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Chapter Text

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Previously

Fire was an element that either commanded respect or consumed fear.

It was an element that harnessed the ability to both give life and take it, and Aelita Kenshin had seen both firsthand during her sixteen years of life.

She had created the controlled flame that warmed a laboring mother's bedside, had held her hand and coached her through the contractions as she brought her child into the physical world, and then used the fire she harnessed at her fingertips to cut through the umbilical cord while the newborn nursed in the comforting heat.

She had watched the light fade from her father's eyes the very moment raw flame burned clean through his chest until it fried his beating heart still inside its prison of flesh. She had borne witness to the slaughter of the old and ancient spirit of the moon at the hands of a firebender she had known her entire life. And she had felt the way a person's insides gripped her tightly after she herself had thrust a fist full of the rawest fire that she could produce clean through their very fucking lungs.

Maybe her own death was meant to serve as her punishment for all her sins and shortcomings as a friend, a firebender, and the host of the Great Shadow. As her physical world faded away, Aelita couldn't recall how exactly she had gotten here but none of that mattered anymore as she found herself lost in an internal, forever darkness, nothing but the glow of a single ember in the distance to light her way. This was death and it was surprisingly peaceful, even if she didn't deserve it. Aelita hadn't realized just how badly she had often craved this day, this moment until now. She was tired, so damn tired, and she didn't want to fight away her own demons anymore.

She was vaguely aware of the deafening silence. Prior to this a thousand different voices, man and woman, old and new had spoken somewhere in the back of her mind, but as a familiar black blade pierced her chest, they had slowly begun to fade away one by one. She was left now with nothing but darkness and fire. She wasn't sure how long she had just stood there in the vast expanse of nothing, but with not a damn thing left to lose, she finally started her journey towards the now growing light in the distance. She felt lighter here and now as she walked, hollow and empty as if she were missing the weight of a presence she had carried her entire life, but she didn't question it. She was tired, so damn tired, and she didn't deserve to fight anymore.

The light of the fire guiding her journey grew brighter and brighter with every step she made. The glow was blinding, nothing beyond the flame as she approached, but pure white light. This was death and she was ready to welcome it with open arms.

"Aelita?"

A boy's familiar voice called her name just before the firebender could step willingly into the light. For the quickest of moments, she debated on ignoring the sound to just keep going, but she couldn't. Aelita turned to find the face of a bald monk staring back at her, tattoos of blue decorating his skin.

"Aelita?" He spoke again, and the sound wracked through her like the beating of a drum. Everything came crashing back to her as she looked at him in his sad, grey eyes.

"Aang?" She whispered as she stepped towards him and away from the light. He held out a trembling hand and suddenly she was running. "Aang!" She cried louder as she sprinted hard away from the light and towards the boy she had vowed to follow anywhere in this world.

But fate was cruel, and she couldn't reach him, couldn't grasp his outstretched hand, no matter how hard she tried. "Aang!" She sobbed, painfully aware of the distance between them and the tears that stained her skin.

"Aelita!" He called back as he faded into the darkness that threatened to swallow her whole and leave her alone for good. "Aelita!"

"Aang!"

"Aelita!"

"Aelita!"

"Aelita!" A new voice called, gruff and demanding, closer than Aang had ever seemed to be. She took one last desperate step forward into the darkness before she fell. Aelita fell and fell through the vast stretch of nothing before the air was ripped from her lungs. She wasn't suffocating, not really, because death wasn't ready for Aelita Kenshin just yet.

Eyes of molten amber snapped open wide as the grey-haired girl thrashed upon the cot she had been tied to. Aelita sucked in chilled ocean air as she tried desperately to adjust her eyes to the sudden, blinding light so different from the place that she had just been.

"Aelita, hey," The voice spoke again, more gentle than it had just been. "You've gotta calm down before you hurt yourself. Relax, please, for me."

She couldn't relax, she couldn't do anything but flail and jerk her head from side to side as she tried helplessly to remember where she was and how she had gotten here. Strong hands gripped her shoulders and held her down, the restraints that held her wrists and ankles to the sides still tight. By first instinct, Aelita reached for her power, an underlying warmth to push past her body and serve as a barrier between her and the newcomer, but she couldn't find her power anywhere inside of her. She thrashed harder.

"Aelita, stop!" The voice commanded. "I don't want to have to call Ty Lee in here to knock you limp, but I will if I have to!"

Ty Lee. She knew that name. Ty Lee had been her friend. Aelita blinked once and focused her gaze on the presence holding her down to find a third eye tattoo and a handsome face staring back down at her.

"There's our girl," Zetzu smiled. "Welcome back."

Aelita froze, her heart damn near beating out of her chest. She looked beyond the Prince of the Fire Nation and felt as if she had been transported back in time. She lay on a bed in the center of a room near identical to the one she had called her home for three long years at sea, the familiar sway of ocean waves rolling beneath her. Rather, she was tied to a bed, and the Prince sharing the space wasn't the one that she had left the Fire Nation with.

She had left home with Zuko to chase the Avatar.

They had found him.

Her Avatar, because she was the Akira, the physical embodiment of the shadow spirit Gaara. Aang was the Avatar, physical host to the light spirit Raava, the last living airbender, and she had broken Zuko's heart to follow him.

She had made friends and laughed and loved. Katara and Toph and Kyojuro and so many other faces that flashed through her mind as a blur.

And Sokka. Her warrior, her confidant, her friend. She knew they had loved her right back in their own ways, but none had loved her more than him.

And then Zetzu had come with Azula in tow to shatter their peace and so much of the rest was blank. The memories were barreling over her faster and harder than Aelita could stop them, but there were moments of dark haze in her mind that she couldn't see past.

"Zetzu," She said past trembling lips, her voice hoarse from limited use. "I -"

"And she speaks too," The Prince beamed down at her as he released her shoulders from his grip. "We were beginning to wonder when you'd wake up again."

"We?"

"Zuko and I, of course, though, I don't think my brother will be admitting that out loud anytime soon." He explained as if the matter were casual. "I think he's still quite upset with you after this whole fiasco, but I don't suppose he'll be able to hold onto that grudge forever."

"Upset with me?" She croaked, vaguely aware that she had been furious with him before her world went dark.

"He'll come around eventually," Zetzu waved off what he assumed to be concern as he rose to fetch the pitcher of water from the table near her bed to pour her a glass. "After all, how long can he stay upset with the person who saved his life?"

"Saved his life?" Aelita asked. She tried hopelessly to raise herself from the bed but found she didn't have the strength to even dream about breaking free from her bindings. The panic was slowly creeping back into place and her entire body shook as she pleaded for her mind to just fill in the damn blanks in her memory, but found nothing but the lingering darkness there. "Zetzu, I...you...Zuko...Aang," She choked on incoherent words in a desperate attempt to understand.

He tilted his head to look down at her now with confusion and what she swore might be the faintest trace of satisfaction in his eyes. "You don't remember what happened, do you?"

"Remember what?"

"You killed him, Aelita."

Ice swept through the Akira's veins.

She remembered pieces of it now.

She remembered the feeling of her hand buried deep in a man's chest. She twisted her neck painfully to glance down at her wrist, and for a second, she could still see the blood that coated her skin, could still hear the chirping sound of her lightning fade. And then there had been the screaming.

It was true, she had killed a man, but she couldn't put a face to the terrible memory, only haze and shadow.

Zetzu didn't bother to hide his smile as he turned her world completely upside down, and as he spoke, Aelita Kenshin truly understood what it meant to fear fire.

"The Avatar, Aelita. You killed the last airbender."

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Chapter Text

Book Three of the series Akira: The Legend of Aelita. Proceeded by Book Two: Carved in Rock, and Book One: Reborn in Water. Originally posted to Wattpad under the same titles and username.

Disclaimer: I do not own nor did I create the universe, main plot, or characters of Avatar The Last Airbender. The only characters that are of my own creation are those not used in the show and or comics. There will be some changes made to the show's general details for the purpose of this story, one such example being the ages of the characters.

Aang/Toph: 14-15

Katara/Azula/Mai/Ty Lee/ Aelita: 15-16

Sokka/Zuko/Zetzu/Kyojuro: 17-18

(Changes made to reflect overall more mature themes and topics involved in the story. Other supporting characters' ages approximated to such ages as well minus small children, adults and elderly.)

Some chapters will contain mature themes, depictions of violence, and graphic language, reader discretion is advised though content or trigger warnings will be posted at the beginning of these chapters. Chapters related directly to the show will be labeled in correspondence to its episode, those not labeled as such are storylines of my own.

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Chapter Text

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It had only taken three weeks for Aelita Kenshin to no longer feel safe inside of her own mind.

She had remained largely unconscious during the first week following the incident, unsure if that would ultimately prove to have been a blessing or a curse as time passed. Her father's blade had missed her heart by a fraction but the internal damage had been undeniable and by the time she had been seen by a healer, the sixteen-year-old had lost more blood than the average human should've been able to lose and still survive.

But Aelita was far from an average girl, and that much at least she was sure of. The fact that she was so very abnormal had made it all the more surprising that her body had even needed to stay under for an entire week to begin to properly heal, everyone assuming her unique abilities would've sped up the process.

At least, that's what Zetzu had told her. Aelita hadn't spoken to any living person other than the second-born Prince of the Fire Nation since she had woken for the first time after her body shut down. There was the vaguest recollection of one-sided conversations in her head she couldn't place as she had tried to come to grips with her new reality, but the phantom words and phrases she couldn't shake had only made things worse.

"You did this."

"Why him?"

"His fault."

The first week damn well might've been the most peaceful despite the physical pain that had wracked her body, the lingering thoughts about her own death that Aelita couldn't shake, and the undeniable feeling that she had somehow failed. That was all still peaceful compared to the complete and utter breakdown of her already fragile sanity that started sometime during the second week. She didn't cry or sob or shoot off the quick, smart comments she was so known to throw around, but as Zetzu had recounted the tale of how she had ended up there, tied down like a disobedient plaything, she felt as if her brain melted into a puddle of nothing inside of her fucking skull.

It wasn't so much the Prince's words that had wracked her whole so much as it was the fact that some part of her that knew that someone wasn't telling her the truth, at least not the full truth, and she couldn't disguise if the liar was Zetzu or herself. She had gone into shock the first time he had recounted the incident to her, body shutting down as she was pulled back into a thick, cloudy haze for most of another day before coming back to the surface. And then she had argued with him on what parts of her life and his tales were truly fact or fiction.

Every memory of her childhood was held firm in Aelita's mind. She was the daughter of the late General Sukomo Kenshin and his wife Mikasa, the latter having passed twelve years before her husband. She had been raised in a small village outside the Fire Nation capital until her father ascended through the military rankings, eventually placing them amongst the true high-born nobles. Granted admission into the Royal Fire Academy for girls, Aelita had proven to be a firebending prodigy, able to control the power at her fingertips as if it were an extension of her body. It was that very talent that caught the eye of Princess Azula, the youngest of the current Fire Lord's three children, the start of a largely one-sided rivalry that brought Aelita into the lives of the twin Prince's. That much Aelita had known to be true.

Her father had followed her mother to the grave a little over four years ago. He had been accused of treason and executed under the guise of a fair Agni Kai, the fire duels used by their people to settle various squabbles and trials. Prior to the fall of the Kenshin family name, Aelita had been arranged to marry Zuko, the eldest child of Ozai, the eventual heir to the throne, twin to Zetzu, her closest friend after her sixteenth name day, but the agreement was promptly discarded following Sukomo's death.

A year later, she left the Fire Nation with her Prince. Zuko had already become her everything by the time the then fourteen-year-old had been summoned to his own Agni Kai for speaking out in the Fire Lord's war room, the evidence of her loyalty clear as day from the spiderweb of scars that littered her pale skin from fingertips to elbow on each arm. Ozai had tried to kill his own son and Aelita had stood between them without a moment's hesitation. When Zuko had been banished, his only hope of regaining his honor was to hunt down a dead man who had disappeared a hundred years before. Aelita had been all too happy to follow.

No one had expected them to find the Avatar, the master of all four bendable elements, alive and infuriatingly well and according to Zetzu, Zuko sure as shit hadn't planned for him and Aelita to fall in love along the way.

Was that what it had been - love? She knew she had loved him as a child, sure, they had been each other's only friends in a world that hated them both, and for all she could recall she had even loved Zetzu too but she had a feeling there was a difference between love and being in love and she swore she had been lucky enough to have been in love a time or two. There were flashes of them here and there in her memory, vague recollections of hushed tones, soft embraces, and the image of a thin, glittering ring perched atop her finger before things got hazy. Flashes of white, hot anger, moments of rage, and hurt and betrayal. Bitter words and sleepless nights and the most painfully beautiful set of blue eyes that she just couldn't place. Half of her fucking mind was hazy but if there was one other fact that she could be certain of it was the fact that she was the Akira.

She knew that to be true too for reasons she couldn't explain. The physical embodiment of the shadows, the spiritual pillar to the great bridge between the worlds, partner to the Avatar, master of not just one but two elements, the home element of the Avatar past and the Avatar coming. A firebender by birth, a waterbender by chance or destiny, she wasn't sure which. She knew it to be true despite how utterly weak and powerless she felt, her skin cold, not even the faintest trace of the underlying warmth of her own fire coursing through her bloodstream that she had grown so used to feeling over her lifetime, a result of the poison that Zetzu had claimed it be necessary for her to take for now.

The fucking Akira. That was what she was, despite just how hard Fire Lord Sozin had attempted to snuff out the ancient and legendary being a hundred years ago, the spirit that connected centuries worth of duel benders having lain dormant until it chose her and then she had chosen Aang.

That was his name, this Avatar of hers, the last living airbender that had somehow managed to survive a century under ice and come out the other side still only fourteen. Aelita had left Zuko for a time to join up with this Avatar and his rag-tag team of misfits that Zetzu had raddled off by name - Kyojuro Hashibira, the lavabending Prince of the Earth Kingdom and the most recent addition to the anarchist group, Toph Beifong, the Avatar's blind earthbending teacher from the minor trade empire of Gaoling, and finally the children of a Southern Water Tribe Chief, his waterbending daughter Katara and her brother Sokka.

She remembered them. Aelita could recall the sounds of their voices and the light in their eyes and the joy in their faces that she swore had been aimed at her on more than one occasion so it had made it all the harder to believe Zetzu when he swore that they were not her friends but rather her enemies.

They didn't feel like her enemies, but neither did Zuko, despite the faint recollection that prior to the incident that had wound her up her she had been so very disgusted by the sight of him and she couldn't deny the ground the younger Prince stood on when he pointed out that she was here with him now and not them. Someone had turned on her and left her behind and during that second week Aelita wanted to swear it had been Zuko and not her friends but the belief that she had clung to had shattered by the start of week three when it became painfully obvious that no one was coming to save her.

Zuko hadn't even come for her, and Zetzu had been quick to point out that he was on the very same ship. Aelita wasn't at all shocked to know Princess Azula was happy to keep her distance from her old rival at least for now, the young Akira apparently having rather humbled the royal during the incident that landed her here, but Zuko wasn't coming for Aelita either. Good, she hadn't wanted him to come for her for the first half of her time conscious but her feelings of resentment eventually started to falter.

By the third week she had begun to beg. Aelita so fucking desperately needed to reclaim some sense of her own dignity. She needed to be able to wash and relieve herself unshackled and know that there wasn't someone waiting and listening on the other side of her door. She needed to be able to move freely, get out of the terrible space she had grown so damn claustrophobic in, needed to spend more time not tied down to her bed 'for her safety and his.' She needed to see and speak to anyone other than Zetzu, pleading for Zuko to just come and see her one fucking time because she so badly wanted to believe that it would somehow give her clarity, but by the end of the week, she had found herself crying for his brother to come back and please save her from herself.

She couldn't pinpoint when exactly the visions had started, but Aelita would've given damn near anything to get rid of the monster wearing her skin that watched her so constantly with hauntingly blue eyes. In the corner of the room stood a version of herself that didn't speak, just continued to stare with those damn glowing orbs as she willed a ball of chittering lightning in her palm, the blood of dead man dripping down her arm to pool at the floor.

Aelita could only guess that the blood belonged to the Avatar. She had killed someone underneath the palace of Ba Sing Se, she could remember that fact all too clearly, and Zetzu had been so very proud to tell her that person had been none other than Avatar Aang following the airbender's attempt to slay Zuko. The evidence was there and undeniable, written into the skin of her arms that she would do anything for Zuko, that she would stand up to anyone just for him. And this vision of herself that she couldn't seem to shake, no matter how much she had begged for it to just go away seemed to only further prove the Prince's claims true.

It didn't matter if Aelita tried to close her eyes because even in the darkness, she could still hear the disembodied voices.

"You're safe with me."

"You abandoned us, Aelita."

"You and me, against it all."

"You left us all alone."

"I'll wait for you."

"You brought the war to Ba Sing Se."

"I'll be watching you from the stars, I promise."

"Why won't you stop them, Akira Aelita? Why can't you just do what they want? Why can't you help me? Please. Please."

By the end of the third week, Aelita Kenshin found herself praying for any end the spirits might grant her because she was certain that even death would be more peaceful than this.

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Aang was unbelievably tired of floating on the waves of darkness that surrounded him, utterly sick of the thrum of silence he hadn't been able to escape. He was aware, if only barely, that something was wrong. He might've been sleeping for all he knew for certain, but something about this just felt different. He wanted to wake up. He wanted to bury his face in the warmth of Appa's fur and just be. He wanted to glide amongst the clouds with Momo by his side. He wanted to lounge in the midday sun with Mushu curled up on his chest. He wanted to laugh and live and love with Katara, Sokka, Toph and Aelita. He just wanted to be and right now he was anything but. He couldn't recall how much time had passed or why he was here or where here even was, but he did know wherever this was, it was somewhere wrong.

'Wake up.' He pleaded to himself in silent prayer. 'Wake up. Wake up. Wake up!'

The pain that radiated through Aang's very being was sudden and jarring. He choked on the air as if all the wind had been knocked from his lungs, his eyes snapping open for just a heartbeat before slamming shut again against the harsh burn of light after so much darkness.

"What happened?" He groaned to himself after he finally felt he could breathe normally again. The young monk rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand, attempting to wipe away any involuntary tears that had spilled in his attempt to adjust to the light. He shifted his weight upright to sit on the bed he could feel beneath him. When he was sure he could see at least a fraction of the way he should be able to he blinked slowly, an obscene amount of red cloth and black steel surrounding him. His heart pounded in his chest as he took in his surroundings, the all too familiar design of a Fire Navy ship wrapped around him. "Oh no," He murmured to himself, shifting his gaze around the room as if it would make the image change. Aang found nothing but a massive tapestry to his back, a floor-to-ceiling weaving of the Fire Nation insignia.

It had finally happened. Aang had been captured by the Fire Nation and from the gentle sway of the ship, he could only guess they were preparing to drop him at the Fire Lord's doorstep. One of the Avatar's hands flew to his pounding chest. When his fingertips skimmed an unfamiliar material, he looked down to find almost the entirety of his torso wrapped in thick, white bandages, the rest of his body bare from the waist up with only his now and looser than normal pants left remaining. It took everything in him not to lean forward off the bed and empty whatever might be left in his stomach onto the floor. His only small sense of relief was the relative silence of the ship and the fact that his glider stood untouched by the door nearby. It felt all too much like the South Pole all over again, the memory of willingly surrendering himself to Zuko and Aelita all too vivid in his memory.

Aang knew his partner well enough to know she'd never forgive herself if he didn't get himself out of this mess soon. Any moment he wasted would only bring him closer and closer to the Fire Nation's shores, so the battered airbender pushed himself up on trembling legs and made his way towards the door that he was surprised to find unlocked. Aang leaned on his glider like a crutch as he slowly peered his head down a dimly lit hallway. When he was certain the coast was clear, he began to hobble down the corridor, trying his best to ignore the aching pain that radiated up and down his spine with each step. He was so focused on trying not to cry out that he hardly noticed the shuffle of feet coming his way from the shadows of the hall connecting to the one he stood in.

Aang risked the chance to steal a peek from around the corner. Stalking in his direction was a massive, brute of a man dressed from the shoulders up in a Fire Navy uniform and his much smaller counterpart looking much the same.

"You hear something?" The smaller one stopped moving to ask the larger one in a young voice.

Young or not, Aang couldn't let these two drag him down. With a determined look on his pale face, the airbender quickly stepped from behind his cover to send a weak air blast at them from his palm, the current only ruffling their clothes. It proved to be just enough of a distraction for him to start running in the opposite direction.

"He's awake!" The Duke balked at Pipsqueak in disbelief before he realized that Aang was likely confused and terrified to have come to one of the few times Katara had left her vigil at his bedside and find himself on a Fire Nation ship no less. "Stop!" He called after the Avatar, his large friend already moving to take off after Aang. "Wait!"

Aang didn't stop. He didn't know where he was going and his movements were slow and shaky but he just kept running, turning down halls and taking any stairs he could find that led up in a desperate attempt to make it out into the open so he could take off on his glider. By the grace of whatever spirits might be looking out for him, he managed to find his way to the main deck even with his sporadic movements and patterns, cool air hitting him like a saber-toothed moose lion the moment he stepped out into the pale moonlight.

But this would be where his luck ran out. Aang was weak in this state and he knew it. One, three, five - fuck. More than a dozen crew members were scattered atop the deck as the ship continued to sail, Fire Nation cloaks and helmets glinting under the stars. He couldn't find them all off, not like this. He was going to -

Stop breathing for half a heartbeat as a frantic, flying lemur chattered in his face. "Momo?" Aang asked out loud in pure disbelief.

Toph would've recognized that painfully boyish voice anywhere. "Twinkle Toes!" She beamed, no other words for the overwhelming relief she felt at the sound. "That's got to be you!" She reached out for Katara beside her, near the edge of the ship and let her friend happily led her toward the other.

"Aang!" Katara cried the airbenders name as if it were an answer to every prayer she had spoken. "You're awake!"

"Are you sure?" He asked as he rubbed his eyes, not quite sure Katara and Toph weren't both wrapped in Fire Nation thread. "'Cause I feel like I'm dreaming - oof!"

Aang barely had the time to catch Katara in his arms when she launched herself upon him, wrapping him into a tight embrace as tears of both joy and sorrow dripped down her face. "You're not dreaming. You're finally awake."

A gruff hand clapped Aang on the shoulder and Katara stepped away from the Avatar just enough to give the newcomer space, one hand still clutching his wrist as if she were afraid he'd disappear the moment she let go. If the boy hadn't been confused before he was even more so now to see a set of green eyes staring out at him through a red metal helmet. "Avatar Aang, good to see you back with the living." A voice spoke in a poor attempt to sound light-hearted, the Prince's rage and grief and regret he felt still bubbling just beneath the surface despite how genuinely relieved he did feel to see the last airbender up and moving.

"Kyojuro?" Aang asked in confused disbelief, eyes widening when the Prince slipped the helmet off his head and muttered a remark to Katara about not understanding how the Fire Nation troops could ever fight in something so suffocating.

Sokka lingered at the far end of the ship with Bato and his father, all three having slipped into the uniforms they so greatly despised not long after they had commandeered the ship. He watched as Katara pulled Aang in tightly for another embrace and told himself that that was where he should be now but his feet refused to move even the slightest because seeing his friend now was just another reminder that they had managed to save Aang but no one had saved Aelita.

Hakoda recognized the feeling written all over his son's face. He was damn near certain that right now, Sokka could've been the mirror image of him in the days and weeks following Kya's death.

"No one will think less of you if you're not ready for this yet, Sokka." Hakoda offered his boy in a soft by steady tone.

"No, it's fine, I'm okay," Sokka tried to convince himself of the words more than he tried to sell his Dad. He didn't voice the fact that he had to be okay as he planted a smile on his face and moved to jog across the deck and join the others.

Somewhere behind a beast bellowed and Aang glanced over his shoulder to find Appa's head sticking out from beneath a massive blanket, his tongue lolled out the side of his mouth as if this were his new normal. Several other people called out the Avatar's name all at once, each one dressed like an enemy, and quickly it was all just too much. Even without her sight, Toph seemed to notice the panicked shift in her friend first, the sound of his heart pounding in his chest overwhelming her senses.

"Uh-oh," She spoke out loud. "Somebody catch him, he's going to-"

Aang couldn't make out the rest of the earthbenders words as his world went dark once more.

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Zetzu had spent every day of the last three weeks by Aelita Kenshin's side, whether she wanted him to be there or not. Of course, the first week she hadn't been conscious enough to know he was there, but he had known, and so had his siblings.

Following the fall of Ba Sing Se, Princess Azula had been all too happy to call the shots on how to move forward with the total occupation of the Earth Kingdom, taking little to no consideration of her brothers' opinions. It hadn't bothered Zuko, seeing as he had yet to be formally pardoned by their father and Zetzu couldn't have so much as even stepped in his sisters' way if he had tried. He had recognized what was coming the moment he pulled out the blade that he had buried inside Aelita's chest. Zetzu had known what part of him would prove dominant even without the aid of the intrusive thoughts that threatened to consume him simply because there was some part of him that realized he was due for the period of regression.

The more preferred part of him, the crowned Prince, had remained in control just long enough to lay out the groundwork he knew they so desperately needed to get what they wanted before the least preferred part of him, the very real and broken little boy that just wanted to be loved took control. His siblings had left him to wallow in his own self-pity at Aelita's bedside, staring at her lifeless form as he couldn't help but wonder if their mother had met the same fate the day that she had vanished from their lives and left them behind. There had been two people in Zetzu's life who hadn't thought him to be worthless as a child and he loved those two women with every single part of him. That's why it ate him up so badly to know he had done this to her, to admit that he had been the one to hurt Aelita, but it hurt even more knowing that she had been the one trying to hurt him first.

Zetzu clung to that thought, to the very memory of Aelita harnessing raw lightning and hatred into her palm as she charged with shining blue eyes and the intent to destroy. He had rocked and sobbed and chanted broken mantras that this was anyone's fault but his own for days.

His brother had been left to handle Azula on his own, the lie the twins had conjured up between them well rehearsed. Avatar Aang had unleashed his fury on Zuko and when he tried to strike down the eldest Prince, Akira Aelita disappeared and back instead was Aelita Kenshin, the lovesick little girl who would do anything for Zuko. She had slaughtered the last airbender to save her Prince.

This was the same girl who had quite literally stood between Zuko and their father during the boys Agni Kai and had supposedly smiled when she stopped the Fire Lord from striking down his own son. Despite whatever desire Akira might have had to get revenge for her father's wrongful death, a story corroborated by Zhao's troops that had fought beside him at the North Pole, Aelita Kenshin was nothing more than a lapdog to Prince Zuko.

Spirits did Zetzu hate to play up how pitifully obsessed and in love they needed her to seem, especially when he so happily knew the duel-bender had left his brother behind, but their lie just might be the only thing that would keep her alive once they made it back to the Fire Nation. Both brothers knew that their sister didn't fully buy the tale that they had spun but with the Dai Li convinced to side with Zetzu following his determination and display beneath the palace, she had no ground to argue their claims.

The younger Prince snapped out of his pitiful trance and woke up the only version of himself he truly enjoyed the morning before they set sail, just in time to stall the execution of the Earth King.

King Kuei had only put up a fight when his Dai Li agents had moved to drag him away from the body of Murata Hazenoki. Dealing with him initially had been frustrating simply with tensions short for both Zetzu and Zuko by the time they made their way out of the Crystal Catacombs, but the ruler wasn't a bender like his brother and he had been relatively easy to break after seeing how bleak the outlook was for his Kingdom. Azula had brought him along personally the day the walls of Ba Sing Se had officially fallen, just so he might see their troops marching through his city with his own eyes. With control of the region turned over to the Fire Nation, the Princess saw no more use for the King, but Zetzu had, already thinking several steps ahead. They had argued for some time about it before Azula could finally be convinced to leave the order to one day execute the King up to their father, the youngest sibling none the wiser to what her brother had in mind.

Zetzu had never spoken so much with his brother as he did the night Aelita finally woke from her week of barely conscious slumber. Zuko hadn't necessarily wanted to recount all of the highs and lows of the last three years by Aelita's side and Zetzu hadn't particularly wanted to listen to all the intimate details of the relationship he envied so but those little details were vital to capitalizing on Aelita's fragile emotional state. He truly hated having to break someone her loved and respected so deeply, but fuck if it wasn't slightly exhilarating to see someone whither beneath his thumb after a few short weeks. Zetzu had never harnessed this kind of power over anyone before ever in his life. Still, there was a part of him that felt guilt each night when he'd either bless her or damn her with a span of solitude depending on how she interpreted it. This was for her own good more than it was for theirs, that's what both Princes convinced themselves as they tried to persuade that the altered reality they were spinning was indeed true.

It broke something inside of Zetzu the day she had finally started to beg for some form of relief but if it had enraged him even more when she had begged for Zuko and not him. He'd have to work a hell of a hot harder to convince her that he was her savior and not his piece of shit brother that hadn't managed to keep her happily by his side in the first place.

He hoped the small mercy he planned to grant her this evening would work the wonders he thought it might; after all, he had learned a great deal from the Dai Li. But before Zetzu would journey back to Aelita's room so very close to his own, the Prince stopped to visit with the Captain to voice a personal request, a small detour to Bhanti Island before they finished their journey home to the capital. The Captain was quick to agree, eager to please the Prince and the slightest bit terrified to end up like the last man that had disappointed the younger son of Ozai. On his way back to Aelita's quarters, Zetzu found Zuko standing alone on the open deck of the ship, staring off into the passing night waters with that damned ferret tucked into his arms. Mushu hissed at him as he approached, hackles raised.

"Well, hello to you too," Zetzu muttered to the animal that seemed to reluctantly tolerate his brother. The twins had agreed to keep the little fucker as a way to placate Aelita as needed, Zuko offering to take up its care. His brother was dressed for bed, a thin robe dropped over his shoulders, hair slightly unruly after its unchecked growth of the last three weeks. "Aren't you cold?" Zetzu asked his brother.

"I've got a lot on my mind," Zuko admitted. He still wasn't entirely sure he could trust his brother or his sister as far as he could throw them, but they had given him the tools for a salvation that no one else could offer him, so for the last three weeks, he had made a conscious effort to at least attempt a cordial relationship with them.

Still, it was almost harder with Zetzu, and Zuko wasn't sure if it was due to the lack of what they had shared growing up despite being twins or the fact that he had watched Zetzu damn near kill Aeli-

Zuko stopped himself. Zetzu had done what he had needed to save himself from the Akira, simple as that, and now the isolation that Aelita faced would serve to protect her in the long run. If Zetzu could convince Aelita that she had, in fact, taken down the Avatar to protect him the way she had the day she earned her scars, then just maybe she could be happy again one day. That was the mantra he repeated to himself daily as they sailed closer and closer to the Fire Nation, but then he'd remember she had made it painfully clear he wasn't the one responsible for her happiness anymore and it was about damn time he accepted that.

As utterly jarring as it had been to see her bleeding out before him, Zuko couldn't ignore the sting of the pain that still haunted him from knowing she had chosen him last, had walked away from him and a future they could've had time and time again. She had broken him, fully and completely, and then she had moved on. He would never forget the way she smiled at the Water Tribe peasant he had been replaced with, the image of her melting into another man's arms one he wouldn't be quick to forget.

And then he had hurt her. More than once. Had hurt the people she had loved. Had done so many terrible things and fuck, he wasn't sure who he was more upset with, himself or her. Even now, weeks after she had woken, he still couldn't bring himself to face her. He wouldn't even know where to start, so for now he had resigned to letting his brother update him on her condition.

"What does that have to do with the temperature outside?" Zetzu made a half-hearted attempt to sound caring while knowing damn well he wasn't actually interested. The more he conversed with his brother, the more information Zuko would casually mention little details that his twin could use to his advantage, the recollection of a night similar to the one the Prince had in mind an example of it.

Zuko clutched the railing with the hand not supporting Mushu. "It's been so long, over three years since I was home. I wonder what's changed. I wonder how I've changed."

"I just asked if you were cold, brother," Zetzu chuckled. "I didn't ask for your whole life story because if you don't recall, I was there for the bulk of it." The younger of the twins lounged lazily against the railing, silent for a moment before finally speaking genuinely. "Things are different now than they were when we were boys, but they're different in a good way. Stop worrying."

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When Aang came back to consciousness the next time, he found the worried faces of most of his friends staring back at him, all still adorned in varying levels of Fire Nation textiles. The moon was high in the sky above them, nearly full and bright enough to light the deck of the ship they sailed upon, the sway of the water undeniable as Sokka and Katara both moved to help the Avatar sit upright. They shifted their friend to lean back against Appa, the bison happy to have his human back as the others held their breath in some small fear that they could still lose Aang at any moment.

"Why are you all staring at me like that?" He asked after his breathing steadied, taking survey of the Water Tribe siblings, a man he could only assume to be their father based on resemblance, Toph and Prince Kyojuro closest to him. The familiar faces of Bato, Longshot, Smellerbee, Pipsqueak and The Duke lingered just behind the others. The sight of so many only added to his dazed confusion. "Where are we exactly? Why are we on a Fire Nation ship? Why is everyone dressed this way?" He asked in a rapid succession, the words only coming out faster in relation to his beating heart. "Why am I the only one who's completely out of it? " He continued as he searched the crowd for the one face right now he needed to see the most. "Where's Aelita?"

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Aelita knew the soft knock on the door to her room-turned holding cell was a courtesy more than an actual request for permission. Even without her response, Zetzu waltzed into the room with a large tray in his hands and a soft smile on his face.

"Good morning, Lita, or should I say good evening?" He corrected himself with a chuckle as he moved to set the tray down on her bedside table. "How was your nap?"

"Not nearly as peaceful as it would be if you just tossed me overboard and let me drown." She said dryly, no trace of sarcasm or joking, her words genuine. The Prince had left her this afternoon after she had cried herself exhausted. Her dreams were nearly as bad as her reality and that damn detected version of herself that lingered often. The grasping tentacles of a river monster were the star of this subconscious show, the creature desperate to drag her beneath the surface without actually granting her the sweet relief of death.

Zetzu frowned, terrified he might have damn well push Aelita too far, but still desperate enough to hope the tactics he had learned from the Dai Li were working. "I would never let that happen to you, Aelita."

"Pity."

The Prince sighed, crouching beside the bed to balance eye level with the grey-haired girl. Still beautiful, painfully so, but he couldn't deny she looked worse for wear. Her skin has lost any trace of color it had before, her face slightly hollow from how little he could forcibly get her to eat, eyes void of any light they once contained. Fuck, he knew that he needed to break her down but he needed to be the one to bring her up almost as badly. He jerked his head slightly towards the tray with two lidded bowls and a steaming kettle in the center.

"I brought some things for you. If you'll let me, I'd like to take care of you and help you relax. We'll be home before you know it, and I want you feeling your best."

Home. Aelita wasn't sure she had one of those anymore. To her, the idea of home seemed synonymous with beautiful blue eyes and the sound of four distant voices. "Do I have a choice?" She asked.

"Of course, Lita. You will always have a choice with me."

She didn't believe him, but she didn't argue; the fight in her had rapidly diminished over the last several weeks chained to this bed. Zetzu gestured to the trey once more.

"Jasmine tea and miso ramen for dinner, and I also brought this," The Prince reached into the pocket of his evening robe and pulled out a bundle of coiled rope. "Your wrists and ankles are all bruised from the metal. I can't let you go totally free, not until after your trial, but I figured this might be a little more comfortable for you."

"How considerate."

"There's more, I promise." Zetzu continued, not bothering to tut at her interruption. "While I can't leave you untied all day, I was thinking that while it's just us, we can be a little more relaxed. I trust you, Aelita," He told her, reaching out a hand she flinched away from but resting it on her cheek nonetheless. "I know your heart. I know I can trust you. The question is, do you trust me?"

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Chapter Text

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Aelita felt like she couldn't even trust herself and here Zetzu was asking her to put what little bit of faith she had left in anything at all in him. She considered the boy staring intently at her for a moment, thinking just how different this Zetzu was from the one she had grown up with.

But she couldn't deny that he was here, and no one else was. The likelihood of her friends coming for her was slim to none, no matter how much she swore they had loved her back. Not when she was on her way back to a country that she was certain hated all of them nearly as much as they were bound to hate her. But Zetzu was here with her, and no one else was. Not Mai, not Ty Lee and certainly not Zuko. Aelita was here left all alone with her demons and this new Prince she wasn't sure she really knew anymore.

She wanted to give up, but he wouldn't let her and more than that, something else wouldn't either. That something desperately wanted her to keep going. It kept ringing in her ears and speaking in her dreams. She looked away from Zetzu, his face undeniably handsome even with the unnerving third eye tattoo that seemed to always be watching her, and looked out the broad porthole that she often used to watch the scenery passing by. Her eyes drifted to the nearly full moon that illuminated the sky and for a heartbeat, she almost swore it spoke to her.

"Endure. Survive. Please."

She didn't trust him. Aelita didn't trust herself and she damn well knew she didn't trust him but she knew if even the smallest part of her wanted to survive she'd have to either learn to let him in or think that she had.

"I will."

Zetzu's stare softened and he let out the breath he had been holding. He would've been more surprised and maybe even the smallest bit disappointed had she just said yes. If he could break her down just enough to mold her into want he needed while still managing to keep some of that spark that had first drawn him in, all the better.

"It's a start. Now," He said as he reached inside of his robe for a set of keys and moved for her the shackle around her wrist closest to him. "I have more than just dinner in mind." He explained as he unlocked the metal, gently rubbing her bruised skin after it fell away. "But, you'll need to take this first." His hand drifted inside his robe again to retrieve a small glass vile full of metallic liquid.

Aelita recognized the poison that rendered her damn near helpless and wracked her entire body with mind-numbing pain. Twice a day the brew was poured down her throat, no more, no less, and certainly with none to waste until War Minister Quinn and his men could create an even more effective replica but Zetzu was quick to keep that information to himself.

"I know, I know," He sighed as he saw her eyes darken. "I don't like it either, but you know the Fire Lord as well as I do and I doubt even I can save you from a proper trial."

"It won't be a trial," Aelita countered, her voice horse and raspy. "Your father doesn't do trials. It will be Agni Kai or it'll be immediate execution. If you're going to keep my body full of this shit, it might as well be the latter cause right now I stand no chance."

"It will be a trial, or it will be an immediate pardon, and I know which one I'm hoping for." The Prince countered. "You're the girl that single-handedly defeated the Avatar, something that not even Sozin could accomplish. Ozai may be confident, but he's no fool, and he wouldn't dare challenge the Akira head-on unless his victory was guaranteed, not when you can still be of so much use to him."

The tension in the air was so thick it was nearly palpable.

"What kind of use?"

Zetzu offered her a soft smile as he tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, silently analyzing the way she shuddered to the touch. "That's a conversation for another day."

He rose from his crouching position to sit on the edge of her bed, urging her upwards as much she could with one hand still shackled. Aelita still couldn't believe he touched her so casually and confidently now when he had hardly bhold a conversation with her as a boy. She fought the urge to retch as he shifted her weight against him, her back to his chest. One arm snaked around her to cup her chin as the other unpopped the cork on the vial and brought it to her lips.

The first time Zetzu had attempted to dump the liquid down her throat while she was conscious she spat what she could back in his face. She had almost expected him to strike at that moment but before he could even process what she had done she began to seize and shake in her restraints, enough of the poison having made its way into her system to take effect. She learned later it was almost just better to swallow it all willingly in one go, like the more she ingested the faster it did its job and the quicker the overwhelming pain subsided. Her eyes shut as Zetzu tipped her head back and the vile with it, the metallic substance coating her throat and overwhelming her senses on the way down her throat.

With her face still in his grasp, the Prince watched as her eyes snapped back open, brown eyes now shining blue, the sight of it as exhilarating as it was haunting. He couldn't deny the high he sometimes felt knowing that he alone had managed to bring the Akira down, even if he hated the pain he had caused but to know he was no longer so painfully helpless stroked something inside of him. He held her as her body shook whether she wanted him to or not and he didn't let go until she came back down from the initial shock.

For a moment Aelita was back in a holding cell beneath a lake in Ba Sing Se with the dead body of a bleeding woman at her feet. That had been her first real encounter with the poison that blocked her bending though she couldn't fully recall why like her brain was purposefully keeping certain memories of the last year from her for reasons she didn't understand. She was only half aware as she was laid back against the bed. Zetzu moved to unshackle the rest of her bindings, massaging the tender skin as he moved like he actually gave a damn what happened to her.

She hated him nearly as much as she hated herself but it had only been a few days ago when she found herself almost relieved to see him, his presence at least banishing the monsters only she could see. Fuck, she was pathetic. How she had ever been deemed a prodigy, a master, she'd never understand if she felt like this every day for the rest of her life.

Zetzu's words pulled her out of her self-loathing trance. "I have a bath waiting for you." He said gently as he sat on the edge of her bed. "A real bath."

Not just the simple buckets of water and rags she had been granted thus far. With her hands typically still bound by a short length of chain she had yet to properly wash herself the way she likely should, but she hadn't the energy to care thus far given her current circumstances. Still, she must have looked at Zetzu with an odd expression because he continued.

"In my quarters," He explained. "I figured a change in scenery might also be nice. It's just down the hall, but there's a balcony, and you always used to love the view from high-up places." He said as if that information was an observation he had made in their youth and not one he had stolen from his brother. "You still do, right?"

Aelita answered honestly. "I don't know."

"Then we'll find out together. Let's get some dinner in you first and then I'll take you there."

"I'm not hungry," She said without thinking. It was a lie, she could feel the physical pangs of hunger in her belly but she would be damned if she let anything keep her in this room another moment longer. She couldn't fight but maybe she could run and if she couldn't run, maybe she could at least get herself overboard. She'd either swim or she'd drown and right now she was certain either had to be better options than being here.

"You're not thinking of trying to leave me Aelita, are you?"

Fuck. "I -"

Zetzu cut her off before she could think of a lie. "You wouldn't get very far in your present condition, unfortunately and even if you did, where would you go?" He asked. "Who would you run to? Your little friends from across the world, hm?" His jaw tightened and he let out a low, taunting chuckle. "The ones that left you behind to rot? You think they'd really want you back after what you did to their precious Avatar?"

Something inside of Aelita wanted to argue that Aang had been their friend but if he had been anyone's Avatar it had been hers. Despite her knee-jerk reaction, the grey-haired girl couldn't bring herself to do it. His words were enough to plant the seeds of doubt inside her. "They probably hate me." She admitted to herself more than she did him.

Zetzu reached took one of her hands in his and absentmindedly rubbed his thumb against her skin. Fuck the feeling was so familiar but when Aelita looked into his eyes she found honey staring back at her rather than the blue she hadn't realized she'd been expecting. "I don't."

The sentiment felt more possessive than endearing, but Aelita managed to will herself to speak. "Thank you for the food, but I'd rather have my bath first."

"Whatever you want," The Prince grinned down at her as he stood. He offered her a hand she took hesitantly. She moved slowly, her body nearly as clumsy and awkward as a toddler as she tried to stand beside him. She clutched onto Zetzu like her lifeline as the ship swayed and her legs nearly gave out. He didn't prod or taunt or tease; he simply wrapped an arm around her waist until he was certain she wouldn't fall over.

Aelita was suddenly very aware of how little the Prince of the Fire Nation wore. A red and black trimmed robe hung from his shoulders, tied at the waist loosely to reveal his toned chest bare. Casual pants slung low on his hips, the fabric doing little to hide how muscled his legs had become. His hair was pulled back from his face but his headpiece was removed, the style more casual.

"I can carry you if you'd like."

"I'm not some pathetic little thing you have to take care of, Prince Zetzu," She snapped without meaning to, some part of her feeling like she had already had this conversation far too many times before. "I can handle myself."

If Zetzu was annoyed he didn't show it. "I know you can. It's just an offer, Aelita, just me letting you know I'm here if you want me, but I trust you to take care of yourself whenever you want to or need to."

She hadn't expected that. She was prepared for him to scream or yell or tell her she couldn't handle a thing but she certainly hadn't expected him to respect her decision. "Oh. Thank you."

"You have boundaries, Aelita, you don't have to thank me for respecting them."

"You don't seem to care about my boundaries when you're drugging me," She shot back, testing to see just how far she could take things with him. This was some of the most they had conversed back and forth since she had woken up the first time.

Zetzu's smile only grew. He didn't want to fully extinguish her, their mother had never let her husband completely smother the fire inside her, he just needed her to be pliable. "There's that spark in you that I love. I promise, everything I've done for us will all make sense one day, now if you'll let me, I'd like to take care of you."

Aelita was too stunned to argue. She didn't know what to say, to think, to feel. Didn't know how to process this kindness, this almost taunting level of respect. Was he goading her? It didn't really feel like it, but it didn't feel completely genuine either. Like he was testing her as much as she was testing him and fuck, it suddenly felt like she was testing herself and it was just all too much. She didn't have it in her to fight Zetzu when he reached for the coil of rope to bind a loose slip knot on either end and slide the openings over her wrists.

"Just because I have to," He murmured the lie softly as he stood over her. "If anyone finds out I let you just waltz around the ship freely we'll both be in trouble, and I don't want to see you trussed up like my Uncle."

Iroh was on the same ship but unlike the private room and bed that Aelita had been granted, even with the restraints, the retired General was in the prison hold, bound even more tightly with frequent visits from Ty Lee to keep him compliant. Zetzu wouldn't waste a single vile on him.

The more she moved the tighter the knots would bind her and Aelita simply didn't have the strength or even the desire to try to find a way free when she couldn't even dream of bending. Zetzu reached for the more feminine version of the robe he wore hanging on her wall and wrapped it around her shoulders. He moved to gather the tray with their dinner and balance it in one hand, using the other to guide her by the small of her back towards the door.

The hallway was empty and Aelita was surprised at how relieved she was for it. She didn't think she had ever been a proud woman but the thought of someone seeing her like this made her nauseous. Sometime during her unconscious state a healer had stripped away the pale blue tunic she could remember having grown accustomed to and every day since she had woken she dressed once more in Fire Nation reds and gold. The clothing felt like a cruel juxtaposition to her physical state, simple but elegant slips of fabric that skimmed her calves. The nightdresses were made with grown women and supposedly sleep in mind but Aelita didn't feel grown and while the slip itself was comfortable, she was anything but comfortable inside of her own mind. She could recall once feeling okay inside of her own body, liking the way she looked even if no one else did, but she had managed to catch sight of her broken reflection once in the mirror during a previous watching and had just fallen apart. Zetzu took down the mirror in her room after that. She wanted no one to see her so pitifully defeated.

Zetzu had mentioned his quarters were close to hers but Aelita had never realized just how close they were. They passed only two doors before they reached his, one on either side of the hall. According to the Prince, the room on the opposite side belonged to the ship's healer, a portly older woman that Zetzu had wanted nearby in case Aelita ever needed her, especially in those first days following the incident that had left her comatose.

"What about that one?" Aelita asked, tilting her head towards the room that separated hers and Zetzu's.

"Those are my brother's quarters."

Aelita felt as if the air in her lungs had suddenly been stolen away from her. She couldn't breathe, couldn't speak, couldn't do much as wrap her head around the fact that Zuko had just been in the next room over the entire time she had been slowly losing her fucking mind. How many times had he heard her scream and cry and thrash against her restraints just to get away from herself? How many nights had he fallen asleep to the sound of her sobbing? How often did he listen to her beg for him?

She couldn't see the wicked grin on Zetzu's face. It wasn't a total lie. When they had prepared the ship to depart for the Fire Nation, that room had been picked with Zuko in mind, but once his brother had realized how close the quarters would put him to Aelita Kenshin he had refused. Instead, Ty Lee very willingly gave up her room to bunk with Mai and the eldest Prince ended up occupying her space on the opposite end of the ship instead, close to Azula and far from here.

Aelita shuffled along when the combustionbender nudged her lightly. His room was larger than hers with a floor-to-ceiling Nation tapestry on one wall. The bed beneath it was twice as large as hers, everything meticulously clean, a long desk opposite the sleeping arrangements. In the middle of the open space of the room sat a large mahogany wash basin overflowing with scented bubbles and facing a narrow door that led outside. A large window next to the door opened to the deck Zetzu had mentioned.

It felt wrong to be here and Aelita found herself missing the familiarity of her own space as she froze. Zetzu ushered her another step forward and pulled shut the heavy metal door to his room, the sound of it locking into place reverberating in her ears. The Prince stepped around her and deposited the tray full of tea and noodles onto his desk.

"Bath first," He said softly, "And then dinner."

Aelita didn't answer and Zetzu didn't wait for her to. He moved to the large tub, steam rising past the lavender soap, and dipped a finger into the water. He only left it there a moment before jerking his hand back and waving it around with a soft chuckle. "I thought you'd want to eat first, I told the crew to make it hot for now so it would be the perfect temperature by the time you were ready."

"Thoughtful."

"I try to be."

"Where will you go?"

"Pardon?"

"Where will you go?" Aelita asked. "If I'm using your quarters to bathe, where will you go?"

"To relax on the deck, I assumed unless you'd like the company." He shrugged, keeping to himself he felt the need to keep a close eye so she didn't attempt to drown herself.

"Excuse me?"

"Not like that!"

"Then like what?"

Aelita watched Zetzu blush for the first time at least since she had woken up. "That came out wrong and I apologize, I would never disrespect you by insinuating anything...improper. I only meant that lately you haven't been a fan of being alone so if you don't want to be now I could...you could...you know, I'm not really sure what I was offering. I just didn't want you to have to be alone."

Aelita couldn't remember if she had ever seen the Prince this sort of flustered before in all of the years she had known him. As a boy, he would shut down and not speak often but this, the blushing and the babbling was new and unexpected and still almost familiar.

"You never used to talk this much to me before," She observed.

The Prince sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck, his skin warm with embarrassment. "I'll shut up now."

"It's different."

"We're both different, Aelita. We aren't the same kids we were before." At least he wasn't, not all the time, but he hoped some part of her was still the same too.

"I know," She agreed on a shaking breath. She wasn't sure she liked this person she had woken up to be. "What happened to us Zetzu?"

For half a heartbeat, the Prince's expression softened and this time his confession was completely genuine. "My family did."

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They had all known that this was coming. Katara and Kyojuro had had the same conversation over and over again the last three weeks, debating on how exactly they should tell Aang what had happened beneath Ba Sing Se, Toph and Sokka always silent on the sidelines. The former barely knew how to handle her own grief after fourteen years of hardly being able to feel anything at all and the latter had only managed to admit she was gone out loud just once in the past three weeks. The four teens closest to Aelita looked at one and no one spoke, Aang's pounding hear the loudest thing around.

Toph rose first. She knew she should be there for Aang and others so they could face this shit together the way they had so many things before but she just fucking couldn't, not when she felt so close to breaking already. She brushed past the others without a word. Kyojuro suddenly felt like an outsider intruding on something he wasn't meant to be here despite Katara's genuine desire to hear his opinion on the matter before. He patted Sokka beside him on the shoulder once then rose to follow after Toph. Longshot glanced at the rest of the Freedom Fighters with a silent, stoic face only they could understand. They nodded back and followed him back below deck to find something to busy themselves. Only Hakoda and Bato remained with their kids, the other man having quickly become almost as much of a parent to the pair as their father. Sokka reached out for his sister's hand and clutched it tightly as tears welled in her eyes.

"Aang...Aelita..." Katara stammered, trying to find the right words Kyojuro had discussed before. "She...we..."

"We lost her," Sokka finally said, his short explanation quiet. "In Ba Sing Se. She's gone, Aang. Aelita's dead."

The silence that followed was so loud it nearly raptured the Avatar to his very core. He couldn't process the words that Sokka spoke not because he hadn't heard them but simply because there wasn't any fucking way what he had claimed could be possible.

"It was Zetzu..." Katara tried her best to take over, afraid to see how her brother might break if he was forced to continue, remembering the otherworldly sounds that had escaped him the night he had finally let himself process what had happened with their Dad. "You...you went down first and we thought we had lost you and...Aelita was already in the Spirit State and she snapped when you did and she went after him and Captain Murata...he's gone too and Zetzu..." The tears had started to fall from her eyes but when Hakoda attempted to lay a reassuring hand on her back she shrugged away, only willing to lean into Sokka for comfort because it felt like their Dad would never understand. "Her heart...there was no way he didn't hit her heart...Kyojuro and I were there and we saw her drop and we watched the light fade from her eyes and...she was just gone."

"Shut up."

"Aang, I -"

"Stop talking." He snapped. "You're wrong. There's no way she's gone, I would know."

"You didn't see -"

"I. Would. Know." He spoke somewhere between a hiss and a sob. "I would feel different," He tried to justify. "Different than this kind of different. This is just...I got hurt, right? That's why I feel this way, but I would know if Aelita was gone."

"Aang, please," Katara pleaded. "You need to take it easy, okay? You got hurt pretty bad too."

"You just tried to tell me my...my..." Aang felt like he didn't have any words good enough to describe what Aelita was to him. "I'm telling you I would know!"

"Then do your Avatar spirit power bullshit and prove it." Sokka challenged him. "I don't want to believe it either so see if you can reach out for her the way you two had been practicing before everything went down and if you can find her we'll turn around and go back for her right now."

"Sokka, he's in no condition to -

"It works better if I'm grounded. Take me to the shore."

"Aang, you need to -

"I won't believe it until I try, Katara." Aang interrupted her softer than he had spoken before, his head hanging limp as he tried not to think about how terrible he had been to his friend the night before everything went to hell. He hadn't told her he was sorry, she hadn't let him, but he should've anyway. "I have to try. It's Aelita. I can't...she can't...I have to try. Please."

Sokka's own desperation agreed before his sister's moral compass could argue. "Drop anchor, I'll take him."

Bato set off to give the order to the tribesman on the bridge. Sokka rose and held out a hand for Aang, helping his unsteady friend to his feet. Seeing this was a battle she wouldn't win, Katara sighed and rose as well. "I'll make you a bridge from here to the shore."

The ship slowed to a halt as the anchor caught. Worried it wouldn't be worth the risk of Appa being sighted, Katara froze a solid walkway from the nearby shore and up the side of the ship. Any of the other teens that had disappeared before now stood beside her at the railing as Sokka helped Aang along, the younger boy leaning the majority of his weight on the other.

Aang damn near collapsed the moment his feet touched solid ground. He hadn't stopped to think just how badly his body hurt. He shrugged out of Sokka's hold, his friend having caught him on the way down, and let himself fall into the sands of the shore on his hands and knees.

He had let Katara go, that much Aang could remember. He let her go after seeing Aelita and he entered the Spirit State with more serenity and control than he ever had before and then -

Nothing.

He could do it again now, he had watched his partner tap into the raw power they possessed and take her abilities farther than her previous limits, pushing past the hindrance of the excess amount of life in Ba Sing Se to find the people that they loved just so they could keep them safe. Even before that, before they had meant nearly as much to one another, Aelita had sought him out when he had run away, followed him to a mountain cave in the pouring rain and brought him home. It was his turn to do that for her now.

He was weak but some of his power, not all of it, some of it was still there and he could feel it inside him. Even if he wasn't strong enough now to will himself into the Spirit State he was still the Avatar, dammit and even if he couldn't pinpoint her exactly he would always find Aelita, just like she had found him even after a hundred years of their souls being kept apart.

Sokka watched in silence as Aang thrust out the webs of his own being to search for Aelita, a crowd of spectators watching from the railing of the ship anchored nearby. He closed his eyes and clawed into the energy of the world, his grounding not as strong as it once was but still there. He skimmed past Sokka beside him, Katara, Toph, Kyojuro and the others on the ship and kept going. With all his might he surged his being outward, sweat forming at his brow as he focused all he had, tuning out everyone and everything that wasn't his Akira.

No one had pieced together the connection between the Dai Li's poison and the essential dam it created on a person's life force.

Nothing. Not a trace of Aelita Kenshin that he could find.

Aang fell down onto his arms with a great heaving breath, his eyes snapped open as he sucked in painful air. Sokka was there in an instant, his sister watching in horror with a hand clamped over her mouth, even Kyojuro and Toph clutching onto one another's hands tightly. Sokka helped Aang sit back on his heels, the robe had wrapped around himself falling off his shaking body.

"Please tell me you..." The warrior trailed off in hollow desperation even though he knew damn well he was going to hate his friend's answer.

Aang didn't want to speak, didn't want to admit the awful truth to himself or anyone else but if he didn't say it out loud he was afraid he'd never believe it. "No."

The boys' journey back to the ship was made in bitter silence. Hakoda sent word to Bato and their men in the bridge to haul up anchor the moment the two were back on board, knowing sitting her like waiting lambs for slaughter would do no good.

Sokka didn't wait for Aang. He couldn't even if he wanted to. The warrior hauled himself over the ship's railing and rushed past his waiting family, disappearing below deck. Kyojuro nudged Toph and with a small nod towards Katara, they followed, leaving the waterbender alone with her father and the Avatar.

"I like your hair," Katara murmured softly as she helped Aang over the railing, desperate to bring the smile to his face, the icy bridge behind him already melting.

Aang balked instead. "I have hair?" He stammered as he reached for his head to feel a generous length of the brown strands he would normally shave off each week to showcase his arrows. "How long was I out?"

"A few weeks." She explained, helping Aang over the railing and off the icy bridge. Hakoda was there waiting, blue eyes full of concern.

"Everything okay?" He asked.

Katara bristled. "We're fine, Dad."

If the Chief noticed her tone, he chose to ignore it, instead turning his focus to the Avatar with a soft smile. "I'm Hakoda, Katara and Sokka's father."

Aang made a move to respond but Katara quickly planted herself between them, ready to drag them apart. "He knows who you are. I just called you 'Dad', didn't I?"

Hakoda's smile faltered. "I guess you're right."

Aang wasn't sure what had come over Katara but he had no intention of following her lead. This was the man that he had spent the better part of a year listening to his friends speak about like he had placed the moon amongst the stars himself. He shirked free from Katara's grasp to clutch the man by his arm in greeting with a grin of his own. "Nice to officially meet you, Chief Hakoda."

The happiness was back on Hakoda's face even if only for a moment. "It's an honor to finally meet you."

"Great, great, so now you guys have finally met." Katara rolled her eyes and reached for Aang, grasping his wrist and pulling him back to her. "So would you mind giving us a little privacy?"

Hakoda had grown used to his daughter's dismissal over the last several weeks together. She had allowed him to embrace her only once when the Prince of the Earth Kingdom and the Avatar's bison had brought his battered and bleeding children to him. Even then she had shrugged him off, insisted she was fine, and channeled all of her energy into the airbender. Sokka had told him to leave her to it and swore she'd come around eventually. He just hoped his boy was right. "Of course." He agreed softly before giving her the space he hoped would help.

Aang noticed the hurt in the Chief's eyes and the obvious anger in his daughters. "Are you mad at your dad or something?" He asked when the older man was out of earshot.

"What, not at all." Katara denied, her demeanor back to that of her normal self. "Why would you say that?"

Aang went to shrug in response but winced at the throbbing sensation that wracked through him. Katara immediately moved to support his body against hers. "Maybe we should go upstairs." She offered softly. "You need a healing session."

The airbender let his friend lead him back to the room he had woken up in. He hadn't noticed before just how banged up he truly was. Katara changed bandages wrapped around his right shoulder and wrist, left bicep and down both knees, those injuries minor and not worth the focus when his middle was so thoroughly ravaged. He could feel the cool air hit the scabbed and scarring hole in the center of his back.

Katara wrapped her hands in healing blue waters and pressed them to his skin. "Tell me where the pain feels most intense." She said as she started at the base of his spine, weary of any injury or potential discomfort she might've missed.

Aang buckled under her touch but managed to remain sitting upright. "Mmm, a little higher." He instructed softly. When her fingers grazed the impact zone he clenched his hands and teeth hard. "Wow, you're definitely in the right area there."

"I can feel a lot of energy twisted up around there," Katara explained while she worked. She pushed just a trace of water into his body and after a moment she started the slow process of pulling it back out. "Let me just see if I can -"

The healer was met with a physical block to Aang's fried chakras. Skimming against the trapped pressure made the Avatar suck in a deep, painful breath as the memories of what happened beneath Ba Sing Se finally came back to him.

Katara let the water fall as she moved to catch Aang before he could fall forward. It took him several moments to steady his breathing but when he did, he looked at his friend with horrified eyes. "I went down! I didn't just get hurt, did I? It was worse than that. I was gone!" He stammered, well aware of just how bleak things had been. "But it was you Katara, wasn't it? You brought me back."

A deep blush flooded the waterbenders cheeks, more in shame than anything else. "I panicked after I caught you. I just...I couldn't do anything. Kyojuro had to snap me out of it, or I would've just sat there while you..." Katara's voice trailed off, unable to finish the thought. "I used the spirit water from the North Pole. I don't know what I did exactly."

Aang reached for Katara's hard in a thinly veiled attempt to give her the reassurance she needed. "You saved me."

Katara's blush only deepened at his words. Aang didn't know just how badly she hated herself for not saving Aelita too.

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

"You know I'm not fragile, right?" Aelita called out the door of Zetzu's room to where he lounged on the deck under the pale moonlight. She hadn't bothered to fight the Prince and convince him to leave, she could only assume he wasn't stupid enough to give her the space to so easily slip away, and she was so beyond mentally ravaged and the demon that took the form of herself only stayed away when there were others there to see it. Zetzu had helped with the tie at her neck to her sleeping gown while she clutched her chest so it didn't fall, his eyes screwed shut so tight he either tripped over his own feet on his way outside or pretended to. She had kept her undergarments on, both pieces black and mercifully modest, wearing them like a swimsuit as she slipped into the scalding water, her bound wrists falling lazily against the side of the basin.

"Believe me, I do." The Prince chuckled as he lounged against the door, eyes locked forward to not make the girl soaking just behind him uncomfortable. "You kicked my ass up and down a river not too long ago, remember?"

"Bits of it. Is that why you tried to kill me?"

The way she asked it so casually would be unnerving to most but to the Prince it was alluring, just another reminder of how like him she was. "I'll tell you every day until you believe me Lita, I was scared. You took down the Avatar and just...snapped. You didn't look at Zuko like he was Zuko, and I was terrified if you accidentally hurt him while you were like that..." He paused for a well-rehearsed dramatic effect that Aelita didn't buy quite yet. "You'd come back down to earth and you wouldn't have been able to live with what you had done."

"So you tried to kill me."

"Give me some credit Akira Aelita, had I really been trying to kill you then you would be dead but here you are, with me."

She hated how little she felt any genuine desire to argue back. She felt like she should've had some smart retort, some objection, but Aelita didn't have it in her. "Here I am."

The water had long since cooled, the temperature no longer scalding much to her dismay, some small part of her hoped it could've washed off all the guilt, shame and rage she couldn't place. Zetzu had offered to add in a chilled bucket or two to cool the bath down but she had shrugged him off, dismissing his suggestion that the water was damn near liquid fire.

"I shouldn't be surprised it doesn't bother you." He had laughed. "After all, fire cannot burn a dragon."

It had been a small, indirect compliment that stuck with Aelita likely more than it should have. He had called her a dragon. She had been one before, sure, at some point, but she certainly didn't feel like one now.

Maybe she would again one day. That was the only hope she could cling to as they sailed back towards the Fire Nation because she was almost certain Fire Lord Ozai wouldn't be merciful enough to just execute her and be done with it when they landed. He'd do her like had her father and call an Agni Kai in place of an execution just to showcase his own power. If she could be that dragon again then maybe she could provoke the bastard into just killing her later and just hope her dad would forgive from whatever life beyond he existed in because she highly doubted she'd end up the same place.

Maybe she would kill him. She was secure enough in her past to remember how badly she hated Fire Lord Ozai for his underhanded justice and the treatment of his sons.

But only one of his sons was here with her now.

She didn't want to dwell on that fact, so she reached for the soap left out for her to busy herself with washing. There would be just enough length in the rope tying her wrists to move semi-freely with a little extra effort. Without thinking she dipped her hands and the soap under the water to create a lather but she found herself regretting it almost immediately.

The rope constricted around her wrists under the added weight of the water. When she lifted them back above the surface, the moisture trapped there dripped slowly down her arm. It was too familiar in the worst fucking way, and the sound of rolling waves crashing against the hull of the ship was promptly replaced by the sound of chittering lightning.

"No, no, no, no." She chanted to herself, fighting like hell to push away just how similar wet rope felt to warm intestines. She ordered the water to pull out of the bindings but it stayed to mock her. She began to will forward the fire that had once lain just beneath her fingertips but stopped.

She didn't want that power even if she could have it. It was her firebending that had turned her into a murderer. She was no better than Ozai.

Aelita choked out a muffled sob, unable to breathe, unable to stop herself from shaking, unable to rip herself out of the half-formed memory. "Fuck!"

Zetzu had seen her fall apart more times than he cared to admit over the last three weeks but to see it now when he was trying so damn hard to set her up with a happy future but his side was jarring. "What's wrong?" He asked as he scrambled to his feet and closed the distance between them, half tempted to haul her out of the water and into his arms, modesty be damned. "What happened?"

"The rope...like this..." She spoke in short, choppy sentences between shallow, labored breaths. "It feels like....oh fuck please get them off of me, Zetzu please."

"I'm trying to help you, Aelita but you have to tell me what's wrong so I can understand what you need."

"The fucking rope!" She said somewhere between a curse and a sob. "It feels like him!"

It only took the Prince half a heartbeat to realize who the him in question was. "Oh shit."

He hadn't planned on this. Everything about this night was supposed to comfort her and replace her memories of Zuko with him instead. He cursed himself for not thinking it through better as he scrabbled for her hands.

"All we do is fuck up."

"Monster."

"Monster."

"Monster."

"Zetzu, please!"

His fingers had stopped moving, but Aelita's full-bellied plea brought him back to reality. He ripped the bindings from her wrists, but she didn't stop shaking, didn't stop hyperventilating. She was too far gone to fight him off when he hauled her out of the water and into his lap, the Prince murmuring gentle reassurances in her ear in an attempt to calm her down.

Aang hadn't trusted himself enough to be a firebender, thought the element was too dangerous and not worth the risk after hurting someone they loved.

She had fought with him over it, called him weak and swore it was the fault of the bender, not the fire.

And then she killed him.

She finally understood him now, and for once, she was thankful for the poison in her veins. Aelita wasn't sure she'd ever want to firebend again.

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Chapter Text

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Hakoda found his son alone in the room he had claimed as his, not a candle lit as he lay in the darkness staring at his ceiling.

Sokka hadn't brought himself to light a single flame since Aelita had died. He couldn't. Something in the orange glow of burning embers whispered her name.

Hakoda stepped into the silence with two bowls of still-steaming food in his hands. "I thought we could have dinner together."

Sokka didn't move from the bed, back pressed into the mattress, the Fire Nation armor he had commandeered tossed to the side. If his dad noticed the red tapestry ripped off the wall, he didn't say anything. "I'm not hungry."

"Are you sure?" The Chief tried again. "I'll give you my salted pork."

Sokka wanted to be annoyed at being coddled but he was too consumed by everything else he was feeling at the moment to care. He sighed instead, "I said no, Dad."

Hakoda was silent for a moment. Looking at the forlorn expression on his son's face, his own heart broke a little more. He could practically hear the angry words inside of Sokka's head because he had been subject to those same voices himself in the days and weeks that followed after they had lost Kya. "Punishing yourself won't bring her back."

"That's not what I'm doing," Sokka argued as he finally moved to sit up and look his dad in the eye. His words were stained. "I'm more upset with her than I am myself and I know that doesn't make sense but she promised me she'd come back." He blinked back the tears that he refused to let fall.

He wouldn't let himself shatter again.

Sokka had completely broken just once since his world went to shit. They had stopped just long enough to pick up Smellerbee and Longshot in the Upper Ring before fleeing Ba Sing Se. When they made it to Chameleon Bay, Sokka hadn't been able to explain what had happened to his Dad, Katara hadn't either. Kyojuro, spirits bless him, had held it together better than any of them despite his own turmoil, Toph and Smellerbee filling in any blanks that the Prince couldn't. Bato immediately set to take Aang from Katara, the Avatar not yet out of the woods then, the other men from the tribe tending to the rest of the teenagers. Sokka had refused the care his men had offered him, he felt he hadn't deserved it, but when his Dad had approached him later to assure him his friends would be okay, the young warrior crumpled on the deck of the boat, utterly broken in a way he could've never imagined.

And just like he had when Sokka was a boy, Hakoda had held on to his son as he sobbed, not letting go until his very first baby had cried himself to sleep.

Sokka couldn't handle falling apart like that again, but he asked his Dad, "Why didn't she come back?"

"I wish I had an answer for you," Hakoda sighed as he lay the bowls on a bedside table, crouching to sit with his son. "And I wish I could tell you that it gets easier, but it doesn't, you just slowly learn what it's like to live again after them."

"What if I don't wanna learn? I didn't plan on this. I thought..." Sokka looked for the right words but couldn't find them. "I don't know, I just thought we had more time. It's not fair."

"You're right, it's not. She deserved a long and happy life, but so do you Sokka."

"Yeah well," The young warrior did his best to ignore the tears he couldn't stop now. He hadn't realized how much hope he had been holding onto that somehow Katara and Kyojuro had been wrong until Aang confirmed the worst. Aelita was gone, right when they had finally started to be happy together, and she was never coming back. It was like a part of him was missing, the part of him she had somehow always held, and he wasn't sure how to live without it anymore. "Happy doesn't really seem realistic right now."

"And it might not for a long time," Hakoda nodded, knowing the hopelessness of despair all too well. He tossed a gentle arm around his boy and let Sokka lean on his shoulder as the pain overwhelmed him. "But it will eventually. I'll make sure of that."

Sokka wasn't the only one left to mourn the definitive demise of their loved one, those his grief was unique in its own way.

Toph hadn't spoken of Aelita since the fall of Ba Sing Se. She refused. If she did, that awful feeling inside of her might prove to be too much and Toph couldn't handle breaking down. She loved the rest of her friends, she did, even if she wouldn't admit it out loud, but her friendship with Aelita had been different.

Aelita Kenshin and Toph Beifong were similar in ways that no one else could understand. They had lived through so much of the same bullshit that their bond had been formed easily. Honestly, it was almost funny how quickly they got along considering the fact that Toph hadn't liked Aelita at all at first, the firebender having been too damn good at the diplomatic act. Even when Toph wanted to ignore Aang, Aelita had weaseled her way into her parents' home. She encouraged all of the earthbenders' best and worst behaviors and laughed with her when no one else was amused.

