Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Fire consumed him, burning him to the bone, spreading from the hand held to his face in some twisted display of fatherly love, and Zuko was no more...

Well, he was no more right up until the moment he wasn't.

His father's charred corpse lay on the Agni Kai field, just a few short feet from him, as Zuko came to.

It was strange, Zuko knew he should be in agony. He shouldn't be laying next to his dead father, in the unlit field. It was... Something was wrong. If he'd survived... Why wasn't he in the healer's chambers? Why was Father dead?

Where was the man's crown of fire?

Zuko sat up and looked around... There wasn't a soul to be found.

He didn't want to stay in the room with his father's body. So he got up, and hopped down from the stage. He wanted to find his uncle.

Zuko was scared and confused.

Why had they left him in there with his father's corpse.

Uncle would have answers, even if those answers were hidden behind confusing proverbs. Zuko needed that comfort.

So he slipped out from the room, its door still left ajar, and began the walk to the turtleduck pond, where they had shared tea ever since Uncle's return home. But Uncle wasn't there. Instead he found only his turtleducks.

Fireflake quacked at him and Zuko gave her a smile, watching her swim with her ducklings for a few moments, before he turned to leave and came face to face with Azula.

She looked... Empty.

“I'm sorry about Father...” Zuko whispered, his heart breaking at the sight of his baby sister looking so unlike herself. But it made sense. Father had favored her, and so his death would hit her pretty hard.

She didn't answer, almost as though she hadn't heard him.

So he went to place a comforting hand on her shoulder, like Mom used to when he was sad, but...

His hand paced right through her.

Zuko snatched his head back, confused, and he backed away.

“Lala, this isn't funny,” Zuko snapped, praying to the spirits that this was some cruel trick his sister was playing on him. He didn't know how she had pulled this off, but he wouldn't put it past her.

Making him wake up in the Agni Kai room next to a fake corpse of their father and- He was sure that she had convinced Father to help her with this prank.

He scowled at her... Well, he wasn't sure what this was, but Uncle would be able to tell him.

Zuko glanced up at the sun just starting to peak Agni's light over the horizon, and Zuko figured that Uncle would be rising to greet Agni for morning meditations. The man would be heading to Zuko's room to collect him to meet Agni with him. He had been joining his uncle in meditation ever since he'd returned to the palace.

He passed by several members of the palace staff on his way, but as always, none of them spared him a glance, keeping their eyes downturned as they walked through the halls.

But when he'd arrived at the entrance to his room... His guards were missing.

Had he missed Uncle?

Spirits, when the man had found him missing, he must have ordered the guards to search for him. Uncle must be worried sick for him!

Zuko glanced down at his clothes from the Agni Kai and figured it would be better to not remind his uncle about... He didn't really remember anything after Father burning him, but he didn't think Uncle would like the reminder of...

How long had he been out?

That didn't matter. He would change and go find Uncle.

With that decided, Zuko strode to the curtain that marked the doorway to his bedroom. But when he went to push the fabric out of his way, his hand passed through it.

Azula had just been through with her prank. That had to be it, after all she'd somehow made a... Well, he still wasn't sure how she'd made the apparition that looked like her, but Uncle would have answers to all of this. She had clearly just pulled the same trick with his doorway.

Zuko passed through the door and into his room.

The sight of a white cloth draped over his mirror also had to be a part of her sick joke. If Mom was still around, he would have gone straight to her and let her know what Azula was doing, but with Mom gone, Uncle was the only person here that would listen to him.

Even though there was nothing that Uncle could do about it.

Zuko stormed over to his dresser and tried to open the drawer, but again, his hand passed through.

It was like he'd turned to smoke, unable to grasp at anything around him.

Light suddenly filled the room and Zuko turned around to see one of the palace staff pushing the curtain back and entering the room. She didn't look at him, as she began dusting, walking right through him to dust the top of his dresser.

And that was when he knew.

Zuko rushed away from her, shock and horror filling him.

No. This couldn't be- He wasn't- Zuko fled the room, not even bothering with the doorway this time.

He burst out into the next room and he began to cry.

Zuko wailed out in horror and fear.

And not a moment later, the servant in the other room shrieked and he heard her run from his room and down the hall.

Her scream terrified him even more, and not wanting to be met with whatever she'd fled from, he darted out into the hall after her, sobbing, “Please! Don't leave me here!”

But his pleas went on deaf ears.

And he slowed to a stop.

He was unseen and unheard, utterly alone in his death.

Even if Uncle had answers, he wouldn't be able to hear Zuko's questions.

So after holing up in his mother's abandoned bedroom, Zuko cried silent and unheard tears, until nightfall. Knowing that as alone as he'd felt in the palace between his mother vanishing and Uncle's return, he would be infinitely more alone now.

He couldn't stay here and watch his family grieve him, standing next to them begging for eyes to see what was already gone. And so he left.

Zuko had of course heard plenty of stories about ghosts. Azula loved telling him them, trying to scare him bad enough that he wouldn't be able to sleep for weeks... But he wasn't sure how much truth there had been to her stories.

In one story she would claim that the spirits of the dead couldn't cross water, only to change her mind in the next story, or later even saying that it was only running water that they couldn't cross over. In most of her stories, she would claim that ghosts could fly, and then sometimes she would say you only knew the spirit was someone dead because they didn't have any feet.

It was probably better that he started with small tests, that wouldn't leave him stranded at the bottom of the ocean or lost in a deep gorge.

And so he started small.

He walked over a small bridge that led a path over a shallow creek, and when he didn't fall through, he felt safe that as long as he had something solid under his feet, then he wouldn't sink through to whatever laid beneath.

Then he tried walking over the water, only to find that... Well, no, actually he couldn't do that. He simply sank down to the ground beneath the water. Though he did find he could hop across the water's surface on lily pads.

He focused himself on learning these small things, ignoring what it was that he was leaving behind. That was all already lost to him.

Walking through town, he heard rumors about his uncle doing some sort of mass recruitment of soldiers. So Father was in fact also dead. He wasn't sure if he was relieved by the knowledge. Not when there was every chance that the man could come back like he had.

After all, the fact that Uncle still hadn't burned the man's body to release his soul to Agni was common knowledge in the streets. Rumors that the new Fire Lord had gone so far as to trap Ozai's soul in a mirror that he'd locked away in a prison.

But Zuko wasn't too sure about that one.

There hadn't been any mirrors around his father's body, when Zuko had manifested.

He certainly knew that he didn't plan to stay around to find out.

And then he'd heard rumors of a spirit that was stealing people away during the night of the full moon. Zuko had thought about going to find the spirit, but he wasn't sure if the spirit would take him away as well. He didn't think that he wanted to spend his afterlife trapped in some prison built by an evil spirit. So he left that well alone.

There wouldn't have been anything he could have done anyways.

But it did at the very least give him the knowledge that he might be able to interact with the world of the living somehow.

And so he set out in search of other spirits.

He wandered the shores of the town that the Spirit Lady was rumored to watch over, but he only found a polluted river. He had visited the western air temple, hoping to find the spirits of long since passed air benders to help him. But all he found were their charred skeletons.

The few spirits he did come across vanished once their families performed their funeral rights.

And Zuko was beginning to grow more and more angry.

There were of course other angry spirits like himself, who for whatever reason could not be put to rest. Spirits who, like him, had sought to learn how to harness whatever powers were left to them in their states between being.

The world didn't seem to be overrun with the spirits of the dead like Azula had claimed, but these spirits gave rumor to the stories she had shared with him.

Some of them could fly. Some of them could throw things. Some of them could even possess the living. Some of them could vanish into thin air only to appear somewhere else, though not far from where their soul was trapped.

But that was the one difference between Zuko and these spirits.

They were bond to something, somewhere, or someone.

Zuko was not.

Though one might think that maybe Zuko being royalty, he was bound to the fire islands, but that two was false. Zuko was a spirit who was only trapped to this world.

It wasn't until he'd been wandering through the Earth Kingdom that he'd found spirits who could make themselves seen or heard.

And Zuko supposed that that made some level of sense. After all, the woman back at the palace had fled from something after he had wailed out in terror. He had been what she'd run from.

It did make Zuko think about returning home, but after him being gone for the past few years, he didn't think it would be kind.

There was of course another thing that had made him different from the other spirits.

Spirits of the dead aren't supposed to be able to age. They are locked as they were in death.

Zuko however no longer appeared to be the thirteen year old boy who had died all those years ago. No, he certainly didn't.

For one thing, there was the fact he now looked to be around sixteen or seventeen, he didn't really keep track of the date anymore so he couldn't be too sure, but there was also the scar.

His father had burned him, when he'd killed Zuko. But the scar that covered a large portion of the left side of his face, well... He hadn't had that when he'd died. No, instead he'd been given it as his parting gift from the world of the living.

It had of course been a burn when he'd first woken up in his new life. But like his aging, the burn hadn't obeyed the rules that seemingly governed the other ghosts.

Zuko certainly wondered about that fact. The inexplicable knowing that he, somehow, wasn't like the rest of the dead. And he had his theories about that fact. But the most prominent one, and perhaps the most likely one, was that the spirits that governed the world...

Well, he didn't think they were done with him quite yet.

And when he had become sure that he wasn't bound by the laws of the dead... Well, he started trying to do things that the rest of the dead said would be impossible. He'd been right in his theories of course. Not all of them, but some of them.

For one, he was able to still fire bend. Though his bending only extended to the world of the living. He couldn't seem to use it against other spirits.

To have his fire bending back after going so long without it was something he thanked Agni for every day when the sun rose.

But the other, and perhaps more strange one, was that he could, if he focused hard enough, become corporeal.

