about Pim?” Zuko asked, furrowing his eyebrows and turning to Lee. “Is she coming?”

Lee nodded quickly. “She’s already on her way there. She went as soon as I asked her.”

Zuko shifted a bit in his seat and nodded. “Okay.” After a moment, he added, “Thanks.”

Lee’s face darkened a bit but he gave a smile and a small bow.

Ming and Lee placed him into the carriage as gently as possible.

“Is there anything you need, my Lord?” Ming asked from where she stood outside the carriage, holding the door.

Zuko’s dry throat screamed at him to speak, but he shook his head instead. “No, thank you, I’m all right.”

Ming moved a bit, her head turning to something he couldn’t see, and suddenly Keeli was there as well, returned from wherever she had been, holding a tray in front of her.

“I thought you may want this,” she said, placing one foot inside of the carriage to boost herself up a bit. She balanced the tray on one hand before reaching up and pulling at a red strap coming out of the wall across from Zuko. She pulled it down and a small table popped out, hanging down and settling above his knees. Keeli set down the tray and backed out of the carriage, bowing to Zuko before she stepped toward the front of the carriage and out of view. Ming gave him a bow as well before she closed the door. Zuko stared at the door for a moment before pulling the lock down into place. He did the same thing for the other door as well before settling back in his seat.

The food was light. He was grateful for that. There was a large container of water, with a lid on it to keep it from spilling when they were on the road, he was sure. For the food, there was simply a small bowl of pink berries, purple berries, and cherries. He tried them. The cherries were sweet, very sweet, but not as juicy as he would have expected. There was a little hole in the center, and it took him a moment to realize that cherries normally had pits inside it. These ones probably didn’t to make sure he didn’t choke. The pink berries were very juicy in comparison to the cherries. They were sweet enough, with a bitter aftertaste. The purple berries were a normal balance between the other two in terms of how much juice exploded across his tastebuds, but they were sour . They made his face scrunch up, but they were still good , so he ate them all. 

The water was a bit warm, which probably came from being out in the middle of the Fire Nation summer for some time. It didn’t matter to him, and Zuko drank maybe half of the water before covering it again and pushing it away.

A moment passed, and suddenly there was a rumbling, and then they were moving.

Zuko heard the gates open but couldn’t see where they were, only the shadows dancing with the light that flowed through the curtains.

They were moving away from the palace, and he could hear the gates shut behind them when there was another sound that joined the mix. The hum of people chattering to one another. Hushed whispers as the carriage and its entourage moved along the main road to where the airships supposedly were.

He picked up a few things as they went.

“ Who is that? ”

“ Is it the Fire Lord? ”

“ No, the Fire Lord’s carriage is fancier than that. ”

“ Could be him …”

“ He came down to our party last night instead of going to the ball. Maybe he doesn’t want fancy things .”

“ No, no, it’s definitely some other noble .”

“ The royal family uses palanquins, idiot .”

Zuko clenched his fist a bit before he pushed the small table that was hanging in front of him backward. It moved with him and he stopped it when it was above the seat across from him, no longer restricting his legs in any way. Then, he grabbed at the curtain to the left with his bony hand and wrenched it open.

There was a sudden onslaught of gasps followed by cheers and he shifted a bit to be closer to the opening and positioned his face right in the window. He heard people gasping his name and was shocked for a second that so many of these people were that happy to see him. Even when his father was Fire Lord and went through the streets for one reason or another, the cheers were always more polite. More professional. More forced . He was probably horrible at reading people and emotions right now (since the only person he had really talked to for the last few years was his father, and the only emotion he had known was pain . Was that an emotion? It had sure felt like it), but it really seemed like these people liked him. At least someone did.

Zuko watched the people seeming to form a line of their own that they wouldn’t cross. He supposed that they were all used to having to be pushing the boundaries of the concept of ‘in-line’ and, though he wished that his people felt like they could be themselves and be free around him, he felt happy that they were making this line on their own. It made him feel… at ease…

Zuko’s eyes spotted a child near the edge of the crowd, near where Lee must be riding in front of the carriage, staring at him in awe as he moved toward him. The child’s hair was dirty, and he was small for his age, Zuko was sure. Not starving (like Zuko probably was, honestly), but definitely underweight . The child clearly needed to eat more, but Zuko realized, with a start, that the child probably didn’t have enough money to.

Zuko’s right hand shifted around the seat while he waved lightly with his left, searching desperately for some extra leather to grip in his fingers, to take out the anger he had at the fact that there were people, children , going hungry right in the capital city .

Suddenly, his fingers felt something cold. A sort of rounded pentagon. He grabbed it and pulled it to his lap, looking down at it. It shined in the light flowing in from outside, glinting with gold. Gold . It was a gold piece . Only in a carriage for nobles would he find spare gold pieces just lying around . 

He tightened his fingers around the gold piece and looked back out. The child from before was almost right outside his window. He locked eyes with the child, turned to face the window fully, reached his arm out, and lightly tossed the gold piece to the child. Maybe the kid can at least get some food tonight, now.

The child caught it on instinct and looked down at it, his big eyes widening even more and a smile appearing on his face. He gave one of the sloppiest bows Zuko had ever seen before he fully disappeared from view.

Zuko remembered riding in these carriages a few times when he was younger. It had been the easiest way to transport him, Azula, and his mother to the barge they would take to get to that… island they went on vacation to every summer. What was it called? Burner Island… Fire Island… Ember Island… Ember Island , that was it! Ember Island… Sandy beaches, tropical trees, plays that were butchered every year, his mother laughing, running through the shallows of the ocean with his cousin, with his sister, his father smiling for some of the only times. Them being a family .

The carriages had… drawers, underneath the seats, full of expensive little knick-knacks, things that nobody needed, but were there just because nobles are rich and want to show it. Maybe there were things in the drawers in this one that he could give to a few people, people who looked like they needed it. He would fix the Fire Nation as soon as he could, but for now, he would do what he could to help a few people live until then .

He bent down and reached around under the seat, searching for a drawer to open. He found one and pulled it out. His shoulder still hurt. Inside, there were random iron screws and bolts. Things for repair. He shoved it closed and reached around for another. His fingers wrapped around another handle and he pulled it out. A random assortment of jewels. He furrowed his eyebrows. There was probably better. He pushed it closed and found one more. He pulled it open, and inside there was just a heap of gold. A pile of golden pieces shining innocently up at him. Zuko blinked and grabbed up a handful of them. Not many were able to really fit, and a few fell between his fingers and back into the drawer below, but he sat back up, his back cracking a bit as he did, and he winced at the sound as he settled back into his seat. 

Zuko shifted a bit and turned back toward the window. He took a gold piece in his free hand from the ones he had in his other and searched for someone who he thought really needed that gold.

He spotted someone who looked maybe a few years older than he was (or maybe they were his age, just healthier ). They were covered in dirt, their hair hung around their shoulders, and Zuko honestly couldn’t tell if they were a boy or a girl. Zuko flipped the coin around in his hand before he reached up and tossed it to the teen as he passed them. They looked stricken, but caught it nonetheless, and bowed to him as he passed, gaping as he moved on.

As they rode through the streets, Zuko continued tossing out gold pieces. One to a man, two to a woman and child, one to a boy, one to a girl, three to a husband and pregnant wife, one to a brother, one to a sister. 

By the time they left the city and the calls of the common folk faded, the drawer was over halfway empty, and there were dozens of people who weren’t going to go hungry tonight. That thought made him feel good. He would work on helping his people as soon as he could, but, for now, at least he could help a few .

Another maybe ten minutes passed, and Zuko spent the time finishing off the water and staring out the window at the passing area as they moved up and over the edge of the volcano.

Finally, they slowed to a halt. Zuko pulled the curtain closed and a moment later, there was a knock at the door. Zuko pulled the lock up and the door swung open to reveal Ming standing there. She bowed and mumbled, “My Lord.”

“Whoo, Agni, my butt is sore after that!” Lee exclaimed from where he was, in front of the carriage and out of view. Ming grimaced and her face grew red in embarrassment for her fellow guard.

“Sucks for you,” Tyne said from her position at the front of the carriage, also out of Zuko’s view. “This seat right here is real comfortable, if I do say so myself.”

“Well, isn’t that just wonderful for you .”

Tyne gasped, and even if he couldn’t see it, Zuko could tell it was overexaggerated. “ Thank you.”

“Shut it.”

“Lee,” Ming called sharply. She nodded toward Zuko and a moment later Lee appeared as well, looking a bit sheepish.

“Er, sorry, my Lord.”

Zuko shook his head. “It’s fine.”

Ming and Lee both lifted him out of the carriage and carried him around to where Anzo was unstrapping the wheelchair from the back of his komodo rhino.

“Here you are, your grace,” the man said, setting it down on the ground. Zuko gave him a nod of gratitude as Ming and Lee placed him into the wheelchair and Keeli came around from the front to take her place at the handles.

As they moved toward the airship, Zuko wondered how there could ever be ones bigger than this one. Apparently, though, there had been a whole fleet of larger ones, they had just all been destroyed during the comet.

There was a ramp waiting for them, and two guards stationed at the entrance.

The inside of the airship reminded Zuko of the inside of the barges that his family used to take to Ember Island. It was touched-up well inside, but when you moved through the main areas, you could still hear the mechanics of the ship moving behind the walls.

They moved to a lift and were brought up to the top deck, where the captain was waiting to take off.

“Greetings, your grace. It is an honor to meet you,” the captain said, bowing lowly when Keeli pushed him onto the bridge. “I’ve been told you wish to travel to the Boiling Rock?”

“Yes,” Zuko said, nodding. “How… How long should that take?”

“I’d estimate around two to three hours, at the most,” the captain responded quickly as if he had prepared for this. “We selected the fastest ship in the fleet for you, my Lord.”

“Thank you.” He turned to the people around him and asked, “Does anyone know what time it is now?”

“About thirty minutes past one, my Lord,” one of the men said from his position near a variety of controls.

“All right.” He strained his head to look at Keeli. “Is there anywhere private we can go?”

Keeli pushed him to a private study, following the directions of another one of the men on the bridge. 

The study was little more than a large room with a desk and a large window, but it would work. The four guards of their little group filed in after Keeli pushed him in and behind the desk. Lee shrugged off the bag Zuko hadn’t even realized he had been carrying and pulled out the stack of papers that had been on his desk in his office in the palace. Lee set the stack down in front of Zuko, just a little off to the side, and bowed before backing away.

“Thank you.”

They all seemed to take that as a sign to leave. They filed out and before Anzo shut the door, Zuko could see them already taking up positions outside of his door. He could have smiled at the care they seemed to have for him.

He turned down to the desk and pulled a paper down from the top of the stack. He had some work to do.

Zuko moved through the papers methodically. Pull one, read one, sign one (or don’t), push one, pull one. Thankfully, most of the work right now was just petty disputes between nobles that he couldn’t care less about if he tried. He imagined when he started issuing orders and decrees of his own, the work would start to get much more important, and also much harder . He wasn’t looking forward to that happening.

As he was reading through another document (what a surprise), there was a knock at the door. He knew that none of the guards would let someone past them unless they were sure he wouldn’t be in harm’s way, and he hadn’t heard a scuffle of any kind outside, so he called, “Come in.” His voice cracked painfully on the second word and he reached for the water Keeli had brought not ten minutes after he had started working.

“My Lord,” Anzo said, bowing and closing the door behind him. Zuko furrowed his eyebrows and swallowed the water before nodding to the guard.

“Anzo. What is it?”

“I just bring news, your grace,” Anzo replied. “The captain says we should arrive at the Boiling Rock in about ten minutes’ time.”

Zuko nodded. “Ten minutes, all right, sounds good. Thank you.” When Anzo didn’t move to leave, Zuko straightened a bit and looked the guard in the eyes. “What is it?”

Anzo, to his credit, didn’t shift uncomfortably like his companions often did when Zuko’s full attention was on them.

“Permission to speak freely, my Lord?”

Zuko nodded almost immediately. “Permission granted.”

Anzo’s eyes flicked to stare out the window for a moment before he opened his mouth and spoke. “I was stationed at the Boiling Rock for three years. Transferred about five years ago to the prison in the capital.” Zuko nodded along with the story. “I requested the transfer myself because… your Majesty, the Boiling Rock isn’t like what the stories say. It’s worse . People there are prisoners, so they are being rightfully punished, and it’s a good location that prevents escape, but half the time they are treated like less than dirt . Guards will provoke prisoners just to have an excuse to throw them in the cooler, to hurt them for a bit by cutting off their firebending.” Zuko felt something bubble up inside of him at that. He knew what it was like to not have firebending at your disposal (even if his was much more long-term than that of these prisoners). “I just… The workers there, especially the higher-ups and the warden, are very pandering to nobles who visit. And they’re really, really good at it. I just… I wanted to warn you so that you can see the Boiling Rock as it is, and not as this amazing high-security prison that the officials will want to make it seem.”

Zuko dwelled on this for a moment, processing Anzo’s words before he nodded slowly. Zuko managed to find his voice and breathed out, “Thank you.”

Anzo cracked a smile and bowed before leaving the room.

Not even a minute later, Keeli appeared as Zuko was signing the document he was on. Ming and Lee joined her, and then Pim showed up as well.

“My Lord,” she said, bowing as they all did when they entered the room. She had new clothes draped over her arm. “I brought you new clothes. Not necessarily formal or appearing in public as the all-powerful Fire Lord , but not business-casual either. A bit of both, actually.”

The maroon fabric was laced with golden accents on every edge, much different from the near-completely red clothes he had previously been wearing. The clothes, though, were still a top and bottom instead of a full robe, which Zuko was slightly grateful for because it got hot sitting in a formal robe while in a wheelchair.

Lee and Ming placed him in the wheelchair and Pim also re-did his topknot, still allowing some of his hair to fall down and frame his face. She nodded at him when she looked from the front and gave another bow. “I’ll patiently await your return, your grace.” Zuko swallowed. His throat was dry. He gave her a nod as Keeli pushed him from the room.

The trek up the side of the volcano to get to where the gondola was would probably have been much faster if Zuko could walk and Ming and Lee didn’t have to carry him in his wheelchair up the whole thing. They actually stopped and switched with Tyne and Anzo halfway through because they needed a break.

There was a guard waiting for them when they reached the gondola. The guard nodded and gestured them on before calling to his comrades on the other side and shutting the door.

The gondola was dreary and cold, despite the steam rising up from the boiling water below and the fact that it was a Fire Nation summer. Maybe it’s not the temperature that’s cold , he thought a drop of sweat fell down his face. Maybe it’s the gondola. There were people, countless people, who had taken this gondola to the island and never taken it back because they had died in that prison. And, sure, maybe some of them, maybe even most of them deserved it, but that didn’t make it feel any less wrong .

And then, suddenly, they were there. The gondola was slowing to a stop on the top of the worst prison in the world. The door opened and the guards of the Boiling Rock bowed to him as Keeli pushed him out, the other four of their little group following directly behind her in an orderly fashion.

A man wearing the warden’s headpiece approached him and bowed deeply.

“Fire Lord Zuko,” he said when he looked back up. “I’m sorry we don’t have anything really prepared for you. There’s been a lot going on. First, there’s the war, and then there’s the fact that I was just instated as the warden after my predecessor was discovered scheming to let one of the prisoners here out just because she’s his niece.” The man spat at the ground to the side, scowling, before he put on a calm smile again. “Nonetheless, let me be the first to welcome you to the Fire Nation’s most prestigious prison, The Boiling Rock. What is your business at our fine prison today?”

“War prisoners,” Zuko said after a moment of observing the man. “I received word that war prisoners were being held here. I’d like to see them.”

The warden looked taken aback but, to his credit, he recovered quickly. “Of course, your grace. There are only two war prisoners here.”

“Bring them somewhere where I can speak to them,” Zuko said finally. “Before that, I’d like to go look around the prison.”

“Of course,” the warden said. “I’ll call the very best of my officers to give you the grand tour-”

“Actually, I’d like to go on my own, if you don’t mind.”

The warden blinked at him before bowing his head. “But of course, your Majesty. The Boiling Rock is yours.”

“Thank you.” He thought for a moment before asking, “Where is that… niece of the previous warden?” If it was the niece of a warden of this prison, she had to be highborn. Zuko was very curious to find out what she had done to get locked in here .

The warden paused before replying, “Cell A4, East Wing.”

“Thank you.”

The guards parted as Keeli pushed him forward. Anzo moved to the front of their group to guide Zuko through the prison.

“What’s that way?” Zuko asked, pointing to a hallway that they passed.

“Those are the coolers,” Anzo said gravely. Zuko thought of the feeling of not being able to create fire, how horrible that feeling had been the first time he had felt it, and he shuddered. 

“Yeah, no, I don’t need to see those.”

A prisoner scowled at him as he moved by the moment they entered, and then saw his crown in his topknot and took a small step toward him only to be met with a sword at his throat from Ming and the threat of fire playing in Lee’s hand. The prisoner scurried away, and Zuko reached up to pull down his topknot, allowing the hair to fully fall around his head loosely. He tucked the crown away into a pocket in his shirt.

The people here looked miserable . Zuko wondered what they had done to deserve being treated this badly . He would have to change some things in prisons, too, then. Make them livable , make the people in there learn to be better instead of just making them suffer.

“Where’s that cell with the niece of the other warden?” Zuko asked Anzo after they had toured the entire prison and the prisoners were mostly out in the yard.

Anzo led them to a cell in what seemed to be a more private part of the prison. Zuko placed his hands on the wheels of the wheelchair before saying, “Keeli, I want you to let my wheel myself in. I don’t want anyone else in view. Just me at the girl.” At their protesting looks, he said, “I’ll be fine. You’ll all be there to jump in if need be. Just close the door behind me and listen in.”

They literally could not protest with him, so they all nodded and Keeli positioned him in front of the door before stepping away as well. Anzo pulled the door open after unlocking with the keys he had gotten from another guard earlier. Light filtered into the cell and Zuko steeled his resolve. He had survived Ozai . He could survive whoever this lady was . 

He wheeled himself in and the door slowly closed behind him.

In another life, he might not be able to see anything in this room, because the light from the window was very minimal, but his eyes adjusted immediately.

In the corner, there was a girl who looked much younger than he thought she would be . Maybe just a little older than he was? What had she done to get locked up in a place like this? Then again, he had gotten locked up in a place worse than this for much less, he was sure, so anything was possible .

She looked well-fed, and he realized that, from what he had seen with the other prisoners, they were all well-fed. Well, at least this place was getting something right.

“Who are you and what do you want with me?”

All right, then, getting straight to the point. 

The girl stood up from where she had been in the corner, and leaned against the wall, looking down at him from across the room and not even hiding that she was unimpressed.

Her hair was dark and shiny, with long strands in front and bangs that all came together to frame her face nicely. She carried herself as if she would rather be anywhere but here talking to him . If you could call it talking . She acted like she didn’t care .

Then, suddenly, she locked eyes with him and opened her mouth to speak again, and everything just fell into place .

He remembered a little girl playing with his sister. An apple on her head. Then, fire was there instead. He remembered this blinding fear for a split second as he tackled her into the fountain. He was on top of her, and Azula was laughing, and the other girl was laughing, and the girl beneath him was scowling. His face was red, and her face was red, and they were both dripping wet as he stormed off. Girls are crazy…

“I said, who are you and what do you want with me?”

It was more of a demand than a question.

Zuko felt his heart pounding, and it sort of hurt , and his throat was dry and his mouth was dry and his mind was dry because he couldn’t remember her name .

He thought of smirks across a courtyard, of denial, of burning apples and laughing sisters, and of a time when he could say that he might have actually been happy , and it clicked.

She went to speak one more time, her face scrunched up with irritation, but he managed to find his voice and speak.

“ Mai? ”

Chapter Text

Keeli had been six when she first stepped into the royal palace, clutching her mother’s hand tightly as she accompanied the woman to work for the day. She remembered being completely blown away by the entire thing. Reds swirled together in the walls, golden dragons winding around pillars, their glittering ruby eyes seeming to stare into her soul. Her mother had tightened her grip on Keeli’s hand and led her away.

When Keeli was ten, she was in the palace with her mother again when there was sudden chaos. People were yelling, running up and down corridors, and Keeli’s mother had pulled her away to the quarters for those servants that lived in the palace. The chaos hadn’t calmed down by night, and so they stayed there, Keeli drifting in and out of consciousness until day broke. Then, news spread through the palace that Princess Ursa, wife of Prince Ozai, had given birth to a son and that the child’s spark was small when he was born. The baby had been strong enough, but early , and his inner fire was dim, they claimed. If he lived through the first month on his own, there was a suspicion that Prince Ozai would end the child himself. It would be easy to make it look like an accident when the child was so young.

Keeli had cried into her mother’s chest that night as her mother tucked her in, before turning to the setting sun, letting the rays fall over her face as she prayed to Agni to let the royal baby live. She had never seen a royal baby before, and she wanted him to live long enough for her to get the chance.

Maybe Agni had heard her prayer because one month later, the baby was bathed in the light of Agni in front of the gathering of nobles, the common folk gathered outside, and Keeli with her mother inside of the palace, cleaning the floors and straining to see the event. She listened as the Fire Sage called out to the crowd, saying a weird bumble of words that she hadn’t really processed before she watched him raise the quiet boy up into the sunlight and call out, “ Prince Zuko .”

Her mother had rapped her on the hand when she cheered with the crowd. Now, Keeli understood why. The palace was a dangerous place to be. Best not to draw attention.

Keeli had been twelve the first time she had met the Crown Prince’s son, Prince Lu Ten. She had been off in the palace cleaning the floors alone (while her mother worked in the royal quarters) when she had heard the whistling from the other end of the corridor.

A random melody that Keeli recognized from the festival a few months ago to celebrate Prince Zuko’s birth and naming filled the hall, bouncing off the walls and swelling in her soul.

Keeli fought to not freeze and look up. Anyone moving through these corridors with such ease was most definitely someone of high standing.

Then, suddenly, as they were nearing her, the footsteps stopped. The whistling stopped.

“Whoa, you’re young .”

Keeli had looked up involuntarily before immediately dropping her eyes again, scrubbing at the floor harder than before.

“How old are you? Five?”

The voice hadn’t gone through puberty, it cracked, and Keeli had retorted without thinking, “You’re not exactly an old master yourself,” she had said before her eyes had widened as she realized who she was talking to and adding on hastily, “My Prince.”

There had been silence, and the movement of Keeli’s hands had stopped as her thoughts took over the majority of her.

Then, suddenly, the prince had laughed. It was such a loud, joyful sound that Keeli had begun to join him, their laughs spinning through the air in a boisterous harmony.

“You’re funny,” Prince Lu Ten had said when they both had calmed. “What’s your name?”

“Keeli, my Prince,” Keeli had replied, scrambling to her feet, her scrubber forgotten.

The prince had grinned. “I’m Lu Ten. Nice to meet you, Keeli.” 

Keeli had cracked a smile and nodded before bowing lowly. A moment passed before Lu Ten did the same, though not quite as low.

The two had grinned at each other when they rose, and Lu Ten had stayed with her while she worked that day.

And thus began one of the world’s most unusual friendships.

When Keeli was thirteen, she was officially signed in to work at the royal palace. She got full wages (which still weren’t that much, but it was more than when she had worked under-the-table cleaning floors), and it was great because her father had gotten injured recently and wasn’t able to work. It was hard to do manual labor when your foot was turning the wrong way. So, at least until he healed (which was going to take months), Keeli and her mother were her family’s only sources of income. Keeli and her mother, working day and night to feed themselves, her father, and her four siblings.

Keeli had worked every day, and almost every day she had seen Prince Lu Ten.

They would talk together, and they never got in trouble, so they kept talking. Lu Ten would talk about his favorite and least favorite part s about being a prince. He would talk about how his uncle scared him, and his father loved him, and his aunt was kind to him. He spoke of his cousin Prince Zuko, and how the little boy seemed to stick to his mother like a lifeline. He spoke of his other cousin, the recently-born Princess Azula, who had lit her curtain on fire three weeks after coming into the world, and who he was worried for, because she already had his uncle’s favor.

In turn, Keeli would speak of her own family. She would speak of her calm father, whose hands were rough when he worked but soft when he came home and embraced her. She would speak of her mother, who was so hard, but who loved them all so fiercely. She would speak of her younger brother by five years, who would roll in the dirt one minute and then sweep through the house on a cleaning spree in the next. She would speak of her other younger brothers by six years, the twins, one of whom loved to paint and the other of which could carve little statues from anything and make them look professional. She would speak of her younger sister by four years, who skipped through the streets in the day, making mischief, and then weaved words into stories in the night, turning into a scholar of a sort.

They had spoken of other things too, of course, but those were the ones most present in her mind now.

When Keeli was fourteen, she had met Crown Prince Iroh, Lu Ten’s father.

“There she is, father,” Lu Ten had said, his voice echoing through the empty corridor as he had finally found Keeli that day. “Father, this is my friend, Keeli. Keeli, this is my father, Crown Prince Iroh.”

“She knows who I am, son,” Iroh had said, sending a calm smile Lu Ten’s way. Keeli stared into the crown prince’s eyes as he looked at his son and saw the love bubbling behind them.

“It’s an honor to meet you, my Prince,” Keeli had said, bowing lowly.

Iroh had turned to her and given her a nod. “Any friend of Lu Ten is a friend of mine,” Iroh had said. Then, in an act that she was sure broke all sorts of rules, Iroh had taken a step forward and wrapped her up in an embrace, pulling his son in as well, to where Keeli’s face was less than a foot from Lu Ten’s, and she could feel his breath on her skin until they were released.

Six months after that, Keeli met Iroh for the second time. Alone. No Lu Ten in sight.

“Ah, Miss Keeli,” Iroh had said.

“My Prince,” she had greeted, dipping into a bow, the broom clutched in her hand.

“Oh, no, nothing of that, there’s no one here but us,” he had said. “Walk with me?”

“Of course, my Prince,” she had said, moving to his side. She made sure not to move in front of him, staying just a few inches behind him.

“So, how long have you known my son?” 

Well, at least he was cutting right to the chase. No cushioning questions like, “What’s your favorite color?” or, “How’s your family?”

“I’ve known him about a year-and-a-half, my Prince.”

Iroh had nodded slowly, seeming to take this in, and suddenly Keeli realized that he might already have known that.

“My son considers you a friend, did you know that?”

Keeli almost shook her head before thinking for a moment and then nodding slowly. “I did, my Prince.”

“He’s rejected every playmate ever brought in for him. Every noble child we could find. He rejected all of them, whether outright or through ignoring them. Every noble child was rejected, yet you, a peasant girl, have found a friend in him.”

Keeli’s face had gone warm. She hadn’t known that.

“Would you like me to… stop, my Prince?”

Iroh had shaken his head quickly. “No, no need to do that. I just want to tell you something.” He had stopped and turned to her and Keeli had tightened her grip on her broom as she took a risk and looked up into his eyes. He didn’t scream or slap her, so she kept her gaze steady with his.

“Yes, my Prince?”

“Friendship is a precious thing. Keep it close to your heart. My son is the most precious thing in the world to me, and the only piece of my wife left in the world, too. He may not seem it, but when it comes to the big things, he’s a fragile boy. He’s never had a real friend. Don’t break that.”

Keeli had found herself nodding. Iroh had given her a smile, though there was now more weight behind it. He had patted her on the shoulder once before turning and walking away. She had watched him until he disappeared around a corner and moved out of view.

That had been the day that Keeli realized, as she spoke to Lu Ten later, that he was the first friend she had ever had as well.

She had cherished their friendship more since that conversation she had had with his father. It had unlocked something inside of her and she had made sure to commit every moment they spent together to memory, because one day he was going to be Fire Lord, and she was just going to be another servant, and these days were going to end.

Keeli remembered most vividly the day she had finally admitted these thoughts to her best (only) friend, as they sat on the railing of his balcony, looking out at the city while she was supposed to be cleaning the room behind them. The city had been having some sort of party, but Keeli had been forced to work, and so the two friends had taken to looking out at the muffled festivities going on down in the streets

Keeli had been so immersed in the flickering lights of the city as she spoke that she hadn’t realized she was crying until he had placed a hand on hers and squeezed it to provide the most comfort he could.

“Do you ever think about it?” She had asked, looking out at the city still, but moving her hand to take his in hers and squeezing back. “How one day all of this is going to end, and you’re going to be the Crown Prince, and then the Fire Lord , and you’re gonna marry some princess, and I’m gonna be a servant for the rest of my life, trying to keep my family alive, and we’re not going to even look at each other anymore, and these days are going to end and-”

She had been cut off by him placing a hand on the side of her face turned away from him. He had turned her toward her, and pulled her a bit closer, and pressed his lips against hers as fireworks exploded in the background, their colors lighting up the night sky.

Keeli sometimes wondered what would have been different for her if she had managed to not fall in love with Prince Lu Ten of the Fire Nation.

Maybe her life wouldn’t have ended up being as painful.

When Keeli was eighteen and Lu Ten was nineteen, he had followed his father off to war. 

“We’re gonna take Ba Sing Se,” he had told her as the two of them sat on the floor of an abandoned corridor.

“But that city hasn’t fallen in a century of war. What makes you think that it’ll fall now?”

Lu Ten had frowned. “Cause this time my father is leading us. He’s one of the best generals in history. Trust me, one day you’ll read about him in all of your history books at home!”

Keeli had flushed and the topic had changed as she reminded him, “I can’t read, Lu.”

His face had turned red and he had smiled softly and patted her on the shoulder. “I’ll help you one day, I promise. As soon as I come back from war, as soon as the war is won, I’ll teach you every day until you get it.”

Keeli had cracked a smile in return and nodded. “All right, sounds good.” She had stayed silent for a moment before asking, “When are you leaving?”

“Half a month.”

Keeli had taken in a shaky breath. “All right. All right.” She turned to him. “You better get back fast.”

He had chuckled. “I will.”

The day he had been to leave, he had been waiting at their normal meeting spot when she got there. He had been pacing up and down the hallway when she approached.

“Keeli,” he had breathed out when he spotted her, meeting her halfway.

“Hi, Lu,” she had murmured.

They had stayed there together for as long as they dared before Lu Ten said, “I need to go.”

She had nodded into his chest before turning her head to look up at him. “Promise you’ll come back soon, all right? Promise me , Lu Ten.”

Lu Ten had chuckled and nodded. “I promise.”

“I’m serious , Lu Ten.”

He had stopped his laugh and looked down at her, his eyes steely with resolve as he clutched her hand in his and squeezed it. “I promise .”

She hadn’t been afraid then, because he had never broken his promises before.

It turned out that the most important one was the one he ended up not keeping.

He hadn’t come back.

When Prince Iroh returned two years later, she had tried to speak with him about Lu Ten, but he was lost. He looked as lost as Keeli felt. She knew that she shouldn’t feel like he had it worse than Iroh. He had lost his son , but he had had more years with Lu Ten. Keeli hadn’t had half of her life, and Iroh had been with Lu Ten since the beginning. She just wanted to talk about him with someone. But then, suddenly, Fire Lord Azulon was dead, and Prince Ozai was crowned Fire Lord instead of Prince Iroh, and Prince Iroh was leaving a year later to go on some sort of Spirit Journey that he never returned to the Fire Nation from.

Keeli had been twenty-four years old when she had been summoned by Fire Lord Ozai.

Servants like her were never summoned individually to the Fire Lord, especially if they had never spoken with him before, but she had no other choice.

The guards had escorted her inside and stayed there, and she could feel their steady breathing on her neck as she bowed as low as she possibly could to the Fire Lord behind the roaring flames.

“Rise,” the deep voice above her said. She slowly rose from the bow and trained her eyes on the flames, making sure not to accidentally make eye contact with the man sitting behind the fire. He addressed the guards when he said, “Leave.”

Fire Lord Ozai had gone onto explain that she was to serve his son (the one who was recently banished) before explaining that Prince Zuko was not banished. He was imprisoned . 

He told her she would carry on with her usual duties and would only feed the prince a certain amount once a week, and she would give him water every other day. There was another food server to serve him one other time during the week. The first time she would go to give the prince food, one of the guards would come to get her to bring her to where he was being held so that she knew how to get there.

Keeli had gathered up the food that had been instructed to give the boy the next morning, the first day she had to give him food. A male guard appeared as she was measuring out the rice.

“Keeli, right?” He asked, his voice echoing through the empty room. Keeli had jumped a bit and nodded. He had cracked a smile. “Cool. I’m Lee.”

“You’re here to… take me wherever I’m supposed to go?”

Lee nodded and the smile fell away. “I am.”

She grabbed the tray and followed him out the door.

“Just to let you know, you’re not allowed to complain about him. Or say anything else about him to anyone . We’ve already lost one blabby-mouth guard in the four days we’ve been guarding him,” Lee explained. “It’s… It’s bad, but you can’t say anything about it, got it? If not for yourself, then for your family.”

Keeli had felt dread settle in her stomach and nodded.

They had gone through a random door in a random hallway and the door had opened to reveal a stone hallway with cold stone stairs and flickering torches that didn’t seem to make anything warmer.

Finally, they made it to the end of the long hallway and made it to a door. There was a female guard there. Ming , her mind had supplied, remembering the name Lee had mentioned on their way down the stone stairs.

Ming had nodded to her and Lee and moved to unlock and pull the cell door open. The two guards fell into place as Keeli stepped forward, making sure that the tray didn’t tremble in her hands. 

The door slid shut and there were the cell bars in front of her that separated her from the tiny figure in the cell. Actually, Prince Zuko hadn’t lost any weight yet. He was wearing prison rags instead of the regal clothes she was used to seeing him in. For once, he truly looked his age. He didn’t look like a prince who was arrogant, but innocent, and kind, and, good , and who complimented servants on their hair once in a while, and who wanted to become a good Fire Lord, and who had defended new recruits against his father, and who had paid the price .

Keeli’s fist had tightened when she saw the burn marks on his face. She remembered the Fire Lord telling her to figure out some way to treat it. Ozai hadn’t wanted his son to die of infection so soon.

Keeli had pulled out the key Lee had handed her, unlocking the door and kneeling to place the tray of food down.

The boy had watched her as she placed the food down. He had looked up at her when she straightened up again.

“What is this?” he had asked.

She had tightened her lips and nodded to the food.

“Food?” His eyes had moved to the rice and chicken. She had nodded.

She had watched the prince as he greedily ate his tiny portion and gulped down the water. She had prayed to Agni that he wasn’t so unconditioned to food already that she threw it up as she had seen with people starving on the streets of the city.

He hadn’t, thankfully.

She had taken the tray and empty containers away, studying his burn with her eyes one more time before deciding to look for cures or salves for intense burns in her grandmother’s old book. She could ask her husband to tell her what she needed. At least he was able to read. She had nodded to the imprisoned prince before locking the cell again and knocking twice on the door. It had slid open to let her out. She had never moved so fast as she did then to get back into the regular palace, away from this hellhole.

Keeli still came back every day. One day, while she had been moving down to deliver some water for that day, she had heard screaming, followed by sobbing, followed by more screaming. She had heard a mix of words like “ sun ” “ can’t ” “ where ” and “ feel ”. She had increased her pace and walked to an open door to the cell. She had strolled in to see Anzo and Tyne, the two other guards, holding the prince down as he thrashed around. Keeli had watched in horror for a moment before toward Tyne and leaning down so the guard could whisper in her ear. Tyne had explained that the prince had lost his connection to the sun after so many days in here, in the cold, in the dark, without the sun. Keeli had winced. She wasn’t a firebender, but she knew people who were, and she was sure that it must hurt to feel such a strong connection severed.

She had handed the water to Anzo who placed it on the floor a few feet away while she had moved around Tyne to be by the sobbing boy’s head.

His eyes had been glazed over in pain and fear, and he didn’t seem to really register her presence as she pulled his head onto her lap. Though he would never remember it, Keeli sang to him that night, for hours on end, until he drifted into unconsciousness. She had reached through her mind for every song she had ever heard as she sang melodies of her childhood.

She sang of rainbows and colors splashing over clouds in sunsets. She sang of heartbeats and quiet nights and fair maidens waiting to be whisked away. She sang of cold nights and warm embraces and forbidden loves. She sang of flowers in bloom and moonlit fields and sparkling oceans and she sang of cold stones and sad smiles and new dawns on the horizon. She sang of fathers, of mothers, of sisters, of brothers, of families lost and families found, and she sang of a little prince who just wanted to do what was right, and she sang of what it had cost him. She sang of that little prince until the little prince below her stilled into unconsciousness.

Keeli had met her husband when she was younger, but she hadn’t seen him for a long time.

She hadn’t thought that she would ever be able to love again after Lu Ten, she would leave the continuation of the family to her four siblings, she was never going to love again.

Then, one day, when she was twenty-two, about a month after Prince Iroh had left, Keeli had been down by the harbor, looking through the market for better deals than in the center of the capital city, when she heard a voice from a nearby ship.

“Off with you, then, off! I’ve half a mind to report you! You’re lucky I’m in a good mood, boy , I’m normally not so kind to stowaways.”

She had watched out of the corner of her eye as the captain of a ship tossed a young man off onto the docks. She had clicked her tongue in disappointment at the stowaway, but she had softened when she saw the scars he sported across his face. He was clearly a soldier or had at least seen some sort of battle . She had sighed at the pity growing in her heart for the man as she moved closer.

“You need some help?” She has asked, extending a hand to help him up.

He had turned to her and blinked as if he was looking at someone else instead of a stranger. She had raised an eyebrow.

“I’m not gonna hold my hand out forever, you know.”

He had nodded and grabbed the hand, accepting her help as she pulled him up. He was taller than her when he fully stood up.

She had looked up at his face for real this time and quickly scanned it. He had a long scar right over one of his eyes, so he must be half-blind. His hair was cut close-cropped. He had quite a few injuries that looked like they hadn’t healed right. She could have scowled.

She had realized then that he was still holding her hand. She had gone to take it away when he tightened his grip on her and pulled her away and into a nearby alley.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” She had cried, wrenching her hand away from him. She had moved to run but he grabbed her arm. She had stopped and whirled around to look at him. “What do you want?!”

His lips had moved wordlessly, uselessly, for a moment, before his face had fallen even more and he had whispered out, hope filling his voice, “ Keeli? ”

She had stopped struggling completely, choosing to stand in shock instead because he knew her name .

“How do you know my name?”

He had smiled at her as if he had not heard her venomous words and reached up to brush a strand of hair behind her ear. She hadn’t moved.

He had let out a small, breathy laugh. “I’m sorry I…” His words failed him, and his golden eyes met hers and he sighed, the smile still playing on his lips as he took a deep breath and said, “I know it took a while, I didn’t come back soon , but I came back. I promised , and I never break a promise.”

She had frozen because there was only one person that this could be. She had reached up and cupped his cheek, tears threatening to spill over. Then, after a long moment, she had breathed out, “ Lu Ten? ”

He had laughed wetly, nodding into her hand. She had felt her heart stop and she was laughing now too, and she was crying now too, and they were both giggly, sobbing messes.

“I don’t understand, they said you died, Lu, you died .”

He had shrugged and spread his arms. “Guess I didn’t.”

She had taken him back to her tiny house and they had sat on her bed together, side-by-side, talking.

“What happened?” She had asked, tracing a finger over the long scar running over his right eye.

“My uncle,” Lu Ten had replied bitterly. “He tried to have me killed. During the battle, like ten assassins came at me, dressed as Earth Kingdom, but wearing the family crest and bending fire. He wanted to be Fire Lord, and I was in the way, so he tried to have me killed. I… I can’t see out of this eye, now, and my hearing in my left ear is half gone. Not all the way, but enough to where it gets annoying. Half of my shit never fully healed, and my shoulder always hurts, and it all just… sucks…”

“Does it hurt?” She had asked, hesitating with the finger moving on his scar.

“Not when you touch it.”

She had continued.