Aelita was one of the first people to accept her for who she was. As Toph listened to the sound of rolling waters, she missed her best friend so much that she almost considered crying.

Almost.

Aelita wouldn't want anyone to cry, not over her.

Even Kyojuro knew that. The Prince wasn't sure he even had the room to cry, no matter how badly he had felt like breaking down damn near every night since everything fell apart. Mourning Aelita Kenshin felt selfish when he had only known her roughly a week before she was gone.

Fuck, had she really only been there for a week? She felt so ingrained into his history that it was unsettling. She and Murata both.

Kyojuro couldn't stop himself from picturing the brutal image of the Akira's hand through his Captain's chest. He wondered if it made him a shit friend to not resent Murata's killer, but the boy that Long Feng had raised knew the blame lay more with the Prince of the Fire Nation and the Captain himself than it did with Aelita.

And with him. Kyojuro hated himself for that. Murata shouldn't have joined that fight. Kyojuro should've sent the earthbender away, commanded his Captain to listen when he argued. But he didn't, and now he was gone.

The Prince sat alone and mourned the first two real friends he had ever found in familiar solitude, wishing like hell that it would've been Prince Zetzu that died instead.

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

The Prince wasn't sure how long exactly he sat on the floor of his room holding a trembling, sopping-wet Aelita in his arms before she calmed down, but he held her there until her body simply couldn't handle the shock or panic any longer. Whether she passed out or fell asleep he wasn't sure.

Zetzu took his first chance with her then and left her alone in his room to fetch the healer from down the hall. To her credit, the older woman woke quickly and didn't ask questions when she was brought to the nearly indecent girl on the boy's floor. When the woman determined Aelita would be alright physically, Zetzu left her to change the Akira into dry clothes.

Fuck, everything had gone so terribly wrong. Zetzu had meant to woo her and win her over bit by bit, play into her pleasant memories to lull her into a sense of comfort. He could've never dreamt that something as menial as a damp rope would send her into a spiral. She hadn't spoken after he had pulled her out of the water, merely hyperventilating in his arms. When the healer opened the door to show she had dressed the girl and hauled her onto his bed, Zetzu demanded answers.

"I heal injuries of the body, not the mind."

Fine. Zetzu knew healers that did work with the mind.

The stop at Bhanti Island had already been planned but Zetzu wouldn't waste any more time. He needed to talk to the Captain now.

The Prince paused just long enough to dig out a heavy long-sleeved tunic from his wardrobe, having felt how cold Aelita still was after sitting for too long in wet clothes. She didn't wake when he pulled the warm fabric over her head and on top of the night clothes the healer had dressed her in, the hem of it skimming the tops of her thighs. He tucked a blanket around her and swore to himself that he'd only be gone a moment, pressing a gentle kiss to her temple before he set off to find the Captain. He hadn't realized just how long his journey would take him.

Zuko had been looking for his brother. Three years might have dulled his memories, but as they approached the coast of the outer Fire Nation islands he knew that this wasn't the fastest route to the capital, and he damn sure didn't want to say a thing about it to Azula. Mushu was reluctantly tucked in his arms as they crossed the quiet ship, the thing less likely to bite him if it wasn't cooped up in Zuko's quarters all day and night, but when they made it to the hall of cabins closest to the bridge the ferret began to thrash in the boys' grip.

Zuko should've expected this, Aelita's room was just further than Zetzu's and they had yet to decide when to reunite animal and human. "I know you can smell her," Zuko said as he tightened his grip around Mushu's wriggling body. "But it's late, you can't just go barge into people's rooms in the middle of the night! Okay well maybe you can but I can't, and how exactly do you think you're gonna get inside without my help? Dammit, Mushu!" Zuko cursed when the ferret sank its teeth into his hand. By reflex he let go of the thing to clutch his now bleeding wound, Mushu darting down the hall only to surprise the Prince by stopping at Zetzu's door. "What, are you planning on biting him too?" Zuko asked, snatching the ferret up off the floor and holding him at eye level. "You know, there was a time you actually liked me. I used to let you sleep in my bed every night and this is the thanks I get?"

Zuko swore that Mushu stuck his tongue out at him in protest."I can't believe I'm fighting with a fire ferret." The eldest Prince muttered to himself. He tucked Mushu back into his arms. "Behave," He demanded as he reached up a hand to rap on his brother's door. When he received no response, he readied himself to give up on Zetzu and set out instead to find the Captain himself, but Mushu stretched his body as long as he could to scratch furiously against the metal, desperate to get to something or someone inside.

Zuko should've walked away, but he had always been too curious for his own good. He paused for half a heartbeat before pushing open the door to his brother's room and stepping inside. Zetzu appeared to be long gone, but the light of the nearly full moon illuminated the outline of the sleeping girl in his bed.

The breath caught in Zuko's throat. He felt like he had been thrust back into time as he stared at Aelita, damp silver hair like a halo on the pillow she lay, lips slightly parted, a bold Fire Nation insignia on the wall behind her, and a deep, red tunic draped over her body. Zuko had found himself picturing this very image time and time again over the bulk of the last year, even when he was wide awake and meant to be preoccupied with other things.

But the scene before him now was more a nightmare than it was a daydream.

Any of the gentle swells Aelita's face once held was gone, her cheeks hollow and her features sharp in a way that looked unnatural on her. Her skin no longer held any trace of sunlight, the only color to her was the too-dark shadows beneath her eyes. The fabric wrapped around her was far larger on her frame than it should've been, her body frail in a way Zuko had never seen before.

And almost as glaring as the state of Aelita herself was the bold black stitching of the tunic that clearly wasn't hers.

When the twins had first been born and had been harder to tell apart, the palace seamstresses started the habit of altering their clothing just enough to make a difference.

The detailing on Zuko's clothing had been gold.

The detailing on Zetzu's has been black.

Even now, after so many years away, the detailing on nearly every item in Zuko's gifted wardrobe was gold. Bile rose in his throat.

Aelita was here, sleeping in his brother's bed, wearing his brother's clothes. Destiny was a fickle bitch.

Mushu didn't need to bite the Prince this time, his hold on the animal had relaxed more than enough for him to spring free, dashing across the floor and climbing onto the bed in the blink of an eye. The ferret was in his humans face, chattering wildly as he licked her cheeks, willing her to wake.

Zuko couldn't move, his body wouldn't let him as Aelita began to stir. He was frozen where he stood as she lazily brushed away the touches. Zuko knew that he should turn and flee, pretend that he had never been here, pretend for just a little while longer that Aelita Kenshin didn't exist but before he could will himself to even breath the Akira's eyes snapped open.

Aelita jolted alright, sending Mushu tumbling backward, subconsciously expecting to be held in place and surprising herself when she could sit up fully. Something had been touching her and she swore she didn't imagine it even if there wasn't much of anything she could been sure of from the last three weeks. Before she could so much as catch her breath the thing was back, chattering in her ear and tickling her skin, a blur of orange and red.

Aelita tried to blink away the haze behind her eyes and moved her hands to cover her face but stopped short when her fingers wrapped in soft fur. Electricity jolted through her at the touch of something so familiar, so ingrained into her. She gripped onto the thing and held it out in front of her, the face of a not quite yet mature fire ferret staring back at her.

The animal hadn't stopped chittering the entire time, and upon seeing it, Aelita nearly sobbed.

"Mushu?" She choked out, her voice barely above a whisper. The animal quit flailing at the sound of his humans voice. At that moment, Aelita didn't care that she was somewhere that didn't feel right, wearing clothes she didn't recognize. "Holy shit," She said as she pulled the creature back to nuzzle into the side of his face. "You're okay buddy. You're here," She said, but the weight of those words hit her hard. "Why are you here?" She asked him as she pulled him away again. She nearly asked him where here was exactly, but the memories of the night washed over her, the floor of Zetzu's room still wet where he had pulled her from the bath that proved to be more triggering than it had been relaxing. She was still in his room, tucked now into his bed. She would've cringed had she not been so relieved to see her companion, the only thing that seemed to have followed her from the life that haunted her. "Zetzu, how long have you..." She turned and started to question the presence she could feel looming near the doorway, but her heart malfunctioned when she found a scar staring back at her rather than a tattoo. "Zuko."

Aelita was awake, and she was looking for his brother. Zuko should've expected that, this was his room after all, but it still bristled something inside of him. "Sorry to disappoint you."

Mushu barred his teeth at the Prince and from where she sat Aelita could hear the malice in his voice. "It's been three weeks." She said as if it were a fact she didn't believe. Part of her didn't.

"I'm aware."

Aelita wanted to scream. "Do you know what the last three weeks have been like for me?"

"Do you know what the last three years have been like for me?" He shot back.

"Yes Zuko, I'm well aware, I was there."

He corrected her. "You were there, and then you left."

Aelita let out a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a sob, the first glitter of tears welling behind her eyes that no longer held any trace of light or gold. "And then I killed a man for you."

Zuko cursed his pounding heart and hoped she couldn't hear it from across the room. If he fucked this up now, she might not believe the lie he and Zetzu had dreamed up. She could die. "I'd hardly consider the Avatar a man."

Zuko didn't deny that she had done it. Aelita hadn't been able to place a face to the nightmares that plagued her of her hand through the chest of another human, but as she blinked now all she could see was the blue light fading from the eyes of the last airbender.

He had been her friend, and she had killed him for Zuko like the pathetic guard dog everyone had always assumed her to be.

And still Zuko hated her. She had cried for him for weeks on end, begged for him to tell her it wasn't true, and he hadn't once deigned her worthy of his time. She had destroyed herself for someone who could care less if she lived or died.

"Where's my brother, and why are you here?" Zuko asked, unable to contain the accusation in his tone. "Trying to replace your peasant already?"

Aelita couldn't take it anymore. She snapped at the boy she had damned her soul for just as his twin returned, alert but confused at the sight unfolding before him. "Get out."

Zuko tensed.

Zetzu grinned.

"Excuse me?" Zuko barely breathed, fists clenched. His brother stepped further into the room in a black-trimmed robe, a contrast to Zuko's gold. Aelita's eyes traveled to him, sad and pleading despite the vicious sounds coming from the four-legged animal in her arms. She didn't bother to look at Zuko anymore.

"I said get out."

Zuko didn't know what to think, what to feel or what to say. "Aelita, I..."

"Make him leave Zetzu," She begged the younger Prince. "Please."

It took everything in Zetzu to not cheer. He forced his face back solemn in a pitiful attempt to hide his satisfaction before moving to stand between his brother and Aelita. "You heard the lady Prince Zuko."

"But-"

"I'll walk you to the door," Zetzu wrapped his arm around his twin's shoulder and steered him towards the hall, Aelita sitting prettily right where he had left her. "Trust me on this." He whispered low enough for her not to hear.

Zuko was too stunned to argue. He hadn't known what he had been expecting to happen the first time Aelita Kenshin face to face after their mutual betrayal was sealed, but he certainly didn't expect to feel so guilty.

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Aang reluctantly fell asleep after his healing session with Katara, his body exhausted after the beating it had been put through, but morning hadn't been long off by that point and he woke naturally at the first sign of light. He found his friends on the main deck of the ship waiting for him bright and early, all relieved to see him up and moving even if it was slowly. He accepted the platter of fruit and cheese Katara handed him but didn't move to eat any of it.

"What did I miss while I was gone?" He asked no one in particular. Sokka, Katara, Toph, Kyojuro and Hakoda sat closest to him, the others milling about, several Water Tribe men manning the ship according to Bato.

"After what happened at Ba Sing Se, we had to get you to safety," Sokka explained after a moment, accepting the map of the Earth Kingdom that Kyojuro held out and spreading it before Aang. He pointed to the coast along the eastern end of the country. "We flew back to Chameleon Bay where we found my father and the other Water Tribe men. Soon, the bay was overrun by Fire Nation ships. Rather than fight them all, we captured a single ship and made it our disguise." He trailed his finger along the Sidra River that cut through the entirety of the Kingdom, spilling into the Twin Lakes near Ba Sing Se before continuing on. The Fire Nation lay just across the Narrow Sea from the Earth Kingdom's westernmost shores. "Since then we've been traveling west. We crossed through the Serpent's Pass a few days ago. We've seen a few Fire Nation ships, but none have bothered us."

Aang was stoic as he listened before asking, "So what now?"

Hakoda, just glad to support his son answered, "We've been working on a modified version of the invasion plan."

Katara bristled. "It's Sokka's invasion plan."

"Yes," Hakoda agreed, not wanting to take credit for his boy's work. "Sokka's plan. We won't be able to mount a massive invasion without the Earth Kingdom's armies, but the solar eclipse will still leave the Fire Nation vulnerable."

"So we're planning a smaller invasion. Just a ragtag team of our friends and allies from around the Earth Kingdom. Kyojuro managed to find Longshot and Smellerbee on his own," Sokka pointed out their old allies before gesturing to the largest and smallest Freedom Fighters close by. "And we already ran into Pipsqueak and The Duke."

"Good to see you again, Aang!" Pipsqueak waved at the Avatar.

"And the best part is, the eclipse isn't even our biggest advantage," Kyojuro added. When the monk look at him with a confused expression, he leaned in close to the boy with a smile on his face and whispered, "We have a secret...you."

"Me?" Aang balked.

"Yep, the whole world thinks you're dead!" Sokka said more enthusiastically than he should have, bumping an excited fist with Kyojuro's. "Isn't that great?"

"The world thinks I'm dead?" The young Avatar cringed, a new wave of panic surging through him. "How is that good news? That's terrible!"

Toph leaned over to mutter in Kyojuro's ear, "Now I might now be a people person, but maybe don't seem so excited when you're telling someone that everyone else thinks they croaked."

"You saw the way I was raised, do you honestly think I know how to properly interact with other teenagers or handle distressing situations in general?"

Sokka was quick to try and diffuse his best friend's stress. "No, it's great! It means the Fire Nation won't be hunting us anymore! And even better, they won't be expecting you on the Day of Black Sun!" He attempted to assure Aang, but the monk wasn't swayed.

"No, no, no, no, no." He chanted, head in his hands as he tried to remember how to breathe. "You have no idea. This is so messed up!" Aang would've likely spiraled more, his mind racing, but the sound of a ship's horn that wasn't their own snapped him back into the present. Sailing the opposite direction across the Western Lake was a sleek, black Fire Nation vessel, its path set to intersect theirs soon.

"If we change course now they'll know we're avoiding them," Smellerbee called over her shoulder, a helmet similar to Sokka's on her head.

"Then we meet them head-on," Aang argued, reaching for his discarded glider and snapping it open. "I can handle them. It's time the world learns that the Avatar is back." He said with all the determination he could muster, but when he moved to stand he groaned in pain, clutching his bandaged middle.

Katara was by his side in an instant, holding him back when he tried to shrug her off. "Aang, wait! Remember, they don't know we're not Fire Nation!"

"They will if we don't stop," Smellerbee insisted, the ship sailing closer with each passing moment. "They wanna board us."

Aang wanted to scream. He hated this, hated every bit of it. Hated being hurt, hated not being able to do anything, hated knowing the world knew he had let them down again, and hated that Aelita wasn't here to face it all with him. He snapped the glider back shut and let himself lean against Katara.

Hakoda had already motioned to his men on the bridge to slow the ship and drop anchor, knowing their best bet was to bullshit their way out of trouble. "Everyone just stay calm," He told the kids, sliding on his discarded helmet, his own second in command having already done the same. "Bato and I will take care of this."

The Duke wrapped a large sheet around himself and launched into Pipsqueak's waiting arms. The larger teen tossed his friend overtop of the lowered deck space Appa had made his home, the fabric unraveling in the air before Longshot caught his old friend. With the bison covered the four reunited Freedom Fighters ducked inside of the ship, the Avatar and his friends taking cover tucked into a stairwell that led below deck.

The incoming ship stopped alongside the commandeered one. A metal ramp was dropped between them, and a Fire Navy officer flanked by two of his subordinates crossed a heartbeat later, all three serious. "Commander, why are you off course?" The officer barked the moment he stepped onto the deck of the other vessel. "All Western Fleet ships are supposed to be moving toward Ba Sing Se to support the occupation!"

Hakoda lied quickly. "Actually, we're from the Eastern Fleet. We have orders to deliver some cargo."

"Ahhh," The officer pondered. "Eastern Fleet. Well, nice of Admiral Chan to let us know he was sending one of his ships our way."

"I'm sure Admiral Chan meant no disrespect, sir." Bato insisted.

"I mean, how hard is it to write a quick note and send a hawk our way?" The officer continued to rant at no one in particular.

Hakoda looked to his friend for reassurance, both men on the same page after so many decades together. "Next time, we'll send two hawks to make sure you get the message." Not wanting the conversation to linger, Bato and the Chief bowed the Fire Nation manor Sokka had told them, hoping they had played their parts well enough.

The three Fire Nation sailors returned the gesture and both groups turned to go their separate way.

"Sir," One of the men whispered to the officer as soon as he believed they were far enough away. "Admiral Chan has been on leave for two months at Ember Island."

"What? Why doesn't anyone ever tell me anything?" The officer scoffed before the words sank in. He continued onward, his men following as they stepped onto the ramp connecting the vessels. "Something's not right; they should have known that. I think this is a captured ship. Just stay quiet until we're safely across the ramp. Then we'll sink this ship."

Fourteen years of no eyesight had left Toph's hearing better than most. "They know!" She shouted to others. She popped up from the place she had been hiding and honed in on the metal ramp. It collapsed inwards onto itself as she squeezed a fist together, sending the three that had boarded their ship into the water below, their anchor already being raised as quickly as it could. The moment it was free from the lake bed they began to sail West while the other ship scrambled to collect their waterlogged crew.

Kyojuro and Katara were quickly at Toph's side, Sokka holding back with Aang, the Freedom Fighters rushing to join the fight they knew would be coming. They had barely put any distance between the ships when their enemy changed course to pursue.

"Load the Toph!" The earthbender called to Pipsqueak. The burly boy plopped a stone too big for any of the others to carry at her feet. Toph quickly cut the rock into three smaller pieces, levitating one in the air as Longshot worked out the trajectory for her. He pointed her in the right direction, and the girl let loose, the rock slamming into the enemy ship. Before a second attack could be shot off, a volley of fireballs lit on the Fire Nation deck.

Katara noticed it and rushed to the ship's railing. "I'm gonna give us some cover!" She yelled out to the others. She crouched and pulled her palms upward, billowing steam rising from the lake. As she whipped her hands around the steam spread, the other ship practically invisible in the dense fog.

Practically, not fully.

A fireball crashed into the front of their ship just as a harpoon nailed the back. The harpoon ripped out of the hull, a jagged tear forming with it. Katara ran to the back of the ship to freeze the tear shut.

Aang was going crazy. He gripped his staff tighter and moved to step out into the fray. "I just can't stand by and do nothing!"

"Aang, no!" Sokka cried as he scrambled after the monk. He caught his friend by the shoulders just before he reached the open deck. "You're still hurt, and you have to stay secret. Just let us handle this!"

The monk had never felt more useless in his entire life, but he reluctantly opted to trust his friend's judgment. "Fine."

Sokka gave the monk a thankful look before launching himself into the chaos to check on the others. He stopped between Kyojuro and Toph, the younger launching stone and the elder turning it to molten lava mid-air, spraying the deck of the pursuing ship.

"How are we doing?" Kyojuro asked when the other boy joined. Neither Sokka nor Toph could answer as another ball of fire crashed into their vessel, this time nailing the starboard side.

"Things couldn't get much worse." Sokka snorted. As if on cue, out of the water rose the same vile green serpent the Pass was named for, this time even more pissed than it had been on its last encounter with the Avatar and his friends. "The universe just loves proving me wrong, doesn't it?"

"You make it too easy!"

"What the fuck is that thing?" Kyojuro balked. "Is that normal? Does this happen to you often? No one ever mentioned giant river monsters!"

"Technically it's a lake monster."

"Not helpful Toph!"

Before Sokka could even worry about the serpent or his arguing friends, a fireball from the pursuing ship slammed into the beast, drawing its wrath and attention. The monster disappeared under the water but not for long, emerging a moment later to wrap around the Fire Nation vessel that had attacked it, giving the other ship just enough time to flee down the western riverbend.

"That couldn't have gone better if I planned it," Sokka muttered to himself, the others sagging in relief around the open deck. "Thank you universe!"

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Aelita didn't cry. She refused. At least not in front of anyone else.

She sat on Zetzu's bed, clutching Mushu tightly while her entire body shook, but she didn't cry. She had felt anger before, but the feeling that burned inside of her last night had been a white-hot rage she had only felt a few times before in her life. 

To his credit, the younger Prince didn't push or pry or taunt. He reached for the tea that had been long forgotten, warmed it in his palms and handed her a glass. Mushu had tried to bite him, but he waved it off like it had been to be expected. 

He didn't correct her when she assumed his brother had been the one keeping her companion from her. Aelita accepted the glass, unable to stomach anything heavier despite Zetzu's request she eat, and then she thanked him.

"Not just for the tea."

When he smiled at her then, he almost looked like the little boy she grew up with, the one that smiled at her the first day she brought him sesame balls. 

Aelita asked to go back to her own room after she finished the tea, surprising herself with how uncomfortable it felt to be anywhere else despite the negative memories she associated with the space. Zetzu had agreed and offered her his hand, Mushu again trying desperately to sink his teeth in, but Aelita had been quick enough to hold him back. She was too dazed to notice he didn't bind her for the walk back, simply guiding her with a hand on the small of her back that she didn't shy away from. 

It had been a test, and she had passed with flying colors. Zetzu opted to only shackle one of her limbs when he left her in her room, not quite ready to throw all caution to the wind. 

Aelita didn't break until she was alone, her face buried into Mushu's soft fur, the animal licking away what tears he could. She slept fitfully after that, waking every so often from nightmares she tried not to recall, opting to instead look out the window of her room at the night fading into morning. The first rays of sunlight were now peaking over the horizon.

She hadn't bothered shucking out of Zetzu's tunic, something he had taken note of as he left her alone. The Prince felt like he was on top of the world. He had tucked Aelita in for the night, dodged the sharp teeth of her insufferable guard ferret, and immediately sank to the floor on the hallway just outside of her door. 

He didn't sleep. He couldn't. Zetzu was riding on too much adrenaline as they sailed toward Bhanti with impressive speed. The night by and large should've been a disaster, but it couldn't have ended more perfectly. 

Aelita blamed Zuko, and Zuko blamed Aelita.

Zetzu grinned as he finally peeled himself off the floor sometime in the early morning, slipping into his own room just long enough to dress for his meeting with the Shaman. When he emerged from his quarters, his brother was there waiting.

Zuko wasted no time to seeth at his twin. "What was that?" 

"Good morning to you too, brother."

"Enough with the bullshit!" Zuko snapped, stepping towards his casually dressed brother. He too hadn't slept. Every time he closed his eyes all he could see were the disappointed faces of his Uncle and Aelita. He finally hauled himself out of bed to confront his brother at the first sign of light, something in the orange glow of the early morning rays acting like fuel to his fire. "I come looking for you to see where the Captain thinks he's taking us to find the Akira in your bed! Why was she there? Do you want Azula to catch on to us?"

Zetzu frowned. The Akira, not Aelita. "Well, she certainly will if you don't keep your voice down. Honestly Zuko, it's not becoming to always assume the worst."

"Answer me." The elder Prince hissed. 

"The Captain is taking us to Bhanti on my orders, brother. The Sages there practice unique medicine, methods that would paint us a clearer picture of Aelita's progress. I was trying to prepare her for this visit," Zetzu claimed, the statement at least half true. "When she shut down. As you can see, the blood on her hands is weighing heavy on her, even if she doesn't know whose it is, and she didn't take it well even before you interrupted. I left her there in my bed while I met with the Captain because I'm not a monster  who would leave her on the floor Zuko, nothing more, nothing less." 

"Then why did you let her send me away?" The other demanded to know. Zuko's regret had subsided long ago and given way to anger, at least for now. 

"Did you really think it was good for either of you to be around one another at that moment?" Zetzu asked casually. "You didn't seem so happy to see her either, brother, and not that I could blame you." He stepped closer to his twin and laid his hands on his shoulders, the two alone in the quiet hall, the girl that had saved them both as boys shackled just a few steps away. "Remember Zuko, she's the one that left you."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Chapter Text

Aelita was waiting for Zetzu when he came back for her, the glow of the mid-morning sun shining through her window. She almost welcomed the sight of him.

Almost. At least when Zetzu was there, the ghostly shell of a murderer wearing her skin was kept at bay. The version of herself that she hated the most had watched her all night, even when Aelita closed her eyes.

The Akira's shoulders relaxed involuntarily at the sight of another life, something the Prince took smug notice of. From where she remained confined, Aelita could tell the ship had docked but with one limb still tied to the bed, she couldn't get close enough to her window to see where exactly they were. The teen couldn't shake the dread that had settled deep in her stomach at the thought that she may very well be at the Fire Lord's doorstep already.

Mushu could pick up on her panic. He had tried to chew his human free from her bindings, and then he tried to bite the person that had left her there. Aelita managed to catch the ferret with her free hand before he did, unwilling to take any chances of him being ripped away from her again.

"Well good morning to you two," Zetzu muttered to the through a tight-lipped smile, desperately clinging on to the remnants of the high he had felt from their progress the night before.

"Where are we?" Aelita asked, forgoing any other pleasantries as the Prince perched on the edge of her bed.

"Bhanti Island," Zetzu answered as he withdrew a set of keys from his pocket, one for her door and the other her bindings. When he brushed Aelita's wrist with his fingertips, her skin was cold as ice. Looming over her, he could see the way she shuddered out a breath at the realization they weren't yet back at the terrible place they had spent their childhood. It was almost reassuring, the similar sentiment they held towards their old lives just another thing they shared between them. "There's someone here on the Island that I want you to meet before we're expected to return to the Capital," He explained. At his words, the Akira went rigid once more, and the Prince wanted nothing more than to be the one to save her from any of her fears or discomfort. "But I've promised you before, and I'll promise you again Aelita," He spoke softly when he took in the tension in her posture. "I'm not going to let anyone hurt you, here, there, or anywhere else in this world."

The irony wasn't lost on her that the boy promising to protect her was the same one that had nearly killed her.

"But you will admit the Capital and the palace are horrible." She pointed out as he unlatched the chain that held her captive. "Do you even want to go back?"

"Yes, I do actually." He explained, surprising the girl. "I'm not like Zuko, I can see our childhood for what it really was, and I can acknowledge that it holds years' worth of terrible memories, but, I have goals and things to prove. Besides," He said as he reached out to tuck a loose hair behind her ear, a small smile on his face, "Things weren't always so bad. Back then I had my mother, and I had you, and now, I still have you."

Aelita tried not to shutter at the unwelcome touch and instead reminded herself that thus far that Zetzu had become the lesser of the evils when it came to the royal family, even now. "And after I meet this person, then we sail the rest of the way back?" She asked.

"Yes, which means you'll need to be ready," Zetzu spoke after a moment, his lingering happiness fading as the weight of the day's prospects washed over him.

Bhanti was on the opposite narrow side of the mainland from the Capital, not far off the shore, with a pass between the bigger mass and the next largest island, Shuhon, that left the journey by ship a quick one. Zetzu was already operating under the assumption that Aelita would be summoned before his father by the day's end, and as much as it would pain him to sit back and bide his time while he plotted his next moves, the Prince would have to allow it.

He was still trying to convince the rest of himself that the wants and desires of the most ambitious version of him were shared sentiments.

Until then, everything about this day needed to be intentional to ensure Aelita's survival and eventual happiness. Zetzu had reminded his brother of that this morning, even if he far more preferred to pit the two against one another.

"Ready for what?" Aelita huffed, unable to hear the thoughts inside the Prince's head. "To be executed if I'm lucky? To rot away in a prison cell the rest of my miserable life?"

Zetzu sighed and shook his head. "I wish you'd believe me when I assure you that I won't let either of those things happen to you, Aelita, but even if you don't want to believe me, remember who exactly my father is. As frantic as the man is for power, do you really think he won't be swayed to see how useful you can be? He knows how badly my great-grandfather lusted after the Akira's power, and now that I have you, who couldn't see this as our ancestors being given a second chance?"

"But I don't want to be useful, not the way he would want me to be!" She snapped, angry, despairing tears welling in the corners of her eyes. "A broodmare and a murderer, that's what your father would expect me to be, and I cannot do that!" Her words trembled, but there was a desperate malice behind them. "I won't! I would rather die than let your father, or your sister, or your brother turn me into a  -"

Zetzu was a mere breath's length away from her face in an instant, a brief flash of rage behind his eyes that wasn't truly directed at her even as he gripped her tightly by her chin and forced her to look at him. "Do not finish that sentence. Don't let them win. Do not give up on me." His hold on her face relaxed, and his voice softened. "It might be hard, but neither of us can run away from who we are anymore, so please, don't make me face this alone."

Something inside of Aelita snapped, the girl no longer caring what happened to her as she used her free hand and what little strength she had left in her weakened body to connect with Zetzu's shoulder and shove, the Prince falling backward onto the floor with a confused look upon his face. "You might try to sit here and say you're not like your brother, but maybe you should look in a mirror my dear Prince," She spat the word, malice dripping from her voice. "How dare you sit here and ask me to stand by you when that is all I have ever tried to do." She leered over the edge of her bed at the boy still stunned on the ground. "I have always tried to be your friend, even when you barely spoke to me, and even when you ran off to join your sister in her hunt for me and the people that I love. You claim that you can see the truth, but even when I begged you more than once to come with me, to help me rewrite the future of our Nation, you still picked a family that hasn't ever given a damn about you." She gripped the sheets in trembling hands, knuckles white as she fought to contain her rage, a faint glimmer of an overwhelming presence tickling beneath her skin.

She didn't notice the muted glow of blue that flashed beneath behind her normally amber eyes for the quickest of instances, but Zetzu did, and he held his breath until the shine faded. He smirked when the eerie glow didn't hold, and Aelita's anger only multiplied.

"I wanted you with me then, Zetzu, because you had always been my friend too, and what did you do?" Aelita seethed. "You started spouting off some nonsensical bullshit about taking your dad's place and peace and bringing the world to its knees with fire and blood, you attacked my friends and you stabbed me through the fucking chest. And now you expect me to bite my tongue and do the bidding of a man that sent one son away just because he was different, maimed the other for standing up for innocent people, and murdered a child's father before her very eyes. You say neither of us can run away from who we are anymore, but you have no idea who I am, or who your family turned me into."

As her rage bubbled, so did the first embers of a familiar fire that seemed to burn just beneath her fingertips, but she couldn't bring herself to will it forward, no matter how hard she tried to convince herself she had only ever used her gifts for good, to defend herself, the innocent and those she loved.

It was that blind need to serve and protect that had damned her soul and let her become a monster.

Still sprawled on the floor where he fell, the Prince chuckled, the sound humorless regardless of the grin on his face. Despite her rising anger and the fading grips of the poison, Aelita hadn't attacked him, even with every opportunity to do so now.

All bark, and no bite.

Three short weeks had seemed to bring forth glorious results within her indeed.

"Have I ever mentioned that I love seeing a little bit of fight still left in you?" Zetzu spoke as he pushed himself up onto his knees, propping himself up on his forearms along the edge of the Akira's bed to face her dead on. To her credit, she didn't flinch away from him.

Yet.

"It keeps things fun, and it reminds me of our mother." The grin on Zetzu's face widened to a complete, manic smile. "She'd always surprise us with which fights she refused to back down from. Though she was never quite as unbecoming as you're acting right now, Aelita, so maybe you could learn a thing or two from her yet. Now, our Princess, while we're wounded that you would think we're so similar Zuko, we'll try to take it as a good sign of what a beautiful partnership this could be because if you could ever love someone like him, how could you not love us?" He asked, cocking his head to one side.

She didn't bother to point out that the way he was speaking about himself now made no sense to her.

"Maybe that's another similarity you share with our mother, a soft spot for people like my brother that don't deserve it. After all, you did turn yourself into a murderer for him." He pointed out, and this time Aelita did shrink away from his words, looking as if she'd've rather he struck her. They would never. "Or maybe those terrible tendencies were always there, hiding behind a sweet, pretty face?" He reached out and gripped her chin between slender fingers despite the warning growl from the girl's furry friend, forcing her to meet his stare. "That would make sense, wouldn't it? Why else would you have really abandoned your life, your people and your love," the word rolled off his tongue, thick with malice and disdain. "If the idea of finally killing my father didn't excite you?"

"That's not why I -" Aelita started to argue only to be cut off by the Prince.

"It's not?" He asked, one brow raised. "Are you really going to try to sell us that same lie you fed Zuko and yourself that you abandoned the people that loved you for the sake of peace and balance? Because no matter how much you claim to care for these new friends that abandoned you, we know that you loved us first, so we don't buy that, Aelita. You're loyal to a fault," He let go of her face to wrench her free hand up for her to see the web-like patterns that decorated her skin. "These scars and the fact that our brother is still breathing are proof of that. Peace and balance might have sounded like a cute little side effect to you, but tell us Akira Aelita, how exactly did you plan on accomplishing those without spilling Fire Nation blood first?"

She tried to pull away but Zetzu only gripped her tighter. "I didn't want to -"

"Hurt our people? Hurt anyone innocent?" His voice softened a mere fraction. "That I do believe, but tell me, is our father innocent?" Aelita refused to speak, and her silence was answer enough for him. "Do us both a favor Aelita, and admit that you want to see the Fire Lord suffer as badly as he's made us suffer."

"I..." She stuttered, overwhelmed by emotions and memories and thoughts she still couldn't place. "I..."

"Want revenge. You want to watch Fire Lord fall. You want to stand over him and watch the light fade from his eyes, your face the last thing he ever sees." Zetzu said, and the manic grin overwhelmed his features once more at the thought of it. "After all of the horrible things you've seen him do, it only makes sense to want him to suffer the way he made you. And that's where we're the same Aelita, because unlike our brother still sniveling for our father's approval, we want the same thing, but at least we aren't lying to ourselves."

"I'm not lying!" Aelita tried to disagree but there was no fight to her voice, only desperate, pleading aimed at more herself than it was the Prince. "I always..." She said as she gripped Mushu tighter, swallowing heavily as she struggled to form a coherent sentence. "I always knew the Fire Lord would likely have to die to end the war but that doesn't mean I was doing this just to give myself that chance. I want peace. I'm the Akira, dammit!"

"You're the Akira, and you killed your Avatar because he threatened the person you love because that's who you are Aelita, whether you want to admit it to yourself or not," Zetzu spoke so calmly, so matter of factually that the girl before him couldn't help but wonder if his claims about her were true. He released his grip on her chin to cup her cheek, thumbing her skin tenderly. "Now pull yourself together, for us please, and we promise that we will help you fulfill your every desire, even the ones you try to deny."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

On the opposite end of the ship, Zuko sat alone in his room, staring out the window at the dock below as his thoughts threatened to consume him. He couldn't shake the look on Aelita's face the night before from his memory.

She had only once ever looked at him with that level of disgust before, the day he sided with his siblings over her for the first time in their lives.

"And then I killed a man for you."

Fuck, he had known the blood on her hands would weigh heavy on her, no matter who's it actually was, but Zetzu had sworn that she'd be okay eventually, and she seemed far from okay now. That's why they were here, after all, to check in on her 'progress'.

Zuko found himself wondering how exactly anyone on some backward island largely removed from the modern world could do such a thing, but then he reminded himself he didn't care. Zetzu was right, Aelita had left him first, and he had a homecoming to properly prepare for or they were both as good as dead.

And yet with so much to do, he couldn't help but watch as his brother met the oldest healer he had ever seen on the dock and led them on board, a woman with a faded third eye tattoo on her forehead.

Shaman Shuzenji had been with Prince Zetzu since before even the death of his first master. They had all learned that day to be a little more delicate with the boy lest they want to join the spirits sooner than later, even if she knew some part of him wished they had died that day too.

The message he had sent regarding the Akira had been as much of a demand as it had been a request, one her own curiosity wouldn't dare to deny, not when she could still hear her father's tales dancing through her head. He had taught the last Akira.

Still, when Shuzenji wrote the boy back she insisted this dock be the furthest his men step foot, their island still held a great many secrets they weren't yet ready to share with the world. Zetzu had agreed without a fight. Bhanti had quickly become more of a home to him than home ever had.

"Word travels the world fast, boy," the old shaman finally spoke up as they walked, steps echoing down empty metal halls. "You've been busy since the Fire Lord called you back. You witnessed the fall of the last airbender."

There wasn't any judgment in Shuzenji's voice, just a simple statement of fact. "That would summarize it lightly, but I didn't write you to talk about the Avatar."

"No, you want me to observe the Akira. What I'm trying to figure out is why, and what this has to do with you."

Zetzu wasn't so naive to assume that there weren't ears in the shadows listening to his every word. "The Fire Sages will tell me what I want to hear, you'll tell me what I need to hear."

"And what is it you need to hear?" Shuzenji asked.

"The Akira has been through a great deal," Zeztu said carefully, choosing words only the shaman would truly understand. "Much in the same way I have. I need to know how similar we are and if she can be molded the way I was to serve the Fire Lord and his people."

The older woman tutted, reading between the Prince's lines. Another broken child was being dropped at her feet, but it seemed this time there were people that cared what happened to them. The Fire Lord certainly hadn't given a damn when it was his own son, no matter what he said about sending the boy to her island for his own good. She hadn't expected Zetzu ever to be called back to his royal duties, but here he stood before her now, expecting her to pass judgment on the behalf that he was attempting to pass off as his father's.

That was likely the worst thing for him, but after having stepped back from much of global politics, there was only so much her tribe could do lest they be swept into the war themselves. "And if I say the Akira is meant to be of service to the whole world rather than a single nation, what then?"

The Prince clenched his jaw, his self-control waning by the moment. "Then the likelihood of the Fire Lord sentencing her to death only increases."

Shuzenji wasn't sure she could live with the Akira's blood on her hands. "Very well then."

Several decks above, Azula stood at the railing with Mai and Ty Lee on either side of her, the girls having woken later than usual that day to find themselves docked at an island that hadn't been a part of their original course. The Princess tried her damndest to hide her rage.

Not once in her life had the help listened to either of her brothers over her.

Her friends either didn't notice or didn't care.

"This island is beautiful!" Ty Lee beamed, a giddy smile on her face as she looked out on lush vegetation and a set of small temples tucked against rolling hillsides. She sucked in a deep, happy breath and then exhaled, her body feeling light and whole. "The aura here is positively green!"

"The place is covered in plants, Lee," Mai deadpanned, bored and tired still. "Of course it's green."

"That's not what I mean, silly," The acrobat laughed, "A green aura signals growth and change, but happiness and contentment too. Azula, I can't believe your brother got to live here!"

The Princess scoffed, leaning against the railing on her forearms. "He would've been better off dead."

"Well aren't you chipper this morning," Mai quipped. "What's wrong? Aren't you happy we'll be home soon?"

"Yeah," Ty Lee agreed, "You and your brothers are war heroes now, I bet your dads gonna insist on throwing some big party to show you guys off," The acrobat wiggled her eyebrows at her friend and the prospect of the fun. "Shouldn't you be excited?"

"I would be if I were the only one coming back," Azula shot back, frustration radiating from her. "I was the one at home bearing the weight of our father's burdens for the last three years, not them. They don't deserve this the way that I do."

"You're probably right," Mai shrugged, leaning back against the railing with her arms crossed over her chest. If anyone understood what it was like trying to live up to your parent's unrealistic expectations, it was her. "But unless you plan on killing both of your brothers, you might as well get used to them being back."

"Don't tempt me." The Princess snorted. "It would be one thing if it were just Zuko," She admitted. "Even if he were pitiful, he at least showed some potential growing up, and he's always been insufferable but I'm used to his insufferable. Zetzu on the other hand." Her brow furrowed. "He's almost too much like our father some days, some he's purely our mother and others..." She trailed off as she recalled the childhood they left behind. Maybe if she had been more like their mother, she wouldn't have loathed her siblings quite so much. She rolled her eyes at the thought and the memories. "He's still that same pathetic nuisance he always was. And now he's even more protective over Aelita than Zuko ever was."

Mai hesitated for a moment before she asked, "What do you thinks gonna happen to her when we get home?"

"I'm not sure," Azula admitted. She had been knocked unconscious by her childhood rival on their last encounter beneath Ba Sing Se. By the time the Princess woke, the Avatar had been killed and the Akira was toeing the line between life and death herself.

Aelita Kenshin had done what Azula's great-grandfather had never been able to accomplish. Supposedly.

Azula didn't buy it, no matter what her brothers or the Dai Li had claimed.

"When will we be able to see her?"

The Princess's stare snapped to Ty Lee. "Why would you want to see her?"

"Because," the normally joyful girl struggled to articulate her thoughts, knowing she very well may be treading dangerous waters. "She was our friend."

Mai was painfully aware of the blades tucked close to her body as she watched hurt and anger flash across Azula's face. "She was your friend!" The Princess argued. "She was never mine!" She ranted, ready to rage more until movement on the dock below caught her eye. She looked down to see her second brother standing there with a hag that looked to be every bit as old as Lo and Li if not even more so.

Zetzu was distracted, a rare occurrence since the siblings had left Ba Sing Se, which meant Aelita Kenshin would be alone.

"But," Azula purred, a manic, feline smile splitting across her face. "She could be."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Hakoda studied the maps of the Earth Kingdom with Prince Kyojuro and his son and found they weren't far from the western end of the Sidra, the ocean within sailing distance by nightfall. They marked a fishing village on the coast they hoped would be large enough for them to blend in but small enough to not be targeted by the Fire Nation just yet and set a course.

Aang had already holed himself up alone in his room before the rest of the ship returned to a state of relative calm. He hadn't bothered telling anyone where he was going or what he was doing, but Smellerbee had noticed the frustrated aura to him when the Avatar passed her in the hall. At Sokka's recommendation, Katara had given her friend the space he seemed to need to process despite her own desire to not leave his side. She didn't knock on his door until they docked midday, Sokka, Toph and Kyojuro following behind her. Aang didn't tell them to come in, but he didn't tell them to go away either, so they stepped into his room anyway.

"Hey, Aang!" Katara said optimistically, hoping to cheer him up when she found him laying on his bed, his back to the door. "We're going into town to find some dinner."

Aang sat up, tattered shirt discarded so his bandages could breathe. Part of him wanted to disappear and wallow in his own self-pity, but the other part was itching just to prove he wasn't a complete disgrace and he knew if he wanted to do that he'd need to build up his strength. "I am pretty hungry." He agreed. "Maybe dinner's a good idea."

"Here," Sokka fished in his pocket and pulled out a long, pale orange handkerchief, offering it to his friend. "Tie this around your head."

"Why?" The monk asked.

Kyojuro chirped, "To cover your arrow."

Aang's mood instantly darkened. "I'm not going out if I can't wear my arrow proudly!" He huffed as he dropped back down onto the bed.

"Aang, come on." Sokka chided, trying to be understanding but knowing he was failing. "Be practical."

Katara nudged her brother's shoulder and looked at the others. "You guys go ahead without us. We'll catch up to you."

Toph didn't give the older boys a chance to argue, she reached for their hands and wheeled around, dragging them along with her whether they wanted to come or not. Katara made a mental note to thank her later. She crossed the room at sat on the edge of Aang's bed, the Avatar stiff and angry. "I think I understand why being a secret bothers you so much." She said after a moment. "You don't want people to think you failed."

"You're right, I don't." Aang snapped, not bothering to sit up now. "But the problem is, I did fail!"

"Aang, that's not true."

The boy lurched forward. "It is true. I was in Ba Sing Se. I was there! I had the chance to save everyone, but I lost. And now Aelita's gone and the Earth Kingdom is fallen for good."

"It's not for good," Katara argued, unable to bring herself to talk with him about Aelita yet. "Remember, there's still a plan. The invasion!"

"And I hate the invasion plan, too!" Aang brushed past her to stand, pacing the room in a pitiful attempt to calm himself down. When it didn't work he huffed and reached for the Fire Nation flag on the wall and ripped it down, the fabric falling on top of his discarded staff. His chest heaved as he struggled to find the right words. "I don't want you or anyone else risking your lives to fix my mistakes! I can't lose anyone else! I've always known that I would have to face the Fire Lord, but I thought I would have Aelita to do it with me and now I don't. I need to do this alone."

The healer stood and reached for him. "Aang..."

The Avatar pulled away. "Katara, please!" He pleaded, the anger in his voice fading into desperation. "Just go...please."

Katara was afraid if she pushed him anymore it would only make things worse. "Is there anything you need?"

Aang thought about it for a heartbeat. "I need to redeem myself. I need my honor back."

Katara didn't argue, much to Aang's relief. He wasn't sure how long he stood there in brooding silence, contemplating every one of his life's decisions that had landed him here. What he wouldn't give to have Aelita there beside him, calling him out on his bullshit and reminding him that they would face the world together.

But Aelita Kenshin was gone, and she wasn't ever coming back. Aang wouldn't let her death be in vain.

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Fire was a healing element in its own way, the benders of Bhanti using its life-giving warmth to monitor the flow of energy through the human body, detecting blocks physical, mental and spiritual.

Prince Zetzu had a great deal of ever-changing mental blocks. His Akira appeared to have her own. Shuzenji pitied them both, children so young and so damaged.

Aelita had been silent where she lay as the Shaman wafted hands wrapped in fire just above her body, tracing along the flow she had first learned about from a healer in the South Pole, a memory so clear and vivid it only upset her more that others were so foggy.

A self-preservation method. That's what Shuzenji had called the phenomenon that plagued the Akira. Painful memories sometimes had a way of refusing to surface, better to be ignored than to be faced head-on lest they break a person's mind completely. The look on the Prince's face told her to say no more on the matter before the girl she observed.

"See, you'll be okay," He had softly assured Aelita, the sixteen-year-old still silent and trembling from their earlier encounter. "We'll be okay."

He needed to see the Shaman out as a gentleman would, but then he'd be back. The Bhanti woman offered her a sad smile and a short prayer that she forgive herself, one that Zetzu cut short before she was led out the door, and Aelita was left alone with only Mushu and her demons to keep her company.

Was Zetzu right? Had this terrible, awful, revenge-driven person always lived inside her? She could remember sitting along the edge of a river somewhere in the Earth Kingdom with Zuko, arguing about her motives, her former friend accusing her of the same thing.

"What have they you turned into?"

"Are your standards different for yourself?"

"This is my father we're talking about!"

Thinking of that night nearly drove Aelita mad because she couldn't forget the way she had argued the Fire Lord very well might have to die at her and the Avatar's hand.

At her hand.

Aang could've never. He was gentle and kind and pacifistic in a way she had never been.

And then she killed him, just like she'd kill the Fire Lord one day.

Duty over heart.

Aelita was just as bad as Zhao, as bad as Long Feng, as bad as Ozai, if not so much worse. Maintaining balance in the human world was too much for the Akira or the spirit inside of them. Gaara was a shadow, not wholly light as Raava and the Avatar were. Maybe that was why the spirit chose Aelita as its host, but she fucked even that up.

Aelita had damned the rest of the world the day she killed Aang and for what? Someone she could no longer stomach the sight of.

She didn't deserve this power, not in the slightest, not when she had been the one to strike down the person she swore she would've died for. Her gifts would've been better bestowed to someone, and she found herself fantasizing about her own end, but even that would do the world no good.

She had killed the last airbender, the boy in the Spirit State at that. There was no coming back from an end so cruel, not for Akira or Avatar. There would be no reincarnation of Raava's host in either Water Tribe. There would never be another airbender to be home to Gaara.

The cycle of the Avatar and Akira would die with Aang and Aelita.

The grey-haired girl didn't have time to dwell on the thought as the door to her room pushed open, but rather than Zetzu or even Zetzu, their sister emerged from the shadows, a sickeningly sweet grin plastered upon her face.

The Princess clicked the lock shut behind her. She knew her brother held the key that would open the door from the other side, but at the very least the sound of him fumbling would be enough of a warning for her to wrap up her fun.

"Oh how delightful," Azula praised, her clothing simple but elegant, only half of her hair pinned back from her face. "I'm so happy to see you're awake. Our friends have been so worried about you."

'Our friends.'

Mai and Ty Lee. Aelita supposed at one point they truly had been her friends, not in the way that they were Azula's or Zuko had been hers, but still friends nonetheless. But she and the Princess? They had never been friends.

Aelita bit her tongue, unsure of exactly of Azula's current play, head still spinning from Zetzu's accusation or statement of fact.

The royal smirked and stepped towards the bed her old rival now sat upright upon, back to the wall with nowhere to run though truth be told, she didn't want her to. The back-and-forth dance they had been performing since they were girls was all the more fun when Aelita didn't back down.

"Of course, I've been worried too," She said, only a half lie, the intentions behind that worry less than pure.

Mushu barred his teeth and the approaching girl, but Aelita absentmindedly stroked his fur in a way to tell him this was alright. She was used to Azula, and even as she was now, she could handle Azula and all of the vile, twisted bullshit she had learned from her father. "Thank you for your concern, Princess."

"Oh 'Lita," Azula let her brother's nickname for the girl roll off her tongue, "There's no need for formalities now. You certainly weren't formal with me when you nearly split my skull open on the rocks beneath Ba Sing Se."

"We'll chalk that one up to a whoops."

Typical.

"Bygones will be bygones."

Until Aelita was the one that was gone.

"How very kind and forgiving of you."

"Naturally. I would never hold a grudge against the person that saved my brother's life."

Lie.

Aelita opted to stay silent, her eyes watching the Princess's every move as she stepped toward the wardrobe bolted to the wall and pulled it open. Azula ran her fingers across the pieces inside, a near mirror of the ones inside of her own room, a testament to her least favorite brother's devotion.

It hadn't gone unnoticed that Zuko had kept his distance from the Akira thus far, but Zetzu certainly hadn't.

"I can't tell you how relieved I was to hear the good news when I woke up," The Princess spoke as she pulled out a pair of hakama pants, studied them, decided they wouldn't do for the occasion, and returned them to the wardrobe, thumbing through the items as the ship hummed with their departure. "Not only did we bring the Earth Kingdom to its knees, but you, the very person the Fire Lord deemed a traitor, managed to clean up the loose ends my even his grandfather couldn't a hundred years ago, and you saved my oldest brother's life. Do you know what this means?"

"No, but I'm sure you won't pass up the opportunity to tell me."

Azula chuckled. "Clever." A simple red garment caught her eye, and the Princess cringed at how typical the fashion choice would be for her brothers. She pulled the dress from the wardrobe, elegant but plain, the only detailing on it the gold raised neckline and trim around the billowing sleeves, the waist tapered and shoulders pointed.

A mirror image of the fashion their mother used to don as Princess of the Fire Nation.

It would do perfectly. Azula moved to lay the dress over the bed Aelita sat, the Akira visibly tensed as she neared.

Good.

Azula crouched before the girl and took her free hand into her own. "It means that you're the sole reason that Zuko will have his honor back."

Aelita had to fight to bite back the bile rising in her throat, unable to contain all her disgust. "Zuko never lost his honor to begin with."

"Even if I did agree with you, my father would not, but by keeping a hold on your loyalty and using you to eliminate one of the biggest threats to a clear Fire Nation victory, he gained that honor back. You're the reason Zuko will be spared once we return home," Azula smiled, her grip on Aelita's hand tightening uncomfortably as her palm began to warm. "You'll save not only my dear Zuko's life yet again, but possibly Zetzu's as well."

The Prince in question walked slower than usual through the corridors of the ship, replaying the Shaman's warning that the memories Aelita repressed and the brothers capitalized on may not always stay hidden.

"You're playing a dangerous game, boy."

Zetzu knew that, but the game of thrones had never won without taking a few risks. Still, Aelita was a risk he didn't always enjoy taking, no matter what the voices in his head may argue, but once they had built the world that he envisioned, one where all the parts of him could thrive, he swore he'd make it up to her. He had that thought in mind as he neared her room, but his blood chilled at the sound of a siren's song humming down the hall.

He had left Aelita alone, but she wasn't alone any longer.

Meeting the Princess and her words head-on, Aelita understood the implication behind them.

If she didn't comply, if the Avatar wasn't truly gone, then Zuko would be as good as dead. While she understood that much, she wasn't sure where the younger Prince managed to fit into the equation.

Azula could see the confusion written on the Akira's face. "Do you remember that giant, fumbling drill you and your old friends managed to stop before it ever made its way inside of Ba Sing Se?" She asked her old rival. Aelita nodded wordlessly. "That horrible idea was Zetzu's, and it wasn't a simple one at that. It cost valuable Fire Nation time and resources, and after being so dreadfully disappointing for so many years, I'm afraid that my father's patience with him is wearing thin. You see, his task to be sent out with me to capture Zuko and our uncle was a test of sorts, one he was failing greater and greater each and every time you bested him. I guess I should be grateful you only bested me once," The palms of Azula's hands continued to rise in temperature despite her smile, the first layers of Aelita's skin beginning to singe slowly. "But, it's been Zetzu that's been advocating for your own life and freedom. Oddly enough, Zuzu has remained rather silent on the matter, but that's neither here nor there. When you bend the knee to our father, you'll prove that both my darling brothers aren't complete and total disgraces."

"And if I don't bend?"

The words spoken inside Aelita's room were said too quietly for Zetzu to distinguish but he recognized the familiar infuriating hum of his sister's voice. And of course, she locked the fucking door. "Dammit, Azula!" He shouted, pounding a fist on the door and reaching into his robes for the key. "Leave her alone!"

The Princess's palms scorched, definitive finger-shaped marks now sure to be printed onto Aelita's skin. "Then at least the three of you can die together."

Azula dropped her grip and rose to her feet, reaching for the discarded dress just as Zetzu burst into the room. "Brother!" She chided, a complete switch from the sickenly-sweet threats she had spewed just heartbeats before. "Honestly, what kind of barbarian just blunders his way into a lady's room like this? Did all those years away from the palace really make you so uncivilized?"

The Prince was too focused on his sister to notice Aelita pull the sleeve of her borrowed tunic down over her angry skin, Mushu seeming to follow her lead as he plopped himself down on her thigh in front of the injured hand, eyes locked on the two he didn't trust.

"Fuck off," Zetzu snapped, voice loud and booming, "I thought I told you not to-"

"I thought I told you, brother, that you do not command me!" Azula shot back, her volume and tone matching the Prince's.

Zuko could hear the fighting between his siblings well before he saw it. His intention had been to find Zetzu and get him alone before they made it back home, but he followed the shouting through the corridor and found himself standing in the doorway to Aelita's room, the Akira sat in stunned silence, any sign of life drained from her face as the two teens bickered before her.

It was only a matter of time until someone else heard the commotion and came sticking their noses where they didn't belong.

"Enough!" Zuko bellowed, stepping in the middle of his brother and sister, his shoulders pointed towards Aelita as if he almost didn't trust Azula to turn on her just for fun. "Do you want the whole ship to know how messed up our family is?" He asked as his eyes darted between the two royals.

"Then tell your brother here to mind his own business," Azula huffed. "Aelita and I are busy."

"Yeah, seems like it." Zuko rolled his eyes, finally looking toward the still quiet firebender in the corner, his gaze much like Zetzu's looking for any signs of their sisters' abuse. "Are you alright?"

The question was loaded, especially coming from Zuko, the air between them still thick with the tension of the night before.

It was almost funny to Aelita. They were far past giving a damn about one another anymore.

Still, she could handle the physical pain after the laundry list of blows she had been dealt before, but the Princess had managed to get her point across in their short time together. If Aelita so much as breathed a trace of ill will or rebellion, the heads of both Princes' would lay at her feet, two additions to her already too-high body count.

For a fleeting moment, Aelita wondered if that was such a bad thing given her current circumstances, but when she met the boys' stares she realized just how far she had fallen. This was already her rock bottom, and she didn't think she could let herself slip any further if she tried, but Azula had managed to prove her wrong. The threat of more blood on her hands was enough to keep Aelita compliant, at least for now.

"I'm alright, my Prince." The Akira lied, any of the typical joy or even venom and snark Zuko had grown used to gone from her voice, the emotion instead replaced with the forced formality she had adopted with him during her initial months of servitude to his family, that faint little 'my' a final slap in his face. She gestured to the gown in Azula's hand. "The Princess was just kind enough to offer her assistance in helping me dress and pin my hair before our arrival in the Capital. These things are terribly dreadful to do on your own."

Zetzu and Zuko both wanted nothing more than to call bullshit, but when the younger of the two started to object the older cut him off, his own voice dull and monotone. "How kind," He replied, Azula's grin triumphant. "Leave the girls to their fuss, we'll be home by dusk." He said, the subtlest warning he could give Aelita before turning away from her and reminding himself that she had proven time and time again that she didn't need him taking care of her. He didn't stop as he headed back out the door, grabbing his twin's hand to drag him out behind him, his grip on Zetzu tight in silent caution to not add any more fuel to their sister's fire.

Zetzu glared at Azula a final time, a dare to try anything and see what may happen before stealing a parting look at the girl he felt he was tossing to the wolf-bats before he had even had a chance to satiate their hunger first.

"I never thought I'd see the day you'd take my side over Zuzu's," Azula admitted as the door to Aelita's chambers slammed shut, turning on the Akira like a predator toying with its prey. "How very touching."

The Princess laughed, rather proud of herself and the seeds of discord she had managed to plant so easily.

Azula laughed and spirits, it was like looking at a copy of Ozai himself, even if the Princess did carry some of her mother's features. Cruel, manipulative, calculated, and deadly. Azula was everything the world feared the Fire Nation to be, and knowing that stirred something inside the Akira's belly.

A curiosity about what could be.

A motivation to finish what she had started.

Fuck, maybe she was as terrible as Zetzu had claimed.

Chapter Text

Booming thunder and lightning-scarred skies signaled the return of the children of Ozai to the Capital City, with none other than the Butcher of Ba Sing Se in tow.

Zetzu was certain his sister would've managed to let Aelita's newest moniker slip by now because that would be so very like her. The Prince leaned against the wall in his brother's quarters, arms crossed over his chest and glowering at the thought. Spirits, he hated his siblings.

Zuko could see the expression written across his twin's reflection in the mirror he stood before. "If looks could kill," He muttered as he shrugged his first layer over his bare chest, a deep red long-sleeved top that matched the pants he wore, Zetzu already dressed in a finer uniform than either had ever been permitted to wear before. His brother rolled his eyes at him. "There's never been a time that Aelita hasn't figured out a way to deal with Azula, she'll be alright."

"Things are different now," Zetzu argued. "She's different now, Zuko, they both are."

"You think I don't know that?" The elder asked with a raised brow, not bothering to turn and face the younger head-on. "Azula's only gotten smarter while we've been gone, and if we try to block her out completely, she'll just take it as further proof that we have something to hide. We have to give her a little."

"But what happens if we give her the bit and she takes the lot, hmm?" Zetzu asked, annoyance rising. "Then what?"

"She won't," Zuko told him, reaching for his black outermost layer. "Aelita won't let her."

He tugged the garment trimmed in gold over his head, the embellishment of it to laying across his chest and shoulders, a matching pair with the boots on his feet. It was one of the few ensembles all three siblings shared. When they wore them, the only details that would give away the fact the twins were any different from their sister were the markings on their faces, a tattoo on one, and a scar on the other.

"I've followed your lead up until now, Zetzu, I've stayed away because you said you knew what you were doing with her but I'm telling you now," Zuko said to his brother, "If you smother her too much, treat her like some fragile thing incapable of taking care of herself, it will only push her away."

"You would know, wouldn't you?" The younger twin scoffed. "Is that why she was so willing to leave you behind? Did you smother her Zuko? It seems so very like you, you were always up her ass as kids after all."

Zuko finally turned to face his brother, jaw set, disbelief in his eyes. "What's gotten into you?"

Lightning danced just beyond the elder twins' window while each stared at the other in tense silence. It was Zetzu who looked away first, a deep sigh off his lips as he rubbed the back of his neck, hair already pinned in a knot on top of his head. "I'm sorry. I guess I'm a little on edge."

Zuko's annoyance lowered but didn't disappear. "We both are, but being at each other's throats won't do anyone any good."

"It would do Azula plenty I'm sure," Zetzu scoffed. He crossed the space to his brother and motioned for the elder to turn around. Zuko watched him through the mirror as the combustionbender began to thread the lacing behind his neck. "I don't trust her."

Zuko took in his brother's admission, and after a moment admitted, "Neither do I."

"What about me, brother?" Zetzu asked, eyes drifting up to meet his twins in the mirror while his fingers worked. "Do you trust me?"

Zuko didn't hesitate to answer. "More than I trust Azula."

He meant it too. The Zetzu that stood here today was far different than the one Zuko had grown up with, and he was still trying to determine if that was for better or for worse.

To his relief, Zetzu chuckled. "I suppose I deserve that," The younger said as tied the lacing into a final knot and tucked the ends beneath his brother's lapel. But then the smile on his face faded, and the boy was suddenly somber. "Mom always swore that we were inseparable from the time we were born until the time we were old enough to notice how different the rest of our family treated us. I think we broke her heart a little."

And just like that, Zuko's hesitation was replaced with guilt and the knowing that as much as he had always tried to blame his brother's solitude on anyone but himself, he had played just as big of a role in Zetzu's ostracization as the rest of his family. "I know," He sighed. "I think that it was one of the things she and Aelita bonded over. They were always trying to force us together."

It was certainly one of the reasons Zetzu had latched on to Akira so fiercely. As a boy, he had needed his mother but as a man, a Prince, he needed Aelita. He smiled at the thought. "Pushy damn women."

Lighting flashed once more outside the ship, illuminating the bay and the long-since dormant volcano that lay beyond, the Imperial City in its now sealed crater, the Royal Palace at its heart. It had been three long years since Zuko had seen this view.

"Brother," Zetzu spoke to his twin's reflection, Zuko's back still to him. "If all goes according to plan, there is a very strong possibility that our father may still wish to marry Aelita into our family." He explained, and Zuko knew he was right. Honestly, Ozai would be a fool not to. What better way to ensure the Akira's unyielding loyalty to the Royal Family than to trap her as the mother of its heirs? "If he offers you the opportunity for her hand, would you still take it?"

Zuko couldn't hold his brother's eye. "I don't know."

Zetzu nodded, pleased with the answer. "And if she refuses to bend the knee and he tasks you with being the one to bring her down, could you?"

The elder twin turned slowly to face the younger, jaw set. "Are you asking what I think you are?"

"If you could kill her if our father asked you to? Yes, I am," Zetzu answered. "Because despite our best efforts, that could very well be a possibility, and you know as well as I do if we left Aelita's final moments up to our father or Azula, she would suffer. I know she has wronged you brother, wronged you greatly, but if it was demanded of you, could you kill her?"

Zuko had only ever allowed himself to think of Aelita's death once before. Back then they had been sat on the banks of an Earth Kingdom river, arguing over who needed to die and why it couldn't be her. He had begged her to run away with him then, had considered giving everything up just to keep her safe.

But that was then, and this was now, and a short lifetime's worth of regret had happened between the two. If he were half the man his father wanted him to be, the answer would've been an easy yes, but despite it all, Zuko was still his mother's child, no matter how he broke his heart.

Zetzu was grinning to himself before his brother even answered.

"No."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

The brewing storm cut the journey into town short, the sky rapidly turning blacker than night by late afternoon. Katara didn't bother knocking on the Avatar's door when they made it back to the ship, she couldn't handle him shutting her out twice in one day. She held onto the bowl of stir-fried vegetables and noodles with one hand as she stepped inside, candles still burning brightly now in the pale moonlight, the space silent. "I brought you some food!" She called as she stepped over the threshold, but her heart dropped when she found the room empty. The bowl shattered when it hit the floor. "Oh no..."

Katara panicked. She couldn't get the image of Aang's broken body plummeting toward the earth out of her head. She couldn't forget the way Aelita's blood acted as such a sharp contrast to her pale skin. She saw Murata unmoving on the ground every time she closed her eyes.

Katara ran through the halls of the ship, desperate to save Aang, her friends' spirits knew where. She found her Dad first talking with Bato outside of the bridge. She wasn't sure if she wanted to hug him and beg him to bring Aang back or if she wanted to scream at him for the way she had been feeling ever since they had been reunited.

Bato took one look at the young waterbenders face and knew he was interrupting something he shouldn't. "I'll leave you two alone," he said to his friend, slipping back inside the control room.

Hakoda kept his voice steady as he gave his full attention to his girl. "What's wrong, Katara?"

"He left."

The Chief blinked back his confusion. "What?"

"Aang!" Katara snapped without the usual venom she had taken up using with her father. "He just took his glider and disappeared. He has this ridiculous notion that he has to save the world alone, that it's all his responsibility."

Hakoda tried to not read into his daughter's words. "Maybe that's his way of being brave."

"It's not brave, it's selfish and stupid!" She argued, tears pooling behind her ocean eyes, a dam that was threatening to break. "We could be helping him and I know the world needs him, but doesn't he know how much we need him, too?" The first tear rolled down her face as she met her father's gaze. "How can he just leave us behind?"

Every bit of his daughter's behavior over the last three weeks suddenly made sense to the Chief. "You're talking about me too, aren't you?"

Katara didn't hesitate. "How could you leave us, Dad?" She asked as she tried feebly to wipe away her tears. "I mean, I know we had Gran-Gran, and she loved us, but we were just so lost without you."

Hakoda reached out to his little girl and pulled her into his arms, her head reaching higher on him than it ever had before, his youngest but still so grown. "I'm so sorry, Katara."

Katara hugged him back as her self-control shattered, and he rubbed her back as she sobbed. "I understand why you left." She said. "I really do, and I know that you had to go, so why do I still feel this way?" She questioned as she finally pulled away. She hated that she felt so bitter when she knew her dad was trying to stop the Fire Nation from destroying any more families the way it had destroyed theirs. She hated that she was wasting every chance she had to just enjoy being with him again after too many years apart. She hated that Aang was gone. She hated that Aelita wasn't coming back. She hated more than she had ever hated before in her life. "I'm so sad and angry and hurt!"

And still, Hakoda didn't fault her for it.

"I love you more than anything." He told Katara, pulling her back in a final time so she wouldn't see his own tears. The years away from her and Sokka had nearly killed him. "You and your brother are my entire world. I thought about you every day when I was gone and every night when I went to sleep, I would lie awake missing you so much it would ache."

For a while, father and daughter simply stood wrapped in one other's embrace as the world raged around them. From the shadows, Sokka watched his dad and his sister with a bittersweet smile on his face. They had needed this moment, even if the warrior wished it had happened for a different reason.

Kyojuro and Toph were already busy packing what they could into Appa's saddle. Bato had passed the trio by chance, and when he explained Katara's current state it hadn't taken them long to piece together the fact that Aang had taken off. There wasn't any hesitation in their decision to go after him, because even with all the odds in the world stacked against them, they'd face the Fire Lord head-on, and they'd do it together, just like they had since the day Katara had pulled Aang out of the ice.

Knowing that they'd have their dad to support them only made Sokka all the more determined and confident, but he couldn't shake the voice inside his head whispered without Aelita here they had already lost.

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

The children of Ozai met one final time before their debarkation, tucked away safely from spying eyes and listening ears in the younger of the two Princes' rooms, all three awaiting the fate of the Akira down the hall.

It had been Azula's idea to meet, something either twin had been weary of. She had already made herself comfortable sitting on the edge of her brother's bed by the time they arrived, dressed to match them, face painted lightly with coal around her eyes and some color to her lips, a nightmare disguised as a daydream.

Both boys tried to mask their tension as they stepped into the room and waited to hear what exactly it was they had called their sister here for.

"Now, now, dear brothers," Azula purred. "Don't look so tense, this is a joyous occasion."

"One we're ready to get started with, sister," Zetzu hummed back, the picture of poise despite the way he felt inside. "So please, tell us what was so important we couldn't be on our way yet?"

"I just thought you'd like to read our Dad's response to the letter I sent him this afternoon," She said, sounding utterly bored despite how far from calm she had been mere moments ago when she had first received the note herself. "It's always so impressive just how fast a messenger hawk can fly."

"You wrote to him?" Zuko asked, certain he was failing at keeping his face even.

"Of course," Azula waved off the question as if it should've been known. "Do you really think our Father would send his daughter out into the big, awful world without keeping up with her?"

Her choice of words rang loud and clear to both twins. Ozai's daughter, not his sons, not the boys he had dismissed all those years ago without so much of a word until recently.

"Come to think of it ZuZu, you're the only one that hasn't heard from Father recently. Our brother here has started to write Father nearly as much as I do. Has Zetzu not mentioned it?" Azula questioned, a hand over her heart in feigned surprise.

"No," Zuko spoke, voice cool with a sidelong glance to his twin. "It must've slipped his mind."

Zetzu silently cursed his little sister. "I was just keeping the Fire Lord up to date on the status of his special guest. Up until today, she was near exclusively in my care, remember?" The Prince quizzed back, repeating the same excuse he had been feeding his brother from the beginning on all matters that involved Aelita. "Didn't want Dad to question where your loyalty lay."

"A wise decision, truly," Azula complimented. "Whether he admitted it to Zetzu or not, Father was still skeptical of what seemed to be such a sudden change in dedication for the Akira, but luckily for our dear friend across the hallway, I believe I may have helped him see Aelita and his sons have always been fiercely loyal."

The Princess pulled out the scroll she had kept tucked behind her and handed it to her eldest brother. The Prince unrolled the scroll and began to read, Zetzu behind him, eyes scanning the words from over his twin's shoulder.

"I'm pleased to hear your brothers are acting in a way that befits their positions. As for the girl, it seems you knew her better than I ever did, Princess. Send her to me immediately upon arrival. Alone."

Zetzu was fighting desperately not to see red. He had counted on Azula dismissing their claims, had planned to do anything in his power to paint her the liar, thought that he had already countered her hand so standing here now, seeing her play a different role than he had expected had his entire being on edge.

"What did you tell him?" He seethed, ripping the letter from Zuko's hands. "What did you do?"

"What's wrong?" Azula asked, the picture of sisterly concern as she rose to meet her brother's eye.

"I think," Zuko interrupted, coming to stand between his siblings while trying to think on his feet of the right lie to cover both their asses. "That we just assumed Dad might want to see us sooner. Thought he'd want to hear from us directly. He's only seen Zetzu once since he sent him away, and I haven't seen him at all in three years, not since I was banished."

Zetzu allowed his brother to take the lead knowing if he spoke now he'd likely have to strike Azula down where she stood just to give a single one of them a chance.

"So what?" The Princess asked.