And that got him thinking.

It was possible for fire benders to reduce someone to nothing more than a pile of ash. In fact, during funeral rights those carrying out the rights would burn the body and bones away to nothing. They would pray to Agni as they did, asking the spirit to guide the deceased to live with him in the sun.

But he hadn't told him anything more than that before sending him on his way.

Zuko of course knew very well that he was infant dead and not living ash, but Ozai may have burned him away to nothing, before anyone had thought to send a prayer to Agni for Zuko, leaving him trapped in this state between beings.

There hadn't been a pile of ash that had once been him, when Zuko had manifested though. So short of returning to the caldera and checking to see if there was an urn containing his ashes... Well, Zuko had no way to truly know for sure, if he hadn't somehow taken his ashes with him.

But somehow he doubted that he would have been the only spirit to pull that off, and he still remained the only spirit like him, he was still more inclined to believe that Agni wasn't done with him yet.

But the spirit hadn't made himself known to Zuko or shown him any sort of plan.

So Zuko traveled through a land that was no longer the Earth Kingdom, the only remaining vestige of the Earth Kingdom people having taken refuge inside the walls of a Ba Sing Se that had more than armed itself to the teeth, and went south.

The Southern Water Tribe had been left untouched since the last of the raids, no longer seen as a threat to the Fire Nation. And he picked up the search for the Avatar where Sozin had left off.

He'd been to the southernmost colonies of the Fire Nation, so it was a simple matter of vanishing from where he stood and manifesting in the southernmost one that he had visited. From there he flew until ice and snow filled his world.

And then a beam of light.

It had to be the Avatar.

If anyone could put his spirit to rest it would be the bridge between the two worlds.

But then he saw Zhao's ship on the horizon.

Uncle had very publicly banished the man from the Fire Nation homeland, cursing him to search for the Avatar. An impossible task because Iroh had seen the way Zhao had smiled at the sight of Zuko's death.

And while Zuko was an angry spirit.

He could certainly have some fun before asking the Avatar to put him to rest...

Chapter Text

To say that Aang was confused to learn that not only had there been a war, but that it had raged for nearly a hundred years before coming to a near close... While that would be an understatement. It was unfathomable.

He'd had friends all over the world. Even in the Fire Nation, but when Katara and Sokka brought him back to their tribe, Chief Hakoda confirmed what his children had told him. Even if he hadn't believed the man's words...

He certainly believed the battle scars that the remaining tribesmen carried.

Bato had lost an arm to the war.

Would this have all still happened if he'd stayed at the air temple and trained to become the Avatar? If he'd stayed and trained... Then maybe he could have stopped this before it happened.

And then the Fire Nation showed up.

A cruel looking man stepped off from the ship, seemingly unbothered by the damage he had caused to the village, and sighed, “Chief Hakoda, what a pleasure to visit your... well I wouldn't call it a village.... Frankly, I don't know what I would call it.”

“Captain Zhao” Hakoda answered, stepping to stand in front of Katara and shielding her from the man's line of sight.

“I am here on business, you see I am looking for the Avatar,” The man began, as Aang noticed something odd from where he hid.

There was... A spirit?

Aang had never seen one before, but he was sure that was what this was.

He looked like a teenager.

“You wouldn't be hiding him in your village would you?”

The spirit glided over to whisper in the Captain's ear, “Zhaooooo~”

The man whipped his head around to look where the spirit was, and for a moment Aang was sure the man had seen the apparition. But instead he just looked confused.

“Don't you remember me, Zhao?” The spirit sang flickering out of existence for a moment, before reappearing behind the man.

“Who said that!?” Zhao snapped, spinning around following the cackles of the spirit.

Everyone else around them seemed to neither hear nor notice the spirit, and Aang was beginning to wonder if he should reveal himself and try to do his job as the spirit bridge, when the spirit trilled, like a happy song bird, “Are the rumors truuuue, Zhao! Did the Fire Lord put him in a mirror~”

The Captain started backing up towards his ship, “WHO ARE YOU?! SHOW YOURSELF!?”

“YOU SMILED WHEN FATHER KILLED ME, ZHAO!!!” The spirit howled, and the captain shrieked in terror, turning to flee back onto his ship.

Having said that, Zhao had only managed to scramble halfway up the ship's ramp, when the spirit shot forward and grabbed him by the ankles and dragged him back down it, only to swoop up into the air with the man, cackling all the while.

Zhao's men screamed in terror, darting up the ramp and back into what they clearly hoped was somewhere safe from the spirit.

Aang couldn't stand by and watch any longer, dashing his way into the open, while the water tribe folk stood frozen in confusion. None of them made a move to help Zhao, but none of them fled as the Fire Nation soldiers had.

“Put him down!” Aang shouted once he stood out in the open.

The spirit glanced down at him for a moment before a spark of recognition seemed to pass over their eyes. And then the spirit looked furious.

They dropped Zhao, who hit the deck of his ship with a loud clang, and swooped down to snarl “You're the Avatar! You're just a child!”

“Well, you're just a teenager” Aang smiled back, hoping humor might calm the angry spirit.

And Aang finally took in what it was that the spirit was wearing.

Spirits of the dead tended to wear whatever it was that they had been wearing when they'd died. Or that was at least what Aang had been told.

But if that was true...

“Your father... He killed you in an Agni Kai, didn't he.”

The spirit nodded, touching a hand to the scar on his face.

Aang didn't like that the spirit had seemed to deflate at that, so he gave a quick bow and said, “My name's Aang. What's yours?”

“Zuko...” The spirit answered, hesitating for a moment before bowing back to Aang. “Avatar Aang, I need your help moving on.”

“Right...”

Zuko's voice had a desperate edge to it as he asked, “Will you release me from this plane of existence?”

“Zuko... I wish I could help, but I don't know how to do that.”

“What.”

“I don't really know how to be the Avatar, I don't even know how to bend the other elements yet...” Aang admitted.

Zuko sighed and closed their eyes.

Then they opened them and they were in full color.

“See Sokka, spirits are real!”

Zuko wasn't see-through any more, but the spirit was also suddenly grabbing Aang by his shirt collar and ordering, “Then learn how!”

The spirit released him and turned to the tribe watching them and shouted, “Please tell me that those raids failed to kill all your benders because one of you needs to teach the Avatar water bending!”

Zuko's skin turned pink from the cold, and Aang frowned. Zuko was a ghost... Right? The spirit did say that they'd died... So why would they feel cold?

Katara rushed over and answered, “I can teach him what I know! It isn't much, but it would be a start, at least until we can get to the Northern Water-”

“There is no Northern Tribe anymore.” Zuko shot back, before he turned to look at her. “But you will do for now.”

Katara looked more than devastated by that news.

“Okay, but it isn't like there are any fire benders who would be willing to teach Aang fire bending,” Sokka countered, as he came to stand in front of his sister and stare down the spirit.

Zuko eyed Sokka for a few moments, before the spirit smirked and answered, “Well, then it is a good thing I'm not like the other spirits. I can still bend.”

The spirit flickered for a moment, and while they didn't vanish, their colors became muted and their form transparent.

Katara shoved past her brother and asked, “So there is no one left to teach me water bending?”

“That's not quite true, I did speak with the moon and ocean spirits, when I visited the north. There are still water benders, they just live in the Foggy Swamp.”

The water bender seemed somewhat relieved by those words,  but she still looked sad.

“Why would you help Aang defeat the Fire Nation?” Sokka asked, suspicion swirling in his eyes.

Zuko rolled their eyes and circled Sokka, answering almost annoyed sounding, “Like I told the Avatar, I want to be put to rest. Don't I have that right?”

“So you really don't care that Aang is going to probably try and fight the Fire Lord?” Sokka asked, and Aang realized that while they hadn't actually talked about it, Sokka was right, he would have to do something about the current state of the world.

He would have to fight the Fire Lord.

Zuko hummed happily, “You're cute.”

The spirit booped Sokka on the nose and continued, “I wouldn't say I don't care though... Actually, I would encourage Aang to fight him. Do you know how many Fire Nation soldiers have died so Uncle can watch the world burn down around him? I didn't die for that to happen. So the way I see it, is I get put to rest, and this senseless violence comes to an end. Win win.”

“Wait,” Hakoda said, “You're Prince Zuko? The Fire Lord's nephew?! Shouldn't you be... You should still be 13?”

“Like I said, I'm not a normal ghost,” Zuko answered, glancing over at the chief.

Aang did need a fire bending teacher and Katara needed a water bending teacher, so he accepted Zuko's offer, promising that when he'd learned how to put Zuko to rest that he would. Though Hakoda refused to let his children leave without guards.

So with Hakoda, Bato, Sokka, Katara, Aang, and a fire nation ghost prince loaded up on Appa, they took off for the Southern Air Temple.

They had to go there first, so Aang could prove that there were still air benders and that everyone had just been mistaken.

But face to face with Gyasto's skeleton, Aang knew he'd been wrong about that.

He wasn't sure how he'd managed to knock Zuko unconscious while he'd been in the Avatar State though.

“I did try to catch him,” Sokka explained, “But Zuko just went through me and he hit his head on the air ball goal post.”

Hakoda glanced between the spot that Zuko's colorless spirit laid, unable to see the prince, and Aang in confusion, “Can you? Do you think you could move him?”

“He's a ghost,” Aang answered, but he did try, figuring that if any of them could pick up a ghost then it would have to be the Avatar.

But his hands passed right through Zuko.

Bato asked, “So, that's a no, then?”

“We're just going to have to wait until... He wakes up?” Aang sighed.

“Do ghosts even sleep?” Sokka.