“Why don’t you announce that you’re alive?” She had asked.

He had shaken his head. “My uncle is already Fire Lord. He has even more power than before. He’ll just have me killed. My father is nowhere to be found. And… I never even wanted to be Fire Lord, anyway. It’s kind of nice that I don’t have to be that anymore.”

“What… What do you want?” Keeli had asked, meeting his eyes.

He had placed a hand on hers and squeezed. “You.”

Keeli had married ex-Prince-who-was-now-in-hiding Lu Ten in front of her family and her closest friends about six months later. Then, a year after that, she had given birth to twins, a boy, and a girl, Kobe and Zara.

The day that Keeli had first seen the state that Prince Zuko was in now in his new… conditions… she had gone home and told her husband immediately.

He had flipped right out.

“ I’m going to kill him, Keeli, I’m going to kill the Fire Lord ,” he had growled out, trying to push past her as Keeli desperately held him back.

“Lu, no, stop , think of the kids, think of the kids .”

He had hesitated, and she had managed to push him back into a chair. She had moved behind him and played with his hair, which was still in the close-cropped style after Lu Ten had decided he liked it more this way.

“One day, darling, one day, and, trust me, I hate it too, I do, I do, but he’s the most powerful man in the world, both in terms of power and in terms of politics. You know this. You’re the one who told me these things.”

He had nodded slowly, a scowl still on his face.

“Just… if this was right when you had returned, maybe it would be different, but now we’ve got the kids, too.”

Lu Ten had stiffened and nodded. “You’re right,” he had said after a moment. “Obviously.”

“One day, I promise. One day.”

That day had come when Prince Zuko was crowned Fire Lord over three years later. Keeli had managed to spot Lu Ten (who went under the guise, Lu Lee) lifting Kobe and Zara up so that they could see. They waved to her, and she resisted waving back as a sixteen-year-old who had seen horrors worse than any of them slowly struggled to his feet and stood to face his nation.

That night, as the festivities of the party in the streets finally died down, Keeli’s children requested a song for bed. She took a seat on the edge of their bed in the main room of the house as Lu Ten sat on one of the chairs around the table, listening closely as she began to sing.

She sang of rainbows and colors splashing over clouds in sunsets. She sang of heartbeats and quiet nights and fair maidens waiting to be whisked away. She sang of cold nights and warm embraces and forbidden loves. She sang of flowers in bloom and moonlit fields and sparkling oceans and she sang of cold stones and sad smiles and new dawns on the horizon. She sang of fathers, of mothers, of sisters, of brothers, of families lost and families found, and she sang of a little prince who just wanted to do what was right, and she sang of what it had cost him. She sang of that little prince until her own little prince and princess below her stilled into unconsciousness.

She sang of that little prince as a boy struggled to fall asleep in lonely quarters in the palace.

She sang of that little prince as her eyes were on her husband, his amber eyes staring out the window at the sparkling palace in the distance.

She sang of that little prince until the noises of the streets died down, leaving only her voice to blend with the night air and lull the world to sleep.

Chapter Text

She was on her feet in less than a second, her eyes gleaming through her narrow lids as she glared at him. “How do you know my name?”

Zuko didn’t process her question, instead simply letting out a small breathy laugh (the only kind that didn’t make his throat explode in aches) and whispering, “ Mai .”

“Listen, I don’t know why you’re here, but I’m not telling you anything. I don’t know where the Avatar is, I wasn’t working with him, end of story. So, I suggest you get out,” she growled, clenching her fists and taking a step into the light. The small bit streaming from the window gave her a menacing silhouette that reminded Zuko strikingly of someone else that he knew. He turned his eyes down and away from her and tried to force the image of his father from his mind. He wouldn’t cry, he wouldn’t break down, not here, not now. He saw her feet move a bit and when he looked back up, she was out of the light again.

The image of his father was gone. For now.

“ Leave ,” she hissed.

Zuko stared at her and took in her appearance for a moment, not really hearing her words.

She had the same kind of gleam in her eye that he remembered from his childhood, but everything else had changed. Her dark… aura… was about the same, sure, but the rest of her had shifted. 

When he had known her, there had still been that air of childhood innocence, the kinda that they had all had back then before war and treachery had touched the very core of the royal family. She had seen the world, the real world, not the sheltered one they had grown up in. He could tell from the way her eyes seemed darker, the way that they had been touched by the cut-throat nature of the war that had been waged. He recognized the darkness because he had seen an even worse case of it in himself when he looked in the mirror that morning. Different cause, same result, though one was worse than the other (obviously, he remarked to himself bitterly).

 It was strange to replace his last memory of Mai with this version. She was so much older. She was pretty, he had to admit, but after everything that had happened, a childhood crush that he may have once harbored wasn’t there anymore. Not much from his childhood at all was there anymore.

Zuko wet his lips as best he could and as Mai opened her mouth to speak, he did instead, his scratchy voice filling the room.

“When you were a kid,” he began, trying not to wince at how hoarse his voice was. He was suddenly very aware of the fact. “When you were a kid, you were friends with Princess Azula.”

Mai raised an eyebrow and leaned back against the wall, no longer two seconds from attacking him, but not off guard all the same. She didn’t need to be on-guard, anyway. It wasn’t like he could do anything. He couldn’t even stand . “Where are you going with this?”

He ignored her and continued. “You played with her in the courtyard sometimes, with another girl. And then, sometimes, her brother would show up. He would walk with his mother, and the princess would call him over and he’d be forced to play with you.”

Mai was watching him with such a calculating gaze, it was scary. 

His childhood was all a blur right now. He hadn’t thought about it much while imprisoned, and the memories had faded a bit, so he latched onto the clearest one he had of Mai.

“One day, you were playing and the princess called her brother over.” Zuko paused. “He… He didn’t want to play, but his mother forced him to. The princess… The princess put an apple on your head and then caught it on fire, and her brother… her brother thought it was going to burn you, so he… he tackled you into the fountain…”

Mai’s eyes widened for a split-second before going back to neutral, and if he was focusing on her more than on the memory, he might have seen the gears turning in her head. 

“And… and he was on top of you, and the apple was there in the water, and it wasn’t on fire anymore, and the princess and the other girl were laughing at you two, and the brother got up and left because…” He took in a shaky breath and snapped out of the memory enough to move his gaze to meet hers. “Because… Because girls are crazy…”

Mai stared at him for a long moment before her guard seemed to drop. Her face fell and she asked weakly, for once looking as young as she actually was, “ Zuko? ”

He nodded as best as he could and waved his hand, fighting for it to stay strong and actually move when he wanted it to. “Hi, Mai.”

She took a small step forward, and it looked almost involuntary. “Oh, Agni, Zuko .” She paused and asked carefully, her tone suddenly hard, “Where were you?”

He blinked. “What do you mean?”

“For the past three years, where were you?” Her gaze was cold all of a sudden. She had recovered from the shock of seeing him pretty quickly, then.

“What, Azula didn’t tell you?” He asked, furrowing his eyebrows. He would have thought his sister would have excitedly told her friends how her traitor brother was being tortured by their father, paying for his crimes each and every day.

Mai shook her head. “I asked her about you. She didn’t know where you were either. She didn’t believe your father when he said you were just being raised in a secure location, but she never got your exact situation out of him.”

Zuko’s mouth was dry, and he was acutely aware of it all of a sudden. “She didn’t… She didn’t know? ”

Mai nodded. “No one did.” She sighed, and her shoulders sagged a bit before she crossed her arms. “Why are you here?”

Zuko reached inside of his robe and carefully pulled out his crown. He held it into the light and saw the recognition flash in her eyes.

“Oh, I see,” she said, her voice bitter. “I see how it is. You’re finally back, and you’re the Fire Lord now, and you’re here to, what, annoy me out of existence in place of Azula while she and your father are off burning the rest of the world to death. Very funny, I’ve gotta say. I’m laughing-” She took a menacing step forward- “Can’t you tell?”

Zuko stared up at her from his wheelchair before averting his eyes to his feet and saying, “That’s not why I’m here.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Then tell me, oh wise and powerful Fire Lord, why are you here?”

“War prisoners,” he said after a moment. “I heard some were being held here. I came to see them. I didn’t…” His voice faltered for a moment. “I didn’t know you were here.”

“War prisoners?” She snorted. “All right, sure, say I believe you. Why is the Fire Lord bothering with war prisoners when the war is already won?”

“I…” He searched for the words. “Mai, the war is over .”

“Obviously.”

“What I mean is that… that…” This was hard to explain, apparently. “The Avatar beat Azula and my… my father… during Sozin’s Comet, and then I took the throne, and the Fire Nation is backing out of the war.” He dared to look into her eyes, and she wasn’t even trying to hide the shock. “The war is over ,” he said firmly.

“The war is over,” she repeated weakly. She tugged on a lock of her hair and twirled it lazily around a finger. “ Over .” She looked up at him. “ That must have gotten a lot of points for you in the world, huh?”

He shook his head. Maybe, in another life, he would have laughed, but that wasn’t going to happen here. He wondered, still, if he would ever be happy enough to laugh again. He hoped soon. He didn’t really remember what it felt like to laugh, but he knew he liked it. “Not really,” he replied, breaking out of his thoughts. “No, the world kinda hates all of us, still.”

She shrugged. “The world’s stupid.”

“Well, I mean, we did start a war that went on for a hundred years,” Zuko said.

Mai’s lips pressed into a thin line. “ We didn’t start anything.” Her gaze turned back to him again. “Zuko, where were you for the last three years?”

Zuko tightened his grip on the handles of his wheelchair. His eyes stung a bit and he shook his head. “I don’t… I don’t…” His thoughts flashed to when he had told the truth to Pim earlier this same day, and wondered why it was so much harder to talk to Mai about it. Maybe because he knew Mai from the Before. “I can’t …”

Mai’s eyes were on him, but after a moment her voice rang out into the room as she said, “Okay.”

Zuko’s shoulders untensed from a position he hadn’t even realized they were in in the first place.

“How did you get in here, Mai?” Zuko asked after a moment.

Mai chuckled dryly. “Betrayed Azula.”

He nearly choked. “You betrayed Azula? ”

“Me and Ty Lee, yeah,” she nodded. 

“But…” He thought back to what he remembered of his sister the last time he had seen her. “But Azula’s so scary .”

“She got even scarier .”

Zuko shivered at her words. 

There was a pause before he spoke again. “What did you… What did you do , exactly?”

Mai was silent, and Zuko thought for a moment that she wasn’t going to respond at all. Maybe she hadn’t even heard him. But, then, she spoke again.

“When we were tracking your uncle in the Earth Kingdom-” She glazed right over it, but Zuko’s mind blipped at the mention of his uncle. He only had one of those, Uncle Iroh, who he hadn’t seen since he was eleven or twelve, was chased by Azula and her friends across the Earth Kingdom? Nobody had mentioned his uncle since he had gotten out the day before ( Agni, had it really only been one day? ). Mai kept talking, and Zuko snapped out of his own head to listen- “Ty Lee and I got separated from Azula. We had a plan if it ever happened, of course, Azula always has a plan. We would meet her at the drill in Ba Sing Se.” The drill? What was she talking about? There was a lot that Zuko still needed to be filled in on, apparently. Maybe Mai could help with that. 

“While we were traveling, we met a lot of people. We weren’t traveling under the… best conditions, per se, so we relied a lot on the weakness, ahem -” She coughed and changed the word- “ Kindness of others.” She paused for a moment, seeming to gather her bearings before she continued. “When we met back up with Azula in Ba Sing Se, everything seemed to go back to normal for a while, but then…” She hesitated. “We accompanied Azula on a visit here, to the Boiling Rock, because she was desperate to get more information out of one of the war prisoners they have here. She revealed while she was talking to the prisoner that she and Fire Lord Ozai were planning on burning down the Earth Kingdom with the comet. We thought… We thought she was joking . The prisoner did too, Azula got nothing out of her.”

Mai wet her lips and Zuko realized then that his finger was hitting the wood of the wheelchair handle repeatedly as he listened to her story.

“When we were leaving, Ty Lee asked Azula about it. She asked if Azula was lying. Azula said she wasn’t, and she wasn’t lying . Ty Lee… Ty Lee begged her to not burn everything , because she always cared about the people we met there more than I did. She had made friends, and I guess she couldn’t let them burn to death or something.” Mai shook her head. “She’s always been too nice for her own good.”

Zuko would have nodded had he not been so focused on her words.

“Azula said that Ty Lee was foolish. She was childish. She said that they had to burn everything, they had to, and that crying about it wasn’t going to help, but Ty Lee wouldn’t stop , she wouldn’t shut up .

“Azula… turned to me and asked me what I thought, and…” Mai turned away from him, staring at the cracks in the wall instead for a moment before her shoulders shifted down a bit and she continued. “I don’t know, I don’t know why I said it, I don’t know why I was so stupid , but I just…” She shrugged. “I guess I told her what I thought . Azula moved toward me and Ty Lee and I went at her at the same time, and then she was on the ground with a knife holding her wrists down by the fabric around them and totally chi-blocked. Then, well, then there were guards everywhere and we landed here.”

Zuko blinked and his eyes stopped stinging so badly. “Ty Lee… is she here too?”

“Yeah. At least, I think she is,” Mai said. “I haven’t really been let out since being put in here, but I would assume she would’ve locked Ty Lee in here, too.”

There was a wave of silence that fell over them, and Zuko observed Mai as she stared up at the stream billowing into the sky through the tiny window. At least she had a window, he thought bitterly. He hadn’t had a window. Then, he realized that he would never wish what he had gone through on anyone , and that he should be happy that Mai got a bit of luxury in her little cell.

“Come on,” he said before he realized the words were coming out of his mouth. “We’re leaving.”

She stood up a bit straighter and turned back to him. “What?”

“We’re leaving. I’m leaving. You’re… You’re coming, too.”

Mai stared at him for a long moment with a completely blank expression before saying, “I’m not arguing, just surprised.”

“I had no idea.”

He realized that that might have been the first thing that could be considered a joke that he told since he was freed. Which was only yesterday , so maybe that was good progress? Could sarcasm be considered a joke? If he had known at one point in his life, he didn’t know anymore.

He backed the wheelchair up and knocked his hand against the door a few times.

“I’m coming out,” he said as firmly as he could. 

Zuko realized as the door slid open and Mai took a step forward that his hands were shaking.

He clenched his fists.

It didn’t help.

“Your grace, is she coming as well?” Anzo asked, and his calm voice grounded Zuko. He glanced at the guard and nodded.

“She is.”

The door slid closed after Mai took the final step out.

“I’m sure Pim has something better you can wear back on the airship, Miss,” Keeli spoke, breaking through the silence.

Mai sighed and tugged at the sleeves of the prison uniform they must have forced her into, because, from what she Zuko remembered, she had always been so well-dressed when they were younger. “What a dream that would be,” she said, scowling. “This is scratchier than a bale of hay.”

“Anzo,” Zuko said, turning his head. “Do you know where we might find Mai’s… accomplice?”

Anzo, to his credit, seemed to figure out quickly that Mai was the other teenager who had come out with Zuko. He nodded after a moment.

“I believe so, my Lord,” he said. “It is most likely that they would have been held in the same area. I would be led to believe they would be in this same block, unless this place has severely changed since I was last here.”

“Could you and…” He scanned the members of his little party. “...Tyne go and check the cells in this block.” He turned to Mai. “What does she look like?”

“Long hair, annoyingly happy, responds to the name Ty Lee,” Mai supplied.

Anzo and Tyne both bowed before splitting and going in opposite directions. A moment later, the large room was filled with the scraping sounds of opening doors.

“So, Fire Lord, huh?” Mai spoke, filling the silence that had fallen over the group.

Zuko nodded. “Yeah, they just came down to me one day and were like, ‘Hey, you’re Fire Lord now,’ and then I was crowned, and here we are.”

Mai’s brow furrowed a bit but whatever she wanted to ask was clearly not the question that came out of her mouth. “When were you crowned?”

“Um… Yesterday?”

Her eyes widened a fraction of an inch as she rounded on him. “Yesterday?” She asked, though it sounded more like a demand or an accusation than anything. Zuko shrank back a bit and nodded.

“Yeah. Like, in the afternoon, I think. I don’t know, I’m not good with time.”

That wasn’t true, he just wasn’t used to being aware of the passage of it and the time of day it was .

“So, you’ve been Fire Lord for one day and you decide to, what, finish a war, visit war prisoners in the Boiling Rock of all places, and then stumble across your sister’s childhood murder friends?”

Lee sputtered. “ Murder friends? ”

Keeli raised an eyebrow. “Sister?”

Mai gave a smile that was so mischievous it was scary. “I’ve probably taken down more people with my pinky finger than all of you combined,” she said.

Zuko remembered when Mai would practice with her knives in one of the courtyards when they were younger and nodded. “You probably have.”

It was Ming who spoke next. “I believe it. I know who you are. I know what you’re capable of. I believe it.”

Mai offered a grin that didn’t quite meet her eyes as Tyne approached from their right, gripping a teenage girl by the arm.

“ Mai! ” The girl exclaimed, back-flipping out of Tyne’s grip and springing onto Mai, pulling her into an embrace.

“Hey, Ty Lee,” Mai said, and the smile that appeared actually looked genuine this time.

Ty Lee pulled away and was beaming at Mai. “Did you hear? We’re being let out! By the Fire Lord! See, I told you Azula would come around!”

Mai’s smile fell into a frown. “Ty Lee… Azula’s not the Fire Lord.”

Ty Lee faltered. Her smiled froze in place. It didn’t look real anymore. “What?”

Mai pointed a single finger at Zuko. She had really sharp nails.

Ty Lee turned around and looked down at him. She was much less guarded with her expressions than Mai was, and he was a bit ashamed to admit that he didn’t remember much about her from when they were children. In fact, probably the only reason that he knew her name was because Mai mentioned her by name just a few minutes ago while they were talking.

“Who are you? ” Ty Lee asked, blinking. Her eyes seemed really big as they stared down at him.

“Um, I’m Zuko,” he said. “Fire Lord. Zuko. Fire Lord Zuko.”

Ty Lee’s eyes widened almost comically. “ Zuko? ” She rounded on Mai. “Like, Zuko , Zuko?” Mai’s lips quirked up in the corners as she nodded in confirmation. “ Oh, Agni! ” She turned back to Zuko and blinked, her smile falling for a moment as she seemed to think of something. “Wait,” she said. “ Fire Lord? ” Zuko nodded slowly. “ You’re the Fire Lord?! I thought Azula had that locked down for sure! Man, could this day get any crazier?” 

A beat.

Ty Lee’s face fell.

“Wait, if you’re the Fire Lord…” Her eyes widened, though this time it seemed to be out of horror. “What happened on the day of the comet?” She rounded on Mai, her face frantic. “Did they… Did Azula… Did they actually…” She cut herself off by slamming a hand over her own mouth, muffling the miserable whimpers trying to escape.

“The war is over, Ty Lee,” Zuko said after a moment. “I ended it. My father… They didn’t… burn… the Earth Kingdom. The Avatar… stopped them.”

Ty Lee’s hand moved away from her face and she looked down at Zuko again like she was seeing him for the first time. Then, a smile broke out on her face, and it looked more real than Zuko thought it could. 

“Ty Lee, no springing onto the Fire Lord,” Mai said, placing a hand on Ty Lee’s shoulder, seemingly to hold her back. Zuko sent the most grateful look to Mai that he could.

“Sorry, sorry.” Ty Lee backed up a step, but she was bouncing on her toes as she did.

“All right, so…” Zuko thought for a moment, his gaze focused on the floor so as to not get distracted. “Um… Ming, can you take Mai and Ty Lee back to the… the airship? The rest of us… er, let’s go find those actual war prisoners.” He paused for a moment and then added, “If they… If they bother you when you’re trying to leave, just… just say that I said it was okay. They can… They can bring it up to me if they have a problem with that.” 

Ming gave a firm nod and placed a hand on both Mai and Ty Lee’s backs. Mai took a step forward away from her touch, but Ty Lee didn’t react in the slightest.

“Anzo, do you know where they might have put the prisoners for us to speak with them?” Zuko asked, his eyes still on Mai and Ty Lee’s retreating forms.

“There’s a meeting room near the warden’s quarters. They might be there.”

Anzo led the way through the prison again, and Zuko once more found himself drowning in thoughts.

Or, more accurately, drowning in memories .

Memories he thought had been lost forever to the sleepless nights and painful days of his imprisonment were slowly seeping back into his mind. Not full ones, but little bits. 

“ Mom, can Zuko play with us? ”

“ I don’t want to play with you! ”

“ Well, I think that’s a wonderful idea, Azula .”

“ Just shoot the apple off of the other person’s head .”

“ Aw, they’re so cute together! ”

“ Girls are crazy! ”

He wondered why that memory was so present in his mind. Maybe because it was one of the last ones of its kind before everything went downhill. Before his cousin died, and his grandfather died, and his father was crowned, and his mother left him .

“Here we are, my Lord,” Anzo said, breaking Zuko from the confines of his own mind.

“Can one of you go inside and check?”

Anzo disappeared into the room and then emerged a moment later with the warden.

“Your Majesty,” the warden bowed. “The war prisoners you requested to see are just inside.”

Zuko wet his lips. “Two of them?”

“All two of them, your grace.”

Zuko nodded. “All right. Okay. Anything I should know about them? Like… are they… violent?”

“They know that if they defy that’s the end of it for them,” the warden said, a scary smile overtaking his features.

“Okay,” Zuko said, fighting past the lump in his throat. “Okay, I want everyone else out of there. Just me and the prisoners.” He narrowed his eyes when both Lee and Tyne went to argue. “You heard what I said.”

There was a wave of bows in his direction before Anzo slid the door open. The warden beckoned out his own two guards that had been inside and bowed to Zuko before stepping back. 

Keeli slowly pushed him inside and positioned him in front of the table that the two prisoners were seated at. Zuko kept his eyes on his feet as Keeli released the handles. He heard her shoes move against the stone away from him and then heard the scraping sound of the door closing.

He could feel the gazes of the two prisoners on him. The two sets of eyes probably trying to glare him into oblivion.

He was the Fire Lord , though, and whether they liked it or not, he held the power here. He was the Fire Lord .

He cleared his throat, which was starting to ache again. He would have to get some more water when they got out of here.

Slowly, Zuko moved his gaze from his feet up to the two prisoners. They… weren’t what he was expecting, exactly.

The first was a man, probably old enough to be his father, who had dark hair to his shoulders with beads tied into the locks near the front. Blue beads, he noted. Probably Water Tribe, then, if Zuko’s knowledge of the world was anything to go by. The man’s eyes (blue as well) were hard and narrow and Zuko immediately averted his gaze when their eyes met. He made a note to himself to not make eye contact with that man again any time soon.

The other prisoner was a girl, and she looked to be about his age. She was so young , probably just a teenager. What was she doing locked up in the highest security prison in the world as a war prisoner? Her auburn hair was short, and when he met her eyes he saw the same thing that he had seen in Mai’s earlier. She had been touched by war, though he supposed she had been on the receiving end of it instead. Her eyes were just as cold and hard as the Water Tribe man’s had been, and Zuko shifted his gaze again after a moment.

“So, uh, hi,” he said awkwardly. Great start, really establishing what you’re here to do, Zuko. 

“Hi,” the man responded, though his tone was anything but welcoming. The girl’s glare just hardened as she said nothing.

“So, yeah, uh, I guess you’re, uh, probably wondering… who I am?”

“I honestly couldn’t care less,” the girl said, and Zuko nearly jumped at how angry she sounded.

“Well, uh, I’m gonna, uh, I’m gonna tell you anyway, I guess,” Zuko said, and he wondered how he was ever going to survive running a country. 

He shifted under their gazes a bit before saying, “So, um, I’m Zuko. Er, Fire Lord Zuko. Yeah. I’m the… I’m the Fire Lord… My name is Zuko.”

They both straightened a bit, but their shoulders tensed.

“The Fire Lord?” Water Tribe (because Zuko didn’t feel like coming up with anything else right now, so Water Tribe it was) asked, though his voice sounded mocking, so Zuko resisted nodding his head in agreement. Sure enough, he added a moment later, “And why would the oh so powerful Fire Lord pay a visit to us lowly war prisoners?”

“Well, I guess you could maybe be considered just ‘prisoners’ now,” Zuko said, though it was more to himself than anything. He wondered if there was policy for that. “Wait, no.” The war wasn’t even officially over yet. It had been one day . There was still a lot of paperwork. He would give it at least another month, if not more, for things to settle down enough for the world to really come to an agreement.

The girl’s eyes seemed to widen a bit and his eyes snapped to her as she spoke. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Zuko shifted in his seat a bit as he thought up an explanation. “Okay, well, er… About… three days ago, there was this comet. Called Sozin’s Comet. It-”

“Grants firebenders unimaginable power, we know,” Water Tribe interrupted.

“Er, yeah, it does that. So, uh, my father, the old Fire Lord, and my sister were going to use its power to, well, burn the Earth Kingdom.” At their looks, he shrunk down. “Yeah, uh, just full-on burn it. But, er, don’t worry! The, er, the Avatar and his, um, his... friends, I guess, defeated both of them. I mean, some stuff still got burned, I’m sure, I actually haven’t gotten to that point in any paperwork or anything, but, like, I don’t think anyone died, so… Yeah… The… The war is over. I’m ending it.” He paused. “I mean, I could continue it, but like… I don’t want to? Like, my family’s kinda sucked for the last few generations, and I guess I want to, er, change that? Yeah…”

The two prisoners stared at him and their guarded expressions had fallen in that moment of shock.

Zuko’s throat hurt from all the talking.

“So, uh…” He cleared his throat again, and wished once more for more water. “What are your names?” He extended a hand over the table.

He was great at conversation, he knew.

The girl looked like she didn’t want to respond. The man didn’t seem to want to, either.

Then, as Zuko was preparing to pull his hand back, feeling strangely dejected, the girl scowled and shot her hand forward, grabbing his in hers.

Zuko flinched , and hoped very much that they didn’t notice. The way the man’s eyes flickered made him think at least he had.

“I’m Suki, leader of the Kyoshi Warriors, and this is Hakoda, Chief of the Southern Water Tribe.”

Well…

Shit...

Chapter Text

Oh, man, oh, shit, oh, man, oh, shit, oh, man, oh, shit, oh, man-

Zuko’s mind didn’t seem to want to form any other words than what it was currently running on repeat.

Because, of course, the two war prisoners at the Boiling Rock were important people! It wouldn’t make sense for them not to be. It was the Boiling Rock , for spirits’ sake!

But, still, for one of them to be the leader of the warriors of what he was sure from a lesson he could barely recall from a few years ago was supposed to be a neutral party, not to mention the fact that said warriors and little island-nation-thing was named after a past Avatar wasn’t the best luck. The fact that he was now noticing that her shoulder wasn’t quite right and her right arm had a spot with a burn that hadn’t healed correctly didn’t help things either.

Then there was the man, who was the chief , the leader , if you would, of one-half of one of the two nations that his country had been at war with for the past century. That was just his luck, wasn’t it? Two people who probably hated Zuko just for what he represented . Not that many people liked what he represented, he added bitterly in his head. Then, like with the girl, the chief had a few unhealed injuries as well. A burn here and there, and two fingers that didn’t look like they could move properly.

“Hey, Fire Lord, snap out of it!”

Zuko blinked, and his gaze flicked from the girl ( Suki , he reminded himself) to the man ( Chief Hakoda ), and suddenly the blue beads made even more sense. Actually, it was a shocker that the chief had been allowed to keep those in his hair while he was imprisoned. He would have thought those would have been swiftly taken from him.

“Sorry, sorry,” Zuko said, shaking his head a bit. He hadn’t even said too much yet (much less than he was sure he would have to, he probably owed them a lot of explanations), but his throat was already aching, and his voice sounded raspier than usual. “I… I got, er, caught up in my thoughts, there, I guess.”

Suki raised an eyebrow and shifted a bit, straightening up just a small bit in her chair. “I could tell.” Chief Hakoda stayed attentive in his chair, his arms crossed and his shockingly ocean-blue eyes trying to stare holes into Zuko’s skull if the intensity of his gaze was anything to go by.

Zuko moved his gaze away and fiddled with his fingers below the table. He hoped that they couldn’t see. He had been squirmy before, but now that he knew who these people were, now that he knew that these people were really pretty damn important , he felt like he wanted to do nothing more than run (or, er, wheel ) out of the room.

He wondered, vaguely, why his nerves were getting the better of him now when they hadn’t at the council meeting earlier. He supposed that it was because of the circumstances. During the meeting, he had, technically, held the power. He was the one in charge. He could have, if he so chose to, banished all of those council members, ruined their lives (but that would come back to bite him in the butt if he did, he was sure). Still, he was the council’s ruler, and they had to listen to him, at least a bit.

With Mai and Ty Lee, though, he was reminded of Before, when life was peaceful (or at least seemed that way), and he had been unprepared, and so desperate for them to like him, that he had stumbled over his words.

Zuko was finally processing everything that had happened to him in the last day, too, and it was a lot .

He, silently, cursed his father once more. He felt this way (and might always feel this way) because of his father . He hated that man . The image of his father appeared in his mind and he forced it away as quickly as he could.

Everything was just so much , though, as he thought about it. It all was catching up to him as he sat in his wheelchair across from these two war prisoners. 

He knew that if he thought about it too much, he would break down. That couldn’t happen. He blinked away the stinging feeling in his eyes and his gaze flickered over the wood of the table, tracing the lines, distracting his mind.

He kept repeating to himself that he didn’t need to be scared of them. He was more powerful than them. He had done the same thing when he was in the council meeting, and he had managed to get through that. That had been bad.

Here, though, with these people, it was even worse.

Zuko didn’t really have power over them. He couldn’t command them to speak. He had to make a good impression on them, and the fact that right now was when everything was starting to catch up with him wasn’t helping either.

These were the first world leaders he was meeting (he didn’t know if the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors counted, but he was going to tell himself she did, just to be safe), and it was already under horrible circumstances. Circumstances that had him being the Fire Lord and yet looking as if he had just crawled out of a war zone (when, in reality, the war zone was inside of him, a constant struggle with himself), and that had them being prisoners. War prisoners .

Yeah, these weren’t very preferable circumstances at all.

“So, uh, I was wondering if you could, er, tell me about how… how things are? In the world? I don’t know how, uh, how long you’ve been… here … but, I’d like to hear what you have to say. Uh, please?”

Suki raised an eyebrow. She did that a lot, didn’t she? Or maybe she didn’t, except when she was stuck with him.

“Why would you want to know what the world is like right now?” Suki asked though it sounded to Zuko more like a demand than anything. “Wouldn’t you know yourself? You’re the Fire Lord . You and your nation’ve been attacking the world for the past century.”

Zuko’s thoughts flicked to the sheltered life he had led up to when he was thirteen, and then his mind turned to more than three years that he spent locked away in a cell, and he wanted to, for a split-second, scream at her no, he didn’t know, because how could he when he was kept in the palace forever, and then locked below it to the point where now he couldn’t even feel the sun ? But, he didn’t. Instead, he realized that he had been silent for much too long to be normal and started a bit as he nodded shakily. “Yeah, no, of course, I know how the world is, but… but that’s from the Fire Nation’s perspective. And you’re, uh, not from the Fire Nation, so, uh, I wanted to hear your thoughts on the… on the matter.”

Hakoda snorted and Zuko turned to him suddenly, but the man said nothing more. After Zuko had talked about the end of the war, about wanting to change things, the chief hadn’t said a word, and Zuko wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing at this point.

“You want to hear… our side of the war?” Suki sounded shocked, but her face didn’t really show it. Or, maybe it did, and he was just even worse at reading people than he had been in the Before. He wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case.

“Yeah,” Zuko nodded, trying to keep his voice strong. It wasn’t strong. More than anything, actually, he just tried to keep it from wavering.

Suki exchanged glances with Hakoda before she turned back to him and her shoulders seemed to relax a bit. Wait, had her shoulders been tense before? He hadn’t been able to tell, if they had been.

“All right,” she said, snapping his out of his wandering thoughts. “All right.” She sounded like she was reassuring herself more than anything. She looked up at him once more, but wasn’t meeting his eyes. That was probably for the best. He didn’t know if eye contact was a good idea right now.

He remained silent as she seemed to gather her thoughts. He suspected it would take a lot out of both of the prisoners ( they’re not prisoners, now, he reminded himself. What should he call them instead?) to tell their stories, just as it had taken a lot out of him to explain his to Pim, and he had been sure that she was a sort of ally to him. These two people were being asked by an enemy to talk about some of the hardest moments in their lives. That would be a lot harder than what he had done, he was sure.

Finally, after what felt like both forever and no time at all, Suki sighed quietly and opened her mouth to speak.

“I’ve only been directly involved in the war for maybe a year,” Suki explained, her voice much softer than he had heard it be when she was talking to him before. Now, though, she seemed much more in her own mind than out of it, which would explain the change in tone. Her eyes, staring off into nothing more than anything, were softer, too. “And I was locked up in here for at least the last… two months.” 

Two months? She looked surprisingly good for someone who had been in the Boiling Rock for at least two months. Then, his mind flickered to images of the prisoners that they had passed on the way here, and he remembered how they had all seemed remarkably well-fed, actually, and the thoughts all fell away.

“I’m from the island of Kyoshi, leader of the Kyoshi Warriors.” Zuko nodded. She had said that earlier. “Kyoshi was a neutral party, up until about a year ago, when the Avatar showed up and we found out that he had returned.” She paused. “Even though we weren’t participants of the war, we knew enough about it. We do a lot of trade, and so we got merchants from all over, all of them giving us news about the rest of the world. After the Fire Nation came and burned down our village to try and get to the Avatar, we revoked our neutral status and joined the fight against them. I led the other Kyoshi Warriors to the mainland, where we contributed to the cause in any way we could.”

She seemed almost completely lost in her memories. Zuko was watching her, and his eyes flickered to Hakoda for only a second, before moving back to Suki. The chief hadn’t been looking at Suki at all. His eyes had been firmly glued on Zuko and Zuko alone.

“I ended up crossing paths with the Avatar and his group later on in the Earth Kingdom. I helped them get to Ba Sing Se, and later helped his bison before being captured by the Fire Nation Princess and being brought here.”

Zuko dwelled on her words for a moment before he asked, “You’re friends with the Avatar?”

She nodded, but it almost seemed involuntary, because a moment later, her features hardened, her eyes darkened, and her lips twisted into a scowl. “If you’re only here to get information about the Avatar from me, then you’re wasting your time. I’m not saying a word.”

Zuko froze, processing her words for a moment before he frantically shook his head. “No, no, no, I-I was just surprised. That’s… That’s all. I was surprised.”

She eyed him for a moment before turning her gaze away from him. He suddenly came to realize that she was done talking.

Hesitantly, and a bit unconsciously, his gaze wandered to Hakoda. The man met his eyes and Zuko hastily broke the contact, choosing instead to stare at one of the beads dangling from the chief’s hair.

“I’m not telling you anything, Fire Lord ,” Hakoda said, and his voice was colder than what Zuko imagined the South Pole that he hailed from to be like.

Zuko swallowed, and his throat was dry enough that it hurt, to an extent. He nodded. “Okay. I understand.” 

If Hakoda was surprised by his response, it didn’t show. Or, maybe it did, and Zuko was really bad at reading people. Which he probably was.

“I… I’ll be right back.”

Zuko wheeled himself backward toward the door and tapped a few times. The door opened and Keeli rounded his wheelchair and pulled him out of the room, leaving the two prisoners behind.

When he was in the hallway and the door was safely closed, Zuko let out a breath he hadn’t known he had been holding. 

“That was awful ,” Zuko breathed. He was very aware of the attention of his little group of staff was very much solely on him, but he was too distracted to care. “Like, really bad .”

“What… What happened, my Lord?” Keeli prompted from her position behind him, her voice drifting from over his shoulder.

“The girl is personal friends with the Avatar and his group.” There was a look exchanged amongst those gathered around him, but he couldn’t tell what it was about. 

“And… the man?” Lee asked tentatively. “I mean… surely he’s someone important too, right?” He looked around desperately at his companions. Tyne gave Lee a smile and a small nod, and he seemed to settle almost immediately. Zuko was confused for less than a second before a managed to remember that Tyne was Lee’s sister . Of course, her reassurance would calm him down.

Zuko’s mind snapped back to the task at hand. The man, they wanted to know who Hakoda was.

“He’s… Chief Hakoda of the Southern Water Tribe.”

If any of them had been drinking water, they probably would have all just spat it out simultaneously. The reactions were varied: some confused, some nervous, some a weird mixture of the two.

“ Chief of one of the Water Tribes? A war prisoner?” Tyne asked, her voice breathy. “Are you serious? ”

Zuko nodded, and Anzo did too.

“The Southern Water Tribe is much weaker than it used to be,” Anzo explained. “Fire Nation raids wiped out all of their waterbenders, and they’ve been reduced to next-to-nothing, especially when compared to their northern counterpart.”

Zuko’s eyes widened. “Wait, wait, wait, we stole all of their waterbenders?”

Anzo nodded.

“Well… where are they? We can get them out, let them go, we can-”

“Your grace,” Anzo said, gently interjecting, but Zuko couldn’t care less either way. “Your grace, the last waterbender was captured years ago, and all of them have surely perished by now. The waterbender prisons have been all but abandoned for what has to be decades, now.”

Zuko felt something sink inside of him. His nation, his people, his family had wiped out an entire branch of benders. All of the waterbenders of one of the two centrals for waterbending. Gone. Zuko had never even seen a waterbender. He couldn’t imagine going somewhere where there were supposed to be as many waterbenders as there were firebenders here at home, yet not finding any.

“What would you like us to do about the prisoners?”

“We’re taking them with us,” Zuko said.

Once more, glances were exchanged that he didn’t understand. Finally, Tyne managed to ask, “Why?”

He furrowed his eyebrows and remembered the few burns that dotted the prisoners’ skin, the way Suki’s shoulder hadn’t looked right, or how Hakoda had two fingers that were pointed in directions fingers shouldn’t be able to point in. 

“They’re hurt. Burns, things that didn’t heal right. They’re not gonna get good medical attention if we just let them go , and…” He tried to think of a way to make this sound more like a logical choice than something based solely on the fact that he wanted them to feel better. “And… if we deliver them to the rest of the world healthy , then it can help! You know, like, make the world think maybe we’re not so bad?” He sounded more and more unsure the more he went on.

But, nonetheless, his group nodded. 

The door opened and Keeli quickly pushed him back inside before bowing and leaving again.

“Uh… hi… again…” 

This was awkward. How do you tell two war prisoners that you were going to help them get better without sounding like you’re trying too hard?

“Hi,” Suki said, and even if the word was completely bitter, it gave him enough reassurance to keep going.

“So, uh, I’m gonna, er, take you. Back to the capital, er, the palace, I mean. Cause… Cause we’re the closest place with good healers and… and you look… like you’ve seen better days. So, uh, yeah. We’re gonna go back to the capital and then… then we’re gonna get a healer or something. Yeah.” That couldn’t have gone any worse.

Suki crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “What happens then?”

He blinked. “What?”

Hakoda picked up for her. “What happens after we’re all ‘healed’? What do you do with us then?”

“Oh, uh…” He hadn’t thought that far in advance. “Well, I guess…” It wasn’t that hard to figure out what he would do, though. “I guess I’ll… I’ll let you go. It’s probably been a while since you’ve been home, anyway.” Zuko tried not to wince at his own words. He knew what it felt like to not be home for years, to not feel safe for years.

It was clear, even to him, that they didn’t believe him, but they seemed to choose not to argue. Zuko moved back a bit and rapped his knuckles against the door a few times. The door opened and Keeli stepped inside. Lee and Tyne followed her, moving across to stand by the two prisoners. Tyne unlocked Suki from her handcuffs (how had Zuko not noticed those before?) and Lee did the same for Hakoda. The two didn’t dare fight as the guards brought them to their feet and guided them with a hand on the small of their backs. Zuko knew it was only because they wanted to try and get closer to freedom, but it still made him slightly glad to see them cooperating a bit with him.