"So, I didn't exactly do what he wanted me to," Zuko continued, the worry not completely fabricated. "I didn't capture the Avatar, and I'm not sure what Father expected of Zetzu," he gestured towards himself, "but it doesn't sound like it was this."

"Who cares? None of us did exactly what Dad sent us out to do, but we all did one better," Azula shrugged off the concern that might've been genuine, might have been bullshit. "I brought down Ba Sing Se," she pointed to herself before lazily flicking her wrist toward her youngest brother. "Zetzu brought back a substance that could very well alter the future of our world, and you Zuko," She reached out to grasp the Prince by his shoulders, looking up at him reassuringly. "The Avatar is dead, and you brought home the next best thing, the very person that even our great-grandfather failed to secure. Unless," She trailed off, dropping her grip and stepping back to watch for any signs of distress, "You think Aelita failed, and the Avatar somehow miraculously survived?"

"No," Zuko firmly objected before his brother could, his twin's tension so heavy it was nearly physically tangible. "She's strong in a way he never was. There's no way the Avatar could've survived."

"Well then," Azula hummed happily. "I'm sure you have nothing to worry about."

"You never answered my question," Zetzu shouldered past his brother, unwilling to send himself or Aelita into the situation completely blind. "What did you tell him?"

"Oh don't be so paranoid, brother," Azula's cheerful demeanor faded. She brushed by her brothers and pushed open the balcony's doors. The Princess stepped out into the cool evening air and leaned against the rail on folded arms, eyes glazed over while she stared off into the harbor beyond as if she were looking directly into the past itself. "There's no denying that Aelita and I were never exactly friends, but at the very least I had Mai and Ty Lee, and my life would've been a lot lonelier without them. You two, on the other hand, only ever seemed to have her." She explained as if her statement were the most obvious thing, a trace of genuine concern in her words that was rarely seen. When lightning lit the distant sky, she finally turned to face her brothers once more. "I'm not sure what I would do without my friends, because no matter how monstrous you may think I am, I do care about them, and despite your best efforts to hide it, it's obvious you both still care about Aelita Kenshin."

The brothers stole a glance at one another but neither found they could hold the other's eye. They had only discussed their feelings regarding the Akira once since the fall of Ba Sing Se, but it had been brief and largely surface-level.

"She clearly still cares for you both as well, no matter how upset she may seem to be right now. She's always cared, even before the betrothal, and even after her father's death. I simply reminded our father of that. I figured if I gave you two the credit you deserved for helping her to remember what's truly the most important to her, and reminded our Father of her proven loyalty, then you'd have nothing to worry about."

"But why?" Zetzu demanded quietly, the last thread of his self-control threatening to break.

Azula scoffed and rolled her eyes, stepping back into the room. "Remind me to never waste my breath on sentimentality with you again. Call it a generous gesture, brother. I wanted to thank the two of you for your help and ensure your happiness. After all, Mother always did teach us it was best to share the glory."

The casual mention of their mom was enough to make Zetzu snap. "You're lying!"

"Zetzu!" Zuko caught his brother by the wrist, his twin ready to stalk towards their sister and effectively sign Aelita's death sentence. "You're being irrational. Calm down."

Zetzu's hated to be told to calm down nearly as much as he hated being invalidated. "Believe her if you want," He snapped, jerking free of Zuko's grasp to glare with all three eyes, his back to Azula. "She has another motive for doing this, I just haven't figured out what it is."

"Please Zetzu, what ulterior motive could I have? What could I possibly gain by letting little Aelita have all the glory for defeating the Avatar?" Unafraid of her brother's outburst she crept behind him, jerking him back by his shoulders just far enough away from the eldest Prince that he couldn't discern her words as she spoke softly in the younger's ear. "Unless, unlike ZuZu, you do worry that somehow the Avatar is alive. Then, all that glory would suddenly turn to shame and deception, and little old Zetzu might be left all alone all over again. Tell me, brother, would you be here to save her this time, or will you leave it up to Zuko again?"

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Aang hadn't been thinking when he left without Appa or the rest of his friends, just barely staying airborne on his glider with a Fire Nation robe draped over his shoulders. All he knew was that he couldn't bare to see this war hurt anyone else, so he set off with one of the maps he had managed to find on board, ready at that moment to face Ozai head-on.

The rain started not long after he snuck away, the thick and heavy drops combined with the darkness of the night making his journey hard but still, he pressed on. He flew and flew, weighed down by the pain of his guilt and haunted by the sound of a laugh he'd never hear again. He kicked himself in the ass every day he took Aelita for granted as he sailed above the churning sea.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been in the air, his body already weak from the exertion, but he assumed he had to be getting close to Fire Nation shores when he came upon a long blockade of sleek ships. The chances of him being able to fly overhead without being noticed were slim to none, so he sucked in a deep breath and snapped his glider shut, holding it tightly as he dove beneath the water.

Aang kicked his feet hard and was relieved to find he could still waterbend, not having tested himself since waking up the other day. He kicked up a current and surged forward, not surfacing until his lung screamed inside his chest. He had to keep going, had to do this.

But there was no denying the fatigue he felt when he finally emerged, the Fire Nation blockade behind him. He tried desperately to catch his breath and tread water at the same time, relieved to find a chunk of bark had managed to find its way this far out. He clung to the floating wood until he could find the strength to move, swaying on the waves that seemed to get angrier and angrier with each passing moment.

Aelita would tell him he was being a fool if she were here, and that would've been her way of phrasing it nicely, but she wasn't here, no matter how badly he needed her.

That thought pushed him to haul himself up onto the bark and stand, flicking his glider open to act like a sail as he surfed the choppy sea, riding the unpredictable waves. Aang had managed to make it some way but not far enough yet when the storm around him picked up. The ocean seethed, and the water tossed Aang off of the makeshift raft he had made and took his staff as a prize. Back in the churning depths, the monk struggled to stay above water, flailing for the wood to keep him afloat. He let out a scream of both fear and frustration as a second wave overcame him, dragging him down once more. By some small mercy, he resurfaced next to the bark, clinging onto it now to keep him above the water, but he was damn sure that this was finally going to be his end.

Aang quit struggling as the ocean bellowed around him. "I'm not gonna make it." He sighed, his eyes drifting shut. "I hope you'll forgive me one day, Aelita. I failed."

"You haven't failed, Aang."

The Avatar's eyes shot open at the sound of a woman's voice. The water around him had stilled, and looking down upon him was the concerned face of Akira Tulan, the spirit of her standing atop the ocean. The sight of his best friend's past life nearly broke him, but he said a silent prayer that the visit came from her and not Aelita's spirit itself.

He wasn't sure he'd ever be able to face Aelita like this. It would make it all too real.

"Everyone thinks I'm dead again," Aang told the spirit. "They think I've abandoned them. I'm losing the war, and I lost..." His voice trailed off, unable to say the words out loud as he looked away from the Akira. "I'm letting the whole world down."

Tulan shook her head in shame and disagreement, "If anyone is to blame for the state of the world, it is me. Roku tries to shoulder this weight on his own, but if anyone should have truly seen this war coming and prevented it, it was me. You inherited our problems, and young Aelita my mistakes, but I believe the two of you are destined to redeem us and save the world."

Akira Aelita had already redeemed the whole damn Fire Nation tenfold, Aang would never hear a word otherwise from anyone, but life had proven that he still had a world of humble learning to go before he was ready to save anyone. "I don't know." He admitted, half tempted to let the ocean waters wash him away forever.

"You've already saved the world," A different voice spoke, and the monk wondered if he were dreaming. Staring down at him in a reflection of pale moonlight was the ethereal figure of Princess Yue. Forever as young as the day she died, the spirit of the moon smiled softly at her old friend, her face kind and soft and full of understanding. "You'll save the world again, and you won't do it alone."

"But I-" Aang started only to be interrupted by the Akira.

"Have never truly been alone," She told him. "Nor will you ever be, but you cannot give up Avatar Aang."

Something about the woman's words and her sincerity stoked a fire deep inside of Aang, one somedays he swore only burned because Aelita herself had cared for the flame. It was still there, burning dimly, and the monk knew it would be an insult to his friend's memory. "You're right. I won't give up."

Wasting no further time the Avatar hauled himself up to stand on the driftwood he clung to, willing every ounce of strength he had left in him to churn the swells of the ocean into a unified wave, propelling him forward towards the Fire Nation and his future.

But in his broken-hearted state, Aang failed to hear the implication behind both spirits' words. Neither would just come out and tell him. As their images faded into the night and the world that existed somewhere beyond, they knew that they couldn't.

Just as they had for a hundred lifetimes before, the Avatar and Akira were destined to find one another on their own once more.

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

It had been raining the last time Aelita sailed in this harbor, so it only felt fitting to watch lightning decorate the sky just beyond her window. She had been trussed up in bandages then, wrapped tightly from fingertip to forearm on both sides. The scars had faded some over time but she marred herself for the rest of her life for someone who couldn't care if she lived or died.

But now the bandages of her past had been replaced by a gown, one simple but elegant, and Aelita was willing to bet she knew exactly why this was the dress that Azula insisted she wear.

The daughter of the late Sukomo Kenshin looked utterly unassuming and eerily similar to the woman who had once been destined to be her mother-in-law. It felt like an insult to Ursa's memory, the wife of the Fire Lord kind and pure and good in a way that Aelita was sure she had never once been. It made her skin crawl when she looked in the mirror, so she broke the mirror instead.

Aelita didn't feel the glass sticking out of her skin as she cradled her hand in her lap, Mushu flittering around her as she stared out the window. There was no running now, not unless she wanted to damn the sons of Ozai.

She wouldn't deny the thought was just the slightest bit temping, but the General's child had learned long ago to ignore temptation. Aelita would only end up regretting it if she didn't, and she didn't see the point in hating herself even more.

Besides, how likely would she be to ever get the chance to come face to face with the Fire Lord again if she ran? That thought kept her grounded even as a soft knock echoed through her room and the youngest son of Ozai stepped through her door.

He stepped into the room, and he was sure his heart stopped beating when he saw her sitting there, the same picture of elegant grace that his mother had once been.

Had there been the same lingering sadness behind his mother's eyes too? Some part of Zetzu thought there had been, but if so, she had hidden from her children well. He only hoped one day Aelita wouldn't have any of the same sadness to hide.

The trance she seemed to hold over him was broken when he noticed the blood. "What happened?" He asked as he crossed the space to kneel before her, gently pulling her bleeding hand into his own.

Mushu was none too thrilled with the sudden movement, and Aelita was certain keeping him from sinking his teeth into a member of the royal family would be her main source of exercise and entertainment if they weren't both executed on the spot. She didn't bother answering the Prince, but the shattered mirror opposite her wardrobe told the story well enough for her.

Zetzu sighed when he saw the broken glass sticking out from between the Akira's knuckles, her gown mercifully the same color as the blood that stained her. "Azula?" He asked, already convinced it had been his sister who had pushed Aelita this far.

She understood his implication, and somehow her answer only made things worse. "Me."

The Prince cursed softly beneath his breath. "Let's get you cleaned up, okay?" He questioned her softly. "You'll have an audience with our Father tonight, and you need to be ready to face him alone."

Aelita chose to ignore the comment. "You know if you brought me a glass of water, I could heal myself. There wouldn't even be a scar."

Zetzu had to admire her for trying. He smiled as he plucked free the first shard from her skin, the girl unflinching. "There won't be a scar now, and even if there was, it wouldn't change how beautiful you are."

"But you've only seen a little bit of what I can do now. Let me show you."

The Prince chuckled. "While I'm glad you're excited to share all the parts of yourself with me, you know as well as I do that you'll be expected to walk into that palace without the use of your bending."

Aelita had been hoping she could convince Zetzu otherwise. "So it'll be easier for the Fire Lord to kill me if he wants to? So I can't defend myself?"

Zetzu couldn't deny there was a part of him that held that same worry.

"He won't hurt you, Aelita," The Prince snapped just slightly, jerking out the glass he held between his fingers. The tear in her skin split wider at the sudden force. "Dammit!" Zetzu hissed at the sight of her blood, and then he sighed, hanging his head in silence. A moment later he lifted his eyes to meet hers as he brought her hand to his lips, never once dropping her stare as he kissed away the blood.

Aelita was nearly sick, not even at the act itself and maybe it was a sign of just how far she had fallen herself but rather the who and why and how she had landed herself in the middle of such a mess was what made her stomach lurch.

"I'm sorry," Zetzu apologized, lips tinged red as he brought her hand to lay against his pounding heart. "I will admit that I never planned to send you before my Father alone but even I can only interfere so much without putting everything I hope for on the line. Everything I have planned for me and for us is riding on this moment so please, trust me and believe that you'll be okay, and I promise you that one day everything will change for the better."

Aelita looked at the Prince, truly looked at him, and swore she saw the faintest trace of desperation behind his eyes. It piqued a curiosity in her.

In the corner of the room, a ghostly version of herself grinned while another man's blood pooled at her feet.

"Okay." She answered easily.

The seventeen-year-old grinned up at her. "Okay?"

"Okay." She repeated.

It was enough for him. Zetzu cleaned the little wounds on her hand and held her close as he tipped an all too familiar vile down her throat, watching as her amber eyes flashed a blinding blue before the light shining in them faded away. He had truly debated on telling her to lie, having Aelita pretend to feel the effects of the poison, confident they had begun to build a solid enough foundation of trust between them for her to do so, but the voices ringing in his ears had spoken louder.

"She'll run."

"She hates us."

"She'll never stay."

"No one does."

"Just honest enough," The Prince kept repeating as a reminder for her and a method to drown out the voices for him. "If you try to tell him you suddenly believe in all the bullshit they prattled off to us in school, our Father will never believe you. Remember why you're here, remember what motivates you."

"Your brother. I killed the Avatar because he threatened the Prince, and I have always loved your brother enough to protect him." The Akira parrotted, noticing the way the combustionbender nearly flinched when she said the words out loud.

A single knock echoed off her door, a sign from Zuko that his twin couldn't stall anymore, and the sound quickly drained the small bit of happiness from Aelita's face. "It's time," The Prince sighed as he offered Aelita his arm.

"No shackles?" She asked with one brow raised.

"No shackles," The Prince shook his head. By the time he opened the door, the hallway was empty, and the bender staring back at him was none the wiser to who had come calling. "Your cooperation is key, Akira Aelita."

For only the second time in three weeks, the silver-haired teen was led out of the room which had helped contribute to the breakdown of her already fragile mental state. Aelita could only wonder if she was trading one cell for another as she walked through the halls of the ship, this time on the arm of the prince who had once been too terrified to so much as carry out a full conversation with her. They turn after turn, Zetzu the perfect gentleman as he offered her his hand with each set of steps they came to, not another soul in sight until they stepped into the cool evening air of the harbor docks.

It had been so long since Aelita had been outside and under real light that even with the moon hidden behind the rumbling clouds, the glow of the night hurt her eyes. She shut them involuntarily and the. blinked slowly until they could finally adjust, more and more of the terrible scene before her coming into view.

A crowd had gathered in the Royal Plaza.

Situated just beyond the docks was the only way in or out of the distant cities by sea. Meant to serve as both a natural checkpoint and a testament to the Fire Nation's strength and fortitude, the Plaza was carved into the earth itself, cutting through the land from sea to the plains at the base of the volcano. Built tall and lined with numerous battlements that boasted a clear line of sight and some of their engineers' finest weapons, it was one of the most heavily guarded locations upon any of the islands that made up their country, and thus so it served as the ideal spot to host the varying political nuances of Fire Lords' past and present.

From where she stood Aelita couldn't make out the faces that lined the Plaza, but she figured that may be for the best. Closer than the civilians stood the Royal Procession, or the Imperial Firebenders as the noblemen better knew them. Some of the nation's most skilled and elite firebenders were hand-picked to serve as personal and ceremonial guards for members of the Royal Family. Neither Zetzu nor Zuko had been granted their protection when they were sent away. It had been years since Aelita last saw their three-headed helmets or uniforms of solid red.

They had been the ones to come for her the day her father died, and now here they stood again, lining the walk that could very well be here last.

Worst of all were the four familiar faces that waited on the other side of the Procession.

Aelita's old-school friends were both dressed in what could only be considered casual in the Capital. Fabrics that cost more than what most commoners paid in taxes wrapped around them in shades of red and gold and white. Impressive enough to be seen wearing in public, simple enough for the two to retire to their respective family homes before being honored for their role in the Earth Kingdom's occupation at a later time, Mai's family still in Omashu and Ty Lee's family off doing spirits knows what at their larger country estate.

They watched Aelita with wide eyes, and Aelita watched back as Lee absentmindedly reached for Mai's hand to hold on to.

Still, Zuko seemed the most surprised of all, looking at the Akira as if she were a ghost determined to haunt his every move. Dressed so much like his mother, he wasn't sure that wasn't the exact truth of the matter. Holy shit.

Azula watched her brother more than she watched Aelita. She was still infuriated to no end that their Father would dare to visit with anyone before her, the person she thought he trusted most, but the pained expressions on her brothers' faces made the sting of it hurt just a little less.

To Zetzu's surprise and pleasure, Aelita did not bend or break or balk. Seeing his brother, watching as he was forced to accept their new reality snapped something inside of her. She met his stare, the others temporarily forgotten, and it was the heir to the throne that looked away first.

Good, she thought, he should cower from her. Aelita would live just to spite him if she had to.

"You're doing wonderful," Zetzu praised the Akira softly. He took a small step forward and was relieved when she followed. Just past the group of teens were a trio of grand carriages pulled by a single dragon moose each. "The taller you stand, the harder it is for them to knock you in the dirt."

Aelita supposed the Prince spoke from personal experience. Her grip on him tightened a little more with each step, another small joy for him. There were no thoughts inside her head because she didn't trust herself to think as they walked past the other royals and noble children without stopping, Zetzu leading her to the first carriage as the first drops of rain began to spill from the sky. Azula had already determined she had had enough standing around waiting and promptly tucked herself into the one second in line.

Zuko didn't move. He had refused to look her way as Aelita passed by, he couldn't, but he did watch as she walked away, clinging onto his brother like a lifeline. It was only his pride that stopped him from chasing after, from ripping her away from Zetzu and tucking her into the safety of his embrace instead, not realizing just how desperately a part of him still ached for the life he had always imagined they'd have when they returned home together. But his pride and his broken heart reminded him Aelita had never truly wanted the things he had wanted, and even if she had ever wanted him, she had seemed to want a blue-eyed peasant more.

Zuko wondered what Katara had told her brother when she and the lavabender had fled the Crystal Catacombs with only the body of the Avatar in her arms. Aelita's friends had gone into hiding that night and all had remained quiet thus far. Zetzu was willing to bet that the broken and beaten group had retreated back to the safety of the North Pole or the seclusion in the South, the Prince of the Earth Kingdom unable to rally any support when the vast majority of his people doubted his existence.

His brother disagreed. He had borne witness to just how fiercely the Akira's new family loved her, her peasant included. The day that word finally made it to Sokka that Aelita was alive, Zuko knew that no matter where he was in the world, he would come for her. He knew this because there had been a time he would've done the same thing.

Aelita and Zetzu stopped at the lead carriage and Zuko watched as the younger Prince promptly decided for her that the gown that was too big on her thinner-than-usual frame would only be difficult to manage on steps in the rain. Without hesitating, his brother wrapped his hands around Aelita's waist, the touch too intimate and familiar from where he stood, and lifted her inside without so much as a fight from her.

Zetzu smiled at the girl as the door to the carriage behind them slammed shut. "Welcome home, Princess."

Aelita didn't bother pointing out that she was likely far from royalty than she had ever been, too distracted by the sights and scenes. The journey to the Palace wasn't a quick one. The Plaza gave way at its end to Harbor City, the home to the bulk of the capital's population, namely commoners. The sprawling settlement extended to the hills that rolled around the volcanic mountain, full of residential and industrial districts. It was the very city Sukomo Kenshin had first moved his daughter to following the death of her mother. It was almost ironic that Aelita couldn't remember all that had happened to her in the last year, but she still could recall where in the city that first little one-room square house lay, and it had been nearly a decade since she had stepped foot inside of it. Her father was promoted to General and given a spot on Fire Lord Azulon's War Council as she hit school age, and the Kenshin family moved from the base of the volcano to the city in its crater.

Hari Bulkan as they had called it in the old language, better known now as Royal Caldera City. Opulent in every way, the streets well-lit and well-paved, the buildings taller than they were wide due to the limited space of the city's constraints inside the crater. Home to many of the Fire Nation's wealthiest and most important noblemen, government officials, and military officers, the city was thought to be the safest place in the entire country, the only road up the volcano side steep and switchbacked and dotted with several watchtowers. Lush green grew inside the crater, the soil shockingly rich, with several lakes having formed over the centuries.

The house Aelita's father had moved them to had the perfect view of one such lake, but the home had been burnt down to ash on the day of his death. Zetzu had been careful to make sure their journey wouldn't take them past the rubble that had remained as a reminder for any citizen that may dare stand against his Father.

The rain had started to pour in earnest somewhere along the way, but that didn't discourage her countrymen from staring and whispering as the processional passed. Some watched from the safety of their home or the cover of the still bustling shops. Others simply stopped where they stood in the streets, none seeming to care that they were being soaked to the bone.

Everyone was desperate to catch a glimpse of the Butcher of Ba Sing Se. Azula had mentioned Aelita's newest moniker while she ran a brush through her hair, but it still jolted her when it was their people who spoke it loudly enough for the Akira to hear from the inside of the carriage, the windows left open as a small mercy to her after being trapped in her ship cabin for too long. Zetzu closed them after that, and he gave up his attempts at one-sided conversation to distract her.

Aelita had made the journey to the Palace enough times to know roughly where in the city they were with each passing of the wheels of the carriage, and when the journey became exceptionally smooth, she found herself suddenly overwhelmed by the knowledge that she'd soon be face to face with the Fire Lord once more. It wasn't that long ago that she admitted to one of his sons she'd kill him if she had to. She silently cursed the one sitting across from her for taking her ability to do so away, and then she cursed herself even more for being so willing to do so.

No wonder she had ruined Aang. There was no that a person as terrible as her could ever exist harmoniously with someone as gentle and pure as him.

Zetzu agreed to open the carriage windows again just as they heard the main gate to the Palace slowly begin to open outside. The place was just as horrible and opulent as she remembered. A wall half as tall as the one surrounding Ba Sing Se encircled the estate, with several lush gardens and villas just outside for use by members of the Royal Family, a false promise to what lay inside. The land immediately surrounding the royal residence was barren, rocky and lifeless, making any form of secret infiltration nearly impossible.

The Palace itself was a single structure; an elaborate tower with triple eaves at the center, and three distinct wings joining it. The two smallest wings stood on either side of the main entrance to the palace building, with scaled-down towers at their ends as well. Directly behind the main entrance was the largest wing of all. It held the Fire Lord's war chamber and his throne room. Aelita had only been permitted entrance to the latter once before, the day Fire Lord Azulon announced his intention to marry her to his eldest grandson.

She had been celebrated then, her family celebrated for the honor she was set to bring upon their name. She wondered how she had managed to forget just how ill her father had looked on their journey home until now.

The carriage came to a halt at the main door with no one there to greet them. Not bothering to wait on his siblings, the Prince climbed out into the rain-soaked night, stopping to offer the Akira his hand. There were too many eyes here and now for him to do anything more than that, but Aelita accepted the gesture and let him usher her inside and out of the cold.

The Palace was near as void of life as the land outside. Comprised of enormous halls and intricate chambers, it was easy to get lost in the expanse of it. The staff that served there typically brought more sound than any member of the Royal Family did, but even that was limited, and tonight it was utterly absent with most of them having been dismissed for the occasion. Large tapestries lined the walls and elaborate fire-themed images and moldings were laid out all throughout the numerous sections of the structure, the halls lit with glowing torches.

"You know, one of my first memories of you happened in this very hall," Zetzu admitted, attempting to distract Aelita as he led her to the throne room. "Not many people could tell me and my brother apart back then, but you took one look at me and said 'You're not Zuko.' I thought you'd be disappointed, but instead, you smiled at me and insisted I join you."

"My Dad offered to take us into the city to celebrate the Fire Lily Festival," She remembered, almost in disbelief that there had been a time life had been so simple. "And you looked at me like I was a Kemurikage in the flesh for asking."

"Well excuse me for getting flustered in the presence of a pretty girl."

"You're not flustered around me anymore, is that your way of telling me you think I'm ugly?"

When the Prince's cheeks flushed, he almost looked more human, like he hadn't been force-feeding poison down her throat for nearly three weeks. He nearly choked on his words, tripping over himself as he tried to explain. "Absolutely not! Do I not tell you enough how pretty I think you are? Because I think you're beautiful, and I can start telling you every day. I will actually, I'll -"

"It was only a joke, Prince Zetzu," Aelita cut off his rambling as the nearly floor-to-ceiling doors into the throne room grew larger and larger, and Imperial Firebender stationed on either side. "I think you're even more tense than I am."

Zetzu had to fight back the smile that threatened to overwhelm his features. Aelita's concern for his well-being only reassured him that this, them and their future and the empire that they would build together because Zuko had never once deserved her, was the right decision. She was the right decision, one their mother approved of, his last connection to her.

Maybe that was why he was so damn obsessed with Aelita Kenshin.

He caught her wrist and tugged her to a stop just out of the guard's earshot, careful still to lean in closely and whisper, his breath warm on her neck. "I'm supposed to be the one taking care of you, yet here you are tending to me. You will make a fine example to our people when you stand beside my throne one day."

"Zetzu I -"

"We'll have all the time in the world to discuss the future later, but for now keep your mouth shut and your head held high until you stand before the throne. My Father gets off on fear, power, and respect, and feeling as if you only bow to him will feed into his ego more. You fall to your knees, don't speak until spoken to, and when he asks, you pledge your loyalty to my brother. Given your past, that's the only thing my Father will believe. If you try to lie and beg his forgiveness, he'll kill you on the spot."

"Tempting."

"Don't say that." Zetzu hissed, his grip on her wrist tightening. "Don't even think it. I will drag you back from the Spirit World myself if I have to. I lived long enough without your light in my life, and I don't intend to ever do it again."

Aelita nearly pointed out that Aang had always been the light, but she had been the shadow, destined from the start to be clouded by darkness.

"Let's get this over with," The Prince sighed, stepping back and standing tall himself. "You won't be able to take your pet inside with you."

"His name is Mushu," She snapped, "And he's not my pet. He's my animal guide, and he's my friend."

Zetzu swore the damn ferret peaked out from around her arm and stuck his tongue out at him. "Father doesn't allow animals of any sort inside his throne room. He'll have to wait outside, but I promise he'll be safe with me."

"It's not him I'm worried about," Aelita admitted, looking at the four-legged creature she held, Mushu already rapidly chirping away in an argument that only she seemed to understand. "Don't bite the Prince. If you manage to get yourself skinned and stewed, you're grounded. I don't care if that's not fair, I'm the mom and what I say goes. Of course, I'm your mom you little shit. You might not look like me but that doesn't mean I'm not your mom. No, I don't know who your dad is, but that's beside the point. Yes, I know family is important to your self-identity but look at me, I only had one parent growing up and I think I turned out alright, didn't I? Actually, don't answer that."

"For fucks sake," The Prince muttered. He could feel the Imperial Firebender's eyes staring at the three of them from down the hall and he wondered how long it would take for word to get back to his father that Aelita Kenshin had gone certifiably insane in her absence. "We don't have time for you two to argue," he gestured to the ferret, "If he doesn't want to stay with me, I'll take him to Zuko." The creature hissed in response. "Well, you'll have to pick one of us."

Aelita didn't leave the option up to Mushu, tucking him deeply into the younger Prince's arms. "Behave." She declared while she still had the nerve. Without waiting for Zetzu, she turned and glided towards to the throne room with the grace of a noble but the determination of a warrior.

The throne room was meant to feel as if it would swallow you whole. Rows of pillars with elaborate gold bases supported the vaulted ceiling, the floors dark to match. The rest of the room was largely plain and devoid of light except for the wall of pure fire meant to separate the Fire Lord from his subjects. Opposite the door and behind the never-dimming flame were a raised platform and a throne on it nearly as ornate as the intricate golden dragon carved into the wall at its back.

It had been intimidating to Aelita before. It felt like an opportunity now.

She didn't wait for a summons forward, simply crossed the space to land in the very same spot she had once knelt next to her father before Azulon and begrudgingly dropped to her knees. She bent at the waist and allowed her forehead to touch the ground just to avoid having to look the monster in the eye just yet.

For a moment the only sound in the room was that of the crackling flame, the noise eerily similar to that of breaking bones. Her arm had snapped like that before, dealing with an Earth Kingdom General who thought he had known her power better than she did. That Aelita remembered, by the fallout was blurry. A lot of life still involving Aang was blurry, and maybe that was for the best. Aelita was sure the guilt would've surely done her in by now if she remembered more.

"It's about time." A male's voice boomed.

The girl didn't answer, and the Fire Lord rose to his feet, determined to get a better view of the child that had leveled half of his naval fleet just a season ago.

"Don't you know it isn't wise to keep your Lord waiting, Akira Aelita?" He asked as he willed the wall of fire to part, and took the first step through it. "Look at me girl, and let us hear if your crimes will be forgiven."

Chapter Text

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It was clear to see which parent Azula had picked up her mannerisms from. The Fire Lord walked with his shoulders square and head held high, a sense of superiority following him with each step as he approached the girl before him. It made Aelita sick but still, she did as she was told and looked upon the face of the man who killed her father and maimed his own son.

Ozai's features were rectangular and sharp, his lips thin and only ever seeming to tilt into a sneer or a scowl. His hair was still solid black and pin straight even well into his forties, falling nearly to the center of his back. His matching goatee was narrow, just long enough to skim the bottom of his throat as he stood. The golden eyes he inherited from his own father were as deceiving as his perfect skin, very little damage ever having befallen the former Prince, one of the only members of the Royal Family to have not served in the Fire Nation military. Nearly as tall as he was domineering, dressed in traditional robes of blood red and gold, he was anything but slight, years of mastering his bending turning his body into a machine of brutality.

The Fire Lord grinned, and for a moment the Akira felt as if she were looking upon his youngest son instead.

"You're the spitting image of your father in his youth, Akira Aelita," Ozai spoke down at her. He was only all the more amused when she didn't bite back. "It's the eyes really that mark you as his, full of too much ambition for your own good. Though, I'm not so sure if it's ambition behind your eyes anymore, child, or if it's hatred. They have a similar effect."

"Interesting."

The Fire Lord barked out a laugh as he began to circle her slowly. "Interesting indeed. Many things about you and your family are interesting, Akira Aelita. According to multiple sources, it seems that the accusations brought up against Sukomo Kenshin were false. Did you know that?"

"Yes," She answered simply, eyes staring straight ahead at the wall of fire before her.

"Did it upset you to learn his death was for nothing?"

Aelita didn't bother to lie. "Yes."

"Good, I'd trust you less if it didn't. My delusional Council members seem to think you should've been relieved to learn your father wasn't a traitor, but I disagreed. Only a spineless fool would find positives in such matters, and you, Akira, have always been far from spineless."

Aelita knew it wasn't a compliment.

"It was Zhao all along," Ozai spoke casually and matter-of-factually.

"Yes."

"You fought him at the North Pole."

"Yes."

"You killed him."

"No."

That was surprising.

"No?"

"There are worse things in life than death."

The Fire Lord smiled. "That there are. Take my older brother for instance. I could condemn him to die for his crimes and no one would fault me for it, but what would that accomplish? What would he learn?" Ozai stopped before the girl and crouched to her eye level, a wicked gleam behind his stare. "What message would it send?"

Ozai didn't actually want or need Aelita to answer, so she remained silent where she knelt, the implication of his words ringing loud and clear. Whatever the Fire Lord's decision was today, it would be one to use her as an example just as he had too many times before.

Ozai continued. "Several of Zhao's subordinates that were present for the invasion of the North Pole claim to have witnessed your duel with the Admiral. After watching you and the Avatar lay waste to an entire fleet of my ships, they say it was the fear of the raw power you seemed to possess that left them frozen where they cowered in the shadows. They admitted to doing nothing as you alone cornered a fleeing Zhao and disposed of him."

"I wasn't alone."

"Oh?" Ozai smiled in a way that was anything but joyful and Aelita cursed herself silently, unsure what it was that possessed her to speak.

There was no going back from it alone, and more shocking at that was the fact that she didn't want to. "Prince Zuko was the one that stopped Zhao from fleeing with the others. Your Admiral tried to kill your son."

"So I've heard. The Prince allowed you your opportunity for revenge, even after you betrayed him."

"He's always been kinder to me than I deserved," Aelita remarked, though she wasn't sure how much truth there was behind the words anymore.

Ozai scoffed. "Then I guess I should be proud to be his father. A kind and just Prince," He spoke like it was a taunt. "How wonderful."

"You've been a good example, My Lord."

At that, the Ozai openly snorted. "You and I seem to remember history rather differently, Akira Aelita. That, or you're simply desperate to live." Long, smooth fingers jolted forward to grip the child by her chin and she couldn't help but notice the absence of the callouses both his boys seemed to carry. "Zhao may have brought the accusations against your father forward, but I was the one that delivered the final blow, remember?"

"Yes, My Lord."

"So are you desperate, girl?"

"No."

"Then what are you?" Ozai demanded to know, and Aelita answered with the first word that came to mind.

"Scared."

This seemed to satisfy and intrigue the Fire Lord. "Of what?"

"Myself."

Ozai let go of Aelita and rose to his feet. "Explain."

"I wanted to be different," She told him. "I have witnessed far too many horrible, awful things in my life, but I thought I could be better, and I have always, always done what was expected out of me. It was one of the reasons your father decided that I was good enough to marry into your family because I am loyal to a fault. And I had your son back then, sure, but I had centuries worth of past lives whispering in my ear the day I learned the truth of who I was. You had already deemed my father a traitor, and I believed it, so I clung to his memory and decided I would finish what he started because I was a loyal, good daughter." Aelita couldn't stop the hot, angry tears welling in her eyes but still, no matter how enraged she was with him or herself or the entire fucking world, her voice remained level.

Ozai should've realized then just how dangerous she was.

"I lied to myself every time I ran into our troops, pretended like it wasn't my people I was fighting against because I was convinced I'd be doing them a favor too if I ended the war. But then Zhao followed us to the North Pole. He slaughtered the spirit of the Moon, and someone that I loved died because of it." The first tear ran down Aelita's face. "And then I snapped. And if I close my eyes, I can still see myself tearing through Fire Nation ships. When it gets too quiet, I can still hear the way our men pleaded for mercy. It's a miracle I didn't slaughter them all because I wasn't in control, but I ignored any doubts I had after dealing with Zhao. It felt worth it until it didn't so I smuggled your son and your brother out of the city and convinced myself that somehow made up for the rest of my sins. I swore that I would never allow myself to lose control like that ever again, but I was wrong, because I am nothing more than loyal. An Earth Kingdom General threatened someone that I cared about and that day his men were lucky to walk away with their lives." Aelita laughed, a bitter, broken sound. "It was only a matter of time until I actually killed someone, and to know I did so for your son only seems fitting."

Ozai agreed. "That is is, Akira. After all, you were the one that stood between myself and that same boy the day I tried to mold him into an honorable man."

Aelita's hands balled into fists. The Fire Lord noticed.

"Would you do it again?" He asked her. "Protect the Prince by any means necessary?"

"Ask what you really mean."

Ozai was almost impressed by her perception and gall, so he humored her. "You speak of loyalty to the people you love so fervently, but not of what is truly important." He accused with a trace of malice in his tone, his patience beginning to run thin and the words falling from his lips faster and faster. "You, my children, and their witnesses all claim that you struck down the Avatar to protect Zuko but would you do it again? Would you kill for my family even if my son casts you aside? Will you allow us to use you despite your mistreatment? Are you loyal to me, Akira Aelita?"

She could end this all now. "No," She started, and she was sorely tempted to leave things there but as much as she blamed either twin for the mess she was in, she couldn't handle the thought of them suffering her consequences. "But I am loyal to your sons, and they're loyal to you."

The Fire Lord was left conflicted at the Akira's admission. He had never been more tempted to truly strike the girl down than he was here and now. Prior, she had merely been an extension of others in his eyes, something less than human. Insignificant. A nuisance. When his men first threatened her during Sukomo Kenshin's Agni Kai, she was a pawn to ensure his victory. When she stood between Zuko and himself, Aelita Kenshin was simply a thorn in his side sent by Ursa herself to protect her son. He didn't want her to matter now, but she did. The Akira was a sort of symbol to both the world and the Fire Nation. She was the beacon of everything that threatened and opposed him.

But as she knelt before him and met his stare, a feeling of familiarity stirred inside of him. His daughter had unintentionally played to more than just her brothers' subconscious, but his as well. As she peered up at him, utterly desperate to protect his sons yet again, she reminded him so very much of Ursa.

She may have hated him for it, but his wife had always done whatever he demanded of her to keep her boys safe.

Outside of the throne room, Zetzu struggled to not pace the halls with the Akira's pet in his arms. Something about being back here had left him uneasy as was but knowing that Aelita was alone in there with their father only added to his steadily growing tension, no matter how confident he had been that this could work.

There wasn't time for him to slip and fall into a pathetic, scared little shell of himself, but he couldn't risk flying off the handle either because he wasn't so naive to believe they'd both make it out of the palace alive if he turned on his dad now. He had to focus. Breath.

Not murder his fucking twin.

Azula, attempting to distract herself from the fact that anyone other than herself had been summoned by their father first, had disappeared upon arrival to the palace to eat and unwind according to Zuko. The elder of the three siblings had declined her offer to join them. Instead, he leaned against the hall across from his brother, eyes trained on the throne room doors, the eyes of the guards trained on them both.

At this point, Zetzu held onto Mushu just to spite the older boy. Until now they had waited together in relative silence, neither wanting to risk the wrong ears overhearing or making assumptions, but the younger of the two was about to go mental if he had to stare at the other much longer.

"It's been a long time since you've been home, Zuko, " Zetzu started in an attempt at sounding casual. His twin met his lazy gaze, looking at him as if he were already reading between the lines. "I'm sure it's a lot to take in. Why don't you relax like our sister? Have some dinner, and revisit the palace and your chambers. I was home for some time before Azula and I set off to find you, I can wait and lend the Fire Lord aid with his guest."

Zuko wondered if his paranoia was justified. He had just admitted that evening that he trusted Zetzu more than he trusted Azula, but still, it wasn't much. His closer sibling may have seemed to be on his side thus far, but the elder Prince didn't forget how easy it had been for him to plunge a blade through the chest of someone he claimed to care for.

"What sort of brother would I be if I made you bare such weights on your own?" He deflected easily, his tone full of bored concern, his family not one for genuine affection.

A frustrating one. It annoyed Zetzu to no end how well Zuko seemed to play the game at times now, no longer the blundering fool that so often had managed to say or do the wrong things, always blinded by emotion. He reminded himself that his brother's growth might be what helped keep Aelita alive.

"You're truly a kind Prince, brother," Zetzu feigned admiration. "How lucky our people are to have such a just heir."

Oh.

Zuko hadn't allowed himself to truly think about the line of succession since he rejoined his siblings. As it stood, unless their father declared otherwise, he was once again the next in line to the Fire Nation throne.

The weight of the realization was overwhelming, even if Zuko didn't want to admit it. Now that he was home, he was closer to the throne than he ever had been before and for all the confidence he had seemed to carry, the past year had humbled him. Hard.

"Still, I'd take it easy while we have the chance. Lo and Li are busy planning our homecoming announcement and celebrations as we speak," Zetzu continued despite the animal still clawing at his arms. "Hopefully the parties won't seem so terribly dull now that we're older."

"Celebrations?" Zuko asked. He had possibly expected one after the fall of Ba Sing Se, but only one.

His twin chuckled. "Of course, Prince Zuko. This is the first time in years we've all been under the same roof. Do you really think the Fire Lord's council would pass up on the opportunity to showcase our united front when they have our birthday as an excuse?"

Oh.

Zuko hadn't paid much time recently to the passing weeks or seasons. He and his brother would turn eighteen the very day the solar eclipse would befall their land. A new panic overwhelmed the elder boy.

He was getting older, and he had damn little to show for it.

The Prince pushed himself off the wall to stand before his brother with open arms. "Let me take him for a while," Zuko gestured to Mushu. "He's been stuck on that ship as long as we were, I'll take him out to the gardens to stretch his legs, get him something to eat."

Zetzu didn't bother to call bullshit. "Gracious and an animal lover," He said as he and the animal all too willingly parted ways from one another. "Noble fathers will start beating down the palace doors any day now, just begging you to wed their daughters."

Zuko ignored his twin though he swore Mushu stuck his tongue out at the other Prince. "Send word for me and I'll be here."

It was the only response he gave his brother before tucking his tail between his legs and practically running to the gardens, the air more for himself than anyone in case he might be sick. Zetzu was sure his lingering statement had only left Zuko reeling even further.

Good.

Finally alone, the Prince straightened his back, gave the guards a look that dared them to try and interfere, and strode into the throne room where their father still stood over Aelita. Ozai's entire demeanor changed at the arrival of his youngest son, the guard he typically kept up slipping because to this day, he didn't see Zetzu as a threat. Instead, the Fire Lord's confident swagger shifted to annoyance as his boy approached.

"I didn't call for you."

Zetzu fought the urge to roll his eyes. "I didn't want you to kill her before you realized how useful she could be."

Aelita remained silent where she still knelt on the ground, observing the scene unfolding before her. Ozai's gaze narrowed at his son.

"So you've mentioned," He said. "Though her fate isn't for you to decide."

How very wrong his father was. "I know," He lied, swallowing his pride and kneeling on one knee next to Aelita. For now, he needed the bastard to trust him. "But I want to be useful to you as well, Father, and I believe I most can if you entrust the Akira with me."

"Oh?" Ozai pondered, his brow raised. It surprised him that this son of his didn't cower in his presence the way he used to. If he had known this would've been the result, he would've separated the twins from Ursa the very moment he found a suitable wet nurse, assuming the changes it seemed his boys finally had were his doing. "And what exactly do you propose?"

Zetzu had hoped to have this conversation without Aelita present, but he didn't trust his siblings to not ruin his chances.

The Prince could only hope that she wouldn't leave this throne room hating him for the words and vows he were about to speak and pray that she knew he was doing this for her.

At least, that's what he had convinced himself.

"Wed her to me."

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Along the edge of the Earth Kingdom, four teens bid the men of the Southern Water tribe a temporary farewell and set out under the cover of darkness. They were heading out after Aang, Appa pointed in the direction of the Fire Nation. It didn't take a fortune teller to know that would be where their friend was headed, not after his declaration to Katara that he stupidly needed to do this alone.

Sokka might've understood Aang and his grief the most. While he certainly was no Avatar, he had been raised his entire life to be a protector and he had failed. Had it been just him, he'd have set off after the sons of Ozai the very night they took Aelita and Mushu away from their family. Still, he could admit he held his friends to a different standard than he did himself simply because he cared more for their wellbeing than he did his own, and this was wreckless, and Sokka was just worried as the others. As much as hated saying goodbye to his dad no matter how short their time apart may be, he knew the sooner they found Aang and convinced him he didn't need to do this alone, the better.

Appa flew with haste, seemingly glad for the chance to really stretch his legs for the first time in weeks, but Sokka swore the bison and his lemur companion were missing their usual gumption. The pair hadn't been themselves since they lost their third friend and extra human. Aang's absence only seemed to intensify the feeling.

Kyojuro was exceptionally skilled at reading a map for a Prince that had hardly been outside of his own palace, and despite knowing Aang the least compared to the others, he was surprisingly good at predicting dumb decisions considering his own only halfway thought-out plans were the reason he met his new friends in the first place. The lavabender pointed out a crescent-shaped island he didn't realize Sokka and Katara were already familiar with, only knowing that it was the closest bit of Fire Nation territory to the harbor they had been docked in, navigating from Appa's saddle with the girls on either side of him, Sokka at the reigns while his sister steadily bent a path through the rain clouds.

The storm had Katara on edge, the scene unfolding around them all too familiar when it came to Aang. They were banking on the fact that he wouldn't have enough strength to make it much further than Crescent Island, praying silently that he hadn't been discovered by the blockade of ships they flew over. Thankfully Kyojuro's guess had been right.

Sokka spotted his friend's limp body lying face down on the rocks of the very same island where they gained the fourth member of their chosen family. The place that had once housed the Fire Temple where Aang and Aelita had first met with their past lives looked wholly different now. The young Avatar and Akira had brought the entire structure down to give them a chance to escape after being cornered by Zhao and his men, bringing the island's dormant volcano back to life. Any traces of the living had been washed away by molten stone, leaving nothing behind but black rock and Aang.

Katara was on the ground running before Appa had fully touched down. Ignoring the salty spray of the waves crashing on the stone just beyond, she rolled Aang onto his back, relieved to feel his body still relatively warm. His eyes fluttered open at the sudden movement, not having been down for long. "You're okay!" Katara cried as she tugged the Avatar upright and flung her arms around him, pulling him in close.

This time the boy didn't hesitate to hug her back, the rest of his friends just steps behind her. He felt guilty and foolish when he saw the fear in their eyes turn to relief and then he sighed, Katara still wrapped tightly in his embrace. Aang had realized where he was just before the exhaustion overtook him. Awake now, it felt wrong to be here knowing that they wouldn't be leaving with Aelita this time but still, if only for her and her memory, they had to keep going. "I have so much to do," He spoke into the waterbender's shoulder.

Katara pulled away to offer him a small, bittersweet smile. "I know, but you'll have our help."

"Who said anything about helping? I just wanna smack him around a couple of times."

"Ooo that's a good idea, I've never gotta fight an airbender before."

"You two aren't helping!" Katara scolded the earthbenders, Kyojuro and Toph chatting as if it were just any other day. Only one of them looked embarrassed or scared to be in trouble, and it wasn't the blind girl who stood a solid head shorter than the healer.

"In my defense, I don't know how to socialize with normal people my age. I know none of you are normal, but am I doing this wrong?" The Prince of the Earth Kingdom asked innocently.

Katara was the only one who seemed to take offense to the Prince's casual insult, ranting until her face was red, the Avatar damn near forgotten as she corned an apologizing Kyojuro against the rocks.

Only his family.

Aang didn't realize just how badly he needed this, but the sound of his genuine laughter cut through the bickering. Soon, four sets of eyes were on his, Momo having glided from Sokka's shoulder to his instead, Appa waiting as patiently as he could to not plow through the smaller humans. Aang scratched behind the lemur's long ears and looked at the others. "Thanks guys, but what about the invasion?"

"We'll join up with my dad and the invasion force the day of the eclipse," Sokka explained as held out a hand to Aang and hauled his friend to his feet. "Longshot and Smellerbee stayed behind to help round up some more allies."

Thus far, Toph had stood back listening for the most part, content to let the others take the lead on this one when something washed up in the waves prodded the side of her leg."Hey! What's..." She started to complain, but as she bent down to grab onto whatever the thing had been as the water receded, she realized what it was. "Oh," Her tone softened, afraid this would be what sent Aang over the edge.

She couldn't afford to lose anyone else.

"It's your glider," She said, holding the staff that had been mangled against the rocks out to her friend.

Aang took it from her and saw just how damaged it was. It had been almost entirely snapped in the middle, hanging on by bowed threads of wood, the rest of it littered with chips and cracks. When he attempted to open the wings, he found that the once vibrant orange fabric was dull and dirty and torn in more than one place.

Aang wondered if the relic of his past and his people was supposed to be some otherworldly, fucked up symbol of him and the world's present state. If it truly was supposed to be one, the monk decided he couldn't care. With his friends and family by his side, he'd carve out a new future for this world.

"It's okay," He assured Toph and the others. "If someone saw it, it would give away my identity. Sokka was right, it's better for now that no one knows I'm alive."

Fresh lava still flowed from the volcano that Aang and Aelita erupted together, and a stream of it ran a short distance away from where the monk had washed ashore. Aang snapped his glider shut, promised himself that he would never forget the memories attached to his, and plunged the staff into molten rock. With his friends by his side, he watched as one of the few things that connected him to his people went up in flames, and he vowed then and there to never let something so terrible happen ever again.

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Even in the heart of the throne room, the rolling storm could be heard raging outside but Ozai ignored it. He would've never guessed his youngest son could be so bold and based on the surprised look on the girl's face beside him, neither could she. "Excuse me?" He asked, still in disbelief.

"When I asked you what would be in it for me to bring down my own flesh and blood, you said to prove that I even could and you'd consider whatever it was I wanted," Zetzu began to explain before he lost his might. He had been planning this moment for weeks, and it needed to go perfectly. "I did more than that, Father, and I want the Akira. I'll take her as she is, and wed her in the tradition of our Nation. For stability," He added when he saw the uncertainty in his father's eyes. "For power. That's precisely what you and my mother were married for, wasn't it?" He asked and watched as the Fire Lord was stunned. "For power?"

"What are you-"

"This matter doesn't concern you, Akira Aelita," The Prince cut off the girl he claimed to care for with a flash of what she swore to be regret behind his expression. "Sit there and look pretty like a good girl."

Aelita was once again stunned to silence, but for a moment Ozai could care less that she was present. "How did you know?"

"It's always the quietest children that hear the most, Father," His son explained. "I'd make one hell of a spy if you asked it of me one day. But you considered it before, didn't you? Marrying General Kenshin's daughter into our family for the abilities she possessed? To produce the strongest bloodline possible as was the hope when you wed Mother?"

"For all the good it did me," Ozai scoffed, Zetzu not reacting to the insult. "Both arrangements were your Grandfather Azulon's ideas, not my own. I didn't waste my time planning a future for you or your brother after you were born. I didn't think either of you would ever make it this far."

The casual admittance didn't seem to bother the Prince. "Then I hope we pleasantly surprised you, and now you know that this girl is even more than what mother ever was or Grandfather ever hoped her to be. I'm not suggesting a full pardon, but if you chose to betroth her to me now then it would be your doing, not Azulons. You would be the one truly bringing the Akira and all the power she possesses under the control of the Royal Family, not Zuko."

The thought of either of his sons achieving something he couldn't made Ozai's skin crawl. "But why would I waste such a beneficial arrangement on my second son when I still have an unmarried, unmarred firstborn in line for my throne?"

It was almost ironic to Zetzu that his bending left him considered to be the marred one when his twin bore the proof of his shame in a far more brutal, outstanding way. "Do you trust Zuko with her?"

"Are you implying I shouldn't?" The Fire Lord quickly countered.

"Never. My brother is loyal and the last three years have done nothing but hone him into someone calculating. Someone smart. Someone strong that you can be proud of. You've done well with the pair of us, knowing what we truly needed even if we disagreed at the time," the Prince lied. "I have no double that my brother would choose his family every time without fail but at the end of the day, there's still a kindness there to him that even you couldn't snuff out. It'll make him popular with the common folk one day, or it could very well get him killed. As his younger sibling, it's my job to make sure that doesn't happen." Zetzu cursed himself when his hand shot out to grip Aelita by the back of the neck, the girl still kneeling in stunned silence. "I don't believe he holds any affection still for this one, not after her betrayal. He dueled her beneath the city of Ba Sing Se, and I have never seen him fight with such tenacity. He didn't once deem her worthy of his time on the journey back, entrusting her to my care and my care alone. Still, I wonder if he'd ever have it in him to strike her down if she rebelled the way that I would." He pushed Aelita down until her cheek was pressed against the cool stone floor, a show of forced submission. "And I'd hate to subject him to something so cruel after achieving so much good for our Nation. My contributions are insignificant compared to his, and my soul has already been damned."

Ozai wondered if it would be wrong of him to admit this surprising show from his son was almost entertaining. "Oh? You would kill the girl if it were demanded of you?"

"Who plunged a blade through her chest in the Earth Kingdom?" Zetzu pondered out loud. "Who stole her bending away and brought her here to you tonight?"

"I suppose you did, Prince Zetzu."

"As it stands, Zuko is next in line for the throne. Do you trust her with your heir?"

"You stand behind your brother in that line, should I be so foolish to trust her with you?"

"Do I really, Father?" Zetzu asked. "Or do you still plan to skip over me entirely for Azula?"

Aelita had been angry when the Prince put his hands on her, but that rage was quickly replaced with curiosity at his boldness. The tension in the room grew thicker with each passing beat of her heart.

"Who-" Ozai started.

"As I said before, it's the quietest children who often hear the most. I used to hide in the shadows listening to you and our mother. I might have proven to be a bender, but the day you learned who I was you declared our people would never accept a Prince touched by black magic and the hands of evil spirits. I've had nearly four years to accept my place in this family, and I've made peace with it."

The Fire Lord's gaze narrowed. "Have you truly?"

"I haven't killed either of my siblings yet, have I?" Zetzu asked casually. "Believe me, as strong as they may be, I have had every opportunity to do so."

His father stared at him for some time, really looked at the son that had come to resemble him so greatly, and then he laughed. It was as if his secondborn possessed all of the best and worst qualities of him and Iroh both. His brutality hidden behind Iroh's soft facade. "You've changed, Prince Zetzu."

"All for the better. Four years away from home forced me to abandon the child I once was and showed me just how desperately I wanted to be a part of this family," The Prince lied. "So please, let me serve you and them. If the Akira is wed into our family, she can be watched and molded and one day, she'll provide you with grandchildren you can be proud of, and from there, her compliance will be forever assured."

"Or you could kill her now and we could be done with the threat entirely," Ozai countered.

"We could, but why waste the power of the last Akira to ever grace our world?" Zetzu pulled Aelita back up to look at his father, grateful she seemed to be observing rather than fighting. "You hold Omashu and Ba Sing Se now, the last two great Earth Kingdom strongholds, but the country hasn't fully surrendered yet, and the Water Tribes will have to be dealt with eventually, even the Southern in all its pity. The Air Nomads died with the Avatar, and Aelita killed him while he was in his Spirit State. She has said it herself that there will be no Avatar born again into the Water Tribes, and with the Air Nomads extinct, there will never be another Akira after she dies. I suggest you use her to carve your name into the history books forever and bring the rest of the world under your heel, Father."

Ozai was silent for some time after his son's suggestion, quiet, calculating. "I'll consider your proposal, my son, but I ask you this - if I marry you to the Akira, what of your brother and sister's own marriages? Who is left that could possibly be considered suitable?"

The Prince didn't bother to hide his grin, and Aelita couldn't help but realize how badly she had messed up by not begging this new Zetzu to join her side before she had damned her soul.

"Oh, I have thought about their future in great detail."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪️

In an entirely separate corridor and a too-dark room that no longer felt like Zuko's, Mushu watched as the firebender paced back and forth, chittering away at the boy that had once cared for him.

"We can't just barge in there after her!" Zuko argued with the animal in hushed tones, his guard completely up. At least halfway true to his word, Zuko had stopped by the kitchen for food he himself didn't have the stomach to touch but Mushu certainly did and headed to the gardens but the Prince had turned around the moment he set eyes on the turtle duck pond. He swore his mother's ghost had been sitting there waiting for him.

"My dad will kill her if we do, that's why! Isn't that counterproductive?" Zuko continued to defend his actions. "And in case you missed it, Aelita is no longer my problem. You two left me, not the other way around."

Mushu only began to chatter at him even more loudly despite a mouth half stuffed full of fruit, and the Prince realized then that he was fighting with a ferret.

"What's wrong with me?" The boy sighed, flopping down onto a bed that had hardly changed in three years, the only sign that anyone had been here at all the freshly changed sheets and the lack of dust that should've been there. Mushu was still eating next to the Prince's head, dropping crumbs all over the fine silk, but Zuko didn't care. When the animal began to squeak in answer to his previous question, he promptly told him, "Don't answer that."

Returning home had brought on a slew of emotions that Zuko never would've imagined he'd be capable of feeling. He had wanted this for so long and now he was on the verge of having it all and now...

What? He didn't know what to want now that he was here or what came next. He certainly didn't know what to expect of Aelita, he just hoped by some small mercy she'd remember how she had survived his family before and just do that again but he didn't know why it mattered to him in the first place. He didn't know where they stood. He didn't know how she felt. He didn't even know how he felt anymore.

He was still angry. Hurt. Justify it all she might, Aelita had been the one who chose to walk away first. And then she moved on. Found new friends. A new family. A new...

His thoughts drifted to a Southern Water Tribe peasant.

A son of a Chief.

A damn fool.

A frustratingly good strategist by all accounts.

A thorn in Zuko's fucking side.

The Prince still wondered if Sokka would be so foolish as to lead a charge on Fire Nation shores the day he learned Aelita was alive.

There had been a time he certainly would have: Maybe not now.

Yet Aelita's very presence and supposed loyalty seemed to be the only thing he'd have to show for himself at eighteen and even that he hadn't truly earned. Zuko was a pawn that didn't belong in the game of thrones and he was damn near certain his father would see that soon enough.

But he couldn't dwell on that now, even if he wanted to. He hadn't realized just how much his nerves and panic had weighed on him mentally and physically until his body hit the bed. He had barely slept at all these last weeks, his mind too loud to grant him much rest, and the exhaustion was heavy on him now. He drifted off thinking that even after three weeks together at sea, it still felt odd to fall asleep with only Mushu in his bed and the human who used to join them.

He had slept so soundly he hadn't even stirred despite the back-and-forth shouting from the floor above sometime later. He didn't wake until another life bristled into his room without warning the next day, and the first thing the Prince noticed was not the who but rather the sun's location in the sky outside his windows. He had slept the entire morning away.

"Honestly, brother, I was beginning to think you were just avoiding us, but it seems you require even more beauty sleep than the Princess," Zetzu chided. Long gone was the elegant uniform his twin still wore, robes that could only be considered casual by royal standards now draped over his figure, hair still pulled back to showcase his features, and the third eye that dominated his face.

"It's common courtesy to knock, you know," Zuko snapped back, sitting up to glower at his sibling.

"We're far past courtesy now, Zuko. Father hasn't learned a lick of patience in all these years, so I doubt you want to keep him waiting much longer."

Zetzu wasn't sure he had ever seen his brother move so quickly. The elder Prince was out of his bed in a flash, jaw tense and features pale.

"You could've started with that!" Zuko hissed, fingers flying to shuck out of his now wrinkled clothes. "Why didn't anyone come for me sooner?"

"Because I was a little preoccupied with our other guest this morning."

Zuko's movements slowed. "You never called for me last night. What happened?"

"I spoke with Father briefly," Zetzu casually recalled. "Pleaded Aelita's case to the best of my ability without sounding too concerned or desperate, because you know as well as I do if he thinks we care too much about her then it would be so very like him to hurt her just to punish us. I reminded him that even though we now control Ba Sing Se, the rest of the Earth Kingdom won't bend the knee so easily, and there's still the matter of the Poles, and having the Akira on our side could be useful. He's planning on speaking with you and our sister before he makes any decisions regarding her future."

"She'll never agree to that, you know it, right?" Zuko pointed out the giant hole in his and his brothers planning yet again, his voice low and quiet. "Aelita won't willingly burn the Earth Kingdom, and I can promise you she'd die before she turned on the North or South Pole. Even if she stays convinced it was Aang she killed and not just some Dai Li captain, she'll never have in her to willingly hurt anyone like that again. She might've said she was would do it if it meant ending the war, but she never actually wanted to. That's not her. She's better than we are."

Better than you, maybe, Zetzu thought to himself.

"Then I guess we'll just have to burn the rest of the world for her," At his twin's pointed look the younger Prince continued, "It won't get that far. Azula would never allow Aelita to be more useful to our Father than she is."

Zuko could admit his brother was likely right. Azula's ambition would be the death of someone someday, it was just hard to say who. While the elder brother dressed quickly in an ensemble nearly identical to the one he had fallen asleep in, his wardrobe already mercifully replenished, the other explained that Aelita had been confined to the palace rather than the prison their Uncle had already been transported to, Ozai wanting here seen by the public as little as possible until her fate had been decided.

"Her old room?" Zuko asked as he refastened the fire pin that held his hair back from his face. When Aelita had been forced to act as a handmaiden to his family, the Prince had managed to secure a spot just around the corner from where he and Azula had moved into the palace following their father's coronation. It was more storage space than it was a living space, but it meant she had been close enough for Zuko to keep an eye out for her.

"Shockingly enough, no. Father seemed to think it to be poetic justice for her to sleep in the Avatar and Akira's quarters now that she knows her true identity."

Zuko didn't bother to point out how severely he doubted Aelita slept at all the past evening. Situated in the palace's tallest towers were its finest rooms, spaces only used by the family of the Fire Lord and according to the texts, the current incarnations of Akira and Avatar. Zuko had wandered into the adjoining rooms only once and to his knowledge, they had done nothing but collect dust for the last hundred years. It was a not-so-subtle slap in the face to the girl who thought she butchered her partner.

Her friend.

Zetzu hadn't been shy about the fact that Aelita hadn't been handling the anguish that followed well, but Zuko had effectively avoided it. Ran from it and her and his guilt.

"Oh," The Prince said plainly. Those quarters were a floor above his and Azula's own, their fathers the one above that.

"Worry not brother, she isn't all alone up there," Zetzu waved off his twin's concern, his satisfaction immense. "Don't forget, my room is only down the hall. I've kept look out for her."

For some reason, the knowledge didn't make Zuko feel any better. His panic only intensified when he realized he hadn't seen Mushu since he woke, cursing himself and diving towards the rumpled bed, tearing away the fine sheets.

"If you're looking for the ferret, he's already with her. Seems the little devil managed to sneak away from you at some point, but don't worry Zuko, you're secret is safe with me," Zetzu grinned. "Wouldn't want anyone to think you're losing that edge of yours that I bragged so greatly about last night."

"Enough!" Zuko seethed, jaw clenched. "You aren't helping."

"Good," Zetzu smirked but the expression faded quickly, his tone serious again. "You need your guard up unless you want to be the reason Aelita dies."

Zuko knew his brother was right. "How is she?"

"Maybe you'll be able to ask her yourself this evening. Don't keep Father waiting."

Unable to stall any longer, the Prince left his quarters and parted ways with his twin at the stairs, the elder of the two heading to the throne room, the younger to the Akira's chambers. Zuko's journey was a silent one, the palace staff staring but not daring to whisper, waiting to see what this newer, older version of himself was like. The guards outside the throne room let him enter without argument, and the boy walked to the very same spot before the wall of fire where Aelita had knelt the night before and dropped to his knees in a deep bow, his father hidden behind the vibrant flame.

"You've been away for a long time," The Fire Lord spoke, his voice as booming and authoritative as Zuko remembered. "I see the weight of your travels has changed you, but you have redeemed yourself, my son." Ozai rose from his throne and approached his oldest, his face clear to the boy for the first time in years. "Welcome home."

Zuko was either too tense or too stunned to speak, so he stayed silent where he knelt, a pleasant change compared to his siblings before him.

"I am proud of you, Prince Zuko," Ozai admitted to the boy. "I am proud because you and your siblings conquered Ba Sing Se. I am proud because when your loyalty was tested not just once but twice, you did the right thing. I am proud because you captured a traitor, but I am proudest of all of your most legendary accomplishment: you witnessed the fall of the Avatar and brought the Akira under the control of the Fire Nation."

Zuko had known that that would be the narrative he and his brother would be presenting but somehow here and now in the presence of their father, it felt even more like a lie, and when his mind drifted to Aelita, a betrayal. "She made it easy."

"You and your brother and too humble," Ozai argued, not noticing the way this suddenly piqued his son's interest.

"What did you hear?" Zuko asked as casually as he could muster.

"Azula told me everything. She said she was amazed and impressed at the power and ferocity you both displayed at the moment of truth." Ozai recounted before adding honestly. "I wasn't sure my sons had it in them. Not where Aelita Kenshin was involved."

"The years were long. We've changed."

"Don't I know it," The Fire Lord chuckled. "It was none the more obvious than it was last night when your brother rather than you, knelt before me and tried to convince me to spare the Akira's life. There had been a time once when the roles had been quite reversed, when it was you pleading with me to let her live. Tell me honestly, Prince Zuko, did the girl's betrayal hurt that badly?"

Zuko knew he had to give his father at least some of the truth if he wanted any of the rest to be believable. "Yes," He admitted.

Ozai frowned. "A bleeding heart will get you killed, Prince Zuko, and as it stands, you are my heir."

As it stands, which meant it could change on any given day if his son displeased him. Ozai got off on control and mind games, and Zuko hated that it was working. "Never again."

"I would hope not. Your brother and sister seem to believe that the Akira could be useful, but I'm curious, where do you stand on the matter?"

Zuko was careful not to answer too quickly. "She's only gotten stronger over time. As good as Zetzu is now, it was only by chance that he took her down when he did. She was distracted, and it worked in our favor. When she's at her strongest, I think it would take all three of us to take her down. It would be a waste to throw away such power."

"That it could be, but what of her crimes?"

"She's already suffering from the weight of her actions. Disposing of her now would be more merciful than she deserves," the boy lied and his father smiled.

"You really have changed, Prince Zuko." Ozai grinned at his son. "But if the Akira is allowed to live, we'll have to figure out what exactly to do with her next. Your brother and sister seem to believe marrying the girl and putting a babe in her will best guarantee her unwavering loyalty to our family."

Zuko's fists clenched where he knelt. "If her children inherit even half of her strength, they'll be unstoppable."

"Good. I still fear that your brother's heirs will require all the help they can get."

Anger was no stranger to Zuko, but this, this white-hot rage that churned inside him was something different. Something terrifying.

The Prince wouldn't have been surprised if he had been quite literally breathing fire by the time he slammed open the door to the multi-room quarters turned holding cell on the floor between his own and his fathers.

The servants had told him this was where Prince Zetzu would be, and they had been right, but by some small mercy, Aelita was nowhere to be immediately found.

"You lied to me!" Zuko seethed, closing the space between him and his brother in just a few bounding steps.

Zetzu didn't finch or falter, slowly rising from the table he had been sat, discarded teacups scattered across its surface. "What are you going on about now, Zuko?"

"You asked Father for her!"

"Keep your voice down, would you?" Zetzu scoffed. "That her you are yelling about is in the other room finally sleeping and I won't have you waking her. She needs her rest if she's going to survive our family yet again."

"Don't talk like you care more than I do!" Zuko hissed. "Like you know her better than I do! She. Was. Mine."

Zetzu frowned. "Was, Zuko, she was. Not anymore. You've said it yourself, more than once too. She left you. She hurt you. Can't you see that I'm doing this for you, brother?"

"Bullshit!" The elder snapped, smoke pouring from clenched fists. "This could never be for me!"

"Really?" His twin challenged. "Because just yesterday you told me you wouldn't be sure you could handle Father tasking you with her again." He took a step closer to his brother. His brother stepped back. "And just yesterday you told me for a fact you couldn't kill her if it was demanded of you, and one day it still very well could be. I'm protecting you from that possibility, Zuko, forsaking myself for you. So yes brother, I am doing this for you, whether you would ever do the same for me or not."

Zuko's resolve cracked there, his anger slipping through the holes of it. "What about what she wants?"

"When have you ever cared what I wanted?" A broken, tired voice spoke somewhere behind the elder Prince. Zuko turned to find Aelita standing in the doorway that led from the sitting space to the sleeping room, Mushu perched on her shoulders. And yet again, another one of his brother's tunics hung off her now fragile frame, silver hair pulled back from a hallow face still tinged pink from exhaustion and tears.

If her physical state was any indication of her mental or emotional, the Prince had never hated himself more for his part in it.

"Aelita, I..." Zuko started but she quickly cut him off.

"When have my thoughts or feelings ever mattered to you?" She challenged.

"That's real rich coming from you, isn't it?" He argued, his anger rising again. "Or did you forget the day you left me unconscious on my ship with nothing but a goodbye letter? Or the time you left me paralyzed while you fell into some peasant's arms?" He watched the color drain from her already pale face at the mention of Sokka. Zetzu saw it too. "I can keep going."

"Don't bother," Aelita snapped. "It won't change a thing. We've both made our beds; it's time we lie in them."

"Really?" The older boy scoffed. "Is that what you want Akira Aelita?"

"Yes, Prince Zuko," She said without any hesitation. "I want anything other than you."

🌊🏔️🔥🌪️

Chapter Text

Previously  

The Palace had gone quiet by the time the Fire Lord finished debating semantics with his youngest son but several key decisions had been made that night. 

As a sign of his Father's gratitude, Prince Zuko would be allowed to resume his role as a member of the Royal Family and the subsequent heir to the throne should he not disgrace himself so wholly ever again. 

He would marry the daughter of one of the crown's greatest political allies and supporters, the Governor of New Ozai, Ukano Irimi. 

As a reward for his daughter's efforts in bringing down the Earth Kingdom, Princess Azula would one day become the warden of the once great nation's former territories following their fall.

Her future husband was still to be decided, though her Father did favor his son's second option for her.

And Prince Zetzu, Ozai's most surprising child, would be granted a spot on the Fire Lord's council, acting as a Master of War and Weaponry following his discovery of the poison that kept the greatest threat to the Fire Nation on her knees. 

And on the eve of the Prince's eighteenth birthday, he would marry the daughter of the now formally pardoned Sukumo Kenshin, bringing the Akira's strength under the control of the Royal Family forevermore. 

Aelita was seething. 

She didn't dare open her mouth in the throne room because poison or not, she didn't trust herself to not breathe fire if she did.

"I'm sorry," Zetzu told her the moment he got her alone in an entirely empty corridor. "I didn't mean any of the things I said about you, I swear."

"Fuck you!" Aelita immediately hissed, whirling on him with disdain in her eyes. "You were planning this all along, weren't you?" 

"Not the entire time," He lied easily. "Honestly, it was more of a whim after seeing the way you reacted to my brother last night. You knew as well as I did if my father was going to pardon you, he was going to marry you into the family one way or the other. I thought if I convinced him that you should be with me instead, then maybe you would be happy again one day."

"Bullshit!" The Akira ranted, not caring if anyone heard and killed her on the spot. "Bullshit! I will never be happy ever again! I will never want to be with you or Zuko or anyone that's not..."

Haze. Where Aelita was certain there had once been clarity and memory and love and joy in some part of her mind only existed smoke. The faint traces of sounds and moments and feelings and instances were still there but they couldn't be fully placed. 

She had people that had loved her at one point, the family she had been ripped from, she knew that dammit and she loved them too but the specifics of them had started to fade and she hadn't even realized it. 

Their names were there still, even their faces and where they were from but so much of the more was just...gone.