Aang held back his temper knowing that it wouldn't help any of them if he got angry, and shrugged.

It didn't take too long for Zuko to stir, and he seemed less confused.

“Well, like I said, I'm not like other ghosts,” was Zuko's best guess. “But that hasn't happened to me before, so Aang next time you get all glowy, could you just not?”

“Sorry, I didn't mean to knock you out.”

Zuko shot up from the ground to go back to bugging Sokka, and Aang smiled knowing everything was okay.

“Next time you want me to fall for you, let me know and I'll become corporeal~,” Zuko teased, as he leaned against Sokka.

Aang could see Sokka's blush through Zuko.

“Aang, please banish the pretty ghost boy!” Sokka groaned, hiding his face in his hands.

Zuko flushed bright pink, but the huge shit eating grin said Sokka's ghostly torment was about to get much funnier to watch.

“Sokkaaaaaaa, thinks I'm pretty~,” Zuko sang as he swooped up into the air above their heads.

Katara snickered at her brother's distress, “You shouldn't have said that, Sokka. He is going to be absolutely insufferable now.”

Bato sighed, “Does he have a filter?”

Zuko swooped down and answered, “Not since I died~ Can't kill me for it twice though!”

And then he shot back over to Sokka to keep teasing him.

Right Zuko was killed for speaking out of turn. It would make sense that he wouldn't bother with that anymore. Not when there was nothing anyone could do to stop him for saying whatever he wanted whenever he wanted now. Aang was happy for Zuko. Not for the fact he had died, but for the freedom Zuko seemed to have gained from his afterlife.

As it was after calming Hai Bai and saving that town, Zuko's unusualness as a ghost ended up coming in handy for more than just making them and Appa invisible while flying over towns.

When they came to the sanctuary, Shyu cried out, “NO!”

“Shyu, what's wrong?”

“The sanctuary doors, they're closed,” The fire sage answered.

Katara glanced between the man and the doors before asking, “Can't you just open them with fire bending? Like you opened the other door?”

The sage shook his head gravely, before saying, “No. Only a fully realized Avatar is powerful enough to open this door alone. Otherwise the sages must open the doors together with five simultaneous fire blasts.”

Zuko decided that now was the best time to reveal himself to the fire sage, becoming fully corporeal  and scoffing, “Or I could just take  Aang through the doors myself.”

The sage whipped around to face the ghost in shock, and then his face lit up with recognition.

“Prince Zuko? But Ozai- I saw him burn you to nothing but ash?” The sage looked disturbed. “I prayed to Agni, when I realized what he was doing. How are you-”

“Well, it is nice to cross that theory off my list,” Zuko said with a shrug, before grabbing Aang by the shoulder and going intangible again.

He didn't wait for Aang to catch his bearings, before he dragged him through the door.

It wasn't until they'd made camp for the night, that Aang asked, “Zuko, what did you mean by your list?”

“Hmm... Well, I wasn't sure why I hadn't passed on, when I first realized I was dead,” Zuko explained, resting his see-through head in Sokka's lap. “So I came up with a list of theories. At first I wondered if Father hadn't burned all of me to ash, and that maybe no one thought to burn me the rest of the way. And then I realized that my uncle wouldn't have let that happen. He would have made sure to give me my funeral rights, if that was the case... So I wondered to myself if it had all happened so fast that no one had the chance to pray to Agni for me, but Shyu let us know that wasn't the case. So that just leaves spirits like Agni still having plans for me.”

“Do you have any idea what those plans would be?” Bato asked.

Zuko looked almost peaceful as he answered, “I think I finally do... I think I was always meant to help Aang. It would explain why I am so different from the other ghosts.”

Aang honestly felt bad about that because Zuko had come to him wanting to be finally allowed to pass on, and now he couldn't help feeling like it was his fault that Zuko was stuck like this. But he seemed to be happy traveling with them. So Aang didn't let that guilt eat him too long.

“Do you think that means, when my job is done... I'll just fade away?” Zuko asked, looking almost sad, as he glanced away from Sokka.

Oh... It wasn't just teasing was it...

Aang wished he had an answer for Zuko, but he didn't.

Chapter Text

The swamp was creepy.

But the laughs of her friends and family were comforting, to Katara, as they followed their guide Huu.

Zuko had manifested ahead of them to let the man know they were on their way about a week ago and then he came right back to keep flirting with her brother. So at least they didn't get lost.

“Hey Sokka, watch this!”

Katara looked over to see Zuko leap out into the swamp muck and land on a clump of... Well, she honestly wasn't too sure what it was that he'd landed on. He then leapt over to yet another one of the clumps and Sokka must have gotten the idea to follow Zuko out onto the clumps.

Splash!

The clump her brother had jumped on collapsed under him and he fell into the water.

Zuko laughed as he leapt over to stand on one of the remainders of the clump still floating on the surface.

Sokka growled, before he yanked the clump out from under Zuko, who, much to Katara’s shock, yelped and then fell into the water without a splash.

“Hey!”

Sokka barked with laughter, until Zuko turned solid and splashed him.

Katara smiled at the sight, her brother splashing the fire bender back. Sokka had been so serious for so long that it was nice to see him loosen up like this. That and it was kind of funny to see Zuko's normally perfect hair soggy and damp.

Being a spirit definitely had the benefit of one's hair staying perfect if it had been at the time of their death, it seemed.

She wondered what would happen to him, after Zuko finally passed on.

A glance over at her dad and Bato revealed they must be having the same thought.

And then Zuko screamed.

Katara whipped around and saw the fire bender clutching his face flickering in and out of sight, fire dancing across his skin.

She tried to put the flames out with water, but it didn't work. Zuko was still burning and she didn't know what to do.

Sokka grabbed him, the flames not burning her brother, and yelled, “Aang, do something!”

“I-I don't know ho-” But whatever he'd been about to say was lost as the Avatar State kicked in and he dove into the water.

He pressed a hand to both Zuko's head and her brother's, and there was a bright light.

When it faded, Aang was still in the Avatar state. He shook his head and sighed in a female's voice, “Human souls need an anchor, Agni.”

And then Aang was himself again and Zuko had vanished.

Sokka glanced between Aang and where Zuko had been, before he breathed out in relief.

“Thanks, Aang,” And then he looked back to where Zuko had been and asked, “Are you okay?”

Aang was glancing between Zuko and that spot.

There was a moment of silence before Sokka snapped, “What do you mean that sometimes happens, Zuko!”

“Sokka?” Their dad asked, sounding nervous.

Her brother looked at Dad.

“Can you still see Zuko?”

“He's still-,” And then Sokka snapped his head back to Aang and asked, “Aang, buddy, what exactly did you do to fix Zuko?”

“I-I don't know?”

Bato groaned, “I think I understand what the Avatar did.”

“What? What did Aang do?” Katara asked.

Bato rubbed his face with his hand and sighed, “I think he made Sokka Zuko's anchor.”

“Looks like you're stuck with him, Sokka,” Dad laughed in relief.

Katara couldn't help but laugh as well.

It was kind of funny. And it wasn't like Sokka being Zuko's anchor would really change anything. Well, other than the fact that Sokka could see and hear Zuko at all times now. Actually it looked like he was still holding Zuko in his arms. So, at least next time Zuko got knocked out they would have someone that actually could carry him onto Appa's saddle.

They started walking again, but Zuko stayed unseen. Sokka explained that the burning fit had made Zuko tired, while he carried the invisible fire bender on his back.

It was actually kind of sweet.

Though she did wonder what Zuko had meant, when he'd told Sokka that this happened from time to time. That was worrying. She didn't know much about ghosts, okay everything she knew about ghosts came from Zuko, but that didn't sound good.

She just hoped that what Aang had done actually fixed it.

The swamp bender's village wasn't much larger than her village, but there were some water benders wearing blue. That made Katara feel better. It meant that at least a few of the northerners had survived.

And then she met Yugoda.

Katara had never heard of using water bending for healing before, but she couldn't turn down the chance to learn. And it seemed important to learn because they had had run-ins with the Fire Nation. It wasn't surprising that they had. After all, the Fire Nation had seized control of most of the world in the past few years.

The still-healing arrow wound in her shoulder was a reminder of those encounters.

But Gran-Gran's childhood friend healed the wound, and then demanded to check over the rest of their group for injuries.

During healing lessons, Yugoda told Katara stories about her grandmother's time growing up in the Northern Tribe. The necklace and Kanna running away, but coming to her before she did.

“It was a week before Kanna was to marry Pakku, but I knew by the look in her eyes that she wasn't going to go through with it,” Yugoda told her, overseeing Katara's work on healing a child's scraped knee. “Your grandmother was a free spirit, that couldn't be tied down by our tribe's customs.”

“That sounds like my Gran-Gran.”

And then there was a regretful look in the woman's eyes, as she continued her story, “She told me she was leaving for our sister tribe and then she asked me to come with her.”

For a moment Katara imagined what it would have been like growing up in her tribe with another water bender. Her father would never have needed to try and look for one. Maybe the Fire Nation wouldn't have learned there was still a water bender in her village.

Her mother wouldn't have had to sacrifice herself to save her...

“Why didn't you go with?”

Yugoda didn't meet her eyes when she answered, “I was afraid... I had heard stories about the Fire Nation abducting benders from your tribe, and... I was too afraid to go with Kanna. Not that your grandmother didn't try and assure me that she would keep me safe. She more than tried.”

“Your grandmother wasn't just my best friend, and there was a reason her parents had arranged for her to marry Pakku... And it was that same reason that made it so hard for me to not go with her. Because I did truly want to go with her.”

Katara finished healing the child, who thanked her before rushing out of the healer's hut to go back to playing with their friends.