Keeli wheeled him out of the room, Tyne and Lee guiding Suki and Hakoda respectively behind them. Anzo inserted himself behind Zuko and Keeli, forming a sort of border between the prisoners and him. 

As they moved through the prison, Anzo directed them from behind Zuko and Keeli until they were in front of the warden’s office. 

“Anzo,” Zuko said, and the guard took a step forward to be in Zuko’s line of view.

“Yes, my Lord?”

“Could you go inside and get whatever… paperwork I need to, like, officially… transfer them?” He didn’t know if ‘transfer’ was the right word, but he also didn’t particularly care.

Anzo gave a nod followed by a bow before he disappeared into the office.

Zuko fingered the crown he still hadn’t put back in his hair. “Keeli?”

“Your grace?”

“Could you please…?” He didn’t put effort into forming the words, instead just weakly raising up the crown. Keeli blinked before nodding and taking a step around to the side of the wheelchair. She plucked the crown from his grasp and his hand fell back to his side as Keeli re-tied his hair before she slid the crown onto the simple topknot and stepped back again.

“Thank you,” he said a moment later.

A beat passed before Keeli replied, “You’re welcome, my Lord.”

Anzo stepped out a few moments later. Zuko nodded to him and they got back into their original order. Anzo directed them out of the prison, and they weren’t stopped until they made it to the gondola.

“We look forward to your return, your Majesty,” the warden said, giving a bow so low that Zuko wondered how he didn’t stumble forward. The guards behind the man gave bows as well, though not as low as the warden’s. Zuko nodded to all of them at once as they rose. The warden looked like he wanted to say more, but his eyes flickered behind Zuko and his throat bobbed as he seemed to think better of it. The guards parted and one pulled the gondola door open. Their strange group loaded into the gondola and the door slid shut a moment later.

The gondola felt just as dreary and cold as it had when they had made their way over. The sun was glaring through the steam that was rising up from below. The late afternoon was switching to evening, and the sun was burning brightly in the distance. The steam was too thick, and the gondola too chilled, for Zuko to be able to feel the sun’s heat on his skin, but just seeing it, poking through the billowing white vapor, made him feel a bit better inside.

They finally made it across the boiling lake and moved down the cliffside, the airship finally in view. The guards standing at the entrance bowed to him and stepped to the side. It seemed like all Zuko had to do was blink before they were inside the hallways of the airship once more, pipelines and valves lining the walls and ceiling before they moved up another floor and those things were all covered from view.

They finally made their way to the bridge.

“My Lord,” the captain said, bowing to Zuko as he entered, an action that was quickly copied by the rest of the crew in the room. “Back to the capital?”

Zuko nodded. “Yes, please, Captain.” The man bowed once more before turning around and giving orders to his crew. Keeli pushed him out and they moved toward the office that he had been using earlier. However, instead of going inside the room, they passed right by it and entered into the next one. This one had a window as well, which was nice, and seemed to be a bit bigger. It was designed to be a sitting room instead of a study. There were two figures sitting on one of the couches. He blinked, and realized that it was Mai and Ty Lee. Pim was standing a few feet away from them, and she bowed as soon as he entered.

“Mai,” Zuko said, his voice a bit choked. He hadn’t really thought about how nice it was to have familiar friendly faces from the Before. “Ty Lee.” He took in their new outfits, much more traditional casual Fire Nation clothing than the prison uniforms they had been in earlier. “You guys look… good.”

Ty Lee grinned widely. “I know, right! These clothes are so comfy! ”

Mai’s lips quirked up a bit for a split-second before her eyes wandered to behind Zuko and narrowed. Ty Lee seemed to follow Mai’s gaze, but her eyes widened instead of narrowing. Both of the girls were on their feet in seconds.

“What are you doing here?” Mai asked, and Zuko turned his head to see that she was addressing Suki, whose face was hard and eyes were slits as well.

“ Me? What are you two doing here?”

“Why we’re here is none of your business,” Mai responded, yet it almost sounded like a growl.

“And why isn’t it? You were the ones who locked me in that prison, anyway,” Suki said. Zuko’s gaze flickered back-and-forth between the two of them, his eyes widening a bit. Mai and Ty Lee had been the ones to lock the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors in the Boiling Rock?

Ty Lee gasped. “ We didn’t lock you in there! Azula did! We just helped capture you!”

Mai scowled and nudged Ty Lee in the side. “ Not helping ,” she hissed, before turning back to Suki again, her eyes cold. “Azula commanded that we help her, and we couldn’t exactly say no to her. She had us locked in the Boiling Rock, too. Zuko just got us out. So… shut up.” If anyone else had said it, the ending would have sounded awkward or something, but it was very graceful and powerful coming from Mai. Then again, everything was.

Suki scowled and opened her mouth. 

Zuko actually tuned out their argument after that. He didn’t want to have to listen to them bicker, especially as whenever he did listen, it seemed like their insults were just getting more and more petty.

Suki and Hakoda had both stepped farther into the room, and Zuko found himself with a wandering gaze and a wandering mind.

Zuko’s eyes met the chief’s for a moment and he felt himself freeze. His gaze quickly moved away, so fast that he wondered, vaguely, if it was involuntary. A skill ground into him after years. He knew that he shouldn’t be scared of them, he held all the cards here, he shouldn’t be scared , he had all of the power here .

Except, he didn’t, did he?

No, he didn’t.

Because, now, these people weren’t war prisoners , they were important world leaders, in one way or another, and they were here in his nation, the nation that they had been fighting against for years, and he had to make a good impression. He couldn’t just threaten them into submission (he didn’t think he’d be able to, anyway. They seemed strong, they had to be strong, and he… wasn’t). 

He had to be smart, he had to play his cards right , and he noted that what he was trying to do had never been something he was good at. Azula was the people-person of the family. Azula was the one who could read people, the one who could manipulate people, the one who could get people to do whatever she wanted.

Zuko was the one who couldn’t firebend correctly. He was the one who couldn’t talk to people right, the one who stumbled over words and apologized too often. He was the mama’s boy, the one who wouldn’t ( couldn’t ) look at his father in the eye. He was the one who moved too slow, who talked too fast, who couldn’t think quick enough, who couldn’t remember to not speak his mind. He was the one who never understood what was going on. He was the one who tried too much and failed too often. He was the one who walked through the gardens and fed turtleducks instead of lighting trees in flames. He was the one who got a dagger he didn’t know how to use. 

He was the one who loved a sister who wanted nothing more than to see how long it would take him to put out the fire she lit on the sleeves of his clothes today.

Zuko felt his breathing pick up a bit. His eyes were open, but he wasn’t really seeing anything, more just thoughts flashing forward in his mind than anything.

He was the one who loved a cousin who was older than him, who was wiser than him, and who died before him by many too many years.

He was the one who loved an uncle who was so torn by the loss of one that he’d abandoned another.

He was the one who loved a mother who sacrificed everything to save him once, but who disappeared too quickly to be able to save him again.

He was the one who loved a father who looked down at the sparks that flew from his palm with such fury that it scared him.

He was the one who loved the cousin who left, who loved the uncle who left, who loved the mother who left . 

He was the one who loved a father who didn’t leave, who stayed , and who stayed much too long .

He was the one who loved a father who didn’t feel any shame at all as he burned his son’s face. 

He was the one who loved a father who thought that it was justified to throw a thirteen-year-old boy into a cell for three years beneath the very place he was raised.

He was the one who loved a father who put him somewhere where the only light he would get, the only warmth he would get, was searing and white-hot against his skin.

He was the one who had, in another life, loved a father who had never known what it was like to love.

His eyes burned for some reason. Then, a moment later, his eyes were wet and tears were spilling over his cheeks. Someone was speaking his name, btu he couldn’t tell who it was. He wasn’t really hearing them, wasn’t really registering the hands that were touching his shoulder. One of them pressed too hard on a spot that had never healed right and he flinched.

He was the one who had spoken out once and regretted ever since that moment. He was the one who had sunk to his knees and begged, begged to be spared by the one person who should have never put him in danger in the first place. He was the one who had been burned, who had been beaten, and starved, and who had still managed to realize that he still felt the same about the words he had said at that meeting as he had when he had said them.

He was the one who had spoken his mind and suffered for it.

He was the disappointment .

Zuko wasn’t in the room with the foreign leaders anymore. They were in the study. 

He didn’t care, because he was barely able to process the fact anyway.

He couldn’t think.

He couldn’t do.

He was the disappointment-

He was the disappointment-

He was the disappointment .

He had always been the disappointment.

Chapter Text

Hakoda had never been a man of brash action. He sat to the sidelines, patiently waiting for the right moment to strike , like a predator, stalking its prey through the wilderness. Hakoda thought of himself as the predator, because he knew that that’s what he was. He was silent, he was strong, and he was deadly.

It was a wonder that he ended up as the Chief of the Southern Water Tribe. Well, actually, he did . He’d be an idiot to not . But it was more the fact that once the chiefdom was given to him, he was able to mold himself and the position into something that he could actually work with. 

Hakoda had been a quiet child. At first glance, one may have even thought him weak . Anyone who looked a bit further, though, would know that that was a mistake. Hakoda was not weak . He was strong, and he was silent, and he was deadly.

Ever since Hakoda had been a little boy, there hadn’t been any waterbenders left in his tribe. He knew that there were more waterbenders in the world, of course, up in the Northern Water Tribe. Their sister tribe had always been stronger than them as, after all, they were just a piece that broke away and made their own way in the world. Hakoda had never been to the northern tribe, and after the war had started the two of them had lost connection, so he had never even written to the water tribe across the world, let alone seen it .

As Hakoda had grown up, the Southern Water Tribe had seemed to get smaller and smaller. 

As a teenager, maybe around fifteen, he had gone up to his mother and pointed out that the village seemed smaller than it had been when he was younger. She had laughed, patted him on the shoulder, and said he was being silly, it was just him getting bigger, not the village getting smaller, but he had seen the way her eyes had glazed with sadness as she spoke, how she looked out down the small road toward a hut that he knew used to be there but wasn’t any longer.

Hakoda was thirteen when he saw his first dead body.

There had been a winter chill that had blown through, harder and colder than any they had experienced in the past few decades. People had frozen in the streets, in their homes, in their beds. Whenever there was a let-up for a tiny bit of time, people would desperately haul ice from anywhere they could find it to block more holes in their huts. People would take ice from outside of the village, from the village walls, from the homes of those who had already perished from the cold. It had been horrible. When it was all finished and the chill had finally let up for good, Hakoda had run to the homes of all of his friends, calling them out to play in the warmer air. He had gotten Bato, Konak, Tirlek, and Ronka, four of his friends, and was outside the house of a fifth, ready to grab up him and head out to play.

Hakoda had pushed aside the ice and shoved open the flap, excited to see his friend (whose name was Erkulo), when he had stopped and stared, his eyes suddenly wide and his breath suddenly gone. For instead of finding his friend, ready to go off and play waterbenders and firebenders, he found the cold bodies of a family who had perished in the chill, Erkulo himself curled up against the wall, his skin blue and his eyes glued open, unseeing.

While that incident had most definitely traumatized Hakoda when he was a young boy, he had forced himself to move past it, accepted it as a part of life, and continued on living.

Hakoda was sixteen when he saw his first death.

His father had called him out to join the men of the tribe in the fishing for the day (because Hakoda was a man of the tribe, after completing his round of ice dodging two years ago), and Hakoda had gathered up his supplies to join them.

They had been floating along, just trying to catch a fish, when the canoe Hakoda and his father were in, along with two others, were pulled away from the group in a rough current. 

As he followed his father’s desperate commands, Hakoda had looked ahead, watching the canoe that was in front of them. The other canoe had hit a chunk of ice, suddenly, and while most of the occupants held on, one of them didn’t have a good enough grasp. He flew out of the canoe and into the water with a shout and floated farther down through the current. Hakoda’s eyes had been glued to the man, who continued to flail and yell until his head suddenly slammed into another hard piece of ice and his calls abruptly fell silent. He had stopped moving and had continued to move down the current until they reached the end of it, where just a few yards into the calmer water, he started to sink. 

The other canoes were too far away to reach him, and no one was moving to dive into the freezing water to help.

As Hakoda and his father’s canoe had passed by the sinking man, now multiple feet below the surface, Hakoda had noted that the water above the man was stained red.

Hakoda had been eighteen when he had seen his first Fire Nation raid.

He had often heard stories before of the Fire Nation raids of old. The ones that used to occur so often that even children recognized the signs of one approaching. Those had stopped after the last waterbender had been captured, around twenty years ago. There had been two decades of relative peace. The Fire Nation still attacked, but they never directly attacked the main Southern Water Tribe, instead focusing on smaller congregations more on the outskirts of the South Pole, or choosing to take down tiny fishing ventures that went a bit too far out.

Then, that all changed when, one day, black snow fell from the sky.

Hakoda could still remember the day vividly, even now. He had been walking with Bato away from training, just laughing and shoving each other as they strolled down the streets, watching a few girls that were passing on their daily chores. Bato had opened his mouth to catch a snowflake on his tongue when he had suddenly coughed and spit at the ground after catching one. Hakoda had patted his friend on the back and looked at the spit on the snowy ground, slightly darkened. He had looked up and seen that the snow was turning black. He had furrowed his eyebrows. He had known that he had heard of the black snow from somewhere before. He had felt his eyes widen as he had remembered. The black snow was from the beginnings of stories about the-

“ Fire Nation! ” A man called from the edge of the town. There had been a pause before people had erupted in a panic.

“ Men, with me! ” Hakoda’s father had called from his position on the wall. Hakoda and Bato had exchanged glances before moving forward through the crowd of the market. Women were gathering up what they could and sprinting farther into the relative safety of the village, running into whatever house was closest. Teenage girls and boys who hadn’t yet come of age scooped up the younger children and carted them off inside while others herded more people into buildings, pushing on ice and pulling flaps closed to try and block the homes off from the invaders.

Hakoda and Bato had grabbed up their weapons and yanked on their armored parkas before joining Hakoda’s father up on the wall.

There had been silence for a moment, and everything had been still, almost peaceful. It might have been peaceful if it wasn’t for the abandoned state of the village, the men lining the walls and the square with their weapons raised and their faces shielded from the dark snow flurrying down toward the earth.

Then, suddenly, out of the blurry snow in the distance, a large, dark shape had emerged. The bow had opened and crashed down and in moments Fire Nation soldiers had swarmed the half-mile stretch between the walls of the village and the shore the ships had landed on.

Two more ships had emerged and dumped out their soldiers as well.

There had been a moment of silence again, where everything was still, before a single Fire Nation soldier had let out a yell and the entire legion charged forward.

Hakoda’s father had released a cry as well, which had quickly been echoed by the rest of the warriors, rippling out along the wall and into the group of men behind them in the square. Hakoda had gripped his spear tighter before he had nodded to his best friend beside him and followed his father into the fray of battle.

The two sides had charged at each other, red and black at blue and brown, before they crashed together. Flames flew through the air and Hakoda could see the wall being manned by those from the square, fighting off any stragglers who had managed to squeeze through the Water Tribe line.

Hakoda had fought against those who didn’t have any fire power to their names, unarming them as best he could and kicking them into the snow. Sometimes, when he had to, he would shove his weapon through an opening in their armor and push and push until it struck the plate of the back of their armor. Red would fall onto the snow and Hakoda would have to look away and run away and throw himself into another fight to force the image of the fallen soldier from his mind.

Hakoda had been eighteen when he had killed a man for the first time.

All of Hakoda’s friends had killed at least one man that day, and one of them, Tirlek, hadn’t lived long enough to see the Fire Nation soldiers retreat.

Hakoda had watched, panting and relieved, as the last soldiers had returned to the ships and the looming shapes had finally faded into the snow once more. He hadn’t been able to relax until the snow wasn’t tinted by even the tiniest bit of soot.

The tribe had started by piling up the bodies of the Fire Nation soldiers outside of the village while others moved the bodies of the Water Tribe warriors who had fallen inside to be cleaned and wrapped for burial.

“ What are we doing with them, Dad? ” Hakoda had asked, standing beside his father, who had been sporting a new cut on his cheek.

“ The Fire Nation burn their dead, ” his father had replied as if that explained everything. “ It is how they honor them. Returning them to the flames .”

“ So… what are we going to do? ”

“ We are going to burn them, Hakoda ,” his father had stated firmly. “ We may have been enemies when they were alive, but they were still fighters, and they died fighting. They have gained our respect and we shall honor them by disposing of them the same way that they would want to be if they were still alive. ”

Hakoda had stared off at the women now working near the soldiers’ bodies to make a fire that they could use to light the make-shift pyres and nodded in understanding.

The smoke had risen into the sky in such a tall, firm column that Hakoda had been worried that it would make more black snow.

The next evening, as the full moon had been rising in the distance, the Water Tribe dead had been cleaned, wrapped, and had been said farewell to by their families and friends. The tribe had all lined up and filed out, walking in silence across the expanse of snow to the bank that the Fire Nation had come up on just the day before. They had spread out, fanning into two lines before a few of the men had moved in, pulling sleds with the concealed bodies behind them.

Hakoda’s father, as the chief, had stepped out of line and moved to stand directly in front of everyone. He had given a speech about the nobel sacrifices of those who had died before moving to the first body and announcing the name of the dead man. The tribe had looked out at the moon, mumbling a prayer to Tui and La, and then two more men had stepped out of line and moved to each side of the body as Hakoda’s father had reached down and pulled the flap over the man’s face closed. The two tribesmen had lifted up the man, taken two steps over, and dropped him off of the edge of the ice, into the freezing-cold water below.

This cycle had continued on and on until the last rays of sunlight were gone from the sky and the moonbeams had made the snow shimmer with a silvery light.

Hakoda had been eighteen when he had attended his first mass funeral for a battle.

It was not his last.

Hakoda had been eleven when he had first seen Kya. 

He had been training with his father and the other boys, learning how to hold a spear, when his eyes had wandered down the road and landed on a pretty girl standing in the marketplace, talking to someone that had to be her mother. He had stared at the girl for a long moment before making a face and turning around. Ew, girls …

Hakoda had been fourteen when he had spoken to Kya for the first time.

He had just passed his ice dodging trial the week before, and he was ready to do it again, even if his father had expressly declined his request. So, instead, Hakoda had gathered up a few of his closest friends and convinced them to go ice dodging with him again.

They had taken a wrong turn, rocketed the wrong way, smashed into the shore outside the village walls, and had all been thrown right out of the boat.

Hakoda had woken three days later to a girl scowling down at him.

“ You’re a total idiot, you know that? ” She had asked, moving away from him to grab up something from a nearby table.

“ What… What happened? ”

“ You and your idiot friends went ice dodging and crashed right near the village and almost died ,” she had said, turning back around with a wooden bowl in hand.

“ What’s that? ” Hakoda had asked, pointing at the strange brown contents.

“ Nothing that tastes good. Now, eat up! ”

Hakoda had scowled down at the mush in the bowl and shaken his head. “ No, no, I’m not eating that .”

“ Oh, come on, it’s not that bad, ” she had said, but the glint in her eye had told him otherwise.

Eventually, after he had refused multiple more times, she had taken advantage of the weakened state he was in to pin him down with one arm and force the slop down his throat with the other.

Hakoda would never admit it, but the weird remedy had actually made him feel better .

Hakoda had been twenty when he had first eaten dinner alone with Kya.

He had also been twenty when he had kissed her for the first time.

Surprisingly, the two events did not coincide with one another.

Hakoda had eaten dinner with Kya inside of his own hut while his father had been out fishing and his mother had been visiting an old friend. Hakoda had known he was blushing that night, but Kay had blamed all of her own fluster on the fact that it was cold outside.

As for the whole kissing business, it had actually been an accident. Hakoda had been talking to Kya when Bato suddenly had popped up behind her and given her a push. She had flailed and fell right onto Hakoda who, not expecting it at all, had fallen to the ground. Kya’s lips had just happened to fall right onto his. Granted , Hakoda may have kept the kiss going a bit longer than necessary, but he hadn’t back then, and still didn't really care about the fact,

Hakoda had been twenty-two when he had asked Kya to marry him.

He had been twenty-three when she had finally said yes.

The village had continued to shrink over the years, so everyone knew everyone, making it so that a wedding of the chief’s son and the healer’s daughter had become the event to be at for the few hundred people.

It had been short, sweet, simple, and perfect.

Other than when the penguin had gotten in.

That had been a disaster.

Hakoda had been twenty-five when he had suddenly been barged in on while sitting inside his home that he shared with his wife. He had looked up at the man in the doorway who had managed to just say, “ It’s your father .”

Kya had told him later that night that she had done her best, but he was too far gone by the time she had gotten to him.

And, just like that, Hakoda had been made the Chief of the Southern Water Tribe.

Hakoda had been twenty-six when his son had been born. His wife had stared down into the intelligent blue eyes of the small boy before she had said, “ Sokka .” Hakoda had nodded and been handed the child next. He had been too stunned to speak.

Just about a year later, his second child had been born. His daughter, who he looked into the eyes of for ten long minutes before deciding on ‘Katara’ as a name.

Hakoda had been twenty-eight when it had seemed like his life was perfect.

Hakoda had been thirty when his son had been arguing with his daughter and the freshly cleaned water from the pot in the fire had risen up and splashed right over the boy. Hakoda had felt a cold settle into his heart as he turned to his daughter, who was staring at him as if nothing had happened at all.

“ Kya ,” he had said as the woman walked in at that moment. “ Katara’s a waterbender .”

The gasp of horror that had come from his wife’s lips had reaffirmed what he had already been feeling.

Being a waterbender was dangerous. Hundreds of them had been captured and killed by the raids, and if the Fire Nation caught wind of there being another waterbender in the Southern Water Tribe, they would come all the way down to the South Pole to wipe the little bender right off the face of the planet.

Hakoda had encouraged Katara to be as careful with her powers as possible, but she had been a child , and there was almost so much they could do.

Within a month, the entire village had known.

Hakoda had been thirty-three when his wife died.

Katara had explained to him what had happened through her tears, and he had gathered enough on his own anyway. They had been looking for the last waterbender, and Kya had lied and given herself up to save Katara. 

Hakoda had forced his two children to sleep in his bed that night, his arms tucked around them, hugging them close on either side, refusing to release the last little bits of his wife that were left living in the world.

They had held a funeral for her, and dumped and empty shroud into the icy depths of the sea.

Hakoda had been thirty-eight when he had taken every last one of the men from the Southern Water Tribe, said goodbye to his children, and sailed off across the great horizon to the Earth Kingdom to join directly in the fight against the Fire Nation.

Saying goodbye had been hard, and he still remembered the way Sokka had stood on the shore, looking out at him with a painted face, watching as his father and his dreams sailed away before his very eyes. It had pained Hakoda to leave his son behind, but Sokka had to protect Katara and the village, and he hadn’t been ready yet.

Hakoda thought back to the invasion and almost laughed at how far his son had come.

Hakoda had been forty-one when he had seen Sokka again. He had been in a war meeting when the flap had suddenly opened. It was most definitely one of the happiest moments of his life, watching his son walk in, looking at Sokka for the first time in around three years. It had been absolutely amazing. He had been jealous when Bato had told him of his encounter with Sokka, Katara, and the Avatar . He had no reason to be jealous now. He had his son back.

And then, just as soon as he had come, Sokka had left with the Avatar, returning to the heart of the Earth Kingdom to supposedly save his sister. Well, Hakoda couldn’t argue with that.

When he had next seen his children, they had all been crying, Katara more accurately sobbing her eyes out. Sokka had been carrying the Avatar in his arms, and the poor kid had been burnt to a crisp.

Within the night, they had captured a ship and used it as their disguise.

Katara had barely spoken to him since they had captured the ship and gotten the Avatar ( Aang ) into a stable condition. When he had found out three weeks later that she had just been missing him, had just felt lost without him, his heart had broken again and he had gathered his teenage daughter in a hug like she was five again, five nad suddenly motherless.

The invasion had been perfect until it wasn’t. 

He had never been more proud of his children, on one hand, watching Sokka lead the troops to victory when he couldn’t, and watching Katara slice through metal and soldiers with her waterbending like a knife through butter.

On the other hand, it had still fallen apart. Everything had, somehow, gone wrong. Well, Hakoda knew how. The Fire Lord had been expecting their arrival. Aang hadn’t found him in time, Azula (the Fire Nation princess) had distracted them, and, in the end, it just hadn’t been their day.

Hakoda had forced his children to leave him behind and watched as they flew off into the sky, away from him and his men as they were captured.

They had carted his men off to prisons all over the place, and Hakoda himself was placed in the Capital City Prison for a few weeks before being transferred to a place called the Boiling Rock. 

Hakoda had heard whispers about it, whispers that said things about how it was the worst prison in the world, a giant hunk of metal surrounded by a boiling lake, the only way across being a gondola hanging over the steaming water.

Hakoda had agreed, once he had gotten there, that it was bad, but it wasn’t as bad as being in an active war zone. That changed people, traumatized them, ruined them. He had seen it in even the best of his soldiers. Tui and La, he had seen it in himself at times.

A few weeks into his imprisonment at the Boiling Rock, he had met a teenage girl only to find out that, lo-and-behold, she was Sokka’s kinda-girlfriend, and close friends with the Avatar’s whole little group (what was the last idea Sokka had thrown out for a name while they had been on the ships on the way to the invasion? The Gaang? Hakoda liked that one, it was a good one). Hakoda had started speaking mainly to the girl, Suki, and discovered that she was a well-traveled girl, leader of the Kyoshi Warriors, and she was only taken down by the Fire Nation Princess Azula herself and her two little friends.

Life was moving as normal in the Boiling Rock after a while. One day, the sky had turned red and Hakoda and Suki had sat outside in the yard that was noticeably more empty than usual (considering all firebenders were locked inside during the comet). Hakoda had watched the comet streaking across the sky when Suki had said, “ Do you think they’ll win? ”

Hakoda had nodded firmly. “ They will. They have to. ”

Nothing had changed after the comet had ended. Firebenders were allowed into the yard again and things went back to normal. 

Over the next two days, there was no news of anything about the war. NOt about victory or defeat, and it had Hakoda on the edge of his seat.

Then, one day, a guard appeared at his cell door. He sat up and glared at her as she strolled in without a care in the world.

“Come on, bub,” she said, placing a hand on her hip. “You’re wanted in a meeting room.”

Hakoda furrowed his eyes and stood up. The guard handcuffed him behind his back and led him through the prison. He lost track of the turns after a while, unfortunately.

Finally, they reached a door. The guard moved him aside for a moment to unlock it and push it open before shoving him inside roughly. His eyes widened as his gaze met Suki’s. He was locked in beside her, in a chair at the table. The guard stared at them for a moment before leaving the room, closing the door behind her.

They sat in silence for a few long minutes before the door opened again. Hakoda was prepared for anything, and, honestly, for some reason, he was expecting the Fire Lord or some member of the government or royal family.

Hakoda had seen portraits of the Fire Lord before. They had been everywhere on the ship that they had captured, and it was impossible to not come across one in the aftermath of a battle.

The Fire Lord was a grown man, maybe around Hakoda’s age, and he was intimidating and strong and powerful . No one could deny that.

Suki had described the Fire Nation Princess with enough accuracy to ensure Hakoda that she envisioned fighting her every night when she fell asleep.

The figure that came in was neither.

Well, technically, it was two figures that emerged through the doorway. One was a young woman with her hair tied back, traditional Fire Nation clothes on, and the other was a teenager , a boy who was being pushed in the wheelchair by the woman. The woman positioned the boy in front of them, released the handles, gave a small bow, and backed out of the room.

The boy stumbled through his introduction, and Hakoda took the time to observe him. He seemed thin, but Hakoda couldn’t really tell with all the fabric the clothes draped over him. They seemed to be chosen especially to make sure that no one could really tell how thick they were.

The boy’s face was gaunt, his hair tied up messily, his eyes a bit sunken in, and, of course, there was a giant burn scar across his face. Training accident, maybe? A nasty training accident, sure, but a boy had cut off his own hand back at the Southern Water Tribe when Hakoda was younger, so it was definitely possible.

Then, the boy said something that snapped all of Hakoda’s attention right to him. “ So, um, I’m Zuko. Er, Fire Lord Zuko. Yeah. I’m the… I’m the Fire Lord… My name is Zuko.”

This was the Fire Lord? This scrawny, awkward teenager. He couldn’t be much older than Sokka was.

Also, yeah, Fire Lord? Definitely a training accident.

Then the teenage Fire Lord went on to explain that his father, Fire Lord Ozai, had tried to burn down the Earth Kingdom with the power of Sozin’s Comet, but Aang and the others had stopped them, and they had both been captured. Then , the boy explained that he wanted to stop the war. 

Without a Fire Nation victory.

The world was officially mad.

The boy reached forward his hand but neither Hakoda nor Suki reached out to take it. As he was pulling it back, Suki suddenly grabbed it and introduced them. The moment her hand grabbed the boy’s, he had flinched . Like, full-on flinched . Okay, there was definitely something wrong with this boy.

Then, the boy wanted to hear their stories. Their stories . Hakoda narrowed his eyes and resisted shaking Suki to tell her to stop. She was playing right into enemy hands as she talked about her journey to this point.

When the boy turned to him hopefully, Hakoda narrowed his eyes even more, turning his gaze into a glare as he growled, “I’m not telling you anything, Fire Lord. ”

The boy had left for a moment before returning and telling Suki and Hakoda that he was taking them to the capital city for proper medical treatment. 

Hakoda’s mind immediately flicked to ‘political prisoners’, and he asked the Fire Lord’s plan. The boy looked confused , as if he hadn’t generated a lie beforehand, before he said that he guessed he would just let them go.

Out of all of the answers he had expected, that was not one of them.

They had been guided out of the prison, which was a miracle in-and-of-itself, and Hakoda sent a thank you to the spirits as they stepped off of the gondola.

They moved through the giant airship and eventually ended up in a sitting area where Suki suddenly had a face-off with two girls. It just so happened that the two girls who had helped the princess imprison Suki were two of the new Fire Lord’s friends. Wasn’t that just wonderful .

The Fire Lord seemed a bit out of it when his eyes met Hakoda’s. They stared into each other’s eyes for a moment before the Fire Lord suddenly looked away frantically, his gaze fast and flitting over things that he didn’t seem to be seeing.

The boy’s breathing picked up a bit and Hakoda watched as his eyes widened and he started to shake slightly, his knuckles grasping the handles of the wheelchair he was in turning white.

The teenage girls in the room stopped arguing and the Fire Lord’s two friends were staring at him with a mixture of shock and fear. So they didn’t know what was going on, either. Interesting…

The boy’s chest was moving up-and-down faster and faster, and he was trembling at this point. Suddenly, Hakoda was pushed aside as a large man who he recognized as one of the Fire Lord’s guards entered the room and knelt by the boy’s side. He was speaking in low and quick words, but they didn’t seem to be helping.

The man turned and called over his shoulder, “ Ming! Lee! Get in here! ”

Two more guards appeared and stared at their leader in shock for a moment before moving to help him.

Hakoda looked into the Fire Lord’s eyes from where he stood off to the side, frozen. The boy’s good amber eye was wide with terror, and completely glazed over, as if he was stuck somewhere completely different. He was making tiny whimpering sounds that were actually pretty sad to listen to, honestly. His mouth started to form the word “no” over and over again.

Hakoda clenched his fists as suddenly the guards were carting the Fire Lord out of the room, tears streaming down his pale face.

When they were gone, all was still for a moment before one of the girls, the dark and scary one, exploded at him. “What did you do to him?”

Her friend appeared beside her and, to be honest, her glare was more terrifying to see than the other’s was.

“I didn’t do anything,” Hakoda managed to say, mostly too caught up in his thoughts to say anything more.

The two girls glared at him for a moment longer before the dark one stormed out of the room, her friend who seemed like she belonged in the pink outfit she was wearing following along quickly.

Hakoda met Suki’s gaze and the girl gave him a questioning look, but he didn’t answer. He was too busy thinking about where he had seen that glazed look in the boy’s eyes before. It reminded him heavily of warriors that he knew, ones that came off of the battlefield and then sometimes experienced something that made them think that they were right back there again.

But that was ridiculous, because those men were Water Tribe warriors, fighting for freedom, and this boy was a pampered prince who’d had a training accident when he was younger.

Still, though, it was not was he was expecting, and Hakoda felt like there was something more genuine in this boy than anything any other Fire Lord he had ever heard of had shown.

Hakoda stared off in the direction the boy had just been carted off in, the empty doorway, and made a vow in himself to maybe try to give this boy a small chance. Just the one. But a chance.

Cause even if that whole show just now was a big fake, then he at least deserved it for top-notch acting skills.

Chapter Text

Everything was quiet.

Zuko blinked and breathed in slowly through his nose. The air was cold against his skin.

He was sweating.

Why was he sweating?

His lungs were burning. His throat hurt.

He took in a gasping breath. Why was it so hard to breathe? Why did it feel like there was a weight on his chest? Why did it hurt so much? He breathed in a few more times, and the burning dissipated a bit.

His vision was hazy. He blinked his eyes a few times and realized that they were oddly cold. His fingers, which felt strangely disconnected from his body, reached up and touched against his face. His fingertips grazed over the skin of his cheek and came away wet. Was he crying ?

That was weird. Why was he crying?

Zuko, with his eyes now clear, glanced around at his surroundings, finally registering where he was. The study. The leader of the Kyoshi Warriors was gone, the chief of the Southern Water Tribe was gone, Mai and Ty Lee were gone, Anzo, Tyne, Lee, Ming, Pim, and Keeli were gone.

He was alone.

Zuko’s mind slowly sorted out the thoughts, the memories of what had happened.

Mai and Ty Lee had been arguing with Suki, that was what he remembered first. Zuko had been watching, he hadn’t had enough energy to stop their yelling, and then… then his eyes had met Hakoda’s.

The hard gaze of the chief had reminded him of his father…

That’s what had happened…

Zuko’s breath hitched in his throat at the thought of it. He could remember thinking back to his father, thinking back to the hard glares and the cold eyes he had received during his imprisonment. He could remember his breathing picking up, and then everything seemed to blur together. Zuko could barely even remember what it was he had been thinking of at the time, let alone what had been going on around him.

The room was empty. That thought resonated in his mind again as he snapped back to reality once more and remembered where he was. He turned his head and looked out the window. They were moving over the water still, and the light was orange now instead of the normal yellow hue. The sun must be setting, he was sure of it. At least it wasn’t right in the view of his window. He may be adjusting to normal light levels, but having the light of Agni straight-on would definitely be too much for his poor eyes to handle.

He turned away from the window and redirected his gaze to the desk. The documents that he had been working on before going to the prison were sitting right there, as if nothing had changed at all, when in reality, he had found two old friends of his sister, had found two world leaders who were also chummy with the Avatar, and then had proceeded to have a breakdown in front of all four of them. 

What a great Fire Lord he was .

He really was an idiot , wasn’t he? All good impressions he may have made on those people were probably out the window, now. Suki and Hakoda probably thought that he was a weak little attention-seeker who can’t end this war, who they could never work with, and Mai and Ty Lee probably thought that he was just as crazy as his sister.

He realized that his breathing had picked up as his lungs started to burn again. He coughed and focused all of his energy on calming his breaths. He couldn’t afford to have another freak-out right now. There was so much to do.

Zuko shifted his attention back to the desk again, and the documents on it.

He didn’t have the energy to face the people right now, but he could definitely do some more of that work. That would have to do for now.

He placed his hands on the wheels of the wheelchair he was in and carefully directed himself around the desk and in front of it. He grabbed the desk’s underside and pulled himself in so that his legs were underneath it and he could properly do his work.

Zuko grabbed the document he had been doing before leaving the airship for the Boiling Rock and placed it in the finished pile. He had finished it right before leaving, thank Agni.

He pulled one from the pile of those he still had to work through, which was unfortunately much bigger than the finished stack.

Zuko looked down at the paper, his eyes scanning over the characters. It was a request from the warden of a small prison on the east coast of the Fire Nation mainland, asking for more money to help accommodate the prisoners that were overflowing in their little local jail.

Zuko was halfway to signing his name when a thought hit him. He furrowed his eyebrows and placed the brush down, shifting back a bit to open the small drawer in the desk. Sure enough, there was blank parchment within. He grabbed the top piece out of the drawer and placed it beside the document in front of him.

He quickly wrote out a few notes, glancing back at the document a few times to help himself keep his train of thought.

He finally had everything written down and quickly signed the document and also signed off on a grant much smaller than the warden had requested. It was no matter. The problem the man was having would be fixed soon enough.

He moved to the next document. It wasn’t one for him to sign. Instead, it was simply a complaint from two officers from a different prison, this one in the northern Earth Kingdom colonies. The two officers explained in their letter that they were concerned about the amount of violence occurring in their prison and the fact that common thieves were being kept with murderers just one room away from one another. They added that they weren’t happy with how there was no official way for deciding how long someone is imprisoned, and how it was the whims of the higher-ups more than anything. They cited a specific incident in which a man who had cut off another’s hand in a street fight over some apples was released in six months while one who had stolen a loaf of bread from the warden himself had been locked up for ten months before being freed.

Zuko frowned and folded the letter up, placing it in the empty drawer to the right, the blank paper having come from one on the left.

He would need to come back to that later.

He pulled the next document and finally began to fall into a rhythm. He tucked a paper away into the right drawer every so often to look over later. Once in a while, he’d have to pull out a paper from the left drawer after his notes filled up the one he was already writing on.

Time passed, and quite a bit of it, he was sure, as the light from the window behind him eventually fell away, leaving only the glow from the torches near the door and in the corners behind him to light his way.

He was surprised by his lack of fear of the fire glowing on the torches’ tips.

He was sure that he would be terrified of fire after everything that had happened involving himself and the burning element. His back ached, and he wasn’t sure if it was real pain or just phantom.

Zuko shook himself out of his mind and shifted his attention back to the documents in front of him.

About another hour passed before Zuko was shocked out of his work-induced stupor by a knock on the door. It wasn’t a hard knock, actually, it was really rather soft-sounding, but it startled him nonetheless, and he took a few moments to gather his bearings and reign in his breathing. Then, once his breaths were normal against, he called out, “Come in,” and winced at the pain caused by the words and the scratchy way they sounded when he spoke.

The door opened to reveal both Anzo and Keeli.

“Your grace,” they said in unison, bowing at the same time before each taking a step into the room.

“We’ve just landed,” Keeli said after a split-second of silence.

Zuko blinked and turned his head. He could see that they were on the ground from the rays of light falling over the earth as they spilled from the windows of the airship. He hummed.

“We are. I… I didn’t even realize.” His face heated a bit and he turned back to his work and then to the other two. “... Sorry.”

Keeli’s eyes were on the documents in front of him, the pile of finished that had gotten steadily bigger, and her eyebrows were furrowed, though he couldn’t tell the emotion. Anzo, on the other hand, shook his head, a small smile playing on the guard’s lips as he said, “It’s quite all right, your grace. No harm, no foul.”

Zuko nodded. His eyes moved to the torch flickering over Anzo’s shoulder before he asked, “What… What happened? Like, to get me… in here, I mean?” He thought he knew what had occurred, but it was mostly a blur, and he wanted to make sure he had it right.

Keeli’s mind was still elsewhere, it seemed, but Anzo sighed, turning his eyes away for a moment before speaking. “You… Something happened to… freak you out, I suppose… We brought you here, and when we weren’t able to calm you down, and you only seemed to get worse whenever someone touched you or spoke to you, we simply elected to let you be.”