Zetzu was seeing the effects of Aelita's mind shutting down and locking memories away in real-time before his very eyes and while he never particularly enjoyed to watch her she her doubt her own mental stability, he loved the fact that another man's name had died on her tongue. The Prince had seen enough from the limited times he had witnessed the son of the Southern Water Tribes Chief and Aelita together to infer that there was something there but his brother had been quick to confirm and give Zetzu more details than he had ever asked for. 

"She loves him," Zuko had told him long before they left Ba Sing Se. When Zetzu asked his twin how he knew, all he could say was "I know what Aelita looks like when she's in love."

But the Prince told himself she couldn't have cared that much to have begun forgetting him so easily. 

"Anyone that's not who, Aelita?" He asked her. 

"Fuck you."

"That's the second time you've propositioned me in one night. I'm flattered, honestly, but isn't that a little inappropriate before our wedding?"

"There won't be a wedding!" Aelita snapped, trying to ride out the anger to avoid the overwhelming despair at missing parts of her life that should've been there. "I would rather die than ever marry into this family!"

"Too bad," Zetzu told her, his gaze darkening. "I won't ever let that happen."

"Really? Because you told your father you'd kill me if you thought I was a threat, and I'm telling you now, I am."

"To my father? Maybe. To my brother? Well. I can't say I'd blame you, but you are not a threat to me, Aelita, because you know I'm not the bad guy."

At that, she openly snorted. "You could've fooled me. Only a monster would suggest his brother should marry his sister to keep their bloodline pure." She spoke in reference to his proposal that Zuko and Azula be wed to one another, the thought of it vile no matter how terrible either was. "That is sick, Zetzu. You're sick!"

"You wound me, Akira. I only learned of such arrangements after my time in the Ba Sing Se," Zetzu told her, one of the few things out of his mouth thus far that evening that hadn't been utter bullshit. It was yet another thing his chirping little dove Murata had told him in an attempt to protect his own. "Haven't you heard the rumors about your little Prince friend? That his bending is the result of a bodily mutation from generations of the Earth Kingdoms royal family inbreeding?"

"You know nothing, Prince Zetzu," Aelita spat, utterly disgusted with it all."You're just as bad as they are!" 

"Am I?" He asked, stalking over her like a wild beast. "You didn't think I was so terrible when you let me hold you through your little episode. You didn't think I was so awful you were begging me to keep my brother away from you. I didn't seem so bad when you were pleading with me to just give you your waterbending back." 

"Because you have been behind so many of the horrible things that have happened to me! You have stabbed me." She took a challenging step toward him. "Isolated me." Another step. "Tied me down like a savage." They were nearly chest to chest. "Poisoned me." Her head tipped back just to look up at him. "Made all these decisions for me without even considering what I wanted. You took my life away!"

"No, I saved your life," Zetzu argued, the first to move away this time, pacing as his own rage flared, voices shouting inside of his skull.

"That's not true." 

"You called what you were living before a life?" The Prince barked. 

"Ungrateful."  

"Broken."

"Dangerous." 

"Galavanting around the world with no real home? Witnessing all of the terrible, awful, worst parts of society?" He shot at her, remembering what he had learned about her time at the North Pole and Ba Sing Se. "Having death and misery follow you every waking step? Knowing that so many people hated you just for being born different?" He continued to rant as he paced, not realizing he was talking about his experiences as much as he was hers. "You were miserable! You were so unhappy! You hated your life!" 

"It was my life," She spoke low and slow, pointing to her chest as she did. "My life! You don't get to take that from me!"

"You did that to yourself! I didn't come between you and Zuko! I didn't make you kill the Avatar! You destroyed your own broken existence that you called a life!" He shouted, not caring if anyone heard anymore. If anything, it would only help his image with his Father. 

But when Aelita looked at Zetzu like he had struck her, and the guilt hit him harder than she ever had. 

There was a time when Zetzu used to be part of the life she spoke about, and as angry as he was, he still wanted to be a part of that life, wanted it to be willing on her side. Needed to be her life. He counted to ten slowly in his head, some old bullshit his old master Din had taught him before his student blew apart his chest cavity, and he sighed. "This wasn't how this was supposed to happen."

"Yeah, well," Aelita huffed, "Here we stand."

And then, surprising them both, Zetzu laughed. "That should be our new family motto. Here We Stand, because look at us 'Lita, still standing tall after everything life has thrown at us, and we're standing here together." 

"We are not a family." She argued. "We are not together."

"But we were, weren't we?" He asked her, his voice gentler once more as he told the part of him screaming to just beat her will and defiance into submission to go away. 

"We are not our Father." 

"You looked out for me when I couldn't look out for myself," Zetzu reminded her. "Let me repay you for that. Let me keep looking out for you now."

"Why? You're doing such a bang-up job so far, husband."

Zetzu ignored how beautiful the word would've sounded falling from her lips had it been missing the venom laced through them. "I've made some mistakes, sure, maybe too many but I am trying Aelita, can't you see that?" He took a small step back toward her. "I'm sorry I hurt you, but could you have really lived with yourself if I just stood there and let you turn on Zuko beneath Ba Sing Se? You weren't yourself then, but you would've been the moment you came crashing back down."

She snorted. "'Cause I'm doing so well already living with the fact that I'm as bad as your Father."

"That will never be true Aelita. You're a protector. A damn good one, and my brother, as much as I may love him, never appreciated you the way he should have." Zetzu closed the last bit of space between them to whisper lowly in her ear. "I don't blame you for leaving him. Not after everything our family has put you through"

"You're one of them." 

"Am I really?" He countered. "Have I ever been?" 

"How would I know? You're not the kid I grew up with anymore."

"No, I'm better," Zetzu looked around the corridor once to make sure they were truly alone before backing the Akira into the shadows for good measure. "You are too, 'Lita. Zuko is not."

"I know," She agreed far quicker than she ever would've before but damn it if Zetzu's brother hadn't sat back and let her be destroyed from the inside out. She may have left, sure, and she unfortunately still had too many memories of the fact that she had hurt him, but she had always bailed him out, even when it put her own neck on the line.

But who knows, maybe this was the payback she deserved. 

"You asked me to make him go away, and I did."

This time, Aelita sighs, and she hates herself for how timid her voice sounds. "I know, but you made my strength go away too."

"Oh darling, you don't need your bending to be strong, but tell me, honestly," He looked down at her as if he saw through her completely because it almost felt as if he were looking at a mirror reflection of himself and his own demons. "Do you trust that power you hold?" 

No. At the very least, not her firebending, and certainly not the Spirit State. Her waterbending, maybe. Water was healing in a way that fire would never be, even if she did once argue that flame and heat and light were lifegiving. So, she chose to ignore the question. "You took my choice away from me." 

"You wouldn't have had one anyway," Zetzu told her bluntly simply because it was the truth. "But I am sorry. Tell me now that you'd rather have Zuko than me, and I will turn around and tell my Father that he was right and marrying you to me would be a waste. Speak the words, and it will be done." 

Aelita looked at the Prince, really looked at him and tried to figure out what was going on inside his mind, tried to see what his real motives were, but staring up into his chestnut eyes did nothing but make her head hurt. There had been a time when she had been so good at reading people, at least, she thought there had been, but when it came to the younger Prince and all his conflicting moods and ever-changing words, she was left to feel like she was going slowly insane. 

Yet he was the one here with her now, and after weeks upon weeks of isolation with only her own demons for company, Aelita hated to admit that seemed to mean something to her. "There's no getting out of this, is there? I'm right back to where I was four years ago."

"I'd like to think you're somewhere better, but no, 'Lita, there's no running from our destiny."

The Akira's gaze flicked up over the Prince's shoulder to find the most terrible version of herself looking back at her inside a pool of blood. Aelita shuddered. "I don't know what my destiny is supposed to be anymore, Zetzu." 

It was all the reassurance he needed, and so the Prince smiled, wild and feral and predatory. She didn't want him, not in the way he wanted her, not yet, but she wanted him more than she wanted Zuko, and that was a start. "Luckily for you, love, I do." 

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Currently

It was two days before Katara felt comfortable enough to move Aang more than just off the blackened shore of Crescent Island. Toph and Kyojuro bent a temporary shelter large enough to make due, the Prince manipulating molten stone until the cave looked natural enough to the occasional passing ship in the distance, the younger girl helping to reinforce its walls. With little else to occupy their time or their still saddened hearts, the teens focused their energy on the airbender's recovery and fine-tuning the plans for the upcoming invasion, living off of the supplies they had brought along with them. 

Second largest in size to only the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation was made up of a half-moon cluster of volcanic masses both big and small. Crescent Island was the first on the country's long eastern tail. When Aang was finally strong enough to stand and walk freely on his own, no one argued with Sokka when he pointed out it was too dangerous to stay in one place for too long, so they decided to move on to the next island due east, Jang Hui. 

They planned to leave left just before dawn the next morning but when the others woke their sometimes ridiculous and fearless leader was gone. Katara found him sitting amongst the darkened rocks just beyond the water's edge, his stare trained on the horizon as he rested his arms on bent knees. The rest of his healing family joined him there one by one. They lingered there together for some time. 

Huddled around the fire the night before, Aang had recounted Aelita's story to Toph and Kyjuro, telling them how this Island had been the very place where she had first chosen them. 

Being here amongst the Fire Nation without her felt wrong.

Continuing on without her felt wrong,

Not being able to see her balance out and calm Katara's mothering nature felt wrong. 

Missing her passing quick, snide but smiling comments back and forth with Toph felt wrong. 

Not hearing her steady voice willingly answer Kyojuro's fifty thousand questions felt wrong. 

Watching Aang trying to be the best version of himself he could be without her support and encouragement felt wrong.

Not seeing her so casually and constantly drifting to Sokka's side as if it were only natural felt wrong. 

Living without her and Mushu too, missing his constant chittering in their ears and snoring too loudly at night felt wrong, but it was for them and their memory that the little, broken family found the strength to shed their tears together and continue on. 

They left Crescent Island just as the sun began to illuminate the sky. Katara and Aang worked in tandem to bend thick billows of condensation around Appa and his riders for cover as they soared through the sky, trying to fly with all the haste a casual cloud could muster. 

"I think I see a cave below!" Aang pointed out through the haze as they reached the Jang Hui shores. 

"Shh!" Sokka hushed his best friend while Appa began his descent. "Keep quiet!" 

The sky bison glided easily into the open mouth in the green-covered rolling stone, the cave more than large enough for him to fit comfortably. Katara and Aang dropped their cover as his feet touched down. 

"Great job with the cloud camo, but next time, let's disguise ourselves as the kind of cloud that knows how to keep its mouth shut," Sokka chastised as he climbed out of the saddle.

Toph snorted."Yeah, we wouldn't want a bird to hear us chatting up there and turn us in."

"Hey, we're in enemy territory," Kyojuro attempted to lighten the mood, offering a hand to help Katara down. "Those are enemy birds."

"Don't encourage her, she doesn't need it," Sokka shot back before standing tall and opening his arms wide in front of the others. "Well, this is it! This is how we'll be living until the invasion begins. Hiding in cave," the realization hit him and his head began to droop gradually lower as he finished his rambling, "after cave after cave after cave..." 

Katara rolled her eyes at her brother. "Sokka, we don't need to become cave people. What we need is some new clothes." She said, gesturing to the fact that they were all still dressed in the very tattered and singed rags they had fled Ba Sing Se in. 

"Yeah, blending in is better than hiding out," Aang quickly agreed despite his movements still being slightly stiff, smiling at the waterbender. "If we get Fire Nation disguises, we would be just as safe as we would be hiding in a cave."

Toph, who had already slumped on the ground and rested her head on a crossed arm behind her added, "Plus, they have real food out there. Does anyone want to sit in the dirt and eat cave hoppers?" She asked as she slammed a closed fist against the cave wall, several of the bugs she mentioned leaping out at the force for Momo to snatch up happily. 

Kyojuro watched the lemur rip the head off of one and suck out its eyes. "I don't think I have an appetite anymore." 

Sokka looked around for any backup, only finding it from Momo. "Looks like we got outvoted, sport. Let's get some new clothes."

Toph acted as the eyes for the teens, heading above ground and sending out her vibrations as far as she could until she found what they were looking for - some sort of wash house or seamstresses nestled amongst a field of steam vents. Tucking Appa safely into the cave the four plus Momo set out, hiding behind rocks and hills until they could duck behind the stone wall that surrounded the property. From where they crouched, Aang could see several clotheslines with items of every shape and size hanging to dry while an old employee napped beneath the mid-morning sun on the back porch. 

"I don't know about this," He whispered to his friends. "These clothes belong to somebody."

He expected Katara to agree with him, but she was already up and catapulting herself over the wall. "I call the silk robe!" She called back as she plucked two outfits off the closest line. 

"But if it's essential to our survival," Aang pondered out loud before leaping after her, Toph hot on his heels. "Then I call the suit!"

The two nabbed several items off the same line and ran off in the same direction as Katara while Sokka and Kyojuro stood across from one another, moving the cord down its pully system, stopping to hold each passing outfit to themselves and looking at the other for approval. After three or four declined options, they both settled on a fistful of items and hauled off to join the others as the man just began to stir on the porch. 

A short while later Aang tied a maroon belt of fabric around the last bit of his arrow that his still new to him hair didn't cover. "Ta-da!" He told the others, proud of his casual disguise. The ensemble had been hung together as a matching set of brown pants and a long-sleeved shirt, a black and red vest layered over top and hanging just past his waist. He assumed the strip on his head was meant to tie around the hips but he didn't care. It was almost ironic that a small, golden triangle lay just where his arrow was tattooed beneath, the detailing matching the knee-high boots he had taken to complete the look. 

Kyojuro nodded approvingly. His sleeveless, kimono-style top was grey and trimmed in blood-shaded threads, the cut highlighting the muscle he had built from years of bending. His pants were the same shade of the trim cuffed at his ankles and simple black shoes adorned his feet. "I don't know what most Fire Nationals look like but you're believable enough to me."

"I think you look awesome!" Toph complimented. 

"Thanks…hey!"

The girl snorted from the rock she sat on. She wouldn't have realized just how similar her new clothes were to her old ones had Katara not told her already, the bold red pants hanging loose around her knees. The matching top had been simple and would've left her shoulders and arms completely had her friend not helped her drape over top a long, wide thing that could've very well been a scarf for all they knew. Katara left the ends to dangle past Toph's hips, the middle slouched behind her back like a second shirt, a baggy brown belt lopped around her waist.

"Hm...I should probably wear shoes, but then I won't be able to see as well..." She pondered out loud before an idea hatched in her head. She slid the pair next to her onto her feet and held on tightly to the sides of one, pushing hard with her foot. The sole ripped out of place to smack a nearby Sokka in the face as he tried to finish lacing his own shirt. "Sorry shoes!" She repeated the same process and stood quite proud of herself, the tops of her feet hidden from the public but her toes wiggling out of sight in the dirt below. "Finally! Stylish footwear for the blind earthbender." 

Katara opted to ignore her younger friends' antics. "How do I look?" She asked Aang and when the Avatar turned to look at her, he was sure his heart stopped beating. 

Her normally plated hair was left half-down and free, brown lochs tousled in heavy waves, the rest pinned on top of her head in a more typical Fire Nation fashion. The strands she typically pinned back in loops to frame her face were tucked behind her ears to lay over her collarbones. Her tanned skin seemed to glow against the vibrant red of her top, cut to cover only one shoulder, her midriff bare. The bottoms were a two-piece, layered set, a darker skirt over baggier pants that skimmed her shins, simple sandals on her feet. 

"Uhh..." Aang tried to find the right words, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment until he noticed the blue and silver pendant hanging from her throat, the item from a completely different world. "Your mom's necklace." He pointed out gently.

"Oh," She realized softly, her hand absentmindedly fluttering to the keepsake around her neck, the one last tie she had to her Mother. "Oh, yeah. I guess it's pretty obviously Water Tribe, isn't it?" She asked, hoping anyone would help her find a way around taking it off. 

Her brother returned her a sad, bittersweet smile and held out his hand. The pockets of his knee-length brown pants had deep pockets, so he accepted their mother's necklace from his sister and tucked it away for safekeeping. His outfit, similar to Katara's, was made of layered fabrics with splashes of red and gold, his neck and shoulders covered but his arms bare. Finally feeling a little more relaxed now that they all could blend in at least a little better, it was his suggestion that they venture into the nearby village, the place fairly small but bustling with life. 

Being so completely surrounded by Fire Nationals as a group of teens that opposed their leader would never stop being at least some level of uncomfortable but Kyojuro was the most visibly tense of the four of them, trying to hide the fact that he was constantly looking over his shoulder, all too conscious of his lack of experience period. His friends, still on guard to an extent, were more relaxed than him. It had felt like the whole world had been hunting them for so long that this was just a part of their new normal. Kyojuro had to remind himself more than once that Aelita herself had been proof that not every National nor firebender would be his enemy.

Just the Fire Lord, and much like the others, the bias he held against the bastard was now personal. 

The team made their way into the town's market district, stopping first at an accessories and apparel shop with their pockets lined with Fire Nation coins they hadn't felt guilty lifting from their commandeered ship. The older woman working the stand was too distracted by the book in her hands to bother with real conversation, accepting the money from the teens without more than a few words. They completed their disguises with simple jewelry and trinkets to really sell their facade, bands of colored metal to adorn bare biceps, a fire insignia headpiece to sit in front of the knot Sokka had pulled his hair into, a simple golden diadem to hold back Toph's hair and a new, thick banded necklace to replace the one Katara couldn't wear.

Aang, not needing anything, waited outside and stuffed Momo down his shirt. Fully satisfied and riding on the energy of just being out amongst the real world, he took the lead as he and his friends ventured further into the village. "I used to visit my friend Kuzon here a hundred years ago." He told the others. "So, everyone just follow my lead and stay cool. Or, as they say in the Fire Nation, 'stay flamin'!'" He shot a wink to his friends as he prepared to strut through the main square, either not hearing or not caring when Kyojuro pointed out that he had not once ever heard Aelita say 'stay flamin'. "Greetings, my good hotman!" He told the first National the past, a now confused man only a few years older than the Prince. 

"Uh, hi," He stammered. Sokka shrugged at him as they continued by. "I guess..."

"Is he fucking with us?" Kyojuro whispered to Toph beside him. "Because it sounds like he's fucking with us. I know I haven't got around much, but hotman? Really?" 

"It's easier if you don't question him." 

Aang quickly lost control of the other four, their stomachs talking louder than him as they approached a restaurant, the smell and smoke of something dead roasting inside making his stomach turn but not in the pleasant way it did for his friends. "Oh, we're going to a meat place?" He hesitantly questioned. 

"Come on, Aang, everyone here eats meat," Sokka taunted his vegetarian friend. pointing at a hippo cow chewing on a slab of...something... swarming with flies. "Even the meat!" 

Aang shuddered. "You guys go ahead. I'll just get some lettuce out of the garbage." He said, already waving to Katara as she and the others disappeared inside. "Hotman," He greeted the next local he saw while he searched for his own meal.

And the next one.

And the next.

And...

"It's over." A woman's voice boomed over the teen's shoulder. "We caught you."

Aang didn't want to turn around. Everything inside him was screaming to just run but another part of him know that would only make him look that much more suspicious so against his better judgment, he moved to face the stranger.

 "Who, me?" He asked the female in a two-piece uniform that screamed local military or law enforcement. Beside her was a hulking, glowering man dressed in a similar fashion.

"It couldn't be more obvious that you don't belong here." The woman seethed, hands on her hips, and Aang was certain he had already been discovered. "Next time you play hooky, you might wanna take off your school uniform."

They were on the monk before he can even consider moving, flanking him with a hand on each shoulder as they steered him through the town. Aang was in much better shape than he was when he woke up days ago but he was still just barely stable at best, his strength nowhere near what it was and he knew if he wanted to shake these two, he'd have to blow his cover and announce to the entire world that the Avatar is still alive. So, he let them lead him away from his friends all the while they muttered and cursed about kids these days having not a lick of sense or respect until they reached a walled-in yard with a statue of Fire Lord Ozai at its center. Beyond the statue was a large cream-stone building with multiple levels and drops and a long, red-slanted roof.

The soldiers or guards or whatever they were exactly seemed familiar with the maze of hallways and wood-planked floors, passing by several closed until they found the one they were looking for on the second level and shoved the Avatar inside. Aang realized then when he was met by the confused stares of at least a dozen kids his age and one very tight-faced older woman, that he was standing in the middle of a school. 

"Oh," Kwan spoke as she took in the boy, her back to the lesson board behind her. "Is this a new mind ready for molding?"

Students sat cross-legged at rows of short individual tables, all dressed in the very uniform Aang had stolen for himself that morning. The woman, whom he assumed to be the teacher, wore a more elegant and mature version, hair pinned back off her neck with a look of never fading annoyance to her. 

A real Fire Nation school, just like the ones Aelita used to tell him about when they were just them, two kids from different worlds but best friends regardless. Aang felt like he could see her ghost there smiling up at him from one of the empty seats in the room, innocent as she always should've been allowed to be and not suffocated under the weight of burdens she shouldn't have had to bare. Suddenly, Aang doesn't ever want to let this vague, barely-there tether to her go. 

"That's right," He says quickly, wrapping theatrically on his head. "Let the molding begin." 

Before Aang could even consider breathing out a sigh of relief or really thinking about the potentially dangerous situation he was diving into headfirst, his new teacher looked right through him. 

"Wait a minute," She said and the soldiers stopped to linger at the door. "You're not from the Fire Nation," She accused him as she circled his being completely. "Clearly you're from the colonies."

Aang had to remind himself to start breathing again. "Yeah, the colonies, of course," He stammered. "The Fire Nation colonies in the Earth Kingdom."

Seemingly pleased enough, the soldiers left the airbender at the mercy of his new teacher. 

"Your etiquette is terrible," She cut him down with sharp words and a disappointed glare. "In the homeland, we bow to our elders." She walked around the front of her desk to demonstrate, hinging at the hips, closed fist to open palm like Aang had seen from Aelita before so many times. "Like so."

"Sorry, ma'am," He apologized, mimicking her actions to both her and his new classmates. 

"And we don't wear head coverings indoors," She pointed out before he rose. 

Aang looked around the room and realizes the other children were in fact wearing his makeshift headband like a belt around their waist, so he thought of a lie. "Um...I have a scar." He says when he settles on a believable enough excuse. "It's really embarrassing."

Kwan considered the boys' words for a moment before deciding to take him at face value, choosing her battles for now. "Very well. What is your name? Or should we just call you 'Mannerless Colony Slob'?"

At this, Aang actually laughs. "Just 'slob' is fine," He attempted to joke, but he notices quickly he's the only one smiling. "Or, uh," He thinks on his feet again before deciding, "Kuzon."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Aelita hardly saw a soul in her first full days back in the Fire Nation. 

Zuko had stormed out of her quarters after their latest blow up and he hadn't dared to show his face since. Zetzu followed after him a few moments later, promising to come back and made good on it, but she was largely left to her own vices for some time, a trio of Imperial Firebenders stationed outside of her door. 

On their second evening back, Azula's personal advisors quickly organized a rally to showcase the children of Ozai and their most glorious achievements to the common folk and nobles alike at the Royal Plaza. Aelita almost expected to be summoned for it now that she was betrothed yet again, but she supposed it made sense to parade the Princes' before the people alone before either of their engagements were announced. 

The Akira could admit Zuko's arrangement was a brilliant one from a political standpoint. Mai Irimi was the daughter of one of the most respected men in the Capital but above that, she was as seemingly normal as could be and yet she had been there the day Ba Sing Se fell. 

Aided with its takeover. 

Devoted herself to the Fire Lord. 

Mai and Zuko's arrangement would inspire the people, spur them on to keep fighting and serve as an example of what could happen if you served the crown well enough. After all, every decision Ozai made was to help ensure his subjects and his future were molded to his liking and his benefit.

Aelita knew that further than the trio of guards outside her door at all times, she was being kept under constant supervision, even when her husband-to-be was gone. To keep her from going completely stir-crazy, Zetzu handpicked his future wife a personal handmaiden, a pert young woman maybe two or three years older than the Akira.

And maybe the gesture would have worked if her new handmaiden had a tongue to speak with. 

Zetzu refused to tell Aelita why she didn't. 

The silent handmaiden flittered around her new lady's quarters whenever Zetzu was gone which he largely was as he and his brother were busy being reintroduced to the Capital. She typically helped Aelita while she waited to regain her strength after her daily doses of the poison that stole the very air out of her lungs and put a cage on her bending. 

The Akira figured it was a fair comparison seeing as she was very much a bird in a gilded cage, wings clipped with the doors firmly sealed. The doors that lead to a balcony she knew were there had been bolted shut sometime before her arrival. Zetzu seemed to think she was a flight risk, even after their conversation in the quiet palace several nights before. I 

The Prince was a smart man.

Surprisingly, Azula had yet to come to gloat or officially welcome her soon-to-be sister back into the family. The Fire Lord didn't dare waste his time on her, so all in all, very few people were allowed to interact with the imprisoned Akira.

Maybe that's why it was all the more shocking when Mai showed up utterly announced shortly before lunch. 

The other girl wasn't offended when she looked at her like she had seen a ghost. "Should I start calling you sis' now?" Mai asked I'm a deadpan manner. 

"Do you want to?" Aelita questioned back. Kanao, her silent handmaiden visibly tensed at the unexpected visitor. 

Mai snorted. "Fuck no."

Kanao moved to stand between the two girls but the Akira held up her hand and she laughed.

Actually laughed. 

Kanao hadn't heard that kind of sound in a long, long time. Still, she opened her mouth to object, remembering her strict orders from the young Prince, but no sound came out.

"It's okay, Kanao," Aelita insisted, a simple dress hanging from her shoulders where she sat bored at a small table. It had been months since she had been so useless or stationary, and the bender was itching for some sort of human interaction that wasn't surface-level or complete bullshit. "She'll be family soon enough." 

"Get us something to eat, actually," Mai quickly interjected as she crossed the space to sit across from the grey-haired girl. "And a drink while you're at it. I'm parched." 

It took everything in Aelita to not outright smirk at the dismissal. She had been in Kanao's shoes before and would never make it a point to treat her or any other staff poorly, but as nice as she was, Aelita didn't trust her as far as she could throw her. "Tea," She added. "Oolong. Roast vegetables with our lunch today, please. They're my sister-in-law's favorite."

Kanao looked frazzled and on edge, clearly not expecting to be sent away. Aelita gave her all of about two minutes before she had run to Zetzu.

"You heard your Lady," Mai drawled on, annoyance clear. "It isn't wise to keep the future Princesses waiting."

Kanao was out the door a heartbeat later. 

"I hate roasted vegetables."

"I remember, but on the off chance she doesn't go straight to my betrothed, it'll keep her busy a little longer."

Mai's knuckles clenched on the table. "You think she'll go straight to Zetzu?"

"You don't?" Aelita asked.

"Oh I do, I'm just glad to see you've still got some wit to you."

"Wit will be the only reason I survive."

"Don't ever forget that," Mai told her old friend in a plain, to-the-point tone. "Or Ty Lee just might drag you back from the underworld herself." 

Aelita grinned, small but genuine. "Glad to hear she hasn't changed much."

"Not at all," Mai assured, and then her eyes softened, just barely but enough to make up for the lack of emotion in her voice. "What about you, Aelita, have you changed too?"

The Akira looked at the girl she had grown up with, any trace of happiness that was on her face was gone. "Not for the better."

Mai cursed herself for not being better at this. "You can't be worse than Zetzu."

"Oh?"Aelita's interest grew. "Are you so sure about that? I did kill the Avatar after all."

"And he killed one of our own," Mai pointed out lowly, weary of the guards outside that she had to trick her way past. "The ship Captain from when they went after Zuko and Iroh."

Oh.

Oh. 

Aelita hadn't known that. Honestly, despite everything he had done to her thus far, she didn't think Zetzu was capable of something so extreme. "How do you know?"

"Azula."

Aelita almost snorted, but Mai took it as a good sign. She wasn't blind to who the Princess truly was, and the more the Akira kept her guard up, the better. Still, Zetzu was a wild card that worried her when it came to the other girl's safety and sanity. "Just be careful with him, Aelita."

"Why are you here Mai?" She couldn't stop herself from asking, but there was no anger behind her words, just genuine wonder. 

And Mai finally smiled as much as she was casually capable of. "If I have to get roped into this bullshit, I want you here with me. No way I'm gonna suffer alone."

Aelita chuckled, a sad but bittersweet sound, and then comfortable silence fell between them. "He'll be kind to you," She said after a moment, and she hated that she meant it. "Zuko. He'll be a kind husband."

"I know," Mai sighed sadly. "It's just...not what I wanted." She admitted. She didn't pull away when her old friend laid a comforting hand over hers. "But we don't always get what we want, do we? Even somewhere as progressive as this." She gestured out the closest window, and she was right. Women in the Fire Nation served in the military, held political offices, were allowed to say no. 

But not them. Not Mai, not Aelita, and not other girls like them. 

"Funny how things are different when your parents are important." Aelita agreed.

Before either girl could say more, the doors to the Akira's chambers, a space filled with art and artifacts from through out history, opened just slow enough to seem casual, both the Fire Lord's sons standing on the other side. The twins took in the sight of the future wives sitting across from one another hand in hand. Neither took it as a relieving sign.

Zetzu supposed he should be happy to see Aelita at least a little bit back to her normal self, to know she wasn't so alone, but he needed to be her only lifeline and he wasn't willing to share her so wholly yet. 

And to Zuko, it just hurt. He had spent the last few days attempting to numb himself but this was a reminder that it was something he wasn't capable of. Mai and Aelita had been friends before and seeing them together reminded the Prince that the Akira was willing to take most anyone back but him. 

He had been avoiding his brother as much as he could since then, not giving Zetzu a chance to explain but his twin had finally cornered him that morning and he had just began to plead his case when a flighty handmaiden had come for him with worried eyes. 

Zetzu had tossed his brother a bone just to see how he'd react when Kanao finally got the point across that Zuko's betrothed was alone with his own. He was almost impressed when his twin followed. 

"Taking lunch without us, ladies?" Zetzu asked, attempting to sound casual. 

"Just a little sisterly bonding," Aelita quickly lied, gripping Mai's hand tighter. "We were hoping to send Kanao to fetch Azula if she were free."

"Yeah right," Zuko huffed underneath his breath. 

Aelita took it as a challenge. "Now that you're here, you should join us for lunch."

Zetzu couldn't stop the way the corner of his mouth curled up into a smirk. She was pushing back and holding her own against Zuko in a way she hadn't yet so far. As much as he didn't want his brother around her, the Prince was so damn proud of how well his girl played the game. "Mother would be so happy to know we were all together. It's easy to see why she thought of you so highly."

Zuko's younger brother was already moving to join the girls when the elder brushed past him, gripping Mai by her free hand. "We can't stay. We have our own plans."

"We do?" She questioned.

"We do now. Let's go," He said, tugging her up and out of her seat before she could object.

"Pity." Aelita hummed, looking Zuko directly in the eye. "I rather enjoy my time with my sister-to-be." Her gaze shifted lazily to his twin. "Zetzu, my Prince, won't you stay?" 

His smirk was a full on smile now, wild and manic and so damn thrilled. "Of course, love." 

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

There was no formal education in the Air Nomads culture. Every child was taught to read and write and do at least basic arithmetic at some point in their youth, but every lesson thereafter was practical and hands-on and approached at a fully individual pace.

Maybe that was why every single bit of Aang's day had fascinated him. 

Maybe it was the way the Avatar realized just how normal other kids in the Fire Nation were, how simple their interactions were with one another, how innocent and accepting so many had been despite his regretfully admitted predisposition to associate them with some level of fear and violence. 

Or maybe it was the feeling of his friend's lingering presence despite her not being there with him. Aang couldn't help but imagine Aelita sitting next to him, drawing every other student to her like an eagle moth to light, inexplicably managing to talk her way out of trouble by proving she had been listening and getting each question right because it would've been so very like her. 

Whatever the reason had been, Aang was all smiles when lessons were dismissed for the evening and he followed the crowd of other students outside. Just past the school gates, he peaked into his shirt where his lemur friend, bless him, had been waiting mostly quietly since that afternoon. "We made it through the day Momo, and it was pretty fun." 

"Don't let the headmaster catch you with that monkey." A girl's soft voice spoke behind him.

Aang turned to face her flustered, shirt pulled tightly over Momo's now wriggling form. "What monkey?" He attempted to play off innocently. 

The girl offered him a genuine smile, meeting him with kind brown eyes framed by blunt bangs. Aang recognized her from his classroom. "Don't worry, I'm not a tattletale," She assured him, plucky, sweet and easygoing. "My name's On Ji. I like your headband, by the way."

Before the Avatar could so much as consider replying, a boy maybe only a year older than himself but certainly a good margin larger appeared out of nowhere to toss a lazy arm over her shoulder. "On Ji, you don't have to babysit the new kid."

"Wow, you must be one of those popular kids I've been hearing about." Aang quickly realized with faint amusement when he saw the way so many other lingering students stared. 

"That's right." Hide huffed, already having made up his mind that he didn't like the little twerp or his goofy grin. "Now listen, friend. I know you're from the colonies, so I'll say this slowly." He leaned down uncomfortably close to the boys face. "On Ji is my girlfriend." He jabbed the kid roughly in the chest. "Don't forget it."

Aang, as innocent and kind as he was, didn't pick up on the threat. When Hide wheeled On Ji away, he waved after them both. "It was nice meeting you!" 

"I don't believe it," Another boy admitted, still amazed at how the interaction with the older student and his new classmate panned out. "He didn't beat you up. Not even a little."

"I guess I'm just lucky." Aang shrugged.

The other student immediately loved his carefree nature, so he grinned and pointed over his shoulder to his waiting friends. "We were on our way to play hide and explode. You wanna come?"

It was all the invitation the airbender needed. "I'd love to!" 

With that, Aang didn't return to the cave until long after the sun went down, dirt and ash covering half of his sweaty, all too happy face. He didn't seem to have a single care in the world, and as relieved as his family was to see them, it almost pissed them off more. 

"Where have you been?" Katara mothered, jumping up from she sat around a fire with the others. "We've been worried sick!"

"I got invited to play with some kids after school," Aang explained as if it were the most casual thing in the world, either not noticing or not caring when his friends all looked at him as if he had gone mad. 

"After what?" Sokka squawked, positive he had heard the boy wrong, but the airbender confirmed, "I enrolled in a Fire Nation school, and I'm going back tomorrow."

"Enrolled in what?" Sokka asked again, slumping back in disbelief against the cave wall. 

"Aang, listen, I'm trying to be mature and understanding and not immediately shoot down your idea, but that sounds..." Kyojuro looked for the right words but eventually gave up. "Really terrible."

"Yeah, we got our outfits." Toph agreed beside him. "What do you need to go to school for?"

"Every minute I'm in that classroom, I'm learning new things about the Fire Nation, things that could be really helpful now that we don't have Aelita," Aang said, noticing the way the others flinched at the words but certain he was still right regardless. "I already have a picture of Fire Lord Ozai." He told them, pulling out a scroll and tossing it to Sokka. "And here's one that I made out of noodles!" He proudly plucked out his own artwork for his friends to see. 

"That is kind of impressive."

"Please don't encourage him Kyojuro."

"I think it looks awesome!"

"Thanks, Top-hey!"

Sokka ignored his family's antics, surprisingly not in the middle of it for once. "I still think it's too dangerous."

A chorus of agreement rang out in the cave, even a groan from Appa and a muffled sound from Momo, still tucked inside Aang's shirt. The monk freed the lemur and slowly sank down in front of the fire between Sokka and Kyojuro, Katara watching him with worried eyes. "I think I need this, not just to learn things about the Fire Lord," He admitted a moment later, and his family fell silent to listen. "Being in that school and around all those other kids made me feel like Aelita was there with me again. I haven't felt her like that since I woke up." 

The air in the cave seemed to get thinner with each of Aang's passing words. Understanding the weight of it, Appa managed to squeeze his way around the others to lay behind his human, letting the boy lean his weight against him, holding him upright through it all. And Momo, despite his normal mischief knew exactly who needed him most, and curled up quickly on Sokka's lap.

"We should still be connected, even if she's gone, kind of like how I am with Avatar Roku, but I don't think I'm ready for that," Aang sadly explained. "Not yet at least. But I think I could be, and I think having a reminder of who she was and where she came from and why she was so willing to fight could help me get there. None of us are really ready to let her go, so please," He looked to his family with misty grey eyes, "Let me have one more adventure with my best friend." 

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Nights were typically quiet at the prison just outside the edge of Royal Caldera City. As far as most of the guards knew, no one had ever been successful at breaking out, and no one had ever been stupid enough to try to break in. Still, they remained on high alert, especially after a hooded visitor had appeared at their gates the last two nights. 

Zuko wasn't sure what had possessed him to come for his Uncle as soon as they were home, but he couldn't ignore the pull any longer, not when the uneasiness stewing inside of him after his last showing with Aelita threatened to swallow him hole. 

Mai had whirled on him the second they had been alone.

"You promised," She had hissed at him. "You promised to respect me, and I don't feel very respected right now." She even jabbed him in the chest. "Do not ever speak for me or make decisions for me. That might have worked for you before," The implication behind her words were heavy. "But it won't work now."

Zuko didn't bother apologizing or chasing after her when she stormed off. He couldn't. He was still reeling far too hard, and even now, he was trying not to spiral, so he continued on his journey.

The Prince turned away the last two nights when he came face to face with a guard at the high-walled prison, but tonight he didn't.  

The guard readied his spear and pointed it directly at the intruder's chest, the other person's head down and a hood covering their face. "You again? Stop where you are!" He barked, but when the other raised their head, he was surprised by the scarred eye looking back at him. "Prince Zuko."

The teen was on the man in an instant. Grabbing the front of his uniform, the Prince slammed him against the closest wall in the shadows. "I'm going in for a visit," Zuko told the man as he gripped him tightly. "You're going to stand guard here, and no one is going to know about this." He spoke through gritted teeth, challenging the other to dare object. When the man made no fuss, the Prince let him go and disappeared into the prison beyond. It didn't take him long to find the cell he was looking for. "Uncle, it's me," Zuko said as he pushed the hood away from his face, sinking down onto a wobbly stool.

The once mighty General sat on the damp floor with little more than rags hanging from a body looking more slight than his nephew - his boy - had ever seen before. His hair was limp, skin dirty. He turned away from Zuko with a scowl on his face, staring straight ahead at a mold-covered wall.

Turning away from the Prince, just like everyone Zuko ever loved always did.

"You brought this on yourself, you know," The boy insisted, deflecting his guilt and riding on his rage brought on by his brother, his long-since lost best friend, himself. The conversation felt uncomfortably reminiscent of a fight he had once had with Aelita, and that only hurt him even more.  "We could have returned together. You could have been a hero!"

Still, Iroh shuddered but would not look at him. 

"You have no right to judge me, Uncle," The Prince continued to rant. "I did what I had to do in Ba Sing Se, and you're a fool for not joining me!"

Silence. Maddening, defeating silence. 

"You're not going to say anything?" Zuko hissed, and when he was met with nothing but more quiet indifference he stood, picking up the stool and chucking it at the closest wall, fire pouring messily from his palms until the wood was reduced to nothing but a pile of ash. "You're a crazy old man! You're crazy! And if you weren't in jail, you'd be sleeping in a gutter!"

With that, the Prince had lost the last bit of the fragile hold he had left on his self-loathing, and he stormed out of the prison, determined to never allow himself to feel this way ever again.

Chapter Text

Zuko invited Mai out with him the next morning in an attempt to fix what he had broken. The two sat side by side on a blanketed cliff just outside the city, the early morning sun rising above the horizon, the scene a wash of warm hues. The eldest Prince had apologized once already when he showed up at the Irimi family home early that morning but little more had been said since then.

Mai decided she might as well be the first to break the silence.

"Orange is such an awful color," She scoffed in a manner that she had perfected over the years.

It made Zuko laugh, his stomach lighter at the knowledge that at least some things had remained the same. There had been a time when interactions between the two of them had been easy. Azula may have always been a terror to deal with but her friends had been kind to him nonetheless, even when there were whispers of an innocent crush between the Prince and Mai long before he realized there was only one person that truly dominated his thoughts. "You're so beautiful when you hate the world." Zuko teased her gently.

Mai snorted out a gruff laugh of her own and the weight of the tension between the two of them began to melt away. "You know, I don't hate you," She said after a moment and meant it. Despite the whole chaotic mess they were in, she didn't think she had it in her to hate Zuko. They could almost relate to one another more than anyone else could, both of them chained down and confined by the plans and expectations of parents who didn't really know who their children were.

Too bad Mai knew who she was, suppressed it, and was left to do nothing but guess as she tried to figure out who the Zuko sitting before her now was.

Still, he smiled at her, a soft and bittersweet thing when he admitted, "I don't hate you too."

Zuko wondered if this is the time that he should kiss her. They were shoulder-to-shoulder where they sat, faces pointed toward one another, the scene before them daring either of them to admit the image was that of a storybook romance. The Prince had shared a similar moment with an Earth Kingdom girl too kind for him to ever truly be associated with, and he had kissed her then. He had kissed his brothers' future wife in situations both more and less ideal, even if the memories of those made his stomach lurch.

Zuko could kiss Mai, he supposed. He should, at least. He'd have to one day, he knew that much, but as in denial of his own feelings as Zuko was, it would take a truly ignorant bastard to not realize his future wife was in love with another woman.

Suddenly the Prince felt guilty, as if he was the one that personally pulled Mai into this mess and forced her hand. "You were right yesterday," Zuko admitted after a moment, upset with himself for the treatment she didn't deserve. "I made you a promise and I broke it already. I'm sorry."

"Shit happens," Mai waved off the emotion behind his words, uncomfortable with it all and nowhere near ready to deal with her own feelings or anyone else's. "We'll be fine."

"Will we?" Zuko asked. "Are you really okay with all of...this?" He gestured between them.

"Happy as a clam." She lied. When the Prince stared at her pointedly, she sighed. "It's not what either of us actually wants but we'll do it anyway 'cause we're supposed to, right?"

"I never..."

"You don't have to say anything," Mai cut him off. "I'm not stupid or in denial like you are."

"I'm not in denial!" Zuko insisted.

His betrothed looked at him dead on and the Prince hated that it felt like she was staring straight through his very soul when she asked, "Who are you trying to convince, me or yourself?"

Zuko groaned and buried his face in his hands, frustrated and confused. "It's complicated."

"That's an understatement." Mai quickly agreed, and then after some time she added. "Ty Lee and I are worried about Aelita."

"Ty Lee worries about everything," Zuko promptly protested.

"Doesn't matter." Mai countered, deadpan. "Our friend is gonna get hurt, Zuko."

"Aelita is far from my friend anymore."

"Does that make it any better?" The girl challenged. "Is this who you are now?"

"Why do you care so much?" Zuko snapped. "I haven't ever seen you care about anything before."

Mai in turn glared at him for his outburst. "I care about you, asshole."

Oh. That was news. It made Zuko feel like shit for the terrible person he knew he was being, but it was nice to hear, even if he knew he didn't deserve the sentiment. "I'm sorry," He apologized again and meant it. "But I care about you too, which is why I would like to not fight about things we can't change. What's done is done. Once my Father decides on something, there's no convincing him otherwise. My brother and the Akira are each other's problems now."

"And that is the problem, Zuko," Mai insisted. "He's fucking unhinged."

"It runs in the family."

"You're not listening to me!" She snapped, voice raised and strained in a way Zuko had never heard before.

The Prince softened. "He's my brother."

"You were never very brotherly before."

"We are now. People change. She did in case you suddenly think you know her better. Akira Aelita doesn't want my help."

Mai scoffed, rolling her eyes as pushed herself to her feet. "She's still Aelita. I thought you were still Zuko, but I guess I was wrong."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

"Good morning class," Kwan said as she addressed her students bright and early, her colony troublemaker from the day before seated happily in the midst of new friends. "Recite the Fire Nation oath."

Aang rose when his classmates did but all at once the children turned to face a painting of Zuko's father at the back of the room, bowing respectfully as they spoke. "My life I give to my country, with my hands, I fight for Fire Lord Ozai and our forefathers before him." The students around him chanted in unison, and Aang had to make a conscious to mimic their stances, familiar already with the Nation's sign of respect, but not a clue what words to say. When he noticed the teacher's eyes on him, he began to ramble. "Fire Lord...forefathers..."

"With my mind, I seek ways to better my country," The other children continued, and it was only all the more obvious when one of them spoke out of turn. "And with my feet may our March of Civilization continue."

"Firebenders...Fire Lord..." Aang attempted pitifully. This was not one of the things that Aelita had taught him. He almost swore he could see her just over his shoulder, smirking as he failed gloriously. "Wah, bah, blah, blah?"

Kwan's annoyance only rose when the rest of her pupils began to snicker at the colony boy's insolence. "Since it's obviously hilarious to mock our national oath, we'll begin with a pop quiz on our great March of Civilization." The bulk of the class groaned but they picked up their quills nonetheless as they sank back down into their seats. "Question one: What year did Fire Lord Sozin battle the Air Nation army?" She asked, pacing the front of the room until her troublemaker raised his hand. "Kuzon?"

"Is that a trick question?" The monk asked, unable to stop himself. He knew the Fire Nation's war-mongering propaganda ran deep, but to see it in action was something else entirely. "The Air Nomads didn't have a formal military. Sozin defeated them by ambush."

All eyes were on him now, his classmates dumbfounded by the accusation, a sharp look pointed at him from the teacher. "Well, I don't know how you could possibly know more than our national history book. Unless you were there a hundred years ago." Kwan hissed, and Aang knew he had messed up.

"I'll just write down my best guess." He murmured to himself, slinking down as far as he could where he sat, hoping and praying the rest of the day went smoother.

It didn't.

Sometime after history and arithmetic, Aang followed his new friends to a music lesson taught by a plump man with wrinkled skin. The teacher didn't bat an eye at the monk's colony lie, ignoring him almost entirely after he handed the boy a tsungi horn and told him to take a seat amongst the others. Aang was almost excited again when the man instructed them to play a tune everyone knew by now but him, but not long after he blew all the air he could muster through the wind instrument, the teacher screeched for them to stop.

"Kuzon!" He bellowed.

"I'm sorry," Aang quickly apologized, face red. "I know I'm a terrible tsungi hornist."

"No, child." The teacher huffed, pointing to the ground. "That hullabaloo going on with your feet. Is that a nervous disorder?"

Oh. Aang hadn't even realized he had been moving. His body just did what felt right.

"That? I was just dancing," He answered honestly, remembering faint stories of balls and celebrations told by Aelita. "I thought you did dances here in the homeland, right?"

"Not us," One of the boys the monk has played with the day before snorted. "The nobles and the richy-rich in Caldera City might, but us common people don't."

"Dancing is not conducive to a proper learning environment," The teacher hissed in agreement. "Young people must have rigid discipline and order."

"But what about expressing yourself?" Aang found himself wondering out loud. He was regretting every little thing he and Aelita hadn't gotten the chance to talk about, partially out of pity for children like her and partially out of guilt for taking her for granted.

"I know sometimes we're so ruled by our love for our nation that we can't control our own bodies," The music instructor sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. "If you must, you may march in place quietly next time the urge hits you."

Silently Aang nodded and brought his tsungi horn back to his lips. He didn't move an extra muscle during the remainder of the lesson, and the rest of his day went much the same. By the time school was dismissed for the evening, the airbender found himself feeling sad for the children of the nation so very feared and despised by the rest of the world.

Aang had always known that there had been facets of everyday life here that had been less than glamorous, that the Fire Nation had practices and customs he would never agree with, but Aelita had largely only experienced life amongst the privileged, her dad having risen through the militaries rankings so fast that she hadn't really been a true commoner long, and as fucked as it sounded, her partner had always attributed the atrocities she had spoken of to her social class, knowing that there were certain restrictions that came hand in hand with the freedoms of status. Aang hadn't expected to learn life was so rigid for the rest of the Nation as well. He didn't doubt that its citizens managed to find their own joys where they could but still, he couldn't imagine it was easy too at times.

The thought only made the Avatar feel worse, further fueling the fire in him to save not only the world but the innocent, everyday people of the Fire Nation as well if not for his own guilty conscious, but for the friend he missed more than anything. Lost in his own thoughts as he strolled through the yard, he didn't realize On Ji had made her way to him despite her boyfriends' insistence the day before.

"Uh, hi, Kuzon," She spoke up to get his attention, "I really liked that crazy dance you were doing."

"Oh, thanks, On Ji," Aang said, giving his first genuine smile since that morning. "I could show it to you again if you like-" He started to offer but before he could finish his train of thought, a ball of flame landed at his feet, giving him just enough time to jump back out of the way. "I thought there was no firebending on school grounds!"

"Maybe for you, there isn't, colony trash," Hide snorted, not at all happy with the sight he had stumbled upon, "Now what did you say to my girl? You're gonna show her something?"

Aang shrugged casually, either not knowing or not caring how much worse he was making the situation. "Just some dance movements."

"Nobody shows my On Ji anything," Hide snapped, swinging wildly with a closed fist. "Especially movements!"

Unfortunately for the brute, Aang had met manatee sloths that moved faster. The airbender stepped out of the much larger boy's way with ease and reminded himself it wasn't polite to laugh. It only enraged Hide more, the brute now fully turning his attention on his target to no avail. Perpetually light on his feet, the Avatar danced and dodged around the firebender with a smile on his face, eventually ending up back to back and grinning wildly as he matched every one of Hide's steps, ducking at all the perfect moments and swinging like a performer on stage.

Aelita was right after all, the key to beating a firebender was speed.

Aang slid between the other boys' legs just for the fun of it, and as he got bored with the one-sided event, he kicked up a foot that Hide tripped over, planting face-first on the ground in front of the Headmaster of the school himself.

Shit.

"Picking fights on your second day?" The Headmaster scowled, face covered in sunspots and a spindly white beard, not bothering to help up his fallen student. "We need to have a conference to discuss your punishment. Bring your parents to my office after school."

"Parents?" Aang asked, trying to think of any way out, not yet ready to give up, But-"

"Don't be late!"

Shit.

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

The spirits seemed to take pity on Zuko when he found his brother wrapped in a fervent discussion with the War Minister, Mai's words still ringing in his ears. He hadn't wanted to admit to her or to himself that he was slowly beginning to share her fears.

Zetzu was...a new person now, in a way that Zuko or even Azula wasn't, but he couldn't let himself dwell on it for too long or that would mean he was being made a fool. So, before logic or reason had time to take hold, he stopped at Royal Armory on his way to his quarters. A short while later the Prince emerged in training clothing as simple as a royal could own, a set of broadswords strapped to his back, a short blade on his hip.

His Father's announcement to formally declare Zuko as heir to the throne wouldn't be made until the following week but the news had already spread amongst the Palace itself, the staff treating him as such already as they bent to his beck and call once more, and with it came a certain air of superiority that wasn't actually there but the boy could fake it all too well.

And if the Imperial Firebenders saw the torturous items strapped to him and made their own assumption on what would happen behind the Akira's closed doors, so be it. After all, it seemed in line with what the rest of his family was capable of, and their wondering thoughts would likely keep the two teenagers safest. Not a single guard questioned the Prince when he pushed past their way without a single trace of mercy to his being.

Aelita sat in agonizing silence at the same table Zuko had found her at with Mai the day before,  expensive fabrics draped off her now perpetually slight frame. She stared distantly into the goblet between her palms, looking at something that wasn't there, skin sullen and eyes dull despite the finery she hadn't been exposed to since before her father's death. Compared to her normal, she looked like hell. A voice whispered in his ears that it was his fault as much as it was her own but he would make a difference now, even if his bruised pride and broken heart begged him to turn around.

Zuko made a point to shut the door with enough force to break Aelita from her trance and when she looked up, some part of him just knew she expected to find his brother strolling through the room dotted and decorated with relics of Avatar's and Akira's past. She was disappointed to see him instead, and that much was painfully obvious.

"Zuko," She said regretfully, her spine straightening by reflex, her guard all the way up. "I wasn't expecting you."

The Prince chose to not acknowledge that. "Where's the little dove my brother caught to keep you busy?"

"Dragging Mushu outside for a little fresh air seeing as I cannot. It's not good for animals to be caged for so long, Your Highness. They get rather testy," Aelita's gaze narrowed as she spoke and the double meaning of her words was conveyed loud and clear. "Besides, as kind as the girl is, I've found that her silence can be rather loud." The corner of her lips turned up just slightly into a sad smile. "But I'm sure my Prince will send her back to me soon. My intended is rather worried for my wellbeing."

"Yeah, seems like it," Zuko snorted. If Zetzu gave even the slightest fuck that Aelita was convinced he did, she wouldn't be doing so poorly. Riding on anger and adrenaline the firebender marched to the table where she sat, unsheathed the short blade, and slammed it down before her. "Get up. Take it."

Aelita refused to move, certain her life would only get worse if she did. "You're joking, right?"

"Does it look like I'm joking?"

The fire in his eyes said no. "Why?"

"A test."

"To see if I'll stab you or not? Because I'm still considering it, Prince Zuko."

The boy chose to ignore her venom as he reached for the swords on his back. "To see where your reflexes and reactions are. You've barely moved the way your body is used to for weeks now. Muscle memory only goes so far if you're not exercising yourself."

"Why do you suddenly care?"

It was far from sudden, so Zuko lied. "I don't, but Mai and Ty Lee apparently do. Now take the sword, get up and be quiet about it or both of our lives will get a whole lot more difficult."

It annoyed Aelita to no end that the Prince thought their situations were anywhere close to comparable, so she did as he said just to prove that they were far from on the same page. The Akira tried to move quickly but this body of hers, weaker than usual and bogged down with the heavy components of the bile that took away her bending, was slower and clumsier. By the time she jerked up out of her chair and she managed to get a grip on the blade's handle, Zuko was already moving too. When she swung the tanto where the Prince had previously been standing uncomfortably close, he parried with a glare, noting the missing force and weight behind her motions. "I meant get up and get stronger, not get up and take my head off!"

"You should've been more specific, Prince Zuko."

Exasperated already the boy knocked the trio of weapons to the ground, hoping the Imperial Firebenders outside thought nothing of it as he gripped the front of Aelita's shirt. Zuko hauled the Akira to him and stared straight down into dead eyes. "This isn't a joke, Aelita. This is your life."

"If this is what you consider a life, My Prince, then you have never truly lived, and I feel very, very sorry for you."

Zuko let go of Aelita abruptly, hurt and anger and dare he ever admit maybe even a faint trace of longing bubbling up beneath his skin. "This isn't what your dad would've wanted for you." He countered. This wasn't the kind of man his Mother would've wanted him to be either, but he kept that thought to himself.

"Yeah," the Akira agreed. "Probably not."

"Then do something about it!" He hissed.

"Like what?" Aelita, almost laughing at how simple her old friend made it sound.

Zulp was getting nowhere fast, so he switched topics, his voice softening. "Let me help you."

Aelita rolled her eyes at the offer. "You should go now," She said, stepping away from him in the large living space, their discarded blades a river between them, sharp edges pointing in both of their directions.

Zuko ignored the urge to reach out to her anyway. "You should be eating more." He told her, one last attempt. "Training more. I know...I know they give you something that keeps you from bending or going into the Spirit State, but that doesn't mean you have to be helpless. If Zetzu won't help you, let me."

"Aren't we a bit too little, too late for that, Prince Zuko?" Aelita questioned somewhere between sad and bitter, just like them. "Helping each other?"

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

"I'm not ready to leave yet!" Aang pleaded to his friends and 'parents' sometime after the sun had begun to set on his terrible day. The humans and animals alike looked at him with what might have been understanding had two of the four not looked so ridiculous.

Sokka and Katara had been left to play the role of Kuzons mother and father, Wang and Sapphire Fire thanks to the formers blurting. A bushel of the brown bits of Appa's fur was still stuck on the warrior's face with spirits knew what, adamant that he would pull off the act better than Kyojuro, his sister with a bundle of blankets stuffed under her shirt to give the appearance of a swollen belly. Somehow the Headmaster had been fooled by it, the joyless man all too thrilled when the 'Wang' promised to give his 'boy' the 'punishment of a lifetime'.

Aang was now begging his case to his family that this wasn't their sign to turn tale and leave just yet, but Sokka was currently most heavily leading the opposition.

"I'm having fun for once, just being normal." Aang continued. "You don't know what it's like, Sokka. You get to be normal all the time. The kids at school are normal too, they're the future of the Fire Nation," He said, voicing the thoughts that had been replaying in his mind over and over the entire day. "They're everything Aelita could have been had she been born into just about any family other than her own. If we want to change this place for the better, we need to show them a little taste of freedom."

"Yeah, but what could you possibly do for a country of depraved little fire monsters?" Kyojuro asked, the least optimistic of them, fully believing that the Akira very well could've been the one lucky exception to a crappy standard.

A small smile split across the monk's face. A plan had hatched into his head about four steps out of the headmaster's door. "I'm gonna throw them," He said as he tossed two happy hands in the air and wiggled his fingers. "A secret dance party!"

The others stared back at him as if he had gone absolutely mental inside the school walls. Still, too relieved at the fact that Aang had actually pulled through his brutal injuries unlike their missing sixth, not one of them had it in them to turn him down. By the time the sun had fully set, the cave the teens had made their temporary home had been completely transformed. Toph and Kyojuro had stayed behind while Sokka and Katara begrudgingly ventured into town for supplies, bending the stone as inconspicuously as they could manage into dance floors and sitting areas now adorned with the far too many candles Aang insisted the Water Tribe siblings buy. The Avatar himself had set off to find his schoolmates, tasking them to spread the word of the night's events, even managing to convince a gaggle of the best kids from his music lesson to bring their instruments. He was absolutely giddy by the time he returned to the cave.

"I can't believe we're having a dance party," Sokka groaned. "It seems so...silly."

Aang brushed it off. "Don't think of it as a dance party, but as a cultural event celebrating the art of fancy footwork!"

"That makes me feel even goofier." The older boy admitted.

"Fine," The Avatar conceded. "Then think of it as a way to celebrate a part of Aelita we never have before."

Sokka's objections were quickly quieted, even if he didn't feel his girl in this moment the way that Aang so clearly did. Without further argument, he set to work putting out the final touches that seemed to make his friend so happy.

"They're coming!" Toph called just loud enough for the others to hear when she felt the vibrations of approaching footsteps. "Everyone stop bending!"

Aang grinned over his shoulder before turning back to Appa and Momo. "Sorry guys," He told them, ushering the pair to a darkened curve at the far end of the cave. "You should probably wait out back." The bison groaned in disagreement, a sleeping lemur perched on his head. "I know, you got fancier feet than anybody. And six of 'em!" He gently reassured, willing a wall of stone up from the ground just thick enough to block the animals from sight.

Aang rushed to the cave front where the first of his schoolmates stood, tugging the makeshift band up onto a stage of Kyojuro's creation, urging them to play as the others arrived. On Ji, the first person Kuzon had invited, led the charge.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Aang beamed as she brought with her at least two dozen or more students into the cave, gesturing grandly to the ones providing the sound, trying to pretend everyone didn't look scared shitless. "The Flamey-O's! This ought to get everybody moving."

"But what do we do now?" Asked Shoji, the short, round-faced boy who had first befriended Aang.

"This is when you start dancing!" The monk smiled, the answer obvious to him.

Another student kicked the dirt nervously. "I don't think my parents want me dancing in a cave..."

"Yeah!" A third meekly agreed, already looking over his shoulder as if they were about to be caught doing something very wrong. "What if someone finds out?"

"Oh boy," Aang sighed, rubbing an exasperated hand down his neck, reminding himself that patience was a virtue, especially knowing the students weren't the ones at fault for the ways they were raised. "Listen, guys, dancing isn't something you think about. It's a form of self-expression that no one can ever take away from you."

Shoji looked sadly at his new playmate. "Maybe it was different in the colonies, Kuzon, but we don't do that here."

"Sure you do," Aang insisted "You have for generations! It just so happens that I know several classic Fire Nation dances. A hundred years ago, this was known as the 'Phoenix Flight'." The boy said as he dropped almost into a squat, kicking his legs out in front of him while circling the cave. The watching students oohed and aahed at his display with faint smiles on their faces. Feeling encouraged now, his heart lighter and happier than it had been since he came to and his world went crashing down, Aang popped up before calling out, "And, this was the 'Camelephant Strut'!"

Toph sat back with the others as the monk commanded the space, all eyes on him. The vibrations of the airbender cartwheeling and catapulting himself across the ground painted an interesting picture compared to how downtrodden he seemed in the days before. When he landed in front of a pair of girls, they actually giggled, and Toph snorted. "Who knew Twinkle Toes could dance?" She asked with a bemused grin, downing the contents of a glass she had managed to conjure up.

Katara shrugged but smiled nonetheless, possibly the happiest of them all to see Aang enjoying himself until reached for the closest pretty girl to him and tugged her to stand on his left in the middle of the dance floor.

"And this is how they do it in the ballrooms of Ba Sing Se," He explained to On Ji as he began to swivel and sway, arms moving back and forth like rolling waves, his classmate mimicking the motions at his side while Aang swore Aelita's faint laughter moved along a gentle wind, encouraging them along despite the fact that no one could hear it but him.

"That is absolutely not how they do it in Ba Sing Se," Kyojruo casually pointed out to Katara a moment later, "but they do look good together."

"Eh," She shrugged, chin resting in her palm at their makeshift table, making a point to look away. "If that's what you like."

"Yeah, that's it!" Aang beamed, utterly oblivious to the waterbender's jealousy as more and more students began to join the dancing. "That's the sound of happy feet," He complimented, even as most fumbled with the steps. "All right, go with that! Everybody freestyle!"

The young Fire Nationals' versions of freestyle were very free indeed, a tangle of wild, flailing, ungraceful limbs and joyful laughter as everyone began to relax and have fun the way that Aang intended. Riding on the high of seeing the other students finally act their age, the Avatar approached a sitting Katara with a quiet smirk and outstretched hand.

The waterbender quickly picked up on his offer, her cheeks blushing. "Oh, I don't know, Aang." She murmured, nervously fighting with her hair. "These shoes aren't really right for dancing, and I-I'm not sure that I know how to-"

"Katara," The airbender said again, calm and confident. "Take my hand."

It was all the convincing she needed. "Okay," She smiled, letting him pull her to the feet and into the middle of the cave. He toed up to whisper in her ear before stepping back just enough to face her. The pair bowed gently to one another before bringing opposite wrists against one another, their free hand held out as if they were ready to strike, slowly circling one another. They spun outwards once on their heels before taking up the same position, moving smoothly and suddenly, all eyes were on them. "Aang," Katara pleaded gently, nerves flooding back. "Everyone's watching."

"Don't worry about them," The Avatar assured as they continued to circle one another, so utterly sure of them and their moment. "It's just you and me right now."

Aang's positivity was infectious, so the pink gradually faded from Katara's face as she matched his confidence head-on, weaving classical waterbending exercises with dance the way he had told her to from the very beginning, the couple moving in a constant push and pull, swinging amongst the circle of onlookers and moving with ease. They matched each other step for step, actions in sync after months of training and learning together, Katara swinging a graceful kick over his head that Aang ducked under with smooth ease. They came together once, twice, their faces glistening with exertion and nearly touching before pulling apart again. The music continued but no one spoke a word as they watched in awe, especially as they began to flip and glitter throughout the space as if the motions were nothing. After some time the boy caught the girl by the wrist, twirling her through a spin that would've crashed into his chest had had not moved at the last moment, dipping her into a deep bow with two wicked, breathless grins on their faces.

The cheers of the other students could be heard over even that of the music outside the cave where the Headmaster stood, the two soldiers that had first caught his colony troublemaker on either side. "It is a dancing party," He spat in disgust, turning to his smug star pupil behind him. "You did the right thing by telling me, Hide."

"Anytime, Headmaster sir."

Inside the cave and still unaware of the trouble they were about to be in, Shoji waved his arms above his head. "This is incredible!" He told his nearest friend, the other boy moving his body off-beat but happy regardless. "It's like my inhibitions just disappear!" He beamed, turning until he made eye contact with his very much not-happy Headmaster, his movements suddenly stilling. "Okay, they're back again."

Aang, unfortunately, hadn't caught sight of the intruders and shimmied his way to the very front of the cave where the adults and Hide now stood.

"He's the one we want!" The Headmaster bellowed, pointing at the culprit. "The boy with the headband!"

"Oh shit," Aang whispered to himself before diving into the crowd of students, soldiers hot on his heels, his friends already making their way to the back of the cave.

But quick thinking and grateful, a classmate of Kuzon tugged his belt from his waist to tie around his head. One of the soldiers saw him from behind and latched onto his shoulders a heartbeat later. "Gotcha!" She yelled, tugging the boy around, only all the more confused when she found it wasn't the right kid.

"Looking for me?" The boy asked as innocently as he could muster.

"That's not the one!" The Headmaster cried in frustration. "He's here somewhere. Don't let him leave the cave!"

But by then one student's actions had been enough to spur on so many others. The other soldier lunged for another student with their belt tied around their head, this time a grinning girl.

"Yes?" On Ji asked innocently.

The first soldier reached for two more children with fabric tied in knots at the back of their skulls.

"Hi there," One much, much younger boy said.

"Looking for someone?" The other girl questioned.

In that time, damn near every student had fashioned their belts into headbands, the dancing stopped but the music still playing as they circled the stressed-out soldiers and Headmaster, Hide cowering in the back.

"Who are you looking for?" On Ji asked again, blocking a fleeing Kuzon from view, the other children quick to join in.

"Do you need something?"

"Who is it?"

"Over here!"

Aang was relieved to find their quick thinking just the distraction he needed. At the back of the cave, he watched as Toph and Katara slipped into the shadows where Kyojuro and Sokka were already waiting. He turned for one last look backward and met Shoji's eye. When the other boy gave him a reassuring wink, Aang tossed back a thankful wave before disappearing after the others, the caving closing shut behind him much to the young firebenders surprise.

Within moments humans and lemur alike were settled into Appa's saddle, soaring above the clouds of a dark Fire Nation sky, everyone still clinging to the residual joy that Aang's possibly reckless decision had brought so many.

Toph offered her friend a rare compliment. "Way to go Dancey Pants. I think you really did help those kids, you taught them to be free."

"I don't know," Aang shrugged coyly, hoping like hell that he had done enough to make Aelita proud. "It was just a dance party, that's all."

As if she could sense his self-doubt, Katara shifted closer to the monk, her own heart racing, even if a part of her hurt the way the others did. Aelita wouldn't want them to spend their whole lives mourning her, so she leaned in to place a gentle, distracting kiss on the Avatar's face. "Well," She said with a soft smile as she pulled away, her face tinged as pink as his, "That was some dance party Aang. Aelita would've loved it."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Shrouded in silence, the Akira sat alone in her thoughts for some time after the Prince had left her, still so unsure how they could have ever possibly gotten to where they were. There had been a point in their lives when Aelita and Zuko were the only ones the other would even consider running to for help but now here they existed, seemingly determined to push and push until a continent stood between them. Fuck if thinking about it didn't hurt some part of her.

She hated it.

She wanted to hate him.

She didn't think she could if tried.

She was trying to, honestly, but then here he had barged in like the ghost of the friend he had once been, acting like a part of him still gave a damn.

The shortsword he had brought for her was hidden in plain sight, tucked into the shadows of one of the many artifacts on her shelves, the only means of defense she had in her current state. A largely untouched lunch sat on her table from the earlier afternoon, a plate full of simple grains and grilled meats, a far cry from the elaborate meals she was normally presented.

She was still hurt. Angry even. The littlest bit of effort Zuko could've possibly mustered didn't undo all the terrible that they had put one another through, but it was enough to remind Aelita of the friends they had been in the past, the chosen family they were long before they had been anything more.

Mushu was far from happy to catch the scent of either Prince in the air when Kanao brought him back to his human not long after Zuko left in a hurry, pride wounded at the blatant dismissal. He was even less happy when the younger of the two came knocking some time later. Zetzu was all too happy to spend whatever time with her he could, vaguely hinting at whatever destiny of hers he claimed to have in mind, supposedly wanting her to focus on herself while she could.

It might've been endearing had his brother not managed to make her second guess which of the two was the real snake in the grass. Either way, Aelita was determined to find out, so she smiled as she clamped a hand over Mushu's hissing mouth. "The day kept you busy," She pointed out, taking notice of the fact that her handmaiden had yet to appear with the dinner she knew she'd be expected to share with him. "You're later than usual."

The Prince smirked, dressed once more in his formal uniform for his meeting with the War Minister, schematics for his aerial dreams tucked in one pocket, a scroll from the Palace jeweler in the other. "I'm flattered to see you pay attention to my habits so closely, wife."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves now, husband. You're a predictable man," She lied. Zetzu was the least predictable of all.

"Oh, my pride," The Prince whined, clutching his chest as he slumped down into a chair at the table Kanao had taken to serving them at, a careful notice of the untouched afternoon meal he hadn't ordered for her. "You wound me, 'Lita."

The pet name was a borrowed one but the Akira told herself not to react. "You would think I was plotting against you if I was suddenly too sweet," She pointed out, the statement mostly true. "I spent too much of the past few months throwing fire at you to drown you in honey now."

Zetzu laughed, honestly laughed, just pleased to see flashes of her personality coming back to her, ignoring the voices screaming inside of his head that he was walking into a trap. "That's not entirely true. I do recall you begging me to join you at one point."

"Yeah," Aelita recalled, nodding matter of factually as Mushu thrashed beneath her grip. "And you turned me down."

Zetzu's smile faltered. "I'm here now, aren't I?"

The Akira wasn't sure if that really meant something or if she were slowly just succumbing to the situation at hand. "Of course," She deflected, her returning smile not reaching her eyes. "Can I ask you something?"

"Anything."

"I know it'll take time for you to convince your father I'm not a threat, but when can I start training again?" She poised, careful not to give too much away. "I'm going crazy in these small spaces with nothing to do, Zetzu. I can only sit around and read so many old books to Mushu before I like I'm going to explode out of my skin. I can't forget what I did if I'm not distracting myself."

The Prince softened. "Aelita-"

"You can tell me I was just protecting someone all you want, Zetzu, it doesn't change the fact that it happened. You...you saw what it's like when I think about it too much," She recalled, both of them remembering the night she had completely broken into a sopping wet heap on his bedroom floor. "I need a distraction."

Honestly, it wasn't all bullshit. Aelita did need something to keep the guilt away but more than that, Zuko's words kept dancing in her head. She needed to do something.