And then Yugoda touched her fingers to the necklace she wore on her own neck.

“The day your grandmother proposed to me was the happiest day of my life, but when her parents found out, they were furious.” Yugoda sighed, seeming lost in thought. “My own parents had been worried I would never get married, so when we told them our good news, they accepted us. They even offered to take Kanna in when they learned her parents were planning an arranged marriage for her. But when they found out it was Pakku that she was to marry, they rescinded their offer. Pakku was the chief's cousin and my parents didn't want to start trouble on that scale. Not even for my happiness.”

“And so when Kanna told me that going to the Southern Tribe would allow us to be together... I wanted to say yes... And I wish that I had said yes. But in some small way I did get my revenge on Pakku for taking her away from me. Because when he'd been injured in an attack on our tribe, after Iroh had come to power...”

There was a dark look on the healer's face. For a moment, Katara had entertained the thought that Yugoda was going to tell her that she had simply refused to heal the man, but what the woman said chilled her to her core.

“I took away his bending.” She didn't stop there though. “He hadn't known what I'd done of course. Why would he think that a woman had that sort of power? I told him that his injuries had been too severe and that he'd simply lost his bending as a result of them. I hadn't known at the time that I actually was committing a murder. The loss of his bending changed him. It made him grow ill. And so he came back to me for a cure to his ailment.”

“I could have healed him by giving him back his bending... But I didn't.”

Katara understandably had a lot on her mind during her water bending lessons with Huu later that day.

The thought that you could slowly kill someone by taking their bending away was a little more than horrific to her. The thought that you could take away someone's bending was horrifying to think about.

She could understand why Yugoda had done it though. The need to take revenge on someone who had wronged her... But was it actually Pakku who had wronged her? Was it not her grandmother's parents instead who had wronged her? Yugoda had had the option of going with Gran-Gran to the south pole. It hadn't been Pakku who had kept her from going with Gran-Gran.

But she could understand the fear that had kept the woman from going with Gran-Gran.

It had been that same fear that had made Katara hide her bending, whenever the tell tale black snow appeared.

Katara had dreamed of going to the north pole where she had thought she would have been free to practice her bending. A dream that had been squashed, when Zuko had revealed that there was no northern tribe anymore.

She was grateful to learn how to heal from Yugoda, but when her next lesson came around, she skipped it. Instead, she threw herself into her lessons from Huu.

But she couldn't get the idea out of her head...

Sokka was talking with Zuko about something, when her father sat down next to her.

“Gran-Gran told me about Yugoda,” He began, before explaining,  “She told me about how as much as she loved Hama, and then later your grandfather, Yugoda was and would always be the love of her life.”

Gran-Gran had told her about Hama,the woman she'd loved before her grandfather. But Hama had been taken away during one of the Fire Nation raids on their village, and after that Gramp-Gramp had made sure she was okay. He'd taken her meals, when she wouldn't eat.

He'd been her friend for years, before they had gotten together. Deciding that there wasn't anyone left in the tribe that they felt closer to. She had loved the man, she'd even fallen in love with Gramp-Gramp. The two of them had been happy together.

Gran-Gran said that there wasn't another man in the world she'd have rather married.

“Why didn't she ever tell me about Yugoda?”

Her father looked thoughtful before he admitted, “She didn't like to talk about her life from before she came to our tribe. And when I asked her why, she told me it was because she had to leave someone behind. It wasn't until you were born and we realized that you were a bender that she told me who that person was. I think she was scared for you.”

“Because I would have to live with the fear that had kept Yugoda from going with her...”

Katara hoped that when they saved the world, her grandmother could be reunited with Yugoda.

“Do you think Sokka will feel the same way about Zuko...”

“You mean when Zuko passes on?” Dad asked her and she nodded.

There was a few minutes of silence before he answered, “Your grandmother knew that Yugoda was still around... I think that brought her comfort because she knew there was always the chance that Yugoda would come back to her. I think I'm more worried he will feel like I do about your mom.”

They watched Sokka and Zuko lean into each other laughing about something, and she saw the way Sokka was looking at Zuko. The way Sokka rested a hand on Zuko's cheek and the way Zuko smiled at her brother.

“We should give them some privacy.”

Dad chuckled, sounding sad, “You're probably right.”

Walking around the village, she couldn't help but wonder what would happen if Zhao learned her brother had become Zuko's anchor to their world... What if he tried to hurt Sokka just to get rid of Zuko. What if it happened when she wasn't there to heal him.

Zhao used his bending as a weapon and she'd never seen the man use anything else to fight.

If she could learn how to...

Could she stop that from happening?

Those thoughts swirled in her head as she wandered, not paying attention to where her feet were taking her until she found herself standing in front of the healer's cabin.

The moon was full in the sky and she looked up at it hoping for an answer, but she found no answers there. Whatever she decided would be her own choice.

She'd never felt more alone.

It would feel worse for Sokka when he lost Zuko...

They would be leaving in a few days to go find the earth bender Zuko knew that had already agreed to teach the Avatar. Whatever she decided, she had to do it tonight.

“Yugoda? Are you awake?”

The healer opened the door, but she didn't say anything.

Katara took a deep breath and sighed, before finally saying, “I need you to teach me how.”

And then she walked inside the hut.

She hoped that the moon spirit would understand.

Chapter Text

He was in love with a dead guy.

Sokka wasn't sure what that made him, but the fact that Zuko was permanently shirtless did nothing to help him ignore those growing feelings. At least before he'd become Zuko's anchor, he would have a break from how distracting Zuko was.

He liked not having that break anymore.

A familiar thought entered his mind, as he played with Zuko's hair.

If Zuko wasn't like other ghosts... What if he wasn't all the way dead?

It was a dangerous thought. A fantasy of bringing Zuko back from the dead, but he had been thinking about it constantly ever since he'd kissed Zuko in the swamp.

Zuko hadn't reacted well to that kiss.

Okay, at first he had kissed Sokka back, but then he freaked out. He tried to run away from Sokka, but he'd chased after Zuko and tried to apologize. He didn't think kissing Zuko would have upset the ghost.

“You can't be in love with me! Once the spirits are done with me, I'll be gone, Sokka!”

“Then let me love you until then!”

Sokka had managed to convince Zuko to let him. His insistence proof it was already too late for Zuko to convince him not to. And so Zuko relented. He let Sokka kiss him again and he didn't pull away this time.

Now the two of them were keeping watch while everyone else slept.

Well, they were supposed to be keeping watch, but like he'd already said... Zuko was distracting.

But there was a question Sokka had been wanting to ask.

“When you were burning...”

Zuko's smile fell.

Sokka knew Zuko hadn't wanted to talk about it but he had to know, “You said it’s happened before.”

“Yeah...” Zuko sighed, sitting up and resting his head on Sokka's shoulder. “It has. I was fine the first few years after I died, but then... Well, I got it into my head that if I could become corporeal, then maybe I could just stay that way. It didn't go well...”

Zuko looked like he was far away in the past now, as he continued, “It was when I met Toph. It bothered her that she couldn't tell where I was with her earth bending, so I wanted to make things easier for her. She was the first friend that I ever really had and it had been so long since I had anyone constant in my life... I made it maybe a week before it happened the first time. I was gone for a while after that. I didn't tell her what had happened, but she was furious that I'd left her for so long without a word.”

“I wasn't able to become corporeal again for a while after that. So I lied and told her I got in trouble with the Dai Li and that I was laying low for a while, so she didn't question it. She was proud of me for causing trouble. But when I was able to again... I thought that if I tried hard enough it wouldn't happen again, and I was wrong. I was sparring with her one moment and then I was burning again.”

“She realized I had lied about the Dai Li, and because neither of us wanted to be alone, she made me limit myself. So I did at first, but I couldn't help myself. I wanted to play at being alive. And it happened again. And she told me if I kept hurting myself like that then she couldn't be my friend anymore.”

Sokka asked, “Zuko, you said that burning like that makes you too tired to use your powers...”

He knew he wasn't going to like Zuko's answer to the unsaid half of his question.

And when Zuko next spoke, he knew he'd been right.

“I'm not endless, Sokka. Something has to fuel my powers, and I think that it’s what's left of me that does.”

They didn't talk about it again, but Sokka, like this mysterious Toph, was determined to keep Zuko around as long as he could. So he made Zuko limit himself. No more letting Zuko become physical when they were alone. He didn't need Zuko to have physical form for him to see him. To hear him. To touch him.

No more making Appa invisible when they traveled at night.

No more powers unless it was actually needed.

He couldn't lose Zuko.

And Zuko was good about that. He didn't use his powers needlessly.

Well, at least until the pirates.

Sokka had been admiring a jeweled dagger, Zuko by his side, when Katara let out a gasp.

“Look at this, Aang! It's a water bending scroll. Check out these crazy moves!”

Aang wasn't the only one to rush to Katara's side. Zuko did as well, and Sokka couldn't blame his curiosity.

There was brief talk about the scroll, its origins, and then Aang tried to haggle with the pirate captain for it. But it wasn't until they turned to leave that something very strange happened.

Zuko went inside of the captain and vanished.

“You know what, you lot seem like nice kids,” The captain said, stocking his chin thoughtfully, before he grabbed both the scroll and the dagger. “Have these, free of charge. Next time we're at the same port, you might try and actually buy something. If you remember to keep us in mind.”

It was unsettling because Sokka knew for a fact that Zuko had done something, but they took the, well he wouldn't call them gifts, items and thanked the captain.

“Now scram before I decide to change my mind and charge you for them.”

They left and Zuko appeared next to them with a smug smile on his face.