Zuko nodded. That was about what he had summed up himself. He furrowed his eyebrows. “Did I… Were the… the, er, foreign leaders in the room, when I, uh, freaked out, or was that all in my head?”

Anzo winced but nodded. “They were.”

Zuko sighed and clenched his fists to keep his hands from trembling. “Agni, I’m an idiot .”

Anzo blinked. “What?”

Zuko hadn’t even realized he had spoken out loud. His face heated a bit and he shook his head. “Nothing, just… freaking out like that, it was… stupid of me. It was over nothing.”

Anzo scrunched up his face and opened his mouth to speak, but Zuko’s attention was caught by the work again and he realized how much he still had left to do. He looked up and said, “Keeli?” The woman snapped out of her daze and immediately was behind him, her hands on the handles of the wheelchair. Anzo finally seemed to choose to leave whatever it was he was going to say for another time, instead gathering up the documents (thankfully keeping them separated) and slipping them into different pockets in the bag that Zuko just now noticed was in the corner of the room before following them out and closing the door to the study behind them.

Tyne, Pim, Lee, and Ming were already outside when they made it there, the carriage waiting for them. Mai and Ty Lee stood by Tyne, while Suki and Hakoda were between Lee and Ming. The captain of the airship and four of the guards also stood at the exit.

“My Lord,” the captain said as they approached, giving a bow that was mimicked by the guards behind him.

“Thank you, Captain,” Zuko said. “You made the trip timely and smooth.”

The captain gave Zuko a small smile that showed that he was proud of himself as he nodded and said, “My pleasure, your grace.”

The captain and his guards bowed one more time before backing away and allowing them easy passage over the bridge and off of the airship altogether.

Both Suki and Hakoda were eyeing him oddly, and Zuko made sure not to make any sort of eye contact with them that lasted more than half a second. He was quite wary about freaking out again. That was very stupid of him, and he couldn’t afford to do it again, especially so soon and in front of the two foreign leaders again .

Zuko looked back at the carriage again. It was modelled the same way as the other one had been, a dark wood with deep maroon flames garnishing the sides. This one, however, was definitely different, as it was slightly bigger, and being pulled by two dragon-moose rather than one.

“This one seats eight people rather than four, your grace,” Keeli said as she pushed him over the bridge. “Anzo sent a hawk ahead once we realized we were taking extra people with us.”

Zuko nodded and glanced at Anzo. “Thanks, Anzo.” 

The guard gave the same calm smile he always and nodded silently in response.

“Pim, you can ride with me,” Ming said as Anzo moved to assist Keeli with getting the wheelchair over the bump where the bridge met the earth. “We miscalculated. We don’t have enough animals.”

Pim nodded, and Zuko’s eyes flew up and counted as quickly as he could. One, two, three, four, five, counting himself . He furrowed his eyebrows. The carriage sat eight people.

“Pim, you can ride in the carriage if you want.”

Pim’s face morphed into one of pure shock, and he saw it reflected by all the members of his staff (including the captain and his guards). He winced.

Pim seemed to recover finally as she stuttered out, “Your… your grace, I couldn’t … It’s not… It’s not appropriate.”

Oh, Zuko knew that . He may completely unconditioned to social cues of any kind (he had never been particularly good at them in the first place, either), but he knew that it was not socially acceptable for someone who was basically an upgraded seamstress to ride in the same carriage as anyone of high social standing (honestly, it probably wasn’t socially acceptable for her to ride in any carriage in general). Zuko, though, was the Fire Lord , and he didn’t particularly care what was socially acceptable. If it was easier if Pim took one of the extra three seats, then she was going to take one of the extra three seats , social rules be damned .

“Pim, get in the carriage,” Zuko said, putting on his best ‘Fire Lord’ voice. It probably wasn’t very good (if the voice crack in the middle of it was anything to go by), but it was a direct order, and Pim didn’t argue anymore. Her face was bright red, but she gave a small bow before ducking through the open door of the carriage and settling down inside, shrouded by darkness and generally out-of-sight.

Suki and Hakoda were gestured inside by Ming and Lee next, and the two shot glances at Zuko before climbing in after Pim. Mai and Ty Lee hopped in next, and finally Keeli pushed the wheelchair around to the other side, opening the door on the opposite side of the carriage. Ming and Lee, who had followed them over, lifted Zuko up as Keeli opened the door. The two worked together to put him in an empty seat inside of the carriage before Lee folded up the wheelchair as best he could and tucked it onto the seat opposite Zuko.

Zuko glanced to the side to look at the other occupants of the carriage.

The wheelchair was directly across from him, and Ty Lee sat in the seat next to it. Next to her was Suki, who looked like she would rather be anywhere but there at the moment. Pim was in the last seat in that row, her face still tinged red, and looking slightly uncomfortable at having the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors right next to her.

The seat across from Pim was empty, and then there was Hakoda, his face the same impassive mask he seemed to love to wear, and then there was Mai in the seat right next to Zuko.

There was a flickering of light from outside the open door on Zuko’s right and he turned his gaze to watch as Keeli took a step inside, ducking down as she pulled herself into the carriage. She clutched a torch in her hand and lit the little basins in each corner of the carriage before sliding up the grates, barring the flames from the rest of the carriage. For some reason, the fire being caged made Zuko feel just a bit better about it.

The light from the small torch in her hand spilled down over Keeli’s skin, and Zuko noticed for the first time that she had tiny burn scars dotting her hands, wrists, and forearms. 

“Keeli?” Zuko asked, knowing his curiosity would only get worse as time went on if he didn’t ask now. All attention turned to him, and he did his best to ignore the other pairs of eyes, instead focusing in on Keeli herself.

“Yes, my Lord?” She asked, bowing her head for a moment.

“Where… Where did those burns come from?” He asked, gesturing to the scars splayed over her skin.

She started a bit and looked down at the scars as if just noticing them for the first time before she smiled lightly and looked back up at him. “My husband’s a firebender, and my kids both inherited that… gift. None of my immediate family can firebend, so I wasn’t used to it when I was younger. Raising two volatile children who can also control fire resulted in this.” Her smile turned a bit bitter. “My husband tried to help, but there was only so much he could do.” At his questioning gaze, she added vaguely, “He was in the war.”

She wasn’t hiding the fact that it was a sensitive topic, so, though he wanted to pry further, he decided to let it be. He didn’t want to ruin his relationship with Keeli from trying to get in too deep, anyway. That wouldn’t be good.

Keeli offered him a small smile (people seemed to be doing that a lot, lately, and he found that, strangely, he liked it. It was nice having a smile directed at him ) before stepping out of the carriage, torch in hand. The door closed a moment later, leaving Zuko with only the company of the others in the carriage, the only light now being from the flickering fires in the corners within the small hollows barred off from the rest of the carriage.

There was a small jostling and then the carriage started to move.

They were all silent for a bit, Zuko’s eyes tracing the lines made by the wood on the wheelchair positioned on the seat across from him.

His fingers bunched up in the fabric of his pant leg. He glanced down at it. It was a strange material. Incredibly soft, and very light, but not like silk. Silk was slippery and stuck to your skin when you started to sweat. This one was different.

“Pim, what material is this?” He asked, both desperate for the answer and for conversation.

Pim started a bit, turning her attention from the small opening in the curtain that she had been staring out to look at him instead. “What?” She coughed, her face red. “I mean, er, what, my Lord? ”

Zuko pulled at the fabric over his leg and asked, “What kind of material is this? Cause, I mean, it’s soft and light, but it’s not silk , at least I don’t think it is, unless they made some sort of new kind of silk while I was-” He was suddenly aware of the other people present beside just him and Pim. He cleared his throat (which hurt really bad, oh Agni)- “uh, gone.”

Pim’s face turned even darker in hue as she said, “I, uh, I made it. With the, er, the help of my two cousins. We were all seamstresses in my… my home village. We were experimenting with new ways of spinning fabric and one of my cousins was playing around with her firebending and we accidentally created that fabric with a certain blend of fibers and the right amount of heat. I just… started using it when making some of my clothes.”

Zuko blinked as he processed all of the information, but one thing stood out in particular. “Wait, you made this?”

Before Pim could respond any more than a nod, Suki snorted unkindly and said, “ Most people make their own clothes, Fire Lord .” The way she said the title was more mocking than anything. “Not that you’d know anything about that.”

Zuko’s mouth ran dry at her words and his throat started to ache again. He wished for some water. He bit his lower lip for a moment before slowly settling back into his seat, turning his attention back to the lines in the wood of the wheelchair.

“ Don’t talk to him like that. ”

Zuko’s attention shifted immediately from the wood of the wheelchair to the woman who had just spoken.

Pim wasn’t the most menacing of people. Zuko had only known her for little more than a day, but he could tell that just by looking at her. She was pretty short, her dark brown hair was just to her shoulders and thin and always pulled back and perfectly cut, her stature was small and her features were rounded out. Nothing particularly scary about her. However, in that moment, with her fists clenched, allowing everyone to see the callouses covering her hand (probably from pricking herself with a needle. She was a seamstress, afterall), and her chestnut eyes blazing with a fire that she didn’t actually wield, she looked more terrifying than Zuko could ever have imagined. Her eyes weren’t on Zuko, though. They were locked on Suki, sitting right beside her.

“What?” Suki managed to ask. 

“You heard me, girl,” Pim said sharply, her words biting. The word ‘girl’ sounded particularly cutting, which was odd, because Pim couldn’t be more than seven years older than Suki was. “You dare to talk about the Fire Lord like that again in front of me, and you might just find a needle in your eye.”

Suki’s face was pale in the flickering firelight, her eyes wide, and Zuko noticed that the other occupants of the carriage were wide-eyed as well. 

Pim’s gaze met Zuko’s, and instead of turning red or anything, she pursed her lips and gave him a firm nod before turning back to looking through the gap in the curtains again as if nothing had happened.

No one talked for the rest of the carriage ride.

The airship had apparently landed in a different location than where it had taken off from, in an attempt to get them closer to the palace, and, as a result, they weren’t going to be heading directly through the center of the city, instead taking some backroads to get to the palace.

After the last twenty minutes of the ride were spent in complete silence, there was the sound of groaning as gates opened outside of the carriage. Zuko’s gaze broke away from the wood of the wheelchair and his hand moved to open the curtain next to him to peek outside. They were moving through the back gates of the palace, going toward the back stairs instead of the front ones (obviously, they were in the back ).

About one more minute passed before the carriage turned and finally rumbled to a halt.

There was a bit of rustling as the animals pulling the carriage probably shifted a bit and Tyne and Keeli were most likely getting off of the front.

There was a beat and then the door next to Zuko opened.

“Your grace,” Keeli said, bowing her head as she pulled the wheelchair out. Anzo took it from her and unfolded it as Ming and Lee both moved to help Zuko out of the carriage. They set him down in the wheelchair and Keeli grabbed the handles and turned him around so that he was properly facing the open door of the carriage. Mai and Ty Lee climbed out next followed by Suki and Hakoda, and then finally Pim, who Zuko just now noticed looked a bit sick in the face. She had probably never been in a carriage before, now that he thought about it. She seemed to stumble a bit when she got out before straightening up and glaring at Suki again. 

“I forgot how much carriages suck ,” Mai said once the carriage door had been closed and a group of servants had come to get it and the animals to put them away.

Ty Lee shrugged and leaned against Mai, who looked very annoyed by the touch but made no effort to push the other girl away. “I don’t know… It wasn’t that bad.”

Mai scowled. “Ships are better. Air or sea. They’re better.”

Ty Lee stared at her friend for a moment before nodding and hugging Mai’s arm. “Yeah, you’re right, Mai.”

Mai nodded. “I know.”

Suki was eyeing the other two teen girls with thinly-veiled disgust (even Zuko could see that) while Hakoda wasn’t even looking in their direction anymore, instead staring up at the palace. If he was impressed, though, he didn’t show it. Well, maybe he did , and Zuko just couldn’t tell.

“So that’s the palace,” Suki said after a moment, turning her attention to the looming building. Her eyes were slightly widened. 

Hakoda nodded.

“Have you ever seen it before?” She asked, turning her eyes to Hakoda.

He shook his head. “I didn’t make it up that far during the invasion.”

Zuko felt his blood run cold. Very cold.

“Invasion?” He breathed before he could stop himself.

All eyes turned to him. He saw the way that the guards (plus Keeli and Pim) seemed to simultaneously panic while Suki and Hakoda narrowed their eyes in suspicion. Ty Lee seemed more surprised than anything, and the look on Mai’s face was completely unreadable. That probably wasn’t due to Zuko’s ineptitude at social situations and reading people, though. Mai was a master at hiding her emotions. She always had been.

Zuko could tell from the looks his staff was sending him that he needed to rectify the situation. He cleared his throat. “Sorry, uh, I mean, you were at the… the invasion. I… I wasn’t aware of that.”

Hakoda stared at him for a long moment and seemed to be thinking about speaking before Suki opened her mouth.

“Of course he was at the invasion, he was leading it! How did you not know that? Aren’t you the Fire Lord? Shouldn’t you of all people know the details of an invasion into your nation-” She yelped- “Ow!” She turned to Pim, clutching her hand. “Why did you do that?”

Her hand shifted and Zuko saw a tiny prick of blood on her palm. His eyes moved to Pim, who had a needle held between two of her fingers. Pim shrugged. “I warned you.” She pointed the needle at Suki’s face. “Next time, I won’t be so nice.”

Suki scowled at Pim but stayed silent, wiping the blood away and settling back into place.

Zuko coughed, and it grated at his throat. He gave a small wince before saying, “Should we… head inside?”

There was a murmur of agreement and Keeli turned him toward the stairs. Once they reached them, Ming and Lee slowly carried him up the steps to the entrance. Zuko could feel the stares of the four new people, and he did his best to not look back at them and meet their eyes.

They finally made it to the top of the steps. The doors were pulled open by the two guards on duty, their faces obscured by their helmets.

There was a rush of cool air when they got inside, much cooler in comparison to the air of summer night outside.

As the doors closed behind their odd group, Zuko spoke. “Ming, Anzo, would it be possible for you guys to set up a desk inside of my chambers? So I can do some work there before sleeping?”

Anzo and Ming exchanged glances and the latter nodded before Ming turned back to him and gave a bow of her head. “Of course, your grace.” The two bowed to him before turning down one of the hallways and walking away.

“All right, then…” Zuko said, thinking over what to do next. “Can we go to the guest wing?”

Keeli started pushing the wheelchair in that direction. Pim excused herself as they walked to go prepare something for Zuko to sleep in.

Eventually, they came to one of the hallways of the guest wing: the one farthest from the royal family’s wing of the palace.

“There aren’t any guests staying in the palace right now, so all the rooms should be open,” Tyne said as the group approached the first of the rooms.

“All right,” Zuko said. He scanned the four guests before saying, “Chief Hakoda? Er, Lady Suki?” He wasn’t sure what else to call her. He would ask her when he inevitably sat down with her. He didn’t want to offend her with an incorrect title. ‘Lady’ would have to do or now, though. “One of you could take this room, and then the other could take the one right across the hall, if that’s okay?” He was sure he sounded insanely insecure, but he couldn’t really help it. He was nervous, and he wasn’t good at hiding it yet.

Hakoda and Suki exchanged glances before looking back at him and nodding, though a bit begrudgingly. 

The two looked back at Zuko and the remaining members of his group before separating and moving into one of the rooms each.

“I’ll have some clothes sent up for sleeping,” Zuko said. 

Suki narrowed her eyes but Hakoda gave him a scrutinizing look before nodding and stepping fully into his room. The door closed a moment later. Suki did the same after a second more.

Keeli turned the wheelchair and they moved out of the hallway and back to the center room of the guest wing. As she maneuvered him into another hallway, Zuko said to no one in particular. “I want guards at their doors. For protection. They’re allowed to go wherever they want in the palace once they’ve woken, but they cannot leave the grounds.” He couldn’t let them just wander off injured without getting any medical treatment first! What kind of message would that send to the rest of the world?

“Of course, my Lord,” Lee said, filling in the silence Zuko had left behind.

Lee broke off from the group for a moment to find a servant to fulfill Zuko’s two requests as the remaining members of the group moved into a new hallway.

Finally, they stopped in front of another guest room.

“Mai, Ty Lee, you guys can just… You know…” Zuko’s words were failing him for some reason.

Mai stepped forward and placed her hand on the doorway of the room on the left. “I’ll take this one, Ty Lee.”

Ty Lee grinned and hopped forward and to the other room on the right. “Then I’ll take this one.”

Zuko wet his lips before saying, “I’ll send for more clothing for you two to sleep in.”

Ty Lee turned to him and smiled. Unless he was sorely mistaken, this one seemed genuine. “Thanks, Zuko.”

Zuko’s throat locked up a bit and he nodded.

Mai’s lips quirked up and she gave him a nod before stepping into her room and closing the door behind her. Ty Lee gave a grin that seemed just a bit less real and offered up a mock-salute before ducking back into her room, the door closing a moment later.

They met back up with Lee in the guest wing’s center again.

“I sent for clothes and guards for all four of them, rather than just the Chief and, er, the Kyoshi Warrior,” Lee said, approaching them when they emerged from the hallway.

“Thanks, Lee,” Zuko said, nodding to him.

Lee smiled and gave a small bow in response.

They moved in relative silence back to Zuko’s chambers. When they entered, Anzo, Ming, and Pim were already waiting for them.

Ming and Lee worked together to quickly get Zuko into his sleeping clothes. Agni, he couldn’t wait to be able to dress himself. 

Pim pulled his hair out of the topknot and put his crown away before bowing and standing off to the side.

Zuko furrowed his eyebrows. “Pim, you can… you can go if you want.”

Pim blinked. “What?”

“Like…” His mouth was dry. “You can go… home, I mean. If you’re done. There’s… You don’t have to stick around here if you don’t have any more work to do.”

She stared at him for a long moment before her eyes softened and she gave a small smile. “Thank you, my Lord.” She gave another bow (wow, they really did that a lot here in the Fire Nation, didn’t they?) before leaving the room.

Ming and Anzo left for a bit to gather a group of guards that they deemed trustworthy at Zuko’s request. When they returned with the guards for the night, Zuko gave them, once more, express permission to leave. Ming did but Anzo stuck around until Tyne was finished putting out the papers Zuko had been doing on the desk. Then, the two of them left arm-in-arm.

Lee left just a minute after his sister, just after closing the rest of the curtains. He gave a bow and closed the door behind him.

Finally, it was just Zuko and Keeli.

She was arranging a place for him to sleep on the floor. Without him asking. That small gesture could have made him cry.

“Keeli?”

She froze for a moment before continuing her work. “Yes, my Lord?”

“What’s your family like?” 

His was so dysfunctional, he sort of wanted to know what a normal one was like.

She was quiet for a moment before standing up and turning around to face him, sitting down on the very edge of his bed (which he wasn’t going to be sleeping in) so that they were at a closer height to one another.

She cleared her throat a bit before speaking, her fingers drumming on her leg, the burn scars dotting her arm clear in the candlelight.

“My father was a laborer. He worked in one of the factories a few miles inland from the city. My mother worked in the palace. She brought me here first when I was very young to work under the table before I got a real job here.” A smile quirked at her lips. “I actually was in the palace when you were born. It was very hectic.” 

He nodded quickly, desperate to hear more. Keeli really sounded like she loved her family, and they seemed like an interesting group. 

Plus, he had never heard anything about when he was born.

She frowned. “The word around the palace was that you weren’t going to survive. Or that your… your father would… be rid of you. But then, a month later, I was looking out the window and watching you being blessed in the light of Agni.” She smiled again and glanced back at him. “You were really small .”

His face burned, but he found that he liked this side of Keeli. As soon as she had started talking about her family, she seemed to have shed off the professional shell that all people seemed to wear around him over the course of the last day. She was treating him as if he was a friend, or a member of her own family, even, rather than as the Fire Lord. He found that he rather enjoyed it.

She huffed. “Now, where was I… Oh! Okay, so I’m the oldest of five children. My sister Deji is four years younger than me. She loves to make up stories. Honestly, if any of us could read, I’m sure she would become some sort of writer. Instead, she’s the wife of a merchant.” She scowled. “One of the downsides of being born a member of the commonfolk .” 

Zuko pressed his lips together tightly. He had to remember to try and fix that. Reading and writing was so important. To think that so many people in the Fire Nation couldn’t do either? It was insane…

His attention was drawn out of his thoughts as Keeli continued to talk.

“My brother Yosuke is five years younger than me. He’s an odd one. When we were younger, he’d always roll around in the dirt outside, but as soon as anyone dragged a speck of mud inside, he’d go ballistic and go on a cleaning frenzy. He works as a servant in one of the nobles’ manors around the palace.

“My brothers Tomo and Hyun are twins, six years younger. Tomo loves to paint, and he makes them himself, because we’ve ever had enough money to afford them. He makes ‘em out of whatever extra berries he gets from the market and a weird paste he makes himself from, like, sand and some sort of ground-up leaf. Hyun likes to carve. He used to carve these little professional-looking statues and sell them in the market for some extra coin, which he’d share with Tomo to help him get more paint, and then Tomo would sell his paintings, and they’d split the extra.” Her smile turned bitter. “They always ended up giving our parents their extra money instead, when the couldn’t afford food for the month.”

Okay, yeah, the Fire Nation needed a lot of improvements.

She shook her head. “Anyway, I’ve got a lot of cousins and aunts and uncles that I can barely even keep track of, so I’ll just skip over them. Um… the rest of my family.”

A genuine smile appeared on her lips again. It was fond and loving and Zuko envied whoever had that much love directed at them.

“My husband’s name in Lu...Lu Lee, I mean.” She suddenly looked uncomfortable for some reason. “We met… We met when we were younger, around when I officially started working in the palace. He went to the Siege of Ba Sing Se, and was thought to be dead. One day, I was down in the harbor and I found him there. He was… very badly injured, but he was alive. We got married later and now we’ve got two children. Twins. Zara and Kobe. They’re three right now. Both firebenders, like I said earlier. Resulted in these.” She gestured vaguely at the burn scars on her arms. 

Zuko nodded. He furrowed his eyebrows before asking, “Keeli, how long have you worked here?”

She smirked. “Officially? Fourteen years. Including under-the-table work? Twenty-one.”

His eyes widened and he sputtered. “ Twenty-one? How old are you? ”

She raised an eyebrow. “Now, my Lord, don’t you know it doesn’t do to ask a woman her age?”

Zuko felt his face burn and he ducked his head. “I… I’m sorry, I-”

She laughed, and a weight lifted from his chest. “I’m kidding, your grace. I’m twenty-seven. I first scrubbed the floors here with my mother when I was six. I signed officially when I was thirteen.”

Zuko nodded. He thought for a moment, doing the quickest mental math he could before asking, “Did you ever meet any members of my family?”

She hesitated, the smile remaining from the laughter fading. “I… I’ve met you, obviously. And your father of course… I never met your mother or your sister. Or your grandfather… But… I did meet your uncle. Had a few conversations with him…” She looked like she was going to say more, but was thinking against it.

Zuko pressed on. “What about my cousin?”

A strange look passed over her face. “I knew him.”

He leaned forward a bit. “ Knew him?”

She seemed incredibly conflicted before she sighed and said, “I am… was… friends with him. We met when I was twelve. He thought I was five. I accidentally kinda-sorta insulted him.” Her face was a bit red. “Then we became friends. We were pretty close, I think, until he went off to war and… and, uh, didn’t come back.” There was a strange tone on her words at the end, but Zuko couldn’t tell what it was. Probably grief, if he was taking his best guess.

They fell into a silence before Zuko coughed and winced at the pain it caused in his dry, sore throat.

She blinked. “Would you like some water, your grace?”

He nodded, ignoring the way she had fallen right back into professionalism. “Please.”

She disappeared through the door and Zuko turned and wheeled himself over to the desk where the documents were set up. He made his way through about two before she entered the room again. She gave a bow and approached him, a pitcher of water in hand.

She poured him some water and held it up to his lips, letting him sip from it.

“You can go if you want,” he said once he had finished the water in the first cup.

She hummed, pouring another cup of water. “I could . Do I have to?”

He blinked and shook his head. “No.”

“Then I don’t think I will. I’m not even supposed to head home today. I signed up for an overnight shift for some extra pay. So, sorry, my Lord, but you’re stuck with me.”

If there was any time over the course of the last day-and-a-half that he might have smiled, it would have probably been at that moment. He still didn’t, but it was close.

Keeli sat on the couch, where he could still see her out of the corner of his eye. 

A while passed. He wasn’t sure how long it was, so immersed in the documents in front of him, but Keeli never left.

Finally, she stood up and walked outside into the hallway. Zuko ignored the way his heart sank. She returned just a moment later, closing the door behind her.

“Your grace?”

He turned his head to her. “Yes?”

“It’s one-and-a-half hours past midnight.”

He hadn’t realized how much time had passed. He had been working for at least two hours. Keeli had just been sitting there for at least two hours. He winced at the thought. She must be so bored…

“All right,” he said. He signed the document in front of him and put it in the finished pile before pushing away from the desk.

Keeli walked over to him and used one of the candles on the desk to light three new ones she had in hand before blowing out all of the old ones in one breath.

She gently and silently helped Zuko out of the wheelchair and onto the floor where the firm pillows and the thin blanket were on the floor. She pulled the blanket back and Zuko shifted himself to lay on the sheet, his head resting on the pillows. If it was anyone else, Zuko would probably have felt uncomfortable, but Keeli had an air about her that made it easy to feel safe around her. Also, she had seen him at his lowest point ever . This was nothing in comparison to that.

Keeli pulled the blanket over him with such care he wasn’t surprised that she was a mother of two.

She set the candles a ways away from him, and when he breathed in he realized that they were scented with Orange-Lavender. 

She sat next to him, leaning her head against the bed, her legs folded underneath her, her hands resting on her knees. She breathed in before humming out a small tune.

Zuko relaxed involuntarily at the light music coming from behind her lips. She quirked up an eyebrow and sighed before singing softly out loud.

She had a nice voice.

She was singing about who-knows-what, but it was pretty. Some song about spring, and then one about summer, and then one about an island off the west coast of the Fire Nation or something, and then one about the end of the war.

As she sang, Zuko realized how tired he was. His body still ached whenever he moved, and he was just exhausted .

He fell asleep right in the middle of a song about a young prince who was trying to do the right thing, and just didn’t know how.

Chapter Text

Zuko woke up about an hour-and-a-half later with a scream on his lips. He let it out before shoving his hand over his mouth. No screaming, no screaming, don’t make a sound, don’t make a sound .

There was a shifting behind him and he kicked off the blanket and scrambled away. His legs still ached, but he wasn’t standing on them. Besides, whatever pain he felt from this movement was nothing compared to what his father was going to give him.

There was more movement near his feet now and he let out a whimper and shifted back again before his back pressed against the wall. Cool air was flowing through it and it was cold as he pressed against it, despite the shirt he was wearing.

His eyes were squeezed shut. He didn’t want to see his father’s face staring at him, he didn’t want to meet those eyes and see the fire dancing behind them.

He slammed his hands over his ears and dug his nails into his skin, curling his fingers around the hair that clung to his skin is sweaty clumps. He didn’t want to hear the sound of the flames flickering to light in his father’s palm.

There was nothing for a moment, then, suddenly, a hand was on his shoulder. He yelped involuntarily and flinched away from it. Tears sprung up in his eyes behind his lids and he grit his teeth.

The hand didn’t move.

But it wasn’t grabbing him, pulling him, forcing its nails into his skin until they drew blood. No, the hand wasn’t calloused and rough and cold yet somehow hot.

Instead, the hand was holding him in place, steadying him, grounding him. The nails were rounded and weren’t even pressed into his flesh. The hand was soft and warm and comforting. There were small callouses on the palm, but they weren’t pulsing with anger from the fire behind them. They were surface-level, and they were calm.

Another hand found his other shoulder, and he flinched again, but not as bad this time.

Then, slowly, the two hands moved up and met his own hands. He tightened his grip over his ears.

The hands’ fingers slowly touched his own and gently pushed until his hold weakened and he released his grasp on his hair and his skin. His flesh ached where his nails had dug into it. Then, one of the soft, steady fingers brushed against the hurting skin.

He slowly opened his eyes to see Keeli. Her lips were pursed and her eyes were tired yet steeled as she moved her finger over the crescent-moons dug into his skin. Her fingers came away slightly stained red. Blood.

Her eyes flickered to his and softened a bit. She finished wiping her finger over his small injuries and shifted a bit, reaching back to grab the pitcher of water and cup. The sound of the water trickling down from one container to another filled the room. She held it to his lips a moment later and Zuko realized how dry his throat was as he sipped at the water. When it was empty, she placed both things back on the end table and turned back to him, settling down with her legs tucked underneath her.

She stared at him for a long moment before sighing.

“You need more sleep, my Lord.”

Zuko blinked and rubbed at his eyes, hard, until Keeli gently whacked his hands away. He opened his eyes again and looked at her. She was smiling sadly. He didn’t particularly like that look on her.
“Don’t rub your eyes, your grace,” she said. “It’s not good for them.”

His eyes were watering now. His hands twitched, but he let them be.

“I… I don’t want to go to sleep.”

She frowned. “My Lord, you must.”

“I don’t need more sleep,” he argued, shifting a bit to move away from her more.

She narrowed her eyes. “Yes, you do. You can’t function without it. It’s not healthy.”

“Keeli, I don’t need more sleep. I’m fine- ”

“ Zuko .”

He jolted. His eyes widened and he met her gaze. It was hard and stern and determined.

“Go to sleep.”

He swallowed and nodded. She silently helped him back to the make-shift bed and covered him up, moving the pillows to be directly under his head. She looked down at him and he met her eyes one more time before closing his eyes. He felt her settle against the bed beside him again. 

Just before he fell asleep, he could swear he felt her fingers running through his hair.

“Is he awake?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Ah… nightmare, then?”

“We think so. Tried to calm him down earlier. Didn’t work.”

“Hmm…”

Footsteps.

There was a hand in his hair. His mind was so clouded by sleep that he couldn’t really register what was going on.

The fingers worked through the strands.

His mind moved to show him his father.

He whimpered.

A melody filled the cell. 

“ Prince of the ashes, prince of the flames, prince of the fire, but only in name… ” The words stopped and were followed by simple humming.

He stopped shifting and fell back into unconsciousness. He didn’t remember the song when he woke.

“That’s all I’ve got.”

“It was nice. Where’s it from?”

“Made it up myself.”

“It was good, really good. Thanks for calming him down, Keeli.”

“Anytime. Kinda.”

Footsteps.
The door closed.

Zuko shot awake, but this time he hadn’t had a nightmare , per se. More of a… memory.

He turned to Keeli. Her eyes were blinking blearily at him, but she was awake.

“You sang to me?”

“When?”

“When I was in the cell. One day. When I was having a nightmare.” If he wasn’t so exhausted, he would probably wince at the memories, but he was enthralled in finding if his memory was correct.

She stared at him for a moment before sighing and leaning her head back against the bed again. “I did.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “You were having a nightmare. I had to calm you down.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did.”

She placed a hand on his shoulder, her eyes still closed, and pushed down against it lightly. He followed her movements and she got him back down onto the ground again. She pulled the blanket up again and smoothed his hair from his eyes before offering him a smile and a small nod.

Twenty minutes after Zuko fell asleep, the first rays of the dawn seeped in through the window.

He didn’t wake with the sun.

“Your sister’s fire gets hotter every day.”

Zuko had his eyes trained firmly on the ground as his father spoke. Eye contact was bad with that man. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad bad bad bad bad badbadbadbadbadbadbad.

“It flickered blue yesterday if you can believe that.” Ozai’s words were fond, and a piece of Zuko whispered in the back of his mind that the fondness was for him. It was his father. His father was telling him whatever it was he was happy about. His logic, his experiences, told him that it was not.

He knew that it was not.

“You know, she asks about you sometimes.”

He twitched. That was new.

“She knows I see you. I haven’t told her exactly where , can’t have her running down here, but she asks how you’re doing. She knows I come to see you sometimes.”

If he still had the ability to find humor in life, he might have snorted.

He didn’t.

Ozai sighed. “She’s everything I ever wanted in an heir.” He paused. There were a few steps forward, and suddenly his father’s feet were in front of him, in his line of vision that was still aimed so firmly at the ground.

Ozai placed one rough hand on his shoulder, and the other reached under his chin, tilting his head up. His father’s hold was almost gentle. Ozai smiled, and it almost looked like it reached his eyes. Their gazes met. Zuko’s blood froze. His father’s eyes twinkled with something that was in no way good.

“Maybe one day, after she’s crowned, you’ll be let out. You’ll see all that you could have accomplished.” He hummed. “Maybe, once the war is won, I’ll make her Fire Lord while I rule the rest of the world, and I’ll let you out myself. Would you like that?” Zuko’s heart was pounding and he did his best not to react. It wasn’t working. “You could come home. See your sister again. Wouldn’t that be nice?” 

His father’s smile was like poison.

Zuko’s eyes stung.

“We could be… a family, again.”

The tears burned hot as they spilled from his eyes and down the sides of his face, water that he could not afford to lose. He lost it anyway.

His father hummed again and turned his head a little bit. His father’s nails were digging into his skin now. Not enough to draw blood, but enough to hurt.

Then, Ozai dropped his head, and Zuko crumpled to the ground. He took breaths in shakily, his eyes trained once more on the stone beneath him.

Ozai’s footsteps moved away from him.

“Good night, Prince Zuko.”

The cell door closed, followed by the door to the room itself. Zuko dared to glance up just as the sliver of light from the torches outside was getting smaller. 

His father hadn’t even waited outside until the door was closed.

He had just left.

Then, Zuko was shrouded in darkness again as the peephole into the cell’s room was closed again, and the disgraced prince was left with only his thoughts once again.

Zuko breathed in deeply through his nose as he woke. That dream hadn’t brought back more phantom pain than he usually had while awake. Instead, it left a dull ache in his mind and his throat, the memory of his father’s flickering eyes still incredibly present in his thoughts. He forced his eyes open to try and replace the image with something else.

He blinked and was surprised to find that he wasn’t momentarily blinded.

He glanced around and saw that the heavier of the two sets of curtains each window had were drawn, blocking out a large amount of the light outside from streaming in at full force.

Zuko shifted the thin blanket on him a bit. 

He knew that there were guards outside his room, but he didn’t want to call them. He didn’t particularly want to speak at all at the moment.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Keeli. She was still right next to him, her feet slightly tangled in the sheet he lay on, her head still resting against the side of the bed. Her eyes were closed and her lips were slightly parted, her hair a bit tangled in the back. She was fast asleep. He found he didn’t want to wake her up, either. She didn’t look like she got enough sleep.

It didn’t look like anyone got enough sleep.

And so, instead, he lay there, staring up at the ceiling for Agni knows how long. He didn’t dwell in his own thoughts and instead lost himself in nothingness. He stared off into space, doing nothing and thinking of nothing. He wasn’t quite sure how much time had passed.  It was as if he had disassociated from reality. He couldn’t feel anything, sounds were muffled, he wasn’t registering whatever it was he was seeing.

Finally, after what could have been minutes or hours (and it wouldn’t have made a difference to him), Keeli stirred. She let out a small noise of protest that was directed at no one in particular as she awoke. Her head moved a bit and her arms shifted from where they were folded over her midsection. She groaned and her eyes eventually opened with what seemed to be a tremendous effort. She stared up at the ceiling and Zuko was finally brought fully from his stupor as he turned his gaze to watch her eyes come into focus.

She took in a deep breath and let out one of equal size, stretching out her a small way. Finally, her gaze turned down to him. She stared at him, gaze locked on him, for a long moment, before she cracked a smile and bowed her head to him lazily. “Good morning, your grace.”

Zuko stared at her for a few seconds, his eyes locked onto her smile before he nodded his head to her. He found that he still did not want to talk at all in particular. And he was the Fire Lord ! If he didn’t want to talk, he wasn’t going to talk! He gave her a small nod after realizing that he hadn’t responded to her in a very odd amount of time.

Her lips twitched downward but, to her credit, she managed to keep the tired smile on. She carefully stood up, using the bed behind her as a crutch. She bowed to him again before leaving his line of sight, moving away toward the door.

Still, he made no effort to get up. His arms were weak after sleep, and they weren’t in the best shape to begin with.

Footsteps approached quickly, fanning out into the room. Ming and Lee appeared above him, peeling back the blanket he was cloaked in before they lifted him up and set him right down into the wheelchair that Keeli had brought over from wherever it had been left the previous night.

Pim appeared next, with a greeting and a bow and clothes draped over her arm. She approached, bowed again, and worked on getting Zuko changed. She had once more selected something that she deemed ‘business-casual’ and pulled his hair into a topknot, slipping the crown overtop of it. During that period of time, Anzo and Tyne had joined the group in Zuko’s chambers.

“My Lord, would you like to eat something?” Keeli asked, breaking the silence that had settled over their odd little group.

Zuko furrowed his eyebrows. Did he want to eat something? He didn’t feel hungry. He shook his head. 

Keeli pursed her lips and turned to Ming, who was standing beside her. Keeli whispered some quick words that Zuko could have never even hoped to catch before nodding to him. Ming gave Keeli a small nod of her own.

Zuko remained silent, staring over Lee’s shoulder at a plant sitting on a table across the room.

Finally, Anzo spoke.

“My Lord… Am I correct in assuming that you… do not wish to talk right now?”

Zuko’s attention turned immediately to Anzo. His eyes widened a bit. How did Anzo know? Zuko nodded.

Anzo clicked his tongue. “I thought so. I saw this in some of my comrades when I was fighting in the Earth Kingdom a few years back. Especially those that we got back after they were captured. Sometimes, they just didn’t want to talk for the day. Wouldn’t do it. Couldn’t, maybe. I never experienced it personally, but I’ve seen in a dozen times before.” Zuko’s eyes met Anzo’s and he saw a fire behind them despite the lack of firebending the man himself had. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”

Zuko didn’t know why, because he hadn’t even been thinking that there was anything wrong with his complete lack of speech today, but those words made him feel like a tiny weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

Anzo spoke again, drawing Zuko’s mind back to the present again. “Would you like to do work in your office for the day?”

Zuko blinked once, twice, and then nodded. If he wasn’t up to talking today (or at least for right now), he could, at the very least, get as much work done as possible. After all, it was just going to keep getting higher and higher, and he wanted to get on some royal decrees as soon as he could, but he wasn’t going to do that until the pile of work he had each morning could be reasonably finished by the end of the same day.

He was wheeled through the palace toward the office, and, unlike the day before, for some reason, the palace’s halls seemed more lively. There were more servants in general. He supposed that since many of them had gone to the party in the streets on the night of his coronation, they may have taken a day off. Now, though, the palace staff was back in full force.

While when he was younger, it didn’t seem as if there were servants everywhere , there was always one that he didn’t know in his line of sight as they moved down the corridors.

About halfway to their destination, Keeli leaned down and whispered into his ear, “They’re normally not this plentiful in the halls, but they all want a glimpse of you, your grace.”

Zuko felt a lump form in his throat but he nodded as his eyes found another servant that was buffing a golden part of a pillar that already reflected as well as a mirror. 

They finally made it to his office and after the small scuffle of getting him set up at the desk, there was a round of bows and then Zuko was alone with his work.

Being left alone in the peaceful quiet of his office, not having said any words and not having to say any words made him feel a bit more comfortable. He let out a small puff of air through his nose and closed his eyes for a moment before turning his eyes down to the first document in front of him. He pulled out a blank sheet of paper from the drawer (and suddenly realized that this was a new desk. The one he had been at yesterday was still in his room) and jotted down a few notes before signing on the right line, stamping the paper, and setting it aside, starting the ‘finished’ pile.

He finished only three more papers before the door opened. Keeli stepped inside and closed the door behind her. He watched as she bowed before approaching the desk, a tray in her hands.