'Liar.'

'Deciver.'

"I understand," Zetzu said, ignoring his own demons. Honestly, it wasn't something he had thought about thus far. He had long since envisioned Aelita by his side when he took what was rightfully theirs but he was just so used to her being mighty as is, never having actually trained with her or fought beside her on her way to get there, only ever standing against her, so he hadn't really considered what her day to day would look like in much detail other than the fact that she would be his. Imagining her as what his Mother had been to his Father only so very much more loved and valued, he had only ever pictured her doing as Princess Ursa had with her time, but Aelita wasn't his Mother, and apparently, Zetzu needed to make a point to remember that.

"I'll see what I can do," He assured her. "You're right about my Father, unfortunately, but I'll see if I can convince him it does him no good to let you wither away. Though," He sat back in his chair, really looking at her where she stood across the room with her angry pet. "I'm surprised you even asked. You're left here to your own devices whenever I'm preoccupied. What's to keep you from finding your own entertainment?"

Kanao, but Aelita wouldn't dare admit that. She didn't fault her handmaiden, but she didn't trust her not to run to the Prince at the first sign of rebellion. "You said we were in this together. I might still be adjusting to...this," She gestured between them, Mushu finally resigned to just glare from where he was held. "But you're right, we are, so I don't want to keep things from you. We deserve to be happy, don't we?"

Zetzu had to fight the flush on his cheeks, utterly unaware that she was keeping the very fact that his brother had been to see her from him right now. "Yes," He agreed happily, under the impression that he had her exactly where he wanted. "Yes, we do."

Positive behaviors deserved positive rewards.

"How would you like to take dinner in the garden, love?" He asked her, rising from his seat. "Some fresh air will do you good."

Aelita was almost embarrassed by how quickly she jumped on the opportunity. "Yes," She said with too much enthusiasm. "Please. Can we?"

The Prince chuckled as he offered his girl an arm she took albeit reluctantly. That would come with time. "Anything for you."

The pair, supervised by one very angry fire ferret, ventured out into the Palace together for the first time since their fates had been decided those nights ago. The Imperial Firebenders stationed at Aelita's door, all of which still silent on the eldest Princes' visit, followed behind, close enough to be there but far enough away to give Zetzu some semblance of space.

Word had traveled through the halls and corridors but other than Kanao, no one had actually seen Aelita Kenshin in three years. The servants now, many of which had been in the Royal Family's service during her fall from grace, did little to der their stares. Their watchful eyes only seemed to spur Zetzu on, a smug sort of air wrapped around him even as he stopped the first staff member they passed to update Kanao on their plans.

"You'll be able to move throughout the Palace more freely soon," The Prince told her as they continued on down several flights of stairs, approaching the place they had spent so much time as children. "Once our engagement is announced."

Joy.

"What about Iroh?" Aelita asked. She hadn't been allowed to see the Fire Lord's brother since he had come to her in Ba Sing Se and begged for help freeing the nephew that had turned on him. She had been so wrapped up in her own downfall she had only recently begun to truly worry about the wellbeing of the man that had never been anything but kind and loving towards her, something she already regretted. "Will anything else happen to him?"

"I don't know, I've been more focused on you than anything," Zetzu admitted.

Aelita supposed the statement should be endearing.

It wasn't.

"Will your Father really just leave him to rot in prison?"

"He shouldn't."

Aelita arched a brow. "What do you mean?

The Prince glanced over his shoulder at the lingering guards and leaned down to speak softly in the Akira's ear, the gesture almost sweet looking from a distance. "Blood isn't always thicker than water. My Father would be foolish to leave his brother alive after such an open opposition of his power." The warm breath of his voice tickled Aelita's ear, her skin pebbling at both the proximity and his words as he said, "I wouldn't."

Aelita wished she could doubt that Zetzu would ever actually be capable of following through on his implication but after his run in with Mai the day before, she didn't think it was possible.

She knew without a shadow of a doubt that Zuko couldn't. Not the friend of her past nor even the Prince of the present, his gestures that afternoon were further proof of it, even if Aelita hardly recognized him anymore.

And he would never, ever let Iroh die. Not willingly at least. That thought alone set a new wave of panic for her.

Zetzu might not have bothered with the disgraced General, but Aelita was almost certain that his brother would have. She could only pray the eldest Prince was smart about his bleeding heart, but as if the moon in the distant sky was looking out for them, the Akira could see the shape of the boy that had broken her as they approached the Palace gardens, sitting under the pale light with a slightly disgruntled Mai by his side.

Yet another attempt to smooth the waters between them, nestled in front of the turtle duck pond with a basket overflowing with the girls' favorite treats off to the side. They almost looked happy together.

Almost. Zuko had told Mai about his failed attempt to rouse her old friend into some form of self-provision. Zetzu noticed the other pair when Aelita's steps faltered. The Princes, on the other hand, did not.

If a part of him was turning into a show-off, why not embrace it?

"Looks like we'll have company this evening," He purred with a feline smirk, "How lovely."

"If he doesn't run away this time," Aelita muttered mainly to herself, a thousand different scenarios running through her brain as she tried to find a way to get rid of the younger Prince. Mushu, bless him, sensed the nerves in her and began to chitter loudly in her arms.

"What's wrong with him?" Zetzu asked.

Aelita lied without thinking. "He needs to go to the bathroom."

"Right now?"

"Right now."

The Prince rolled his eyes. He had no desire to ever own any other animals after this thing finally kicked the bucket. "Then I guess it's a good thing we're going outside anyway."

"He can't go just in the gardens!" Aelita insisted.

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not giving your Father or your sister any more reasons than they might already have to barbeque my baby," She told him. "He needs to go to the stables, that's where Kanao has been taking him."

"Can't he hold it until she gets here?" The Prince questioned. Mushu answered for his human, chattering loudly and frantically, but still, Aelita said anyway, "Does it look like he can hold it?"

Zetzu groaned in annoyance. The stables, filled with riding animals for the Royal Family's use, weren't attached to the Palace. Close by but ultimately outside of the parameters currently laid out for Aelita by his Father, boundaries he was smart enough to not push yet. If his betrothed hadn't been so attached to the damn thing, he'd shove the ferret off on the closest servant, but Aelita was anal about the animals' treatment and after all, they were making progress he wasn't willing to sacrifice. "Fine," He said begrudgingly, holding out his hands. "If I take him, will you be alright without me? I promise to be quick."

Aelita offered her Prince a small, far-from-genuine smile. "I can handle your brother even on my worse days," She feigned. "Thank you for taking care of him," She said as she handed over a reluctant Mushu. Her concerns with propriety had long since abandoned her so for an added touch of good measure, she lifted herself on shaking toes to softly brush her lips over the older boy's cheek. "But hurry back, okay?"

Zetzu was certain everyone in the Palace could hear his heart thrumming inside his chest. "Of course," He managed to say past a smile so large it made his face hurt. "Anything for you, Princess."

Aelita ignored the pang of unplaced hurt at the title, some part of her sure that Zetzu wasn't the first to refer to her as such, even if she had the vaguest recollection that it had been an insult before. Still, she pushed that pain away as Zetzu disappeared with a still-chittering Mushu, slipping into the gardens with the Imperial Firebenders waiting in the shadows.

"Ahem," Aelita cleared her throat, not caring if she was overstepping. "Zuko, could I have a word with you?"

"Can't you see we're busy?" The Prince glowered at her, still clearly pissed at her dismissal that afternoon, his words unnaturally calm.

"Can't you see that I don't care?" Aelita shot back. "Mai, I've heard Ty Lee is looking for you. She needs help untangling her braid and you know that Azula can't be bothered."

The other girl could pick up on the cleverly masked urgency behind the fib, so she stood from the water's edge with a small smile. "Sounds pretty serious," She said in a way of dismissal, tossing a brief goodbye at the Prince as she disappeared into the night.

"So," Aelita said as to the boy that had once been her entire world as soon as they were alone in one another's presence for the second time that day, knowing her own intended wouldn't stay away for long. "I've heard you've been to visit your Uncle in the prison tower."

Zuko shot to his feet, blood boiling already, quick to assume the worst. "The guard snitched, didn't he? Someone must've told you."

"No," Aelita said, shocking him. "You did, actually. Just now."

Motherfucker.

Zuko sank back to the ground, refusing to meet the girl's eye, not after making an utter fool of himself before her for the second time that day. "Okay, you caught me. What is it that you want, Akira Aelita?"

"Actually, nothing." She feigned, voice full of cool indifference despite her inner worry.

"Bullshit," He countered.

This was Aelita after all.

"Believe it or not Prince Zuko," The bender argued, her concern beginning to show through the cracks in her facade. "I don't want to see you get yourself or Iroh killed. I'm just looking out for you." She admitted, regretting it immediately when the boy looked back at her as if that actually meant something.

When she blinked, unable to hold his stare, she found blue eyes looking back at her instead, staring at her in such a similar way that said 'I see you. All of you.' Blue faded back to gold when she cleared blinked once more, and Aelita could no longer pretend she was living in any other reality but this one.

"If people find out you've been to see your Uncle, they'll think you're plotting with him, and if I had to turn myself into a monster for you, I need it to be worth it," Aelita told the Prince, a vulnerability there between them that hadn't existed in a long, long time. "So please, just be careful, Zuko."

"Why do you care all of a sudden?" He asked but Aelita's worry was far from sudden, so she lied.

"I don't."

Chapter Text

🌊🏔️🔥🌪️
Previously

Aelita's words rang in Zuko's ears as he stalked through the shadows of the prison, unable to stay away despite her warning. By some small miracle, he came to a stop outside of his Uncle's cell without having encountered a single living soul, his mind still reeling from the events of the hours before. The formal General didn't turn to face his boy as he approached.

"I brought you some komodo chicken," Zuko spoke as he slunk into the dim, dingy room, the air wet with mold as he slid a tray underneath the small gap in the cell bars. "I know you don't care for it, but I figure it beats prison food."

Iroh kept his back to the boy, but Zuko continued on anyway, settling down on the damp ground. "I admit it, I have everything I always wanted, but it's not as all how I thought it would be," He groaned, rubbing his face in a desperate attempt to chase away unwanted thoughts. "The truth is, I need your advice," He said after some time, leaning forward to grip the bars between them. "I think the Avatar is still alive, I know he's out there, I'm losing my mind," The Prince said, fighting to keep the desperation out of his voice but when the older man didn't answer, he began to beg. "If anyone finds out that Aang is alive then my Father will demand the head of the Akira in his place. Don't you understand? Aelita will die, and I'm afraid I won't be able to save her this time. Please, Uncle, I'm so confused I need your help," He nearly cried out at the end but when Iroh still didn't answer, anger overtook Zuko instead. "Forget it!" He snapped, jumping to his feet. "I'll solve it myself! I'll protect Aelita myself. Waste away in here for all I care!"

And without so much as a parting glance at the man who had raised him, the Prince disappeared into the night like a phantom in the wind, determined that he would never be back to see his Uncle Iroh again.

The once proud General didn't allow himself to cry until he was certain his son was gone.

🌊🏔️🔥🌪️
Currently

Jang Hui was a surprisingly beautiful island, so it was all the more jarring when the scenery of it began to change after two days of travel along a pearlescent river. Tucked safely in Appa's saddle, the makeshift family watched the wooded countryside pass by as the bison continued to float his way down the water, more bored than anything, the villages on the outer Nation island few and far between. Aang and Momo, always brimming with too much energy, were the most stir-crazy. As soon as the almost summer sun had warmed the air enough to constitute as warm, the Avatar stripped out of the bulk of his clothing and launched himself from where he sat on Appa into brown water that had just been blue a few bends ago, the lemur a step behind him.

They came up sputtering and covered completely in sludge a breath later.

Kyojuro was happy to set aside his makeshift fishing pole and offer Aang a hand, hauling the boy back into the saddle, Momo clutching onto the airbenders foot. When the Prince noticed the thick gunk that now coated his own skin, he grimaced and when his friends turned their focus back on Aang, he casually leaned over to wipe off the mess on his hand on Appa's fur. "I know I'm no expert," He said as the Avatar and his lemur attempted feebly to wipe the muck they had swallowed off their tongues. "But I think this river's polluted."

"Well, that explains why we can't catch a fish around here," Sokka quickly agreed, tossing his own pole on top of Kyojuro's.

Kyojuro's brow furrowed. "Wait, is fishing not supposed to be this terrible?"

"It is when you go with Sokka."

"That was very rude and very much not true because normally my fishing skills are off the hook!"The warrior said with a too-large grin, ignoring his sister to hold up the hook at the end of his line. When no one laughed, he clarified, "Get it? Like a fishing hook?"

Toph rolled her eyes where she lounged. "Too bad your skills aren't on the hook."

Aang ignored the ensuing bickering and pressed two closed fists together. On his next exhale, the boy unleashed a burst of air that sent the muck coating his skin flying, effectively covering his friends with the sludge by accident. "He he," He chuckled feebly at their glares, rubbing the back of his neck. A flick of his wrist sent another wave of wind that cleaned them all, the thick mess flying back into the river and their hair left messy. When they continued to glower at him, Aang opted for distraction and changed the subject. "It looks like we'll need to go somewhere else to get food."

"Yeah," Katara agreed, Avatar already forgiven as she reached for a long scroll and unrolled it before them in the saddle. "That's assuming that we can fit it into Sokka's master schedule."

Their mostly fearless leader dropped his fishing line to look over the notes and plans he had written all over their map of the Fire Nation. Every moment of the journey that would lead them to the Capital had been meticulously preplanned in part to keep them safe, and in part to play the distraction that Sokka was finding he so desperately needed to keep going. "Hmmm..." He pondered. "It's doable, but that means only two potty breaks today."

Kyojuro debated on objecting but as Appa rounded another riverbend, a floating group of straw-roofed houses and docks came into view and he said a silent prayer for the cop-out. "Or," He said pointing down the water, "Maybe we can get food there without having to sacrifice our bladders."

Sokka only shrugged as Aang steered Appa down a section of stream that broke off the main waterway before they could drift close to the village enough for any of their people to see the bison. They settled Appa amongst the green while his human tugged a blanket of moss over the bulk of the animal. "Now you look just like a little hill with horns!" Aang grinned, his two-legged friends already set off on foot towards the river shore towards a small empty dock in the distance. "Bye, buddy!"

"I don't feel anything." Toph pointed out uneasily while they walked. "Where is the village?"

"It's in the middle of the river," Sokka explained as they moved closer to the dingy port where only a single boat was tied. The warrior peaked around the quiet dock, the villagers in the distance seeming to either have not noticed them there or just simply not cared. Right when he began to debate if they could realistically get away with just borrowing the boat, a frail older man popped out of it with more energy than should've been possible, a crazed look in his crooked eyes.

"It sure is!" The man echoed, showing that he had been listening in on the teens' conversation about his village. "My name's Dock. Mind if I ask who you are?"

"We're from the Earth Kingdom colonies," Kyojuro quickly lied, sticking to the story Aang had created but passing it off far better than the Avatar ever could have.

"Shew," The man whistled. "Colonials. We don't get much of those around here. Hp on in then, I'll give ya a ride into town."

The group of five plus a currently-hidden-in-Aang's-shirt Momo looked at one another for reassurance before figuring they had nothing else to lose. They climbed into the rickety boat one by one and once they were unsettled, Dock pushed them off the shore, steering them down the river with the aid of a long paddle, humming happily in tattered clothes as they went.

"Why do you guys live on the river?" Katara couldn't help but ask, taking in the sights of the sad, dilapidated village coming closer and closer.

"Because we're a fishing town!" Dock said proudly, but after a heartbeat, his cheerfulness faded, and he looked sadly at a large structure billowing smoke on a cliff just above his home. "At least, that's how it was before the factory moved in. Army makes their metal there. Moved in a few years ago and started gunking up our river," He explained, not noticing the knowing looks of despair shared between too many of the young ones. The building was large and dark and far more structurally sound than anything in the floating town, and it might as well have had the Fire Lord's name written all over it. "Now our little village is struggling to survive."

The rest of the boat ride was made in silence, the five teenagers unable to look away from the scenes of poverty and starvation before them. Hardly a sound rang through any of the village, and Katara swore not a single person there smiled, the people milling about in various states of disarray while they simply tried to distract themselves from the lives they lived. Mothers rocked children that cried without tears, too weak from hunger, their parents rail thin while their babies' bellies swelled around food that wasn't there.

Katara had felt heartbreak before but this was a new kind of sadness, and after experiencing it, she had never wanted to personally bring down the Fire Lord more.

The old boat came to a stop at an equally worn dock on the edge of the village and one at a time the gaggle of teens climbed out, Sokka first with a hand held out for Toph and Kyojuro a step behind, the young earthbender desperately clutching onto one of them at all times.

This was her own personal hell. Out here in the middle of nothing but water, she truly was blind in a way she hadn't been since she learned to earthbend.

Katara was the last of the five out of the boat, frozen by the misery until Aang helped her along, the monk tossing a kind 'thank you' and a parting wave to Dock. "Look at this place," She said to the others as they began to walk along the wooden paths, tempted to blow her entire cover when she noticed an obviously sick man leaning against his equally sick grandson, sweat dripping down their too-pale skin from a fever they couldn't escape.

Katara couldn't help but think of the stories Aelita had told of a sudden illness that had swept through the village her family originally came from. The waterbender struggled to believe that there could be any place in the Fire Nation to ever exist in a worse condition than this, and even then, the sickness had managed to steal away her friends' grandparents and mother before she had been old enough to even know their names. With this village already in such poor shape, Katara wondered if it were only a matter of time before everyone here met the same fate.

"It's so sad," She said, blinking back her tears. "We have to do something to help."

Sokka didn't slow. "No, we can't waste our time here," He told her sister. No matter how much he felt for the villagers, he reminded himself that they weren't here to play the hero. "We have a bigger mission that we need to stay focused on. These people are on their own."

Katara brushed past the others to grasp her brother by the shoulder, stopping him in his tracks. "These people are starving!" She hissed, not bothering to mask her emotion. "But you'd turn your back on them?" She asked, her hands defiantly on her hips as she stared him down. "How can you be so cold and heartless?"

Sokka only made her more upset when he rolled his eyes, not caring if he sounded callous anymore because with each passing day, it was exactly what he was becoming. "I'm not turning my back, I'm just being realistic. We can't go around helping every rinky-dink town we wander into. We'll be helping them all by taking out the Fire Lord."

"Hey, loudmouths!" Toph huffed from where she stood still gripping Kyojuro like a lifeline. "Maybe we should be a little quieter when we talk about," She dropped her voice down to a whisper. "'Taking out the Fire Lord.'"

Sokka ignored the earthbender, still fighting with his sister. "Come on, Katara, be reasonable about this. You know our mission has to come first."

Her own annoyance grew. "But what about Aelita?" She argued.

Sokka's eyes narrowed. "What about her?"

"She wouldn't want this!" Katara bit, gesturing wildly at the decaying village surrounding them. "She wouldn't want any of this! We owe it to her to do something."

"We don't owe her anything, Katara," Sokka shot back before he could break. "Aelita's gone, and she's not coming back. Her ghost isn't going to come back and torment us every single time we pass someone in need, okay? Because the whole world needs us," He reminded her. "Needs Aang," He stepped closer to his sister. "Not just this village. Distracting ourselves from taking down the people that took her from us is nothing but an insult to her memory, so stop throwing her in my face just to get what you want!" Sokka snapped at more than just Katara, a storm behind his ocean eyes as from his sister to Aang because that was precisely what the Avatar had done too, tossed Aelita in his face to convince Sokka to bend to his bullshit, optimistic desires like the warrior wasn't struggling to not completely fall apart. When no one argued with him, Sokka turned on his heel to storm off deeper into the floating village, no longer caring if anyone hurt as badly as he did. "Let's just get what we need and go."

🌊🏔️🔥🌪️

Since their return to the Fire Nation, it was rare for either brother to catch the other at damn near any given point of the day, which made it all the more surprising when the elder twin managed to corner the younger in the royal gallery, the Prince studying the portrait of their Great Grandfather with cool indifference.

It was the first and only time Zuko had approached Zetzu since everything had changed between them, but the latter was used to his family keeping their distance until they wanted something out of him. Whatever it may be, he was tempted to make his brother work for it, but he had been banking on keeping Zuko close for even just a little longer, so he extended the olive branch first.

"I've always wondered what our family's legacy would've been had our great grandfather not decided to launch a global conquest," He said when his twin settled in quietly beside him, still looking up at the face of a man long since dead. "What kind of life we would've lived instead."

"Don't waste your time on hypotheticals," Zuko told his brother. "We need to talk."

"I've been trying to do that for days now," Zetzu quickly reminded him.

"I've been preoccupied," The elder Prince only partially lied.

Zetzu almost smirked. "Haven't we all? Now, what's on your mind, brother?"

Zuko's eyes danced across the gallery and despite determining the fact that they were apparently alone, he stepped closer to the portrait as if to take a closer look at their great grandfathers' conqueror profile. Zetzu matched the distance, and his older brother spoke lowly. "Aang isn't dead."

Zetzu had to remind himself to keep his anger in check, appalled that Zuko could even imply such a thing when he had left a fucking smoldering hole in the center of the Avatar's spine, something he tried to not remind them of often because not everyone could handle the weight of that realization as it. Zetzu had been the one willing to sacrifice a shred of their already fraying humanity just to accomplish their goals and here his brother stood, implying that he might have failed.

Zetzu desperately needed to exit this conversation before the panic set in next.

"Aang?" He deflected. "I didn't know you and the Avatar were that close."

Zuko's subconscious, the one that sounded so frustratingly similar to their Uncle, chanted at him that starting a fight with Zetzu now wouldn't do them any good. "This is serious. Don't you know what will happen if anyone finds out he's still alive?"

"Didn't you just tell me not to waste my time on hypotheticals?" Zetzu whispered back and the harshness of it gave away his poorly hidden disposition. "I killed the last airbender. We watched him fall, and no amount of magical water could have ever brought him back. End of story. Quit being so paranoid and move on with your life, Zuko."

"I'm not paranoid!" The elder twin snapped despite the lack of volume behind his words. "I'm realistic! I know the Avatar in a way that you never will, and I'm telling you he's alive."

"And Aelita knew him better than either of us," Zetzu countered. "Even she believes that he's dead."

"Because that's what we've told her, it isn't what she actually knows, what she's confirmed herself!" Zuko argued. When he caught himself spiraling, he took a deep breath before starting again. "But it could be. Dad trusts you enough to keep her in line. Ease her off the poison, even for a little while, and we could have our answer."

"We already have our answer!" The younger Prince insisted possibly too loudly. "Quit seeking glory that doesn't exist, Zuko! Stop trying to be the hero to someone that doesn't want you to save them!"

The two stared one another down for some time, unmoving as the moment gradually washed over them. Slowly Zuko stepped back from his brother once, twice. "I thought you said we were in this together."

Shit.

Zetzu sighed. "We are," He lied, taking a step towards his twin but Zuko kept the distance between them. "But you're creating problems that don't exist, brother. Don't sabotage our happiness before we have a chance to have it."

The door to the far entrance of the Gallery crept open behind Zuko's back, and the Prince froze. Panicked as well at the potential of being caught, he watched as his brother's spine tensed, but when Zetzu stared over his shoulder, a lazy feral smile decorated his face.

Zuko didn't need to look to see who approached.

In fact, it was probably best he didn't face Aelita at all, so he kept his challenging gaze pointed at his brother instead. "So you're just going to sit back and do nothing?"

"No," Zetzu declared as Aelita continued her silent approach like the salvation she was. "I'm going to sit back and spend the day with my betrothed, just as I promised her," He said with a look he could no longer pass off as innocent, laying a hand that was more demeaning than it was comforting on his brother's shoulder before he passed. "I suggest you do the same."

🌊🏔️🔥🌪️

A heavy tension blanketed the camp by the time the group of teens and animals settled down for the night just off the shore of the polluted river. Shocked equally by Sokka's apparent rage and the fact that it hadn't surfaced sooner, the remaining four hadn't pushed back against his outburst, following him to one of the meager few food stalls at the center of the floating village, each slightly hesitant to accept the fish the man that claimed to be Dock's brother sold but knowing they had little other options for dinner. The five scrounged up just enough other rations to make something that might resemble a complete meal before heading back to where they had left Appa.

'Xu' in his hat that apparently served as the only differential between him and his 'brother' had called for Dock to ferry the kids back to shore and while they waited for him, a little begging boy stopped Katara to plead for food. The waterbender hadn't been able to resist handing over two of the fish they had just purchased, tears welling in the corner of her eyes as she did. Now she wished like hell she had been able to do more despite whatever objections her brother might have had.

She and Sokka hadn't spoken to one another since their fight.

Sokka hadn't spoken to any of them, period, and by now, his guilt nearly equaled his hurt but his stance hadn't been changed.

He felt for the innocent few of the Fire Nation, he really did, because if anything, his girlfriend, the first real one had had ever had, had been living proof that not all of those unfortunate enough to be born under the rule of Sozin or anyone that came after were monsters. Still, doing anything at all that didn't bring them closer to the Capital or teach them how to win the war made her death feel like even more of a waste than it already did. Sokka knew his friends and family missed her, but dammit he did too, and after they had removed Ozai from power they could help the entire fucking world in honor for all he cared but for now, they had to keep moving forward.

"Our detour into town today has completely thrown off our schedule," He said with a sigh after some time, trying to hide the regret in his voice as he rejoined the circle of his friends where they worked in a steady production line, Aang bending water from the river, Toph pulling out the bits of stone and dirt and Katara boiling it over the fire Kyojuro had built while Sokka was sulking. The warrior laid out their map of the Fire Nation and his notes before the others, thinking it better to act like that afternoon hadn't happened at all. "It's gonna take some serious finagling to get us back on track."

Toph was the first to understand Sokka's avoidance approach for what it was and being likely the least comfortable of their group with feeling and emotion, she was quick to agree and happy to continue on as they usually would. "Finagle away, oh schedule master," She taunted lightly.

Sokka was honestly grateful for it, desperate for even the slightest bit of normalcy. "Well, for starters, it looks like we'll need to wake up forty-three minutes earlier every day."

Katara finally spoke to her brother. "Forty-three minutes?" She squalled.

"Look, we only have a few weeks to get to the Fire Lord in time for the invasion and the eclipse," He reminded her. "Which, by the way, only lasts for eight minutes, and we just lost a whole day here. So, if we want to make up the time and stay on schedule, we have to wake up early."

Toph regretted allowing Sokka to speak. "Well I'm not waking up early," She declared.

"Or," The warrior offered up, " we could just cut out all of our eating breaks," He said but was instantly met with a unanimous chorus of no's from humans and animals alike. "Fine, I got it," Sokka countered only halfway sarcastically. "How's this from now on, we'll take food breaks and potty breaks at the same time." Aang and Kyojuro visibly greened at the suggestion, looking to one another for reassurance, the girls just sitting in silent disbelief. "What? It might be gross, but it's efficient. Either way," Sokka said, standing up as he rolled the map shut, at his max for human interaction, his limits for even his loved ones having drastically lowered with Aelita gone, a part of him still resentful that no one had been able to save her even if he knew he was just as guilty as they were. "We leave here first thing tomorrow morning."

As always, the universe seemed to have other plans where Sokka was involved. He woke the next morning to the surprising sight of his sister already up and fretting over a half-asleep Appa, the others waking at the sounds of her concern.

"What's the matter, Katara?" Aang asked as he attempted to wipe the exhaustion off his face.

The waterbender tried her best to appear convincing. "I think Appa's sick."

"What?" Her brother squawked. "Appa's sick? That's awful!"

Toph was honestly impressed. "Wow Sokka, I didn't realize you cared so much."

"Of course I care," He huffed. "I might as well just throw our schedule away now!" He said as he tossed his arms up in annoyance, but when noticed the sharp stares of the others and realized just how heartless he sounded, he crouched down to nuzzle the bison's head. "And I'm concerned because my big, furry friend doesn't feel well."

Kyojuro rolled his eyes and steamrolled past Sokka's antics. "Appa must have gotten sick from being in the polluted water."

"But he doesn't look sick," Aang insisted, stepping forward to lay a gentle hand on his oldest friend. " You okay, buddy?" He asked. As if on cue, the bison groaned and allowed his large tongue to fall forward out of his mouth, stained unnaturally.

Cue the Avatar's panic.

"His tongue is purple!" Aang nearly shrieked, face pale with worry as he flung himself at Katara. "This can't be good! You can heal him, right? Right?"

Katara nearly felt guilty as she pealed the airbender off of her. "I'm sure he just needs some medicine and a little bit of rest. Maybe we can find the right herbs in town."

Dock was already waiting at his boat by the time the five arrived, Momo hanging back to keep Appa company. Much to everyone's surprise, the village seemed lively from the time they set foot on its floating planks. People smiled, children laughed, and pleasant chatter echoed between the huts.

Even without being able to see it, Toph knew that something had changed. "Is it just me, or does this place seem different?"

"Yeah," Kyojuro agreed as he led her down the dock that led to the shops. "Are the people...happier?"

Sokka was ready to praise whatever spirits might be listening for it, half tempted to gloat to his sister that he wasn't as heartless as she assumed he was. With childlike determination and a fleeting moment of innocent, he waved at Dock/Xu before they even reached the market, looking for the reassurance that as the big brother, he had been right again. "Hey, Xu, what's going on with everyone today?"

The odd, elderly man looked at the colonizers with a twinkle in his eyes. "Ah, something amazing happened last night. Food was delivered to our village by a mysterious and wonderful person..." He paused for the sake of theatrics, unnoticing the way the tan-skinned girl casually backed away from the others. "The Painted Lady."

Katara stopped in her tracks. "The Painted who now?"

"The Painted Lady," Dock/Xu explained, fishing beneath the counter for an old wooden figurine of a woman with red markings on her skin and a crescent moon on her forehead. "She's part of our town's lore. They say she's a river spirit who watches over our town in times of need. I always thought she was just a legend. Until now."

It was all the proof Sokka wanted and more. "See!" He wheeled on his sister with a wide, mischievous grin and Katara was just happy to see him back to at least a shred of his normal self. "We don't need to help these people, they already have someone to help them," He gloated before remembering what they had come into town for in the first place, turning back to Dock/Xu. "All we need now is medicine for our sick friend."

"Medicine?" The man frowned. "Sorry, all the medicine we have goes to the factory. That's why there's so many sick people in our village."

Katara hoped it wasn't obvious when she breathed a sigh of relief, only feeling the slightest bit guilty for lying to her brother when she said, "Looks like we need to stay another night so Appa can rest."

🌊🏔️🔥🌪️

The moon had already risen high in the sky by the time the husband and wife pair of palace seamsters left Aelita's chambers, her betrothed waiting out so dutifully in the sitting room while they poked and prodded and danced around the Akira as if she were no longer the same girl they had dressed more than once as a child. As she caught sight of a murderous version of herself watching her slip back into her evening clothes once more, Aelita supposed she wasn't. She left her ghost behind without so much as a parting glance, almost numbly used to her presence even as she rejoined a bickering Zetzu and Mushu.

Only one of them smiled at her, the other thoroughly upset to have been kept up so late.

"The seamstresses say your gown is nearly perfect," Zetzu said as he rose to pull a chair away from the small table for the Akira. "They've been working on it for the last three days."

"They do have names, you know," She countered with probably more annoyance they she should have. "Takashi and Tamayo. If you're going to spring formal wear on them on such short notice, you should at least use their names."

Aelita swore Mushu snickered at his humans' outburst from where he sat beside her. She was just surprised the malice hadn't come out of her sooner, exhausted completely both physically and mentally.

Zetzu didn't let it phase him. "I suppose you're right," He agreed with her calmly as he settled in once more opposite the table. "I appreciate you keeping me humble, love. Our people will be so lucky to have you as their Princess once more."

Aelita had to fight the urge to roll her eyes, but she reminded herself that doing so might only set back the small amount of progress they had managed to make. True enough to his word to appease her for now, Zetzu had so graciously allowed her to hack at a practice dummy with a bamboo sword, Azula watching all too smugly, and Aelita hated just how sluggish and awkward she had felt the entire time after such a long period of stagnance. Unlike their sister, Zuko had opted to keep his distance either for the Akira's sake or his own. Aelita hadn't seen her original betrothed since she had walked in on he and his twin earlier that morning.

"You and your brother seemed upset this morning," She started carefully, her curiosity getting the better of her. "Did something happen?"

Zetzu's jaw tensed, but he smiled at his future bride nonetheless. "Nothing you need worry yourself with, Lita."

But far beyond the palace, Zuko was almost surprised at how easy it was for him to fall back into old habits as he slipped out of Capital completely confident that no one had even noticed him leave his chambers despite the lack of an old, familiar blue mask on his face.

He was even more surprised by the fact he felt so twice as demonic now than he did any time he had ever turned himself into the Blue Spirit, but the firebender promised himself that tonight would be necessary unless he wanted to watch the last member of the Kenshin family die.

"You're sure you weren't followed?" Zuko asked into the dark cliffs just outside the Capital. The monster of a man that emerged from the shadows didn't speak but his silence was telling enough.

"I've heard about you," Zuko admitted as he took in the full sight of the hunter for hire. The heir to the throne had a certain knack for gathering information that even Azula and Zetzu didn't seem to possess, and based on the murderous stare of the mercenary, he knew as well as the eldest Prince who was responsible for the death of the combustionbender Din Kusakabe.

The thirty-something-year-old and Zetzu had both studied under the late master, but only one had Din's blood on their hands, and it wasn't the one Zuko planned to employ. That knowledge alone was still enough to make his stomach turn, his dinner threatening to reappear the way his lunch when he learned that Mai might've been right not to trust his brother, though the Prince hadn't been able to find a soul that had actually borne witness to the apparently awful day, no one knowing exactly how or why things transpired as they had.

Some small shred of Zuko clung to the hope that maybe, just maybe, his brother had somehow been innocent all along but the way the mercenary stared him down made him think otherwise.

"They say you're good at what you do, and you're even better at keeping secrets," He said, honestly thankful for the scar that so easily identified him as the Fure Lord's firstborn and not the second. The man before him was the largest human he had ever seen, towering over Zuko as if he were a child, built entirely of metal and muscle. Even beneath the cloak he wore, the Prince could make out the silver glint of the prosthetic leg and arm the mercenary used as replacements for two missing limbs. His head was shaved clean, only a beard of course black covering his tight-lipped mouth, nothing to distract from the third eye tattooed so clearly on his forehead.

He was known by myth, not by name, and Zuko wondered if he were everything his brother had the potential to be.

"The Avatar is alive," He told the still-silent mercenary, and when his Uncle's voice sounded in his head, Zuko swore that this was different than anything Zetzu had ever done. "I want you to find him, and I want you to end him."

Chapter Text

Aelita wasn't surprised when Kanao arrived before sunrise the next morning. She had expected it honestly. After all, this wasn't her first engagement to a prince.

Still, she was thankful for the other girl's early appearance because Kanao seemed to chase away the faceless thing that had entered Aelita's room just as she began to feel her dinner-time dosage of the terrible metallic poison fade from her body, each awful mouthful typically lasting about half the day. The thing whispered the Akira's name in hushed pleas despite its complete lack of mouth, but Aelita had been too heavy with shock and fatigue to move or respond. When it vanished at the sight of another human life, the bender kicked herself in the ass for letting it affect her so deeply. Things like it had been haunting her sleep since she was a child. She vaguely remembered learning that they were spirits drawn to her as the Akira, but so many of her memories she had built as the Spirit Pillar were becoming steadily foggier and foggier as time ticked on.

The fewer details she allowed herself to remember, the less her losses could hurt her.

What had shocked Aelita as she blinked away the final traces of the horrifying thing was the glaring absence of the Prince and the even more glaring presence of her morning 'medicine' on her handmaidens' tray.

Zetzu hadn't allowed anyone else to treat her but himself. There was never an audience to the toxic torment, and no one even touched the silvery liquid but him.

When Kanao only set a place at the small dining table for the princess-to-be and her four-legged companion, Aelita asked, "Is Zetzu not joining us this morning?"

The mute maiden shook her head no and Aelita could feel the rock forming in her belly. She wasn't sure if her reaction to the Prince's absence said more about their relationship or her own mental state, but she quickly chalked it up to the fact that she could not suffer through this day alone.

"Did he say why?" She questioned.

Again, Kanao moved her head from side to side.

Mushu began to chirp in content excitement but his chittering quickly turned to objection when his human shrugged a shawl over her shoulders and headed towards her still-guarded door. Kanao planted herself in front of the Akira, and she didn't flinch when the ferret climbed onto her shoulder to hold both paws out wide as an additional deterrent.

Aelita rolled her eyes at the sight. "I'm just going to check on Zetzu," She insisted, but when the pair refused to move, she nearly scoffed. "You two are being ridiculous. The Prince has taken nearly every meal with me since our return to the Fire Nation and any time he hasn't, he sent a note with his apologies explaining why," She reminded them. It was one of the many things about her husband-to-be that left her questioning the walls she had built up around herself because, at first glance, Zetzu was nothing but respectful and honorable. Maybe that was why a portion of her panic was genuinely wrapped up in the Prince, curious and concerned at what could be keeping them, especially on the morning their engagement was to be announced. " Surely I'm allowed to see what's keeping my intended on a day meant to celebrate our union."

Kanao looked guiltily at the Akira.

Mushu gagged at the sentiment.

Aelita flicked the ferret a vulgar gesture but softened to her handmaiden, "Please? This isn't like him."

Kanao seemed to consider the plea for some time before holding up a hand that said 'one moment', skittering off to the discarded tray on the table and returning a heartbeat later with the vile of metallic liquid.

Honestly, Kanao didn't know what the medicine was for or what it was supposed to do, but she knew the princess-to-be was allowed to do little else until she took it each morning, so the mute girl assumed it to be important. She thrust the vile forward, still planted firmly between the door and the other teen.

Aelita debated refusing just for the sake of her pride and a deep desire to feel like she still had some semblance of control over her life, but she remembered all too well what it was like to stand in Kanao's shoes, and she knew who would really be punished for her insubordination, so reluctantly she accepted the vile and tipped it down her throat before she could second guess herself.

Kanao was horrified by the results, catching the Akira when she nearly fell to her knees, her eyes shining a haunting shade of blue, pain and anguish written all over the sixteen-year-olds face. Aelita kept waiting for the day she grew used to the poison's effects, maybe even grew immune, but that time had yet to come. She blinked once and swore an ethereal, white-haired girl crouched before her, hands cupping her face as she mouthed what Aelita thought was her name.

She blinked again, holding her still glowing eyes shut for several heartbeats, and when she slowly opened them again, the girl was gone, her pupils now back to the usual lifeless brown they had recently taken on. Her breaths were slow and shallow as the initial burn subsided, and Mushu licked her face through the tremors, Kanao still supporting the majority of her weight against her.

"Well, this was a lovely bonding experience," Aelita attempted to joke as she sat upright, looking at the handmaiden with as lighthearted a grin as she could muster. "I hope that means we're friends now, or this will be really embarrassing."

Kanao blinked, shocked by the casual calm the Akira seemed to possess even after such a traumatic time, and then the reality of her words hit the maiden. Kanao didn't have many friends anymore, she had lost them all the day she lost her tongue, but the princess-to-be treated her far better than nearly anyone else in the Palace ever had. So, before her own nerves could falter, she picked the Akira up off the floor and motioned for her to wait.

Aelita didn't object as Kanao slipped out of the room, too weak to argue. It took her new friend some time to get rid of the Imperial Firebenders standing guard but she had managed nonetheless, letting the door to the Akira's chambers swing open wide to reveal an empty hall. The grey-haired girl was endlessly grateful, even if her animal guide wasn't. This soon after her 'medicine', Aelita didn't have the energy to be convincing, charming, or conniving.

But she didn't have much choice to be anything less than all three, because luck hadn't been on the Akira's side for some time, proven by the fact that Azula had appeared in her doorway before the older girl even had a chance to step outside.

"Well now, I'm glad to see at least one-half of the happy couple is up and around and not just skulking about their rooms," Azula hummed, her porcelain face bare and her hair swinging loose down her back. "I was afraid today was about to be dreadfully boring."

"Wouldn't want that now would we, Princess?" Aelita said as stroked a calming hand across Mushu's fur, a gentle reminder for the ferret that he couldn't snap at the girl the way he did her brothers. Azula had far less patience for anything involving Aelita. "I was just hoping to see your brother before things got too...hectic."

"Touching," The Princess brushed the bullshit off, stepping into the other teen's room and snatching a piece of fruit from the dish on her table as if they actually friends. "But I wouldn't waste your time," She said before taking a small bite from the apple, manners be damned. "Zetzu's good for nothing when he's like this."

Aelita sat up a little taller at Azula's casual remarks. "Like what?" She asked.

The Princess didn't hesitate to answer.

"Like he used to be when we were kids. You know, the real Zetzu."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

The team's second night camped along the riverside quickly turned into what would be a third when Appa woke purple-tongued and lethargic the morning after his humans failed hunt for medicine. When Sokka the news surprisingly well, Katara only felt guiltier about the entire charade but still, she pressed on to see the fruits of her labor, baiting her friends back into the village under the ruse of needing more supplies.

The townspeople had been too joyful and distracted to pay any mind to the teens waiting on the shore, and no one noticed when the five were suddenly whisked to the closest pier on a sheet of ice. They found Dock/Xu chattering happily with another villager outside of his fish stall, the entire place more lively than it had been since their initial arrival.

Sokka, too numb to put up much more of a fight until Appa was on the mend, humored the old lune in his ferryman's hate. "Hi, Dock, is Xu around?"

"Let me check," The man said, promptly ending his discussion to run around the shop and rummage beneath the counter, popping up a moment later a different man. "Hey there! Back again, are ya?"

Toph, unlike her friend, was not amused. She had offered to stay behind with Appa and Momo on solid ground but their fearless leader in all his paranoia refused to let anyone go off solo again, especially after Aang's escapades in the first village they had passed through. Ready to be off the floating void as quickly as possible, she shoved Sokka to the side and slammed several silver coins on the counter. "We need more food. Our friend is still sick and we can't leave until he's better."

"Oh, well, that's too bad," Dock/Xu tisked, shaking his head in worry before a bright, hopeful grin lit his face. "Maybe if you guys are lucky, the Painted Lady will visit you in the night, and heal your friend!"

"And maybe she'll cook us a midnight snack," Sokka snarked just enough for anyone not utterly oblivious to pick on, begrudgingly annoyed that everyone was seeming to have better luck than him. He accepted a sack of clams from the batty man and added, "Then we can sit around the fire and all have a sing-along."

Not at all picking up on the sarcasm, Dock/Xu nodded excitedly, "Yeah, maybe! You know, last night she visited us again," He told the colonizers. "Healed most of our sick folks."

"Is that why this place seems so festive?" Kyojuro asked, the people here honestly looking happier than just about anyone he had ever seen before as they vaulted themselves across the water from dock to dock and home to home on long poles.

"Yep!" Dock/Xu happily explained. "It's all because of the Painted Lady."

Katara was radiating by the time they walked away from the stall. "Can you believe how much an entire village can be affected by one lady?" She asked, quickly catching her fumble before anyone else could. "I mean, one spirit."

Sokka snorted and rolled his eyes from where he led the group at the front. "Well, I for one hope she returns every night. Otherwise, this place would go right back to the way it was."

"Why would you say that?" Katara bristled, unable to hide her annoyance as she cut her brother off to stand in front of him, sweeping her arms out to draw his attention to the changed village. "Look how much better off these people are!"

"Yeah, now they are," He easily agreed. His sister assumed she had won then, but the warrior continued without remorse. "But without her, they wouldn't be able to fend for themselves. If she really wanted to help, she would use her spirit magic to blow up that factory."

"Spirit magic doesn't work that way, Sokka," Aang quickly corrected, and Katara guessed the Avatar was on her side until he continued. "It's more like..." The monk tossed his hands in the air, letting out a wooshing breath as he turned and waved in slow, grand motions. Katara left him behind in a huff just as Sokka wrapped an arm over Aang's shoulder to join his friend in a far more exaggerated, ridiculous motion. Their laughter carried to her ears as she walked off and even though she knew they were laughing at one another, it felt as if the whole universe were laughing at her instead.

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Zuko wasn't sure if it was the exhaustion or the nerves, but he lingered in his chambers long after the servants had dressed him in his formal robes, watching from his window as a small but steady stream of guests arrived at the Palace under the cool moon's light. Even from a distance, everyone seemed far more lively than he felt. He had climbed back into bed sometime after his midnight meeting with the mercenary the night before and tried to convince himself that he should feel relieved but his mind had been far too busy. The murderous man was terrifying, sure, but a new fear had hit Zuko in the wee hours of the morning when sleep continued to evade him.

There would be no turning back after tonight.

Zuko had tossed and turned and still now reminded himself he didn't want to turn back, dammit. How many nights had he spent alone and aching for this exact moment, even if it wasn't truly what he had expected, and even if he hadn't been exactly alone?

He wouldn't let himself think of his Uncle or Aelita.

Not now, at least.

Zuko stepped away from the window and reached for the small, golden fire headpiece he had yet to put on, reminding himself that he wasn't responsible for the actions or consequences of others as he slid it into place.

Several floors below, the Palace was alive in a way Aelita hadn't seen since Zuko's Agni Kai, but her painfully long day of 'bonding' with her sister-to-be told the sixteen-year-old that she hadn't missed many elaborate events or celebrations. Ozai was guarded and untrusting, and while he was happy to showboat when the urge struck him, he didn't see the point in wasting the time or energy on entertaining the nobles beneath him as his father had. Even all those years ago, the Fire Lord hadn't invited the spectators that had shown to watch his son's brutal torture, they had simply heard the word and shown on their own. Ozai had been too preoccupied to bother sending them away.

Azulon, on the other hand, had been focused on showcasing his family's divine right to rule and securing their legacy, knowing that their siege of the world would take time. When Aelita's first engagement had been announced, she and Zuko had been flanked by their parents and an entire regiment of Imperial Firebenders as they were paraded up and down the Coronation Plaza for the entire Capital to see, and that had just been the build-up to the real celebration thrown in their honor.

Spirits, the memories of it made Aelita's stomach turn. She wasn't sure if she was more or less grateful to know that this go-round would be much, much different. According to Azula and her incessant chattering, the Royal Family would be presented first, but then she and Mai would be paraded in front of Ozai's immediate counsel, the group made up of the nobles that willingly contributed the most to war efforts and the core group the Fire Lord's highest-ranking Generals.

Her Dad had been amongst them the last time.

Aelita felt guilty for not wanting him there now.

Sukomo Kenshin would be formally pardoned before the end of the evening but his daughter saw no point in it. No amount of admitting anyone had been wrong would ever bring her father back, and some sick and twisted part of Aelita wasn't sure she cared anymore.

She had been wrong about him. Her Dad wasn't the secret, vigilante-type war hero she had built him up to be over the last three years. General Sukomo Kenshin was just as guilty as the rest of the War Council, and Zhao had been sure to tell Aelita that. It was one of the many little details the grey-haired girl found herself wishing she could forget but to no avail, her conversation with the Admiral she had disposed of played constantly in her head, and the more she dwelled on it, the worse she felt, something even Zuko could tell as he watched her from a distance. 

At least this time she wasn't the spitting image of his mother, and seeing her didn't knock the air out of the Prince's lungs, but he did have to wonder what in the world his brother had been thinking because from what Zuko had gathered, Zetzu had been the one select the Akira's attire.

Aelita was dressed almost entirely in black, something that was damn near unheard of even in mourning in the Fire Nation, the color long since associated with the Kemurikage and the despair that followed them. The dress was a two-piece thing, the bottom with a sweeping train and the top high-necked. Thin plates of gold wrapped around the Akira's throat and down her shoulders, laying on her in a manner reminiscent of the uniform that so many in attendance would've known her father to wear at the height of his career. It might have been smart and symbolic had the sleeves of the gown been longer but instead, they stopped at her elbows, the fabric falling loose to trail the ground, leaving her web of scars on full display.

Scars that she had gained from standing against the man already seated on his throne the next room over.

None of Ozai's children had been surprised to hear their father had shot down his council's suggestion to hold the event anywhere else in the Palace. Hosting the brief celebration in the throne room gave him the excuse to be tucked behind a wall of orange flame by the time the first guests arrived, forcing them all to kneel before him one by one well before anyone else was acknowledged, because as much as the Fire Lord cared about ensuring a strong line of succession, at the end of the day, there was no one he cared about more than himself, but only one of his three children had already accepted that fact.

Aelita watched the door to the throne room from the opposite hall and Zuko watched her, wondering what kind of life he and Zetzu were really condemning her to.

Almost as if she could sense his thoughts or his stare, Aelita glanced back over her shoulder to see him standing there, her lips painted red and her eyes lined with coal, a firey ruby pin holding her hair back from her face. She frowned when she realized which twin she was looking at. "Where's your brother?"

Her question surprised him honestly, not because Zuko was taken aback by the way Aelita seemed to cling to Zetzu in a way she had never clung to anyone before, that he was begrudgingly getting used to, but because the Prince honestly had expected both his siblings and all their glittering perfection to already be in place by now.

"I assumed he would've jumped on the opportunity to spend time with his bride-to-be," Zuko said, just barely keeping himself from taunting as he slowly approached the Akira, the air between them still tense.

Aelita chose to ignore the thinly veiled snark, a set of Imperial Firebenders watching just a short distance away. "I would've thought so too, but I spent the day with your sister instead."

Zuko nearly snorted out his 'why'?

"Because the Princess was kind enough to insist we dress and prepare together," Aelita rolled her eyes but added softly, "Besides, it's not like I had many other options for company this go round."

Zuko winced. Mai's parents had arrived in Caldera shortly after sunrise, and his betrothed had spent the entire day's worth of preparations with her mother. When it had been he and Aelita engaged instead, his own Mom had happily stepped into the maternal role for her future daughter-in-law, General Kenshin watching from the sidelines though it was far from traditional for a father to do so.

Zuko doubted his own Dad would do the same for Azula.

"Lucky you," The Prince deadpanned.

Again, Aelita ignored his tone, too wrapped up in her nerves to care. "Your sister said she saw him this morning," She continued. "She said that he wasn't his usual self. That he was acting like he did when we were kids." When Zuko didn't say anything, standing there in his formal robes as if the conversation were casual, Aelita went on anyway. "Mousy. Skittish. Scared. He can't do that today, Zuko. They'll eat him alive in there."

The Prince silently agreed, his sympathy for his sibling nonexistent. 'Of all fucking times', he thought to himself. For weeks Zuko had wondered what had happened to the little brother he had grown up with, but Aelita was right, this wasn't the time for Zetzu to lose his gumption or his gall, especially when it was more than just his neck on the line.

Still, the knowledge did little to spur the Prince into action, not when he had heard such terrible whispers about both his siblings. The little sleep Zuko had gotten had been interrupted by a terrible dream and the overwhelming realization that he was the only child of Ozai without the blood of another man on his hands.

The Prince was hit with the overwhelming feeling that neither he nor the Akira would ever truly belong amongst his family ever again, not really, but he shook off the ridiculous feeling when she hissed his name in a silent tone, snapping him back to the present, reminding him that it was far too late to make any other decision now.

"I'm not my brother's keeper," Zuko said matter of factually. When Aelita gathered her dress in her hands and moved to scurry past him into the depths of the Palace, he caught her by the arm and pulled her to an abrupt stop. "And neither are you," He reminded her in a hushed voice.

Aelita didn't bother pointing out that was exactly what she had been for both brothers since the day they had become friends. "I'm about to face the wolves, Prince Zuko," She told the older boy. "I won't do it alone. I can't."

Zuko cursed quietly under his breath, guilt hitting him harder than a raging tiger-dillo. "You aren't going to be alone. You'll have Mai through all of this. Ty Lee too." He added, and the 'and me' he so desperately wanted to say died in his throat.

Relief washed across Aelita's face and for a moment, Zuko almost believed he had actually said something right for once, but when he noticed the Akira was no longer looking at him and instead staring past his shoulder, he followed her line of sight and realized how foolish he had been to think it. He let go of her arm as his brother approached.

"There you are," She praised quietly as she brushed past the elder brother, "I haven't seen or heard from you all day. I was starting to think you had changed your mind about us."

Zetzu didn't so much as look at her. The Prince watched his feet as he went, walking by his intended as if she weren't even there in the first place. When Aelita reached for him, he flinched from her touch.

Zuko pushed past the Akira to plant himself firmly in his brother's path. "What's your problem?" He asked more harshly than he meant to. The younger twin didn't answer audibly but his near-trembling form was enough of a response nonetheless. "You've got to pull it together," Zuko hissed. "They'll eat you alive in there if you don't."

Azula had been all too happy to remind Zetzu of that fact that morning when she had found him.

"You think I don't know that?" The younger Prince spoke barely above a whisper, and it took every bit of stubborn will he had to do even that when he was so entirely wracked with the feeling that he didn't deserve this, his brain shouting that he wasn't worthy of being there. He didn't think he could possibly open his mouth to say more, but he didn't need to, because like the salvation she was, Aelita came to his rescue.

"Leave him alone, Zuko," She told his brother, rolling her eyes at the utter lack of understanding either twin seemed to have of one another. She still didn't trust Zetzu as far as she could throw him, her guard was still up, and she didn't feel bad in the slightest bit sorry for lying to him the days prior, but Aelita desperately needed someone else to ground her because utter solitude was maddening. "Hey," She tilted his chin up easily, forcing Zetzu to look at her. "Every hour is a second chance," She said,  voice gentle as she spoke the words she remembered Ursa often chanting to her youngest son, honestly assuming it was just the nerves getting to him because as terrible as the Prince could sometimes be, he was still human. "We just have to survive this and make it to our next one, alright?"

"Well isn't this just the most touching sight," Azula purred as she emerged like a shadow in the night to only her brothers' surprise. Unlike her sister-to-be, her silks were bright red and glittering in heavy jewels and adorned in white thread. The train of the dress was so wide that others would have to stand a fair distance from her lest they risk stepping on the fabric, something Azula had done intentionally. Her hair was piled on top of her head, her cheeks decorated in a faint pink and her eyes feline-like, her very essence a nightmare disguised as a daydream. "Mother always did love to see you three together."

Both princes' bristled at their mention of their Mom but with her mischievous spark slowly glowing back to life, Aelita couldn't stop herself from quipping, "Not as much as she loved seeing you three together, Princess."

Azula's smirk immediately shifted into a deep scowl and Zuko had to make a conscious effort to not snort out a laugh, knowing damn well how insulted his sister would've been by the subtle insinuation that Aelita knew their mother better than she did. Old habits and old friendships seemed to die hard, because the Prince didn't miss a beat to join in. "I'm sure you heard all about it," He said with a faint, mischievous grin. "The only person that spent more time with her than you was Zetzu."

It hadn't been an exaggeration either. It had been no secret that their Mother had a soft spot for Aelita. Ursa had often made it a point to check in on the girl when her father was away, spending time with her even with Zuko was busy with the constant lessons his Dad and Grandfather had thrust upon him. He'd often find his friend sharing tea with his Mom when he finished - one pot steeped with crushed goji berries for the Princess, a seperate post of jasmine all but once for Aelita.

It had always enraged Azula, even if she wouldn't admit it.

Sensing his sister's meltdown coming, Zuko laid a guiding hand on Aelita's shoulder, surprised by how easy it was to fall back into an old routine as the chatter in the distant throne room began to quiet, steering the Akira away from the Princess's simmering rage. "Come on," He told her. "Let's get this over with."

Zetzu and Azula both watched in amazement for some time after the pair left, neither having expected Aelita to go so easily, especially not with such a sly grin decorating her face, her and Zuko almost looking like friends again. Eventually, the Prince moved to follow, but his sister stopped him before he fled, whispering in his ear, "Are you really going to stand for that?"

Zetzu was still silent when he took his place in line outside the throne room. The titled teens had been instructed to wait out of sight until the guests in attendance had paid their respect to the Fire Lord, Lo and Li waiting for them now outside the doors with the Irimi family. The Princess's advisors had already instructed them how to enter the celebration, Ozai unbothered by how the event was handled as long as it happened. Mai, dealing with the situation about as well as her friends were, refused to even meet the eye of her intended, flocking to Aelita's side despite her parent's horror.

Seeing it only pissed off the Princess more. She was nearly volatile by the time the Imperial Benders flanking the throne room opened the doors for her elderly advisors. The crowd inside quickly parted for the important pair, and the older twins came to rest just beneath the steps leading to the Fire Lord's chair. The Princess didn't bother wiping the evident annoyance off her face, daring anyone to further cross her.

"Your Princess Azula," Lo began to address the extravagantly dressed crowd, "beautiful and clever, disguised herself as the enemy and entered the Earth Kingdom's Capital. In Ba Sing Se, she reunited with her brothers and together, they faced the Earth King-"

"And the Earth Kingdom fell!" The twin sisters chorused together, all eyes now on the Fire Lord's dau.

"Azula and Zetzu's agents quickly overtook the entire city," Li continued, and Aelita watched as her husband-to-be tensed where he stood several paces before her. "They went to Ba Sing Se's great walls-"

"And brought them down!"

Lo spoke over the muffled sounds of approval coming from the attendees. "The armies of the Fire Nation surged through the walls and swarmed over Ba Sing Se, securing our victory!"

"And now," Li went on, their lines well rehearsed after having introduced the Royals to the commoners weeks before, "Your heroes have returned home."

There were more sounds of approval before the two called out, "Your princess, Azula!"

Ozai's youngest child stepped into the thrush without an ounce of hesitation to her, her very presence exuding confidence and power as glittering red trailed behind her. The was no applause as she glided through the room, everyone in attendance dropped to their knees as the Princess passed on her way to her her father's throne.

Aelita nudged Zetzu forward when he refused to move into the place where his sister had once stood, the Prince ultimately convincing his feet to work as Li began to sing the praises that hadn't yet been made public. "For four hard years, the second son of the Fire Lord has toiled away on the Island of Bhanti, learning to control a power long thought to be cursed," She spoke, and a steady stream of whispers that no one bothered to quiet began to ripple through the crowd, especially as the nobles closest to the door he stood in caught sight of the third eye tattooed on his skin.

"But he has proven that the ancient texts were wrong," Lo called, "and he stands before you now a servant of our Nation, willing and able to do what hundreds before him could not. Your prince," She said, and the child began to walk slowly through the parted crowd, his still brooding sister kneeling at the opposite end before their father. "Zeztu!"

"Imposter."

"Disgrace."

"Monster."

"Don't belong."

"Don't belong."

Not knowing the war going on inside his brother's head, Zuko offered one last parting glance at Mai and Aelita huddled together before he took his place at the doors to the throne room, Li's words washing over him, memories dancing in his mind of a time he had hid behind the curtains and became certain his Father would kill him.

"And finally, after three long years," The elderly advisor began, "Your heir has returned home, having accomplished what even Fire Lord Sozin could not."

"He has brought the power of the Akira under the control of the Fire Nation," Lo continued.

"Permanently," The advisors chorused together, and the room erupted in sound. Very few had been made aware of the fact that Aelita Kenshin would face anything less than the same fate as her father. The crowd only silenced when the twins spoke together again, "Your Prince," they called, and Zuko took a final steadying breath before he stepped before the very people that had cheered his downfall. "Zuko!"

Many couldn't meet his eye as he passed them by. Some stared at the scar on his face outright. Others trembled at the sight of the Royal Family formally reunited once more. Moving without thought, Zuko didn't dare let his head fall until he came to rest between his siblings, dropping to his knees before his Father.

Mai and Aelita didn't see Ozai's slow, approving nod, but they heard the sounds of the guests inside rising to their feet on bated breath. Unlike Zuko, Mai didn't spare her friend a parting glance, knowing she was likely already in deep shit with her parents for her actions, falling instead into silent step behind the Governor and his wife. Their introduction was far less opulent and far more riddled with bullshit, highlighting more of Ukano's success in New Ozai than it did Mai's hand in the fall of Ba Sing Se, but her parents were absolutely beaming nonetheless.

When Azula's advisors introduced Mai as the future Princess Consort, the room erupted into a steady stream of applause as she and Zuko were ushered together in the middle of the crowd, and Aelita was far less affected by the moment than she had expected to be because she couldn't shake the feeling that she had been far more upset when a Southern Water Tribe warrior was promised to another instead.

Her memory was cut short as one of the Imperial Benders pushed her into view of the waiting crowd, their cheers dying down as the first of them took notice of her, Mai and Zuko standing uncomfortably silent beside one another before the throne. To the Akira's surprise, Ozai rose, and neither Lo nor Li made any move to continue.

Aelita didn't begin to move until the wall of fire began to slowly fade, leaving the man she hated on full display for his people to see.

Not even his children looked his way as he began to speak.

"Most of you were here the day this child's father fell," He stated simply, and no one dared say a word. "A firebender. A General. A member of not only my own War Council, but my Father's before me. Accused of treason," Ozai paused as the Akira slowly came to a halt just behind his children. "Wrongfully."

Chaos erupted in the room, nobles gossiping amongst themselves and military officials gasping in shock, turning to one another in disbelief.

The Fire Lord only let it go on for a moment before he commanded, "Silence!"

No one dared make another sound.

"Sukomo Kenshin died before his name could be cleared, the evidence against him at the time being overwhelming," Ozai continued. "But we know now there was a different traitor amongst us, poisoning the General's reputation. His daughter," He thundered, "This apparent apostate, as so many of you already know her to be, dealt with this traitor on her own," The Fire Lord paused, and his people waited, Aelita refusing to look anywhere but at him. "And I thank her for it." Ozai didn't quiet the new wave of whispers, instead just barking over them. "We did not know the truth of Aelita Kenshin's nature until after her father's death."

'We.'

Aelita recognized the choice of words for what it was - removing her from the equation and giving all the glory to his family.

"My Grandfather was wrong to assume the Akira was gone, just as he was wrong to assume the Avatar died with the Air Nomads, but my sons witnessed the fall of the last airbender. They watched as his blood spilled upon Akira Aelita's hands. And know," Ozai spoke evenly. "That I do not blame her for her initial hostilities against me. Until the truth of her father's framing came to light, she believed her orphaning to be my fault, and if any of you here would tell me that you would not have retaliated had you stood in her shoes, I'd tell you that you held no loyalty. That you were spineless. Disgraceful. Because," He lied through his teeth. "I would have done the same had I watched someone slay my own Father. What matters now is that Prince Zuko has helped the Akira to see the error of her ways, and reminded her where her loyalties truly lie. After all," He said, gesturing to her bare arms on display. "The proof is written on her skin. Aelita Kenshin killed the last airbender, because of her loyalty to Prince Zuko" Ozai declared, the child in question still staring at him in silent indignation. "She has slain the Avatar, renouncing her allegiance to him and swearing it once more to your heir."

Zuko struggled to look at Aelita.

Zetzu, on the other hand, couldn't look at anything but her, Aelita's quiet grace and resolve grounding him the way their mothers always had.

"But," The Fire Lord went on, "The Akira's name is not as easily cleared as her father's and I cannot ignore every crime that she has committed against our people. So, I tasked my son, Prince Zetzu, with her chagrin and her fate, and he has graciously accepted. Just as his brother will marry the daughter of Governor Ukano, Prinze Zetzu will wed the daughter of a pardoned General Kensin, marrying her on the eve of their eighteenth name day, bringing the Akira's power under the control of our family, and ensuring the prosperity of the Fire Nation for generations to come. Should Miss. Kenshin ever lose her way again," He said, and he waited for a reaction from his middle child that never came.

Ozai had never been more proud.

"Prince Zetzu has assured me that he will personally put an end to the Akira."

Aelita had never felt more alone in a crowded room.

"Permanently."

Zetzu had never been more ashamed.

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Katara hadn't gotten a full night's sleep since she had fled Ba Sing Se with her family and a barely-breathing Avatar in her arms.

Every time she closed, she saw Aang falling.

When she opened them, she saw a bleeding Aelita on the ground.

When she tried to ignore both, she could hear the pained sounds of King Kuei begging his brother to flee echoing in her ears.

So, until the exhaustion proved to be too strong, Katara kept herself busy. It was how she hatched her plan to save the village in the first place, choosing to keep her brain busy instead by thinking of all the ways she could help if Sokka would just let her.

It might have been the insomnia talking when she decided she didn't need anyone to let her do shit.

She slipped out of their riverside camp for the third night in a row when she was positive everyone else was sleeping, not realizing that they all shared too many of the same struggles she did, rest coming fitfully to all of them. Aang gave her a few moments headstart before he followed, not hearing Sokka's sigh as he slipped into the darkness.

He found Katara hunched over a short distance upriver from the village, using the water as a mirror to apply curved red markings to her cheeks and chin with a stain she had made from crushed flowers, an upwards-facing crescent moon already on her forehead. She stood to wrap a makeshift dress of rags around her shoulders, and not knowing she was being watched, she reached for the old, conical hat she had found in town the night before, a thin veil of just barely sheer fabric hanging overtop to hide her face.

Katara hadn't heard him slowly slip out from the shadows to stand just behind her, and a familiar, taunting voice in Aang's head told him he might as well have fun with it.

"Hello, Painted Lady Spirit!"

Shit.

Oblivious to the fact that the Avatar paid attention to her well enough to have long since figured her ruse out, the waterbender fled up the sloping shore, the small hill and the water itself serving as the only thing separating them from the village.

Aang had to remind himself not to laugh as he leaped after her, pushing air from his feet to close the distance between them. "Excuse me," He called after her, tempted to see dedicated Katara was to keeping up the act. "I don't mean to bother you, but my friend's sick and we're on kind of a tight schedule."

Katara ignored him as she began to cross the river, stepping stones of ice appearing just where she needed them.

"Oh, come on!" Aang hollered again, so light on the water's surface he didn't need the ice that she did. "I'm part of the great bridge between your world and mine! I know Hei Bai! Yue! Ryuk! We're all close personal friends!"

Katara only moved faster, not ready to be caught or forced to give up on the village yet, ducking beneath the closest dock and pivoting to the right, hoping to lose her friend in the darkness. When Aang didn't seem to follow, she peeked out slowly from under the wood. Thinking the coast was clear, she hastily pulled herself up onto the platform only to find Aang sitting on the edge of the roof of Dock/Xu's fish stall.

"Hey!" He greeted her all too happily. "My name's Aang. I'm the Avatar," He said, lifting his headband to point at the arrow glimpsing out from beneath his hairline.

"Well, hello Avatar," Katara said in a pitifully disguised voice. Thankful for the veil but not confident it would completely hide her face, she turned to run down the dock in the opposite direction. "I wish I could talk, but I am very busy."

"Yeah, me too," Aang chuckled as popped to his feet and jumped from roof to roof after her, just quiet enough to not wake the sleeping villagers. "I hate that, but you know," He said, landing on the dock directly in front of a panicked Katara. "You're really pretty for a spirit. I haven't met too many spirits yet, but the ones I do meet," The Avatar thought of the faceless guide Ryuk and couldn't help but shudder. "Aren't very attractive.'

The waterbender took a slow step away from the monk. "Thank you, but-"

"You seem familiar too," Aang cut her off, completely understanding now why his missing best friend had always seemed to enjoy being a menace. He was having too much fun.

Katara still didn't want to believe she had been so easily caught. She took another step back, balancing with one foot on the water's surface. "A lot of people say that."

The Avatar was openly smiling now. "No, you seem really familiar."

Cheeky fucker. "Look, I really should get going," She insisted, turning to flee once more but failing to beat the speed of Aang's airbending, his gentle gust blowing the veil off her face.

"Katara?" Aang gasped, feigning surprise.

She wasn't sure if she should hit him or grovel, but she opted for the latter. "Hi, Aang."

"So," The monk said as she begrudgingly removed the hat on her head. According to her brother, Katara was too kind to everyone but him for her own good, but Aang loved her heart regardless. Now he just wanted to hear about it from her own lips. "You're the Painted Lady? Why?"

"I wasn't her at first," Katara sighed, figuring she might as well come clean. "I was just trying to help the village, but since everyone thought that's who I was anyway, I guess I just kinda became her."

"So you've been sneaking out at night?" Aang clarified. "Is Appa even sick?"

Katara shrank into herself. "He might be sick of the purple berries I've been feeding him, but other than that, he's fine."

"I can't believe you lied to everyone so you could help these people," The monk shook his head with a lack of hostility or anger that his friend had yet to recognize.

"I'm sorry," Katara blurted, "I know I shouldn't have but-"

"Aelita would be so proud."

She wasn't sure she heard him right. "What?"

"Come on, you don't think she would've done the same thing?" Aang asked with a fond, reminiscent grin, all the reassurance Katara needed. "I think it's great. You're like a secret hero!"

The waterbenders gut reaction was to either kiss him or cry thankful, bittersweet tears but she sniffled back the emotion for the moment and opted for neither when she remembered what it was exactly she had set out that night to do. "Well," She said as she glanced past the Avatar at the factory in the distance. "If you wanna help, there's one more thing I have to do."

Chapter Text

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

To her relative surprise, Aelita wasn't struck down where she stood in the middle of the throne room despite the fact that the dozens of others in attendance likely wished she had been. The world didn't stop turning, even if it felt like her heart had stopped beating, and much to Azula's immense displeasure, no one made a move to argue her father's words.

Not even Zetzu. The boy didn't move to close a single piece of the distance between him and his bride-to-be. He didn't dare open his mouth to speak, the fears of his youth effectively keeping his mouth sewn shut. He didn't blink, didn't flinch, and to his family standing closest to him, he didn't even appear to breathe.

It was that complete and utter lack of reaction that the people seemed to take notice of most. The officials and nobles alike looked to the guidance of the family that led them to gauge their reactions, the scar on their eldest Prince's face a not-so-subtle reminder of what happened to those that spoke out against their Lord.

Azula almost smirked where she stood beside Zetzu, knowing damn well that her brother wouldn't react even if he wanted to. He couldn't, because as different as her siblings attempted to seem, she knew that deep down they would always be the pathetic, pitiful boys they had always been. So, she held her head high and waited for her brother's panic to paint the scene she so desperately wanted the rest of the world to see, but to her silent horror, Zetzu's frigid, frozen nature had the opposite effect of what it used to. As children, the select few that bore witness to her brother's meager existence saw him for what he was - an absolute waste of royal blood.

But now? Now, whispers began to make their way amongst the crowd in soft acknowledgment and belief that Zetzu could actually live up to their expectations of him. After all, he didn't seem to care for the Akira still standing alone before the Fire Lord, the Prince effectively keeping his distance from her as if it hadn't been his plan to have her all along.