“That was weird,” Katara mumbled to herself, as she stashed the scroll in her bag.

Sokka glanced at Zuko and answered, “Yeah. Weird.”

“It was that or steal them, and at least this way the captain thinks that it was his idea to give them to you.” Zuko explained.

He didn't like that Zuko had wasted his life force like that, but if Zuko hadn't then Katara would have stolen the scroll herself and they would have needed to run. It hadn’t been worth risking Zuko’s existence though.

The spirit's smile went from smug to sheepish, and Sokka knew he'd gotten the message.

Don't do that again.

That night they made camp in a half burned down tree house, while Katara studied the scroll intently. Most of the moves were ones that she'd learned in the swamp. But the one she hadn't learned was called the water whip and she set herself to mastering it.

Maybe if she hadn't received any training it would have been harder for her, but she made quick work of it before teaching it to Aang the next day at the nearby water reservoir.

That night Zuko was the only one to keep watch. There wasn't any real worry that the Fire Nation would find them. They woke up the next day in the early hours of the morning, to Zuko's warning that there was a small unit of soldiers approaching the remains of the tree house.

So they quickly packed their things and left.

Katara watched the shrinking unit of fire benders with an odd look, one that Sokka had never seen her wear before, and it scared him. The dark and dangerous glint in her eyes, gone as soon as she felt his stare.

“I woke up on the wrong side of the bedroll.”

He didn't believe her but he didn't pry.

Sokka wasn't sure that he wanted to know.

It wasn't until Sokka accepted a day's work on a fishing trip that he learned what being Zuko's anchor meant.

Zuko hadn't wanted to spend the day with a Sokka who had to pretend that he wasn't there, and so he'd decided to stay on the shore with Aang, Katara, Dad, and Bato.

The ship hadn't even made it that far from shore, when Zuko was suddenly next to him, looking confused.

“Right... an anchor,” Sokka muttered under his breath.

“You say something?”

“No, sir, just talking to myself!” Sokka answered the fisherman.

And then he looked back at Zuko. And Zuko still looked confused.

“I've never... I have been able to go where I wanted my whole afterlife.”

Zuko seemed bothered by the realization that he was stuck going wherever Sokka was, but if he really had been untethered all this time, that made sense. And he seemed to cheer up fast enough, the concept of keeping Sokka distracted at all times clearly too good to stay upset for long.

It would have been helpful if he'd asked Aang to lend him Momo for the day, that way he could have talked with Zuko without looking crazy. But of course neither of them had realized that Zuko would be spending the day with Sokka.

Everything was going fine, until a Fire Navy Ship pulled up next to them and a soldier tossed the fisherman a bag of coins.

“You sold us out!” Sokka snapped at the man, as the gangplank was lowered onto the small fishing vessel.

“The Avatar ain't done nothing good for the world in a hundred years, least he can do is make me some money.”

Sokka glanced out at where the shore had faded from view a few hours ago and then up at the ship full of Fire Nation Soldiers. Sokka knew a losing battle when he saw one. He wouldn't have a chance at getting out of this until he was closer to the shore. So when the soldiers came to collect him, he didn't put up a fight.

They were going to try and use him as bait, but Sokka wasn't going to let them.

Zuko looked furious, but he followed Sokka onto the enemy ship.

And then his image flickered oddly for a moment. The ghostly image of swords gripped in the fire bender's hands for a moment. And Sokka knew that his unseen ally was going to use his powers to free Sokka.

Sokka was led to a cell with a small window looking out at the ocean and left there.

“This is less than ideal,” Sokka sighed, before sitting down on the bench that he imagined he was expected to sleep on.

“You could say that again.”

“This is less than ideal.”

Zuko gave a snort, still flicking oddly. The swords were in his hands more often than not now, and his pants had gone from a bright crimson to wine red and still darkening. There would be the flash of a shirt for a brief moment, but then it would be gone again.

It was... It was strange.

“So what's with the costume change?” Sokka asked, gesturing to Zuko's flickering form.

Zuko glanced at him, a mask flashing over his face for a moment, but before he could answer there was a knock at the door and Zhao opened the hatch in it and looked in at Sokka.

“You likely have some plan to try and escape, once this ship docs for the night,” Zhao taunted with a cruel smile. “You should forget about escaping. After all, the Avatar has a sky bison, and when that fisherman arrives back at port, he is going to spin some tale about being attacked by a Fire Navy ship. I doubt that your friends will bother waiting until my ship is anywhere near the shore before coming to rescue you. A clever trap don't you think?”

Sokka rolled his eyes and sighed sarcastically, “Oh nooooo, I'm stuck at sea with the fifteenth ugliest sea monster I've ever seen!”

The hatch slammed shut at his words, and he could hear Zhao storm off.

“So what's the plan now?” Zuko asked, his flickering finally slowing down.

Zuko was definitely not wearing his Agni Kai clothes anymore.

Instead he was now dressed head to toe in black and wearing a blue theatre mask.

He couldn't have Zuko carry him all the way to shore. He didn't want to risk Zuko vanishing from existence half way there. (He didn't want to risk Zuko vanishing from existence ever, but that wasn't the point.) So he sat there stewing in thought for a few moments before an idea began to take form in his mind.

“Fire Navy ships have life rafts right? If you find the nearest one and I can figure a way out of this cell, then we could make a beeline for it. We'd be out of here before anyone had a chance to realize I was gone.” Sokka explained quietly, unsure if there was anyone guarding his cell and not wanting to risk being overheard.

Zuko gave a nod, turned, and then walked through the wall, leaving Sokka to hope that the raft would be close enough that Zuko would actually be able to get to it. He wasn't sure how the anchoring worked or how far the rafts would be.

While he waited, he kept track of the sun's position in the sky, wishing he had more than the bone dagger hidden in his boot. The soldiers had taken his boomerang from him when he'd been brought on the ship.

They couldn't risk trying to retrieve it. Not when they had to get away before Aang came looking for the ship.

While he waited, he thought back to the flickering and Zuko's new getup.

He would have to ask the fire bender about that once they were out of this mess.

Around an hour later a sword slipped through the gap in the door and sliced downwards, followed by the sound of something clanking against the metal floor of the ship.

The door opened and Zuko stood in the doorway, gesturing for him to follow.

“What took you so long?” Sokka asked, irritated, but Zuko didn't answer.

Instead, he dragged an unconscious guard into the cell with Sokka and gestured once more for Sokka to follow.

The moment he stepped out of the hand, Zuko held something out to him...

“Boomerang!” Sokka exclaimed as he snatched the precious weapon from Zuko.

And then a guard shouted, “I heard something!”

They had a fight on their hands...

It took them longer than Sokka would have liked to reach the deck of the ship, and along the way he spotted soldiers that Zuko must have fought while trying to bring back his boomerang, something he must have had to stay tangible to do.

The raft was being guarded by Zhao and some of his soldiers.

And Appa was making his approach already.

Katara leapt from the saddle before Appa even had a chance to land, and she made right for Zhao with her water whip. Hakoda and Bato came next, and then so did Aang.

Well, at least it was going to be a pretty even battle.

He couldn't help noticing that Katara kept her sole focus on Zhao, and she had that same dark look from the burnt forest dancing in her eyes. She was clearly planning something, but he didn't have to wonder about it as he dispatched another soldier.

Zuko was making full use of his ghost powers sans his bending.

Sokka would have to add that to his list of things to ask the ghost about.

Soon only Zhao was the only Fire Nation soldier left standing and Katara had used her water bending to freeze him in place.

Zhao was a fire bender! What was she doing?

And then she pressed a hand to his forehead, just like Aang had done when he'd anchored Zuko's soul to Sokka, but another hand went to Zhao's chest.

His icy restraints stopped melting.

“WHAT DID YOU DO?!?!” Zhao screamed at her, fear and fury in his face, “WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME YOU BITCH!!”

Katara stepped back and glared at the man, before answering, “I made it so you can't hurt my family anymore.”

Zuko cocked his head for a moment, before taking a sudden step back and staring at Katara.

“Katara?” Dad asked, looking at her nervously. “What exactly did you do to the captain?”

“I took away his bending.”

Chapter Text

People were more than willing to look the other way when offered enough money.

That had been one of the many lessons taught to her by her parents. Money bought status when your lineage couldn't, and status bought influence, which bought you power, and that power would buy you more money.

It was how her family had gone from simple merchants peddling their wares to the trading empire that they became hundreds of years later.

And it was something that every Beifong learned.

The story of her ancestors was scripture to them and it was where their family name came from.

Beifong had been a shrewd businessman, who at the time had realized there was a need for high quality goods at rock bottom prices. So he had taken to learning and mastering as many crafts as he could. That way he could tell when an artisan had misjudged the value of their works.

Each time Beifong had found one of these artisans he would buy out their stoke and then return to Goling to out compete his rivals.

And it had worked.

The man became wealthy and had been able to provide a modest life of comfort to his wife and children. And he had passed on his knowledge to the next generation of Beifongs. When he passed his children worked to optimize the system he had given them, and by the time they too had passed on, they had increased their family's wealth more than tenfold.

Their grave markers were the first recording of their father's name becoming their family's name.

The third generation married into minor nobility in the town, ensuring that their status could no longer be lost by a business deal gone sour. The practice of marrying into higher and higher echelons of nobility as their status and wealth grew became not just commonplace, but personal law in their family.

Toph's own mother was the cousin of a woman who'd married a cousin of the Earth King's late father's wife, a fact which her family took great pride in.

And there was the expectation that Toph herself would be married off to a lower ranking member of the royal family.

A fact that Toph didn't care for.