She set down the tray and bowed to him again. “My Lord.” She held him in her gaze for a moment before nodding to the tray. “Lunch.”

Zuko didn’t really want to think about eating right now. He made a face and shook his head slowly.

A frown appeared on her face. “My Lord-”

He shook his head again.

She scowled. “You need to eat. You need to eat and you need to sleep, and you also need to see a healer soon, too.”

Zuko shivered involuntarily at the thought.

She stared at him for another moment before moving a small cup of rice and a dozen berries she had off of the tray, placing them on the desk in front of him. Zuko desperately moved the document he was working on to the side to make sure it didn’t get damaged. Keeli immediately began to pour a cup of water for him as well, placing that near the food. She set down the utensils and unpacked the last bit of food (a bit of komodo sausage) before folding her hands and staring at him.

Zuko looked down at the food in front of him. It smelled good, it looked good, and he knew it tasted good, but he couldn’t bring himself to move his hand any closer to it.

Eventually, Keeli let out a long, irritated sigh before she unfolded her hands and walked around the desk to stand beside him. His eyes (and head) followed her until she was right next to him. She picked up one of the berries from the small bowl of them and looked at it between her fingers for a moment before she held it up to his mouth and pressed it gently against his lips.

He furrowed his eyebrows, crossing his eyes as he tried to look down at it, keeping his mouth firmly shut as she pressed harder.

“You need to eat, your grace.”

He shook his head a bit, still trying to make sure she couldn’t breach his defenses.

She scowled deeply at him, her teeth gritted. “ Eat .”

Zuko locked gazes with her for a moment. He felt something pass through him as he stared into her chestnut-brown eyes and his heart skipped a beat. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before relenting and letting the berry pass through his lips, the cold, small fruit landing on his tongue as soon as she released it.

Keeli stayed in the room until he had finished all of the food. She filled his water cup one more time, setting the half-empty jug on a small table to the side of the room before turning back to him.

“Thank you, my Lord.”

She bowed to him, took the tray, and moved to the door before glancing at him one more time.

She offered him a small smile.

Zuko didn’t return it, but he did give her a nod of gratitude. 

She nodded as well and bowed one more time before opening the door and slipping outside, closing it a moment later.

Zuko turned his eyes back down to his work.

The amount of light that shined into the office from outside changed drastically over the time he was in there, and eventually Keeli returned with another meal, this one just as small as the last one. Granted, that was probably all he could handle, so it was probably a good thing.

He ate it with much less struggle with the determined woman than the last time and she gave him another smile and bow before leaving the room again.

One of the four guards outside checked up on him every hour or so, and once they took him out to use the bathroom (which he was going to try to banish from his mind as soon as possible).

(He was determined to strengthen his legs enough to walk again, if it was possible, just for the sake of being able to use the bathroom without assistance).

Eventually, it was the mid-afternoon, and Zuko still hadn’t said a single word, when he grabbed a new document and read it over. He furrowed his eyebrows. 

It was information on the last active Fire Nation prison for waterbenders. The prison, apparently, hadn’t been active in years, since the last waterbender had died, yet it was still taking funds from the royal treasury.

He needed to find out why.

Also, now that he thought about it, he should probably see the prison first-hand. One of them, at least, and why not kill two birds with one stone? If Zuko was to understand the true extent of the tensions (which was definitely putting it lightly) between the Fire Nation and the rest of the world, this was a good place to start.

He thought about how to get the attention of the guards outside. Finally, he resolved to knocking a few times on the wood of the desk. Even with him mustering as much strength as he could, the sound wasn’t much, but it was enough to get the attention of the four outside, and the door opened a moment later to reveal Tyne. She bowed and approached him, leaving the door open.

“Yes, my Lord?”

Zuko beckoned her closer and she took a few steps forward and looked over the desk at where his finger was on the document, under the characters forming the name of the waterbender prison.

She murmured the name under her breath before looking up at him. “You want to… go there?”

He nodded.

She snorted, a smile appearing. “Two prisons in a row. Gonna make this a habit, your grace?”

His face heated and he shifted his eyes down, shaking his head.

She laughed before bowing and walking outside. She exchanged some quick words with the other guards. Keeli moved right past the group and into the room. She gathered up the documents and slipped them into a bag before handing it off to Anzo (who had entered the room as she was putting the work away).

Keeli moved behind him, grabbed the handles of his wheelchair, and pulled him away from the desk. They moved toward the door, and Anzo followed them out.

When they got outside and Anzo closed the door behind them, Zuko realized that Lee was gone.

“Lee went ahead to get things ready. He’s the fastest,” Ming said, as if she could read his thoughts. He glanced at her and gave a nod of acknowledgment. 

They moved through the palace, Tyne in front of Zuko and Keeli, Ming and Anzo flanking either side behind. There were less servants than there had been in the morning, but still many peered at him when they thought he wasn’t looking.

Probably more peered at him when he actually wasn’t looking.

When they got outside, the carriage Lee had gotten was quite small, styled the same as the ones from the day before, but seating, at a tight squeeze, three people. Two was probably the regulation maximum.

“The day is fading fast, my Lord,” Lee said to Zuko when he raised an eyebrow at the size. “This one is fastest. And we’ll be taking the back streets, to get there even faster, unless you have any objections?”

Zuko pursed his lips but shook his head. Lee gave him a grin and he and Ming helped him inside the carriage. This time, the wheelchair was folded up and strapped to one of the komodo rhinos that one of the guards was riding on. Pim joined them about a minute before they left, clutching new, more official Fire Lord robes, and joined Ming on the back of her large komodo rhino. Then, there was a rumbling, and the carriage began to move.

They took a smaller, faster airship this time, with a different captain who seemed to have a distaste for Zuko, but who was polite all the same. Then again, he probably had to be.

The airship’s speed was helpful, because the ride itself to the old waterbender prison was just as long as the one to the Boiling Rock yesterday, about two hours, even if this ship was faster. The prison was much farther away than the Boiling Rock had been.

The journey there was completely uneventful, filled only with work, more work, and, what a surprise, even more work.

Finally, they made it, and were able to dock right outside, to the point where the warden and some guards met them as they landed, considering the fact that the prison was on land and… not in the middle of a boiling lake in a volcano.

As they were disembarking, the warden rushed forward, followed by two guards on either side of him. The guards all had helmets on and their hands folded tightly behind their backs.

“Fire Lord Zuko,” the warden said, bowing low. “It is an honor to have you here at our historic prison. I must say, it was a surprise when we heard that you were coming here.”

There was an awkward silence, and even though Zuko knew that he should speak, he couldn’t physically bring himself to. The silence stretched on for way too many moments before Anzo jumped in for him.

“The Fire Lord would like you to know that he is very pleased to be here… and he is eager to see all that your… historic prison has to offer.”

The warden eyed Anzo strangely, and then Zuko himself strangely, before he gathered his bearings and bowed again. “Of course. If you’ll follow me, your grace.”

The prison’s entrance was looming, and if Ty Lee was there, Zuko was sure she would comment on how awful the aura was.

“Welcome, Fire Lord Zuko, to the peak of waterbender prisons. The Water’s Wail.”

His blood ran cold at the name. It was horrible.

As they moved into the prison, Zuko couldn’t tell if the guards’ were looking at him or not. Their eyes were all shielded totally from view by their helmets. It didn’t make the situation feel any better.

“This prison was founded only twenty years after the beginning of the Hundred-Year-War. It was built to hold any war prisoners, at first, before the raids on the Water Tribes began and it morphed into a waterbender-only prison.” The warden grinned, and Zuko felt a chill go down his spine. “We’ve held more Southern waterbenders here than any other prison in the Fire Nation.”

They rounded a corner and approached a large door.

“Right through here are our holding cells. They’re empty now, of course, all of the waterbenders have since perished, but the history will never fade.”

Zuko swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded to the warden. The warden, in turn, nodded to one of his guards who turned the wheel on the door and pushed it open.

The actual prison was… awful. Like something out of nightmares. Cages, literal cages, raised off of the ground, chains hanging from the ceiling of each, unlocked, just dangling there, as if waiting for someone that was never going to come back.

They pressed on, and he heard Keeli’s deep breaths behind him as she tried to keep herself calm.

“The containment units for the prisoners were raised off of the ground, to prevent any contact with water from the ground. Any time they had to be given water, their hands and feet would be bound to prevent any and all possible waterbending.” The warden scowled. “There was an escape, a couple decades back, during my first year as a warden. The waterbender… controlled the guards’ bodies and forced them to let her out, but she didn’t release any of her kin. Just stumbled out of the prison and into the woods. I’m ashamed to say that we let her go. Controlling people like that… we didn’t want to risk more men going after one waterbender. She most likely died in the wilderness, anyway.”

Zuko nodded slowly, trying not to think too hard on the warden’s words.

They approached another door. The warden suddenly grinned, and his eyes twinkled with what looked like excitement.

“Now, behind this door is our pride and joy. The reason this prison is still running.” Okay, he was probably lying there. Whatever it was couldn’t need as much money as this prison was taking out per month. Speaking (or rather thinking) of which, he still needed to rectify that. After this tour was over. 

Zuko nodded to the warden, the warden nodded to a guard, the guard opened the door.

It was more prison cells.

They moved past these cells quicker, the warden increasing the pace in his excitement.

“And here we are,” the warden said. Zuko’s eyes moved up to the cell they had stopped at and felt his heart stop. “The pride of the Water’s Wail.”

Blue eyes met his and Zuko sucked in a breath.

“The last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe.”

The woman in the cell, whose arms were strung up above her, somehow mustered up some strength and glared coldly at the warden. She grit her teeth and opened her mouth. The words that came out were rough and hoarse (from lack of water, most likely), but they were still as hard and cold as the ice the woman came from.

“My name is Kya .”

Chapter Text

In the moments after the war ended, surprisingly little happened.

Sokka and Toph taunted the Fire Lord. Aang said he took the Fire Lord’s bending away. The airship fleet was down. As soon as they had fallen silent, nothing had felt real anymore.

Sokka, personally, was ready to pack up shop and head off on a Fire Nation-wide search for his dad, but then he remembered that they had just ended the 100-Year War and probably needed to head back to check on Katara and the Order of the White Lotus.

“So… who’s up for a road trip to Ba Sing Se?” Sokka asked. He gestured widely to the airship next to them. “We’ve got a lovely ride here. First-class, actually.”

Aang let out a small sigh and nodded. “Yeah… Yeah, okay, that sounds good.”

The ex-Fire Lord was unresponsive. 

“What d’you think of that, Loser Lord?” Toph asked, leaning in closer to the fallen royal, her voice as loud as ever.

No-Zai (oh, yeah, Sokka was really on his nickname game today) lifted his head, and it looked like it took an insane amount of effort, before he glared at the three of them and let his head fall once more.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Toph said, taking a step back, a genuine grin in place on her lips.

Sokka and Aang did a quick sweep of the airship while Toph was keeping watch over The-Conquerer-Who-Never-Conquered in the bridge. Surprisingly, their search yielded positive results, and soon enough, they had fifteen or so extra Fire Nation workers who had stayed at their posts instead of going to the ‘birthday party’ locked up in rooms that Toph happily metalbent into more efficient cells.

As they were preparing a ‘cell’ for the Phoenix-King-of-Getting-His-Butt-Whooped, Sokka asked, “Why don’t we keep him up with us?”

Two pairs of eyes, one seeing and one not, turned to him.

“What?” Toph said.

“Why?” Aang asked.

Sokka shrugged. “Look, we just beat this guy in war. I want him up there so he can hear every name I come up with for him the moment it appears in my mind.”

Toph nodded sagely as if all the stars had just aligned for her, but Aang still looked a bit unsure.

“Come on, Aang. Fearless leader of the Avatar Squad, the BoomerAang Squad-”

“Didn’t you lose Boomerang?”

“Shut up Toph. Anyway, I’ve been with you for all of it, ever since the moment I helped you out of the iceberg, I’ve been by your side-”

“I distinctly remember you thinking I was a Fire Nation spy.”

“Shut up, Aang. I’ve been with you through all of it. At least give me the luxury of mocking a full-grown adult that we just won a war against.”

Despite the interruptions, it seemed like the argument got through to Sokka’s young all-powerful Avatar buddy, as a moment later, Aang gave the most hesitant of nods. Sokka’s face broke out into a grin and he was glad he had kept up with the exercises that Master Piandao had taught him as it was shockingly easy to pull the No-Longer-Fire-Lord to his feet. Sokka pulled him along and brought him back to the bridge.

The entire ride back was filled with chatter so meaningless that Sokka actually couldn’t remember a single word that any of them said. 

(He did, however, remember the nicknames, a list that included, but was not limited to the Can’t-Bend-Fire-Lord, the Definitely-Not-As-Cool-As-A-Phoenix-King, and the King-of-the-Guys-Who-Don’t-Win).

(That last one wasn’t one of his best, and felt more like one someone else would come up with in another life. Suki, maybe?).

They flew the airship toward Ba Sing Se at the fastest speed that they could with only three of them manning something that they didn’t really know how to work.

As he drove, Sokka realized two things. 

One, he had couldn’t remember how he and Toph managed to take down the airship fleet with just the two of them.

And two, he had broken the promise that he had made to Suki when he last saw her at the Serpent’s Pass.

“ When you go to defeat the Fire Lord, you come get me, all right? ” 

“ Of course. Wherever you are. I’ll come get you, and you’ll be a part of it.”

“ Do you promise? ”

“ I promise .”

Sokka scowled (which probably wasn’t something that he should be doing after just winning a century-long war). Aang seemed to take notice.

“What’s wrong, Sokka?” he asked, floating up next to him like he wasn’t a one-hundred-and-twelve-year-old-who-just-defeated-an-evil-monarch.

Sokka shook his head. “Just thinking about… things…”

Aang blinked before a familiar smile fell into place on his face (oh, Tui and La, Aang had his ‘ determined motivational ’ face on).

“Don’t worry, Sokka. Katara will be fine.”

Sokka blinked. “Actually not what I was thinking of, but thank you for putting that lovely scenario in my mind.”

Aang grinned and nodded. “No problem!”

They made it back to Ba Sing Se after only a few hours. These airships were clearly built for speed. That made sense, they were supposed to last long enough for the Fire Lord and his buddies to make it across the entire continent before the Comet ended.

Much of the city was aflame, but as they dropped down outside of the White Lotus camp, Sokka noted that he saw many of them being put out.

They landed and all ran to the exit, Toph nearly punching the button that would open the door. As the door swung open, Sokka’s eyes registered the two Old Masters approaching them.

“Bumi!” Aang exclaimed, his eyes lighting up. He bounded out before the door was even all the way open (stupid airbenders ) and bounced in the arms of someone who still gave Sokka whiplash (because, seriously, Aang is the same age as this guy!).

“So, I’m assuming you won?” Piandao asked, though it honestly sounded more like a question.

Sokka grinned, nodded, and bowed to his master. 

“I locked him up in a cell. Doesn’t have a door. Only I can get in it.”

“So… you metalbended a cell,” Bumi said, one of his eyes twitching (which Sokka knew wasn’t from annoyance, it was just what Bumi did sometimes).

“Yep. Also might have dislocated his shoulder.”

All eyes turned to her suddenly (if they weren’t on her already).

“What?” Sokka asked, and his voice (irritatingly) cracked during the word.

“Yeah,” Toph nodded, shrugging. A pillar of earth shot up beside her and she leaned on it. “He was struggling and I underestimate my own strength.”

There was silence before Sokka said, “Honestly, I’m wondering now why we didn’t just send Toph in with an army of melons to defeat No-Zai. Would’ve been over in thirty seconds, tops.”

There was a general murmur of agreements throughout the group, other than Toph, who laughed, stomped the ground (which caused a boulder ten feet away to fly up five feet in the air) and said, “Damn right it would’ve! Twinkle-Toes, give him back his bending and pit ‘im against me, I wanna see how quickly I can beat your record!”

Bumi and Piandao both moved their gazes to Aang.

“You took away his bending?” Piandao asked.

Aang’s face took on a much more serious look (ah, he had donned his ‘Avatar’ face). He nodded. “Yes. I took his bending away. He can never use it to harm anyone else ever again.”

There was a quiet, and it was slightly awkward until Bumi let out one of his crazed laughs and said, “Well, guess we don’t need to worry about him anymore then, do we?”

Piandao nodded and locked eyes with Aang. “You found a way to defeat the Fire Nation and end the war without killing him. I’m impressed.”

Sokka nudged Aang. “That’s the highest praise you’re ever gonna get, buddy.”

Aang smiled and nodded before bowing to Piandao. “Thank you, Master.”

They followed the two Old Masters through the camp and eventually to the edge of it.

“We’ll transport the airship to the palace ourselves, but you all should head there right now,” Piandao said, his eyes on Sokka. “Your sister, General Iroh, and the rest of the Masters should be there.”

Sokka nodded and bowed to his master one more time. Aang gave Bumi a big wave and hopped over to Sokka’s side.

“Wait, where’s Toph?” The Avatar asked.

As if one cue (actually, it probably was on cue), Toph popped out from the ground . “Hold your horses, Twinkle-Toes, I’m right here.”

If it was anyone else, they might have reacted, but it was Toph, so they didn’t.

After one more farewell to Bumi and Piandao, the three were off. Aang and Toph worked together and bent a slab of earth. As one, the other two pushed forward and they were moving across the mostly-open landscape toward the Inner Wall. Or, at least, the place where the hole was big enough for them to just slide right through.

Sokka wasn’t going to lie, seeing the streets of Ba Sing Se filled with stacks of Fire Nation tanks and war vehicles filled him with such immeasurable joy that it reached a point where he hadn’t even known he could feel that happy.

Near each stack, there was a group of Fire Nation soldiers being detained and marched away by Earth Kingdom soldiers or members of the Order of the White Lotus. The Earth Kingdom had already taken back their city.

They shot through the streets of the city, Toph and Aang completely bypassing barriers separating each ring as if they weren’t even there.

When they reached the palace, they stopped. The courtyard held a small gathering of people. There was Pakku, and Jeong Jeong, and Iroh, and Katara .

“ Katara! ” Aang got to her first. He catapulted himself off of the rock, leaving Toph to lower it back to the ground. Toph strolled right up to Iroh, so Sokka moved to bury his face in Appa instead.

He needed a good Appa-Face-Burying right about now.

Once his face had emerged from the fur of the bison, he hopped back over to join his friends, and launched himself at his sister.

“ Katara ,” he breathed. They pulled away as one and he searched the eyes that belonged to both his sister and his mother as he asked, “Did you win?”

She laughed wetly and nodded. “Yeah, I did. Don’t think I’d be here if I didn’t.”

Sokka swallowed down the lump that formed in his throat at the thought and nodded. “Yeah.”

“What happened on your end?” Iroh asked, drawing the attention of the whole assembly. “Did you defeat my brother?”

There was a beat of silence before Aang nodded. “I did.”

All at once, all tension seemed to leave everyone’s bodies. Even Sokka relaxed a bit, despite the fact that he already knew that Fire-Lord-No-More was defeated, was on his way, locked up in an airship and guarded by two of the most skilled people in the world.

“Where is he?” Iroh asked, taking a step forward.

As if on cue, there was a whirring sound through the air, coming from the sky. All eyes moved up, and Sokka watched as the airship slowly moved down and landed in the courtyard.

“Ah, the Palace of the Earth King!” Bumi’s voice rang out through the courtyard, and Sokka watched as a small smile appeared on the faces of all of those present (except for Iroh, he noted). “I haven’t been here since Long Tooth was asking me for more tax money!”

“Do you mean… Long Feng ?” Katara asked hesitantly.

Bumi laughed, throwing his head back before he shook his head, one of his eyes twitching. “I’m quite sure it was Long Tooth.”

Katara seemed to want to say something before thinking better of it.

“Lady Beifong,” Piandao said, interrupting the awkward quiet left behind, “Would you come with me to retrieve the Fire Lord.”

Toph groaned as if it was a complete and utter inconvenience to her before nodding. “I can . But only because none of your sissies are good enough to even be able to bend what I did to lock that guy up.”

“Where’s Azula?” Aang asked.

As if on cue, there was a roar from across the courtyard. All eyes moved and Katara took a step to the side, allowing Sokka to see Azula. Her hair was choppy, her eyes wide and crazed. She was chained to a pillar, her arms and legs bound. She was facing the sky and letting blue waves of flame fly from her mouth. She seemed to be…

“Is she… crying?” Aang asked, voicing Sokka’s thoughts.

“Looks like she finally cracked,” Sokka said, staring at the teenager. It struck him suddenly that the girl over there was younger than him. She was Katara’s age.

He shrugged off the thought. That didn’t excuse her actions. Nothing could excuse her actions.

“Are those… cuts?” Aang asked again, breaking Sokka from his train of thought.

Katara nodded. “Yeah. We’re not sure where from. Looked like glass or something.”

“Here to mock me?”

Azula’s voice was loud, and all eyes moved back to her, but she wasn’t talking to them. Her eyes were up at a cloud. Sokka couldn’t tell from this far away, but it looked like she was glaring at the fluffy thing in the sky.

“You never loved me. It was always Zuzu. Zuzu this and Zuzu that , you never cared for me.” Azula’s voice was wobbly now, and blue fire was creeping out of the edge of her mouth. “ Admit it, you coward! You were afraid of me! I was a monster! I AM a monster! ” Azula laughed, and the chill that ran down Sokka’s spine almost made him fall over.

Azula’s mouth was still moving, but her voice had fallen down to a quieter volume, and the group could no longer hear it.

“We should get her out of here before Toph gets back with Ozai,” Katara said, rubbing her arm. There was a small burn there.

“Katara, your arm,” Aang said before Sokka could.

Katara blinked and looked down at the red skin. She winced. “Ow. Yeah, I, uh, was so caught up in the adrenaline I… I guess I didn’t notice.”

She whipped out water from a nearby fountain and it glowed blue as she held it against her skin. When she removed it, the burn was almost completely faded, and clearly didn’t hurt anymore.

“Master Pakku, Master Jeong Jeong, if you would please escort my niece inside and place her somewhere where she can’t…” Iroh hesitated, but the smile never left his face. “...endanger anyone?”

The two masters bowed to Iroh before moving away as one. The old general watched them go, the smile still in place until he turned back to them and sighed.

“Well,” he said, and the smile was back again. It was the kind of smile that made anyone relax when they saw it. “The tides have turned. Ozai and Azula, and the Fire Nation, in turn, have been defeated. Balance has been returned to the world. Violence has been cast aside, and we have ushered in a new era of peace .”

The words made Sokka relax. Iroh always knew what to say.

“Now-”

Iroh was cut off by Toph’s voice ringing out through the air.

“One defeated Fire Lord, express shipping,” she called. Piandao was next to her, his hands crossed behind his back, his lips pulled into a tight line.

Toph flicked her wrist (the most delicate movement for earthbending she ever did) and Ozai was dragged into view, hanging down by the metal shackles in place around his wrists. Thanks to Toph’s metalbending, the cuffs just floated in the air, pulling the Fire-Lord-But-Not-Anymore along.

Iroh and Ozai met gazes. Ozai seemed tired, but he still managed to glare fiercely at his older brother.

“Brother,” Iroh said calmly. It was insane to Sokka how blank Iroh could make his face if he wanted to. His features were a complete mask, his eyes hiding all emotion. “I have to say, I’m glad to see you, under the circumstances.”

“ Iroh ,” Ozai hissed. He spat at the older man’s feet. He missed. “So, you abdicated the throne only to join the Avatar to take it right back .”

Iroh stared down at Ozai silently. Sokka’s heart thrummed against his chest. He hadn’t thought about that very much. Iroh , the tea-and-hugs guy, was going to be the Fire Lord.

Ozai laughed, but it was so raspy and hoarse  it could be mistaken as a cough. “Unfortunately for you, Azula was crowned today. She’s the holder of the Dragon Throne, now.”

Iroh shook his head. “Master Katara and I intercepted Azula before she could be crowned. I challenged her, and Master Katara then defeated her. Your daughter has been contained, Ozai. You lost .”

Ozai was shaking now. His eyes were exhausted, but they flicked quickly over the stones as he thought, before a wicked grin came over his features.

“You seem to be forgetting one important thing, dear brother.”

The words sent a chill down Sokka’s spine, and no one spoke, no one moved as Ozai continued.

“I have two children.”

He laughed, and it was just as scraping as before as a group of guards approached and Toph handed him off.

No one said a word until Ozai was gone.

“What did you do to him, Aang?” Iroh asked, breaking gently through the barrier that the silence had built.

“I took his bending away,” Aang said after a moment. “Energybending. A lion turtle taught me how to do it. He can’t use it to hurt anyone ever again.”

Iroh nodded, his face betraying nothing. His thoughts were as concealed as ever. These looks on Sokka were what made him very happy to have the old man on their side.

“Iroh…” Sokka began slowly, and all eyes turned to him as he spoke. “What did Ozai mean when he said that he had two children…?”

Iroh sighed.

“Azula… Azula is not an only child… She had… has … a brother… An older one.”

There was a collective holding of breath in the group. Sokka’s mind was going into overdrive. Ozai had another child? Azula had a brother? An older brother? That they didn’t know about?

What?  

Sokka didn’t like this.

“This… Iroh, this is a vital piece of information! That you’ve been! Withholding!” Sokka punctuated each phrase by flailing his arms even more wildly than before.

“I know,” Iroh said, nodding, his lips pulled down into a tight frown. “And I am truly sorry. But I didn’t think it was relevant.”

Sokka blinked and studied the man’s face as Toph spoke.

“You also… forgot, didn’t you?”

Iroh turned to Toph and chuckled before nodding. “Yes, I also forgot.”

“Who is he? What’s he like?” Sokka asked, stepping toward Iroh, his fingers drumming anxiously against his thigh.

Iroh let out a small breath and looked up at the sky. The sun was setting, and the blue expanse was slowly darkening and becoming dotted in stars. “We should head inside. We can discuss this around a nice cup of tea.”

Iroh really did love his tea.

Katara and Aang talked the entire way in, Toph chattered with Iroh, and Sokka was left to his thoughts, once in a while being included in one of the conversations that was occurring, but otherwise being left to his own devices.

Which was never a good state for one to leave their Sokka in.

His mind ran rampant, trying to picture what this older brother of Azula, this eldest son of Ozai, might look like. Long hair, at least Iroh’s length, Sokka was sure. Piercing amber eyes like Azula’s and Ozai’s (though Ozai’s were more dull than piercing now) was shining brightly in his mind. A confident smirk, a lean, muscular body, lying abilities to rival those of the younger fire princess, with burning blue flames like the ocean but so not …

Sokka tried to force the image away, but it stuck. It was terrifying.

He instead filed it away somewhere in his thoughts to come back to later. He was sure that they would have to confront this Fire Nation prince at one point or another, anyway. Might as well keep up an idea of how he’ll likely look.

The Earth Kingdom guards that had already taken positions up in front of the palace doors opened the doors as soon as they approached, even if the Earth King was still off somewhere traveling. 

One servant inside led them to a sitting room and Iroh asked to be shown where he could brew the tea just right, and Sokka couldn’t help but feel like tea would forever be ruined for their little group unless it was made by Iroh. Nothing would ever be as good as Iroh’s tea.

“So… Azula having a brother?” Aang said after a moment around the table, starting the conversation.

“I don’t like it,” Katara said. “I mean, why did we never hear about him when we were in the Fire Nation undercover?”

“I mean, we barely ever heard talk of Azula while we were undercover in the Fire Nation,” Toph said, leaning back with her feet propped up on the table and her back against the cushions that were strewn across the floor behind her.

“Still, I feel like we would have heard something ,” Katara said.

“He would be the Crown Prince, right?” Sokka interjected, drawing the attention to himself. “If he’s Azula’s older brother?”

Aang nodded. “Yeah, he would be.”

“What d’you think he’s like?” Toph asked, somehow chewing on a piece of grass. Sokka had no idea where that came from.

“If he’s Ozai’s son and Azula’s brother?” Katara asked, though it wasn’t a question. “Evil.”

“Manipulative,” Sokka put in.

“Scary,” Aang added.

“Iroh’s back,” Toph said, looking toward the door even if she couldn’t see anything. Her hand was on the floor, which Sokka supposed allowed her to see even if her feet were propped up.

A moment later, true to Toph’s word, the door opened to reveal Iroh clutching the handle of a steaming pot of tea, another nameless servant behind him with a platter of small cups.

The cups were laid out and Iroh dismissed the woman before gently pouring each of them a cup.

“Jasmine tea,” Iroh said, his voice as warm as the drink itself.

“Your favorite,” the group said back at him in unison. Iroh had talked about his favorite tea so many times Sokka thought that sometimes he dreamed of it.

“So, Iroh…” Aang began, but Sokka couldn’t stand his slow tone and jumped in, speaking rapidly.

“Ozai’s son? Azula’s brother? Who is he? Where is he? What’s his name? What’s he like? Why have we never seen him before? Why have you never mentioned him before? Why-”

“Iroh said he forgot,” Toph interjected. “That’s why he wasn’t mentioned.”

Iroh nodded. “Thank you, Toph.” He reached forward and took his cup of tea in his hands. He brought it to his face, smelled deeply, and took a long drink from the tea before setting it back down. Iroh kept his eyes trained on the steaming cup as he began to speak.

“Azula’s brother, Ozai’s son… He is my nephew.”

Toph snorted. All eyes turned to her and Sokka found himself glaring at her (even if she couldn’t see it) for interrupting the story. 

“Sorry,” Toph said, a grin in place that seemed to imply that she wasn’t all that sorry, “Of course he’s your nephew, though. He has to be if he’s Azula’s brother.”

Iroh pursed his lips and nodded. “Indeed.”

There was a beat of silence before Toph aimlessly waved her hand. “Continue.”

“Of course.” Iroh paused before speaking again. “It has been years since I’ve seen him. Over five, I believe.”

“Why’s that?” Katara asked in the gentle voice she used when she was healing one of her friends.

“After my son died, I grieved in the capital for a year before traveling off on my Spirit World journey.” The group nodded. They knew about that. “When I returned, I traveled for a period of time, assisted Zhao at the North Pole before discovering his true intentions, you know the rest,” he waved his hand in the air, as if brushing away thoughts. “I haven’t seen my nephew since leaving for the Spirit World journey.”

“What was he like?” Aang asked. “Before you left, I mean.”

Iroh sighed and shifted a bit, his eyes roaming their faces. “He was… bright. Energetic. He fought with Azula a lot, he was jealous of her firebending prowess. He was… hot-headed, and had little to no restraint when it came to anything. He was impatient. He was always vying for his father’s attention.”

Oh, great, a hot-headed prince with an anger problem whose main goal was impressing No-Zai. What great news for their little group.

“What was his name?” Sokka found himself asking. He needed to put a name to the face that he had constructed for this prince in his mind.

Iroh was silent for a moment. He closed his eyes before speaking quietly. “Zuko. His name was… is Zuko. He would be a few months over sixteen these days, I believe. He was around a year-and-a-half to two years older than Azula,” Iroh said.

“Great, so he’s had even more years of training,” Sokka muttered.

“But why have we never heard of him before? Why have we never seen him before?”

Iroh nodded in acknowledgment of Katara’s questions. “My sources within the Fire Nation, which are few, but trustworthy, have told me that around three years ago, Prince Zuko faded from the public eye. Ozai supposedly took him away to be raised and trained privately, by him and him alone. Word has it that not even Azula knew where her brother was.”

“Well isn’t this just a wonderful surprise,” Sokka exclaimed, clapping his hands together, a mock grin upon his face. “Azula has an older brother who’s been raised and trained privately by Ozai for upward of three years! That’s just… the best news… ever!”

“So, what, do we go to the Fire Nation and dethrone him?” Aang asked, looking from Sokka to Iroh.

Sokka nodded, the grin becoming a bit more genuine. “Yeah! Aang can slice him up, Avatar-style, and this Zuko guy won’t even have the comet!”

Iroh shook his head. “Things are too unstable in the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribes currently. We need to bide our time. Besides, Ozai’s rule has been hard on the people of the Fire Nation. They aren’t likely to oppose new rule, especially when the other option is Ozai’s son, so my nephew should have little support from the common-folk.” Iroh paused. “And, either way, we should try for peace with the Fire Nation first. They have lost the war, they are going to be unstable, and it won’t help them that their ruler will be, too. We have time. We should rest, you should rest. We settle things here, and we’ll handle the Fire Nation when the time comes.” Iroh thought for a moment before adding, “And besides, my nephew was never the best at decisions. Hopefully it remains that way without Ozai or Azula to guide him along.”

“This plan relies a lot on hope,” Sokka pointed out, squirming uncomfortably.

Iroh turned to him with a graceful smile. “Most successful plans do.” Iroh sighed. He seemed to be doing that a lot today. “Aang took away Ozai’s firebending. If need be, he can take Zuko’s, too.” He looked back up, and Sokka’s blood was chilled by the fiery look in the old man’s eyes. “The war is over. If Zuko refuses the peace that we have won and starts up another war, he will not be able to overcome the might of the rest of the world and the Avatar.”

Aang squirmed a bit but nodded resolutely. Sokka did as well, the action mirrored by Toph and his sister.

“We should all get some rest. We can talk more in the morning.” Sokka glanced out the window in the room at Iroh’s words and noticed that it was, indeed, night outside. 

“Great idea!” Aang exclaimed, hopping up from seat fluidly with the help of his airbending. Sokka grumbled a bit and got to his feet the normal way.

A group of servants showed the four of them to a section of the palace with separate bedrooms for each of them while another servant led Iroh off in a different direction.

After the servants had left and Sokka was in his own room, wall separating him and the others, he stared down at the ground for a moment before laying back on the bed.

He ended up just staring at the ceiling. 

He had been sleeping (camping) near his friends (his family ) for so long that sleeping in a palace alone felt wrong .

After five minutes, he decided that he should go check on Aang.

Just because he was worried . Not because he didn’t want to be alone .

Yes.

That was it.

Sokka quietly opened the door and peeked into the hallway. There were no servants in sight. He took a breath and tip-toed next door to where he knew Aang was. Sokka didn’t even bother to knock.

When he entered, Aang wasn’t in sight. A quick scan of the room showed the boy hovering near the ceiling, the air below him moving to hold him up.

“Aang?”

The ever-so-graceful Avatar flailed in surprise for a moment, his bending failing him as he fell to the ground, barely managing to catch himself before he collided with the shining floor.

“Sokka?” Aang asked, actually landing gracefully as he spoke now that he had regained his bearings. “What’re you doing here?”

Sokka opened his mouth to speak, to come up with some excuse, before his words failed him and he sighed, taking a few steps away from the door before leaning against the wall. “I couldn’t sleep.”

Aang snorted. “Sokka, it’s been five minutes.”

Sokka shrugged. “I wasn’t going to be able to. Those five minutes felt like forever and I was just staring at the ceiling , man.”

“Yeah, I get that…” Aang said, nodding. He gestured vaguely at the ceiling. “Why do you think I was doing that?”

Sokka felt a smile appear on his lips and went to respond before there was a soft knocking on the door. There was a pause and the two inside the room stayed quiet before a voice came from the other side.

“ Aang? It’s… It’s Katara… And Toph.” Another pause. “ We’re coming in .”

The door creaked open to reveal, sure enough, Katara and Toph standing there.

“Sokka?” Katara asked, blinking at him as Toph dragged her inside and closed the door. “What are you doing in here?”

Sokka shrugged. “We’ve been camping, sleeping near each other for so long, being apart was… weird.

Katara smiled softly and nodded. “Same here,” she said, gesturing to herself and Toph.

“As much as I hate to admit it, I’ve bonded with you dorks,” Toph said, plopping herself down into a chair in the room, her bare feet still touching the ground.

They laughed, and Sokka didn’t really know what happened after that. They just talked and talked until they all eventually fell asleep in a circle on the ground.

The next morning, there was a knock at the door that made Sokka jump awake.

He grudgingly walked over and opened the door. 

“Yeah?”

The servant there blinked before bowing. “Lord Sokka…” That sounded weird. “I have to say, I wasn’t expecting-”

She never finished her sentence, as somewhere distant in the palace an explosion rang out. There were screams that echoed through the corridors and behind Sokka, Toph and Katara sprang to life. Aang continued to sleep away.

“Aang! Aang!” Katara exclaimed, shaking his shoulders. 

“He beat the Fire Lord, yesterday, Sweet Cheeks. Let him sleep. Whatever’s going on, we can handle it.” She cracked her knuckles for emphasis. 

Sokka nodded and brushed past the shocked servant, Katara and Toph following him. They moved randomly through the palace in the direction of the explosion.

Finally, they rounded a corner and were greeted with members of the Order of the White Lotus and blue flames cooling into a bright orange.

“What’s going on?” Katara yelled over the mayhem. Sokka watched a fireball hurtle in her direction and grabbed her sleeve, yanking her out of the way.

“Princess Azula has escaped,” Pakku said, the closest master to have heard Katara’s question. There was an angry scream and then the fire stopped coming. “Come, Katara. Let us put these fires out.” Katara nodded to her master and Sokka watched the two of them move away.

“What’s going on?” Aang’s groggy voice asked from behind them.

An hour later, the group sat with Iroh once more in a room, drinking tea.

“How did she escape?” Aang asked, breaking the silence with his glances at each person seated there.

“Was it an inside job?” Sokka asked next. “The Dai Li?”

Iroh shook his head. “We’re looking out for them, but they haven’t shown their faces yet. This one was all Azula and her… bending power.”

They all nodded and a wave of quiet blanketed the room once again.

Around dusk that same day, Sokka was sitting with his friends on a balcony when there was yet another explosion.

“Shit,” he breathed out, swinging backward. 

“Language,” Aang muttered.

“Shut up, Aang.”

Toph hit both of them in the back of the heads and they snapped out of it and followed her toward the commotion.

Surprise, surprise, it was Azula again.

She was locked up again within fifteen minutes. Five minutes longer than it took last time.

Two more explosions and escape attempts occurred that night. Azula seemed to have channeled her insane energy into escaping and getting back to the Fire Nation (or maybe she was trying to take back Ba Sing Se, who really knew with her?).

No one got any sleep that night. Sokka and the others all huddled in Aang’s room instead, and every time one of them almost fell asleep, someone would wake them up to make sure that they were all as alert as possible.

The infirmary filled with White Lotus members, guards, and servants alike who were all injured in one way or another by Azula’s constant escape attempts. After the third day, most, if not all, of the Dai Li agents had been overwhelmed and imprisoned, leaving only Azula left.

Somehow, though, she seemed to just continue to get stronger. With each escape attempt, she got smarter, and it mattered not where they locked her up, she always managed to get out. She was too strong, and her fire was too hot, and her mind was too messed up , Sokka believed.

Finally, four days after Sozin’s Comet, the worst of it from her came.

They were walking to tea with Iroh (Sokka noticed that they had a lot of that these days) when there was an explosion, followed very quickly by screams.

The four glanced at each other, more exasperated than anything, before following Toph’s directions to the battle that was surely occurring.

When they reached it, they watched two Earth Kingdom guards go down with jets of fire to their chests. They didn’t get up. Sokka didn’t know if they were alive or dead.

Aang was staring at the guards, pain clear in his eyes.

Three more guards were down by the time Sokka looked back up.

It took a half-hour, and countless more people, before they finally managed to overwhelm Azula (which they would have done if 1. Iroh had shown up earlier, or 2. Aang had just gone all glowy-glowy , but no …).

In tea with Iroh another hour later, all was silent. It wasn’t a comfortable silence, either. It was a heavy, hard, painful silence.

Finally, Iroh spoke.

“Two-hundred-and-thirteen injured,” he said, eyeing each person at the table individually. Sokka felt like he was being personally judged. “None dead. Yet. Twenty-six in critical condition.”

Katara stood up. “I should be down there, healing people.”