Worse than that, their father seemed to take notice too. Azula glanced over her shoulder to their dad watching her youngest brother with curious, and dare she admit proud eyes.

It infuriated her to no end, but she didn't dare make it known, willing her face instead into that of cool indifference as she listened to the fresh wave of sound that gradually erupted amongst the crowd, watching as the chatter washed over Aelita and her brothers both where they stood.

Most of it wasn't good. Many wanted her dead.

The people of the Fire Nation could seem to accept the pardon of Sukomo Kenshin, he had been well enough respected that many had questioned the validity of the accusations against him in the first place, but few wanted to accept a girl that had openly opposed their sons and daughters on the front lines. The General's daughter was a disgrace, even if she had protected the heir to the throne time and time again, and both Ozai and Azula were all too happy to have her be reminded of it.

The Princes' struggled under the weight of their guilt from where they watched, listening to the whispers they had sworn they were prepared for but found that they weren't at all. Their people were brutal and unforgiving, so many in the room dressed in military garb, the rest so wrapped up by the propaganda of it all that they had willingly given more gold than the average man ever owned to support the war efforts. 

Zuko watched as Aelita didn't buckle the way he felt he was about to, her shoulders square as she waited before the throne for relief that didn't come because, despite the instructions he had been given, Zetzu hadn't moved to join her before the masses. If the Akira had taken notice, she didn't show it.

But she sure as shit did make a mental note of it. 

Aelita could feel Zetzu's eyes upon her, focusing on the feeling of it rather than the words being spoken about her, but a part of her wondered if the Prince had planned this all along, despite any fleeting worry she may have had for his well-being because damn if he hadn't put her in this position in the first place. Her guard was all the way up and would likely remain as such until she could disappear into the faint comfort that her room had become, though that likely had more to do with the fact that she had left Mushu there waiting with Kanao.

Aelita wasn't sure if it was mercy or torture when Zuko finally spoke, Zetzu still silent. "Let us not dwell on the events of the past." He said as led a stoic but still slightly bewildered Mai to the center of the room once more, blocking Aelita from his father's view in a subtle manner of protection that appeared to be more like a blatant dismissal to other watching eyes. "Let us look to the future and the victory you will lead us to." He continued more calmly than he felt, his voice sounding like the Prince that had died at his father's feet four years ago. "Hail Fire Lord Ozai."

In front of the once more silent crowd, Zuko dropped to the ground and knelt before the parent that scarred him in a manner that looked more genuine than it felt, his bride-to-be following suit.

And just as he hoped, his sister quickly but gracefully saddled up on his other side, not one to be shown up. Aelita nearly kissed the ground in time with the Princess, and steadily the masses began to follow suit, shifting just so slightly until they were no longer on top of each other so that they could fall to their knees before their Lord, effectively pulling Ozai's attention away from the Akira and just so slightly blocking her from his view.

Aelita was grateful for the distraction, but some small, fractured thing inside of her wished that it had come from anyone other than Zuko. 

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Sokka wasn't sure exactly how long Aang and his sister had been gone, but he tried to conceal both his worry and his frustration as the moon slowly began to disappear from the sky above. Kyojuro sat on the warrior's right, the Prince of the Earth Kingdom having joined him not long after Sokka slunk from the camp to sit along the river's edge, Momo curled in his lap. There wasn't any replacement on earth for Aelita's company, that much Sokka was certain of, but Kyojuro's presence was appreciated nonetheless.

"So," The earthbender said after some time. The two teens had existed in relative silence up until that point, somber for similar but different reasons. "Is this what it feels like to miss someone?"

Sokka glanced at Kyojuro. He didn't know what exactly he had been expecting when his newest friend quietly joined him, but it certainly wasn't that. "You haven't missed anyone before this?"

"No," The Prince admitted. "Not really. At least, I don't think so. Honestly, I didn't know my parents well enough to miss them. I think sometimes growing up I missed the idea of them, but even that stopped after a while. But," He said, and the vulnerability in his voice was clear despite his gruff appearance. "I miss Kuei. More than I ever thought I would. Roshi and Usagi, Murata too. I've never really grieved for anyone either," He added, blinking back the emotion he didn't want to feel. "It sucks. Hurts like a bitch."

Kyojuro hadn't talked about his brother or his fallen Dai Li captain since they fled the Earth Kingdom, so his sudden openness took Sokka by surprise. Shock soon gave way to sadness, because even as much as he hated the grief he couldn't imagine a life where he hadn't been able to form relationships meaningful enough to experience what it was like to miss someone until it was too late. "It doesn't get easier," Sokka said, recalling a familiar conversation with his Dad. "You just learn to live with it."

The Prince snorted, and then he laughed, "I think that's the least encouraging thing I've ever heard."

Sokka sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck but eventually, he relaxed into the lighthearted moment. "It sounded a lot better when my Dad said it."

The two laughed together, and slowly the tension melted away as the sun continued to creep higher and higher. Eventually, Kyojuro sighed and admitted, "I might not know much about grief or missing someone, but I know plenty about what it's like to fight with my sibling." Sokka immediately didn't like where the conversation was going, so he said nothing, and the Prince continued. "Kuei and I didn't agree about much of anything."

"Don't agree," Sokka corrected, noting the past tense his newest friend used. "And you'll be disagreeing with him again before you know it," He insisted despite his own silent worry that Aang might not be able to end the war without Aelita. "The Fire Lord kept King Bumi alive to use as a bargaining piece against Omashu," He reminded Kyojuro. "They'll do the same with Kuei."

"Yeah," The Prince nodded feebly, hoping his friend was right. "He's too stubborn to go down without a fight anyway, even if he's a lot softer around the edges than I am. He's kind of like Katara that way."

Sokka groaned and flopped backward onto the mossy ground, dreading the lecture he saw coming simply because he didn't have the energy left for it. Kyojuro only chuckled at the dramatics.

"Relax," He reassured. "I'm not gonna tell you to chase Katara down or see things from her perspective. I'm not saying one of you is right and the other is wrong either. Just because you've been through most of your highs and lows together doesn't mean you experienced it the same way," He explained, and to his relative shock, Sokka listened. "You guys are different people. I think you're allowed to process differently. To move on differently. Kuei and I did. After Mom and Dad died, my brother threw himself headfirst into royal duties. Partially I'm sure because it was what was expected of him and what Long Feng wanted out of him, but partially I think because it was a good distraction for him too. Kept his mind busy. Me on the other hand?" Kyojuro snorted. "I did anything but. Sure, I can blame it on Long Feng keeping me so far out of the public eye, but deep down I wanted no part of the crown I thought killed my parents. It made me strong in a way that my brother isn't, but I realize now that Kuei's kindness and servant's heart give him a sort of strength that I'll never really understand or possess."

Sokka hated that he knew exactly what point the Prince was trying to make, and he hated even more that it was working, so he argued, "They can't help everyone, Kyojuro."

"I know," The earthbender agreed. "But when I get back home, I promise I won't ever be the reason that he doesn't at least get to try."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Zeztu was ten again, hiding on a dimly lit balcony overlooking the barren palace courtyard while the world continued to exist around him without a single care for the broken boy.

Zetzu was nearly eighteen, hiding on a dimly lit balcony overlooking the barren palace courtyard while the world continued to exist around him with far too much interest in the broken boy.

There might have been a time in his life when the younger twin would've given anything to have received the acknowledgment and attention he had that night, but years of neglect and disconnect had effectively snuffed any remnants of that hopeful child out. Instead, when half a dozen of Ozai's staunchest supporters had swarmed the Fire Lord's youngest son the moment they were permitted to rise, brimming with questions and opinions all pertaining to his growth and his bride-to-be, he panicked, finding the first possible moment to slip away and flee.

Maybe things weren't as different as they seemed.

"There you are," A soft, saccharine voice hummed behind him. "I've been looking for you all night."

It was cruel that Zetzu knew that the words sounded just as sickly sweet as they had that day, because the utter lack of change, the absence of aging, told the boy that the sound was nothing more than a memory. As the distant, muffled hum of chatter from somewhere inside the palace tickled his senses, the battered child tried to reach for the moment tucked away in some far-off part of his mind, but the pleasant time stayed just beyond his reach. He remembered turning into a gentle, genuine smile, and he remembered the feeling of a hand taking hold of his own, but try as he might, Zetzu couldn't see the kind, angelic face that once stared back at him in the glow of a fire's light, no badly they all wanted to relive the feeling of being wanted and worthy.

Maybe it was some sort of small mercy. Aelita had been promised to another that night, and Zetzu had yet again been an afterthought.

He wondered if this was what it was like for the Akira, missing and wanting and searching for a time that her brain wouldn't let her revisit, and later wondering if it were for the best. He had been struggling with bits of missing moments and memories since the day he had nearly killed Azula and a newer, bolder side of him was born, but that same side of him had effectively bullied the others into not dwelling on the absent nights. Aelita, on the other hand, seemed to have not reached that stage of blind acceptance yet.

Naturally, it seemed like the moments that Zetzu too locked away were the ones that would hurt the most to miss.

Near all of them involved their mother or Aelita.

Not all, but most. Luckily or unluckily, he retained others, just enough for him to remember where his fondness of the similar women stemmed.

Unlike that night, Aelita had yet to seek him out. He didn't blame Aelita for not rescuing him now, he had effectively abandoned her for the day and then tucked his tail to run without upon his first opportunity, but still, he tried to remember the way she had come for him then.

He couldn't, no matter how hard he reached for the moment.

He remembered other, less savory parts of the cursed night when she had been announced as his brothers intended instead like the way he saw them laugh together in secret at spirits knew what. She hadn't laughed with him at all on their own night. She hadn't even smiled.

Zetzu had nearly given up on reaching for the hidden moment when his mind was pulled towards the evening's end and just the faintest recollection of a warm teacup in his hands, huddled underneath the stars while the gathering inside continued on without him. A slightly sweet, almost unfamiliar smell tickled his nose like the memory was playing out before his very eyes. The details felt just out of grasp but important nonetheless.

"Goji green," The phantom voice explained as if it sensed his frustration. "My favorite. It's full of energy and good intentions, so it's the perfect drink to celebrate the beautiful changes in life."

Zetzu groaned and dropped his head in his hands where he leaned propped up against the balcony rail, cursing under his breath as he tried o keep his cool. The terrible, jealous, and insecure sides of him wanted to think of anything but the fact that Aelita had ever considered her intended union with his brother to be a beautiful change.

Zuko was ruining everything.

It was easier for the younger twin to blame others than it was for him to accept any sort of accountability, and his elder sibling made the perfect target for that blame. So, as shaken as Zetzu was still wise by so suddenly being desirable after a lifetime of rejection, he reminded himself of the vow he had made to step out of his brother's shadow once and for all. He'd start with Aelita.

The Akira knew better than to step away from the evening's celebrations without being dismissed, so she found herself a quiet corner of the room, content that most in attendance were too meek themselves to do anything more than sneer. She watched from there.

Azula was bored. That much was obvious from the lifeless expression she wore on her face as she casually dismissed nearly all who approached her, only granting the smallest bits of her attention to the most decorated military officials present.

Zuko was uncomfortable. He stood unnaturally straight, his body just so slightly facing the nearest exit as if he needed to be ready to run at any possible moment even as he nodded along to whatever it was the War Minister was saying, Mai beside him not speaking unless spoken to, her eyes subconsciously drifting to the girl bounding towards Aelita three paces at a time.

Ty Lee didn't care who was watching when she flung herself at the Akira, arms wrapped around the other girl's shoulders and she heaved out a deep sigh of relief. "You're okay," she whispered more in reassurance to herself than in question to Aelita.

Aelita wasn't sure she could agree, but she had never been one to rain on Lee's parade, so she carefully pulled herself free and stood back to get a good look at the only person in the room draped in pink rather than red. Ty Lee didn't go far, hooking their littlest fingers together like she was afraid that if she wasn't tethered to Aelita, the Akira would somehow disappear. "Why wouldn't I be?" Aelita asked through a half-hearted smile, acutely aware of their very public setting.

'Because Zetzu makes my skin crawl some days,' Ty Lee thought but didn't dare say out loud. Instead, she hoped the grey-haired girl could read between the lines when she said, "Because I was worried those people must have done something horrible for you to change sides so easily."

Aelita thought she picked up on her old friends implicating words, but she hadn't been allowed enough socialization to know what side anyone stood on other than Zetzu. "You learn to endure," She said simply, pretending the statement wasn't loaded because as if her thoughts had summoned him personally, her brand new husband-to-be was sneaking through the shadows of the dwindling celebration to nervously corner them in where they stood.

Ty Lee laced all of her fingers through Aelita's and didn't let go.

"Hi," The younger Prince said so sheepishly that the Akira almost felt like she was looking seven years in the past. "Can I borrow my..." He trailed off as if he couldn't bring himself to form the correct words, skin clammy. "Her?" He asked Ty Lee, nodding at Aelita before looking at her with desperation in his eyes. "Please."

Lee didn't trust the Zetzu standing before her now even if he did seem so very much like the one she used to know, so she gripped her old friend's hand even tighter, a porcelain smile painted on her face. "You've had her all to yourself already, Prince Zetzu," She said, her voice lighter than it felt. "Mind if I tag along? Aelita and I have soooo much to catch up on."

Aelits answered before her betrothed could object. "I would love that," She said, challenging the older boy to argue.

Zetzu didn't. "Of course," He agreed despite his desire to get the grey-haired girl alone, steering the pair ideally out of sight and out of the throne room.

But the spirits had never been that kind to him. Mai noticed the hasty retreat before Zuko did. Not caring if it was rude or not, she cut off her intendeds conversation with a curt 'excuse us' and dragged him along behind her, cutting off the trio just as they escaped the crowd, Azula mercifully wrapped up in conversation with her advisors. "Looks like a party," She remarked dryly, noting the way Ty Lee still held Aelita's hand in a vice grip.

It was a damn shame Zuko had gotten over his childhood crush on Mai because he could kiss her now for her for ruining the rendezvous he could tell his brother so clearly didn't want anyone else to be a part of. "Yeah," The Prince said smoothly. "Care if we join?"

This time, Aelita actually looked to Zetzu for backup and it punched his twin square in the gut. Unluckily for her, his brother didn't give it. "The more the merrier," He managed to just barely say under his breath.

Zuko and Aelita recognized the balcony they were all led to as Zetzu's old hiding place - one of the farthest spots in the entire palace from the throne room, three stories up on the complete opposite wing. Several candles as thick as tree branches illuminated the space, and nestled on a small table that wasn't normally there was a steaming kettle and only two cups.

"This is nice," Ty Lee said honestly, appreciating the open air and the ability to truly breathe now that they were away from the congregation inside.

"Yeah," Zetzu murmured. "Tonight was...a lot," He said to Aelita, ignoring Mai as she genuinely groaned in relief and leaned against the railing in the opposite corner from his little tea setup, unpinning her straight hair and allowing it to fall free. Luckily for him, Ty Lee couldn't seem to resist the other girl's pull, and she let go of the Akira's hand to settle in beside her friend. "I wanted to talk about that...with you."

"Okay," Aelita said slowly, aware of the eavesdropping happening close by. "So talk."

"Wait!" Zetzu blurted, almost forgetting his peace offering. He steered the Akira towards the table and as far away from his brother as possible. 

Aelita watched as he lifted the kettle and poured warm tea into the two cups, arching a brow as she watched the green liquid fall. She had shared enough reluctant meals with the Prince to know he strictly drank yellow tea when the choice was his. Zetzu caught her confused stare and read it for what it wasn't - surprise that someone could be thinking of her first. He tried to not be hurt by it - he always put her first.

"Your favorite," He said gently, the vibrant smell of the berries steeped inside dulled by the tea itself. "Full of energy and good intentions, right? So you drink to celebrate beautiful changes?"

Aelita was very aware of the three sets of eyes trying to not and failing to subtly watch their every move, the intensity of one pair in particular more jarring than the rest.

Her interaction with Zuko just before the celebration had been the most normal one she could recall them having in months, and the moment was one she couldn't seem to forget. They had almost felt like friends again, even if it had been for just a split second, and it left Aelita unsettled. Long before there was anything more between them, there was real and genuine friendship, the messy feelings came second, but then betrayal came third, and she wasn't sure if friendship could be what either of them wanted or deserved ever again. So, not wanting to give Zuko the satisfaction of seeing her squirm, the sting of their past still too fresh, she accepted the tea when Zetzu offered it to her and stepped close enough to the Prince that he dominated all of her senses. "Is that what we're doing?" She finally asked the combustionbender, head tilted upwards to meet his timid gaze. "Celebrating?"

"Yes," Zetzu answered too quickly, plucking up the other glass and holding it up to wait for her next move. "I am, at least. I hope you are."

She wasn't entirely sure there was anything left for her in this world to celebrate, but that thought alone nearly broke her, so she raised the glass of tea despite how badly she wished it were something much stronger and said, "Cheers." She took a long sip of the tea, too distracted to focus on the peculiar taste of it when the boy set his own cup down to blurt out, "I think I'm in love with you."

Aelita almost spat out her drink, choking down the warm liquid as best she could, the others not even bothering to try to hide their nosiness any longer. Despite all of the scathing accusations and other fucked up quips she and Zetzu had thrown at one another, he had never said anything like that. The shit he said was wildly concerning and bordering on unhinged far too often, but this felt too...soft. Raw.

Wrong.

It set her already raw nerves on fire, anger, and confusion welling up inside her. Zetzu claimed to care often, and in some fucked up way he might, but caring, love, and even obsession were very different things. She had felt love before, that much she was sure of, and this wasn't it. She wouldn't let anyone taint that memory for her. 

"Oh?" Aelita quipped between coughs as she forced the tea down her throat, chucking the faint tickle she felt up to the electricity running through her veins. She'd be damned if he got to excuse his actions and chalk it up to love. 

"Oh?" The boy parroted.

She took another pull from her cup just to give herself a moment to think, almost looking past the combustionbender for his twin to come to her aid. She coughed a second time but otherwise regained her composure and eventually said, "Zetzu, you don't hurt people you love."

The Prince looked like a child scolded. "But-" he stammered, completely honest and genuine when he continued. "You and Zuko hurt each other."

The elder brother perked up at the sound of his name, otherwise drawn into the surface-level conversation Mai and Ty Lee were keeping up just for appearances' sake.

"We have," Aelita said, fighting the urge to say 'we do' instead. "But we aren't in love anymore," She admitted honestly because it was true, even if she couldn't deny there was still a part of her there that obviously cared. "And it's probably because of the ways we hurt each other that we stopped."

It should've been reassuring for Zetzu to hear but instead, his mind drifted to another. "What about him?" He asked. "The warrior boy?"

What about him?

Aelita wished she knew, wished she really knew, but she didn't. She knew them all by face and name and voice - Katara, Toph, Kyojuro, Aang, and Sokka.

'Mine,' her mind screamed subconsciously, and she wanted to believe it, but as she reached back in time, the most vivid memories she could find of the Water Tribe boy were the ones that showcased just how much he had seemed to hate her. She blinked back the jolt to her system that came with the thought, taking another small sip of her tea to soothe her still-tingling but now burning throat. Aelita didn't want her bullshit life to be sugarcoated, and the Prince's ministrations would be far easier to tolerate if he just owned them.  She was so tired of being lied to. "We're talking about us, Zetzu. About you. You hurt me."

"You hurt me too," He argued too quickly, like a stubborn child grasping for straws. "But I still think I love you."

Too bad the Prince didn't sound confident.

"That's why I want you here. Home. With me." Zetzu closed his eyes as he tried to concentrate on the words coming out of his mouth, repeating the words his mother used to often say in regard to her children. When he opened his eyes again, he nearly swore it was her looking back at him instead. "You're home to me."

The sentiment sounded sweet and pretty and genuine but it only sent Aelita into even more of a tailspin because this innocent and kind Prince standing before her was the one she had begged to switch sides, that she clearly remembered, and that alone had her second-guessing how the fuck she was meant to proceed. Still, she didn't feel guilty when she realized that home to her looked like a pair of ocean-blue eyes she knew she recognized. 

She might have reveled in the fact that she had seemed to find a little missing piece of her past but the panic set in before she could when she realized just how hard it was becoming to breathe. Aelita knew what it was all too soon as old, old fear she hadn't felt in nearly four years reared its ugly head, and she immediately kicked herself in the ass for being so careless.

On instinct and past experience, she heaved herself halfway over the balcony railing, cup of cursed liquid still in hand as she desperately tried to cough herself sick. Zetzu flinched at the sudden movement and violent reaction and the chattering amongst the three other teens stopped. All eyes were now on their old friend.

Ty Lee, not knowing the severity of the situation, brushed past the younger Prince to pull back the stray waves that had fallen free from Aelita's still-pinned-up hair, rubbing the other girl's spine gently as she tried to figure out what was wrong.

But Aelita couldn't answer as her throat continued to swell because she had never once stopped to consider the smell or taste of the tea because she had learned to so vehemently avoid it as a child, and since Zuko's banishment, she had effectively quit worrying about the terrible little fruit that had nearly ended once before, because Goji berries were native only to the Fire Nation. When she coughed up too little bile to make any difference, Aelita just barely managed to push herself back upright and push Lee away, desperate to take in as much air as she could. She sucked in a deep breath that caught in her throat and the teacup slipped through her scarred fingers to shatter on the ground. As the cracked glass scattered around her feet,  Aelita had yet another realization.

She was going to die, and she didn't want to.

And fuck the Fire Lord's eldest son if he didn't recognize the panic in her eyes too. After all, this very moment had been his nightmare for weeks as a boy, his young mind unable to forget the sight of his best friend's purpling skin after he convinced her to try his mother's favorite berries. Aelita had so obviously feared death then too, her fingers clutching the skin of her throat in the same way they seemed to move in slow motion to do now, but then, there had been Lu Ten and now there was no worth a damn that could save her soon enough. Then, his cousin's quick thinking had been all that kept Aelita breathing, the elder Prince having already traveled to the front lines and back once, Lu Ten somehow knowing from experiences that Zuko had never been brave enough to ask about to use the tip of the knife of his to pierce a hole in the bottom of her throat, the incision small enough to not scar but large enough to nearly make her best friends heart stop beating.

Still, that little hole had been all that kept Aelita breathing at the time.

But Zuko didn't know if he could do that, and he found himself hoping and praying that his eyes were somehow being deceived even as the Akira dropped to her knees amongst the broken glass. He was there at her side even as his brother continued to watch on in horror. "What did you give her?" The Prince snapped. The younger twin opened his mouth but didn't speak. "Zetzu!" Zuko barked with even more malice.

"T-tea," The other royal stuttered, Mai now holding up an equally terrified Ty Lee.

"What kind?" Zuko asked even though he had a sinking feeling that he already knew.

"Goji," Zetzu said, and because the murderous glare his brother sent his way left him feeling like he needed to defend himself, he added gently, almost like a plea to Aelita, "Her favorite."

"No," Zuko hissed, "Mom's favorite. It might as well be poison for her." The rage in his eyes melted into fear when he looked back at the girl he had already lost far too many times. "She's allergic."

Mai pushed Ty Lee back through the balcony doors, barking orders over her shoulder. "Palace healer. Now."

Aelita could still faintly make out the words being said as she tried not to panic lest her struggling breathing become even more erratic, her fingers desperately scrapping the ground for something sharp. She was vaguely aware of her betrothed's eyes on her as he asked, "Why? What's happening?"

"Her throat is closing," Zuko bit out. "We need a healer. They need to cut her open from the outside so she can breathe."

Zetzu visibly paled and still, Ty Lee was frozen in fear. Mai shook out of her grasp, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she cursed herself for not sneaking one of her knives past her mom when she dressed. "For fucks sake," She swore, appearing at Aelita's side as she scooped up a shard of glass that had broken off at an ominous point. "We don't have time to wait for a healer," She told her husband-to-be as she tugged his ex-girlfriend from his arms to lay her flat on the ground. Aelita was blinking back tears, trying like hell to heave in ragged breaths when she looked up at her old friend. As her lids fluttered open and shut, Mai swore her irises shifted from brown to blue and back again, unaware of the internal battle for self-preservation the Akira was currently facing. Hopped up on adrenaline but as calm and focused as ever, the markswoman didn't look up when Aelita's pet appeared out of nowhere with his humans panting handmaiden arriving just a few steps behind, disheveled and leaving a trail of water from the now half-empty bucket that had spilled as she ran. She almost apologized when she pulled aside the neckline of her friend's gown. "This is going to hurt like a bitch."

Everything Mai knew about the human body she had learned from Ty Lee, so the acrobat wasn't surprised when the other girl pressed the pointed edge of the broken glass through the skin and muscle at the base of Aelita's throat. She was shocked when Mai's wrist was caught in her patient's hand the moment the shard slid in deep enough to relieve the pressure. 

There was no denying it now. Aelita's eyes were shining a bright and haunting blue. 

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Aang fell to his knees outside the factory, the wind unexpectedly knocked from his lungs. He was vaguely aware of the wind whipping around him and the suddenly thrashing currents in the river just beneath the cliffside. He thought he felt the ground begin to crack beneath his fingertips but he found himself unable to focus on it because all he could think of was the sinking sensation of being ripped in two, like something was attempting to rip his very soul out of his body. 

The pull was successful, even if it was only for a moment. He blinked to clear his vision and when he opened his eyes again he was somewhere new and distinctly familiar. He strained to breathe and see, and for just a second, he swore he saw a blood-stained Aelita. 

She looked like she was dying. 

Aang drank in a greedy mouthful of air as he crumpled into a ragged heap, face pressed against the cool grass as he tried to steady himself, the terrible splitting feeling gone and his throat clear. He wasn't sure how much time has passed, but based on the steady scraping of steel drums coming from inside he assumed it hadn't been much. He had split from Katara to stop up the pipes that spilled from the building into the river while she gathered as many rations as they could possibly carry back to the village. 

He had split from Katara, and he had watched Aelita die. At least, that's what he assumed he had done. He couldn't think of a single other explanation for the strange phenomena, wondering if the painful instance had been a repressed memory, something he had seen just before he himself had gone down in Ba Sing Se, chalking it up to the now one-way bond between them. 

Maybe this was his first step to connecting with her spirit. 

He hoped not. 

Aang could face the spirits of Roku and Kyoshi, even Tulan and Ragnar, but he wasn't ready to face Aelita. Not yet. 

Still, the moment had felt too real to be nothing more than a memory, even if it had been over in an instant. 

When Aang was certain he wasn't going to pass out, he pushed himself back up to stand on shaky feet and for once he was glad to be away from Katara. He wasn't sure how he would explain the sensation to Katara when he couldn't even explain it to himself.

Away from the falling factory, Sokka never did acknowledge his friend's solemn vow, but if bothered Kyojuro, the Prince hadn't shown it. The two had slipped back into their state of relative silence, hearts heavy and minds frustratingly clear as the moon continued to gradually fade. They stayed there until after the morning sun skirted the horizon, eventually walking back to their camp side by side in bittersweet unity. They found Toph there already wide awake and repacking her belongings, a subtle knowing of what was to come. Her quiet nod was her only form of greeting when she realized Katara and Twinkle Toes were still long gone, but she didn't object when the Prince relit their fire, settling around it with the boys as they waited for their trouble-making two to return.

It didn't take much longer.

"Shhh!" Katara hushed the Avatar over her shoulder as the pair crept back into their quiet camp. "We don't wanna wake-" The words died in her mouth when she turned to find Kyojuro, Toph, and her brother all sitting awake around the morning fire. "Sokka! Hi!" She stammered, spitting out the first pitiful lie she could think of, a sheepish Aang still standing behind her. "We were just out on a morning walk!"

"Oh, really? A morning walk?" Her brother snorted. His conversation with Kyojuro was quickly forgotten with yet another one of his sister's lies, and his annoyance only rose as he reached for her sleeping bag to dump out the lumpy hay she actually thought would fool him. Katara went pale and silent, the others wondering which of the stubborn siblings would fold first. "I know you're the Painted Lady, I know you've been sneaking out at night, and I know you've been lying about Appa and been feeding him purpleising tongue berries!" He fished out a handful of the little fruits from his pocket, Kyojuro opening his stained mouth to further prove she couldn't bullshit her way out of this one. "Katara, what you did put our whole mission in jeopardy," Sokka continued to rant, ignoring the look of disagreement on her face as he shoved himself to his feet and began to pack. "We're leaving right now!"

Katara didn't argue this time, sighing and hanging her head in shame as she walked towards her own belongings, knowing she had been caught in her lies.

Sokka wheeled on Aang when he attempted to slip by unnoticed. "And you!" He glowered at his friend, equally hurt by the dishonesty and the fact that no one seemed to trust his judgment anymore, confidence fading and self-loathing growing with each passing day. "How long did you know about this?"

"Hey," The Avatar held up his hands in mock surrender. "I just found out last night."

The rest of the team packed their camp quietly and quickly following the sibling spat. As mid-morning approached, the five began to secure the last of their supplies to Appa's saddle, but when an unfamiliar buzz began to echo down the river, the squabbles of earlier were quickly forgotten. 

"I don't feel anything," Toph told the others uncomfortably, Sokka and Aang climbing down from where they had been tying their bags down to Appa's saddle. "What's going on?"

Kyojuro careened his head over the brush that hid them just enough from the view of the water to see a small fleet of little two-man river boats bouncing on the waves, their riders dressed in red uniforms and sporting deep scowls. "Fire Nation soldiers are heading toward the village!"

Sokka rounded on a sheepish Aang and Katara. "What exactly did you two do?"

His sister smiled feebly. "We kind of destroyed their factory?"

"You what?" He squawked, the slightest bit impressed but fully unwilling to admit it out loud.

"It was your idea!" Katara insisted.

"I was joking!" He argued back in exasperation, slapping a hand to his forehead at the recklessness and stupidity, no matter how well-intended it might have been. "I also said to use spirit magic and made funny noises! Did you even think this through? The army is gonna blame the villagers! They're headed there right now to get revenge!"

Katara, determined and fierce, stood tall against his frustration. "Well, what was I supposed to do?"

"Leave!" Sokka snapped as if it had been the most obvious option in the world because for him, at least then, it would have been. "Do nothing!"

Katara blinked back hot, emotional tears. "No," She told him proudly and defiantly, the memory of a friend she would never forget coursing through her veins, wondering if Aelita really would have been proud. "I will never, ever turn my back on people who need me!" She insisted, tossing her bag at Kyojuro and storming past her brother. "I'm going down to that village, and I am gonna do whatever I can."

Sokka caught her by the wrist before she could go. "Wait!" He stopped her, and when the proof of that kind heart, strong heart looked back up at him, and any annoyance he might've felt with her quickly melted away, Kyojuro's earlier words echoing in his ears. "I'm coming, too."

Katara eyed her brother skeptically where he stood, but she didn't pull away. "I thought you didn't want to help."

"You need me," He spoke softly, nothing else mattering more to him then, and for a moment, they both felt like kids again, facing a world together that had already taken so much from them. "And I will never turn my back on you."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪️

Zuko knew from past experience that Aelita would sleep the better part of the day if she were left undisturbed, her body having physical limits that sometimes overcame her mind-induced insomnia, so he wasn't surprised to hear she had yet to stir by breakfast the next morning. Still, it would've been inappropriate for him to sit vigil by her bedside, so he kept his distance, pretending he could unsee the horrors of the night before, allowing Mai and Ty Lee to take turns going in his place, much to his sister's great displeasure. 

He was almost surprised when Mai had offered, but maybe that was because he had been the only one of them to ever really experience the truly awe-inspiring, devastating thing Aelita could be in the Spirit State. 

He wondered if Mai realized just how close she had come to dying.

Zetzu had come even closer. 

🌊⛰️🔥🌪️

The soldiers docked in the village before the group of foreign teens could cross the river, each of them looking menacing in a modified homeland version of the armor the team was used to seeing. The villagers were utterly terrified as the men and women climbed stalked into view, most everyone gathered near the main port in an act of submission. Katara, redressed in her spirit garb, held out a hand to halt her friends where they crouched in the brush on the river's edge, confident her plan could and would work.

The largest soldier, a bulky man with broad shoulders and a pinched face called Mung, glared at the waiting crowd, the apparent leader of the small group. "I thought we could live as neighbors, in peace," He purred, but his lips soon pressed together in a tight line. "But I guess I was wrong. You steal our food, our medicine," He spat, gesturing to the smoking building on the cliffside in the distance. "And then you destroy our factory."

Dock/Xu emerged from the crowd where one of his many hats. "We didn't do any of that!" He said before disappearing amongst the masses and popping back up several folks later in a different hat. "Yeah, the Painted Lady brought us food. She's the one that healed our sick, not your medicine."

Mung feigned a salute and his troops snickered behind him. "Oh, right, the mysterious Painted Lady did it," He sighed dreamily. A moment later, he stalked to a nearby window where a small sculpture of the spirit sat in her honor. He picked up the carving and turned it over slowly in his hand before taking in the sights of the village. "And I suppose she drew the army emblem on your containers, too." The man chucked the figurine at a barrel of supplies embellished with red and black flame, the head of the woman snapping clean of her neck before the two halves of her clattered to the ground. The crowd shrunk back in fear. "This is a town of thieves and liars!" The soldier shouted, punching out a burst of fire that quickly engulfed the home where he had found the statue. He turned to the civilians with a taunting grin. "Where's your Painted Lady now?" He asked, unaware that the team of benders and warriors from across the globe had already begun to sneak amongst the floating town. "We're going to cure the world of this wretched village."

The townspeople cried out in fear but otherwise remained frozen where they stood as the brutish man and his followers began to destroy their home, smoke and charred debris floating downstream. Houses burned, shops fell and children sobbed. Two soldiers lit a large, flammable ball perched on a buoy in the water and prepared to launch it into the closest dock, but before they could, their fire vanished.

The soldiers lit the mass again, but once more the fire died. Just as Mung began to bark at the pair to light for a third time, an eerie, methodic wail began to scratch at their eardrums, courtesy of Aang's out-of-tune bison whistle. The soldiers looked around the village to find the source of the hidden sound but a thick, billowing fog rolled across the floating paths, making it near impossible to find much of anything.

"Where is this coming from?" A female soldier asked out loud, the hairs standing on the back of her neck.

"I don't know," said the man nearest to her. "Something strange is going on."

An ominous growl echoed across the water, deep and rumbling and far more intimidating sounding than Kyojuro had ever known Appa to be.

"It's the Painted Lady," said the same little boy that had already been touched by her once, a sly grin on his face as he added, "She's coming."

Mung snapped where he stood. "There is no Painted Lady!"

A heavy thudding shook the shores and cut off any fight Mung might have had, courtesy of Toph and the large boulder she repeatedly dropped on the ground, Sokka sat on Appa just behind her and he blew continuously into the whistle like a wailing woman.

"Maybe it is her, sir," one of the soldiers insisted.

Before Mung could argue further, the fog parted dramatically to reveal Katara in full spirit regalia, her face repainted and shielded by her veil where she stood on the shore opposite the village. The soldiers quit breathing when she seemed to float on top of the water. A heartbeat later, she rushed towards the town with a burst of her waterbending, landing with light feed on the closest dock with help from Aang hiding beneath, Kyojuro perched beside him on a thick sheet of ice. Katara began to stalk toward her prey.

"Do something!" Mung shouted at his men, grabbing two soldiers by their collars and jerking them forward. They approached the Painted Lady timidly, but when they saw her leaving a trail of smoldering footsteps, a product of the now molten stones that the Prince had previously embedded in the wooded planks, they tucked their tails and ran in the opposite direction. "Stand your ground!" Mung barked at his remaining fighters, but Katara lifted slender hands and tossed two of the small riverboats into the cliffside. They shattered immediately upon impact, and the remaining troops began to flee after the others. "Fine!" Mung snapped, posing his palms to strike, "I'll take care of you myself!"

The firebender pushed forward an arc of orange heat that went hurtling toward the girl. Aang, still poised beneath Katara, bunt upward a gust of wind that lifted her high into the air just before the flame made contact, the attack sailing past her and crashing into two of the remaining boats. As she floated back down, Kyojuro pulled out the largest bits of rock he had stashed in his pockets, sending a spinning wheel of lava at the dock just beneath Mung. The firebender jumped back as the planks began to crumple beneath his feet. As he moved unsteadily, shaken by the realization that the spirit was seemingly real, Aang shot air through the opening Kyojuro had created, sending Mung tumbling back into the up-churned waters. When he floundered to the surface, Katara was already standing over him with raised arms.

"Leave this village and never come back," She ordered simply, the lack of emotion in her voice more terrifying than any rage, a trick she had learned from a dear friend departed. When she watched the man swim desperately away from her to clamber on one of the only remaining boats, she wondered if Aelita really would be proud.

The people began to applaud as Mung disappeared from sight, Sokka and Toph already rowing towards the village as the little boy approached the Lady. "I knew you'd come!" He insisted amongst a chorus of thank you's from the others. Dock/Xu was close behind.

"Me and my brothers really owe you a lot!" He beamed.

Until he noticed the faded markings painted onto the girl's tan skin.

"Hey, wait a minute." He said. "I know you! You're not the Painted Lady, you're that colonial girl!"

Katara shrank back as Aang and Kyojuro clambered onto the docks.

The boy recognized her then as he studied her more closely, his smile fading. "Yeah, you're the lady that gave me a fish."

"You've been tricking us!" Dock/Xu accused. "You're a waterbender!"

The cheering and praise of the crowd quickly turned to anger, harsh words and slurs flying as the crowd began to mob around the girl, Katara froze where she stood.

Her brother was there in an instant, standing before his sister with widespread arms. "Maybe she is a waterbender, but she was just trying to help you. Because of her, that factory won't be polluting your river, and the army is gone. You should be down on your knees thanking her!"

Any fear or hesitation Katara might've felt melted away with her brother's words, the rest of their little family pushing their way toward her. "Sokka," She said gently, laying her hand on his arm. "It's okay," She said with a small smile, stepping past him to address the villagers. "I shouldn't have acted like someone I wasn't, and I shouldn't have tricked you," She spoke truthfully and steadily. "But I felt like I had to do something. It doesn't matter if the Painted Lady is real or not. Because your problems are real, and this river is real. You can't wait around for someone to help you. You have to help yourself."

The people were silent for some time, but slowly an elderly man stepped forward. "She's right," He said to the others. "But what should we do?"

Kyojuro ducked behind the shadows of several others, his voice the deepest of his friends, "Maybe we can clean the river!"

"Yeah, we can clean the river!" Dock/Xu cheered, one of the few townspeople fooled, the others too overjoyed and hopeful to rain on his happiness. Their agreement came eagerly, their future looking brighter than it had for so long. Dock/Xu tossed an arm over the girl's shoulders, knocking her hat and veil clean off her head. "Thank you. You know, you're not so bad for a waterbender."

"Yeah, about that," Sokka interrupted. "You wouldn't mind keeping that a secret, would you?"

"No problem. Keeping my mouth shut is a personal specialty. My brother Xu, on the other hand, ohh, he's a blabbermouth."

The bewildered warrior was the only one who bothered to argue with the old eccentric man, the others ignoring him even as he changed into a third hat before their very eyes and claimed to be yet another one of his brothers, this time Bushi.

The river didn't run totally clear by nightfall because the land took time to heal, but the change was still noticeable by the time the teens tucked in for bed, completely exhausted from a hard day's work, the benders having stripped as many of the pollutants from the water as possible, Sokka having led the charge on waste disposal. By the time they bid the villagers goodbye, they all but fell down where they stood in their old camp, their mostly fearless warrior having declared already they would wait to leave until first light.

Katara stayed awake for some time listening to the steady rise and fall of her friend's breathing, the added sound of Kyojuro's already a new normal to her ears while the absence of two had yet to feel real. Before she finally resigned to closing her own eyes, a heavy fog floated through the clearing. Katara heard her before she saw her.

"Thank you," The spirit of the Painted Lady said to the girl with a soft, grateful smile painted on her translucent face. As the woman began to fade and the waterbender began to breathe once more, a deep pang echoed through the child's heart.

"Wait!" Katara called out, and the spirit lingered for just a moment longer. "If you ever meet our friend, could you tell her that we miss her?" She asked with a broken breath. "Tell her that we miss her, but she's the reason we keep fighting, and we're going to finish this for her." Katara realized then that she was crying. "Please?" She pleaded. "Aelita has to know."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Zetzu was in the library when Kanao came for him, seated at a heavy table with what seemed to be a thousand opened tomes scattered around him. He didn't look up from the text he was reading when she approached. "I take it she's awake, or you wouldn't possibly be foolish enough to bother me yet again, correct?"

When the maiden remained, he sighed and begrudgingly stood, not necessarily wanting to stop his work but unable to ignore the childlike voice in his head begging to see her. 

The night before had been a shit show. They had almost killed their ace in the hole, but by some mercy or miracle, they hadn't. Instead, they had been reminded of much, much more. 

The morning dose of poison that stole Aelita's bending and made her docile had worn off. The worst part of Zetzu had been too meek and terrified to remember to give her the second. The Akira's self-preservation kicked in as her allergen settled into her system, and the metallic material faded. 

Spirits, maybe it said something about him that the memory made him giddy with excitement. She had almost killed them. Focused on her husband-to-be and encased his head in a sphere of water that nearly drowned him before she seemed to remember she herself was dying, and it had happened so quickly that not a one of them could've done a damn thing to stop it had she not willingly let him go. 

The boy felt guilty. Deserving Remorseful even.

The Lord did not. He was inspired. 

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Chapter Text

Aelita faded in and out of sleep and consciousness for two days and still she felt as if she could stay down another two more if stubborn will and a healthy dose of fear didn't keep her upright.

She didn't remember a time when she had felt safe in her own mind. Before she had woken up on that damned navy ship? Maybe, but even her certainty of that was weak at best because her memories had yet to prove they were something to be trusted. Aelita reminded herself of that as she lay in the deafening silence of her room, doing her best to ignore the looming figures that had haunted her shadows since childhood, swearing that the blurry instances that haunted her dreams for the last two days didn't change a damn thing. Still, she couldn't stop herself from thinking back to the moments her memory so desperately wanted to leave behind.

Someone had died that night beneath the crystalized ruins of old Ba Sing Se, that much Aelita was sure of, but as she fought back the overwhelming exhaustion that threatened to take her, she couldn't help but wonder if that someone hadn't been Aang.

A world away from the Palace, Iroh too let his mind drift to the last airbender. Even the prison wasn't safe from the whispers of the city, and it seemed many were whispering about the boy they believed to be dead. They certainly carried on as if he were, the guards that largely ignored the General speaking as if the century-old war was already over and won.

Iroh almost envied their naivety. His battered and beaten down heart told him the boy lived, just as his heart told him it hadn't been Aelita Kenshin that brought the child to his knees. The aging firebender had been too late to see that fate through with his own eyes, his old bones having taken what he considered to be an embarrassingly long amount of time to free himself from his stone confinement beneath Ba Sing Se, the Dai Li in between slowing him down further. Iroh had made it too late to the Crystal Catacombs. By the time he had arrived, the brilliant waterbender held a nearly dead Avatar and Zuko an almost dead Aelita.

But neither did end up dead and Iroh's eldest nephew knew it as well as he did. His heart chipped just a little bit more with the passing thought.

True to his word, Zuko hadn't been back to see him. Still, Iroh wasn't immune to the tales of gossip and glory, and his broken heart almost shattered completely when the proclamations of the nights before made his way to his cell.

Zuko deserved better. Sukomo's daughter deserved better.

Iroh glanced up at the pale moon through the small barred window in his cell and wondered if his old friend could see him now. He sincerely hoped not. If he could, then Sukomo Kenshin was sure to see his daughter's fate and all of Iroh's shame and broken promises.

The sound of approaching footsteps pulled the devastated but determined man out of his mind. A moment later, Poon, a brute of a warden with too tight features and too much facial hair, stopped in front of Iroh's hold with a wooden bowl in hand. He wordlessly dropped the dish, letting it clatter against the cold floor before kicking it through the cell bars. The slop inside spilled out on the ground in a grey mess. Iroh, beyond pride, was on it in an instant, letting the warden see as he shoveled the mush into his mouth like a starved beast.

It worked.

"Look at you," Poon scoffed, his words full of disgust and judgment. "You do nothing, you say nothing, you just eat and roll around in your own filth like a pig. You're a disgrace," He hissed, spitting at the former General's feet before stalking back into the busy prison chatter beyond the dark cell.

Iroh was certain the warden muttered a faint question of the Fire Lord's judgment as he walked away. The firebender almost smiled as he pushed his damp and stringy hair from his face. He cradled the bowl in his hand as he sat upright, ignoring the food still on the floor as he leaned back against the cool wall of his cell, the animal he pretended to be replaced once more with a man as he stared again at the growing moon in the sky outside. He smiled then, a sad bittersweet thing.

Iroh had since grown used to seeing those he mourned amongst the sky. His late wife, beautiful and radiant, often shined down on him brightly amongst the midday sun, warming him even when his heart had grown cold. His mother, patient and gentle no matter the expectations of her husband or her country, constantly followed his eldest son from the clouds, shading and bringing him the cleansing rains. And Lu Ten, his dazzling, darling boy - he raced across the sky on shooting stars, reminding his father he would always come home, even if he had left the broken man behind. And even though Iroh now knew the spirit of the moon personally, he swore that Sukomo Kenshin had made his home in her ethereal glow, a radiant light in an ever-present dark.

The late General had been one of those lights for Iroh after his son died. Sukomo, Zuko, and eventually Aelita too, but hell if Iroh wasn't ashamed to say that neither Azula nor Zetzu. Parentage be damned, Zuko had always been his boy, so very much like a young Lu Ten, and Iroh could admit now that he hadn't made the effort with his brother's younger two like he had with Zuko.

But Sukomo did, despite Azula's outright refusal or Zetzu's reluctance. Sukomo had made an honest effort despite being pulled in every which direction as he played on either side in the long game of war. Iroh still admired the younger man to this day and on evenings like this, he couldn't help but wonder how different the world could be had the General let him take the fall instead.

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

"Wow," Katara sighed in a breathy tone, laying back in the cool night grass with her family surrounding her. "This is amazing to watch."

"Yeah," her brother half-heartedly agreed from where he lounged beside her, a mirror of her posture but his voice sad and distant. "Kind of makes you realize how insignificant we are."

Sokka's relatively good mood following his rekindled relationship with his sister had faded somewhere along the journey to Shu Jing. Now, tucked in for the night on the next island along their journey to the capital, the warrior just barely went through the motions of finding a safe enough spot to set up camp. He didn't object when Aang recommended they settle in amongst the trees just outside a little Fire Nation town, and later he let his drag him out on the mountainous hillside to watch as the dark sky streaked with a thousand falling stones.

Toph shrugged as she actively chose to not delve deeper into Sokka's psyche, knowing damn well that she would want him to do the same if she were in his shoes. She relaxed with her eyes closed lazily, one foot kicked up on her knee where she lounged. "Eh, you've seen nothing once, you've seen it a thousand times."

Kyojuro opened his mouth on her right, ready to compliment her optimism, but the words were caught in his throat when realized one of the falling stones wasn't so distant. The mass, large and flaming hurtled low enough over their heads to feel its passing heat, and he sucked in a deep, surprised breath, all but Toph mimicking his expression. "I promise you," The Prince said as he scrambled to his feet, watching as the stone dropped lower and lower even as it dipped past a distant treeline. "You've never not seen anything like this."

When the space rock touched down and its great impact shook the earth, Toph could certainly see and feel it then, lurching to her feet and charging off only a step behind the others as they all scrambled onto Appa, taking flight on a red-stained sky. The heat was even more intense when they landed just on the rim of the crater the stone had formed just shy of a winding stream. The trees it had skimmed on its way down were already alight with fire.

Katara looked past the nightmarish scene to the settlement tucked too closely to the bottom of the hill, picturing every path the flames could take. "The fire is gonna destroy that town!"

But Aang was already moving. "Not if we can stop it," He insisted as he settled in at Appa's reigns. "There a creek over here, we can bend the water onto the fire!"

Katara nodded, looking quickly at Toph and Kyojuro as she turned to follow the airbender. "You two make a trench to stop the fire from coming any closer!"

The pair set off and Sokka tossed his hands up in the air in exasperation, the only one left without a job or a plan. "What should I do?" he asked to anyone who would listen.

Kyojuro stopped just long enough to scoop up the lemur at his feet and shoved him into the other boy's arms, Toph already beginning to carve out the land to trap the flames. "Keep an eye on Momo."

Sokka blinked down at the animal he now held in utter disbelief, "So what, I'm just a pet sitter?" He asked while the others began to make quick work of the danger. Momo in turn sqabbled and flailed, desperate to be involved himself, so the warrior patted his head in a way that would've felt patronizing to anyone else. "There there, feel better?"

The two watched as Aang and Katara pulled a blanket of water from the stream, dragging it behind them as Appa flew over them over the crater, Toph and Kyojuro using stone to smother the smaller flames after they snuffed out the path of destruction. When several of the floating embers dropped into the grass closest to Sokka warrior and took light, the warrior tossed Momo over his shoulder and reached for a machete he carried in place of Water Tribe weapons, intent on beating out the small flames.

He managed to put on one small, little fire in the same amount of time that it took Momo to climb down off of him and put out five.

Defeated and disheartened, Sokka looked up from his pitiful work in time to see Aang drop to the ground beside the still-burning trees while Katara coasted the sky from Appa's saddle, releasing half the water they carried. Too late for his warning to be effective, the Avatar called out for Sokka to stand clear just as the other boy was soaked from the spray. Still, Aang didn't stop or slow down, and his friend was left drenched and discouraged, spitting out water as he reached down for Momo.

"Right," He agreed sadly, slowly dragging himself back up the hillside and away from his family and the action. "Standing clear. Got it."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

It would have been logical, Zetzu thought, to have felt guilty as he made his way toward their bride-to-be's chambers, and he supposed that maybe they did feel guilty, but he only felt the slightest bit of annoyance at being pulled away from his work. Still, he reminded himself, the visit in and of itself was just another part of his research because by now, Akira Aelita should have had her bending back for nearly three days.

Granted, she hadn't really been conscious or cognizant the bulk of that time but that was neither here nor there. He needed to see how she was acclimating and adjusting to the sudden absence of the suppressor that had otherwise rendered her totally useless since they left Ba Sing Se. The same parts of him that felt that initial wave of guilt shouted in his mind 'not useless' and 'not her fault' but he brushed them off all the same, refusing to dwell on any bit of the past the way the others did.

If they wanted to obsess over the fact that they may have begun to confuse the Kenshin girl with their mother, so be it. As far as he was concerned, both women had left them high and dry, and a Lord did not waste his worries on such women when they had a dynasty to build.

Still, he wasn't as prideful as others in his family and had been slowly accepting the fact that he would need the Akira to make his dreams a reality for some time now. After all, he had always known that he wouldn't be the only firebender affected by Sozins Comet, even if he did suspect its impact would be significantly larger and more devastating in regards to his unique abilities. If his clever planning couldn't be put into motion sooner, he'd damn sure need the girl less he be left to deal with his kin on his own.

Tempting but unrealistic.

Unluckily for them and their odds of survival, Zetzu was newly inspired and still riding on the adrenaline from dancing with death. He no longer planned on waiting until the Comet struck, not when there were far more prime opportunities to be had, especially when his ultimate weapon was much, much more than just a firebender.

Now there was just the matter of fine tuning that weapon. Lazy fingers toyed with the formula in his pocket, and Zetzu couldn't help but grin when he imagined the hopefully catastrophic results it would bring. Aelita in the Spirit State presented a wealth of untapped potential.

As he brushed aside the Imperial Firebenders standing guard outside the girl's quarters, the young Lord wondered if it might be easier if he conceded to one of the less favorable sides of him and let them try to lull her into submission, but he quickly dismissed the idea, the least patient of the three, but he saw no point in wasting time when there were far more effective ways to convince others to do your bidding. Daring and determined, his grin morphed into something more sadistic as pushed open the door to Aelita's room, but that smug arrogance quickly turned into boiling rage when he stepped inside to find his older brother already there.

Zuko sat with his brother's bride, watching him from her little round table with equally chilled, unwavering stares. It only served to piss off Zetzu even more. The muscles in his forehead twitched as he slowly closed the door behind him, not wanting an audience for the murder he was debating.

"Brother," Zuko addressed his twin cooly despite the heat he felt inside him. "I didn't expect to find you here."

The eldest Prince, dressed down for the late hour, only narrowed his stare. "Funny, I did expect to find you, but it looks like you were preoccupied with things more important."

Aelita shifted back in her chair, ignoring Mushu's protest when she caught him mid-lunge to pull him against her chest and watch the scene unfolding before her. As far as she was aware, Zetzu had only been to see her once since her almost untimely death, and even that had been brief, staying for less time than it took her to comprehend the fact that she was still alive. According to Mai and Ty Lee, the two having bolstered their way into her quarters earlier that morning, the Prince had been too upset and self-loathing to even visit with the healers the night of, but that wasn't the same person that came to see her when she first woke, and that certainly wasn't the same person who stood before her now. This Zetzu was far more concerned with his brothers' presence than he was with her well-being.

The irony of it almost made Aelita laugh. It had the opposite effect on her intended.

"You were named heir," Zetzu said in terms of the only explanation he was willing to give to Zuko. "I was named Master of War. We spend our days differently."

Eyes filled with annoyance and loathing drifted to wear Aelita Kenshin remained placid. It amazed Zetzu still just how little evidence she bore on her skin, almost as if the terrible events of the days before had just been a figment of his imagination.

He wouldn't allow himself to go there.

Besides, there was some evidence still, even if it was far fainter than the rest of the scars on her body. Mai had been working with broken glass whereas Zetzu's cousin had an actual blade all those years ago. Her incision had been larger and far less pretty, but luckily for Aelita, her damn fire ferret seemed to be able to sense trouble. The furry little fucker saved his human from both death and blemish when he managed to convince Kanao to come running with a pail of water in hand. The animal's quick thinking gave Aelita the opportunity to help herself, reducing the swelling in her throat and healing the grotesque hole in her skin so that she sat now with only the faintest shadow of a pinprick marring her too-pale glow.

It had also given her the chance to almost kill him, but Zetzu reminded himself that the minor detail was hardly significant to the grand scheme.

"Glad to see you awake and upright," He told the girl.

"I've been awake and upright for some time," Aelita said back evenly. "I assumed you would have been made aware by now."

There was clear annoyance there but Zetzu was currently operating on a one-track mind that didn't have it in him to care. "Rest assured, love, I am always well-informed on what's mine."

There was more venom there than there was reassurance but Aelita was too tired to be affected. "Comforting," She deadpanned, her gaze never once drifting back to Zuko but her next words clearly directed at him. "Leave us."

The Prince opened his mouth to object. Recognized the annoyance behind Aelita's eyes. Closed it. Listened to the conversation they had been having prior to his brother's arrival over in his head.

"I'll find out the truth, Zuko. With or without you."

He pushed himself away from the small table and rose without argument. Wordlessly he met Zetzu's stare on his way out the door, pausing for half a step. The silent expression that passed between the twins said that there was a conversation that needed to be had.

"Are you going to ask me how I'm feeling?" Aelita asked the Prince as soon as his brother cleared the threshold.

"No."

"Are you going to apologize?"

"No."

"So much for in this together, I suppose."

Zetzu's own annoyance flared. "It was an honest mistake, Aelita. Maybe if you had made an effort with anyone other than Zuko growing up, or trusted me the way you claimed to, I would know simple things about you, like the fact that something as insignificant as a damn fruit could kill you, the all-so-powerful Akira," He barked out a laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. "And don't act like you aren't just as guilty as I am. You drank it. I didn't force it down your throat."

Maybe it was the lack of poison in her veins or the aftershock from the utter fraying of her nerves, but Aelita was rearing for a fight, glimpses of who she was and what she could be still fresh in her mind.

"Growing up I didn't owe you a damn thing, " She hissed, her voice like a dagger, eyes like decaying bark pinning him to the spot. The tea could have been an honest mistake. Maybe. Aelita had even tried to convince both herself and Zuko that it could have but this? This was meant to hurt. "And yet I still tried anyway. If you would like me to keep trying, it would do you well to remember that I'm still a human, Zetzu, Spirit Pillar or not."

'Like Akitaru,' She almost added, but even as quickly as the thought came reality followed, reminding her she couldn't recall why she had even had the thought in the first place, the memory blocked from her mind behind the scent of blood and what she swore was a distant mothers cries. Aelita brushed off the displaced memory, thankful on the rare occasion that some seemingly terrible instances were blocked from her mind.

Still, she was nearly breathing fire when she continued. "And forgive me, my Grace, for having been distracted at the time. If you recall, you had just blindsided me with your sudden confession of love."

Zetzu clenched his jaw, his fingers flexing and contacting where he stood, just barely containing himself because he would be damned if he was ever spoken to the way he so often was a child ever again. Still, losing control would do neither one of them any good, so he remained where he stood and some part of him was almost impressed when Aelita didn't back down. Almost.

"Believe me," He sneered, "I won't make that mistake again."

The two remained still for some time, both seeming to dare the other to make the wrong move. The weight of it settled upon Aelita first. She was at a distinct disadvantage, the absence of the poison so typically flowing through her veins gave her some edge, sure, but that edge didn't mean a damn if she didn't fully trust the power beneath her skin.

Not willing to die before she learned the truth, her edge dulled just a hair. "Why are you here, Zetzu? Why now?"

The absence of her venom left the combustionbender feeling as if he had won. "Who said you can't teach an old dog new tricks?" He murmured mostly to himself, smirking as he took in the sight of her. Defiant but pliable.

"Fuck off."

"No can do," Zetzu said as he crossed the room, sinking down into the chair his brother had previously occupied. "You asked me when you could start training again, remember?" He asked, and she offered a small tip of her head in response. "Good, because the answer is now."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Sokka was busy pretending to sleep by the time the others returned to camp still buzzing with excitement, the first to wake the next morning but the last to rise, effectively avoiding his friends' proud chatter.

They had been amazing. He had been useless.

The young warrior would've loved to say he couldn't remember the last time he had felt so defeated but it would've been a lie. Honestly, it was harder to want to remember a time he hadn't. Even the most fleeting moments of joy or pride left him wracked with guilt when he remembered that he was in the heart of Aelita's home without her.

Fate was a fickle, cruel bitch.

Unsure what to do for him or how to help, the others allowed Sokka to cope however he saw fit, knowing that their griefs were all as unique as their own relationships with Aelita had been. They didn't push him into their conversation when he finally rose, making the decision for him that it was time to venture into town for supplies when he couldn't seem to make the choice himself. They kept their tone light and their words happy as they wandered into the shopping district alive with life during the daylight, the four of them still buzzing off their little victory from the night before.

It was driving Sokka mad.

"These people have no idea how close they were to getting toasted last night," Aang pointed out as he settled down between Toph and Katara at an outdoor restaurant, watching the people happily strolling the streets beyond without a care in the world.

The earthbender sank lower in her chair, snatching a piece of bread from the recently filled table and shoving it in her mouth. She chewed and huffed, "Yeah, the worst thing about being in disguise is that we don't get the hero worship anymore. I miss the love."

"You know, I was going to make a comment about blind adoration, but I decided against it," Kyojuro admitted as he stuck his fork in a green vegetable he didn't recognize. Across from him, Toph flipped him a gesture that most would consider vulgar but the Prince only chuckled. "Sorry, I'll add a hero's welcome to your homecoming requirements when we get back."

"See, even His Royal Shelteredness here understands that I don't ask for much."

"Oh boo-hoo," Sokka rolled his eyes from Kyojuro's left, absentmindedly pushing his food around his plate. "Poor heroes."

"What's your problem?" Katara asked, gesturing at his meal with her knife. "You haven't even touched your smoked sea slug."

Sokka's cutlery clattered on the table when he dropped them, shoving back in his chair as he held his face in exasperation. He debated on fleeing back to their campsite where only Appa and Mushu would be waiting, but knowing his friends would only follow, he sighed and softly admitted, "It's just, all you guys can do this awesome bending stuff like helping people and putting out forest fires and flying around making other stuff fly around. I can't fly around, okay? I can't do what you guys can. I can't help people the way you guys can. I can't do anything."

'I can't help people the way you guys can.'

Katara read the statement between the lines for what it was worth, knew the 'people' in question really were really the select three that had left him brokenhearted once they were gone. Her brother was carrying the weight of their mother, Yue and Aelita all on shoulders that would never be able to stand up to the weight of his grief. She hated that some broken part of herself could understand why.

They had both blamed themselves for their Mom - Katara for being the one the Fire Nation really wanted and Sokka for not having been home to make a difference. But unlike his sister, Sokka carried the guilt that came with both Yue and Aelita. His sister had shared a little of those burdens too, blaming herself for not having been able to somehow heal either, but Sokka had been quick to remind his little sister that some people were beyond saving, protecting her from the shame and self-loathing time and time again. Had she done the same for him? Reminded him that Aelita and Yue had both made their choices on their own? Not enough, she decided. She hadn't supported him enough.

"That's not true," Katar argued, spitting out the first strong suit of Sokka's she could think of. "No one can read a map like you."

"I can't read at all," Toph attempted to add helpfully.

"Yeah, and who keeps us laughing with sarcastic comments all the time?" Aang jumped in, pointing a thumb in Katara's direction. "I mean, look at your sister's hair, right? What's up with that?"

"What? What's wrong with my hair?"

"Nothing!" The Avatar quickly backpedaled as Katara sheepishly reached for her head. "I was just trying to -"

Kyojuro leaned across the table to whisper to Toph. "That's not how you're supposed to talk to girls you like, is it?"

"Look!" Sokka snapped a little too loudly and all the excess chatter at the table ceased. "I appreciate the effort," he said more gently. "But the fact is each of you is so amazing and so special and I'm...not." A little part of his brain thought much more harshly, but not wanting to alarm the others, he sighed and said, "I'm just the guy in the group who's regular."

Katara rose from the table and moved to crouch in front of her brother the way she thought their Mom or Dad might, taking on his hands in hers. "I'm sorry you're feeling so down," she told him and meant it. "But I hope you know, none of us see you that way. No one that loves you has ever seen you that way," She added. When Sokka could only stare past her, uncomfortable with the sudden attention, she glanced back over her shoulder at the market behind them and smiled as an idea crept into her mind. "I know something that's going to make you feel better."

Sokka perked up just slightly. "You do?"

Just down the road, his mood changed drastically.

"Shopping!" He beamed as he clapped excitedly, standing at the door of a weapons shop. He ducked inside and scanned the walls and shelves full of blades, spears, and much more, visions of glory already dancing through his imagination. "Maybe a little something to reinvigorate my battling," He thought out loud as his friends followed him in, immediately grabbing the first item he could reach - a set of dark wooded nunchaku. "Hey, how about these?" He turned and asked Katara with such a hopeful expression that the waterbender was certain she had managed to find a way to all but cure her brother's insecurities.

Her hopes were quickly dashed when Sokka promptly found that not a damn thing he reached for felt right in his hands. The warrior wore a distinct red mark in the center of his forehead from the nunchaku, the guan dao he handled was still embedded in the ceiling above, the massive metal club he couldn't heave back into a shelf lay at his feet, bruises on his arms from the chains he accidentally wrapped himself in, and a set of sai messily shoved into the nearest pot after he had been tempted to use them to pick his teeth. Their friends, bless their hearts, had scattered amongst the shop to not crowd him while he browsed, and he was damn thankful to have saved himself the embarrassment. Feeling more worthless than he had upon arrival, Sokka was nearly ready to call it quits when he glanced the most beautiful blade he had ever seen out of the corner of his eye, "Ooooh!" He beamed as he walked towards the sword mounted overhead, the hilt narrow and wrapped in polished leather, the blade sleek and glinting silver, sharpened to perfection and just long enough. He sighed in appreciation as he stepped closer to get a better look. "Now that's what I'm talking about."

"You have a good eye," the passing shopkeeper remarked, a faint twinkle in his eye from seeing the boy admire such a fine blade. "That's an original from Piandao."

"How mu..." Sokka started to ask when the question died in his throat.

Piandao. He knew the name. He knew he knew the name but he couldn't remember why.  Where.  Just as he began to wrack his brain for the who, the answer came to him, and the distant memory that came along with it nearly stole the breath out of his lungs.

"My dad taught me the basics, but Master Piandao's the one that taught me how to dance."

Her.

The moment had seemed so faint then, just another day of passing the time between their initial disastrous arrival to Ba Sing Se and the final fall of Long Feng, full of long hours with what felt like nothing significant at the time. They had trained from sun up til some down more often than not, desperate to feel like they weren't completely sitting on their asses, and in that time, Aelita had mentioned Piandao, a man that had taught both her and Zuko how to wield a blade.

Dammit.

"The sword," Sokka said eventually when his body decided it could function again. "You said it's from Piandao, right? The swordsmen?"

"Swordsmen?" The shopkeeper snorted but grinned nonetheless, mistaking the boy's shock for admiration as his friends now curiously made their way back to his side. "More like the greatest swordmaster and swordmaker in Fire Nation history. He lives in the big castle up the road from here."

Aang was grinning even before the keeper walked away. "That's it!" He cheered as he reached for the older boy's shoulders and shook him excitedly. "That's what you needed all along, Sokka."

"A sword?"

"Not the sword," Aang corrected. "A master. We've all had masters to help us get better. You should see if you can study with Piandao."

"That's a great idea," Katara quickly agreed. "I could've never gotten to where I am without Master Pakku. Everyone needs a teacher."

"I learned from the badgermoles," Toph added. "They don't talk, but they're still good teachers."

"And I had Long Feng," Kyojuro chimed in, a set of leather gloves adorned in tiny, iron spikes tucked casually only his hands. "As terrible as he was, I would've never really refined my lavabending without him." Forgetting the danger when he moved to scratch his nose with the back of his palm. He shot Katara a sheepish, thankful smile when she caught his wrist before she'd have to heal him later.

Sokka considered their words but then he sighed, "I don't know. I'm not sure how well I could keep my cool in front of this guy, and I'm not gonna risk it all when we're this close to taking down the Fire Lord. It's not worth it."

"What do you mean?" Toph asked, brow arched and arms crossed in front of her. "You've kept your big mouth shut so far, right? What makes this Piandao guy so different?"

"Because," Sokka admitted. "He taught Aelita too."

Silence fell amongst the teenagers as the weight of their fearless leaders' words settled over them.

Oh.

Oh.

"That's great!" Kyojuro cheered far too enthusiastically for his size and the situation. When Sokka and Toph looked at him like they wanted to punch him and Aang and Katara looked as if even they would consider it too, he shrunk back a step. "What?"

"Listen, Kyojuro," Katara tried to smile through her abashed horror, reminding herself that it wasn't the fuckers fault he was socially stunted. "I know you might not be used to mourning with friends or you know, interacting with people in general, but you don't normally cheer for things like this."

"I know that," The Prince insisted, hands held up in surrender as Toph took one menacing step towards him. "I just meant that this might be some sort of closure for Sokka is all, okay?" The smaller, far more terrifying earthbender stopped to listen, and the anger amongst his friends dissipated just a hair. Sokka remained baffled and silent but somewhere along the way Aang had offered him a reassuring hand on the shoulder. "That's what everyone has sort of been doing so far, right?" He asked, and the others curiously waited for him to continue. "We've all been doing what we can to make peace with Aelita being gone. Aang saw her in those kids at that Fire Nation school, so he showed them how to have fun and live the way they wanted to," He gestured to the Avatar, and a faint smile tickled the airbender's cheeks. "And Katara saw her in that village beaten down by the Fire Lord's war efforts, so she liberated them and reminded them of their strength in unity," He glanced at the waterbender and already saw the thick well of tears brimming in her eyes. "And both of you walked away from those villages far more at peace than either of you have been in weeks. I needed that kind of peace with my parents, that's why I had snuck out of the Palace and away from the Dai Li the day I met Aelita. I was angry with them for so long because they left me and Kuei behind and I couldn't think of anything that was so important they would've been willing to risk their lives when they had us. I needed to see the city my parents died for, needed to be amongst the people they loved" Kyojuro explained, and he offered a sad, sympathetic smile to his mourning friend. "Maybe training with this Piandao guy can be that bit of understanding for you."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

The old castle just outside the village was a beautiful beast. Rumored to have been won after a well-played game of pai sho, it sat behind tall walls of thick tan stone, weathered but sturdy. Situated on an already immense bluff, the castle climbed into the sky like it was born to be there, towering above the ground with red roofs and gold trim. The heavy gate and the few immaculate terraces Sokka could see at first glance were made of smooth, dark wood, and Sokka was too awestruck and slightly intimidated to notice the detailing surrounding the brass knocker before him. He couldn't believe Kyojuro managed to talk him into this.

It hadn't been easy. There had been anger at first because Sokka didn't want to accept that he had lost yet another person he loved more than himself but dammit if the Prince hadn't made closure sound so comforting. So, before the warrior could change his mind, desperate to feel some of the peace his friend could describe, he lifted the knocker, wrapped it three times on the door, and waited.

And waited.

Maybe no one had heard him. Not ready to be deterred yet, Sokka knocked again and counted to a slow ten.

Patience had never been his strong suit. Slightly frustrated now, Sokka grasped both knockers and pounded them ferociously and frantically against the wood, already decided if no one answered in about ten seconds he would -

"Can I help you?" The servant asked before he had even finished opening the door, looking at the boy on the other side with obvious annoyance painted on his older, sun-spotted face.

Sokka jumped back on instinct, ignoring the distant sounds of his sister jamming an elbow into a sniggering Toph's gut where they watched from the shadows. The man was dressed in a simple but sophisticated dark cheongsam, glowering past the dark grey of the overgrown sideburns that reminded the boy just a little of Zhao. Gross.

The man cleared his throat, snapping Sokka back to the present. Hoping he hadn't blown his chances already, he dropped to a deep bow before the man, a closed fist pressed against the bottom of an open palm. "I've come to train with the master."

Fat gave the boy a sidelong glance. "You should know The Master turns almost everyone away," he said as he opened a waiting hand. "What did you bring him to prove your worth?"

Shit.

"Well, you see..." Sokka stammered, patting his clothes for something to offer. "Uhh..."

Fat could do little more than shake his head in disappointment. "Right," He sighed as he stepped back and motioned for the boy to follow him inside. "Let's get this over with."

Sokka, honestly surprised that he had even made it this far, let the man guide him into the heart of the castle and up what felt like a dozen stairs into a large room in the tallest tower. The floors were carpeted in red that nearly glittered under the light pouring in from the tall windows that opened up to the valley below. Rows of candles were lit on either side of the glass, the shadows of their glow dancing on the man sitting at a small table before them, his back to Sokka. The skin that peaked out from beneath the black hair tied up in a knot on his head was colored caramel from days in the sun. The cheongsam draped over his frame was a mirror of the one his servant wore.