There was a difference between knowing the future that one's parents had set out for them and willingly going along with it however, and Toph had no intentions of going through with the marriage.

Not if there was anything she could do to get out of it.

Which was why she had agreed to teach Aang earth bending.

If the Avatar could push the Fire Nation back within its borders, then she wouldn't be stuck living in Ba Sing Se anymore. Her family would move back to Goling and she could run away. Sure she would miss her mom and dad, but she would be free to be herself.

It was true though that people were more than happy to look the other way if you offered them enough money.

The house that she was putting the Avatar and his friends up in was a testament to that very fact.

She had purchased the property years ago, without her parents knowing about it. Paid for with winnings from her Earth Rumble appearances.

It was in the lower ring, and for good reason. If she'd gotten a house in the upper ring then they would have found out. The walls had ears and ears would often gossip.

Aang wasn't progressing in his earth bending as much as she had hoped that he would. He was too much of an air bender. Not connected enough with the ground to grasp what being like a stone actually meant. And until the Avatar actually managed to master the basics, Zuko refused to start training him in fire bending.

That Toph understood.

Zuko had told her about how fire benders needed to have restraint or they risked burning the world down around them. Learning to be steady and unmoving could teach Aang some of that needed restraint.

Aang was free like the air and went with the flow like water, but he couldn't stay still like the earth and she wasn't sure how he would be with restraint.

Could he control the fuel his emotions would give to his fire?

And then she paused in her thoughts.

If water bending was about going with the flow and fire bending was about controlling the flow... Maybe air bending was fundamentally in opposition to what made earth bending work?

Toph sat up in her bed.

Was being an air bender the same as her relationship with the traditions of her family? Her refusal to be trapped in place by what her family said she should be and what they said she should do?

She didn't pretend to understand air bending, but she could learn.

She wished that Zuko wasn’t anchored to Sokka and that he could sit here with her and talk about her theory on how she should be approaching Aang's training. But Toph knew that being tied to Sokka had helped to slow him burning up.

So she waited. Toph was good at waiting.

She stopped and listened to the earth, waiting for the right time to strike.

And that time came during their next lesson.

“Why did you run away, when you found out you were the Avatar?” Toph asked calmly, before she sat down on the ground. “Shouldn't you have been excited?”

For once Aang stayed perfectly still. At first he didn't answer her, like he was deep in thought.

And then he sighed, “Well, I didn't know how to feel about it. All I knew is that after I found out, everything began to change...”

Toph sat patiently listening, nodding at all the right parts and asking questions when needed.

And Aang stayed perfectly still the entire time as he spoke.

When he finally finished, he fell silent, almost as though he was waiting for her to say something.

And say something Toph did.

She touched a hand to the ground, bringing a piece of it up with her hand, and then held it out to him.

“Take this.”

At first Aang didn't, but then he leaned forward and accepted the rock. He held it in his hand and was quiet.

“What do you see?” Toph asked.

“Uh... I guess a piece of rock?”

Toph nodded, before asking, “And what do rocks do?”

“I don't think I understand...” The Avatar managed, before setting it down between them.

Toph picked the stone back up and held it back out to him and said, “Rocks don't change unless we make them change. It is a bit like your life. So what do you see?”

“My life before I was the Avatar?” Aang guessed before he took the rock back.

“Your life didn't change because you became the Avatar, it changed because you found out you were the Avatar. There's a difference.” Toph explained.

Aang didn't put the rock down this time, but he didn't stay quiet. Instead he asked, “What does this have to do with earth bending?”

Toph smiled and asked, “If you could have made your rock stay the same, you would have, but you ran away. If you stayed, maybe you could have made the rock stay the same, but you approached the problem like an air bender.”

“I don't know what I could have done to make it stay the same.”

“You could have waited and when the moment was right you could have done something to make it stay the same. Maybe it wouldn't have changed the fact that people started treating you differently for being the Avatar, but you could have tried and done something to make the people around you see that you hadn't changed. You could have put the rock back where it came from.”

Aang didn't put the rock back where it came from though.

“Why do you need to master the elements?”

“I...,” Aang began before stopping. He didn't move. He stayed still. But after a few moments he found his voice again and answered, “I have to master the elements to defeat the Fire Lord and restore balance.”

“Why do you have to master the elements though?”

Aang sounded frustrated when he answered, but he stayed still, “Because it’s the only way.”

“And why don't you try finding another way?” Toph asked. “Don't air benders think there is more than one way to approach a problem? So why wait until you've mastered all the elements? Why not just use the Avatar State? Or maybe slip some poison into the old man's tea? Or maybe-”

“I have to wait because I'm not ready!” Aang snapped.

Toph's grin went wide at those words.

She stood up and held out her hand for the rock, saying, “An earth bender waits until the right moment to strike.”

Aang didn't hand her the rock. Instead he placed it back down where she had taken it from the ground, and he made it one with the earth again.

She didn't have to make an earth bender out of him because Aang already was one.

After solving Aang's mental block with earth bending, progress was finally able to start being made. It wasn't the answer to all of their problems though because once he did master the basics of earth bending it wouldn't be a good idea for him to start fire bending while still in the city.

At least not unless they told the Earth King about the Avatar.

Toph knew better than to put in a formal request to see the Earth King though. The Dai Li wouldn't have allowed it, and she wasn't about to ask her cousin Chu Hau.

Chu Hau would have laughed at her and refused to help. The girl never liked her and when she had found out that Toph was meant to marry Bingwen she had liked Toph even less. Chu Hau was like Toph's parents in the sense that she thought less of Toph for being blind. The girl hated the idea of being made to treat Toph like her equal, and she hated the fact that if Toph married Bingwen that Toph would become her better.

But hope wasn't lost.

Bingwen was having a birthday party soon, and being the son of General How made him second cousin to the Earth King. And General How was first cousin to the Earth King because the previous one had been his uncle. Chu Hau was General Sung's daughter, and the general had been cousin to King Kuei's mother.

The Earth King would be at the party.

So she paid her fiance a visit. Something that she loathed to do.

Toph hated pretending to be meek. She hated having to be polite. She hated the rules of high society.

She would have rather broken down the palace doors and thrown Aang down in front of the King and told him who Aang was and what he had to learn. She wanted to tell the King that he didn't get a choice in allowing the Avatar to learn fire bending while in the city, but she was an earth bender first and foremost.

Toph would wait until the party and then she would strike.

She had known that her parents would be excited that she'd asked to see her fiance without their prodding for once, thinking that maybe she was finally growing fond of the boy, but they couldn't be further from the truth.

It was because of the fact that she didn't like Bingwen that she was doing this.

She didn't want to marry the guy and Aang defeating the Fire Lord was her best shot at getting out of the marriage.

Bingwen was her best shot at getting her friends into the party though.

Which is how she found herself having a light lunch with the boy.

They almost resembled her parents in their interactions.

Eating in silence. Bingwen reading something while she took gentle sips of her tea.

When she heard him turning to the next page she finally spoke.

“Your birthday is next week...”

He didn't say anything for a few minutes, before turning the page again, but his weight did shift in a way that she had come to recognize as a nod.

So Toph asked, “Is there still room for last minute guests?”

He nodded again.

She waited for a few moments, and then he set his book down and actually spoke for once.

“Oh... My apologies, I forgot again.” Bingwen said politely before adding, “There is always room for more guests, if they are of appropriate pedigree.”

He forgot her blindness often and that infuriated Toph to no end. He was always holding a book or a scroll out to her and saying “oh isn't that interesting” or “what do you think of this?” He always reminded her that there would be things that she could never do on her own. Things she would have to always rely on others for and Toph hated him for it.

“They are royalty from the Southern Water Tribe,” She explained. “The Chief and his two children, along with their bodyguard. They are appropriate for the party.”

Her fiance sat up straight and set his book down.

“I thought...”

Toph took a sip of her tea before filling the silence, saying, “The daughter is a water bender. But there is more. They are in the company of an air bender.”

Bingwen excitedly asked her a stupid question, “Did he have the arrows?”

“Arrows?” Toph frowned.

“Air bender tattoos,” Bingwen clarified, providing no such clarity.

Toph set her teacup down and she wanted to shout at the boy. He had already forgotten her blindness once already in their conversation. And Toph was sure that the truth was that the boy couldn't be bothered to remember it in the first place.

Toph hated him for it.

“I had forgotten to ask if he did...” Was her answer and it was true.

She didn't care what people looked like, she didn't have the context to care.

Seeing people cared a lot about that kind of thing. Chu Hau cared an awful lot about that kind of thing.

And that was how Toph knew that she was considered pretty. She could feel the way the other girl lied through her teeth whenever she had called Toph ugly or plain. She knew that when others looked at her and said she was beautiful that they truly believed that she was. And while it might be nice to know that she was pretty, Toph often didn't care that she was.

She felt him freeze and Toph knew he was going to apologize again.

She closed her eyes when he did and she didn't say anything in response.

Instead she waited for him to let her know that her friends were free to come with her and that he would pass the message along to his staff. And Toph wasn't sure which was worse. The people who treated her like she was helpless or the ones who made her feel like she was.

She didn't need to sense Zuko's presence to know that the fire bender was concerned for her, when she produced the invitations to Bingwen's birthday. He knew how thoughtless the boy was and had happily agreed to read the books to her that her fiance was reading to her.

It had helped because at the very least she could share her thoughts about those books and Bingwen became almost an agreeable presence in her life. Still not agreeable enough that she would have wanted to marry him, but agreeable enough that she wouldn't have minded being his friend.

She had tried having one of her servants read a book to her after Zuko had to leave, but that hadn't lasted longer than it took for the servant to decide that a book would be offensive to a noble woman's standard sensibilities.