Iroh raised a hand and Sokka watched her hesitate before taking a seat begrudgingly. 

“You may do that later, Katara. Let us finish our tea, first.”

After another moment, Aang spoke.

“I know what I have to do.”

All eyes turned to Aang, and his eyes were hard, steely.

“Aang?” Katara asked softly placing her hand on his shoulder. He turned to her, and Sokka felt a chill run down his spine at the cold look on the boy’s face.

“I have to take her bending away. Like I did with Ozai. It’s the only way to keep her from hurting anyone else.”

Sokka’s jaw fell onto the floor. Toph’s eyes were wide and she was looking in Aang’s direction, even if she couldn’t see him. Katara’s mouth opened, words failing to form on her tongue. Out of the corner of his eye, Sokka saw Iroh stand up.

“You’re right,” Iroh said, nodding. “Taking her bending is the only way to ensure she stays harmless and safe, and that the safety of everyone else is preserved as well.”

Now, Sokka, of course, didn’t know what it was like to have one’s bending taken away. He didn’t even know what it was like to have bending in the first place. Based on Ozai, it wasn’t a pleasant experience, but it wasn’t painful either. Probably just… hard to adjust to. 

“I agree,” he found himself saying. “I don’t know what having bending is like, but if that’s the best option, I say we go with that.”

Katara nudged Toph in the shoulder when the earthbender didn't say anything. Toph still didn't speak, just blinked a few times. Katara sighed and turned back to Aang. "She’s dangerous, and she's presently endangering everyone. If she whips out lightning one day…” There was a shudder that passed over the table and everyone glanced toward Aang, who shifted uncomfortably.

Iroh nodded. “I will consult with the Order of the White Lotus. I am sure that they will agree.” He looked to Aang. “Be ready to perform the action around dusk. The last rays of light are some of the strongest, and it is one of the day’s peaks for firebending.” Sokka knew that, actually. Being the self-named scholar of the group, he had listened in on Iroh’s lessons with Aang, and had discovered that sunrise, mid-day, and sunset were the strongest moments of a firebender’s power. It made sense. 1. When the sun was first reappearing. 2. When the sun was highest in the sky. 3. When the sun was letting out the day’s last light. 

Sokka was, of course, partial to the moon himself, but it never hurt to know more.

Aang nodded. “I’ll be ready.” His words drew Sokka back to the present. Iroh rose and everyone else rose after him. They all moved out of the room and Sokka went with his friends while Iroh went in the other direction.

Like they always did.

An hour later, they were milling about on a balcony when Toph suddenly shot to attention. “Someone’s coming.”

All eyes turned to the entrance to the inside. A servant appeared there. For a moment, Sokka’s hand itched to grab his boomerang or his sword. Which were both gone. Old habit, he supposed. Or, more accurately, four-day-old habit.

“What is it?” Sokka spoke first. “Is Iroh back?”

The servant bowed to them first before shaking her head. “No, Lord Sokka.”

Sokka made a face. He didn’t like that. What would you call the son of a Chief? Yue (oh, Yue ) was called a Princess, right? Maybe he was a prince? Prince Sokka? Yeah, he wasn’t so sure about that one, either.

“What is it, then?” Toph asked, tapping one foot against the ground.

“The Earth King has been found.”

The group trailed behind the servant to the throne room. She bowed to them and walked off in another direction as the guards at the doors (thank Tui and La , there were guards, now). 

The doors opened, and there, sitting on the throne, was Earth King Kuei, dressed in different rags than when they had last seen him, but rags nonetheless. That didn’t matter, though, because he sat on his throne, his royal headdress already back in place on his head. 

His eyes were steely, but when they landed on their group, he grinned.

“Ah! Avatar Aang, Lady Katara and Lord Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe, Lady Beifong of the Earth Kingdom’s own esteemed Gaoling! May I just say on behalf of all of the Earth Kingdom that we are eternally grateful to you all and the Order of the White Lotus for your efforts in ending the Hundred-Year-War four days ago on the day of Sozin’s Comet with your defeat of Fire Lord Ozai and his daughter Crown Princess Azula.” Kuei’s grin turned a bit sheepish. “I may not have known about the war for very long, but my people have, and we are all grateful.”

Aang seemed to slip into his Talking-To-Important-People voice easily as he smiled and said, “Anytime, your Majesty.”

“Actually,” Sokka interjected, “I think we can wait a bit before doing that again.”

There was a round of laughter, though it was a bit sad.

“So, how was your adventure, your Majesty?” Katara asked, quickly changing the subject.

“It was surprisingly boring, Lady Katara,” Kuei responded, settling back into the throne comfortably as their little group approached a bit closer. “I met some interesting people, though. Saw some interesting things. So did Bosco!” The bear in question roared from his position near the king’s feet before settling his head back down to continue resting. Kuei leaned forward in excitement, his eyes shining as he asked, “Did you know that there are people who live in the desert and bend sand ?” He frowned. “They aren’t very friendly. And the Oasis is very false advertising.”

A murmur of general agreement came over all four of them, and Sokka saw Aang scowl slightly at the mention of the sandbenders. Katara placed a hand on his shoulder and whispered in his ear. He seemed to untense and nodded at her, going on his toes to peck her on the cheek. Sokka made a face. Aang and Katara? He knew it was a thing, but it was still weird to think about.

Suddenly, the doors opened and Piandao came strolling in, once more accompanied by Bumi.

“King Bumi!” Kuei exclaimed. “Is that you? Oma and Shu, it’s been years!”

Bumi raised an eyebrow. “Don’t swear in my city’s name!”

Kuei blinked.

Then, Bumi let out his characteristic cackle and grinned. “It’s good to see you without Long Tooth, your Majesty!”

Kuei blinked again, looking at their group once more. “Does he mean… Long Feng?”

Sokka nodded in unison with his friends and Kuei turned back to the two men at the doors.

“And… I’m sorry, I don’t know you,” he said to Piandao.

“Of course, your Majesty. I am Master Piandao, a sword master from the Fire Nation and a loyal member of the Order of the White Lotus.”

“Well, welcome to Ba Sing Se, Master Piandao,” Kuei said, spreading his arms. “Our gates are wide open to any and all members of the Order of the White Lotus.”

Piandao cracked a smile and bowed.

“King Bumi, Master Piandao, to what do we owe the pleasure?” Kuei finally asked, voicing the question on Sokka’s mind.

The older men turned their attention to the teenagers as Piandao spoke, “The White Lotus has decided. Princess Azula will have her bending taken away by Avatar Aang in exactly one hour, just as the sun is setting.”

Kuei started in his throne. This was clearly news to him. He was quickly filled in and eventually nodded at Aang.

“A good choice,” he said. “Non-violent, keeps both the Fire Nation princess and the people from harm.”

“I’m going to take Aang for one more healing session. Need to make sure he has as much energy and health as possible for this,” Katara said, taking Aang by the wrist and dragging him out of the throne room. Sokka stuck his tongue out at his sister. He had a feeling that this ‘healing-session’ would consist of a surprisingly low amount of healing and a surprisingly high amount of making-out.

“C’mon, Snoozles,” Toph said, breaking him from his thoughts. “Let’s go make sure we get a good seat.”

They moved out of the throne room, leaving Kuei with Piandao and Bumi to their own devices.

As they walked through the palace, Sokka found himself being more and more grateful for the way that he had grown up. Living in the Southern Water Tribe (the disgraced Southern Water Tribe) had given Sokka a sort of respect for those who were lower than others. He could see the amount of unnecessary things in the palace, like the golden sculptures and the golden embellishments and, honestly, the golden everything . He had grown up with wood instead of gold and ice instead of walls. He knew what it was like to have none of this. He knew that nobody needed any of this.

On the other hand, though, the sculptures did look really good.

Sokka and Toph emerged into the courtyard where it was to take place. There was a raised platform in the middle that made this feel more like an execution that anything. They moved down to where a ring of guards was. Toph’s milky eyes flicked in the direction of every sound that she picked up. 

They milled around for a few minutes before a gate to the side opened and a group of members of the Order of the White Lotus emerged. The only ones missing, actually, seemed to be Iroh and Pakku. Those made sense. Iroh to handle his niece, Pakku to handle the fires she might light along the way.

Aang and Katara arrived next. They exchanged a kidd ( gross ) before separating. Katara stood next to Sokka and Aang moved up to stand on the raised platform.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” Sokka muttered as they waited. The sun’s final light of the day shined over the courtyard, bathing everything in a golden glow. Sokka found that he preferred this color in comparison to the deep almost-blood red that the comet had made of the world just days before. Tui and La , it had only been four days since the comet. Somehow, it had felt like both an eternity and no time at all.

King Kuei came out next, escorted by his own entourage of guards, of course. The Earth King had a heavy look on his face. It wasn’t as heavy as Aang’s was, but it was there nonetheless. Sokka imagined that the look was on his features, as well. Katara and Toph both had ones more akin to Aang’s. The look of a bender about to watch another lose their bending. Sokka and Kuei both had the look of a person who had never bent in their life about to watch one who had become just like them.

It was weird.

Kuei made it to the platform and stood beside Aang, two guards on either side of him. The serious look never shifted. It reminded Sokka of when the king had commanded Long Feng’s arrest.

There was a scream, and all attention turned back to the gate. 

Azula was being dragged, twisting, writhing, her feet kicking wildly against the stone. Two guards stoically pulled her along, Iroh near her side, Pakku behind them, ready to put out any fires. 

Blue jets of flame shot from her mouth into the air. Any that moved in other directions were dispelled by Iroh quickly. His expression was so blank that it almost frightened Sokka. Iroh was supposed to be calm smiles and steaming cups of tea and tranquil peace, not cold, hard eyes and merciless looks.

It was wrong.

Azula struggled to escape as she was dragged up onto the platform. She was forced to the ground, and Toph stepped forward and pushed rocks up from the earth to encase her hands and feet. 

King Kuei eyed Azula coldly for a moment, and Sokka was reminded that she had been the one to overthrow him months ago. Kuei looked away after a few seconds and addressed the small crowd of guards and Order of the White Lotus members. A scribe stood to the side, ready to rapidly jot down every word.

“Let it be known that on this day, the Crown Princess Azula of the Fire Nation shall be stripped of her bending within the Earth King’s palace in Ba Sing Se, the capital of the Earth Kingdom.”

Kuei stepped back, his guards moving with him. The sun was shining brightly, intensely, but Sokka felt cold.

Aang moved forward, his eyes not on Azula, instead facing the burning light of the setting sun.

He looked much older than he was.

“I, Avatar Aang, on behalf of the peace of the world, declare on this day that Crown Princess Azula of the Fire Nation has proven unworthy of the blessings that have been gifted to her by the spirit Agni. In his light, I shall revoke from her this gift in hopes of bringing safety, peace, and balance to the world.” Aang turned to her. “You may firebend one last time, if you wish.”

Azula stopped twisting and stared at him for a moment.

“You can’t take my bending away! Even you are not that strong!”

Aang shook his head and turned back to the crowd.

“Let it also be known that Crown Princess Azula of the Fire Nation will be facing the same punishment that her father, Fire Lord Ozai, already faced four days ago, on the day of Sozin’s Comet. Both of these benders have been stripped of their power after proving unworthy of it, for the welfare of all of the world.”

Azula’s eyes went wide and she writhed again, her feet trying to escape their rocky prisons. She couldn’t manage it.

Aang looked at her again, and Sokka personally would be perfectly fine with his life if he never had to see that look on his friend’s face ever again.

“You may firebend one last time, if you wish.”

Azula’s gaze flicked to him again, her eyes narrowed, and she let out a jet of blue flames at him, quick as anything, but not too fast for Iroh. Iroh dispelled the fire for the few moments she breathed it before she coughed and fell limp, finally running out of breath.

“And now, Crown Princess Azula of the Fire Nation, you shall lose your gift. You are no longer worthy of it. Let that be known in the last light of Agni.”

Aang closed his eyes and took a visibly deep breath. When he opened his eyes, they flashed the bright white of the Avatar state, his tattoos glowing along with them, before he turned to Azula and placed his fingers on her forehead, pushing her head back.

There was a glow, and suddenly Aang was enveloped in blue and Azula was enveloped in orange.

The orange light that covered half of the courtyard from Azula reminded Sokka strikingly of the way the world had looked during the comet. He had been reminded of that a lot today, actually.

Azula’s light fought against Aang’s moving slowly up his arms. Sokka watched, Katara gripping his hand in a death grip, looking like she wanted to run onto the platform and tackle her boyfriend out of it.

That was honestly what Sokka was feeling at the moment, too.

They didn’t have to worry, though. Aang’s light overtook Azula’s, pushed back to the center, pushed over her face, down her chest, down her legs, down her arms, closing over her eyes and covering both her and Aang with a completely blue glow. The glow increased and Sokka shielded his eyes. He blinked away the light when it dissipated.

Aang stumbled back, the light fading, before pulling himself up again. He stepped forward and twisted his foot, the rock holding Azula down falling back into the earth.

There was silence.

And then there was crying.

Azula was sobbing grabbing wildly at those around her, screaming, twisting, turning on the ground. She would shove a hand out every so often. She would scream, and her voice would go hoarse. She would try anything she could for a little flicker, but nothing. She didn’t stop screaming until the sun was gone and Yue sparkled in the night sky instead.

There, in the light of the setting sun, in the last of the day’s light of Agni, Princess Azula of the Fire Nation was stripped of her bending to protect the rest of the world.

Sokka found that the statement made it a bit more discomforting than he would have liked it to be.

Chapter Text

Zuko’s heart pounded in his chest as he stared at the woman. Her eyes were on the warden now, glaring as if they could reach the man’s very soul, and the small break gave Zuko a chance to recuperate. To think.

Holy shit . His mind wasn’t able to create any sort of coherent thought, apparently, only repeating those two words on repeat, over, and over, and over again.

The woman’s (the waterbender’s ) eyes began to scan all of the group. She landed on him again, and her teeth were bared, her blue gaze hard and cold and fierce and painful .

The wheelchair abruptly turned and he was staring down at a row of empty prison cells rather than the prisoner. 

There was dead silence, but it didn’t feel like that as he heard his blood pound in his ears.

Suddenly, warm breath appeared against the skin of his ear. Then, he felt the air near the side of his face move as Keeli murmured to him, “What do you want to do?”

He swallowed. He still didn’t feel up to talking, but he had to. 

“You don’t have to talk,” Keeli said, angling her head a bit. “Just… gesture what you want to say, and I’ll tell them.”

Zuko blinked before nodding. All right. This could work.

He pointed back in the direction of the waterbender. Keeli nodded. Her ponytail was over her shoulder and a bit of the hair tickled his ear.

Zuko locked eyes with Keeli again and slowly mimed the turning of a key.

Keeli watched him do it a few times over, her eyes carefully studying the movement before she whispered, “You want to release the waterbender?”

Zuko nodded firmly.

“Okay… Do you… want me to just… tell the warden that, or do you want me to make up an excuse.”

Zuko stared at her for a few seconds before holding up two fingers.

“Excuse?”

He nodded.

“All right, then.” Keeli glanced back toward the group (the group that Zuko was still faced away from) before she took a silent but deep breath and turned back around, turning Zuko and the wheelchair with her.

“The Fire Lord has informed me that he wishes to bring the waterbender back with him to the palace.”

The warden sputtered for a moment, and Zuko had a small inkling as to why. This waterbender was the only thing that was giving them any sort of excuse to keep the prison open. The waterbender was the only thing that gave them any reason to continue to take a suspicious amount of money from the government. Speaking of which, Zuko had to get that fixed, too.

“Why?” The warden asked, his eyes flicking from Zuko to Keeli and back again.

Keeli’s voice was smooth from her position behind him. “I am but a servant. I am neither deserving nor worthy of knowing the reasons behind the Fire Lord’s decisions. I am simply the messenger.”

The warden looked like he wanted to say something more before eventually thinking better of it. He sighed and gestured to one of his guards. The guard stepped forward and unlocked the door to the cell in a single, quick, fluid motion. Another guard pulled himself inside and undid the shackles holding the waterbender up. With the chains gone, she fell to the bottom of the cell. She remained there for a moment before struggling to her feet on her own.

Zuko wondered how she had that kind of strength. She must have been here years longer than he himself had been locked away.

Granted, she probably hadn’t had the sort of… treatment that he had, but still! She had still suffered from element withdrawal! And she was still stronger than he was! Maybe he really was weak…

The guard grabbed the waterbender by the wrists and shackled them behind her back. She scowled at the guard and then at Zuko before turning her harsh glare to Ming and Lee as she was passed to them.

Lee looked vaguely uncomfortable with his hands around the chain. Ming was stoic as ever. She glanced at Lee and hissed something to him. He released the chain and the waterbender was restrained by Ming alone, who had only her hands on the waterbender’s back and shoulder.

However, it was Ming restraining the waterbender, so that woman wasn’t going anywhere . 

The woman attempted to struggle, but Ming held her firm. Eventually, it seemed like she resolved herself to her fate. The waterbender still dragged her feet underneath herself, though, which Zuko didn’t doubt made it ten times more difficult for Ming to pull her along. Ming glanced back at Zuko and must have noticed his concern, because she simply smirked and nodded to him.

He swallowed and turned his attention to the warden, who was back to rambling on about the prison’s history, though Zuko found himself not paying much attention. The warden’s heart was definitely not in it anymore. Especially not since Zuko was taking the only thing that the prison had going for it other than an awful history that Zuko wished he could just erase from all history books (but he wouldn’t , because if he did, how would future generations ever learn how awful the world could be?).

“Once again, we thank you for coming to our humble prison,” the warden said once they had made through the entirety of the horrible building. “And we are ecstatic that you took enough interest in our pride and joy to want to bring it back with us.”

Zuko didn’t like the way this guy was talking. They needed to get out of here. The waterbender hadn’t said anything else since being taken into Zuko’s custody. Zuko nodded and the warden and his guards bowed to him. Keeli turned the wheelchair and pushed him back onto the airship. 

“I’ll take our guest to the sitting room,” Ming said. Zuko nodded to her and the group split, Ming and Lee taking the waterbender and Keeli, accompanied by Anzo and Tyne, taking Zuko to the office. Tyne split from them to inform the captain that they were ready to head back to the capital.

When Anzo opened the door to the office and Keeli pushed him inside, Zuko suddenly registered the fact that Pim was there, too.

“Pim,” Zuko said, surprised, and the word came out like it was nothing.

Pim blinked. “Your Majesty. You’re talking again?”

Zuko shrugged. 

Pim’s lips tightened a bit. “Not a lot then.” She shook her head. “Anyway, did you want to put on more casual clothes?”

Zuko was suddenly very aware of the stiffness, the heavy weight of the formal robes pressing down on his body. He nodded. As Keeli sorted through her bag, pushing psat random fabrics, Zuko suddenly had a thought.

“Pim?”

She turned her head to him, her fingers still sorting robotically through the bag. “Yes, my Lord?”

“Anything Water Tribe?”

She blinked. “What?”

Keeli (thank Agni for her) jumped in for him. “We found a waterbender in the prison.” Pim squeaked and her bag nearly fell off the table. “The Fire Lord is bringing her back to the capital as his guest. I’m assuming he’d like her to have something better to wear than prison rags.”

Pim’s gaze wandered to him and her eyes softened with something indescribable. “Of course, your Majesty. I don’t think I have any traditional Water Tribe-colored blue-dyed or purple-dyed fabric with me, but I do have a dark purple-colored robe and white underclothes. These ones should fit most women, they’re pretty free flowing. I could give these to her?”

Zuko nodded.

Pim grinned. “Perfect.” She turned back to the bag just as she pulled out the casual clothes that she seemed to have deemed the best ones for him to wear (not that Zuko was going to argue with her fashion genius). “Here we are.”

When Tyne reappeared a moment later, she and Anzo took over Ming and Lee’s as they got Zuko out of the formal clothes and into the more casual ones. He felt much more comfortable in these ones. They weighed a lot less, too. Pim moved behind him and pulled his hair from the royal topknot to the messier one, as well, releasing a bit of the pressure in his skull. She slipped the crown is, stepped back, and nodded.

“Amazing,” she said, nodding again. She grabbed her bag, bowed, and ducked from the room, no doubt moving next door to give the waterbender her clothes.

Keeli pushed Zuko behind the desk. Instead of moving to the next document in the waiting pile, though, he stared at the wood of the desk, his mind going into overdrive over the prison. The awful place no longer had any reason to be open… not when the materials from it could be used for so many other things , he realized.

He thought for a moment before pulling out a blank piece of parchment from one of the drawers. He stared down at it, tapping the wooden end of his brush against the desk. Finally, he looked up at the small group by the door having a quiet conversation with one another.

“What does the Fire Nation need?”

All eyes turned to him.

“What?” Anzo asked after a moment.

“Buildings.”

“What kinda… buildings does the Fire Nation need?” Keeli asked.

Zuko nodded earnestly.

There was silence before Tyne spoke.

“Orphanages.”

Anzo and Keeli nodded in sync with one another.

Zuko gestured for Tyne to go on.

“Well,” she said, shifting a bit, “There’s been a century of war. Your great-grandfather implemented the draft, and both your grandfather and father extended it further in age. Many children have had their parents die and been left as orphans. There are a lot with parents left, of course, but after such a long war… the high number of children left parentless is… unavoidable.”

Zuko nodded and scribbled it down. “Orphanages. I like it.”

Keeli spoke up. “What about schools?” Eyes turned to her, but she persisted, her eyes fiery. “Many towns in the Fire Nation make the kids go to school, but many other ones don’t, especially factory towns where they want the labor from the teachers, as well as high-population cities like the capital.” She shifted a bit in her place. “I would know.”

Zuko nodded again. “Schools. Good.” His grip tightened on the pen as he wrote it down. He paused. “Education… isn’t mandatory?”

Anzo shook his head. “It used to be. About fifteen, twenty years ago, though, Fire Lord Azulon made it so that each town could make the decision themselves on whether or not they would require it. A lot decided not to, especially ones like Keeli said where the high population makes it harder for them, or where it’s a factory town and they’d rather have the adults working there than focusing on their children’s educations.”

Zuko had a dry throat. “Child labor?”

Anzo gave one of his calm smiles and shook his head again. “No.” His smile turned to a frown. “Not legally , at least.”

Zuko nodded and wrote down a few more characters onto the paper. “Thank you.”

He pushed the notes to the side and grabbed a document off of the pile.

Before he could even start to read it, though, Pim appeared in the doorway. She bowed to him and took a step forward. “Your guest is dressed, your grace.” Pim scrunched up her nose. “She needs a bath, but she’s in a decent state to the best of my knowledge.”

Zuko nodded. “I’d like to see her.”

The others exchanged glances before Keeli moved back behind him again and pulled the wheelchair out from the desk, pushing it around the thing and toward the door.

Less than thirty seconds later, they were standing in front of the door that opened into the sitting room that the waterbender was waiting in.

“I wanna go alone,” Zuko said. His throat was dry. He coughed.

Keeli let the handles of his wheelchair go and stepped away. A few moments later, she returned with a cup of water. Zuko accepted it with a small nod and took a tiny sip, lowering it from his mouth a moment later and holding it in his hand, his wrist resting on his lap.

Anzo opened the door and Keeli pushed him inside. She took the cup and placed it on the end table as Ming and Lee lifted him out of the wheelchair and set him onto the couch. The waterbender watched them the entire time, and Zuko kept his eyes on the ground. He couldn’t look at her yet.

Ming and Lee stepped away, bowed, and left the room. Keeli grabbed the wheelchair and pushed it out. She bowed one more time in the doorway before closing the door.

Then it was just the Fire Lord and the waterbender.

There was silence for a moment. Then, the waterbender said, “I don’t know anything.”

He blinked at her. She clenched her fists. “I don’t know anything . I don’t know what you want, but I don’t know anything. I’ve been in that prison for at least six years. I don’t know anything , so don’t waste your breath.”

Her voice was hard and cold as ice, but it was hoarse, too. 

Zuko glanced to the side and noticed the cup of water that he had barely even drunk from. He thought for a moment. On one hand, she was a waterbender. On the other hand, she was a human being and she needed a drink.

He made his decision quickly (and impulsively, and stupidly). He grabbed the cup and held it out to her, leaning forward just enough so as to not fall off of the couch and onto the floor in front of him.

The waterbender (what was her name? Zuko couldn’t remember, and it angered him) started a bit. She stared at the cup before looking up at him. She looked exhausted. She was old enough to be his mother, he realized. 

“What is this?”

“Water,” he said. “Not poison. I had a bit.”

She blinked and looked back at him, raising an eyebrow. “I’m a waterbender, though. I could bend this into an ice knife and stab you through the neck.”

He shrugged. “You also need water, though. It won’t taste good mixed with blood.” He was trembling at his words, but he persisted.

Finally, her hand reached out, shaking, and grasped the cup. She lifted it to her lips, which were incredibly parched, and drank. After a few seconds, she tipped her head slowly backward and drained the cup.

“I can get more later,” he said when she passed the cup back to him and he placed it back on the end table.

She shifted a bit and nodded.

Zuko thought for a moment. He needed to stop calling this woman ‘the waterbender’ in his head.

“What’s your name?”

She looked back at him again, her brow raised. “Why do you want to know?”

“You said it earlier. I can’t remember.”

She studied him for a long moment before finally saying, “Kya. My name is Kya.”

Zuko nodded. “Nice name.” He extended a hand. “I’m Zuko. Er, the Fire Lord. I’m Fire Lord Zuko. Nice to meet you.”

She didn’t return the sympathies, but she shook his hand nonetheless.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, both with their eyes trained on the ground.

Finally, the woman (Kya) sighed and spoke. “You know, I’m not a waterbender.”

He blinked. “What?”

“The whole ‘ice knife’ thing? I couldn’t have done that. I’m not a waterbender.”

“Why’re you telling me?”

She shrugged, her eyes still on the floor. “Not quite sure. You’re the Fire Lord, but…” She snorted and shook her head. After a moment, she looked up at him and asked, “Where are you taking me?”

Zuko glanced out the window before looking back at her. “The capital.”

“Why?” Agni, Kya was really right on cue with the questions, wasn’t she.

“The… The war is over,” he said. “I ended it. Well, actually, the Avatar and his companions defeated my father and sister during Sozin’s Comet, so I became Fire Lord, and I decided to back out of the war.”

“So… the war is ending…?”

Zuko nodded. 

“Huh.” She sat back in her seat before suddenly starting forward. “Wait, did you say Avatar? ”

Zuko nodded again and repeated what he had said, “He came back. I don’t know when. They defeated my father and my sister. I became Fire Lord, and I’m trying to end the war.”

She stared at him, her eyes wide. “Peacefully.”

Zuko frowned. “No… No war is ever peaceful.”

Kya nodded sagely and looked back at the floor before meeting his gaze again. Her eyebrows were furrowed ever so slightly. “You said you were the Fire Lord.” Zuko nodded in confirmation. She pursed her lips, her eyes studying him quickly before locking with his once more. “Then why are you in such an awful state?”

He blinked. “What?”

“You’re hurt. Malnourished, at the least.”

Zuko hesitated, hopefully not for too long, before saying, “I’m naturally skinny.”

“You’re exhausted.”

“Ending a war’s hard work.”

“And the scars?”

“...Training accidents.”

Zuko was impressed by his ability to shoot out answers that were barely even partially true.

Kya raised an eyebrow before turning her attention to her nails. They were choppy, like they had been kept in check by someone chewing at them rather than clipping them. Now that he thought about it, Kya herself had probably been the ones keeping them at a manageable length.

“You know,” she said after a moment, “I’m the daughter of my village’s healer, and I took up the mantle when my mother died. I’ve got more experience with a wide variety of injuries and what they look like than most people you’ll ever meet.”

Zuko nodded and stayed silent. He wasn’t quite sure what she was trying to hint at with him.

A moment passed, and there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” Zuko called, his voice breaking halfway through, causing him to scowl a bit.

The door opened to reveal Keeli standing there. Keeli’s eyes wandered over to Kya for a moment before she bowed to Zuko and stepped inside, a tray in her arms.

“Your grace,” she said, “I’ve brought some food for you and your guest.”

Zuko nodded gratefully. “Thanks, Keeli.”

Tyne slipped inside after Keeli and pulled forward a table from the corner of the room to be between the two couches that Zuko and Kya occupied. Keeli placed the tray down and poured them each a cup of water.

“Vegetable dumplings,” she said, pointing to the doughy balls Zuko and Kya both had in front of them. Keeli’s finger moved to a small bowl of fruit. “Mango slices.” She pointed to the final small bowl that they each had. “Rice.”

Zuko nodded. “Thanks, Keeli,” he said again.

Keeli bowed before narrowing her eyes. “Just to inform you, my Lord, we are all hoping that you’ll finish your food today.” She smiled as if she hadn’t just vaguely threatened the Fire Lord before picking up the now-empty tray and leaving the room with a final bow. The door closed behind her.

Kya was eyeing the food when Zuko turned back to her.

“It’s not poison,” he said quickly, attempting to reassure her.

She looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t think it was.”

“Oh.” He felt his cheeks warm and turned his attention to his own food. He took a bit of the dumpling first. If his mouth had been dry before, it wasn’t anymore. It was shocking how juicy a dumpling could be even if it didn’t have any meat.

Kya ate a bit of the rice and tasted the mango (which got another eyebrow raise, and Zuko wasn’t surprised, because that fruit was good ), but she still stared at the dumpling with a bit of apprehension.

“What’s wrong?”

She looked up at him, her face calm and somehow betraying nothing (Zuko needed to learn how to do that, he felt like he was much too much of an open book). “Nothing.”

“Never had a dumpling?”

She sighed and poked at the thing. “No, I have. Just never a vegetable one. The South Pole gets few traders. The few times I have had a dumpling, it’s been a fish one.”

Zuko nodded before calling, “Keeli!”

The door opened in what had to be less than a second. 

“Yes, my Lord?”

He beckoned the woman over and she bent down to allow him to say into her ear, his mouth shielded from view by her hair, “Water Tribe-traditional food?”

Keeli backed up and nodded. “I can see, your grace.” She bowed and left the room again.

“You bow a lot here in the Fire Nation, don’t you?” 

Zuko turned back to Kya and nodded. “Yeah.”

They both finished their food in silence, Kya trying the vegetable dumpling and eating the entire thing. “Tui and La, what I wouldn’t give to have grown up having vegetables like that every day.”

Then, everything fell into quiet. Keeli still hadn’t come back yet.

Finally, Kya asked, “What are you going to do with me?” 

Any warmth that might have been in her voice when she last spoke was gone and replaced with the cold, hard ice that he had heard back in the prison.

“Well…” Zuko thought for a moment. He observed her. “First, we’re gonna get you back to healthy again. You know, treat any injuries you might have, get food in you, make sure you’re all good. Then I guess you’re free to go wherever you want. To your home, to the Northern Water Tribe, Agni, even to the Earth Kingdom. You could even stay here as a guest, but I have a feeling that’s… not what you want.”

She was staring at him. She really did have skills in being completely stone-faced.

“So I have to stay here until I’m better?”

Zuko nodded. He saw her fists clench.

“I don’t even get to see any of my people? I have to stay in the Fire Nation for Tui knows how long and I can’t even see any of my people? ”

Zuko was about to shake his head hesitantly before he realized something. “Wait!” He said suddenly, a thought occurring to him. “There is someone from the Southern Water Tribe in the Fire Nation!”

Kya blinked and moved back a bit, the fire in her eyes not dimming but her body language calming a bit. “What?”

“I travelled to the Boiling Rock, another Fire Nation prison, and I found a few war prisoners. One of them was from the Southern Water Tribe. You probably know him, honestly. Hakoda? I mean, uh, Chief Hakoda of the Southern Water Tribe? That’s your leader, right?”

It was as if all of the air had left Kya’s lungs. Her face turned white and she slouched back into the couch cushions. “Oh, Tui and La , give me strength,” she murmured. Zuko barely picked it up.

“What’s wrong?”

She shook her head and sat up. “Nothing, nothing. I’m just a little surprised. And happy. That my chief will be there when we arrive.”

Zuko nodded. “All right.”

Another minute passed and the door opened to reveal Keeli with another tray. She placed a covered bowl down in front of Kya, cleaned off the dishes from the table, poured more water from a new (filled) jug, bowed, and left without a word.

“What is this?” Kya asked, pointing to the bowl.

Zuko shrugged. “Not sure. Supposed to be some sort of Water Tribe food. I requested it for you. Thought you’d like something closer to home.”

She blinked and uncovered it, steam billowing up from the liquid within.

“It won’t be like if it was made by someone from the Water Tribe, but hopefully it’ll be close enough.” All this talking was making his throat hurt. He took a drink from the new cup of water Keeli had poured for him.

Kya eyed the soup (was it soup) before taking the spoon and carefully taking a bite. Her eyes widened and she set the spoon down. 

“Five flavor soup,” she said, staring down at it. “My favorite.” She tried it again. “It’s not perfect. The ratios are a bit wrong. But…”

She put the spoon down again and sighed before meeting his eyes. “Thank you, Fire Lord Zuko.”

His face warmed again and he his behind his cup by raising it to his mouth again, but gave her a small nod.

She finished the soup quickly and quietly.

Keeli came in a few minutes later to take the dish. Before she left, she looked at Zuko. “Thank you for finishing all your food earlier, your grace.” She bowed and was gone.

Kya looked at Zuko but said nothing.

Zuko found that he had a question itching to be asked, and he didn’t know how much longer they had before they landed. They had been in the air for quite some time.

“Did you order the clothes for me?” Kya asked, breaking the silence to question him, her hand gesturing to the purple robe and white shirt and pants she was wearing.

Zuko nodded. “I asked Pim to find the closest thing to Water Tribe she could on hand. That was the result.”

Kya nodded but asked, “Pim?” as she fingered the edge of the robe.

“She’s a seamstress…” He paused. “Though, technically, I guess she’s like my stylist? She’s the only one around here with any sense of style, at the very least.”

“Short height, short hair, threatens to stab you with a needle a lot?” Kya prompted.

“That’s her. Though… she doesn’t threaten me…”

Kya snorted. “Wonder why.”

Zuko took the opportunity to ask. “Lady Kya… how did you stay so strong after so many years of imprisonment?”

Her eyes turned dark, as if a storm had just barreled in. She was silent for a moment. Zuko could hear his blood pounding in his ears as he rushed to say, “I’m sorry, I-”

“Well, for one, the guards mostly left me alone,” she said, and Zuko’s voice died as soon as she spoke. He looked intently at her, but her eyes were trained on her hands. “They never interacted with me except to feed me or give me water.” She pulled at one of her fingers. “So I was never really hurt. I stayed in a relatively decent state, all things considered.”

Zuko nodded, lost in his own mind. “You said you’re not a waterbender, too, meaning you never suffered from element withdrawal. That’s awful , you’re very lucky to not have to go through it.” He snapped from his thoughts at her odd stare. “Uh, go on.”

“Right…” Her gaze moved back to her lap again. “Well, mostly I stayed strong because I had something to fight for. I had something keeping me going, something that made me want to go on. You see, when you’re in that situation, you have two options.” She paused to take a drink. “You can fight or you can give in. Giving in is the easy option.” It was. “You can do it at any time. It seems so tempting . So if you choose to fight, which is so much harder, you have to have something in mind that you’re fighting for .” She glanced at him before her eyes moved back down. “For me… for me, I was fighting for my children. I never gave in because I always had the hope that if I kept going, if I stayed strong, if I continued to fight, then one day I would see them again.” She laughed, and it was a breathy sound, and gestured around. “And look where that got me.”

Zuko nodded slowly, his mind going into overdrive. She was right , of course. Giving in was so easy . He had probably actually done it when he was imprisoned. Oh, what was he saying, of course he did. He was such a foolish little idiot weakling disappointment of a prince . But now , now he knew that he was fighting for the world. For the Fire Nation and for the world. He had to make it better. He had to.

“What keeps you going, Fire Lord Zuko?”

He blinked and looked at her. She was staring at him with a cold intensity. 

“What?”

“Tell me. What keeps you going? What keeps you fighting to go on another day?”

He thought for a moment, his mind going back to what he had just been thinking to himself. Finally, his eyes trained on the ground, he said, “I can finally do something to help the Fire Nation and the world move on from this war. I can finally help the world heal. I wanna do that. I have to do that .”

Kya nodded and said nothing more.

Either five minutes or five hours passed, but soon enough the door opened to reveal Keeli with the wheelchair.

“We’re about to land, my Lord.”

“Thanks, Keeli.” He turned to Kya. “Are you ready to go, Lady Kya?”

She nodded to him after a moment. “Of course, Fire Lord Zuko. It is an honor to be invited to stay in your home. I’m sure it is lovely.”

“Okay. Cool.”

Ming and Lee lifted him into the wheelchair and Keeli took her position at the handles. Ming moved toward Kya, but Zuko said on a whim, “You can let her walk on her own, Ming.”

Ming looked toward him for a moment before bowing and stepping back from Kya. Kya stared at him, her deep blue eyes twinkling, but said nothing in response. He wondered what she might be thinking (but he wasn’t like Azula- he couldn’t figure that out).

Kya and Pim joined him in the carriage. Pim sat next to Zuko and Kya sat across from them.

The silence was awkward, even if it was slightly filled with the rumble of the wheels below them against the stone roads. In a desperate attempt to fill the deafening silence (that reminded him a bit too much of the silence in the cell), Zuko turned to Pim and asked, “What other fabrics do you have?”

Pim perked up a bit and shifted through her bag quickly. “Oh, well, I’ve been working with new dyes. You see, most places in the world only make clothes for whatever nation they are in. I’ve been thinking… what if we expanded things a bit more? Where a greater variety of colors. Of course, there’d still be the nation’s roots, but having something like some blue lining in an Earth Kingdom outfit, or having a green belt on a Fire Nation dress. See, I’ve been trying it out a bit…” She finished digging through her things and pulled out a burgundy gown that some wealthy woman in the Fire Nation might wear to a ball, but Zuko blinked and realized that from the waist up, it was navy blue instead. 

“Oh,” he said, staring at the piece of clothing. “I like it.”

Kya muttered, “ How did you fit that into your bag? ”

Pim looked at her and laughed. “A lot of organization.” She tucked the dress away. “I was also thinking of really normalizing some other colors like gray and pink…”

Zuko nodded. “I’m sure Ty Lee would love to help with that.”

Pim grinned. “I’ll make sure to consult her, your grace.”

Kya spoke up again, louder, addressing Pim, “What sorts of fabrics are you using?”

“Well, you see-”

Zuko tuned them out as they began to talk the logistics of different fabrics and their properties.

The carriage rolled to a stop a few minutes later.

“We’ve arrived,” Keeli said as she opened the door. She pulled the wheelchair down from where it was perched beside Kya and Anzo set it up before Ming and Lee helped Zuko out and into the chair. Pim and Kya got out the other side both still enthralled in their conversation with one another. They moved slowly, neither of them fully out when Anzo closed the door that Zuko had been lifted out of.

At that moment, Zuko wished that Kya had come out the same side as he did. Or, at the very least, he wished she and Pim moved faster.

Because there, charging down the palace steps and into the courtyard that they had just arrived in, was Suki and Hakoda, their assigned guards following quickly behind them.

The guards weren’t fast enough, though, and the two foreigners reached Zuko quickly.

Well, more accurately, Hakoda reached Zuko quickly. 

“So, we’re your guests , huh, Fire Lord?” Hakoda demanded, his voice as cold and as hard as ice. Zuko desperately made sure to look anywhere but the Chief’s eyes. He couldn’t afford to have another freak-out, not right now. “I suppose you have all your guests followed by guards, locked up in your palace, then?”

Zuko sputtered to find the right words. “They were… They were for your protection! You aren’t… Neither of you are healed yet, you can’t just-”

“And who are you to tell me what I can and can’t do?!” Hakoda exclaimed. His eyes were a raging storm and Zuko made his best efforts not to meet them.