With practiced ease, Piandao dipped his calligraphy brush into a small pot of dark ink before pressing it to the paper without a smudge in sight, no shift in his posture to so much as hint that he knew or cared that he was no longer alone.

"My dad taught me the basics, but Master Piandao's the one that taught me how to dance."

"Master," Sokka said when he was sure his voice wouldn't fail him, his tone slightly trembling. The entire Fire Nation was chalked full of reminders of his girl, but dammit if this didn't feel so much more surreal. This was Sokka's connection to Aelita, to her life and her memory, and he wasn't going to pretend he didn't owe it to her to do her name justice. "My name is Sokka, and I wish to be instructed in the way of the sword."

Piandao didn't turn from his calligraphy but simply seemed to think out loud, "Sokka, that's an unusual name."

Well, fuck.

"Oh, uh, really," Sokka stammered sheepishly as he tried to think of a believable lie. "Uh where I come from, the Fire Nation colonies, it's a pretty normal name...for Fire Nation colonials."

"I see," The swordsman nodded as he continued to write, his back still to the boy. "So, is it just Sokka, or have they not completely abandoned surnames and traditions in the colonies?"

Surnames? Hell, Sokka hadn't even considered a cover for his given name, so a family name sure as shit hadn't crossed his mind considering his people didn't use them in the first place. Piandao dipped the calligraphy brush in the pot of ink once more, thrumming his fingers absentmindedly on the table as if to remind the boy he was still waiting. Panicked, Sokka blurted out the first name he could think of.

"Kenshin."

Chapter Text

 🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Toph and Kyojuro were like a pair of kids in a sweets shop when they learned that even space rock was bendable. Their giddy excitement faded when Sokka told them to quit playing because apparently what he wanted was more important. They were well and annoyed by the time they made it to Piandao's estate, carting along what was likely a too-large piece of the meteorite. 

Sokka ignored their grumbled complaints and protests, leading the charge with an eager joy that he hadn't felt in some time. He could admit that Kyojuro had been right - he needed this. He needed the bittersweet peace he felt as he imagined Aelita going through so many of the same motions, though he had learned casually from Fat that while the Master took few students, even fewer spent their days by his forge. Sokka knew that his girl, like many others, left Piandao still carrying the sword she had come with. Still, he could so easily imagine her smiling beside him as he led his friends past the village to the sprawling estate, the earthbenders truly doing the heavy lifting while he and Katara pretended to push. 

Despite their initial reluctance, neither Toph nor Kyojuro complained. They missed seeing this version of Sokka - confident and determined and buzzing with excitement when he finally pounded the knockers to the estate gates. His teacher answered, stepping outside to asses the boulder and the group of teens pushing it. The tanned-skinned girl was too much a mirror of her brother to be anyone other than the fiercesome Katara of Pakku's praise. Piandao pegged the Beifong girl by the cloudy whites of her sightless eyes. He guessed the third to be the missing Hashibira Prince to his relief. And even with his arrows hidden, Piandao knew he stood in the presence of the last airbender.

Of course, the swordsman was keen to keep his knowledge to himself, at least for a little while longer. "Who's this with you?"

Shit.

"Oh, these are my friends that I was telling you about. The ones traveling with me. Just other good Fire Nation folks," Sokka rambled, caught off guard by his Master's unexpected question. He said a silent prayer of thanks when the older man seemed to believe him, letting the excitement back into his voice when Piandao bowed kindly to his friends. "Anyway, do you think we can make a sword out of a meteorite‌?"

Piandao only stopped to consider for a moment before he grinned.  "We'll make a sword unlike any other in the world."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Aelita was certain her luck finally ran out when she found Azula waiting at her door. "Princess."

The other girl only grinned at the indifference. Her hair hung long and straight, only a few pieces pulled back from her face. She wore loose-fitting pants similar to the ones Ty Lee favored, the skim of her stomach showing through the robe tossed lazily over the sleeveless top that stopped just past her ribs. "Really now, Aelita. Is there any need for formalities? We're practically sisters." 

"I suppose we are," Aelita agreed with half her body still hidden behind the door she held open, one foot planted firmly on top of Mushu's tail to prevent him from trying to bare his teeth at the Princess. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Oh, I just had to check on you myself," Azula fretted, almost believable with her hands clutched in front of her chest. "Dad and I have been just so worried about you, 'Lita. I mean, how could we not be? You collapsed the night of your engagement, and even the Fire Lord's best healers couldn't tell why. It was all rather terrifying really, so we decided it would be best to let you rest." Slowly the fake concern on her face turned to something more conniving as she continued. "So imagine our shock when we hear that not only are you up and well enough to visit the royal spa, but you've been training again as well. Of course, while we admire your dedication, Father and I fear that you may be doing too much too soon. So, he sent me to keep an eye on you today. Isn't that just touching?"

Aelita knew the smell of bullshit when it was spewed her way. Still, she steeled herself against her sister-to-be and painted a soft smile on her face. "Very much so. Send your father my thanks."

"Oh, I intend to," Azula purred. "Now, you be sure you tell my brother he should feel that way. Zetzu was so ungrateful when I offered to fetch you myself. He acts as if he's worried I might torment you," She prattled off, waiting as the Akira stepped out into the hall and pulled the door shut before her four-legged friend could follow. Just to be contrary, the Princess linked their arms together like old gossiping girlfriends might. If the feigned intimacy bothered Aelita, she didn't show it. "Though I do suppose it bodes a good sign for your future. Marriage arrangements like these so rarely have happy endings, but he seems so enamored with you that I have to wonder if yours be the exception."

"He's enamored with impressing your Father, Princess, though I am grateful for his honor and kindness. Zetzu understands that he has several key years to make up for," Aelita said as they walked. "Years where you and Prince Zuko thrived. I'm but a means to his end, a tool for him to better serve the Fire Lord. I'm not at all surprised to hear he's concerned with my well-being." 

The corner of Azula's mouth tilted upwards. "If you were any more cynical I'd start to think you were Mai. Speaking of my good friend, Zuko looks to be as smitten with her and Zetzu is with you. As a sister, I'm delighted."

Aelita was confident that Azula was both competent enough and observant enough to see Zuko and Mai's relationship for what it was - making the best out of a situation neither were likely to see their selves out of. She was equally confident that she was being baited for a reaction. Anyone with even half an understanding of Mai could see that she was in love with Ty Lee. "As am I, Princess. They deserve to be happy together."

"It doesn't bother you?" Azula challenged. "Given your history with my brother?"

"I made the choices that led me here, and I live with the results. The Fire Lord was generous enough to spare me, and yet he honors me by still allowing me into his family. I'm grateful."

"Well, well," Azula purred, genuinely pleased with the prospect of breaking down this sister-to-be of hers bit by bit. "I'm glad to see your years in bad company did little to dull your manners. I wish I could say the same for my brothers. Girl to girl, this is the last thing I wanted to do today. Watching you exercise, that is," She clarified as they descended the steps that would lead them to the vast, open training rooms. "While I'm thrilled to spend time with you, this all just feels rather pointless to me. What's the point in 'training' when Father still hasn't granted you back your bending? Sure, there's something to be said about the fundamentals, but we all know that wars aren't won with strong arms and pretty faces." 

Aelita grinned to hide her surprise. "You think I'm pretty?"

Azula rolled her eyes and continued on with ramblings that Aelita didn't bother listening to. The Princess was certainly clever enough to play dumb just to see how the Akira would react, but Aelita was willing to bet that Zetzu was far more clever given his confessions the night before. If the rest of his family believed her to still be powerless, then it would be a damn smart move on his part. She found the Prince in question pacing in the hall outside the high-ceilinged training space by the time she and Azula arrived, his twin looking far less stressed and just the faintest bit annoyed as he leaned against the opposite wall. 

"For fucks sake, Azula," Zetzu hissed. "We've been waiting for you for nearly an hour."

Aelita glanced over at the Princess. She merely shrugged. "It's a large palace, Zetzu. It takes some time to get from place to place."

When Zetzu poised to rip their sister's head off, Zuko cut off, stalking towards the training room doors. "It doesn't matter," He said evenly, glancing over his shoulder to Aelita and ignoring his siblings entirely, attempting to keep the tone light for both of their sakes. "Let's see if you ever learned the difference between footsteps and sandbags."

Aelita could see the temporary truce being offered to her. Out of equal parts habit and curiosity, she slipped out of Azula's grip and followed her old friend inside. "Are you planning on blindfolding your brother's bride right in front of him, Prince Zuko? That would be bold, even for you."

Zetzu would've been pleased to see what looked like pieces of the old Aelita falling slowly back into place had his twin not been involved, and Azula could see that written so plainly across her brother's face. Almost as curious as the Akira, she saddled up beside her middle sibling, leaning in close as she spoke. "Two for two. I'll ask you again, brother, are you going to stand for this?"

He wouldn't. Zetzu didn't bother masking the annoyance that had been there since his sister first cornered him that morning. He recognized her plotting when he saw it, especially when she casually let her plans for the day slip to Zuko as well. He'd kick himself in the ass for allowing her to rile him later but for now, he had his eyes on his brother. He was relieved to find him on the opposite side of the freshly cleaned room, standing bored with his hands in his pockets while Aelita stretched her still slightly aching muscles. 

The space held little fuss or frills. Bits of the floor and walls were scarred from fire, but the condition was still well maintained. A sparring ring had been painted in its center, the harsh black pigment meant to serve as a set of bounds in a match. The borders of the room were lined with charred and tattered practice dummies that seemed so much larger and more ominous when they were children. 

Zetzu's relief faded when he realized his brother stood barefooted and bare-chested at the edge of the practice ring. The younger Prince closed the distance between them, shrugging out of his outer robes and letting them fall carelessly to the floor as he went, his voice deceptively calm when he finally stood before the heir to their throne. "What do you think you're doing?" 

Zuko promptly decided his brother's annoyance wasn't his problem. "Assessing the Akira. I know better than anyone what her potential is."

Zetzu had to remind himself that snapping now would ruin all of his careful planning. He counted down slowly from three in his mind, painting a small, forced smile on his face. "That would hardly be appropriate now, would it?"

Aelita tried to hide her eavesdropping as she continued to loosen her body and her old friend demanded to know what his twin meant.

"It would be widely inappropriate for the two of you to stand off against one another, even for the sake of training. Look at your history and status for starters," Zetzu explained, not noticing his sister stepping out of her shoes and tying up her hair behind him. "You know as well as I do there are eyes and ears all around this palace. Can you imagine how it might sound if people were to hear you were fraternizing with the Akira after all that transpired between you?  Add in the fact that she's to marry your brother, and the entire situation becomes a scandal waiting to happen."

Zuko opened his mouth to argue but his sister beat him to the punch, Aelita's eyes trained on her as she hung her robe on one of the hooks at the edge of the room. 

"Zetzu does have a point, ZuZu, it would be highly inappropriate for you to involve yourself with Aelita. Almost," She said as she turned to face her youngest brother, "as inappropriate as it was for you and her to face one another. So I'll do it."

"What?" The twins exclaimed in unison, one in confusion and the other in disgust. "Why?"

"Because of the engagement, dummies," Azula rolled her eyes as if the reason was obvious. "Zetzu's right, as much as it pains me to admit it. There are eyes and ears all over this palace. Even servants forget their place and whisper. Last night they whispered that the Akira looked worse for wear when she journeyed from here to the royal spa. Despite how our people may feel about her, the last thing we need is for there to be rumors that the Fire Lord's youngest son puts his hands on his bride-to-be. Besides," She sighed when her brothers continued to stare and her expression softened to one so nearly genuine it was hard to distrust. "I don't want my brothers to end up in marriages like the one we were raised in. Look, " She held up a hand to quiet any objections. "I know why Zetzu insists he doesn't care when Father's around, but it's obvious to anyone with eyes that he does, and I can admit that it's nice to see. It wasn't a secret that Mom and Dad never loved one another," she said, and for once, she sounded sad and childlike. "The longer they were together, the less I think they even liked each other. They certainly didn't respect one another either, not behind closed doors, and look how we grew up because of that. I won't pretend that we're the closest siblings but you're my brothers, and I want the two of you to be happy. How happy can Zetzu really be when he looks back and remembers this?"

It took everything in Aelita to not scoff outright. Azula was good, damn good, and for now, at least, it looked to be as if she had her brothers right where she wanted them - unable to call her bluff without vilifying themselves in the process.

"Anyhow," Azula purred as she strolled into the center of the while her brothers contemplated her words, staring the other girl down as she went, "Aelita and I go way back when it comes to training together, so this will be just like old times."

"I'm sure we've both changed over the years, Princess," the Akira said as she tilted her head from side to side to crack the bones in her neck. She rolled her shoulders when she stepped into the circle, standing square before Azula, dressed in a similar fashion. "Let's find out how much."

Zetzu started to step towards his bride, hell-bent on putting an end to his sister's power play, but Zuko caught him by the shoulder.  "Let them go. They need this."

"You're a fool if you believe that," Zetzu hissed but he reluctantly glanced between Azula and Aelita before tossing his hands up in defeat. "Fine. Fine. But until Father grants Aelita her bending back," he spoke to his sister, "no fire. This isn't an Agni Kai. Hand to hand only, Azula. Fair is fair."

"Please," The Princess muttered so that only Aelita could hear. "Anything is fair in a fight."

And then it began. If Azula were any less cruel, Aelita thought to herself, she would truly be a pleasure to watch. Poised and perfect, she moved with lethal beauty, every move she made carefully calculated. If her opponent was likely to crack under pressure, she'd overwhelm them without breaking a sweat. If they'd be insulted by her indifference, she'd wait for them to make the first move. Having decided that Aelita wasn't the latter, she opted to beat her down now blow by blow, determined to prove what she had always known - that she was better.

If the loss of precious muscle had done one good thing for Aelita it made her lighter on her feet. She sidestepped the first hit thrown her way, ducked under the second, and rolled from the third. All the while Azula's eyes shone with excitement. She had waited for this day long enough, and she was going to enjoy it.  With her brothers it had been easy - there had never been a question that she had been stronger, smarter, faster. A perfectionist from the go. A firebending prodigy from the start. The best in her generation, they had claimed.

Until Sukomo Kenshin caught her grandfather's eye, and then his daughter had shown potential. She hated Aelita for that. Azula would never settle for sharing first prize. Her kick was aimed at the Akira's midsection. When Aelita caught her ankle and set up to toss the other girl away, Azula pushed fire from the sole of her foot. Zetzu cursed his sister's name as his bride skittered backward and just barely managed to avoid having her bare stomach scorched.

"Relax," Azula dismissed without slowing down, now on a fairly easy defensive as Aelita countered, her movements still not back to the speed or precision the Princess had once seen out of her. "This is good practice for Aelita," she insisted, swiping out nails she wore more like talons in a move she could claim was simply meant to knock the Akira's fist. When she 'accidentally' caught Aelita's cheek and drew blood from three fine lines, well that was just an added benefit. "Don't you want her to be able to protect herself?"

"She doesn't need you," Zetzu snapped, hating to see the red tricking down Aelita's skin. "That's enough. You two are do-"

"Stay out of this," His bride shut down the objection without remorse, shocking intended and immensely pleasing his sister. She didn't care when Azula managed to use her distraction to graze her lip hard enough to split it too, riding on the adrenaline and the surge of release she felt to let go. She didn't care what it said about her mental state, Aelita was bruised and a bit battered but she felt alive. She blocked the next hit aimed at her chin and pushed the Princess back. Aelita spat out the blood that she could taste in her mouth, letting it fall where the rest had already spilled, noting where the red lay on the stone floor. "I'm having fun, Azula, aren't you?"

The Princess merely smirked. "A blast."

Zetzu looked across the circle to his brother when the girls met in the middle once more. The look on Zuko's face read an unspoken 'I told you so', and that only pissed off the younger Prince more. Still, he was pleasantly surprised by how well Aelita was holding up, especially with Azula pulling few stops. He was thankful for the muscle memory that made up at least some for Aelita's slowly rebuilding strength and stamina. He cursed himself and Azula equally when a whisper of blue flame wrapped around her throat and made her wince. He smiled when she broke free. Cheered out loud when her foot connected Azula's ribs.

Zuko saw the shift in his sister before anyone else. She was still winning, that much there was unfortunately no denying, but Azula didn't want to just beat Aelita, she wanted to destroy her. He watched her grin despite the pain just before she changed tactics. 

"I'm so glad we got to have this quality sister time, Aelita," She said as she caught the fist thrown her way and twisted it uncomfortably between the other girl's back, wondering if she would hear a delicious pop if she pulled just a little bit harder. When Azula realized Aelita was going to break her grip with each bone in her arm in their proper position, she pushed just enough flame out of her fingertips to leave her future sister hissing at the heat. "It's just so hard to imagine that our darling little family wasn't always meant to be?" 

Aelita managed to slip away from the Princess with most of her skin intact, the fresh burns blending into the web of scars she already had. Azula pressed on before she could regain her composure, standing perfectly still with a smile on her face as she asked, "How different do you think your life would be had your father prioritized you over his military career?" When the other girl didn't stumble, blocked the duo of kicks shot at her with crossed arms, the Princess pressed on. "He wouldn't have had the chance to paint a target on his back from Zhao had he been a simple carpenter or fisherman. I bet he'd even still be alive to give you away."

Aelita wouldn't admit to anyone else that she had wondered the same thing before. Long before Zuko's banishment and often during the three years after would she lay awake at night and contemplate the what-ifs. But she wouldn't dare say that to the Princess now, so she kept her mouth firmly shut. 

They met in the middle of the circle like the glorious climax to a beautiful dance, both having planned on attacking, either holding the fist poised to strike them, Azula tightened her grip on her formal rival. "Though, I guess if General Kenshin had been anything other than what he was, you would've never been engaged to either of my brothers. You'd have never come to the Capital. Never met ZuZu. And  you'd surely have significantly less blood on your hands."

Had she not frozen, Aelita might have noticed the leg that knocked hers out from underneath her or the foot that followed directly after, planting itself squarely on her glut to slam her already falling body against the stone floor. She was fairly certain at least one of her ribs had cracked, and she was vaguely aware that she was now coughing up blood, adding to the growing pool beside her head as she tried to suck in air and slow her rapidly spiraling mind.

She had considered before that her life could've been different had her Father been any less than he was - a faceless soldier amongst the masses, or even a military dropout, a man who had downplayed his talents and abilities so that he could stay home with his daughter. She hadn't considered the fact that every choice he had made had drastically and devastatingly affected her. Azula was right, as much as she hated to admit it. If Sukomo Kenshin had never landed himself in Azulon's line of sight, she would've never fallen into it by proxy. She wouldn't have been allowed to attend the Royal Fire Academy. Wouldn't have received the education or the added attention she had, and likely wouldn't have been considered anything special. She wouldn't have met the children of Ozai. Wouldn't have been linked with Zuko. Wouldn't have had to watch her Father die or wouldn't have cared enough about Zuko to maim herself in his defense and wouldn't have been around long enough to become a replacement for Ursa to Zetzu.

And even more likely, she would've never met Aang. Shukaku and Tulan might have still come calling, but without circumstance, Aelita knew she wouldn't have had the means to find Aang after Katara and Sokka pulled him from the ice. And even if she did, would she have wanted to? If her Dad hadn't gotten himself killed, would she have cared enough to do the right thing? Probably not, and that realization hurt. Suddenly Zetzu's notion that she had been driven purely by revenge didn't seem so far off.

All because her Dad had wanted to be a soldier more than he wanted to be a father.

"I believe that's match," Azula declared even as Aelita pushed herself up shakily, her youngest brother praying loudly for her demise while rushed for supplies to clean up his bride, the oldest watching the Akira on bated breath. Content for the day and already looking forward to the next time she had the chance to torment her sister-to-be, the Princess turned to step out of the sparring ring. She stopped with one foot out of the circle when her old rival called out for her. 

"Then finish it," Aelita taunted, hands braced on her knees as she tried to catch her breath, smiling like a mad woman with blood still dripping from her torn cheek and busted lip. "Let's stop bullshitting with ourselves and acting like you don't want to. Do it, LaLa. Finish me. Prove you're the best once and for all."

Azula knew there was a very real chance that Zetzu would try to kill her but she had already decided it was well worth the risk when she took the first step back toward Aelita. She moved quickly, well aware that she only had mere seconds to strike before either of her brothers jumped to defend the girl that both they and their Mother had always loved more than her, and in that knee-jerk reaction, in her deeply seeded desire to assert herself on top, she let her guard down just enough. Azula didn't notice that the blood she had reveled in drawing was now frozen where it lay. She closed the distance between her and Aelita in three fell strides, the Akira still smiling as she offered the Princess the very same eye that Zuko nearly lost. Poetic justice, Azula thought, that their brother's bride would be more of a twin to him than Zetzu had ever been. Her palm filled with wicked blue flame as she took the final step that would brand Aelita for what she was.

And then she slipped so slightly that it would've been hardly noticeable to anyone other than herself had Aelita not expected it. Still, it was enough. As Azula shifted her weight to counterbalance the sloppy motion, the other girl rose, bringing up her knee at the same moment that the Princess found herself just barely off of the Akira's center.

Later, Azula would believe she had been more in shock than she had been in pain when Aelita's knee slammed into her groin. It stung, that was for damn sure, but she was a woman and cheap shots below the belt tended to be reserved for men. But Aelita capitalized on that same shock, and when the Princess began to double over her, she cut a closed fist upward to catch Azula squarely under her chin. Her brothers watched with slackened jaws as she was effectively laid out, her skull bouncing off the floor with a hard crack reminiscent of Ba Sing Se.

And then Aelita was on top of her. Before Azula could even comprehend what had just happened, a scarred fist slammed into the side of her temple.

And then another.

And another.

And another.

Over and over, Aelita pounded her hands into the other girl's face, vaguely aware of the blood coating her knuckles, unsure and uncaring if it was hers or Azula's as years' worth of rage, pain, and humiliation poured out of her like lava. Hot tears that she didn't know she had left in her rolled down her cheeks and the low, guttural sounds she made danced somewhere between a sob and a battle cry. With every cock of her arm she saw another battered face of that had wronged her lying limp beneath her. 

Azula.

Ozai.

Zetzu.

Zuko.

Her Father.

Her Father.

Her Father.

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Piandao insisted Sokka fetch his friends before he was presented with his finished sword. After too long apart, anyone was sure to worry, even if the swordsmen knew the Avatar and the waterbender had watched from a sky bison disguised as a cloud. The forging process had taken nearly a day and a half, but as the master swordsmen finished the final stitching on the sheath that he made for the boy himself, he knew the blade meant to sit inside it had been well worth the time.

 And he was so very, very proud.

He recalled the look on Sokka's face as he held the chisel while Fat beat away at the meteorite with a massive hammer, the warrior already able to see the sword inside. He held on to every word his teacher spoke from there, breaking down the smaller bits of ore himself, shoveling coal bare-chested and sweating without complaint, stoking the rolling forge with his breath, waiting throughout the night for the meteorite inside to form into something moldable, sleeping only when he was sure the heat he tended to would hold. Under Piandao's watchful eye, Sokka had pulled a bucket of molten ore from the forge that morning with long metal tongs, careful to pour the material into the mold of a blade. Then came the hammering, heating, hammering, heating of the red-hot sword until it was thin and fine and strong.

Sokka thought of loved ones lost as he worked, their names ringing in his mind with each strike. His Mom. Yue. Hell, even Jet. Aelita. Aelita. Aelita. 

When the black blade was finally given the nod of approval, Piandao watched the pride and joy wash over his boy. And then Sokka slept like the dead while Fat and his teacher handcrafted his hilt, a practice that he started for any of his students who had come to craft their own blades. A little more than two decades ago, he had done the same for the man whose surname Sokka claimed. The thought was bittersweet, and it brought a sad smile to Piandao's face. Similar in ways, different in others, but both young men whom he had come to adore. So he let Sokka sleep as he worked, and when the boy woke, he sent him off to gather his family. The admiration for him shone in their eyes as they watched now from the balcony above the training grounds, waiting for Piandao to present their friend with his finished sword.

"Sokka, when you first arrived, you were so unsure, you even seemed down on yourself, but I saw something in you right away. I saw a heart as strong as a lion turtle, and twice as big. And as we trained, it wasn't your skills that impressed me." Piandao recalled as Sokka knelt before him. Fat approached silently, bowing and offering his Master the weapon that had been polished to perfection. It felt good in Piandao's hands, even if it wasn't his. He could recognize a work of art when he saw it.

The blade was dark as night and strong, the handle a deep mahogany with a gold-tipped guard. The sheath was simple dark brown, straight and adorned with a gold plate inlay about midway down its length. The tip was rectangular and adorned with a stylized symbol of a white lotus in fine filigree, another etched into the end of the sword's grip. A fine piece for an exceptionally fine young man.

"No, it certainly wasn't your skills," Piandao smiled. When Sokka hung his head in sheepish shame, he surprised him. "You showed something beyond that. Creativity, versatility, intelligence, and heart," Piandao continued, pulling the blade free from its cover and punctuating each praise with a gentle glide of the black. "These are the traits that define a great swordsman, and these are the traits that define you."

Piandao sheathed the sword, kneeling before the young warrior he genuinely admired, placing it in Sokka's gently trembling hands. "You told me you didn't know if you were worthy, but I believe that you are more worthy than any student I have ever trained."

Sokka looked from his teacher to the sword he now held, overwhelmed by emotion, guilt, and genuine disbelief at the words spoken. He knew one of Piandao's students personally, and he knew just as well that he would only ever be half the person that she was. "I'm sorry, Master," Sokka said as he set the sword on the ground, stunning both the teacher and his friends. "You're wrong. I'm not worthy, and I'm not who you think I am. I'm not from the Fire Nation. I'm from the Southern Water Tribe. I lied so that I could learn swordsmanship from you. I'm sorry."

Piandao was only all the more impressed, even if he wouldn't yet admit it, only wishing the boy could see himself for what he truly was. "I'm sorry too."

Sokka had just enough time to jerk his new sword free from its cover before Piandao swung at him with the blade on his hip. The younger warrior managed to parry the unexpected strike, and for a split second, he considered backing down. He was outclassed, and there was no denying it, but dammit if Sokka didn't know that giving up would only somehow be worse.

"No!" He called out to his friends, the four of them already moving to rush to his side as he pushed Piandao's blade away from him, his own held firmly before him with new determination in his eyes. "This is my fight alone."

His teacher was only more proud. Piandao didn't wait for Sokka then, moving with grace and light feet as he began his attack. Four rapid blows were blocked, the sound of metal on metal echoing through the estate. Sokka lunged blade first, bold and riding off adrenaline. Piandao sidestepped, stabbing out in a way that could've done serious damage had the boy not moved. From where Aang and Katara stood, the back and forth below was every bit the dance that Aelita described it as. Piandao swept for Sokka's legs, but Sokka glided like his Master. When he shot towards the swordsmen again, Piandao slammed the palm of his hand into Sokka's chest, sending the boy tumbling backward until his back connected with the pillar of the small bridge that ran across a gentle stream. Moving quickly the Sokka climbed up onto the flat pillar, launching himself from rail to rail as he evaded each of Piandao's ferocious blows.

"Excellent!" The master genuinely praised, either not knowing or not caring that he had the boy effectively running. "Using your superior agility against an older opponent...smart."

Piandao chased the warrior past the bridge and up the stone steps to the bamboo gardens, each strike of his sword blocked despite Sokka's growing panic. He cornered him against the stairway wall, cutting and slashing with all his might. Sokka danced and ducked and dodged, far more nimble than he would've ever given himself credit for being, Piandao's sword slicing deep gashes into the rock behind him. He lunged with some slight desperation at the first opening he had, planting his feet on the wall and pushing hard to propel forward. The attack missed its mark but Sokka saw the opportunity to scale the opposite and took it. He stood above Piandao now, blocking the incoming blows with more ease, returning his own swings in rapid succession.

"Good use of terrain," Piandao observed out loud, "Fighting from the high ground."

His student was faring damn well, especially when the turmoil on his face was so painfully obvious to see. Sokka caught Piandao off guard when the older man swung at his feet, stepping on top of his own sword to pin the other down. The reprieve only lasted for a moment before Piandao managed to break free, sending Sokka skittering backward. When the boy noticed the bamboo behind him he dove into the droves headfirst, slicing wildly at the plants as he ran, unsure how far behind his Master really was, hoping the falling stalks would grant him at least a little time.

"Yes, use your surroundings!" The swordsmen cheered as he used his own blade to cut through the debris. He watched as Sokka rounded a slight turn in the growth, bending a particularly hefty stock as he ran, so it snapped back at his teacher. Piandao was grinning as he chopped the whipping piece down. "Make them fight for you!"

Sokka was fairly certain this would be where he died. The panic inside of him only continued to rise, his doubts in himself threatening to swallow him whole. If Piandao knew or cared, he didn't show it, chasing him out of the bamboo and back through the paved courtyard with no mercy. That would be his only saving grace, Sokka thought, because his friends, all so much more capable than him, would come to his rescue, just like they always did because all he was good for was comedic relief. 

The whole world would learn about Aang once he exposed himself, and then Sokka would be able to do nothing but watch as yet another one of his plans went down the drain. Distracted, he glanced over his shoulder as he ran and realized he had lost his teacher. He just barely managed to skid across the ground when Piandao swung at his head, less than an arm's length away from where Sokka had just been standing. The warrior tossed his sword around blindly as he stumbled back to his feet, kicking up a cloud of dirt and dust as his blade scraped against the earth, sending the cloud of haze directly into the older man's eyes.

The pain was only mild. Piandao found he couldn't blink the mess away, leaving him temporarily blinded. "Very resourceful."

He could end this now, one way or the other. Pride be damned, Sokka was prepared to tuck his tail between his legs and run now that he had the opportunity. He'd be a coward before he'd ever be a killer, so he crept away slowly step by step, his eyes locked on his teacher the entire time. He cursed himself silently for effectively spitting on the memory of the girl he loved and continued to back away, not noting the nest of fallen twigs behind him. The subtle snap of breaking wood was enough for Piandao, even without his sight. By sheer luck alone, Sokka managed to block the blow before he was skewered clean through, but fear and loathing had left his hands trembling and his grip light. His own sword was knocked from his hands, flying across the yard to bury itself in the dirt just out of reach. He tripped over his own feet when Piadao swung at his midsection and soon found himself on his back before he ever realized that he had fallen. When he blinked up, the pointed edge of a sword was aimed directly at his face.

They were over the balcony railing and running then, the Avatar in the lead and his friends close behind. Before any of the four could act further, Piandao grinned. "Excellent work, Sokka," he praised, pulling his blade away from the boy's face, chuckling at the quickly approaching steps, not bothering to face them when he declared, "I think I'm a little old to be fighting the Avatar."

Everyone froze, each one of them staring at the swordsmen with unblinking eyes. "How did you know?" Aang finally asked after some time.

"Oh," Piandao only smiled more. "I've been around a while. You pick things up." He pulled out a handkerchief to wipe the sweat and dirt from his face. "Especially when one of your former students turns out to be the Akira. I've learned a lot about you from a distance, Avatar Aang. Of course, I knew from the beginning that Sokka was Water Tribe," He said, eyes twinkling when he looked at his still stunned student, already having decided that he would keep his contact with Pakku and Roshi a secret for at least a little while longer. "You might want to think of a better Fire Nation cover name. Try Lee. There's a million Lee's. Just maybe not Lee Kenshin."

"Kenshin? Really, Captain Boomerang, that was the best you could come up with?"

"I panicked!"

"I don't understand," Katara said before Piandao could laugh at the innocence of the moment. "Why would you agree to train someone from the Water Tribe‌?"

"The way of the sword doesn't belong to any one nation. Knowledge of the arts belongs to us all," Piando explained, and though it had been equally to quell his own curiosity, he kept that part to himself as well. Sokka didn't need the additional weight of that sort of judgment on his shoulders, not when he had passed with flying colors. Piandao handed his own sword to a waiting Fat, moving to where his students still stood speared into the ground to pull it free. Piandao admired its beauty one final time before passing it back to his boy, bowing as he did. "Sokka, you must continue your training on your own. If you stay on this path, I know that one day you will become an even greater master than I am."

Sokka clutched the sword to his chest as he bowed back to his Master. When they rose, both light-hearted and grinning, Piandao's eyes twinkled with mischief. "But if you tell Aelita I said that one day, I will be forced to deny it. I have a reputation to maintain after all."

The smile on Sokka's face dropped and the air in the courtyard grew heavy. "Aelita?"

"Of course. I spent much of my life with her and her father. I assumed you knew. I'm quite fond of her."

Sokka felt his heart break a little inside, and the look on his loved ones' faces told him that they assumed the same - that somehow, some way, Piandao didn't know. "No, I knew that, but Master..." Sokka trailed off, looking for the gentlest way to convey the horrible reality. "Don't you...know what happened? In Ba Sing Se? To Aelita?"

Piandao's eyes darkened. "It would be nearly impossible to ignore the whispers, but I know her heart, and I try not to listen. Even if the Avatar were not standing here before me today, I would know the things they say about Aelita Kenshin could not be true." 

Nearly impossible, but not completely. Thus far, the broken family had managed to avoid the talk of their friend's death, afraid that not one of them would be able to stand for hearing people cheer Aelita's demise, but now, listening to Piandao's obvious disgust, their curiosity was too great. "What are they saying about Aelita?" Sokka asked, his voice barely above a whisper. "And why does it matter? She's gone, Master. She died during the coup on Ba Sing Se."

Had he not heard from Iroh himself, Piandao might have feared the same, but - oh. Oh. Suddenly, so much of the way the boy carried himself took on a whole new meaning. 

They didn't know. 

Piandao looked to his old friend for reassurance and when Fat nodded solemnly, he decided the truth would come best from him. "They claim that she killed the last airbender and that her engagement is her reward."

The courtyard went silent for several long, painful minutes and then suddenly five teen voices cried out at once, cursing and questioning on ragged breaths, each of them growing in volume as they went until finally Sokka shouted over the roar. They silenced in unison, and five sets of eyes watched the swordsmen as their leader dared to ask, "What engagement?"

"To the Fire Lord's son. Akira Aelita is alive."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Chapter Text

The boy wasn't half bad when he got back on his feet. Piandao could see that as he watched Sokka and Fat dance back and forth across the practice ring outside the estate. His student held his own well enough against his considerably older and larger opponent, parrying strikes as they came but never quite gaining any real footing to turn the tides in his direction. With good reflexes, steady hips, and a strong arm, the son of the Southern Water Tribe's Chief seemed to almost perfectly fit the picture Pakku had painted in his letters after a botched attempt to destroy the moon.

Piandao scowled at the man that came to mind. He wanted to allow himself to think or speak the wannabe destroyer's name. He wanted to curse the late Admiral and blame him for the spilled blood of an innocent man. He wanted to condemn Zhao's deplorable soul to an eternity possibly more miserable than that of Ozai himself, but Piandao couldn't. After all, he had been the one to introduce the White Lotus to a bright-eyed, still-innocent Sukomo Kenshin when he was a year younger than the boy mourning his daughter. It almost hadn't been. Both Kenshin and Zhao had shown their own prowesses but in the end, the Admiral went to Jeong Jeong and Sukomo came to him. Piandao still feared he would look down one day and see the blood of his former student on his hands. He nearly had the day that he learned that Sukomo's little girl was the Akira reborn. Philosophical or not, it wasn't fair that the General died without knowing that.

The Order of the White Lotus had spent a hundred years hoping and praying for the miraculous return of either Avatar or Akira and the fact that one had been right under their noses for sixteen years just wasn't fair. Piandao himself had trained Aelita Kenshin during a stint of long months that her father was away. He spent time teaching and admiring her the way he supposed a grandfather or an uncle would without ever knowing who she was or what she could be. Dammit, it just seemed too cruel to think about now, especially knowing she was alive and alone and likely not well.

Roshi claimed while in Ba Sing Se the boy looked to be in love so that Piandao guessed the knowledge of Aelita's current state was what left his student so sad and shaken. He blindly assumed that Sokka and his friends were slowly making their way to Caldera, biding their time until the eclipse, allowing the Akira to get in close and lure the crown into a false sense of security. He sympathetically pegged Sokka's decision to stop and train under him as a temporary distraction interlaced with a genuine desire for learning. After all, he had no reason to think otherwise. Correspondences between he and the Grand Lotus had been few and far between in the weeks since Iroh's arrest and even then, the tapped-out messages sent with woodpecker moths were vague.

'The sun needs the moon just as the earth needs the skies.'

Piandao took the message for the way he interpreted it, even if the part of him that kicked himself in the ass for not requesting guardianship of Aelita after Sukomo's death wanted to do nothing more than offer her his aid now. Instead, they would let the children fight as they planned. He flinched when Fat connected the meat of his wooden sword with Sokka's ribs. Seventeen or not, his student was still just a boy, but the Lotus would stand back as he and his friends walked into an ambush the Fire Lord knew was coming because failure was the best opportunity to begin again. So for now, Piandao would do what he did best - teach and observe and just maybe pass a judgment on character that Sukomo himself should have been the one to do.

Inside the practice ring, Fat's solid hit managed to knock the air from Sokka's surprised lungs, leaving the warrior sprawled on the ground for the second time. When the older man pointed the wooden blade in his face as he attempted to suck in deep, greedy breaths, he couldn't help but wonder what in the fuck he was doing. To say he was in over his head was an overstatement. He was sure any moment now that Piandao would realize it too and send him away with his tail tucked between his legs. Sokka knew that would be it for him then.

He wasn't a bender. He was barely even the warrior he claimed to be and what little he was was pitiful. He couldn't save anyone he loved. His plans failed more often than not. He wasn't strong enough, smart enough, or brave enough.

He was having a pathetic pity party for himself and it wouldn't bring back any of the people that he loved. He rolled over onto his knees, dropping the wooden sword and tilting his tanned face up towards the sky. He blinked beneath the blinding light of the beating sun but still Sokka refused to look away. He saw Aelita there much in the same way he saw Yue every time he looked at the moon, and he imagined her casting away the shadows of his self-doubt with words that would start soft until they grew to be more and more impatient with every argument he presented her because that was the just the kind of fire she burned with. Light and warm with a gentle glow at a glance but radiant and blinding the longer you stared, the closer you got, the harder you pushed, the more she loved. The corner of his mouth lifted even as he reached for the practice sword. Aelita would understand his insecurities the same way that she seemed to understand every other part of him but he knew she wouldn't dare idly sit by and let him settle. So, Sokka decided then that he wouldn't let her down again.

Piandao schooled his expression to hide his pleasure when his student rose to continue with his sparring. He let the boy go for a moment longer before he decided that he had seen enough for now. He called out for the dueling pair to cease before they could come to serious blows once more, telling Sokka to dress and meet him outside the estate gates. Piandao saw the flash of hesitation in the boy's eyes for a split second, swore he could hear the unspoken doubts from where he stood until his unwavering determination spoke louder. Sokka bowed out a thank you that was almost perfectly Fire Nation. He didn't leave his teacher waiting for long, and he only mildly seemed to panic when the thick strap of woven cloth was tied over his eyes. Piandao led the teen by voice and hand to his next lesson.

"Landscape painting teaches a warrior to hold the lay of the land in his mind," He explained after they made it some ways away from the estate, climbing the gently rising slope of the distant bluff. He watched as Sokka's ears perked to the sounds of rushing water, smiling when they reached their destination. The winding curves of the Biju River ended here, spilling over the slick stones polished with time until their tumbling waves became one with the sparkling sea. The bluffs surrounding the falls were lush with green and life, creatures both large and small having made their homes among the cracks and crevices. With the slowly moving sun glittering down on the open scene, Piandao breathed in the feeling of fresh and beautiful calm.

He looked away just so he could watch Sokka's reaction. Lazily the swordsman turned his student to face the rushing falls, enjoying how observant blue eyes blinked away the darkness when he tugged off the blindfold, quickly snapping open wide to take in the surrounding sights of the roaring beauty. A good reaction indeed.

"In battle, you only have an instant to take everything in. Now," Piandao said as Sokka leaned into the magnificence for a better view. The boy was breathless when his teacher planted his hands on his shoulders and wheeled him around to face the other way. With Sokka's back now to the falls, Piandao pushed him down to sit, plucking a scroll, a brush, and several small jars of colorful pigments from his pockets and dropping them in the boy's lap. "Paint it."

Sokka blinked once, twice. He stared down at the supplies he was now holding, a flat rock that seemed very strategically placed before him. His teacher had already shifted himself to watch the tumbling waters. "You're joking ri-"

Piandao cut his student off when his head began to turn back around, forcing Sokka to face the other direction. "And no peeking."

A bird sang in the distance as the young warrior continued to stare at the supplies in his lap, wondering if Aelita had been subject to the same ridiculous lesson. He could almost see it, even if he hadn't ever actually seen her as a child. He imagined her young and carefree as she would've been then, a brush between her scar-free fingers, some hum or random rumblings spilling from her lips as she worked. She would've questioned it too because Sokka was willing to bet her never-ending curiosity had been born in her youth but she would've completed the task regardless because unorthodox seemed to be synonymous with her name. He smiled as he spread the paints and pigments before him and thought of the beauty behind his back. Yeah, he thought as he reached for a brush, ridiculous or not Aelita would've been all about it because the scene behind him whispered her name, the encapsulation of damn near everything he knew she loved about the land where she was born.

Piandao let the boy work. He didn't rush and he didn't hover. He let the warmth of the sun kiss his skin as he waited, and when Sokka finally rose from his perch giddy as could be, the swordsman was hopeful.

The painting was childish at best, looking more like a happy five-year-olds art than the work of a nearly grown warrior. Sokka had managed to capture the waterfall, sure, even the lush greenery around it, but his sun was quite literally smiling, the colorful blobs Piandao assumed to be flowers were excessive, and above that - "You added a rainbow."

Sokka had painted the Fire Nation he wanted to see, the one that Aelita fought just as valiantly for, the one that he wanted to care for the way she did no matter what its brutalities had cost him. He looked up at his teacher with worried, puppy dog eyes and spoke with an innocence that the Master hadn't been expecting because he assumed it would've long since died. "Is that okay?"

Piandao looked down at the painting in his hands once more and wondered if he was reading too much into the crude work when he saw a bigger picture there. Hidden amongst the streaks of color he imagined a future of unity and beauty and the optimism, dedication and preparation it would take to get there, even if the rainbow was just the fairest bit excessive. He rolled his eyes but motioned for his student to follow him back to the estate regardless. His bafflement with the boy didn't stop there.

"You've had a good first day of training." Piandao complimented his student still trying to catch his breath some time later. The sun had just begun to fall from the sky, the twilight air cool on their skin as Sokka bowed to a disgruntled Fat still dressed in their sparring wear.

"I have?" Sokka asked, jolting upright, wooden sword and his win from just a moment before already forgotten. "But I thought I messed up every single thing we worked on!"

Fat grunted out in agreement as he shucked off his own padding, already skulking off in the direction of his master's rock garden. Sokka winced at the obvious annoyance but his teacher couldn't help but grin at the memory. Piandao suspected the mess awaiting his most loyal hand was just as much his fault as it was the boys.

'Rock gardening teaches the warrior to manipulate his surroundings and use them to his advantage,' the swordsman had claimed just a little while earlier and used his surroundings Sokka had. The lounge chair he fashioned out of boulder and moss still stood surrounded but the mess he had managed to kick up in the process. Fat saw a disaster, but Piandao saw creativity and logic.

"You messed things up in a very special way," Piandao assured. "You are ready for a real sword."

Sokka's face lit with excitement, remembering the beauty and elegance of the blade in the shop that first caught his eye. "Are you giving me one of yours?"

"No," His teacher quickly shot him down, tempted to chuckle at the way the boy deflated like a child who had been denied sweets. "Your sword must be an extension of yourself. So tomorrow, you will make your own sword."

🌊🏔🔥🌪

Decency be damned, Aelita groaned in relief as she sank past her shoulders into the steaming waters of the luxurious bath. Every muscle in her body nearly wept at the immediate relief of the relaxing warmth, her joints aching and her bones heavy. Spirits, she thought to herself as she settled in and closed her eyes, a girl could float in those magnificent waters for hours and forget all of her life's problems.

"This isn't meant to be a leisurely dip."

Aelita lifted her hand to flick a vulgar in the direction of Zetzu's voice, not bothering to look at him from where she lounged in the simple black beachwear that Kanao had helped her into. He chose to ignore the mild insult as he slipped into the water on the opposite side of the bath large enough to fit two fully grown badgermoles. After spending the far too revisiting the painful basics and motions of hand-to-hand combat, Zetzu had sent all of the servants that manned the royal spa tucked in the heart of the palace away for the evening, wanting to keep prying eyes away from his prize. The less anyone knew the true extent of Aelita's current abilities the better, his family included, and he was certain at least one of the handmaidens had already run to Azula so he set to work refocusing the Akira before his sister had the time to show her terrible face.

"I wasn't kidding when I said I wasn't finished with you yet. We agreed to work on your endurance -"

"You decided, Zetzu," Aelita interrupted just to be contrary, her eyes still lazed shut as she made no effort to move. "I have had little say in much of anything since we left Ba Sing Se."

"I didn't take you for the ungrateful type," The elder teen hissed through clenched teeth, patience wearing dangerously thin. "Every decision I've made has been calculated, and I've decided not to let you sit here idly burning daylight. Start healing yourself, Aelita. Now." His brow ticked when the Akira continued to ignore him. "My brother and your little Water Tribe peasant may have found your stubbornness appealing but I do not so-"

Her half-laugh cut him off. Aelita wondered if the casual reference to the life she had once lived would have hit her harder had she not already broken so deeply and unexpectedly the night before. She had ridden her anger when Zetzu interrupted the overwhelming conversation, all too happy to have an excuse to send Zuko away after rocking her world, fighting back the havoc that threatened to overtake her until there was finally no one around to see her shatter. Then she wept, too ruined to bother dreaming of any practical use for the tears that had coated her skin.

She questioned if the Avatar was dead. She didn't question that she was alone.

Still, there was a faint sting that tore through her when the shining eyes of the boy Zetzu spoke of danced through her memory. When the walls of her mind seemed to slam shut around the recollection of the ocean blues Aelita couldn't help but wonder if they closed off to punish or protect.

"I'm impressed," she taunted without looking at the Prince still. "That's the first time you've mentioned Sokka specifically," She pointed out, the warrior's name both beautifully and devastatingly familiar on her lips. "I'd say I didn't take you for the possessive type, but we'd both know that was a lie. I just can't help but wonder when this side of you was born."

"It was always there," Zetzu shot back and supposed that much was true. A part of him had grown to thrive in emulating everything he assumed those like his father and grandfather to be. That part of him had emerged the first time someone had actually tried to beat him down with more than just threats and words and withering stares, the first time someone had been brave enough to lay hands on him on the ship ride to Bhanti, a bigotted guard that Zetzu hadn't been yet bold enough to actually use his bending on but desperate enough to lash out blindly at with the decorative blades in his room, blinding the bastard that hadn't trusted his 'black magic'. When the man refused to apologize, Zetzu recalled the way most fathers other than his own crumpled at the sight of their broken children, so he called for the mutilation of the bigot's firstborn and kept her tongue for some time as a prize until he had snapped back into a more desirable state of being.

He nearly grinned at the memory, speaking to the girl across from him now in an iced-out tone. "I just had to be given a little room to breathe without fear of dying for it to thrive. But, Akira Aelita, we aren't here to discuss me. We're here to kill two birds with one stone. You heal your aches and bruises, and I see a small glimpse of what all you're capable of with this waterbending of yours."

"Does it really matter what I can do if the Avatar is already dead?" Aelita asked, finally opening her eyes to look at him. "If the biggest threat to the Fire Nation is already gone, what do you really need me for? And don't feed me some line about bending the knee of the Earth Kingdom," She said when her intended opened his mouth to spew his usual bullshit. "I'm not needed for that. We both know it. If your great-grandfather could harness the power of the comet and use it to wipe out the Air Nomads at the height of their prosperity, your father could easily focus that same power on an already weakened Earth Kingdom. So tell me why my strength really matters."

She didn't move when he crossed the water like a fluid predator. She didn't flinch when he caged her in with his longer arms. Didn't cower when he spoke too closely to her ear.

"The Avatar is dead," He insisted, "But you're still going to need to be strong if you're going to help me," Zetzu said low enough so that only she could hear even if there were eavesdroppers. "If you're going to help yourself." Her eyes met his as he eased back just slightly to watch her reaction, going out on a limb, already resigned to what he would do should she refuse to cooperate. "Admit now what you've been wanting to deny for so long, Aelita. You want revenge against my father. You tried to tell me on the ship that you didn't we both know that was a lie. Lucky for you, Lita, it just so happens I want the same."

"What could you possibly want revenge for?" She questioned evenly, voice quiet, stare challenging.

"For everything," He stated as if it should've been obvious. "You'd be lying to us both if you tried to deny the fact that our childhood was damning. You think that was the fault of anyone other than our father? Sure, the rest of my family didn't help, but Ozai's actions were their justifications. We didn't matter to Azulon. Even after Lu Ten died we were insignificant because he was still abundant in heirs before he would ever need to bother considering us. And while my father may have never lifted a finger to me I would've almost rathered he did. At least then he would've acknowledged me to my face, though he never did aim that disdain directly at us. It was worse than that. It was as if we didn't exist. In the bastard's eyes, Zuko was his only son and he never bothered to hide that fact from us. Mother tried to shield us but she could only do so little, and I know damn well whose fault it is she's gone. Of course, there was our darling little sister too. Azula is a product of her environment and she treated us as such. And Zuko," He scoffed out a broken laugh, fingers flexing where they gripped the stone on either side of Aelita. "The prodigal son is just that. What we were never given the chance to be. As far as we're concerned the struggles he's faced are nothing compared to what he put me through. My own twin. The person we shared a womb with," Zetzu said, spitting with rage now. "He embraced all that we would never receive and left us behind to rot."

"Zetzu-"

"If you're going to defend him," the older boy cut Aelita off, "don't."

Zetzu pushed himself away and turned his back to the Akira until he could calm his trembling fists. He hadn't meant to reveal so much. He would've never dreamed of spilling his darkened soul but the words had just kept coming no matter how hard he tried to stop them. The truth and hurt behind the confession jolted him. "This isn't about my brother," He said with a sigh, the statement halfway true. "We were talking about the Fire Lord. We know, Aelita, possibly better than anyone how much of a monster he is." He turned back to her then, crowding her and invading her space once again. She allowed him to catch her chin between her fingers, didn't fight when he tipped her head back to meet his dead stare. "Better than anyone except maybe you. And I know a monster isn't fit to rule."

The admission surprised Aelita less than she thought it should. There was a time when she assumed that if any of the royal children were to turn against their father it would be Zuko but now all she could see in her mind was a faint vision of Zetzu standing before the Fire Lord's obliterated throne. The image brought her little comfort, but she thought with a little wonder as to what the idea said about her morals, that she could work with this. "Then who is?"

"Not Zuko, that's for damn sure."

Aelita merely blinked. The relationship between Ozai's sons had been gradually deteriorating more and more the longer they remained in one another presence. Oddly enough, it seemed largely one-sided. Zuko had had his moments of disdain and annoyance with Zetzu, that much was obvious, but he had also clung to his brother in a way he sure as hell clung to no one else. Zetzu, on the other hand, clung to no one but himself. Aelita wondered how deeply the younger twins' resentments went, and she wondered more if she could use it to her advantage.

"If you try to tell me that you think Azula will do any better then I'll know I'm being set up to be punished."

Dammit, he couldn't help but choke out a small laugh. "Smart and beautiful. Is there anything you can't do?"

"Be trusted apparently," she challenged, watching the way his eyes darkened. With one palm she pushed him gently away and sat herself fully upright, back straight so he was no longer looking down at her. "You're planning something, Zetzu. You've been planning something since Ba Sing Se. You've danced around it but you haven't clued me in even after all your talk of togetherness." With more grace than she thought she still possessed, Aelita shifted suddenly as she spoke until their positions were reversed and she was now the one caging him in. "We can't do a thing together if I'm left standing in the dark."

'Trap.'

'Trust.'

'Run.'

"You and I are a team," Aelita said, interrupting the battle inside the boy's conscious and purposefully feeding into his association of her with Ursa. The feeling that he had been trying to replace the woman he loved with her had been haunting her uncomfortably for some time now but with little to prove her inclination Aelita had chosen to remain blissfully ignorant of his actions. She hadn't said anything when Zetzu dressed her like an Ursa-inspired doll. Didn't frett when he made the obvious comparisons to the Fire Lord. After the tea incident, she couldn't and wouldn't ignore the replacement any longer. "Aren't we?"

Zetzu's eyes widened when she repeated the familiar words his mother had spoken and she swore for a moment she was able to see inside his head, watching as he tried to differentiate between the two of them.

'Liar.'

'Friend.'

'Traitor.'

'Mom.'

'Her.'

The voices in his mind battled for dominance but Zetzu softened when he saw the way Aelita looked down at him, confident and sure as the way he thought she should be and theirs. His. Fuck.

"We are," He assured her, cupping the side of the Akira's face with one trembling hand, manic and a fair bit desperate from the assault on his emotions and his psyche but still far more gentle with her than he had been in days. "We are," he assured every bit of himself, even the ones angry and scared. "Everything just has to be perfect first, but you are right. We've been working at this since Ba Sing Se, thinking and adapting and planning. All of those plans have you at the center. That's why this matters," He reached out to trace finger-shaped bruises on her bicep. "And we're sorry if we've been pushing too hard. It just has to be perfect, Aelita. For you. For us. For the future. So please, just be patient with us," He pleaded as he thought of the notes and formulas buried in his quarters. "We'll tell you everything. Soon. We promise. Because you're right, we're a team."

Aelita could see in his eyes that she had won the battle even if the true war was just beginning. A little bit disgusted with herself she nodded, not trusting herself to speak, willing herself to not flinch when he pulled her in, one hand holding the base of her neck, his thumb skimming her jaw and her heart hammering when he pressed his lips to hers.

🌊🏔🔥🌪

The chill of the morning air tickled their skin as the three remaining teens sat sprawled out around the open map of the Fire Nation as hopelessly lost as they had been the day before without Sokka. Much to his friend's dismay, the warrior had been long gone since before the sun had managed to kiss the sky. In a pitiful effort to pass the time, the trio of benders tried to guess their next move on their journey inland towards Capital City.

"So, I think we're going here next," Katara pointed to the very island they currently sat upon without realizing it, gesturing back then to the one they had just come from. "Because we're starting here..."

"No," Aang said gently when her voice trailed off, prodding a stain on the map that wasn't even a natural landmark. "We're over here on this island."

"I'm pretty sure that's just some a smudge from the ash bananas Sokka was eating the other day," Kyojuro pointed out.

"Did they teach you to read a map so you wouldn't forget how to find your bed every night, Rich Boy?"

"Okay Toph, why don't you enlighten us on where we are or where we're going?"

"Why bother?" The younger earthbender snorted, kicking up one foot and resigning to die of boredom rather than listen to the back-and-forth banter or Katara's pitiful excuse for entertainment. "You noodle-brains don't know what you're doing," She said, sighing after some time. "I miss Sokka."

The stillness that fell over the dull camp told Toph the others agreed. It didn't make her feel any better, but then again, not a whole lot had since that one terrible night when everything changed. With the foot that was still planted firmly in the dirt, she felt Aang's heart beating in his chest where he sat in somber silence. She found herself just holding on to its steady thrum for a minute, a part of her still in disbelief that the finicky fucker had actually pulled through. She tried not to shudder when she remembered the fear that crept through her when she thought they were going to lose him too. She didn't like to think about it. Closure be damned, she didn't like to think of Aelita either. She didn't see why any of them would want to anyway. What good would it do? Dead was dead, and no matter how much they hated it, her first-ever real friend was never going to come back. So, Toph did what she did best and ignored the hurt that dwelled inside of her and everyone else she loved.

Inside Piandao's sitting room, Sokka did the same. He refused to be distracted by his curious mind or his desire to ask if every student before him had done the same as he studied the bricks of steel and ore laid out on his master's table.

"Choosing the correct material is the most important step in crafting a sword," Piandao explained, stepping back to allow the boy to make the decision himself. "You must trust your steel with your life. Choose carefully."

Sokka moved closer to the table. With some will he forced his mind off to the past, allowing himself to focus only on what kind of swordsman, warrior, and man he wanted to be. He picked up a bit of dark steel, palmed it in his hand, and set it down again. He reached for another and thought of all the people he admired most in the world. The idea came to him then.

"Master, would it be possible for me to leave and bring back a special material for my sword?"

Piandao grinned down at his student. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

Time passed even more slowly than it had the day before in the teens' camp just beyond the massive crater and the now cool space stone that had created it. They found that their time without Sokka was full of the miserable same - sitting and waiting and trying to not snap at one another without the distraction their fearless leader so typically provided with both his nonsense and his scheduling. The sweltering heat of the sun that was continuing to climb the sky above only made this day even worse.

"It's so hot," Kyojuro complained just to complain, laying flat on his back and staring up into the blinding glow.

"How hot is it?" Aang attempted to joke.

"I dunno," the Prince shrugged with an obvious lack of enthusiasm. "Real hot?"

"I-It's so hot, it's so hot..." Katara tried to take over, looking for anything to poke fun at the way her brother and Aelita both seemed to naturally be able to do. Seeing the lemur beside her she reached out to pet him and flicked off one of the small tufts of fur that clung to her fingers. "Momo is shedding like Appa. Huh, huh?"

Kyojuro didn't even bother to look in her direction. "I guess the jokes don't run in the family."

"Oh, everyone's a critic."

Before her friends could continue their bitching Toph shot up where she sat, a wicked and excited grin on her face when she loudly declared, "Sokka's coming!"

The young warrior was surprised to see his family eagerly waiting as he crested the hill. "Hey, guys. What are you doing?"

He was even more shocked when the three flung themselves at him, wrapping him into the center of an unwilling group hug that even Appa and Momo couldn't resist. He could hardly hear over the chorus of his name being chanted in all directions, the cheers for his arrival, or the desperate plea for him to say something funny. Completely confused he asked, "Funny how?" And was met with a chorus of laughter even as he friends pealed themselves off of him one by one, Toph taking the lead. "What's their deal?"

She turned away so she wouldn't see her faint blush and smile. " I don't know. They missed you or something. I didn't care."

"Thanks. That warms my heart," Sokka deadpanned, stepping back from the misplaced affection. "Anyway, I need some help."

🌊🏔🔥🌪

When Zetzu sent a handwritten note that morning rather than just rushed instructions carried by Kanao Aelita knew that she had done something right even if it felt so very wrong. She lay in bed skulking for far longer than was socially acceptable, absentmindedly stroking Mushu's fur as she silently recounted the events of the night before. In all honesty, it wasn't so much the game that she was playing that bothered her anymore, she could admit now that her morals had darkened lately into a deep shade of grey, but what rather upset her was the feeling the kiss had stirred within her.

Some broken and fragile part of her brain tried to convince itself that the brush of the Prince's lips over hers hadn't been such a terrible thing, and objectively, she supposed as far as physical touch went it hadn't been but desperation to survive hadn't been enough to sway Aelita into ignoring just how wrong it had really been. For reasons she couldn't and wouldn't bother trying to explain to herself she cared about Zetzu. Shocking brutalities at times and all she didn't see the point in denying that there was a part of her that still wanted to save him from his family and himself but this? The more? She didn't want this. Didn't want him. Didn't want anyone, she realized with heartbreaking devastation, anyone other than the ringleader who had left her behind.

She hadn't thought about Sokka much in the weeks since the first terrible time she awoke to find herself beaten and battered on a Fire Navy ship with a healing hole in her stomach. She hadn't thought of any of them. She wouldn't have been able to even if she wanted. In the first days of consciousness, her thoughts had been too consumed with a desire to flee to consider much else. Once she realized escape wasn't an option, Aelita had been forced to deal with the knowledge she had taken a life. She hadn't allowed herself to dwell on the friends that had left her behind because it hurt too badly but until recently it had at least made sense that she had been cast aside. If she had killed Aang, then why wouldn't she be as good as dead to them? Why would they want her?

But now? Now that she suspected greatly the Avatar was still alive and knew that her once-upon-a-time friends hadn't made the efforts for her that they had made for him she could no longer pretend that they didn't matter. Aelita still couldn't grasp onto all of the little moments that filled the months before her fall from grace, the most intimate of instances still cloudy and distant inside of her mind, but dammit, of all things she couldn't forget the fact that the son of Chief Hakoda had meant something different to her than any normal friend. She loved him. That much felt as much a part of her as they amber to her eyes but she couldn't convince herself that he had felt the same.

Mushu rose from where he lay next to her hip to plop his furry self practically on top of her face, making her chuckle and choke on his fur all the same. "Okay, okay," She spoke past the red flush of him. "No more pity parties for myself. Got it." The ferret chittered as he scurried off her head, resting in her lap as she finally sat upright. Aelita arched a brow at her little friend. "I am not daydreaming about anyone, fuck you very much."

Mushu crawled down between two blankets, stuck out his head and just his little front paws, and wiggled them like he was stuck in the earth.

"Doesn't ring any bells," Aelita lied.

The ferret moved to clutch one of her pillows in his teeth and carried it beneath one of the still-sealed windows in her room. He then stood to stagger and sway on his two hind legs, slumping against the wall. With great exaggerated effort, Mushu scurried up the wall, dangled from the windowsill for some time, and then fell onto the pillow with loud, hyena-like squeaks.

Aelita could see it then - one of the moments that had felt so distant for so long. The night they had learned the extent of Long Feng's control of Ba Sing Se. The defeat they felt afterward. A last-minute desperate attempt to comfort one another and the way it so ridiculously backfired in the end. An old man named Roshi, good food, strong drink that they were positively too young for, and an almost kiss.

Almost.

Aelita was sure she would've stumbled had she not been sitting. Still, she rose on shaky feet to scoop up her four-legged friend, cradling him to her chest. "How is that one of the moments you remember so vividly?" Aelita asked with a laugh that could've been a cry. "And why is that one of the few I do too?"

When Mushu stretched out to lick her sad cheek Aelita sighed. "I miss him, and it's the damndest thing because I doubt he misses me too. How could me when I think I'm everything he hated?" The ferret began to chirp out an argument but his human shook her head, too tired to fight. "It's okay, buddy. It doesn't matter much anyway now, does it? So might as well get ready. Your favorite person will be here before we know it."

Aelita winced when she set the animal back on her bed, listening to the way her spine cracked when she straightened. She had managed to heal herself for the most part, slowly and less thoroughly than she suspected she could before but still her training from the day before had been far from gentle. Aelita knew she was in for another bout of the same grueling work as soon as her betrothed was free to devote his time and focus to her. She winced again. His note to her that morning had explained he'd come calling the first possible moment. A sentence later he had called her 'love' and made promises for a day of relaxation together soon after. Zetzu was trying, after all, to practice being a good husband.

Just like that, her mind was back to the night before, replaying all the feelings and sensations and the bit of self-loathing that came along with it. She attempted to shake away the unpleasantness as she pulled her nightdress up over her aching shoulders. She reminded herself when she reached for a fresh tunic that she was beginning to get her Prince right where she wanted him. If anything he had said in the bathhouse had been at least a fraction true she could use him. This was her opportunity to end the war that had plagued the world for a hundred years, and if she had to further damn her soul, so be it. She could be smart. She could play the long game. She had survived this long, hadn't she? If she didn't survive this by the end, so be it, as long as she finished the job she and Aang had set out to do together.

It was just then as she thought about togetherness that Aelita realized that Zetzu had consistently referred to himself the night before as 'we'.

Chapter Text

Toph and Kyojuro were like a pair of kids in a sweets shop when they learned that even space rock was bendable. Their giddy excitement faded when Sokka told them to quit playing because apparently what he wanted was more important. They were well and annoyed by the time they made it to Piandao's estate, carting along what was likely a too-large piece of the meteorite. 

Sokka ignored their grumbled complaints and protests, leading the charge with an eager joy that he hadn't felt in some time. He could admit that Kyojuro had been right - he needed this. He needed the bittersweet peace he felt as he imagined Aelita going through so many of the same motions, though he had learned casually from Fat that while the Master took few students, even fewer spent their days by his forge. Sokka knew that his girl, like many others, left Piandao still carrying the sword she had come with. Still, he could so easily imagine her smiling beside him as he led his friends past the village to the sprawling estate, the earthbenders truly doing the heavy lifting while he and Katara pretended to push. 

Despite their initial reluctance, neither Toph nor Kyojuro complained. They missed seeing this version of Sokka - confident and determined and buzzing with excitement when he finally pounded the knockers to the estate gates. His teacher answered, stepping outside to asses the boulder and the group of teens pushing it. The tanned-skinned girl was too much a mirror of her brother to be anyone other than the fiercesome Katara of Pakku's praise. Piandao pegged the Beifong girl by the cloudy whites of her sightless eyes. He guessed the third to be the missing Hashibira Prince to his relief. And even with his arrows hidden, Piandao knew he stood in the presence of the last airbender.

Of course, the swordsman was keen to keep his knowledge to himself, at least for a little while longer. "Who's this with you?"

Shit.

"Oh, these are my friends that I was telling you about. The ones traveling with me. Just other good Fire Nation folks," Sokka rambled, caught off guard by his Master's unexpected question. He said a silent prayer of thanks when the older man seemed to believe him, letting the excitement back into his voice when Piandao bowed kindly to his friends. "Anyway, do you think we can make a sword out of a meteorite?"

Piandao only stopped to consider for a moment before he grinned.  "We'll make a sword unlike any other in the world."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Aelita was certain her luck finally ran out when she found Azula waiting at her door. "Princess."

The other girl only grinned at the indifference. Her hair hung long and straight, only a few pieces pulled back from her face. She wore loose-fitting pants similar to the ones Ty Lee favored, the skim of her stomach showing through the robe tossed lazily over the sleeveless top that stopped just past her ribs. "Really now, Aelita. Is there any need for formalities? We're practically sisters." 

"I suppose we are," Aelita agreed with half her body still hidden behind the door she held open, one foot planted firmly on top of Mushu's tail to prevent him from trying to bare his teeth at the Princess. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Oh, I just had to check on you myself," Azula fretted, almost believable with her hands clutched in front of her chest. "Dad and I have been just so worried about you, 'Lita. I mean, how could we not be? You collapsed the night of your engagement, and even the Fire Lord's best healers couldn't tell why. It was all rather terrifying really, so we decided it would be best to let you rest." Slowly the fake concern on her face turned to something more conniving as she continued. "So imagine our shock when we hear that not only are you up and well enough to visit the royal spa, but you've been training again as well. Of course, while we admire your dedication, Father and I fear that you may be doing too much too soon. So, he sent me to keep an eye on you today. Isn't that just touching?”

Aelita knew the smell of bullshit when it was spewed her way. Still, she steeled herself against her sister-to-be and painted a soft smile on her face. "Very much so. Send your father my thanks."

"Oh, I intend to," Azula purred. "Now, you be sure you tell my brother he should feel that way. Zetzu was so ungrateful when I offered to fetch you myself. He acts as if he's worried I might torment you," She prattled off, waiting as the Akira stepped out into the hall and pulled the door shut before her four-legged friend could follow. Just to be contrary, the Princess linked their arms together like old gossiping girlfriends might. If the feigned intimacy bothered Aelita, she didn't show it. "Though I do suppose it bodes a good sign for your future. Marriage arrangements like these so rarely have happy endings, but he seems so enamored with you that I have to wonder if yours be the exception."

"He's enamored with impressing your Father, Princess, though I am grateful for his honor and kindness. Zetzu understands that he has several key years to make up for," Aelita said as they walked. "Years where you and Prince Zuko thrived. I'm but a means to his end, a tool for him to better serve the Fire Lord. I'm not at all surprised to hear he's concerned with my well-being." 

The corner of Azula's mouth tilted upwards. "If you were any more cynical I'd start to think you were Mai. Speaking of my good friend, Zuko looks to be as smitten with her and Zetzu is with you. As a sister, I'm delighted."

Aelita was confident that Azula was both competent enough and observant enough to see Zuko and Mai's relationship for what it was - making the best out of a situation neither were likely to see their selves out of. She was equally confident that she was being baited for a reaction. Anyone with even half an understanding of Mai could see that she was in love with Ty Lee. "As am I, Princess. They deserve to be happy together."

"It doesn't bother you?" Azula challenged. "Given your history with my brother?"

"I made the choices that led me here, and I live with the results. The Fire Lord was generous enough to spare me, and yet he honors me by still allowing me into his family. I'm grateful."

"Well, well," Azula purred, genuinely pleased with the prospect of breaking down this sister-to-be of hers bit by bit. "I'm glad to see your years in bad company did little to dull your manners. I wish I could say the same for my brothers. Girl to girl, this is the last thing I wanted to do today. Watching you exercise, that is," She clarified as they descended the steps that would lead them to the vast, open training rooms. "While I'm thrilled to spend time with you, this all just feels rather pointless to me. What's the point in 'training' when Father still hasn't granted you back your bending? Sure, there's something to be said about the fundamentals, but we all know that wars aren't won with strong arms and pretty faces." 

Aelita grinned to hide her surprise. "You think I'm pretty?"

Azula rolled her eyes and continued on with ramblings that Aelita didn't bother listening to. The Princess was certainly clever enough to play dumb just to see how the Akira would react, but Aelita was willing to bet that Zetzu was far more clever given his confessions the night before. If the rest of his family believed her to still be powerless, then it would be a damn smart move on his part. She found the Prince in question pacing in the hall outside the high-ceilinged training space by the time she and Azula arrived, his twin looking far less stressed and just the faintest bit annoyed as he leaned against the opposite wall. 

"For fucks sake, Azula," Zetzu hissed. "We've been waiting for you for nearly an hour."

Aelita glanced over at the Princess. She merely shrugged. "It's a large palace, Zetzu. It takes some time to get from place to place."

When Zetzu poised to rip their sister's head off, Zuko cut off, stalking towards the training room doors. "It doesn't matter," He said evenly, glancing over his shoulder to Aelita and ignoring his siblings entirely, attempting to keep the tone light for both of their sakes. "Let's see if you ever learned the difference between footsteps and sandbags."