The servant had hesitated for a moment before making up the next few sentences, but Toph had known she was being lied to and feigned tiredness. After that she never asked for anyone else to read to her.

Toph hadn't expected Zuko to want to attend the party himself.

That wasn't to say he never attended parties with her, but he did so without being seen.

This time however he wanted to physically attend the party, and so after finding him some clothes to wear he was allowed to come with them.

And then their plan went to shit.

Each time they tried to approach the Earth King someone would lead the man to the other side of the room or someone would intercept them and start yammering on about something.

They were being kept from approaching the king for some reason.

So Aang had been told to create a distraction.

He must have done something with his air bending because Toph couldn't sense him when he'd done whatever he thought was a distraction.

But she hadn't had long to wonder about it because she and the rest of her group were cuffed and silently dragged away by the Dai Li.

Zuko had vanished the very moment the Dai Li grabbed him and she could feel the agent jump in shock, and Toph would be lying if she said she hadn't found it more than a little funny. But she was annoyed about being arrested.

“What gives?” Toph snapped, when she and her friends were brought before Long Feng. “Don't you know who I am!”

The man was utterly calm as he answered, “I know everyone in this city, Miss Beifong. No one enters or leaves this city without my knowledge... No one but your friends here and I am determined to get some answers.”

“We entered through Crescent Moon Bay.” Was Sokka's answer.

Bato added, “We're from the Southern Water Tribe.”

“My name is Chief Hakoda. These are my children.”

Katara chimed in, “Toph told Bingwen about us.”

Aang was about to make his own addition, but Long Feng held up a hand.

The room fell silent, and then the man admitted, “I know who you all are. The Avatar and his friends from the Water Tribe. But that doesn't answer the question of your vanishing friend or how your friends made it into the city.”

Toph didn't feel Zuko, but she heard him.

“I'm dead.”

Long Feng jerked back and fell to the floor with a startled shout.

Zuko snorted, sounding amused, before he continued, “The Avatar needed an earth bending teacher.”

“That doesn't explain what business you have with the Earth King!” The man snapped before hauling himself back to his feet.

Katara answered, “Aang needs to learn fire bending.”

There was a moment of silence before the man growled, “He will do no such thing while in these walls. As long as this city still stands, fire benders will never be allowed inside.”

And then Zuko decided to be stupid and announce, “Well, I'm already here.”

They camped across the river on the other side of the Serpent's Pass that night.

Chapter Text

Zhao had failed to capture the Avatar and was now on his deathbed.

If you asked Azula, it was where the man belonged.

There was a mirror in the room directly across from the captain's bed and they both knew that no one was about to defy the Fire Lord's orders that it be left uncovered. The man would die a slow death and his corpse would be left to rot.

But first Azula had some questions.

She sat down in the chair next to the bed and smirked when she saw the way the dying man glance at the knife Mai was playing with, while the girl leaned against the wall.

It was an Earth Kingdom blade with an inscription on it.

Never Give Up Without A Fight.

“The healers say that you've lost your bending,” Azula stated matter of fact.

Zhao didn't say anything. He refused to even look at her.

Azula waited a few moments before she continued, “I had Ty Lee chi block me, to know what it is like. I have to admit it was a rather unpleasant experience... It wore off, but I can't imagine just how horrible it must be for something like that to be permanent.”

She could see the pain flash across the man's face.

Good. He deserved to feel pain, after all it had been Zhao who had first put it into her late brother's head that he needed to attend war meetings. Her brother had confided in her and asked for her thoughts on the matter.

Azula had regretted telling him that the idea made a lot of sense. After all, Zuko was first in line for the throne at the time and he had barely begun his training for when he became Fire Lord. She hadn't thought that Zuko would speak out against their father's plans.

She hadn't known there would be an Agni Kai.

Azula wanted to shake the hand of the water bender who had reduced the once proud and boastful Zhao into this sniveling fool. In fact she intended to do just that.

“I've read the report that you gave when you were brought here... It was a rather intriguing read if I am being honest. I always thought that the Blue Spirit was just a work of fiction.” Azula said, before producing a well loved theatre scroll. “Mother used to take me and Zuko to see this play every summer on Ember Island. My brother always had rather cutting words for the Ember Island Players' performances though. But if you ask me he was just spoiled by the Caldera Theatre Company. He had ridiculously high standards for what he liked to call the artistry of the stage.”

“The Blue Spirit is-” Zhao began, but she held up a hand to silence him, before unrolling the scroll.

“This was Zuko's scroll. He liked to write in the margins. My brother had a lot of thoughts on the play. Honestly, he was obsessed with it. Right here he wrote a rather interesting thought about one of the characters.” She explained before she read words that she had long since memorized. “Noren was arrogant before the Dark Water Spirit bound him to a mortal form. Noren didn't care about the humans who worshiped him and by being forced to live among them he learned how he had wronged those around him. And yet when he broke free of the curse he didn't thank the spirit for his lesson, instead choosing to fight him. It is a gross misinterpretation of the story to call the spirit the Dark Water Spirit and instead the character should have been referred to as the Blue Spirit.”

Zhao looked nervous now. His eyes were locked on the scroll she held.

Azula smirked and asked, “Captain Zhao, was there anything you forgot to mention in your report?”

The man told her what she already knew.

“Thank you for your honesty, Captain.”

Zhao asked, “Are you going to tell the Fire Lord?”

“No, and neither will you.” Azula admitted, before she glanced over to Mai and asked, “Will you let Ty Lee know we're ready for her now?”

“Of course, Princess Azula, as you wish.”

Zhao didn't need to be able to speak or write anymore.

Tracking the Avatar down ended up being a simple matter of following a trail of fur from the shedding sky bison. And capturing the Avatar was a simple matter of waiting until the child had grown tired and broke off from the group.

But that was where her plan stopped working.

Zuko's spirit hadn't come with the Avatar when she'd taken him. No instead, her brother had been anchored to the Avatar's friend Sokka.

Aang had explained all of this while sitting across their campfire and eating dinner with them.

“So you're really not going to turn me over to the Fire Lord?”

Azula sighed and answered, “No, I already told you, I just want my brother back.”

Aang didn't look like he believed her though, and she couldn't blame him. She had hunted him down and then taken him prisoner after all. Though he could escape anytime that he wanted. She hadn't gone through the effort of tying him up.

“You're the Avatar. The bridge between our world and the Spirit World, so I need your help.” She admitted. “If anyone can bring him back from the dead, it would be you.”

Aang gave a snort of laughter before answering, “You really are his sister.”

“So we have a deal then? I help you defeat my uncle and you bring my brother back?”

“It's not that simple...” Aang answered, looking nervous. “I don't know how to... I don't know how to do what he asked me to do and I don't even know if it is possible to do what you're asking me to do.”

“Can't you learn?” Azula snapped.

The Avatar shifted nervously before setting his bowl down and saying, “What you and Zuko are asking me to learn are two different things, Azula...”

“He... Zuko wants to be put to rest. Doesn't he?”

Azula turned to look at Ty Lee.

Zuko wasn't supposed to give up without a fight...

The Avatar told them that his friends had agreed if they were ever separated that they would head to the nearest air temple to regroup, which was why Azula now found herself wandering through the empty halls of the Eastern Air Temple.

After she had taught the boy how to produce lightning there had been an old man who had shown up and offered to teach the Avatar how to master the Avatar State and so Aang had gone off with him to learn. Ty Lee had gone with them because there had been the mention of chakras.

She hoped that the two were having fun with their lessons.

Mai was watching her quietly, until after a few hours she'd asked, “Aren't you afraid of what your uncle will do to you if he finds out?”

“I love my brother more than I fear the Fire Lord's wrath.”

He hadn't been her uncle since Zuko's death. That kind kooky tea loving man had died when her brother had, and he'd been replaced by something so angry and hurting that he wanted to burn the world down around him.

Sure she could tell the Fire Lord that she had decided to join the Avatar because her brother's ghost had decided to... But Azula didn't think that the man would react well to learning that Zuko hadn't passed on and had been stuck between worlds ever since.

Aang's friends arrived before the Avatar and Ty Lee returned.

“Where's Aang!” The Water Bender shouted.

Azula turned to look at the group and then she bowed to Katara and answered, “He is off mastering the Avatar State, but I want to thank you Master Katara for what you did to Captain Zhao.”

Sokka muttered, “Zuko, have I ever told you how weird your family is?”

There was a moment of silence and then Sokka said, “Well, your family is weird.”

And then Azula stood up straight again and asked, “May I speak to my brother now?”

She waited until the ghostly image of her brother appeared before producing the dagger and chucking it at him yelling, “You asked the Avatar to put you to rest?! What in Agni's name is wrong with you Zuko! I swear if Father hadn't already killed you I would do so myself!”

And then she burst into tears.

“You left me there all alone!” She screamed, as her brother rushed over to her suddenly no longer see through, and then he hugged her. “Father killed you and you left me there all alone!”

“I thought it was for the best...” Zuko admitted trying and failing to comfort her, as she sobbed into his shoulder. “I... By the time I figured out how to make myself seen and heard... I thought it would hurt everyone more if I came home.”

“Why are you leaving me again?” Azula demanded between tears. “Why would you just give up?”

Zuko didn't have an answer for her though. Instead he just held her the same way she had always wished her mother would have. The way mother had always held Zuko.

Three years of pent up grief and mourning pouring out of her in one explosive display of emotions.

They stayed like that for a while. Her brother holding her while she cried. When she recomposed herself later there would be a silent agreement that they would pretend that this never happened and that she had stayed perfectly calm when greeting him and his new friends.