Zuko felt something stir inside of him. “I’m the Fire Lord! ”

“You’re a selfish little boy who just so happened to be born into power in the worst country in the world. You-”

Zuko was trembling by the time the voice rang out into the courtyard that glowed orange in the setting sun.

“ Hakoda! ”

All eyes turned away from Zuko and to the new person who just entered the scene.

There was Kya, emerging from around the back of the carriage, Pim just two steps behind her. Kya’s eyes that had been so hard earlier when she had used the same tone of voice with the warden were now completely different. Her eyes were the ocean shore, shifting from violent to peaceful and back again. When Zuko glanced at Hakoda, who was staring at Kya in completely unveiled awe, he saw the same look in the Chief’s eyes as well.

Hakoda took a stumbling step backward before he seemed to manage to whisper, “ Kya? ”

Kya let out a small breath and nodded. “Hi, Hakoda.”

Hakoda took in a strangled gasp and stepped a bit toward her. He reached out, as if waiting for her to disappear. “Is it… Is it really you?”

Her lips quirked upward at the edges as she nodded and breathed out, “Yeah. It’s me.”

Hakoda fell forward and Kya did the same. They met halfway and both fell into the other’s arms. Zuko watched with both fascination and confusion.

The two reunited Water Tribe just stood there in the last light of Agni for a few minutes, taking in shaky breaths, before Hakoda pulled away a bit and ran his finger along Kya’s face, taking her in as if he didn’t believe she was real.

“I… I don’t understand, Kya, how are you here? ”

“The raiders never killed me. Fire Lord Zuko found me in the prison today and brought me back here for healing.”

Hakoda glanced toward Zuko before asking Kya, “Did he know…?”

Kya shook her head. “No.”

Hakoda glanced at Zuko one more time before turning back to the woman in his arms.

“You have… no idea how much I missed you. I would have come for you if I had known, Kya, I swear to you, I would have come for you…”

“I know,” she said softly, cutting him off with a finger to his lips. She removed it and wrapped her arm around his neck. “I know you would have, Hakoda. I know.”

Hakoda let out a sob and buried his face into Kya’s shoulder (despite the fact that she was shorter than him). Tears were quietly slipping down Kya’s face as well and Zuko saw the way she tightened her grip on the Chief of her tribe.

Suddenly, Kya’s eyes widened. She pulled back from Hakoda, and both of their faces were streaked with tears, both of them had eyes that were bloodshot and swollen as she asked, “The kids, how are the kids? Where are they? Why are you here? Where’re Sokka and Katara, Hakoda, where are my babies…”

“They’re safe,” Hakoda said, shushing Kya as she had done to him just a moment ago. “They’re in Ba Sing Se.”

Kya gasped and clung tighter to Hakoda. “Why? Why are they there? Hakoda, why are our children in Ba Sing Se? ”

It clicked for Zuko. ‘ Our children .’ Kya was Hakoda’s wife. He had accidentally found the wife of the Chief of the Southern Water Tribe. The universe really seemed to just love him , didn’t it?

“They’re the Avatar’s friend,” Hakoda said quickly, launching into a fast explanation. “They found him in the ice. They’ve been travelling with him ever since. Kya, Katara’s a master waterbender , now. Sokka’s a swordsman and a brilliant strategist and leader, and… Kya, our kids saved the world .”

Kya let out another breathy sob and wrapped her arms fully around Hakoda (around her husband , Zuko thought) again. He returned the gesture, and the two stood there, in the courtyard of the Fire Nation palace as the sun set on the horizon, just holding onto one another as if they were the only two in existence.

Chapter Text

If Zuko was being completely honest, he had no idea what was going on.

Then again, did he ever?

(The answer was no.  He hadn’t had any idea what he was doing for his entire life. The only time in memory that he had ever had any idea what he was doing was when he had stormed into the throne room and screamed in his father’s face that he was done , and look where that had gotten him).

After a few moments, Kya moved away from Hakoda. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, but when she turned to Zuko, her composure was impeccable .

“Fire Lord Zuko,” she said, inclining her head toward him. “Thank you for reuniting me with my husband.”

Zuko swallowed down the lump in his throat that had appeared, ignoring the pain that erupted when he did as he nodded and opened his mouth. “Anytime.” His voice cracked halfway through the word. He winced at the sound, but no one made any inclination to acknowledge it, so he pushed his own thoughts of it away and focused back on the couple in front of him.

Kya pursed her lips and patted his husband twice on the chest, something that seemed to be second-nature, before she spoke to Zuko again.

“I believe we should all turn in for the night. I know that I’m tired. I’m sure Hakoda is, too. And you, Fire Lord.”

Zuko’s eyes felt tired, but they weren’t drooping. Still, he nodded.

“I… I could order a guest room for you, but I’m sure you’ll want to stay with… with Chief Hakoda…?”

Hakoda glanced at his wife before opening his mouth to say something. Before he could, though, Kya had placed a finger on his lips and smiled lightly at Zuko. “That would be wonderful, thank you.”

Zuko swallowed again and nodded.

“I’ll… I’ll have someone escort you to your rooms. And… And I’ll have someone bring up dinner for you, too.”

Kya nodded, her smile still gentle, soft. “Thank you for having us as your guests, Fire Lord Zuko.”

Zuko’s own nod was shaky. “Yeah, yeah, anytime…”

Anzo and Lee broke away at Zuko’s nod, Lee gesturing Hakoda and Kya to the steps of the palace while Anzo moved toward a still-shell-shocked Suki to guide her back to the guest wing as well.

“Anzo?” Zuko called, ignoring the flare his throat got at the loud sound. The guard turned around and inclined his head slightly toward Zuko, his hand resting on Suki’s shoulder, keeping her in place.

“Yes, my Lord?”

“Could you… could you send for Mai and Ty Lee? I’d like to talk to them.”

Anzo nodded. “I’ll bring them back with me.”

“Thank you, Anzo.”

He was given a small bow in return before Anzo continued on with Suki, who looked like she did not enjoy her current situation very much at all.

Keeli pushed Zuko in a different direction than the others, Ming and Tyne following behind them. They moved in silence until they got inside of the palace, when Ming finally spoke.

“So… that woman was the wife of Chief Hakoda?”

Zuko nodded slowly. Ming pursed her lips. 

“He must be angry.”

“I don’t think so,” said Tyne, quieter than Zuko had honestly ever heard her. 

“Why?” Zuko asked, craning his head to look at her. Her eyes weren’t on Zuko, though. She was focused on the hallway ahead, her eyes on the floor.

Tyne was quiet for another moment before she took in a small breath and said softly, “When I was a little girl, I had a best friend named Naki. When we got older, Naki got married to a man called Feso. They were…” Tyne laughed, the sound making it seem as if she was somewhere else entirely. “They were deathly in love with one another. So in love it was almost sickening. They had two children before I had even met Anzo, and they were so happy .” Tyne breathed in. “Then… Then Feso got drafted, and…” Tyne’s jaw locked into place, her mouth shifting around. “Naki was… optimistic. Very optimistic. She knew he was going to come back. At least, she said  she knew.” Tyne breathed in through her nose, blinking and keeping her eyes closed longer than necessary before she continued. “Then, word came in that Feso’s entire unit had been captured. They were war prisoners, kept by one of the cruelest generals in the Earth Kingdom. Naki kept saying, ‘He’ll be back, he’ll be back.’ A year later, and there was no news. She went down to the docks every day to watch for him, to see if he was coming home on one of the boats.” Tyne wet her lips. 

“Then, one day… one day, Naki got a letter from Feso. He told her that a young captain in the Earth Kingdom army had defected after seeing the way the war prisoners were being treated and had freed them all, taking them back to Fire Nation lines. The Earth Kingdom Captain had been captured and Feso and a few others were charged with taking the man back to a prison in the mainland Fire Nation.” Tyne made a face. “Not sure why he was captured when he had defected , but… I don’t know…” She shook her head and continued as Zuko’s fingers tightened around the armrests of the wheelchair. “Anyway, the Earth Kingdom Captain was put on trial for some… other thing he did. Something from a previous battle. The trial was totally rigged, according to Feso, and the Captain was locked away for good, but then Feso and his entire unit snuckin and got him out. The Captain was disguised and set to be transported back to the Earth Kingdom, and Naki got a chance to see him before that. The Captain thought she would hate him. He was one of the people who helped lock her husband up. He was Earth Kingdom . But instead, she hugged him, and she thanked him, because he helped bring her husband home , just out of the goodness of his heart .” Tyne coughed, her cheeks darkening a bit. “I think I got a bit lost there, but the point still stands.”

Zuko nodded and they fell into relative silence again.

He didn’t know why, but Tyne’s story somehow made him feel just a bit better about his future prospects.

After another ten minutes, they made it back to his room. Keeli went to send for food for Kya, Hakoda, and Suki in their rooms. When she returned, she was holding a tray of small pastries. Zuko glanced up at her and raised his eyebrow.

“You haven’t eaten since the trip back,” Keeli stated curtly. “And it has been a… trying day…”

Zuko chewed the inside of his lip before nodding and taking one of the biscuits, nibbling at the end if only to appease the woman standing a few feet away. Keeli got a small smile on her lips and backed away, seemingly content with his actions.

Keeli pushed Zuko toward the two couches on one side of the room, Ming and Tyne following and working together to lift him up, Keeli holding the biscuit for him as they jostled him a bit to sit him down. As soon as he was settled, she pressed the pastry back into his hand and stared intensely at him until he took another bite. Tyne set the tray down

Zuko had finished the buttery snack when there was a knock at the door. He forced himself to swallow a larger bit than he should have before calling out, “Come in.”

The door opened to reveal Anzo, Mai, and Ty Lee. In a fashion that seemed to be typical to her, Ty Lee literally flipped in, springing forward before landing in front of the two couches.

“Hey-a, Zuko!” She exclaimed, grinning down at him so brightly that Zuko wondered if she was going to break her face.

“Ty Lee, don’t assault the royalty.”

Ty Lee turned and (somehow) her grin widened as she stared at Mai, who was gliding in as graceful as ever (of course). “Even if it’s Ozai?”

Mai’s lips quirked. “He can be the exception.”

Zuko flinched at the mention of his father’s name, but he hoped that he managed to contain it enough that neither of them noticed. He glanced at Keeli where she stood near him and she offered a tiny smile. Zuko took in a small breath and let it out before turning back to Mai and Ty Lee and gesturing to the couch across from his. “You can sit, if you want.”

Mai blinked down at him (when he was sat down and she was standing up, she really towered over him) before she bowed her head to an incredible depth and said in a voice as smooth as silk, “Thank you for inviting us to spend a bit of time with Your Majesty, oh-so gracious Fire Lord Zuko.”

Zuko sucked in a breath so quickly he almost thought he was about to choke on air. He coughed a bit (which honestly felt like his throat was on fire) and felt a small hand on his back as Keeli pat him once, twice, three times. He nodded to her and she backed away, her hands folded firmly in front of her.

Zuko cleared his throat one more time and managed to say, “ Please don’t do that.”

Mai looked up at him and for a moment Zuko thought she was about to yell, because her eyes were flaming, but then he saw the smirk on her lips, and he realized that the flames in her eyes were nothing more than an amused twinkle, and he relaxed.

“Whatever you say, oh-so powerful Fire Lord.” Mai gave a normal bow of the head and sank back deftly into the couch behind her. 

Ty Lee, who had been doing rounds on the room, then moved behind the couch Mai was on, flipped over the back of it, and landed right next to her friend, sitting up as if she hadn’t just done… whatever that was…

“Ooh, biscuits!”

Ty Lee’s eyes were glued to the tray sat on the table between the two couches.

“You can… You can have some if you want,” Zuko said, twisting a bit of fabric from the hem of his shirt in his fingers. “I’m not gonna eat ‘em.”

Ty Lee’s hand sprung forward, grabbing one of the ones from the middle, a dark one topped with what looked to be a mash of pink berries. She bit halfway into it and her eyes widened before she shoved it toward Mai.

“Try it!” She exclaimed. 

Mai leaned away and gently pushed Ty Lee’s arm away. “I’m good, thanks.” She reached forward and took a pasty golden one for herself.

Zuko sat in awkward silence, literally twiddling his thumbs as Mai worked her way through her snack and Ty Lee devoured two more.

“So,” Mai said when she had finished her pastry, wiping her fingers on a napkin on the tray and then looking up at Zuko, “Why did you want to see us?”

Zuko shrugged. “I guess I just…” He swallowed. He didn’t know why it was so hard to talk. “I just wanted to talk to you guys, I guess…”

Mai stared at him but before she could say anything, Ty Lee jumped in and said, “We wanted to talk to you, too!” Mai turned to her suddenly and Ty Lee nudged her away. “Oh, calm down , Mai, there’s no reason to lie .” Ty Lee rounded back on Zuko and gave him a beaming smile. “Don’t worry, she wanted to talk to you, too.”

Zuko nodded and turned his eyes away from her glowing gaze, staring at the stitches in his pants instead for a moment before he took a breath and looked back up at them again.

“So, what are we going to-”

“Where were you?” Mai asked, cutting over Ty Lee quickly, getting to the point immediately.

Zuko felt as if all the air was gone. He clenched his fists to keep them from going clammy, his eyelids jamming closed. Then, suddenly, there was a hand on his back. At first, he thought it was Keeli. Then, though, as he eased his eyes open and realized that Keeli was a few steps away. He shifted his gaze a bit, and instead of Keeli or Tyne or Ming or anyone, there was Ty Lee . Her fingers pressed just below his shoulder blade on either side. Zuko resisted a wince at the pressure being applied on something that was definitely not healed properly. After a moment, though, her fingers moved upward, pressed once on the back of his neck, and then released him. 

Zuko breathed in deeply, feeling much calmer than before. Ty Lee sat down across from him, her hands folded, her smile back in place as if nothing had happened. Mai glanced at Ty Lee before turning back to Zuko.

“I’m guessing that’s a sensitive topic,” she said calmly, admiring her nails as if she wasn’t talking about something that had encompassed the entirety of Zuko’s life for over three years.

“Mai!” Ty Lee cried, shoving her friend lightly. “That’s rude! ”

Mai raised an eyebrow. “Not rude. Facts.” Ty Lee crossed her arms.

“Fine, then. Insensitive .”

Mai nodded. “Better.”

Ty Lee huffed and turned back to Zuko. Her arms fell back to her lap and she leaned forward a bit toward Zuko. “Don’t mind her.”

Zuko nodded.

Ty Lee shifted back again and stared into Zuko’s eyes, her dark, shimmering eyes staring into his very soul before she said, “You know… you’ve got a lot of energy twisted up in there.” She rubbed her hands, massaging the skin where she had touched him a minute ago. “I can feel it. It’s bad, angry, sad, grieving.” She frowned. “Painful.” She stopped rubbing her hands. “Something happened. There’s something inside of you that’s not right.” Ty Lee wasn’t smiling at all anymore. It was unsettling, to say the least. “You haven’t us in years. You don’t know what happened to us and we don’t know what happened to you, but…” She sighed and offered him a sincere smile, more sincere than any of her previous ones. “If you’ll let us just… be here… that’d be good for all of us, I think.”

Zuko didn’t quite know how to respond to that, so he simply chose not to. Instead, he elected to nod and turn his eyes back down to his lap, keeping the room in a relatively comfortable silence.

Eventually, Mai groaned. “Well, that was depressing.” Zuko and Ty Lee both turned their attention to her in unison. “I mean, not that I don’t agree, I do,” she said, before shrugging, “But that doesn’t excuse from the fact that that whole experience was depressing as hell.”

(No, Zuko wanted to say, that was not depressing as hell, because he’s been through hell, and it’s a hundred times worse than that was, but he can’t say that, so he doesn’t).

Keeli brought more food in a few moments later (and Zuko was ashamed to say that he hadn’t noticed when she had left in the first place), refilled their waters, and set out some dumplings near-identical to the ones Zuko had shared with Kya earlier that same day. The shape was near the same, but these ones were slightly more lumpy and a darker color from whatever filling was inside.

“Meat dumplings, my Lord,” Keeli said. Maybe she had noticed his eyes locked on the food, or maybe she was just being polite. He didn’t bother to ask.

Zuko managed to eat two of the dumplings and a cup of rice before he decided that he wasn’t hungry anymore. He pushed the plate away slightly and sipped on the water as Ty Lee reached for her fourth dumpling and Mai for her third.

“Ty Lee, why are you eating so fast?” Mai asked, though it sounded more like a scold than anything coming from her.

Ty Lee stopped chewing for a moment to glare at her friend. She swallowed what seemed to be way-too-big of a bite and said, “Zuko’s already done!”

Mai clicked her tongue. “Zuko only ate two .”

Ty Lee stuck her tongue out at Mai as Zuko heard the clearing of a throat to his side. He turned his head to see Keeli, her arms crossed, her eyebrow raised. Zuko swallowed and met her eyes. Keeli stared at him for a moment before nodding to the plate still piled with dumplings. Zuko shook his head.

“One,” she said, raising a single finger. Zuko chewed the inside of his lip before relenting and taking a third dumpling.

Most of the dinner from then on consisted of Ty Lee talking, Mai interjecting with a sarcastic comment or two, and Zuko trying to avoid Keeli’s gaze. They finished eating when Lee finally arrived with a pot of tea. Keeli deftly took the pot from him and poured a bit into the set cups that Lee had also brought.

Zuko hadn’t had tea in over three years. He hadn’t had anything hot to drink in over three years. Keeli didn’t even glance at him as she spooned a bit of honey into his cup as well.

“Honey soothes the throat,” Keeli said, sounding like she was talking to everyone though she was clearly just talking to him. Her eyes flickered to Zuko before she turned to Mai and Ty Lee and asked, “Honey?”

“Just a bit,” Mai said while Ty Lee shook her head with a chipper, “No, thank you!”

Huh. Out of those two, Zuko would have guessed that Ty Lee would have been the one to want any honey at all. 

Okay, then.

Once Zuko had (slowly) finished the tea (as the other two were done long before him), Anzo and Lee stepped forward to take the girls back to their rooms.

“We don’t need guides,” Mai said, crossing her arms.

“Not for guidance. Or protection,” Anzo replied immediately, his voice deep and calm, the soothing sound of the forest as you walked through the trees, the sound of the forest that was always just there, yet just out of reach. 

“Then what’s it for?” Mai challenged, her eyebrow raising ever so slightly, ever so delicately.

“The Fire Lord’s peace of mind.”

Zuko’s face burned at the realization that Anzo was almost definitely right. Mai’s eyes flicked to Zuko for a split-second before she turned back to Anzo and nodded. “Fine.”

He wasn’t sure how to feel about the fact that that had worked.

Then, though, Mai was gliding out of the room and Ty Lee was following her by cartwheeling (seriously, what was up with that girl?), and Anzo and Lee were gone, and Ming was closing the door, and all was silent.

“I should do more work,” Zuko muttered, turning his gaze to the desk (or, more accurately, to the pile of paperwork that was still so tall it could classify as a wonder of the world). Keeli, however, seemed to be five steps ahead of him as she stepped toward him and shook her head.

“I don’t think so,” she said, pursing her lips. “You do need to sleep. You will most likely have a lot of explaining to do tomorrow, regardless of how much Lady Kya tells Chief Hakoda.”

Zuko bit his lip, his eyes moving around Keeli to lock onto the papers again in a strange sort of desperation.

“Fire Lord Zuko,” she said quietly, bringing his attention to her again. “ Please .”

Zuko agreed. He couldn’t say no.

“I’ll go to bed,” he said, tapping his finger against his leg, “On two conditions.”

“Of course.”

“One, it would be… great if one of you could go ask Chief Hakoda, Lady Kya, and Lady Suki if they’d be willing to… join me for a walk in the morning.”

“What of the Ladies Mai and Ty Lee?” Keeli asked, and Zuko felt stupid for forgetting them when he had just had dinner with them.

“Oh, yeah, um, them too, please.”

“Consider it done. And… the other condition?”

“Yes! Um, condition two is that all of you go home tonight.”

Ming, Tyne, and Keeli stared at him as one unit of shock.

“I’m sorry, did the Fire Lord just tell us all to go home tonight?”

Lee shoved open the door without knocking, causing Zuko to give a tiny wince solely at the bang it made when it struck the wall.

“I believe he did,” Anzo said, stepping in behind Lee and closing the door with much more caution than the other had opened it.

“But… but…” Lee frowned. “But, the system! ”

Zuko blinked. “The system?”

“It’s nothing, it’s nothing,” Keeli quickly said, averting her eyes finally.

“Just a stupid thing we came up with for our peace of mind,” Ming nodded, though she was distinctly not looking at him either.

“What is it?” Zuko knew that he needed this curiosity sated, now. He already had enough things keeping him up at night. He didn’t need one more. Nightmares were enough, adding curiosity to that was a recipe for disaster.

“The ‘system’ was just the idea that one of us would always be in the building at all times. We’ve been with you for the past three years, your grace,” Anzo explained gently as Zuko felt his heart race within his chest. “We couldn’t just have that stop . It wouldn’t feel right.”

“But…” Zuko thought hard to find the right words to respond to that without choking on his own voice. “But there are already tons of people staying here at night.”

“But none of them know the truth, do they?” Anzo asked, and Zuko had a feeling that he wasn’t meant to respond to that question.

A beat passed. Then, Zuko said, “One of you, well, more like two of you have always been here through the night for the past three years, you’re right about that, I know that.” He made sure to force the memories of the past few years from his mind as he continued, “So… So, I think you’re long overdue for a break.” They all stared at him and at least two looked ready to jump in, so Zuko added quickly, “Just for the night! I’m sure you’ll be back before I even wake up!”

Lee raised a hand blindly toward Tyne who half-heartedly high-fived him. “Firebenders rising with the sun, baby,” Lee muttered, letting his hand fall again. There was a moment of quiet before Ming snorted and it felt like any strange tension that had appeared was gone in an instant.

Finally, though, it seemed as if they all agreed to at least go home for the night . Score one for Zuko. As Ming and Lee helped Keeli get him into pajamas, Zuko had the sudden realization that he was the Fire Lord and could have just ordered all of them to go home.

Oh, well.

At least now he knew about the ‘system’, he thought as each guard bid him good night. Keeli kneeled down beside where he lay in the makeshift bed on the ground, pouring a cup of water and setting it down before lighting the three little Orange-Lavender candles. Zuko nodded to her and Keeli returned the gesture before standing up. 

She gave one more bow, a soft smile, said, “Good night, your grace,” and left quietly, closing the door softly behind her.

And just like that, Zuko was alone with his thoughts.

A scary state to be in.

He wasn’t sure how long it took him to fall asleep, but by the time he did, the candles were on their last life. His final thought before going to sleep was, oddly enough, not about his father, or his ‘guests’, or the Fire Nation, or of the last three years, but of ‘the system’, and more the implications of it.

His life sucked, sure, but…

It was nice to feel like somebody cared about him.

- - - - -

Kya was silent as she sat on the bed that the Fire Lord had provided for her husband, slurping on the broth from the not-perfectly-made Five Flavor soup, watching Hakoda pacing and pacing, muttering to himself in the way that he always did before an ice fishing trip. 

It was oddly domestic. Oddly familiar. Oddly routine.

She didn’t quite know how she felt about it. About this whole situation.

On one hand, it was nice to have her husband back. On the other hand, there was the whole thing with the Fire Lord. Whatever that was . The Fire Lord who was nothing more than a boy, probably barely even older than her own son would be now. 

And that was another thought she didn’t like. Her son was just a bit younger than the Fire Lord ,  this teenager who had clearly gone through some sort of mind-bending shit .

There was a knock on the door. Hakoda stopped his pacing immediately, swaying a bit by the sudden stop. He was always funny that way. Kya stood up to stand at her husband’s side as he called, “Come in.”

The door opened to reveal one of the Fire Lord’s guards. Kya was slightly ashamed to say that she didn’t remember the man’s name. She knew he was the calm, big one who seemed to listen more than speak. She wasn’t sure she had ever even heard his name. Maybe she should get on that, soon.

“Lady Kya, Chief Hakoda,” the guard said, stepping inside and bowing his head down in greeting.

“Good evening,” Kya spoke when Hakoda didn’t. The guard’s eyes moved from her to her husband and back again. His face betrayed nothing.

“I hope you enjoyed your meal,” the guard said after a moment, nodding to the soup that Kya had just finished draining, the bowl resting in her hands. 

“It was very nice, thank you,” Kya said, setting her bowl on the top of the dresser set to her right and folding her hands in front of her.

The guard nodded. There was a beat before he spoke. “I bring a message from Fire Lord Zuko.”

“We don’t want to hear what your Fire Lord has to say.”

Kya glared at Hakoda as soon as he began to speak. She loved her husband, of course, but sometimes he was a dense idiot. Especially in regards to this clearly messed-up teenager . 

“ Hakoda ,” Kya hissed, sliding toward him to whack him on the shoulder before turning back to the guard and offering her most innocent smile. “I’m sorry about him. Please, what is the message?”

The guard seemed relatively unperturbed. “It’s nothing, Lady Kya. Fire Lord Zuko would like to invite the both of you to join him for a walk in the morning. He has also invited Lady Suki and the Ladies Mai and Ty Lee.”

Kya almost heard Hakoda’s thoughts he was thinking so hard. Before he could say a single thing, though, she cut in and nodded her head, saying, “We’d be honored to join the Fire Lord, thank you.”

The guard nodded. “If you’re done with your food, I could call someone to come pick up the dishes.”

“That would be wonderful. Thank you.”

The guard gave her a final bow of the head, one to her husband, and slipped out of the room, the door closing behind him.

Kya let out a sigh she didn’t know she had been holding and turned to face Hakoda, crossing her arms.

He blinked at her. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

- - - - -

Suki’s groans were muffled by the intense softness of the comforter that she was laying on. The Fire Lord’s comforter . The thought repulsed her enough to force her up and to her feet. 

There was a knock on the door.

“What?” She called, gritting her teeth and preparing for the worst.

The door opened slowly and one of the Fire Lord’s personal guards appeared.

“Lady Suki? I have a message for you from Fire Lord Zuko.”

“Oh, yeah?” She asked, crossing her arms at the man. “What does his Majesty want from a lowly peasant such as myself?”

The guard didn’t bat an eye. “The Fire Lord would like to invite you to walk with him in the morning.” Before Suki could process and respond, he added, “Chief Hakoda and Lady Kya have already accepted their invitation.”

Suki narrowed her eyes and tapped her foot a few times before saying, “Hakoda and his wife agreed?”

The guard nodded. “They did.”

Suki groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose before blurting out impulsively, “Fine, fine, fine . I’ll go.”

The guard bowed his head. “Thank you. The Fire Lord will be pleased, I’m sure.”

She scoffed. “Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

The guard offered her a smile (a gesture that shook her to her core) before slipping out the door and sliding it closed behind him.

Suki turned on her heel and fell back onto the bed face-first with a groan. What was happening?

- - - - -

Mai and Ty Lee were in the same room when the knock came. Mai’s eyes slid up to the door before the knock even occurred, because she had seen the shadow outside.

“It’s open!” Ty Lee exclaimed as if they had an option to lock it.

The door opened and one of Zuko’s guards walked in (Mai, of course, remembered the guard’s name. She remembered people’s names. This guard was named Anzo).

“Lady Mai, Lady Ty Lee,” Anzo greeted, bowing his head. “I have a message for you from Fire Lord Zuko.”

“Ooh, a message!” Ty Lee cried, her typical grin that either made Mai’s day better or more annoying (or both) in place.

“What is it?” Mai asked.

“The Fire Lord would like to invite you to a walk tomorrow with him. Chief Hakoda, Lady Kya, and Lady Suki have already accepted the invitation.”

“Even the Avatar’s fangirl?” Mai asked, cocking an eyebrow. Ty Lee attempted to nudge her into silence.

“Yes, even her,” Anzo said with a curt nod.

“Then I guess we have to go,” Mai replied, checking her nails.

Ty Lee nodded firmly beside her. “To protect Zuko.”

Anzo gave a gentle smile. “Of course. I’m sure the Fire Lord will be very pleased to have you.”

He bowed one more time and backed out of the door, closing it behind him. As soon as his shadow was gone, Mai turned to Ty Lee and said, “You can talk now.”

Ty Lee smiled and rocked on the balls of her feet. “This is gonna be fun. I love walks.”

“I don’t.”

“You don’t love anything.”

“I don’t.”

- - - - -

Anzo left maybe twenty minutes after Tyne. The rush hour traffic of the city was long gone by the time he took to the streets, so he stuck to main roads rather than back ones. There were a few people dotting the roads, but most stores were closed, most restaurants were dark, and most people were in their homes, sleeping soundly in their beds.

He made it to the edge of the middle of the city and the outer circle and finally turned down a side street. He walked for another five minutes before finally making it to the building he had been looking for. Anzo moved into the alley next to the building and took to the stairs, climbing up, up, up, all the way to the fourth floor, the second one from the top. He fumbled with the key in his pocket and pulled it out, sliding it into the lock. Then, he pulled another key and slid it into the second. Then a third. He finally pushed the door open, slipping inside and turning each lock back again.

“Hey, honey,” Tyne said from her position at a pot of boiling water. She moved and poured it out before turning to him. “How’d it go?”

“Lady Kya seems to have her husband on a leash.”

“Ah,” Tyne nodded, spinning back around and stirring whatever was left in the pot. “A woman after my own heart, I see.”

Anzo chuckled and nodded. “Indeed.” He moved to her side and pecked her on the cheek before leaning down toward the pot that was full halfway with bright red rice.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Tyne said, pushing him away. “I don’t think so.”

Anzo groaned playfully but backed away.

As Tyne scooped some rice into two of the bowls from the cabinet, Anzo sat down at the little table that they had, watching his wife work.

“Here you are. Rice a la Tyne.”

Anzo snorted and accepted the bowl as Tyne sank into the chair across from him.

They ate in relative silence before Tyne spoke, shaking Anzo out of his stupor with her words.

“Do you think he’s gonna be all right?”

Anzo felt a sinking thing in his stomach as he glanced at her. “Who?”

“You know who.”

Anzo swallowed the bit of rice in his mouth and leaned back in his chair before nodding. “Yeah, yeah, I do.”

She was quiet for a moment before asking quietly, “Well? What d’you think?”

Anzo thought for a long bit of time, just him and his thoughts and Tyne’s soft breathing across from him. Then, finally, he said, “Yeah. I think he is going to be all right.” His eyes moved to meet his wife’s shimmering ones. “Eventually.”

- - - - -

Okay, so maybe Lee hadn’t had a proper sleep in a week-and-a-half, but he had been on the night shift for a week, then he’d had the day shift when the release happened, and then he was up on pure adrenalin. 

So, honestly, it wasn’t really his fault.

Still, though, he felt like he was in some sort of different reality when he stepped back into his apartment for the first time in eleven days. His apartment was smack-dab on one of the main roads running through the outer ring, the only one that he could get as soon as he moved out of the house. His parents had given him enough money to get his own apartment in the middle circle of the city, Lee had elected to split the money and give half of it to Tyne so they could both move out and make their own way in the world.

Of course, though, that had stuck the both of them with just enough for their own apartments within the outer circle of the city. Lee had saved up since then, and just moved into this one on a main street (therefore, one of the better ones) less than a year ago. It was nice. Cramped, only two rooms, the top floor of three, but nice. 

Lee stepped inside and moved quickly to the table that he had in the corner of the room. He grabbed up a pen and wrenched open a half-empty bottle of ink before using one hand to smooth out the weathered parchment in front of him.

“ Dear Akahana, ” he wrote carefully, his handwriting still the same as it had been all those years ago when his merchant father had first taught him how to write. “ It’s been a while since I’ve written to you. I know. But, you know, I also haven’t been home in a week-and-a-half, so I hope you can excuse that .” He dipped the pen into the ink and continued. “ I guess I also have been struggling to find things to say. Now, though, I know what to tell you. Prince Zuko, or I guess Fire Lord Zuko now, was released from his prison. And he’s the Fire Lord now. I know, it’s crazy. ”

He paused and took a breath. Lee wiped at his eyes for a moment before continuing.

“ I like to think that you’d be happy to hear that. I think you’d like to meet him. You’d like him. You’d be good friends. ” Lee closed his eyes and counted to three before continuing. His face was wet now. He couldn’t bring himself to care. “ I’ll write to you again, soon. Hope you’re okay, wherever you are .”

He moved his pen down and finished the letter off with a quick word and a flourish of his signature.

“ Forever yours, Lee .”

Lee stared down at the letter for minutes upon minutes until the ink was completely dry. Then, he quickly rolled it up and wrapped it in a piece of cheap, rough string, tying the string at the end.

He stared at the piece of parchment in his hand for a moment before moving to the window, unlocking it, and pushing it open. Lee tucked the paper into his pocket and, after checking to make it was secure, moved himself onto the ledge of the window before pulling himself up onto the roof above.

Lee sat down on the edge of the roof, turning to look up at the moon above, his feet dangling above the empty street below. Then, his lips pulled into a tight line, he reached beside him into the gutter that ran along the roof and pulled out a single stick. He stared at it for a moment before pointing a finger from his free hand at it, sending a tiny jet of flames to light the tip. The fire flickered before bouncing to life, burning gradually through the stick in his hands.

Lee pulled the letter that he had just written from his pocket and turned it over in his hand, admiring the parchment one more time before he held it over the flame. 

The paper caught relatively quickly, and Lee watched it for just a moment before tossing both the stick and the burning letter into the middle of the abandoned street below, where he watched them burn out into nothing.

The letter wasn’t a loss, of course. Akahana wouldn’t mind that he had burned it.

After all, the dead couldn’t read your letters.

But, he thought, maybe burning it would allow the message to get to Akahana in whatever land she was in now.

- - - - -

Pim was quite sure that she should be going to sleep when she arrived home but, honestly, she wasn’t all that tired whatsoever.

So, instead, Pim sat in her five room, middle circle apartment, her roommates Jona and Taichi snoring lightly in their bedrooms. All three of them worked in clothing, Jona having a deft hand for her detailed stitching and Taichi having an incredible eye for things that he used to pick only the best colors.

Pim, though… Pim was the designer of their little crew. She spent a big part of her salary every month as a seamstress in the palace on paper and pencils and notebooks to scribble down designs. Pencils still weren’t entirely widely used yet, but Pim prided herself on being ahead of the game. Besides, she still did her final designs in ink. Just the endless sketches were in pencil.

Taichi was a firebender, and since Pim’s work schedule was so weird, he always left a candle burning for her when she came back.

So, as Pim sat at the table in the middle of the main room, scribbling into one of the notebooks that she kept in her bag, the light from the half-melted candle was what lit her work.

As she worked, Pim remembered that she hadn’t had a chance to tell her two best friends about her new ‘gig’ as the official head of wardrobe for the Fire Lord. The Fire Lord .

They were going to be so jealous.

Pim chuckled to herself and continued to sketch.

- - - - -

Ming knew for a fact that she was lonely. She didn’t need her father asking her when she was going to find a husband or her mother asking her when she was going to get grandkids to know that. Besides, her parents had her sister. Her beautiful, successful sister. Perfect little Nari, who could do no wrong.

Okay, so maybe Ming was jealous, too.

But that didn’t matter to her all that much anymore, because now she was one of the ones in with the Fire Lord, and that was more than her sister could ever say.

That sounded selfish. Or maybe a bit crazy.

Well, to hell with it, actually, she was allowed to be selfish sometimes.

Ming thought this as she sat alone in her little three room apartment on the bottom floor of one of the apartment buildings in the middle of the middle circle of the city. She bit her lip and stared down at the purple berry jelly on a piece of toasted bread that she was planning on eating for dinner.

The bread was soggy.

Ming scowled and tossed it in the trash. She had already eaten two leftover dumplings, anyway. She wasn’t that hungry. Still, though, she should probably go to the market, soon. In the lower circle, of course, because that was where the food was cheapest, and Keeli had told her all of the best places to go. 

Speaking of Keeli, Ming felt like she should visit her friend soon. Sure, she saw Keeli every day at work (truly every day now, it seemed), but she didn’t see the kids every day, and Zara and Kobe had an odd way about them that just wormed its way right into your heart.

Plus, Ming felt like she should probably check up on Lu, as well.

Afterall, it had been two days since his cousin had been released and had become Fire Lord. She hadn’t talked to Lu Ten since before then, and she had the strange wish to pick his brain.

And offer her support, of course.

Ming glanced into the trash can with the sad, soggy bread and jelly, and pursed her lips before heading off to bed.

- - - - -

Keeli arrived home at precisely thirty minutes after eleven. She opened the door and was immediately tackled by two tiny blurs.

“Mama!”

“Mom!”

Keeli allowed herself to fall back against the ground (the sacrifices she made for these kids) and once she had regained her bearings, she had a Zara sprawled over her body and a Kobe staring down over her face, a wide grin in place.

“All right, kiddos, off you mother, c’mon.”

Lu Ten lifted Zara off of Keeli and Kobe followed suit, scampering after his father back into the house. Keeli pulled herself off the ground easily and stepped fully inside, shutting the door behind her and locking the three locks (which, honestly, were commonplace on almost every house or apartment in the lower circle. Honestly, many homes had more locks than that. Lu wanted to install another one or two soon, actually). Finally, she turned around and crossed her arms.

“Why are you two still awake?” She asked her children, though her eyes were stuck on her husband rather than the kids laying on their bed.

“We waited for you!” Kobe exclaimed. 

Zara nodded emphatically beside him. 

“Why were you waiting , though? You should be sleeping. ” She turned to her husband and pointed at him. “And so should you .”

Lu Ten raised his hands above his head in surrender and the children giggled.

“Dad’s in trouble ,” Kobe said to his sister who laughed in response.

Keeli turned back to the kids and recrossed her arms.

Zara cut in to say, “You said you’d be back tonight. We waited.”

Keeli pressed her lips together and nodded. She tossed her overnight work bag onto the bed that she and Lu Ten shared ( obviously ) in the back right corner of the room before moving to the back left corner where her children slept. Her kids scrambled into the bed and Keeli pulled the blanket up over the two of them as soon as Zara had laid near the wall and Kobe had positioned himself next to the edge of the bed. Keeli sat at the end of the bed and waited for one of them to speak.

“Can you sing the song tonight?”

Keeli snorted and met eyes with her son. “Which one? There’s a lot.”

Kobe and Zara exchanged glances and Keeli wondered not for the first time whether or not they had a telepathic connection.

“The one Dad says he won’t sing too even though he does!” Kobe said after a moment.

“The one that you wrote together,” Zara added, her small hand pulling the blanket up a bit more.

“I didn’t write any of it,” Lu Ten said, drawing Keeli’s attention to him. “That was all your mother.”

Kobe crossed her arms. “That’s how you telled the story.”

Zara glanced at her brother and nudged him. “ Told .”

He nodded. “ Told .”

“Fine, fine,” Keeli said, relenting. The room was quiet for a moment and she hummed under her breath, searching for the note that she normally started on. She finally found it and opened her mouth to sing.

She moved through the verses, her voice gliding over the notes as she finally made it to the final chorus, singing it softer than it should be sung to accomodate for the drooping eyes of her kids.

“ We’ll follow, we’ll follow,

“ That road to nowhere,

“ With a song in our hearts,

“ And love in the air. ”

Lu joined in, as he always ended up doing, his voice rougher (and, of course, deeper ) than hers as he sang the second half of the chorus.

“ And I’ll follow, I’ll follow,

“ You anywhere,

“ To the edge of the world,

“ Cause I know you’ll take me there. ”

She finished off the rest of the song in tandem with him, their voices joining together in a familiar harmony as the children in the bed that she sat perched on fell into the grips of the unconsciousness.

Keeli turned back to her husband where he sat on the top of their bed.

She smiled softly and moved toward him, sitting beside him and exchanging a quick kiss. Lu smiled at her, the scar that ran over his right eye stretching oddly as he did. Still, whenever he smiled, he looked years younger. Lu Ten stood up and took a few steps around their one-room house to blow out all the candles before settling back onto the bed with her.

Keeli backed up and made room for her husband, allowing him to slip under the blanket beside her.

“How is he?” Lu Ten asked, his voice breaking through the darkness.

Keeli was quiet for a moment before saying, “Better. Not good. But better.”

Lu Ten didn’t say anything for a few seconds, leaving the house in silence before he spoke one more time, his words pained, broken. “That’s all I can hope for, I guess.”

Keeli nodded even if he couldn’t see it and guided his arm over her shoulders. Lu Ten pulled her closer and Keeli closed her eyes and simply allowed herself to drift asleep here, with her family.

- - - - -

“Come along, now, Zuko. “

“Coming, Mom!”

He scrambled after his mother, reaching her side just as she turned the corner.

“Where’s Dad?”

He watched his mother’s lips purse. “He’s busy.”

“Oh… Okay…” He glanced around before looking back up at her. “Where’s ‘Zula?”

His mother hesitated before saying carefully, “She’s training.”

He knew what that meant. “With Dad.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.

“Yes,” she confirmed softly as they drifted out into her favorite courtyard, toward the turtleduck pond.

“Why can’t I train with Dad?”

She sighed and glanced at him, placing one of her delicate hands on his shoulder. “Zuko-”

He scrunched his face up and said, “I’m gonna go find them.”

Her eyes widened. “Zuko!”

She was taller than him, but his clothes weighed less. He easily outran her to the royal training yard.

“Zuko!”

He heard her behind him, but he just laughed and kept running.

Finally, he made it to the training yard and skidded to a stop.

“Dad!” He exclaimed, grinning. “Can I train too?”

Ozai and Azula turned away from the latest burning target as almost one unanimous unit. Azula was a beat behind their father.

“What are you doing here?”

Zuko’s smile increased as he met his father’s glowing eyes. “I wanna train with you guys!”

Azula looked to their father as well. Ozai was silent for a moment before he spoke quietly, “You want to take away from your sister’s training time?”

Zuko shrank back a bit at the ice in his father’s tone. “Well, I just thought that since you guys always train together that maybe-”

Ozai interjected. “You are older , Prince Zuko. You are more mature and more trained. Your sister is powerful and volatile. You wouldn’t want her to hurt herself because she didn’t get all the necessary training time, would you?”

Zuko’s shoulders fell and he looked to the ground, shaking his head. “No, Father.” He dropped the ‘Dad’.

“Good. That was very selfish of you, Prince Zuko. I hope it doesn’t happen again.”

“Of course, Father.”

His mother arrived and, without saying a word, took him by the shoulder and guided him out of the training yard. He glanced back to see his sister light another target ablaze, earning a pat on the head from their father.

Zuko turned away and watched no more.

He never interrupted their training again.

Zuko shot awake. That dream wasn’t even that bad . It was just the memory that was painful. That had been back during the happier time of his life. That was weird to think about, how that seemed wrong and yet it was the better part of his life. 

He stared up at the ceiling. He knew he needed more sleep. He had that walk in the morning. And he had sent the others home so that they could get some sleep. Not getting any sleep himself would be a bit hypocritical (plus, Keeli would lecture him if she found out).

Okay, Zuko was honestly kidding himself. If he was able to get up and to the desk on his own, he would most definitely be doing that. In his current situation, though, that wasn’t possible, and so he stayed put and continued to try and fall back asleep.

Eventually, with little moonbeams peaking around the edges of the curtains, Zuko fell asleep in the darkness that was much more comfortable than the one he was scarily used to.

He woke up an hour-and-a-half later with sweat on his face, hair plastered to his skin, and a scream on his lips that he stopped with a hand slammed over his mouth.

And that was how the night continued for far too long.

Then again, it was better than sleeping in a cell beneath the palace, fearing every day for his life and yet every day wishing that his father would come down and just finish it.

Once more, he shifted back into unconsciousness.

When Zuko finally awoke officially for the day, it was to Keeli kneeling beside him, shaking his shoulder so gently that she actually barely caused any ache in the still-hurting part of his body.

“Good morning, your Majesty,” she murmured, a small smile playing on her lips.

“‘Morning,” he responded, pushing himself up as best he could, using the bed beside him for support. “What time is it?”

“Thirty minutes after eight, my Lord.”

“All right,” Zuko nodded. “Sounds good.”

“Your guests have been informed that the walk will take place at nine. Is that all right with you, your grace?”

“Yeah, sounds good.”

The door opened and Ming and Lee walked in, both looking much more rested than he had seen them before over the past two days.

(Agni, only two days ).

Pim strolled into the room, her normal bag slung over her shoulder as Ming and Lee both picked Zuko up and lifted him into his wheelchair. Pim had clothing draped over her arm and placed the outfit onto the bed to gaze at as Keeli pushed Zuko toward her.

Ming and Lee lifted Zuko up and helped Pim coerce his body carefully out of the pajamas and into his clothes for the day, the average casual outfit Pim seemed to have selected as his usual.

“Thank you,” he nodded once she gave him a once-over and moved to work on his hair.

“It is my job, my Lord.”

Zuko’s face burned and he stayed quiet as her fingers worked through his strands of hair.

“You need a haircut,” Pim declared after a moment. “Not much, not even an inch, I don’t think, just a tiny trim to clean it up. Most of the ends are split, uneven.”

Zuko swallowed. “Does it look bad?”

Pim stood in front of him, tapped her chin, and shrugged. “I make it work, but it would look much better if it was fixed up a bit.”

Zuko wet his lips and nodded as she moved back around him to continue to style his hair. “Okay.”

Tyne walked into the room as Pim was tugging at his strands of hair, a bowl in her hands.

“Good morning, your grace,” she said as she approached.

“Good morning, Tyne.”

She handed him the bowl of what appeared to be assorted berries. He glanced up at her.

“Just something to eat before you face the music.”

Zuko nodded. “Thank you.” He popped one of the blueberries into his mouth and chewed. It was sweet. Good.

Pim gave one final light yank on his hair and stepped back one more time. “Perfect,” she said, more to herself than anything else.

“Looks good to me,” Lee affirmed from where he stood halfway to the door.

“Of course it does,” Pim said, waving her hand at him and not turning away from Zuko.

Zuko managed to meet her eyes and said, “Thanks.”

Pim’s face grew red and she gave a little bow. “Of course, your grace.” She gave another bow and left the room just a moment later.

Keeli took the handles of the wheelchair and turned Zuko toward the door. She paused for a moment and the guards all got into position before she pushed him out the door. Anzo, who had been stationed outside, closed the door once they were all out before falling into step with their little group.

As they moved through the palace hallways, Zuko took the time to simply listen to each of the others talk quietly to one another about their nights.

“I went to bed as soon as I got home,” Ming said from her position flanking Zuko on the left. 

“I got tackled by the kids as soon as I got home,” Keeli muttered, her voice coming from over top of his head.

“Anzo and I had dinner,” Tyne said, a bit of a skip in her step. She glanced at her brother. “What about you, Lee?”

Lee shifted a bit and the smile on his face looked a bit forced when Zuko twisted his head to gaze at him. “I wrote a letter.”

A silence fell over the group and Zuko had the feeling he was missing something. Tyne smiled sympathetically at Lee and reached over to pat him on the shoulder. His hand drifted up to touch hers where it rested on him. He patted her hand twice and she let it fall.

Zuko was tempted to say something, but one glance at the reflective sheen over Lee’s eyes caused him to make himself turn around and keep his mouth firmly shut.

A few more minutes passed before they turned a final time and entered a sitting room. Zuko recognized it, vaguely. When he was younger, his father used to host high-level nobles here. He and Azula would be forced to entertain the nobles’ children on a rug off to the side while Ozai used his sugar-coated words to sway the adults into doing exactly what he wants them to .

Zuko was pushed forward and set up facing the door. He wrung his hands together and waited patiently, staring at his thumbs as he fiddled them together.

Zuko’s eyes moved to his wrist where the thin fabric of his sleeve ended and his gaze locked onto the mottled purple and green of a bruise. He wondered if that was just a normal bruise from his time in the cell or because that wrist was messed up . At least it wasn’t his writing hand.

Zuko stared at the bruise a moment more before reaching over and pulling the fabric down a bit more, hiding it from view.

“My Lord.”

Zuko looked up at the sound of the unfamiliar voice to see Kya, Hakoda, and Suki standing there, one of the guards who had escorted them being the one who had spoken. Kya looked the most relaxed, though still a bit tense, while Hakoda had his shoulders perfectly squared and Suki had her arms crossed, a scowl clear on her lips.

“Er, good morning,” Zuko said, his eyes wandering over the three of them. He vaguely gestured at the couches. “You can, er, sit down, if you want.”

None of them moved for a moment before Kya took her husband by the wrist and dragged him over. “Come on, Hakoda, my legs are sore. I’m still not that used to walking.”

The Chief seemed unable to argue with that.

Suki followed close behind, seeming to not want to be too alone here.

“How did you sleep?” Zuko asked, trying to alleviate some of the palpable tension in the room.

“Best sleep in over six years for me,” Kya said with a bitter smile. “Honestly. And the food wasn’t half-bad, either.”

Zuko nodded. “I’m, uh, I’m glad to hear it.”

“All right, calm down, calm down, we’re here.”

Zuko looked up to the door again to see Mai gliding in, Ty Lee close behind, bouncing near on her toes.

“‘Morning, Zuko!”

Zuko started a bit at Ty Lee’s casual tone before recovering and managing to say, “Good morning, Ty Lee.”

Ty Lee grinned at him and plopped down on one of the couches, Mai following her.

There was a beat of silence in which everyone just stared at one another. Finally, Kya asked, “So, should we get this show on the road, then?”

Zuko nodded. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”

The beginning of the walk was awkward. They were all one big, weird group. Zuko’s guests walked along the sides of him, Mai and Ty Lee being sure to be half a step behind him while the Water Tribe and Earth Kingdom people just kept moving. Keeli was at the handles of Zuko’s wheelchair, as usual, and the four guards had spread out behind the mass of people.

It was, all-in-all, very odd.

Still, they persisted through it.

As they moved from courtyard to courtyard, they stayed in a relative silence for most of the time.

Eventually, though, Mai had, somehow, started up a conversation with Suki. After listening to it for a moment, though, one could easily realize that it was more of an argument between the two girls than anything of particular value. Just another thing to make Zuko’s life that much more difficult.

“ I am the trained Leader of the Kyoshi Warriors!” Suki exclaimed, glaring over at Mai as they all continued to walk. Hakoda’s jaw twitched and Kya looked about ready to say something, but was refraining from it. 

“‘Trained Leader’  you say?” Mai shot back. “Please. You twirl that fan around so much in every day life that you’re gonna end up poking someone’s eye out.”

Suki opened her mouth to respond but was interrupted.

“Says the girl who keeps little throwing knives up her sleeve ,” said Ty Lee from where she stood at Mai’s side. All eyes turned to her, the only one to interject into the argument thus far and had also more defended her enemy than her friend.

There was silence as they all thought on Ty Lee’s words. Her jab at Mai.

Then, three things happened at once.

One, Suki laughed.

Two, on the ring of roofing surrounding the open courtyard, there was pop after pop of something triggering large and immediate clouds of smoke to shoot up around their group.

And, three, from the sudden haze that had appeared, a single, silver dagger shot out through the smoke and hurtled through the air, a wild jerk of his body being the only thing that caused his head to not be met by the knife, which embedded itself solidly into Zuko’s shoulder instead.

-     Prologue fin.     - 

Chapter Text

-     Book One: A Crack in the Wall     -

Blood was a little weird to Zuko. Contradictory, almost, but, then again, maybe that was just to him.

Blood was red, but it didn’t look red on clothes. No, on clothes it looked dark, maybe brown? But then when you touched it, or when it was just there , it was red. And then when it dried it turned a weird copper-brown color. 

Blood was warm as it gushed down from wherever a wound was, but then it was cold when you touched clothes soaked with it. Blood was warm, and it felt hot when you touched it if it was fresh, but it made you feel cold. It made you whole body cold, but, then again, maybe it was just the wound that made you cold.

Zuko wasn’t quite sure he was making any sense.

Getting hurt was also a little weird to him. Like when he was back in the little cell. It hurt a lot for the first year or so, but after that it was even stranger. After that, the pain would only come after. It felt like nothing was even happening in the moment. His father could literally be killing him, and he wouldn’t even feel  it.

It would only come afterward. Everything would be numb, and then his father would leave, and then there’d be a beat and then he’d feel as if he was on fire. He’d be cold and he’d be hot at the same time. He’d be tired, but he wouldn’t be able to sleep.

It was weird.

The world was hazy. It was tan, like the color of the stones in the courtyard that Mom used to feed the turtleducks in. Sounds were distant, as if through water. He thought he heard yelling. It sounded like the way that Mom yelled in shock the first time he had gotten a real burn on his arm during firebending training. There was barely a scar on that one. The royal physician was very good at healing burns.

Zuko’s hand was steady, strangely, as it moved up to his shoulder. There was the knife, just… sitting there. Stuck out of him like it was nothing. His fingers moved to the hilt and he went to grab it and pull it out.

A hand met his and he was drawn back to reality as if he had been yanked out of the water. The tan color went away, and his shoulder started throbbing, and everything was loud again. He looked up to see Kya staring at him, her hand, firm and gentle on his, holding him back from the knife’s hilt.

“Don’t take it out,” she said firmly, and her voice wasn’t shaking like Zuko thought his own might if he tried to talk. Her eyes were flicking from him to the blurring surroundings and back again. “It’s stopping you from bleeding out. You have to leave it in.”

He let his hand fall.

“Hurts,” he said, biting his lip and staring at the knife. He wished that he could speak more intelligently, but his eyes were drooping and he wasn’t sure why. Maybe Keeli had been right when she told him to get more sleep. Or maybe it was just the nightmares. Or maybe the knife was magical and was draining him of all his energy.

So many possibilities.

Zuko blinked, and it took him a long second to force his eyes back open. Then, suddenly, there was a bang in the back of his head. He let out a gasp and the yelling around him increased.

Kya’s hand flew from his to the back of his head, her fingers tangling up in his hair, helping him to keep himself upright.

“Okay, okay, you’re all right, you’re all right, just try to stay awake. Come on, honey, try to stay awake.”

The pain felt amplified in his shoulder and there was a slow ache in his head.

“Sweetie, Fire Lord, I need you to stay awake, okay? If you stay awake everything will be better.”

He wanted to listen to the nice voice. The voice was soothing, like the waves at night on a beach on Ember Island, and the hands holding his head up were soft, but he was just so tired , and so, instead, he mumbled out, “ Sorry ,” and let his eyes close.

And just like that he was swallowed into darkness.

- - - - -

Kya wasn’t quite sure what had happened. One moment, they had been walking, the next there was a knife flying straight at the Fire Lord’s forehead.

Maybe years ago she would have had the reflexes to react, but now? Now she was weak. She had no muscle or fat, she was nothing more than skin and bones. She had barely moved for the past few years, to the point where it was a miracle she could still walk. She did not have her reflexes good enough right now, and so she couldn’t react in time.

She opened her mouth to yell, but the words weren’t coming fast enough, and it didn’t matter anyway. The boy beside her seemed to notice the knife and managed to jerk to the side, throwing himself upward just a bit to where the blade instead dug itself into his shoulder. She let out a small breath and felt as if she was on another plane as the world exploded around her.

The Fire Lord’s four guards immediately surged forward and surrounded their group. Kya’s husband was next to her and she could see him grasping for a weapon that he didn’t have. Suki tried to move forward and join the fray, but one of the guards (Ming, she believed) pushed her back. 

“No,” Kya heard Ming say, “You don’t have a weapon and you are not healthy. You are a foreign guest. No fighting for you.”

Suki went to protest but Kya nudged Hakoda who reached forward and pulled Suki back by her wrist.

The other two girls, the Fire Nation ones, hopped into action as well, moving around so one of them was in front of the Fire Lord and one was behind. They kept glancing back at one another, at the Fire Lord, and then at the attackers’ smoke on the roof.

“Stay close,” Kya heard the woman clutching the wheelchair handles mutter to her. That woman’s name was… Keeli! That was it. “Closer we are, less area the others have to defend.”

Kya nodded and stepped a bit closer.

There was a beat of silence, something that would have felt peaceful if not for the fact that they were all completely and utterly on guard, tense, nearly vibrating with a want to escape.

Then, suddenly, from the haze-filled rooftops there were fireballs shooting toward them. Two of the guards moved forward and dispelled them as best they could, so only little flames got through, and those dissolved into smoke quickly.

Ah, so two of them were firebenders, then .

Then a small group of the attackers from up above suddenly surged through the now-fading smoke and landed in a circle around the group. Kya scanned the attackers as quickly as she could. There were ten up above and five down below. All of them wore black and dark masks tightly tied to their faces so it couldn’t be knocked off to where they could be identified.

Smart.

The two firebender guards immediately began to shoot fireballs at the assassins overhead. The other two guards, who Kya assumed were nonbenders, each pulled a slim sword from where it was positioned on their backs in holsters. They brandished them professionally (which made sense, she supposed) and slashed at any of the attackers who got too close.

The brooding Fire Nation girl apparently did have the knives that her pink friend mentioned earlier as she flung her arms out toward the rooftops and a barrage of little daggers came flying from her hand that had seemed empty just a moment ago.

The pink girl’s eyes flicked all around the men, though he gaze seemed to focus on the attackers on the rooftops. Weapons continued to come from the higher adversaries, and the pink girl literally flipped toward them, kicking knives in the hilt to knock them out of the way and kicking arrows out of the air so hard that they snapped in half.

Kya’s eyes fell down to the teenager in the wheelchair below her and her heart pounded as she saw his fingers attempting to pull the knife out of his shoulder. Kya may have been locked up for years, but she could never forget her training as a healer. It had been her childhood, after all. She reached forward before even thinking about stopping herself and wrapped her hand around the Fire Lord’s wrist. His hand was bony, a touch so more than she thought hers was, which was odd, but she kept her face straight nonetheless. The boy looked up at her, his eyes hazy and lost, and she spoke.

“Don’t take it out,” she said as firmly as she could. She hoped her voice didn’t tremble. “It’s stopping you from bleeding out. You have to leave it in.”

For a moment he didn’t move, and then his hand fell and Kya’s pulse slowed a bit.

“Hurts,” he said quietly, his eyes moving from her face to the knife. His mouth moved and he was biting his lip and he looked so much younger than before. Her heart rate picked up as she watched his eyes begin to droop ever so slightly. He looked exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes, and she couldn’t help but think that it wasn’t just from work.

The world was loud around her. She glanced up to see Hakoda physically restraining Suki. A few feet away from them, Ming was engaged fiercely with one of the attackers. The two firebender guards were still shooting fireballs at the rooftop while dispelling as many flaming attacks as possible. The other guard, Anzo, she thought, who had delivered the Fire Lord’s message to them last night, was fighting off two of the ground attackers at once. The dark girl was continuing to throw daggers up at the rooftops while the pink girl dodged the attacks of the remaining two attackers on the ground.

Keeli had stepped away from standing at the back of the Fire Lord’s wheelchair to stand next to him, on the side that Kya herself wasn’t on, clutching the side of the chair tightly, so tightly that her knuckles were turning a pasty white.

Then, suddenly, there was a small snapping sound and Kya turned her head in time to see a small round thing come from one of the attackers up above, striking the Fire Lord in the back of the head. The boy gasped at the obviously painful and sharp impact in the back of his head. The object tumbled to the ground and began to hiss. Kya’s eyes widened as she recognized what it was- a smoke bomb. Thankfully not a regular bomb, it was too small and not shaped right (from what she remembered of the raid where she was captured), but it would cast smoke around all of them and make it much easier for the assassins (they were clearly assassins) to attack.

Kya wasn’t moving fast enough, but the pink girl was, and she rocketed over, did a forward handspring, grabbed the smoke bomb, and threw it, the little thing rocketing in an arc over the rooftop and exploding a moment later in the air.

Kya immediately moved her attention back to the teenager below her. His head was rocking just a bit, and her hand immediately flew to the back of his head. Her fingers tangled into his hair, which was thin and limp and didn’t feel healthy. She grasped firmly to his head to try and hold his head up.

“Okay, okay, you’re all right, you’re all right, just try to stay awake. Come on, honey, try to stay awake.”

She allowed the term of endearment slip out and couldn’t bring herself to care. Maybe something was blinding her, like her wish to see her own children again, but she couldn’t see an enemy leader when she looked at the Fire Lord. All she could see was a boy.

His eyes continued to droop, each blink being longer and coming quicker. She felt her tone grow desperate. 

“Sweetie, Fire Lord, I need you to stay awake, okay? If you stay awake everything will be better.”

It was a lie, but she couldn’t tell what kind of damage that object being chucked at the back of his head had caused and she didn’t want to risk anything.

Still, it seemed to not matter. Her words were in vain as his eyes fell shut a final time and didn’t open again and his head went limp. His breathing evened out a bit, looking a bit odd as his chest rose and fell despite the knife still embedded in his shoulder.

Kya kept her hand on the back of his head to hold him up and to try her best not to jostle the knife.

“Ty Lee!” Brooding Knife Girl yelled, and the pink girl (Ty Lee, Kya figured).

“Yeah, Mai?” Ty Lee replied as she sprung sideways and jabbed one of the ground attackers twice in the back, causing him to crumple to the ground, twitching for a moment before remaining still.

“Think we should get onto even ground with those guys up there?” Brooding Knife Girl (Mai, according to Ty Lee) suggested, a glint in her eyes.

“That sounds like a great idea,” Ty Lee said, and despite her sweet smile, Kya couldn’t help but feel a bit unsettled.

Ty Lee hopped up before running toward Mai. Mai knelt down and bowed her head. Ty Lee stepped on her friend’s back and jumped upward, landing on the rooftop with a flip. She looped her feet down to stick in the edge and flipped her torso down, her hands out. Mai moved forward and sprung up, grabbing Ty Lee’s hands and using her momentum and her friend to pull herself onto the roof as well.

“Keeli!” Anzo yelled from where he was engaged with two adversaries still. “Run! Go get help!”

Keeli glanced at Kya for a moment, and it seemed involuntary. Still, though, Kya could see the eyes of another mother staring back at her. Kya offered the most reassuring, calm smile she could and said, “No harm will come to him while I’m here.”

Keeli looked just a tad more reassuring, but then Anzo grunted and called out, “ Keeli! ”

That seemed to be all of the encouragement she needed as she broke from the group a moment later, running toward the nearest entrance to a hallway and not looking back as she did.

Kya glanced up and watched in a bit of awed horror as a small, shining dagger flew from Mai’s hand and embedded itself in one of the assassins’s neck. The attacker made a wet choking sound and fumbled at his neck before falling down, his body tumbling down and onto the ground.

“Damn,” Mai said, her voice echoing from her position on the roof. “I wanted him alive.”

“Then aim better next time,” Ty Lee called as she managed to get under another’s guard, jabbing three times on his back. The attacker grunted before going limp, utterly unable to stop himself as he fell off of the roof and into the courtyard head-first, hitting the stone floor with a sickening crack . He didn’t move anymore, and a small pool of blood began to ebb out from his head. Kya forced herself to turn away.

“They’re killing them,” Suki whispered from where she now stood beside Kya.

“They’re killing assassins,” Kya said, her voice a bit distant even to herself. Still, she had seen worse than this. These assassins had attacked these girls’ Fire Lord, she told herself. Either way they would most likely be sentenced to death. 

Still, it was the fact that these girls were teenagers that was grating at her the most. These girls seemed to be the same age as Sokka and Katara would be now. Had her babies killed anyone? Had they spilled blood? 

She forced those thoughts from her mind as the doors on every side of the courtyard flew open, allowing four separate scores of Fire Nation guards to pour in, armed with swords, shields, spears, or flickering flames already lit in their hands. 

“ Retreat! ” One of the assassins yelled. Suddenly, though, there were guards on the rooftops, too, hopping out of windows on a higher floor. Kya closed her eyes and looked down as the assassins both above and below were run through with sharp metal tips and burned by flames.

Then, finally, there was silence.

“Leave him,” she heard Anzo say, and she glanced up to see the guard standing near a few others, over the body of the attacker that Ty Lee had paralyzed earlier. “All the others are dead. We need someone to interrogate. The Fire Lord will want to ask one of them some questions.”

The other two guards, their faces hidden by helmets, seemed to hesitate for a moment before nodding as one and leaning down to pick the frozen assassin up, carting him away, to a cell, most likely, Kya thought.

Keeli appeared in the opening into one of the corridors, ran over, and grabbed the handles of the wheelchair. Kya was reminded of the unconscious boy steadily bleeding out below her. Her heart beat faster in her chest and she focused her attention on what she now viewed to be the primary goal: helping this child.

“I need a room, a clean room, the nearest one,” she said quickly, turning her gaze toward Keeli.

“Why?”

“He’s bleeding out. There’s not enough time to get a doctor here. I’m a healer from the Southern Water Tribe. I can fix almost any wound. So, like I said, I need the nearest clean room.”

Keeli’s throat bobbed but her eyes were hard as she nodded. “Follow me.”

The only ones who followed them were those in the original group that were on that walk before the assassins attacked. Kya hurried along beside Keeli and the wheelchair, keeping one hand on the wheelchair’s armrest and one still tangled into the Fire Lord’s hair, helping his head to stay upright.

They had to walk for less than a minute before Keeli abruptly turned the wheelchair (causing Kya to nearly stumble). Ming was the first to reach them and moved forward to open the door.

The room was rather bland, just a dark wooden table with four matching chairs around it, red curtains lined with yellow, and not a single decoration.

“This room is basically unused,” Keeli said, pushing the wheelchair forward. “I’m not even sure its purpose.”

Kya nodded. “Perfect. All right, I need the chairs moved and I need the Fire Lord on the table.

The rest of the group had arrived by then, and Hakoda and Suki had taken to standing awkwardly to the side.

As the guards moved the chairs away and Ming and the male firebending guard (what was his name? Kya couldn’t remember) lifted the Fire Lord carefully onto the table, the door swung open and Pim rushed in, carrying her usual bag over her shoulder as well as an extra box.

“I’m gonna need some alcohol, clean water, and a bit of soap.”

The female firebending guard spun around and swept from the room as Pim set her new box down on the table near the Fire Lord’s feet.

“I heard what was happening while I was sewing. Brought my sewing box. Thought you could use some of this.”

Kya nodded and looked down at the assorted thread and needles. “Thank you. This will definitely help.” She noticed that Pim also had some clothes draped over her arm. “What’s that?”

“A robe. For the Fire Lord. His clothes are ruined.”

Kya nodded once more. “They are. They’ll need to come off for me to be able to get to the wound and properly treat it anyway.”

Keeli stepped forward almost unconsciously, it seemed. “You can’t do that,” she said, and her voice was shaking ever so slightly but her eyes were hard and unrelenting. “His shirt, his clothes , stay on.”

“I need to take them off to treat the wound,” Kya argued, a bit confused as to why there was such resistance to this.

“No, no, you can’t . You can’t do that,” Keeli insisted, gritting her teeth and stepping toward Kya. 

Anzo reached forward and set a hand on Keeli’s shoulder. “Keeli. Calm down.”

Ming moved around the table that the Fire Lord was on and locked eyes with Keeli. “Think about it. This is what’s best. What would Lu want you to do?” Okay, there was something going on there, Kya could tell from the look in each woman’s eyes, but she didn’t ask. She had bigger fish to fry right now.

Keeli let out a small breath before meeting Kya’s eyes, taking a small step back, and gesturing vaguely at the unconscious teenager below them. “Go for it,” she said, which was an incredibly informal way to say that, but Kya wasn’t complaining. She reached into Pim’s box and grabbed a pair of fabric scissors. Almost smiling triumphantly, Kya started cutting the first bit of the Fire Lord’s shirt off as the door opened again to reveal the female firebending guard there clutching a tray with a bottle of some sort of drink, a jug of water, and a small container of white paste, along with a bundle of white fabric under her arm.

“You got it, Tyne?” Anzo asked, closing the door behind the other guard.

“Yep, bandages, too,” Tyne replied crisply, setting the trayand wrapping down next to Pim’s open sewing kit.

“All right,” Kya said, interrupting them, “I need a bit of assistance. Not you, darling.” Hakoda frowned and stepped back. 

“What is it?” Anzo asked, moving around the table to stand next to Kya as she made the final cut.

“All right, so…” Kya bit the inside of her cheek to try and think of how to phrase this. “I’m going to take the knife out. As soon as I do, I need you to put pressure on the wound. Take the pressure off for just a moment as I peel the shirt off of him and then put it back on immediately .

“Got it,” Anzo said steadily, and, from his tone, Kya found herself believing him.

“Great,” she said. Kya placed one hand on the top of the Fire Lord’s head and the other on the hilt of the knife. She took a deep breath before slowly saying, “One… Two… Three!” Upon reaching the end of the countdown, Kya wrenched the knife up with all of her strength. Anzo immediately pressed down onto the wound, which was already gushing much more blood than before.

“All right…” Kya sheared off the sleeves and prepared to take off the fabric covering the boy’s chest. “Ready? One… Two… Three!”

Anzo lifted his hand and Kya pulled the fabric off in one sweep. Anzo reapplied pressure to the wound and Kya tossed the blood-covered shirt to the ground. There was a strangled gasp from where Suki and Hakoda were standing and Kya turned back to look at them. Hakoda’s eyes were wide, and she could tell that he was breathing a bit faster, and Suki had her hand over her mouth, her face scrunched and body trembling ever so slightly. Both of them had their eyes glued on the teenager on the table.

Then, across the table where Mai and Ty Lee were standing, she heard Mai hiss, “Oh, fuck …”

Kya whirled back to look at the boy in front of her, and it took all of her willpower to not step back and suck in a breath.

Oh, it was so much worse than she thought .

Kya’d had her suspicions. Her husband may be a bit blinded by emotions, but Kya was a mother . She was able to look past that if need be. She had believed that something was up with this kid after talking with him on the airship yesterday, but even this was extensive in comparison to what she’d thought.

The boy’s body was sort of like a work of art, in a terrifying way. He must be in such pain all the time, she wondered how he managed to move around. Well, that fully explains the wheelchair , she thought. She could count each rib on the Fire Lord. There was no way he had enough nutrients in his body. She had seen yesterday as Keeli tried to coax food into him. Yes, it definitely didn’t help that this boy didn’t care enough about his own health to get something to eat.

Bruises dotted his chest and arms, ugly purples and greens, looking very much fresh, maybe only a few days old. The scars, though, she could tell were much older than that in some places. She guessed the most noticeable one, that which marred his youthful face, had been there for years. Now, though, she was suspecting it wasn’t a training accident. None of these were training accidents . 

The scars were a different story entirely. While some of them were burn scars, which she could easily tell, there were others that concerned her much, much more. Ones that were slashes, straight, white lines that criss-crossed across his skin like it was nothing. Those weren’t made from burns, those were from a blade. Kya didn’t particularly want to fathom what had caused any of this.

Kya thought back to the conversation she’d had with this boy the day before. He had shot off answers that would make sense if it wasn’t for that fact that he couldn’t lie to save his life. Or, at least, he couldn’t lie to her . Maybe it would work on others, but Kya was a master at watching people, at weedling things out of them. It helped a lot as a healer when someone got hurt in an embarrassing way and didn’t want to share the details that she needed to help them.

“Do you have some sort of royal physician here?” Kya asked once she had swallowed the lump in her throat and could look at Keeli.

Keeli shook her head shakily. “Not one that could really help him. Fire Lord Ozai took all of the best healers and physicians and field medics with him onto the airships or sent them to Ba Sing Se. They’ve all likely been captured or killed. The best one we have left here can, er, diagnose a fever? A cold, maybe? He can tell if an arm is broken or not?”

Kya huffed. “Wonderful. All right, okay, this really is up to me, then. Why did the Fire Lord’s father take all the people competent in medicine with him?”

Keeli shrugged. “He was arrogant? He was certain he was going to win and, honestly, he probably would have if not for the Avatar and his friends. He wanted the best treatment possible for all his best troops. Not because he cared for them, of course, but because it would keep them at their most efficient. He didn’t imagine not being back in the Fire Nation or Ba Sing Se when it was all over. He didn’t imagine not being victorious.”

Kya was very much glad that the man being described wasn’t the Fire Lord anymore.

“Okay. I’m going to need the water and soap.”

Tyne passed the two things over to Keeli who held them out to Kya. Kya took the jug of water, poured some over the boy’s chest, and then washed it down a bit with soap. Then she repeated, carefully avoiding the wound that Anzo still had his hands pressed firmly on, a bit of blood leaking out from underneath every so often.

“Alcohol.”

Kya’s sweep through with the alcohol was much farther from the wound. If she let some get onto or into the open wound, it could hurt the Fire Lord more than help him. She washed the area around Anzo’s pressing hands one more time with water before setting the things aside.

“All right,” she said, staring at the blood that was still steadily emerging from under Anzo’s fingers. “Take your hand off for just a moment.”

He did.

“Back on.”

The blood hadn’t stopped at all, but she knew that she needed to stitch and dress it soon.

“All right, anyone have a long metal thing I can use?”

There was a silence before Keeli asked, “Like… a poker?”

“That would work.”

“I can go get one,” the male firebending guard said, raising his hand. Kya nodded.

“Please do.”

He disappeared and returned less than a minute later, the poker clutched in his hands. “Got this from the supply closet. Should be clean.”

Keeli nodded. “You’re right, Lee. There’s no markings on it. It hasn’t been used yet. Hasn’t even been engraved yet.”

Lee passed the poker to Kya.

“Okay. I’m gonna need space.” She turned to her husband and the Kyoshi Warrior and offered her kindest smile. “I’m gonna need you two to leave. Privacy and space, you know?”

Hakoda stepped toward her ever so slightly. “I’m not leaving you.”

She frowned, and she knew that the look on her face was unnerving him. Good. “Hakoda, I’ll be fine. Please, go. I’ll see you in a bit.” 

“I’ll take you to your rooms,” Ming said, moving forward. Hakoda hesitated before nodding, following Ming out the door, his face scrunched up as he walked. Suki trailed behind them, taking one last glance at the Fire Lord before disappearing as well.

“Okay, I need you two-” Kya gestured at Lee and Tyne- “To heat this poker. This bleeding’s gotta stop faster than it is, so I’m gonna need to cauterize it. Normally I wouldn’t do this, but the Fire Lord is just unconscious of his own accord, which is worrying enough, and he’s not under any sort of anesthetic. So, we’re cauterizing it.”

Tyne and Lee both stepped forward and Kya extended the poker toward them. A fire appeared in both of their palms and they each held it on one side of the poker. Slowly, the poker heated, not enough to get red-hot, though. 

“Perfect,” she said, moving it away, watching out of the corner of her eye as the two firebenders extinguished the flames. Even though the part she was holding hadn’t been directly heated, it was still warmer than before. She glanced at Anzo. “Take the pressure off in three, two, one…”

Kya was eternally grateful for the fact that her hands were just as steady operating as they had been before she was captured. She cauterized the wound quickly and immediately set to cleaning it. That was another reason she hated cauterizing wounds. They got infected very easily. She got to work on cleaning it as best she could before speaking.

“Pim, could you find a strong thread and needle that I could use for his stitches?”

She heard Pim rummage through the box she had brought with her and thanked Tui and La that the younger woman was a seamstress.

“Here,” Pim said, placing the two things on the table next to the Fire Lord’s head, right next to where Kya was working on cleaning the wound.

“Thank you.”

Kya’s fingers were deft as she stitched the wound up, keeping Pim nearby to hold the string, cut when need be, and thread a bit when required.

“There. Look like it’ll stay?”

“According to my trained eye,” Pim said, staring down at the stitched wound, “Yes.”

Kya nodded and went to clean it again, because infections were a bitch that she didn’t want to have to deal with later.

“Bandages.”

Someone (she wasn’t sure who, she wasn’t looking) placed them into her outstretched hand and Kya grabbed the scissors up and worked on dressing the boy’s wound, having Lee and Tyne lift him a bit when she needed to get under to loop the bandages around.

“There.” She chewed the inside of her cheek and tapped around the Fire Lord’s head a bit. “He may have a mild concussion. I’ll have to see when he wakes up.”

There was a silence before Ty Lee spoke.

“So that’s why his energy was so pained. I thought it was all inner conflict but… I was wrong.”

Mai opened her mouth to speak next, and it sounded like she was addressing Ty Lee, but she was probably speaking to all of them. “Ozai always has been an asshole. He’s why Azula is the way she is. He’s why she’s so… messed up.”

Ty Lee nodded and rubbed her arm.

Kya took a step back and sank into one of the chairs that had been pulled away earlier.

“You know,” she began, staring down at her hands, stained red and sticky, “I’ve seen a lot of cases of… Well, I’ve seen a lot of injuries that aren’t just caused by an enemy or on accident. It’s unavoidable, and only seemed to go away when our tribe got so small that everyone knew everyone no matter what.” She shook her head, and she could feel all eyes on her as she turned over her hands and continued to look at them. “Still, that doesn’t matter. No matter how many times you see something happen, it still hurts again, and again.” She sighed. “I’ve had wives coming into my home, crying because they couldn’t take it anymore, but I’ve been lucky enough to never have a child enter the same way. I hoped that maybe the familial love would truly be enough, but…” She shook her head again.

Kya raised her gaze from her hands to the slack face of the boy on the table. “I’ll stay here with him to make sure I can check him when he wakes up. I’m sure some of you want to, as well. He’ll need a pillow to cushion his head and a two sheets, one to lay on, one to lay under.” Her eyes wandered the faces of the others and met each of their gazes once. “I’m not going to tell anything to my husband or to Suki, but the Fire Lord clearly needs help, and for that I’m going to need an explanation.”

There was a beat before Keeli said, “He’ll give you one when he wakes up.”

Kya nodded. “Okay.”

She watched as Keeli absentmindedly brushed aside a lock of the Fire Lord’s dark hair from his face, and Kya couldn’t help but think about her own children, somewhere off in the world with the Avatar.

She wondered how much they’d grown. Had they been hurt? Had they been hurt like the Fire Lord had?

No, she thought. She didn’t think anyone had been hurt like this boy had.

She couldn’t help but realize that life was just a bit unfair.

Chapter Text

One, two, three, four…

The pebble soared from his fingers, hit the wall, and landed back in his hand again. He’d been there for a few days, he’d had time to perfect it. Now, the little rock landed just perfectly back in his palm.

Five, six, seven …

He had only been here for a few days. There was the smallest sliver of light from outside that streamed into his cell. The tiny opening was honestly smaller than an inch tall and yet it still had iron bars covering it.

Heh, that was funny.

At least they weren’t underestimating him.

Eight, nine…

He was quite sure that the opening was there to mock him . He could see the sun rise every morning and he could see the sun set every night, and yet he couldn’t feel it. He could no longer feel the first rays of Agni in the morning, and he could no longer feel the last in the night.

He felt so… empty. Empty was the right word for it, he was sure.

For his entire life, there was a burning flame inside of him. There was fire in his veins, boiling his blood and warming his soul. At night, as he slept, he could always feel his fire flickering inside of him. 

Now? Now, he was cold. Things were quiet. He had never noticed the way his inner fire crackled with life until it was gone, and he was left with nothing but his thoughts. And silence. Deafening silence .

Ten, eleven, twelve....

Ozai felt wrong now. He felt like a part of him was gone (because it was ). He had never felt this way about anything. When he lost his mother, he had shed tears of frustration because she was the only thing that softened up his father, and her death would make it infinitely harder for Ozai to convince Azulon to make him the heir.