She wasn't going to let him go this time.

By time Aang and Ty Lee had returned with the guru, Azula had fixed her make up and Zuko was excitedly telling her about what he had been up to since he'd died.

“So I called him cute and-” Zuko was saying when he fell silent and looked over at the Avatar.

Toph spoke up and asked, “So Twinkle Toes, did you master the Avatar State?”

“I did... Can I talk to Zuko real fast?”

There was something nervous about the look on his face when he'd said it, and Azula shot up to her feet and followed Zuko and Sokka over to Aang.

Aang looked at her and Sokka before adding, “Alone.”

And then he left her and Sokka standing there, turning the corner and heading down the hall as Zuko vanished behind him.

“Zuko isn't going anywhere yet,” Sokka said, not sounding convinced. “The spirits aren't done with him yet...”

“Did you know Avatar Kyoshi lived to be 230 years old?” Azula asked.

Sokka looked at her curiously, “No... I didn't know that.”

“I wonder how she did that.”

Sokka looked thoughtful as he mumbled, “Yeah... I wonder.”

The two didn't tell them what it was that they had gone off to talk about, but Azula had a feeling that the Avatar had told her brother what she'd asked him to do.

That night as they ate, Azula decided to strike.

“The Fire Nation wouldn't think to look for us on Kyoshi Island.”

Sokka glanced over at her, a twinkle of understanding in his eyes, as he chirped in, “I think you're right about that. They've stayed out of the war so far. And they would be fine hosting the Avatar while Aang learns fire bending. Good idea.”

“Avatar Kyoshi was a badass, I wouldn't mind visiting the island,” Toph added and Azula smiled realizing that the girl must know what she and Sokka were up to.

Zuko glanced between the three of them before he looked over at Aang and said, “Well, I think it’s decided then? Kyoshi Island?”

Did he... Azula smirked. He hadn't given up had he?

Traveling to Kyoshi Island more than explained why the Fire Nation had such a problem tracking the Avatar. How could you track something that you couldn't see?

The journey took some time and Appa's saddle was crowded.

Azula had a feeling that the saddle hadn't been meant to hold nine people and all of their travel things.

Hakoda came to sit by her when they'd made camp for the night and watched her brother and his son with her.

“Zuko loves him... Doesn't he?”

The man smiled and nodded, before admitting, “Sokka told me what the two of you are planning. I understand why you want to, and I won't stop you, but you need to be prepared for the fact that you might not find anything. I hope you do find something though. I just don't want the two of you getting your hopes up.”

Azula let the man hug her and she wondered if her father would have hugged her like this father did. Ozai had approved of her, but she didn't think he actually loved her.

“I already lost my brother once, I don't want to lose him again.”

Hakoda watched the way his son held her brother and he said, “Sokka hasn't though.”

He started to get up, but Azula stopped him and asked, “Would it be okay if I had another hug?”

“Sure thing kiddo.”

The next day while they flew on Appa, Azula couldn't help wondering what it would have been like growing up with Hakoda for a father.

When they did arrive on the island, they were met with suspicion right up until Aang did some trick with marbles. After that they were treated as honored guests.

Suki proved invaluable in her search for answers.

The girl had sat patiently as Azula explained why she wanted to know how Kyoshi had lived so long and then the girl had asked an interesting question.

“Do you think an earth bender could bend ash?”

Chapter Text

The palace was quiet like one of those tombs that the Earth Kingdom put their dead to rest in. It was a mausoleum of the past. A grave for what once was.

And it would collapse around him one day.

It had been three years to the date that Zuko had last smiled at him. Three years since he'd last heard his nephew's voice. And it had been three years since the boy had died.

Fire Lord Iroh was unmoved when a guard came and told him that they were under attack.

If what remained of their enemies had come to kill him, then Iroh would deal with them when they were before him.

Until then he wanted to be left to his all-consuming grief.

“Fire Lord Iroh, your niece is with them.” Someone had said, but he didn't hear them.

He had known she would betray him when he'd sent her away.

Instead Iroh went to walk through the hall of mirrors.

He passed by the one that now held Captain Zhao trapped inside it. Zhao who had smiled when Zuko was murdered right in front of them.

There was a mirror that held the face of a screaming man. The fire bending master that Ozai had given permission to burn Zuko whenever he didn't perform a new fire bending form correctly.

There was a mirror that held the old general, who Zuko had spoken out against during that accursed war meeting.

Ursa looked out from her own mirror at him, sadness in her eyes. She had left Zuko here alone. He hadn't taken joy in killing her, but early on in his grief he had blamed her for what happened. If she had stayed then maybe Zuko would have been off watching the turtleducks that day.

And then there was his brother. Ozai glared at him from his own mirror. Of anyone trapped in this hall, it was Ozai who had deserved it the most. He had murdered Iroh's nephew. And for what? Because Zuko had spoken out of turn?

Iroh could hardly remember what it was that had sparked Zuko to fury. Only that he had leapt to his feet and shouted with righteous anger.

But there was one mirror in the hall that held no soul in its reflective surface.

Iroh watched his own face in it for a moment.

He'd looked away. He hadn't warned Zuko of the danger. He had allowed Zuko into that meeting. He hadn't challenged his brother in turn the moment he'd known what was happening. He could have fought for Zuko to not have to fight Ozai.

But he hadn't.

And Iroh looked away once more.

Someone walked into the hall and asked, “Are you Zuko's uncle?”

Not are you the Fire Lord, not are you General Iroh, not even are you the Dragon of the West, but are you Zuko's uncle...

Iroh turned to look at the child who had thought to address him as such and was met by the sight of a young air bender.

“You are here to restore balance.”

The Avatar nodded but he didn't approach the Fire Lord, instead glancing over the mirrors.

It made sense that an air bender would be so bothered by what Iroh had done, but he didn't know that these people deserved their prison. How could he know? He hadn't known Iroh's nephew.

“Zuko wouldn't have wanted this,” The Avatar whispered almost too quiet to hear. “Zuko didn't want this.”

“How could you know what my nephew would have wanted!” Iroh bellowed. “You weren't here to save him! You abandoned this world, Avatar!”

“What did I die for?”

Iroh froze. That voice was eerily familiar and it hadn't come from the Avatar.

The voice had come from behind the child.

And then a scarred teenager stepped into view.

“Zuko...”

Had the Avatar summoned a spirit vision of his nephew just to torment him? Why not make both of his dead children appear to him then.

Zuko walked past the Avatar and came to stand in front of him, before asking him again, “What did I die for?”

“You-,” Iroh began, but stopped.

What did Zuko die for? He'd spoken out of turn and he'd refused to fight Ozai in the Agni Kai... Zuko had died for nothing and shouldn't the world burn for such injustice that a child would die for nothing?

But Zuko wasn't that same child anymore. No, Zuko had grown up since his death...

His nephew looked angry.

“What Did I Die For, Uncle!”

Iroh didn't truly know...

Zuko glanced around the room, and when his eyes fell on the face of his mother... There was a look of horror on the boy's face.

“I died because I was trying to save lives!” His late nephew screamed. “I didn't die for this! I didn't die for you to kill my mother! I didn't die so more would die! You made my death mean nothing! You made me die for NOTHING!!!”

And then his nephew burst into flames.

Iroh didn't know what was happening. He only knew that the ghost of his nephew was screaming out in pain as he died all over again and behind Iroh was an empty mirror that he risked losing his nephew to if the boy got too close.

And so he did the unthinkable and shattered the mirror that was meant to be his grave.

A moment later there was the Avatar and lights and he could feel his inner flame being ripped from his being.

And then there was silence and emptiness.

His inner fire had only gone out twice in his life. Once when Lu Ten had died and again when Zuko had died.

This was different.

He didn't feel the cold that came with a fire gone out. He felt nothing.

Iroh fell to his knees, the screaming of his nephew somehow distant.

How was he meant to avenge Zuko's death without his fire? How was he supposed to set the world right by burning it down, when he couldn't even produce a flame?

And then someone ran into the room and gathered the burning soul of his nephew into their arms demanding to know where Zuko's ashes were kept.

He mumbled out the answer, and then they left him there in the silence.

But it wasn't long before he once more heard footsteps.

“I would say that I am sorry it has to end this way, but I'm not.”

Azula.

“We're going to bring Zuko back, but we need to have all the parts needed for making him a new body to work.” Another voice explained. “We already took some of what we needed from Ozai's corpse, but... He is going to need blood for his new body to work.”

Iroh turned to look at them, confused.

There was his niece flanked by two girls that he'd never met. One was a water bender and the other was an earth bender.

“You need my blood...”

Azula was the one to answer him.

“Technically any blood would do, but we don't want to risk anyone claiming that Zuzu's blood isn't royal anymore. You know how nobility can be.”

Iroh did know.

An odd calm washed over him and he couldn't help but ask, “What exactly are you going to do to bring him back?”

“We are going to build him a new body from blood and ash,” Azula explained. “And then I am going to shock his heart and Aang will put air into his lungs, before using spirit magic to put his soul back. Of course since he was only thirteen when he died, we needed to borrow some ash from Father so we'd have enough ash to make him his current age.”

Iroh was quiet for a few moments mulling it over.

And wasn't that an odd recipe for life?

Flesh of the father, ash of the son, and blood of the uncle...

But if it worked... If they could bring his nephew back, then it would be worth it.

He could trade his life for Zuko's and he could right the world.

Putting Zuko back into the world was the only way he could right his world.

And so he kneeled before them and offered his wrists and that was how Fire Lord Iroh died.

That was how Fire Lord Zuko was reborn.

That was how the war ended.

It ended in the balance of death and rebirth.