Aelita could see the temporary truce being offered to her. Out of equal parts habit and curiosity, she slipped out of Azula's grip and followed her old friend inside. "Are you planning on blindfolding your brother's bride right in front of him, Prince Zuko? That would be bold, even for you."

Zetzu would've been pleased to see what looked like pieces of the old Aelita falling slowly back into place had his twin not been involved, and Azula could see that written so plainly across her brother's face. Almost as curious as the Akira, she saddled up beside her middle sibling, leaning in close as she spoke. "Two for two. I'll ask you again, brother, are you going to stand for this?"

He wouldn't. Zetzu didn't bother masking the annoyance that had been there since his sister first cornered him that morning. He recognized her plotting when he saw it, especially when she casually let her plans for the day slip to Zuko as well. He'd kick himself in the ass for allowing her to rile him later but for now, he had his eyes on his brother. He was relieved to find him on the opposite side of the freshly cleaned room, standing bored with his hands in his pockets while Aelita stretched her still slightly aching muscles. 

The space held little fuss or frills. Bits of the floor and walls were scarred from fire, but the condition was still well maintained. A sparring ring had been painted in its center, the harsh black pigment meant to serve as a set of bounds in a match. The borders of the room were lined with charred and tattered practice dummies that seemed so much larger and more ominous when they were children. 

Zetzu's relief faded when he realized his brother stood barefooted and bare-chested at the edge of the practice ring. The younger Prince closed the distance between them, shrugging out of his outer robes and letting them fall carelessly to the floor as he went, his voice deceptively calm when he finally stood before the heir to their throne. "What do you think you're doing?" 

Zuko promptly decided his brother's annoyance wasn't his problem. "Assessing the Akira. I know better than anyone what her potential is."

Zetzu had to remind himself that snapping now would ruin all of his careful planning. He counted down slowly from three in his mind, painting a small, forced smile on his face. "That would hardly be appropriate now, would it?"

Aelita tried to hide her eavesdropping as she continued to loosen her body and her old friend demanded to know what his twin meant.

"It would be widely inappropriate for the two of you to stand off against one another, even for the sake of training. Look at your history and status for starters," Zetzu explained, not noticing his sister stepping out of her shoes and tying up her hair behind him. "You know as well as I do there are eyes and ears all around this palace. Can you imagine how it might sound if people were to hear you were fraternizing with the Akira after all that transpired between you?  Add in the fact that she's to marry your brother, and the entire situation becomes a scandal waiting to happen."

Zuko opened his mouth to argue but his sister beat him to the punch, Aelita's eyes trained on her as she hung her robe on one of the hooks at the edge of the room. 

"Zetzu does have a point, ZuZu, it would be highly inappropriate for you to involve yourself with Aelita. Almost," She said as she turned to face her youngest brother, "as inappropriate as it was for you and her to face one another. So I'll do it."

"What?" The twins exclaimed in unison, one in confusion and the other in disgust. "Why?"

"Because of the engagement, dummies," Azula rolled her eyes as if the reason was obvious. "Zetzu's right, as much as it pains me to admit it. There are eyes and ears all over this palace. Even servants forget their place and whisper. Last night they whispered that the Akira looked worse for wear when she journeyed from here to the royal spa. Despite how our people may feel about her, the last thing we need is for there to be rumors that the Fire Lord's youngest son puts his hands on his bride-to-be. Besides," She sighed when her brothers continued to stare and her expression softened to one so nearly genuine it was hard to distrust. "I don't want my brothers to end up in marriages like the one we were raised in. Look, " She held up a hand to quiet any objections. "I know why Zetzu insists he doesn't care when Father's around, but it's obvious to anyone with eyes that he does, and I can admit that it's nice to see. It wasn't a secret that Mom and Dad never loved one another," she said, and for once, she sounded sad and childlike. "The longer they were together, the less I think they even liked each other. They certainly didn't respect one another either, not behind closed doors, and look how we grew up because of that. I won't pretend that we're the closest siblings but you're my brothers, and I want the two of you to be happy. How happy can Zetzu really be when he looks back and remembers this?"

It took everything in Aelita to not scoff outright. Azula was good, damn good, and for now, at least, it looked to be as if she had her brothers right where she wanted them - unable to call her bluff without vilifying themselves in the process.

"Anyhow," Azula purred as she strolled into the center of the while her brothers contemplated her words, staring the other girl down as she went, "Aelita and I go way back when it comes to training together, so this will be just like old times."

"I'm sure we've both changed over the years, Princess," the Akira said as she tilted her head from side to side to crack the bones in her neck. She rolled her shoulders when she stepped into the circle, standing square before Azula, dressed in a similar fashion. "Let's find out how much."

Zetzu started to step towards his bride, hell-bent on putting an end to his sister's power play, but Zuko caught him by the shoulder.  "Let them go. They need this."

"You're a fool if you believe that," Zetzu hissed but he reluctantly glanced between Azula and Aelita before tossing his hands up in defeat. "Fine. Fine. But until Father grants Aelita her bending back," he spoke to his sister, "no fire. This isn't an Agni Kai. Hand to hand only, Azula. Fair is fair."

"Please," The Princess muttered so that only Aelita could hear. "Anything is fair in a fight."

And then it began. If Azula were any less cruel, Aelita thought to herself, she would truly be a pleasure to watch. Poised and perfect, she moved with lethal beauty, every move she made carefully calculated. If her opponent was likely to crack under pressure, she'd overwhelm them without breaking a sweat. If they'd be insulted by her indifference, she'd wait for them to make the first move. Having decided that Aelita wasn't the latter, she opted to beat her down now blow by blow, determined to prove what she had always known - that she was better.

If the loss of precious muscle had done one good thing for Aelita it made her lighter on her feet. She sidestepped the first hit thrown her way, ducked under the second, and rolled from the third. All the while Azula's eyes shone with excitement. She had waited for this day long enough, and she was going to enjoy it.  With her brothers it had been easy - there had never been a question that she had been stronger, smarter, faster. A perfectionist from the go. A firebending prodigy from the start. The best in her generation, they had claimed.

Until Sukomo Kenshin caught her grandfather's eye, and then his daughter had shown potential. She hated Aelita for that. Azula would never settle for sharing first prize. Her kick was aimed at the Akira's midsection. When Aelita caught her ankle and set up to toss the other girl away, Azula pushed fire from the sole of her foot. Zetzu cursed his sister's name as his bride skittered backward and just barely managed to avoid having her bare stomach scorched.

"Relax," Azula dismissed without slowing down, now on a fairly easy defensive as Aelita countered, her movements still not back to the speed or precision the Princess had once seen out of her. "This is good practice for Aelita," she insisted, swiping out nails she wore more like talons in a move she could claim was simply meant to knock the Akira's fist. When she 'accidentally' caught Aelita's cheek and drew blood from three fine lines, well that was just an added benefit. "Don't you want her to be able to protect herself?"

"She doesn't need you," Zetzu snapped, hating to see the red tricking down Aelita's skin. "That's enough. You two are do-"

"Stay out of this," His bride shut down the objection without remorse, shocking intended and immensely pleasing his sister. She didn't care when Azula managed to use her distraction to graze her lip hard enough to split it too, riding on the adrenaline and the surge of release she felt to let go. She didn't care what it said about her mental state, Aelita was bruised and a bit battered but she felt alive. She blocked the next hit aimed at her chin and pushed the Princess back. Aelita spat out the blood that she could taste in her mouth, letting it fall where the rest had already spilled, noting where the red lay on the stone floor. "I'm having fun, Azula, aren't you?"

The Princess merely smirked. "A blast."

Zetzu looked across the circle to his brother when the girls met in the middle once more. The look on Zuko's face read an unspoken 'I told you so', and that only pissed off the younger Prince more. Still, he was pleasantly surprised by how well Aelita was holding up, especially with Azula pulling few stops. He was thankful for the muscle memory that made up at least some for Aelita's slowly rebuilding strength and stamina. He cursed himself and Azula equally when a whisper of blue flame wrapped around her throat and made her wince. He smiled when she broke free. Cheered out loud when her foot connected Azula's ribs.

Zuko saw the shift in his sister before anyone else. She was still winning, that much there was unfortunately no denying, but Azula didn't want to just beat Aelita, she wanted to destroy her. He watched her grin despite the pain just before she changed tactics. 

"I'm so glad we got to have this quality sister time, Aelita," She said as she caught the fist thrown her way and twisted it uncomfortably between the other girl's back, wondering if she would hear a delicious pop if she pulled just a little bit harder. When Azula realized Aelita was going to break her grip with each bone in her arm in their proper position, she pushed just enough flame out of her fingertips to leave her future sister hissing at the heat. "It's just so hard to imagine that our darling little family wasn't always meant to be?" 

Aelita managed to slip away from the Princess with most of her skin intact, the fresh burns blending into the web of scars she already had. Azula pressed on before she could regain her composure, standing perfectly still with a smile on her face as she asked, "How different do you think your life would be had your father prioritized you over his military career?" When the other girl didn't stumble, blocked the duo of kicks shot at her with crossed arms, the Princess pressed on. "He wouldn't have had the chance to paint a target on his back from Zhao had he been a simple carpenter or fisherman. I bet he'd even still be alive to give you away."

Aelita wouldn't admit to anyone else that she had wondered the same thing before. Long before Zuko's banishment and often during the three years after would she lay awake at night and contemplate the what-ifs. But she wouldn't dare say that to the Princess now, so she kept her mouth firmly shut. 

They met in the middle of the circle like the glorious climax to a beautiful dance, both having planned on attacking, either holding the fist poised to strike them, Azula tightened her grip on her formal rival. "Though, I guess if General Kenshin had been anything other than what he was, you would've never been engaged to either of my brothers. You'd have never come to the Capital. Never met ZuZu. And  you'd surely have significantly less blood on your hands."

Had she not frozen, Aelita might have noticed the leg that knocked hers out from underneath her or the foot that followed directly after, planting itself squarely on her glut to slam her already falling body against the stone floor. She was fairly certain at least one of her ribs had cracked, and she was vaguely aware that she was now coughing up blood, adding to the growing pool beside her head as she tried to suck in air and slow her rapidly spiraling mind.

She had considered before that her life could've been different had her Father been any less than he was - a faceless soldier amongst the masses, or even a military dropout, a man who had downplayed his talents and abilities so that he could stay home with his daughter. She hadn't considered the fact that every choice he had made had drastically and devastatingly affected her. Azula was right, as much as she hated to admit it. If Sukomo Kenshin had never landed himself in Azulon's line of sight, she would've never fallen into it by proxy. She wouldn't have been allowed to attend the Royal Fire Academy. Wouldn't have received the education or the added attention she had, and likely wouldn't have been considered anything special. She wouldn't have met the children of Ozai. Wouldn't have been linked with Zuko. Wouldn't have had to watch her Father die or wouldn't have cared enough about Zuko to maim herself in his defense and wouldn't have been around long enough to become a replacement for Ursa to Zetzu.

And even more likely, she would've never met Aang. Shukaku and Tulan might have still come calling, but without circumstance, Aelita knew she wouldn't have had the means to find Aang after Katara and Sokka pulled him from the ice. And even if she did, would she have wanted to? If her Dad hadn't gotten himself killed, would she have cared enough to do the right thing? Probably not, and that realization hurt. Suddenly Zetzu's notion that she had been driven purely by revenge didn't seem so far off.

All because her Dad had wanted to be a soldier more than he wanted to be a father.

"I believe that's match," Azula declared even as Aelita pushed herself up shakily, her youngest brother praying loudly for her demise while rushed for supplies to clean up his bride, the oldest watching the Akira on bated breath. Content for the day and already looking forward to the next time she had the chance to torment her sister-to-be, the Princess turned to step out of the sparring ring. She stopped with one foot out of the circle when her old rival called out for her. 

"Then finish it," Aelita taunted, hands braced on her knees as she tried to catch her breath, smiling like a mad woman with blood still dripping from her torn cheek and busted lip. "Let's stop bullshitting with ourselves and acting like you don't want to. Do it, LaLa. Finish me. Prove you're the best once and for all."

Azula knew there was a very real chance that Zetzu would try to kill her but she had already decided it was well worth the risk when she took the first step back toward Aelita. She moved quickly, well aware that she only had mere seconds to strike before either of her brothers jumped to defend the girl that both they and their Mother had always loved more than her, and in that knee-jerk reaction, in her deeply seeded desire to assert herself on top, she let her guard down just enough. Azula didn't notice that the blood she had reveled in drawing was now frozen where it lay. She closed the distance between her and Aelita in three fell strides, the Akira still smiling as she offered the Princess the very same eye that Zuko nearly lost. Poetic justice, Azula thought, that their brother's bride would be more of a twin to him than Zetzu had ever been. Her palm filled with wicked blue flame as she took the final step that would brand Aelita for what she was.

And then she slipped so slightly that it would've been hardly noticeable to anyone other than herself had Aelita not expected it. Still, it was enough. As Azula shifted her weight to counterbalance the sloppy motion, the other girl rose, bringing up her knee at the same moment that the Princess found herself just barely off of the Akira's center.

Later Azula would believe she had been more in shock than she had been in pain when Aelita's knee slammed into her groan. It stung, that was for damn sure, but she was a woman and cheap shots below the belt tended to be reserved for men. But Aelita capitalized on that same shock, and when the Princess began to double over her, she cut a closed fist upward to catch Azula squarely under her chin. Her brothers watched with slacked jaws as she was effectively laid out, her skull bouncing off the floor with a hard crack reminiscent of Ba Sing Se.

And then Aelita was on top of her. Before Azula could even comprehend what had just happened, a scarred fist slammed into the side of her temple. And then another. And another. And another. Over and over Aelita pounded her hands into the other girl's face, vaguely aware of the blood coating her knuckles, unsure and uncaring if it were hers or Azula's as years worth of rage, pain, and humiliation poured out of her like lava. Hot tears that she didn't know she had left in her rolled down her cheeks and the low, guttural sounds she made danced somewhere between a sob and a battle cry. With every cock of her arm she saw another battered face of that had wronged her laying limp beneath her. 

Azula. Ozai. Zetzu. Zuko. Her Father. Her Father. Her Father.

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Piandao insisted Sokka fetch his friends before he was presented with his finished sword. After too long apart, anyone was sure to worry, even if the swordsmen knew the Avatar and the waterbender had watched from a sky bison disguised as a cloud. The forging process had taken nearly a day and a half, but as the master swordsmen finished the final stitching on the sheath that he made for the boy himself, he knew the blade meant to sit inside it had been well worth the time.

 And he was so very, very proud.

He recalled the look on Sokka's face as he held the chisel while Fat beat away at the meteorite with a massive hammer, the warrior already able to see the sword inside. He held on to every word his teacher spoke from there, breaking down the smaller bits of ore himself, shoveling coal bare-chested and sweating without complaint, stoking the rolling forge with his breath, waiting throughout the night for the meteorite inside to form into something moldable, sleeping only when he was sure the heat he tended to would hold. Under Piandao's watchful eye, Sokka had pulled a bucket of molten ore from the forge that morning with long metal tongs, careful to pour the material into the mold of a blade. Then came the hammering, heating, hammering, heating of the red-hot sword until it was thin and fine and strong.

Sokka thought of loved ones lost as he worked, their names ringing in his mind with each strike. His Mom. Yue. Hell, even Jet. Aelita. Aelita. Aelita. 

When the black blade was finally given the nod of approval, Piandao watched the pride and joy wash over his boy. And then Sokka slept like the dead while Fat and his teacher handcrafted his hilt, a practice that he started for any of his students who had come to craft their own blades. A little more than two decades ago he had done the same for the man whose surname Sokka claimed. The thought was bittersweet, and it brought a sad smile to Piandao's face. Similar in ways, different in others, but both young men that he had come to adore. So he let Sokka sleep as he worked, and when the boy woke he sent him off to gather his family. The admiration for him shone in their eyes as they watched now from the balcony above the training grounds, waiting for Piandao to present their friend with his finished sword.

"Sokka, when you first arrived, you were so unsure, you even seemed down on yourself, but I saw something in you right away. I saw a heart as strong as a lion turtle, and twice as big. And as we trained, it wasn't your skills that impressed me." Piandao recalled as Sokka knelt before him. Fat approached silently, bowing and offering his Master the weapon that had been polished to perfection. It felt good in Piandao's hands, even if it wasn't his. He could recognize a work of art when he saw it.

The blade was dark as night and strong, the handle a deep mahogany with a gold-tipped guard. The sheath was simple dark brown, straight and adorned with a gold plate inlay about midway down its length. The tip was rectangular and adorned with a stylized symbol of a white lotus in fine filigree, another etched into the end of the sword's grip. A fine s piece for an exceptionally fine young man.

"No, it certainly wasn't your skills," Piandao smiled. When Sokka hung his head in sheepish shame, he surprised him. "You showed something beyond that. Creativity, versatility, intelligence, and heart," Piandao continued, pulling the blade free from its cover and punctuating each praise with a gentle glide of the black. "These are the traits that define a great swordsman, and these are the traits that define you."

Piandao sheathed the sword, kneeling before the young warrior he genuinely admired, placing it in Sokka's gently trembling hands. "You told me you didn't know if you were worthy, but I believe that you are more worthy than any student I have ever trained."

Sokka looked from his teacher to the sword he now held, overwhelmed by emotion, guilt, and genuine disbelief at the words spoken. He knew one of Piandao's students personally, and he knew just as well that he would only ever be half the person that she was. "I'm sorry, Master," Sokka said as he set the sword on the ground, stunning both the teacher and his friends. "You're wrong. I'm not worthy, and I'm not who you think I am. I'm not from the Fire Nation. I'm from the Southern Water Tribe. I lied so that I could learn swordsmanship from you. I'm sorry."

Piandao was only all the more impressed, even if he wouldn't yet admit it, only wishing the boy could see himself for what he truly was. "I'm sorry too."

Sokka had just enough time to jerk his new sword free from its cover before Piandao swung at him with the blade on his hip. The younger warrior managed to parry the unexpected strike, and for a split second, he considered backing down. He was outclassed, and there was no denying it, but dammit if Sokka didn't know that giving up would only somehow be worse.

"No!" He called out to his friends, the four of them already moving to rush to his side as he pushed Piandao's blade away from him, his own held firmly before him with new determination in his eyes. "This is my fight alone."

His teacher was only more proud. Piandao didn't wait for Sokka then, moving with grace and light feet as he began his attack. Four rapid blows were blocked, the sound of metal on metal echoing through the estate. Sokka lunged blade first, bold and riding off adrenaline. Piandao sidestepped, stabbing out in a way that could've done serious damage had the boy not moved. From where Aang and Katara stood, the back and forth below was every bit the dance that Aelita described it as. Piandao swept for Sokka's legs, but Sokka glided like his Master. When he shot towards the swordsmen again, Piandao slammed the palm of his hand into Sokka's chest, sending the boy tumbling backward until his back connected with the pillar of the small bridge that ran across a gentle stream. Moving quickly the Sokka climbed up onto the flat pillar, launching himself from rail to rail as he evaded each of Piandao's ferocious blows.

"Excellent!" The master genuinely praised, either not knowing or not caring that he had the boy effectively running. "Using your superior agility against an older opponent...smart."

Piandao chased the warrior past the bridge and up the stone steps to the bamboo gardens, each strike of his sword blocked despite Sokka's growing panic. He cornered him against the stairway wall, cutting and slashing with all his might. Sokka danced and ducked and dodged, far more nimble than he would've ever given himself credit for being, Piandao's sword slicing deep gashes into the rock behind him. He lunged with some slight desperation at the first opening he had, planting his feet on the wall and pushing hard to propel forward. The attack missed its mark but Sokka saw the opportunity to scale the opposite and took it. He stood above Piandao now, blocking the incoming blows with more ease, returning his own swings in rapid succession.

"Good use of terrain," Piandao observed out loud, "Fighting from the high ground."

His student was fairing damn well, especially when the turmoil on his face was so painfully obvious to see. Sokka caught Piandao off guard when the older man swung at his feet, stepping on top of his own sword to pin the other down. The reprieve only lasted for a moment before Piandao managed to break free, sending Sokka skittering backward. When the boy noticed the bamboo behind him he dove into the droves headfirst, slicing wildly at the plants as he ran, unsure how far behind his Master really was, hoping the falling stalks would grant him at least a little time.

"Yes, use your surroundings!" The swordsmen cheered as he used his own blade to cut through the debris. He watched as Sokka rounded a slight turn in the growth, bending a particularly hefty stock as he ran so it snapped back at his teacher. Piandao was grinning as he chopped the whipping piece down. "Make them fight for you!"

Sokka was fairly certain this would be where he died. The panic inside of him only continued to rise, his doubts in himself threatening to swallow him hole. If Piandao knew or cared, he didn't show it, chasing him out of the bamboo and back through the paved courtyard with no mercy. That would be his only saving grace, Sokka thought, because his friends, all so much more capable than him, would come to his rescue, just like they always did because all he was good for was comedic relief. 

The whole world would learn about Aang once he exposed himself, and then Sokka would be able to do nothing but watch as yet another one of his plans went down the drain. Distracted, he glanced over his shoulder as he ran and realized he had lost his teacher. He just barely managed to skid across the ground when Piandao swung at his head, less than an arm's length away from where Sokka had just been standing. The warrior tossed his sword around blindly as he stumbled back to his feet, kicking up a cloud of dirt and dust as his blade scraped against the earth, sending the cloud of haze directly into the older man's eyes.

The pain was only mild Piandao found he couldn't blink the mess away, leaving him temporarily blinded. "Very resourceful."

He could end this now, one way or the other. Pride be damned, Sokka was prepared to tuck his tail between his legs and run now that he had the opportunity. He'd be a coward before he'd ever be a killer, so he crept away slowly step by step, his eyes locked on his teacher the entire time. He cursed himself silently for effectively spitting on the memory of the girl he loved and continued to back away, not noting the nest of fallen twigs behind him. The subtle snap of breaking wood was enough for Piandao, even without his sight. By sheer luck alone Sokka managed to block the blow before he was skewered clean through, but fear and loathing had left his hands trembling and his grip light. His own sword was knocked from his hands, flying across the yard to bury itself in the dirt just out of reach. He tripped over his own feet when Piadao swung at his midsection and soon found himself Sokka on his back before he ever realized that he had fallen. When he blinked up, the pointed edge of a sword was aimed directly at his face.

They were over the balcony railing and running then, the Avatar in the lead and his friends close behind. Before any of the four could act further, Piandao grinned. "Excellent work, Sokka," he praised, pulling his blade away from the boy's face, chuckling at the quickly approaching steps, not bothering to face them when he declared, "I think I'm a little old to be fighting the Avatar."

Everyone froze, each one of them staring at the swordsmen with unblinking eyes  "How did you know?" Aang finally asked after some time.

"Oh," Piandao only smiled more. "I've been around a while. You pick things up." He pulled out a handkerchief to wipe the sweat and dirt from his face. "Especially when one of your former students turns out to be the Akira. I've learned a lot about you from a distance, Avatar Aang. Of course, I knew from the beginning that Sokka was Water Tribe," He said, eyes twinkling when he looked at his still stunned student, already having decided that he would keep his contact with Pakku and Roshi a secret for at least a little while longer. "You might want to think of a better Fire Nation cover name. Try Lee. There's a million Lee's. Just not Lee Kenshin."

"Kenshin? Really, Captain Boomerang, that was the best you could come up with?"

"I panicked!"

"I don't understand," Katara said before Piandao could laugh at the innocence of the moment. "Why would you agree to train someone from the Water Tribe?"

"The way of the sword doesn't belong to any one nation. Knowledge of the arts belongs to us all," Piando explained, and though it had been equally to quell his own curiosity, he kept that part to himself as well. Sokka didn't need the additional weight of that sort of judgment on his shoulders, not when he had passed with flying colors. Piandao handed his own sword to a waiting Fat, moving to where his students still stood speared into the ground to pull it free. Piandao admired its beauty one final time before passing it back to his boy, bowing as he did. "Sokka, you must continue your training on your own. If you stay on this path, I know that one day you will become an even greater master than I am."

Sokka clutched the sword to his chest as he bowed back to his Master. When they rose, both light-hearted and grinning, Piandao's eyes twinkled with mischief. "But if you tell Aelita I said that one day, I will be forced to deny it. I have a reputation to maintain after all."

The smile on Sokka's face dropped and the air in the courtyard grew heavy. "Aelita?"

"Of course. I spent much of my life with she and her father. I assumed you knew. I'm quite fond of her."

Sokka felt his heart break a little inside, and the look on his loved ones' faces told him that they assumed the same - that somehow, some way, Piandao didn't know. "No, I knew that, but Master..." Sokka trailed off, looking for the gentlest way to convey the horrible reality. "Don't you...know what happened? In Ba Sing Se? To Aelita?"

Piandao's eyes darkened. "It would be nearly impossible to ignore the whispers, but I know her heart, and I try not to listen. Even if the Avatar were not standing here before me today, I would know the things they say about Aelita Kenshin could not be true." 

Nearly impossible, but not completely. Thus far the broken family had managed to avoid the talk of their friend's death, afraid that not one of them would be able to stand for hearing people cheer Aelita's demise, but now, listening to Piandao's obvious disgust, their curiosity was too great. "What are they saying about Aelita?" Sokka asked, his voice barely above a whisper. "And why does it matter? She's gone, Master. She died during the coup on Ba Sing Se."

Had he not heard from Iroh himself Piandao might have feared the same but - oh. Oh. Suddenly so much of the way the boy carried himself took on a whole new meaning. 

They didn't know. 

Piandao looked to his old friend for reassurance and when Fat nodded solemnly, he decided the truth would come best from him. "They claim that she killed the last airbender, and that her engagement is her reward."

The courtyard went silent for several long, painful minutes and then suddenly five teen voices cried out at once, cursing and questioning on ragged breaths, each of them growing in volume as they went until finally Sokka shouted over the roar. They silenced in unison, and five sets of eyes watched the swordsmen as their leader dared to ask, "What engagement?"

"To the Fire Lord's son. Akira Aelita is alive."

Chapter Text

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Azula wore the bruises on her face like a badge of honor as she strode into the throne room an hour after her miserable defeat. She hadn't dared delay her Father any longer by trying to hide the damning evidence. She was smart enough to know that her shortcomings would've already made their way to him by now, and she was enough like him to understand that the summons he sent for her had been meant to make her squirm.

'Pull yourself together before you report to me.'

Azula hadn't so much as flinched. Not when she stripped away her blood-stained clothes and set them to ash. Not while she ached and throbbed as she cleaned her wounds. Not even when her Father left her to wallow in her shame outside of the throne room for a miserable thirty minutes before she was allowed to enter. No, when the Fire Lord finally deigned that he was ready for her, Azula kept her head high even as she found her brothers already there, the two of them kneeling before the wall of fire and their remaining parent. She dropped between the pair without a word, the undeniable center and current focus of their family.

It was only the second time that Ozai had called all three of his children together in four long years. He believed it far easier to see their true colors when he had them before him one-on-one, but even that was a thing of rarity for his sons in a way that it wasn't for his daughter. Old habits died hard, and it had never been more painfully apparent than it was now as the Fire Lord looked down upon the face of the only child he had ever truly been proud of.

"It's a shame that Admiral Zhao did not make it back to us, Princess Azula. He could have warned you about the repercussions of holding onto childhood rivalries, and saved you from all this disgrace."

Azula knew better than to speak, even if some part of her broke beneath the weight of disgust that had never been aimed at her. Still, ready to accept whatever lashing she might receive, she stared into her Father's flames and imagined that her fate lay somewhere inside his fire.

Good, Ozai thought to himself, though he wouldn't dare admit the approval out loud. Not when it would do his daughter better to embrace her humiliation. The Fire Lord had already advised his healers to turn her away should she approach, though he doubted her pride would allow her to do so in the first place. "I will let your current state serve as punishment enough, just this once Princess Azula. Do not disappoint me again."

"Now Father, you're being harsh. I'd consider the entire experience quite enlightening."

Three sets of golden eyes locked onto Zetzu, the epitome of cool disposition where he knelt, Azula having not even had time to respond. Zuko wanted to scream, maybe even more so than their sister did, but he remained silent from the opposite side of the throne, and hoped his brother didn't damn Aelita further. The younger Prince didn't wait for the Fire Lord to question him. "How much do you know about the Spirit State, Father?"

The Fire Lord glared at the interruption. "Enough."

"Of course, but for my brother and sister's sake, I'll remind them that the Spirit State typically arises when the wielder experiences extreme levels of distress. Now, I'm confident that had Akira Aelita not been under the effects of the poison that leashes her abilities, we would've seen her in that State this evening. Instead, the reaction we observed was merely a small fraction of what she's capable of, something I'm sure that Prince Zuko can attest to seeing as he has bore the most witness to her abilities. Which," Zetzu continued, only speaking to their Father, "is a positive sign for you as her holder, because I worried that my bride may have broken a bit too thoroughly for her to experience this sort of distress or anguish easily. Given her relative lack of resistance or reaction during the past weeks, I was beginning to fear that we may need to resort to drastic measures to coax this power out of her."

Ozai shifted in his throne. "Drastic how?"

"Well, we might've needed to sacrifice my brother."

The room fell holy silent other than the crackling sounds of still burning fire. Azula watched their Father for his reaction, already convinced that her siblings were up to something, even if she didn't know what. Ozai watched his middle child, wondering if his second son was more like him than he had ever realized. And Zuko - Zuko could do little but watch the dancing wall of flame before him. As his brother's words settled, he considered that this might've been how Zetzu had felt as a child, spoken over and unnecessary.

But the Prince in question just continued to smile. "Temporarily, of course."

The leash on Zuko's control finally snapped.

"Temporarily?" He hissed, the aftershock of what felt like betrayal rocking through him. "How do you temporarily sacrifice someone?"

Zetzu scoffed as if every word he had spoken since they entered the throne room hadn't been calculated and crafty. "By acting, naturally. What kind of monster do you think I am, Prince Zuko?" He asked as he watched the fruits of his labor unfold around him. "I care far too much about our family's stability and legacy to risk one of its main players."

Zetzu knew the moment when his cleverness hit home. He could see the way their Father shifted one more in his throne, this time leaning into the interaction. Zetzu was confident that the brute was considering how far his youngest son was willing to go for him.

And it took everything in Zuko not to lunge. "How considerate of you."

"Oh relax, brother," Zetzu dismissed his twin with a wave. "After all, you're the reason our Father now holds the Akira in the first place. The last time she went into the Spirit State was to protect you, was it not?" The Prince charged on when his sibling didn't answer. "Now, as I was saying, I was beginning to fear that we may need to resort to feigning a threat on your life to elicit such power out of Aelita again, but if we can continue to foster her will and her well-being until the time is right, then I believe that we won't have to gamble with your life."

"Pity," Azula remarked mainly to herself, but her temper still flared nonetheless when the men of her family ignored her outright. She seethed. "Why should we waste valuable time or resources coddling the Akira? She might be too smart to bother rebelling against us but at the end of the day she's our prisoner, is she not?"

"She's our weapon," Zetzu challenged. "Our tool. A swordsman sharpens his blade. A soldier repairs his armor. A sailor maintains his ship. A cavalryman cares for his steed. They do this, Princess Azula, so that the tools they use will serve them better in battle. The same can be said of Aelita. Which," Zetzu said, looking back to their Father, "is why I say we should reward her for her cooperation and good behaviors recently."

Zuko and Azula were too stunned to argue.

"How?"

"By treating her with a certain level of dignity, respect, and trust. Keep her bending under lock until you're confident in her surrender, but grant her more freedom. Let her roam the palace, interact with the servants, and visit the city proper if she chooses - all with guards of course. Allow her to remember that she's a citizen of this Nation, and watch her fall in love with her people once more. Play into her servant's heart so that even if she struggles to serve us, she at least hopes to serve them. Let her move on from her mistakes and this mess with her father, all the while recalling our generosity.  In time, Akira Aelita will grow back into the woman you and Grandfather expected her to be when she was first selected for Zuko. A Princess like our Mother, but better."

"She is not our Mother," Zuko spoke through his teeth, willing his voice into a cool tone despite his struggle to contain himself with the audience surrounding him, one of whom he feared he had yet to impress since his arrival back home. "She's a person. Not some beast like a komodo rhino or a mongoose lizard that you can train with treats and affection."

"People are trainable too," Zetzu quickly countered. "We were, weren't we?"

Zuko only clenched his fists where he still knelt and glared.

"We will try things your way, Prince Zetzu," Ozai spoke before his sons could come to blows though he was interested in seeing which of the two might come out on top. "To an extent. For now. But you will be the one tasked with her supervision."

The younger Prince merely grinned and his older twin saw red. But Zuko had learned in these last weeks since he had been home. Perhaps more slowly than his siblings did, but he learned nonetheless. He and Zetzu were a mirror image down to all but differing scars they bore as his scowl faded into a smile, Zuko's words laced with mock concern. "However will you manage, brother, when there is already so much on your plate?"

When their Father arched a confused brow at his twin, Zuko knew he had successfully planted the seed he needed, because his implication could only mean one of two things.

The Prince had either been complaining about the tasks he was given, or he was acting without the Fire Lord's blessing.

Zetzu's smile dropped. "I'll handle just fine brother, though your concern is noted."

Snubbed and not one to be left out, Azula nearly purred when she smelt the opportunity arising, some warped part of her brain thinking that their Mother would be proud if she could see how quickly she came to Zuko's aid. "Are you sure, Prince Zetzu?" She asked, mimicking the worry in their eldest sibling's tone. "I mean - you've hardly had the time to see your bride since her illness. You spent nearly three days locked in your quarters, working until so late into the night that you worried the servants."

The Prince nearly paled, and it was all the confirmation either his brother or sister needed to know his hours spent sending away anyone who dared draw too close hadn't been sanctioned by their Father. The Fire Lord rose before the boy could so much as speak.

"Leave us," he said to his other children. "I want to hear what has kept my Master of War so occupied as of lately."

Unaware of the hostility rising on the opposite side of the palace, Aelita didn't flinch as Kanao continued to fuss over the bruises and burns that she wouldn't have bothered with had she been left alone. Tucked now into the relative safety of her quarters, she saw no point. She hadn't uttered a single word since she had issued that final challenge to Azula, only broken sobs falling from her lips until they too had faded with her resolve.

Desperate for some sort of reaction, Mushu nipped and licked at her fingertips as her arms lay limp over the sides of the tub in her washroom, the water already having been drained and replaced twice after it ran red with the blood of both the Princess and the Akira. Aelita didn't have it in her to care. Didn't have the energy to feel. She had cried out all of the rage and hurt as Zuko dragged her kicking and screaming from the sparring ring, a part of her still wondering if she had broken his nose when he first tried to pull her off of Azula. She had listened to the sounds of his brother's wild, proud laughter when she finally allowed the Prince to lead her away from the training room, Zetzu staying back to deal with their already raging sister. And now she had nothing left in her to give, to be, or to do.

There wouldn't have been a single thing that Zuko could've said or done to soothe her when she fully shattered on their way back to her room. She had been vaguely aware of the eyes that watched them as they went, barely able to register the panic in Kanao when her handmaiden met them halfway. And Aelita had been too thoroughly destroyed to have noticed the regret and concern on her old friend's face when she was all but whisked from his grasp.

She'd have to thank Kanao for that later, but with no tears left in her to cry, she just didn't care. The physical pain was minor compared to the turmoil that wanted to rear its ugly head once more, and there wasn't a damn thing in this world any handmaiden or healer could do for her heart.  She didn't bother to look at the other girl when she asked, "Is this what I was destined for, Kanao?"

The servant stiffened with one hand still holding a cool rag to the young friend's bruised face. Kanao was kneeling next to the tub that she had purposefully filled to the brim with bubbles and oils in an attempt to pamper and distract, her own heart thundering in her chest as she tilted her head to show her confusion.

"I never asked for this," Aelita croaked, her throat raw from the emotion she hadn't been able to stop before. "To be a pawn in a game I was too naive to play." Beneath her quivering hand, Mushu stilled, hanging on to his humans every sad word. "I never wanted to be a Princess or symbol. I just wanted to firebend and be happy and figure out the rest as I went. Now I can't do either. Firebend, or be happy."

Even if Kanao could speak she didn't think she could find the right words for the sad girl she had grown to care for. She removed the cool cloth from the Akira's cheek, pleasantly relieved to see the swelling had already started to go down as she reached for the sweet little ferret she had also come to adore, hoping she managed to get her point across as she scooped him up and plopped him along the edge of the tub so he could rest his head on Aelita's trembling shoulder. Wanting to show the admiration she couldn't voice, she released the younger girl's silver hair from the braid she had tied it in that morning, running her fingers softly through the curls.

Aelita closed her eyes and leaned into the kindness she didn't deserve. She didn't know what answer she was looking for, didn't know if she wanted to find out, so she let her fractured mind drift off to somewhere far away as the maiden gently soaked her hair and began to lather. Her heart chipped away just a little more when she thought of the times her father had done the same when she was a girl, but she didn't want to think about him, not now, but it was almost worse she suddenly remembered Katara instead, washing dried blood from her hair with the kindest touch Aelita had ever known. Katara and Toph both, the latter holding her hand when she broke then too, something Aelita thought she did far too often. Katara and Toph with her in Kyojuro's personal sanctuary, the forgotten Prince of the Earth Kingdom more generous than he ever should've been considering the life he lived. Katara, Toph and Kyojuro, because Sokka and Aang were waiting for her just down the hall, neither of them willing to stray far from her side.

Aang and the way he had looked at her then like he never wanted to be apart again. Aang who had almost immediately left afterwards with her to master the Spirit State. Aang and the way he had delayed that journey just to give her a helpful nudge toward happiness. Aang who she had quarreled with right before she supposedly killed him.

Aang. Aang. Aang.

And there he was, calling her name on a sad wind right back.

Aelita jolted up ramrod straight, blue eyes glowing against her pale skin. She clutched the edge of the tub with white knuckles, her mouth slightly agape as some part of herself tried to snap back into place, another tendril of her very being reaching out for a person that was neither wholly there nor far. She couldn't see him, not really, and she didn't hear him, but Aelita felt the familiar thrum of Aang's distant soul as it hummed a tune only hers could recognize.

He was there, and then he was gone.

Kanao had nearly gone into a frenzy, utterly convinced the Akira's heart was going to stop as the girl heaved in a deep, ragged breath, choking on the air that wouldn't quite go down. She held Aelita's clammy face in her hands to look for any sign of impending doom, but the maiden recognized her friend in the haunting blues that looked back at her. Still, relief flooded Kanao's veins when the glow faded and dull amber took its place. Mushu was already there too. He had splashed and flailed his way through the soapy water to sit on his girl's knee once more, his wet head now pressed to hers. Kanao saw Aelita focus on him as her breathing slowly returned to normal, and for a moment, she considered weeping too.

But Aelita was too wrapped up in the realizations of the day to recognize the fear or solace on either of her loved ones' faces because she knew without a doubt now that Aang was alive, and blood was bendable.

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Kyojuro felt like an intruder for the first time as the broken world his friends lived in continued to implode around them in an entirely new way. Aelita was alive, and they had mourned that life during three additional days they spent with Piandao in largely the same manner that they had mourned her death.

There was denial. Until late into the first night there had been nothing but denial. Katara and Kyojuro saw Aelita fall. They saw her father's blade buried too deeply inside her chest. They saw the blood, the insurmountable amounts of blood, and there was just no possible way, dammit. And Aang, hadn't he tried to find her? The very night he came to he had insisted on reaching out for her and she had been gone, so they had gradually started to come to terms with the fact that she was. But Piandao was insistent that his information was sure and true. Deserter or not, he was still well enough respected to have trained the Fire Lord's oldest son for a time, and he had made it a point to stay in the know even now.

'But we would've heard if she were still alive by now, right?'

Kyojuro had tried to question the swordsman in an attempt to mask his guilt because there was no way in hell the information of Aelita's capture and engagement hadn't spread. But this was a nation of islands after all, and they were still on one of the farthest from the Capital. Piandao said he only knew because he had been listening. Still, no one wanted to believe the man easily because they had accepted Aelita was gone already, even if they had just barely begun to heal.

But Aang looked for her, just one final time, and when he did, he found she was there, and with his discovery came the rage. Rapid and molten and aimed at anyone in its path. The Prince of the Earth Kingdom still sported the faint bruise on his chin where his best friend had swung at him.

'You said there was no point! You said she was dead! I wanted to go back for them and you wouldn't let me and now look at what's happening! We should've gone back!"'

Kyojuro was just thankful that Sokka's anger had been pointed at him rather than the others because he could admit he had less devastation to claim than the others. But he was angry too, dammit, because if Aelita was indeed alive, then why had she not burned this entire spirits-forsaken nation to the ground? Why was she allowing herself to be paraded around as a Prince's bride if she didn't want to be one again?

It was the wrong question to ask. The implication behind it nearly broke the family apart on the spot, Toph understanding where he came from, the other three adamant that if they could even think that Aelita had changed sides, then they must not have known her at all. So no one spoke the rest of the evening, and tension and silence held until the next morning when Piandao found his student's little sister slipping from her bed with little more than a stolen map and the clothes on her back, determined to bring her best friend home.

It had taken the swordsman several hours to convince her that if they stormed the Capital now, they'd only end up dead, and the what-ifs and the maybes that went along with his words might have been the hardest part. It nearly ate Kyojuro alive to see Katara break, never once having considered the otherworldly guilt she would have carried for feeling as if she saved one loved one but not the other. But if her tears had managed to do one thing for the fractured few, it had soothed their anger, even just a little. They made promises then, to themselves and to whoever or whatever might be listening, to do and be better, not if they got Aelita back but when.

But the desperation and despair came charging in like a saber tooth moose lion that same night and Kyojuro swore there hadn't been a dry eye in sight as Piandao reminisced about the child he had known and loved like his own. And through it all, Kyojuro couldn't help but feel there was still something the older man wasn't telling them.

Maybe he was just a cynic. He was almost certain he was on the final morning when his friends seemed to come back to life bit by bit, when he was still just numb. Saving Aelita became just as much their purpose as defeating the Fire Lord. And he wanted it too, really, because he wanted to believe he had witnessed the Akira's heart even in the relatively short period they had spent together, but still, he couldn't help but fear they were walking into their deaths.

He opted to keep his fears to himself.

They left Piandao under the cover of darkness on that third night with a plan to fly due west towards their meeting point with their resistance as planned, the swordsman neither confirming his allegiance of condemning their own, another thing that hadn't settled right with the Prince, but on their way out the estate, Fat had pressed a parting gift from the Master into Sokka's outstretched palm - a lone pai sho tile, stamped with a bright white lotus.

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He had done this to himself, but the knowledge that he had did little to quell Prince Zutzu's simmering rage as he offered a hand to Aelita to help her from the carriage. The smell of sea salt air tickled his nose from the waters beyond the dock they halted at, and it did little more than annoy him further because dammit, this wasn't supposed to happen this way.

"She's going to kill me the first chance she gets," Aelita said matter-of-factly as she peered her head out into the warmth of the daytime sun. She clutched Mushu tightly to her chest even as she accepted Zetzu's hand and climbed down from the carriage. "I don't care what orders she's under to behave."

Zetzu wanted to argue, but his annoyance kept him from doing so. He knew deep down that his sister would not risk her relatively redeemed status with their Fathe,r but he wanted to blame anyone but himself for their current situation. "Then don't let her kill you."

"Gee, why didn't I think of that?"

The Prince shot the girl a pointed glare. "Do whatever you need to come back to me. You're the Akira. You're more valuable than she is anyway."

Aelita didn't have the time or privacy to debate with him as a second carriage came to a halt directly behind their own. Zetzu, not wanting to deal with its inhabitants any more than he had to, quickly began to tug his bride down the dock towards the waiting ferry, servants already bustling to fetch her bags and tote them on board. "Just...try not to antagonize her if you can avoid it."

"She starts it."

"Don't finish it."

"Where's the fun in that?"

He almost grinned. "Someone's in better spirits than I've seen in quite some time."

And despite how hollow she had felt only the week before, Aelita was. She hadn't decided yet what to do with either of her discoveries, and she still questioned her own morals for how easily she had been willing to use the Prince for her gain only days before that, but still, she felt lighter than she had since the entire terrible ordeal had begun. She had thought it to be a trap when Zetzu arrived the morning after her match to tell her that she was free. 

Relatively, of course. Under the watchful eyes of the Imperial Firebenders or himself, but free nonetheless. She hadn't acted upon his words for two whole days, confining herself to her room even more so than normal. But then on the third day, she took her chances and requested to sit near the turtle duck pond, and no one had batted an eye. She threw caution to the wind entirely the next evening and asked Kanao to take her away, even if only for a few hours. The handmaiden needed nearly as much convincing as the Akira but by dinner time Aelita had been seated at a table in a little one-bedroom home on the outside of the city, sharing a meal with Kanao's only remaining family, a kind older sister named Ming who worked as a prison guard and saved all her coin so that the two might travel far, far away. Neither elaborated on where or why they wanted to go. With the Imperial Firebenders waiting outside the door, Aelita didn't ask.

The color was slowly returning to her skin as Akira spent as much time as she could under the sun's glow, and even dressed in the same casual yet elegant day-to-day robes of the royal family, Zetzu thought she seemed to glow in her newfound freedom. And spirits, she was beautiful. There was still lingering hesitation and distrust in her eyes, but she needed this, and his chest swelled with pride from giving this to her, not only because she deserved it, but because he was winning. He had done this for her, and Aelita knew it, and she would remember that, and bit by bit, he would erase any of the necessary hurt he had caused to win her loyalty.

Aelita wouldn't admit to the bittersweet bit of panic she carried inside her as she considered the waiting journey ahead. Ember Island, a place that carried so many memories of both the Father and the friend she had come to conflict with. Still, she reminded herself as she watched the manatee whale hooked to the ferry dunk its large head in the water, this was her chance. For what she wasn't sure, but almost as if he could see the wheels turning inside her head, the Prince beside her spoke.

"Just remember, darling, that your allies were already few and far between before, and now you've killed their symbol of peace. So, if you were thinking of trying to slip away, I'd urge you to reconsider." Feeling his brother's eyes on his back, Zetzu leaned down to press his lips against the Akira's cheek. "I'd hate for you to discover the rest of the world tends to be far less forgiving where you're concerned."

"Who said anything about running?" Aelita hummed back, stopping at the ramp that had already been lowered for her and the others to climb aboard. She wasn't sure if her Prince truly believed Aang to be dead or if he was simply just lying, but either way, he didn't lie about the others. Ming had been kind, but Aelita heard the whispers from the streets as she and Kanao had journeyed to the palace. And dammit, as lost as she was, Aelita knew she could do little on her own, at least not yet. So she leaned her head casually on her groom's shoulder and looked directly into his eyes. "You already gave me permission to do whatever I needed to come back to you. Why not not chip away at your family one member at a time? We're taking no guards with us, and there are lots of ways to get lost on Ember Island. After all, the rip currents are wicked along the southern shores."

Zetzu could only grin at the implication. "Cruel, pretty little thing. Say you do manage to dispose of my sister, which member of my family will you target next?"

"You."

He couldn't tell if she was being serious or not. The Prince opened his mouth to question, but before he could demand an answer, Ty Lee was there, dragging his bride away from him. Aelita at least had the good sense to look the slightest bit disappointed.

"I'm so excited to spend the weekend on Ember Island," Ty Lee chirped as she tugged her friend up the loading ramp and onto the ferry. "It's going to be great to hang out on the beach and do nothing."

"Doing nothing is a waste of time," Zuko huffed as he helped Mai aboard two steps behind them.

He ignored Zetzu entirely as they passed.

He hadn't so much as seen or spoken to his brother since their Father's dismissal, though he and Azula had both been quick to eavesdrop at the throne room door. He almost wished he hadn't. His disgust with both Zetzu and himself had only grown as he listened to his brother bullshit his way out of trouble again and again and again. Zuko wasn't sure how much longer he could ignore the rising resentment there. He and his brother had been meant to walk into their homeland as a team, but the elder Prince was beginning to wonder if Zetzu was the wolf bat in koala sheep's clothing Mai insisted he was, especially now as he felt his twin's glare pointed directly at his spine.

Zuko remained standing tall. After all, the wolf bat in question was Zetzu, and the firebendeer had a hard time letting go of his memories of his meek, reserved little brother. And Zetzu had said things like 'temporarily' and 'acting' and he had been the one to form the plan that had kept Aelita alive thus far.

Zuko's gaze drifted to where his old friend leaned against the ferry railing at Ty Lee's side, her eyes locked lazily on his twins as Azula climbed aboard. He knew that the other two hadn't spoken to one another in the days that had passed, either. Unlike his sister, Aelita bore no evidence of the events of the week prior, though there was a tension in her shoulders that he watched only grow as the Princess saddled up on the acrobat's other side.

Ty Lee's fingers laced with Aelita's, casually and reassuringly. Zuko stopped watching. He hadn't had the nerve to face her. He couldn't. Not when he had watched her break so completely and wondered how much of a hand he had played in it, even if Aelita hadn't shattered until Azula mentioned her father. When Aelita didn't so much as acknowledge his existence, Zuko tried to focus on the fact that physically she was fine, but as quickly as he thought the semblance of comfort, he knew she shouldn't be fine unless she had healed herself, and that would mean Zetzu was lying yet again. Zuko bit back his temper, knowing damn well confronting his brother with the current audience would condemn more than just his twin, deflecting with his obvious annoyance instead. "I still can't believe we're being sent away on a forced vacation. I feel like a child."

That much was true, and it only added to Zuko's already foul mood. His audiences with his Father had been few and far between since his return home, and he hadn't thrived in a single one of them. He hadn't proven himself. Hadn't felt as if he had regained his honor. Hadn't done anything to make the lingering sting of the betrayals he had made feel worth it.

"Lighten up," Azula chided as she too continued to ignore both Zetzu and Aelita, equally displeased with the arrangement but smart enough not to show it. Her face was healing at a decent enough pace to pass the bruising beneath her eyes off as exhaustion and the split on her lip had been hidden beneath the faint rouge Ty Lee had used to mask it. "So Dad wants to meet with his advisers alone, without anyone else around. Don't take it personally."

"He wants Zetzu there," Zuko quickly pointed out, loud enough that he swore he heard his brother hiss from the docks as the servants secured the last of the teen's bags. The younger Prince was the only child of the Fire Lord not being sent away on the little, bullshit getaway while the advisors and War Council met, but Zuko wasn't sure if the arrangement was meant to be a prize or punishment since Aelita was being sent along too.

Zetzu knew it was likely both. His story had been a believable enough one - he had clearly shown an interest and affinity for mechanical design in Ba Sing Se, even if his drill had been a glorious failure, so to claim he had been working on plans for an aerial fleet inspired by the airbenders hadn't been a far stretch. The fact that it wasn't a complete lie helped. Zetzu had, in fact, tossed the idea around long before he had dreamed up the drill, and he had the rudimentary sketches and schematics to prove it. Their Father had been impressed, but still, he didn't take lightly when he felt one of his children was keeping things from him. So, the Fire Lord granted Zetzu's request to give the Akira some pretense of freedom and respect, but decided his son wouldn't be there to experience it, tasking the boy with staying home and presenting his ideas to War Minister Qin and the rest of the Council, just to remind him where he fell in the hierarchy of things.

Regardless, the snub was infinitely better than having his true motives discovered, so he bit his tongue as he was expected to and thanked their Father for his generosity. Zetzu reminded himself to think of the future as he leaped onto the ferry railing, hanging lazily over the dock. "I'll be sure to take notes for you, brother," He said with more ease than he felt as he smirked at his twin over Aelita's shoulder, holding Zuko's stare even as he leaned down to whisper to the girl. Don't miss me too much."

Aelita only rolled her eyes at the obvious display of ownership and made no move to stop Mushu as he swiped at Zetzu's face, though she laughed when the Prince skittered backward to avoid the tiny creature's fury. "I'm sure I'll manage," she said as Zuko reluctantly climbed back down. A short distance away, the servants untied the last ropes that tethered the ferry and the manatee whale to the dock. Her face softened as the vessel began to pull away. She shouldn't care. She didn't care, not the way she once had, not after all he had done to her, but old habits died hard, and she could admit to herself that the idea of leaving either Prince at the mercy of their father was enough to make her skin crawl. "Watch yourself this weekend."

His heart swelled. Zetzu's time with the Akira following her standoff with Azula had been short and strained, the Prince having needed to genuinely focus on his schematics to make his ruse believable. Aelita hadn't objected, not even when the taste of his lips still lingered on her own, but Zetzu chalked up her relative silence after her declaration of unity to the breakdown he had bore witness to. Still, the little boy inside him that just wanted to matter had been second-guessing himself ever since the night he had stupidly kissed her, unsure if he had caught her off guard or if she had stiffened in his arms because she wanted to be anywhere else. "I will," he managed to say past his childlike smile just as the ferry drifted away.

Azula mimicked a gag. Zuko acted as if the moment hadn't even happened. Aelita ignored them both, sinking down onto a bench across from a very bored Mai. Ty Lee was the only one smiling.

"Don't your families have houses on Ember Island?" She asked both the Akira and the royals.

Aelita didn't answer. She assumed her broken family no longer did, and Azula felt no need to point out that General Kenshin's property on the Island had likely been forgotten and abandoned after all this time. "We used to come every summer when we were kids."

Ty Lee chose to ignore the slight disdain in her friend's voice. "That must have been fun!"

Zuko watched as both Azula and Aelita tensed, but only one of them lifted their heads to meet his watchful stare. From where he sat, he swore too many of the same memories danced through Aelita's head.

He looked away.

"That was a long time ago."

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The journey towards the Capital was slow and somber. Aelita's found family was avoiding the cities and settlements along the way like a plague, confident that none of them were in their right mind to hear the whispers they were sure were spreading.

Aang hated it. The moment he spotted a secluded spring on the next island over, he pulled the Appa to a stop. They needed this. If they weren't going to storm the palace then and there, they needed some bit of joy to sustain them til then. So as the sky bison landed, his boy stripped down to his base layers and dove headfirst into a spray of cool blue water, the spring in the center of what could have been a crater similar to the one they had only recently left behind, a gentle crash of rolling current trickling down from hidden falls. Katara was smiling by the time he surfaced. She was the first to join him.

Sokka had objected until he saw the little bit of childlike innocence etched on his sister's face. So he put away his guilt, just for a little while, and gave himself the grace to be a normal seventeen-year-old, even if he would be eighteen before the arrival of the Comet. Hours later, the teens and animals floated, splashed, and sunbathed, the tension between them melting bit by bit, but Toph had the hardest time letting go.

She sat on the edge of the water, one foot planted firmly on the stone ledge, the other dangling in the cool, damp. "Aang, I know swimming is fun and all, but do you really think you should be exposing yourself like that?" She nodded towards where she assumed the Avatar's bare chest would be somewhere in the midst of the spring. "Cover up."

Aang, genuinely baffled, gawked. "What? I'm wearing trunks."

"I know," Toph said as Katara stood and wrung out her hair nearby, Sokka and Kyojuro now fishing side by side. "It's your tattoos I'm worried about. What if someone sees you?"

Katara gestured to their surroundings, not noticing that Aang and Momo both had decided to investigate the cracks in the crater where the water spilled out from. "There are walls all around us. It's completely safe."

On the other side of the rocky mountain ledge that separated the springs from a nearby settlement, a gangly watchman sighed to his portly partner, where they sat in a tower overlooking the island coast. "This has got to be the most boring job in the Fire Nation," He complained. "Nothing ever happens."

Inside the mountain, Aang beamed. He and Momo had discovered a tunnel of rushing current, the water disappearing down a winding slope on the opposite side of the rocks from the spring. A natural water slide, and a fast one at that. With a whoop and a holler, the Avatar charged down the slope headfirst with Momo hot on his heels. The pair emerged under the blinding light of the midday sun, dropping several feet into a deep pool of water colder than that in the spring. It was a shock to the system in all the best ways. "Whoa!" He exclaimed to Momo when they came up a moment later, neither of them aware that their cheering had caught the attention of the awestruck guards, the two watching them through a telescope that illuminated the blue ink on Aang's skin. "Let's go again!"

The guard's amazement only grew when they watched the boy all but float back up the rocks and into the hole he had come from, airbending.

"The Avatar's alive!" The portly one cheered once the realization of what and who they had just seen washed over him. He stood abruptly then, crossing the little tower they were stationed in along the coast to their messenger hawk's cage. "We'd better send a notice to the Fire Lord."

His friend was already scribbling on a scroll by the time he freed the animal. "A black ribbon message," the gangly one practically giggled as he tied off the note a moment later, the cord around it signifying its importance, unaware that the words inside could very well condemn the Princes of his nation. "How exciting!"

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Aelita felt as if she were stepping back in time as she took in the island oasis around her. On the outside, little had seemed to change. The docks still stood steady, and every other waterfront home than Lo and Li's was just as large and opulent as she remembered. But deep down, she knew everything was different, even as she walked the same path she had countless times as a girl, the same boy trailing just five steps behind her. They had come to Ember Island as kids for an escape and for joys neither were sure they'd ever find again, and that was quite possibly the hardest part.

The palace and the Capital had always held hells for them both, but Ember Island had once been sacred. Aelita was confident it could never be again, not when so much had already changed. She had thought - hoped - that maybe, maybe she and Zuko had been inching towards a semblance of forgiveness or understanding but she had learned in her loneliness after her glorious breaking that they weren't close at all, no matter how much she ached for someone to comfort her. It was clear now that Zuko wouldn't be that person.

They hadn't spoken since seeing one another and Aelita wasn't sure if that somehow made things better or worse.

Regardless, she found herself seated next to him in the middle of the dining room in Lo and Li's slightly little and not-so-slightly dated cottage along the shore. Azula had promptly taken the only spot beside Mai, leaving no room for her brother when he had made a move to join them. Aelita tried to ignore the awkward tension and Zuko had clearly debated on if it would make things better or worse to just remove himself from the space entirely, so instead she focused on the shack itself. She had never actually been inside the home, though she had always known it to belong to them. It was borderline dilapidated compared to the other opulent manors around them, and it was filled to the brim with relics from the past.

Zuko had opted to do the same. He cringed as he muttered, "It smells like old lady in here."

"Gee, I wonder why."

The Prince and Akira locked eyes for the second time that day. Both held more anguish and growing unease than either expected to see.

"Who are these two beautiful women?" Ty Lee asked, standing intently in front of a painting of an identical pair of ladies in two-piece swimwear, their hands on their knees and their rears pushed together. She was the only one exploring and embracing her surroundings and circumstances. Aelita appreciated her endlessly.

"Can't you tell?" Li tolled with a grin, her sister immediately by her side to mimic the pose. "It's Lo/Li and me," the pair said in unison, and Zuko had to physically stop himself from retching at the mental image it created.

Ty Lee cheered as she peeked into one of the few small guest rooms. "Oh, I love the seashell bedspread!"

"Are you serious?" Mai rasped as she leaned back to peer in the now open door behind her. "It looks like the beach threw up all over it."

The elder twins frowned. Neither was offended but the part of their hearts that had always genuinely cared for the teens ached to see their despair and disdain.

"We know you're upset that you were forced to come here this weekend," Li sighed, though the Prince and Princess in particular continued dutifully ignoring her.

"But Ember Island is a magical place," Lo chimed. "Keep an open mind."

"Give it a chance," Li continued before the two spoke in unison. "And it can help you understand yourselves and each other."

"The beach has a special way..."

"...of smoothing even the most ragged edges."

Aelita and Zuko made a point to avoid one another's stares, the Akira opting to look out a nearby window, the Prince watching the elder pair as if he cared. Neither believed there was any smoothing either of their edges. Still, when Lo and Li cheered and dropped their coverups to reveal two-piece skimpy swimsuits beneath, Aelita reflexively found herself covering the Prince's eyes to save him from the sight. Zuko flinched at her sudden movement, but then the Akira swore she felt the whisper of his laugh against her palm.

But she knew better than to find any hope or comfort in the gesture.

They could never be what they once were, not even here.

Chapter Text

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Five Years Prior

The summer sun beat down on the Ember coast with a furious heat even a firebender could find unbearable. Compared to its black sands, the water just beyond the shores felt nearly freezing. Eleven-year-old Aelita relished in the contrasting glory. She basked in the light that warmed her exposed skin and welcomed the cool embrace of the waves she bobbed on. She would've been completely and utterly at ease had she not been so worried about her friend. The whole point of the last-minute trip had been to make Zuko smile. Instead, the Prince sat alone on the nearly empty beach. 

Children and worried nannies alike had clucked that the black sand was too hot for bare feet that morning. Children, worried nannies, and General Sukomo Kenshin. Aelita's Dad all but demanded that his girl stay inside and away from the scorching rays of the sun because the thought of his baby getting a sunburn was blasphemous. Unfortunately for him, he couldn't often tell his daughter no. Zuko's father never had such a problem. 

The Fire Lord's oldest son looked so much younger to Aelita than he was, sad and scared as they avoided reality. His eyes stared vacantly in the direction of Bhanti Island. He didn't flinch when the waves rushed past his waist or pulled slowly away. He made no move to join her swim. He didn't frolic or play or grin the way he used to on vacations here.

It was the first time they had been back to Ember Island since his mother disappeared and his father took the throne. Newly twelve and under more pressure than ever, Prince Zuko didn't often allow himself to be a child, certainly not since Zetzu had been sent away. Aelita knew that her friend worried he'd be dismissed next. She wasn't sure he could handle that kind of rejection.

Her Dad thought it was sad, and Aelita was inclined to agree. So did Master Piandao. She had overheard the two men saying as much when they thought she and Zuko were sleeping. 

"The boy is terrified."

"It was always a competition between them all."

"It's no secret that Ozai prefers the girl."

The girl in question was Princess Azula, and there was denying the General was right, Ozai far preferred her. It left his sons in a constant state of battle for any remaining shreds of their father's approval, but Zetzu had given up on that fight long before Zuko. Any signs of the bond the twins had once shared in their youth had been nearly erased by the time Aelita arrived.

"Spirits," she had heard her father whisper to his old teacher, a rare shadow of fear in his words. "And to think my little girl will be a part of that family one day."

But that day was a long, long time away, so Aelita wouldn't dwell on that future yet. For now, she'd worry about Zuko. She no longer had room in her heart to worry about Zetzu. After all, as her Dad had gently reminded her, he wasn't the brother with whom her loyalties lay. 

"Five years isn't as far off as you think, firefly," he said as he gently pulled a brush through her hair the night before. "Before either of us know it, you'll be married, and Prince Zuko will be staring down our nation's throne. He'll have to bear the weight of our world on his shoulders one day. He'll need someone kind, strong, and steady in his corner to help guide him away from our present and into a peaceful, prosperous future. That will be your duty, my sweet winter child, and I wouldn't ask you to do it if there was any other way." His hands stilled their melody. "It's not right that you inherit a war you had no choice to be born into.”

Aelita didn't point out that her Dad wasn't as ancient as she liked to pretend he was, or that he hadn't had a choice but to have been into the war waging outside their borders either.

"Duty over heart, remember?" She asked, trying to reassure him that she was a lot older and smarter than he thought she was. 

"Yes, firefly," He said, and he looked so very sad when he did. "I remember."

Aelita wouldn't admit to her Dad that the weight of her future responsibilities still scared her more often than not. She trusted him to make good choices on her behalf, to protect her and guide her, and never steer her wrong because it had always been them against the world but still, there were too many days that she wished she could just be a normal firebender from a normal family anywhere else in the Fire Nation than Royal Caldera City.

But then she wouldn't have met Zuko, and if she and her Dad weren't there for him, all that was left would be Iroh, and they all knew the General was still plagued with his grief for his late son. So, Aelita shook off her fears and swam the short distance back to the shore in a black swimming suit that covered her belly and skimmed down to her thighs. She plopped down on the wet sand next to her friend. He wore beach bottoms, but both his bare chest and hair were dry where she was soaked. He didn't even bother with a towel.

The trip to Ember Island had been a last-minute detour after two wonderful and distracting months spent with Master Piandao while her Dad had been away. Aelita had been thrilled when the Fire Lord agreed to let his son tag along and learn swordsmanship, but she had seen the fear quickly creep back into Zuko's eyes the moment they left Shu Jing. She wanted him to be happy and carefree, even just a little bit longer. Wordlessly she dropped the gleaming seashell she had found offshore in his lap, not caring if she sludged sand on him. "That's for you."

Zuko barely looked at the thing before he grimaced. "Why would I want that?"

"Because I saw it and thought it was pretty, duh."

"Do you think I care about stupid stuff like that?"

"Well you take longer to get ready in the morning than I do, so maybe."

Zuko had yet to learn when to pick his battles, and with Aelita, he chose every single one, even when he suspected his best friend was baiting him. He launched himself at her, not caring that she was a girl or that his Mom had spent years preaching over and over that he was supposed to respect and protect and honor her or whatever. He was still young enough to insist that Aelita didn't even count as a real girl. She rolled and tumbled in the wet sand with him like a wild heathen, and she was laughing by the time hooked her around the waist and knocked her back into the ocean.

He grinned at his undisputed victory. They both won about half the time. He opened his mouth to gloat, but a rouge wave hit him square in the face before he could declare they were now tied at thirteen wins each, and Aelita laughed even harder. Zuko didn't think it was so funny, even if he kind of maybe deserved it, but it did distract him from thinking about his brother. 

Aelita was the weirdest firebender he had ever met. It had only taken one ner tragedy involving a rip current for him to decide these shallows were the closest he ever wanted to come to the ocean, but she on the other hand, could have been a waterbender in a past life for all she loved the sea. Even now she let the waves wash over her as if the ocean couldn't latch onto her and take her away from him too if it wanted. 

Zuku shuddered even as he coughed on salt water, but a strong voice called their names before he could slip back into his misery. General Kenshin stood under the shade of a too-tall palm tree, grey hair loose and his wide chest bare as if he might actually join the kids if it weren't for the rapidly melting ice cream cones he held in each hand. "Wanna spoil your lunches?"

"All right!" Aelita cheered as she shoved up from the wet sand with more grace than should be possible for a kid so waterlogged. She didn't wait for her friend to finish sputtering, catching his arm in her hands and hauling him onto unsteady feet. "You're so slow, Zuko! Come on!" 

"Jeez, 'Lita, relax. It's just ice cream. It's not going anywhere."

"Yeah it is, it's all going in my stomach if I get there before you."

Zuko froze at the thinly veiled threat. "You wouldn't dare."

Aelita took off running, slowing down only to snatch up the towel and sandals she had tossed to the ground when they first arrived. Zuko was only a step behind her, less nimble on his feet but more and more longer-legged with each turning day. He was grinning like a fool when he passed her two strides away from her dad. That grin turned into a complete, wild smile when the General offered the boy not just one cone but both. 

Aelita shrieked at the obvious betrayal. Her Father held his hands up in mock surrender and stepped out of his daughter's line of fire, watching as she all but threw herself at Zuko with a ferocity that could only be brought on by stolen sweets. Sukomo felt himself relax as he watched the Prince of the Fire Nation finally act every bit his young age, holding one cone just out of his best friend's reach, the other already shoved halfway inside his mouth and drooled all over just so Aelita couldn't have it, the move purely one only a pre-teen boy could imagine. Neither child seemed to notice the effect of the intense heat on the still melting treats as they squawked and squabbled more like a pair of wild hog monkeys. Before Aelita could even consider properly threatening her friend into surrender, the power of the sun won, and the slippery mess slid clean off the cone and smack onto the middle of her face.

They stood still for two long heartbeats before Prince Zuko howled laughter, his treat forgotten and falling to the ground as he howled in pure delight at his best friend's embarrassing misfortune. When he doubled over and tried to wipe the rackus tears from the corners of his eyes, he was the perfect height for Aelita swipe what she could from her skin and smear it across the young boy's now shocked face. Zuko stopped laughing. He stood tall and blinked, trying to process if that had really just happened. For a second he was as serious as a twelve-year-old possibly could, and if Sukomo hadn't known the pair, he might've thought the kid had finally been pushed to his limits.

But then they were both cackling, pointing out how ridiculous one another looked as they leaned on one another for support, their legs weak as they all but wheezed with joy and mischief. They were still grinning like smug fools when the General finally urged them back toward the water to rinse the sticky messes from their bodies, radiant in their joy and innocent . 

Sukumo didn't realize it then, but it was the last time he would ever see them together. 

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Present

There was no denying Ember Island's beauty. The black shores that hugged the winding coast glittered in the sun, and the clear blue waters beyond were alluring and inviting. The vegetation that butted up to the beach was a lush with manicured walking paths peeking through the trees. It was as pristine as one would expect of a vacation destination for the rich and important, and it was alive now with life in a way that it hadn't been on Aelita's last visit so many years ago. Children flitted underfoot, running back and forth between the water and their towels, tiny shovels and buckets full of trinkets in hand. Nannies and caregivers more often than parents sat and watched or held their hands as their littles charged into the surf, though the Akira recognized at least a few full families amongst the crowd. Teens around their age filled in the gaps, lounging with their friends or playing games of kuai ball on the nearby courts.

If the no longer familiar sights and sounds affected Aelita nearly as much as it did Zuko, she didn't show it. Her smile didn't reach her eyes but she grinned nonetheless as Ty Lee tugged both her and Azula along, the acrobat already pointing out anything and everything that interested her. Only one of those things was Mushu and the comically small hat Aelita managed to find and wrangle him into. The rest of those things were boys. 

Mai tried unsuccessfully to ignore her. Zuko recognized the act all too well, and he remembered just how many people had been negatively impacted by he and his brothers' actions. He opted to lead Mai away from the others to ease his guilty conscious. They settled down on a blanket beneath a too-large umbrella, neither eager to do much more than that. They were silent as they sat, Mai in a strapless red top a long skirt designed far more for lounging than swimming because she would certainly not be getting in the water. Zuko, in much of the same opinion, didn't bother to shrug out of his loose sleeveless top. Instead, he baked in the heat and wondered if Aelita felt the same overwhelming sense of no longer belonging that he did. 

No one on this beach carried the same scars they did, physically or emotionally. How were they supposed to pretend they fit in here? After all the pain and anger and despair they had both been through?

After all the pain and anger and despair he had put her through. 

 "Hey, you need some help unpacking?" A gangly boy with massive teeth asked as he suddenly appeared before Aelita and Ty Lee, Azula having already stomped off to do spirits knew what. Zuko watched as both Mai and the Akira stiffened. He was so thin and wirey he looked like he might blow over in the wind, and there wasn't a spirits chance he was any older than fifteen, but still boy was bold enough to keep his stare fixed intently on Ty Lee and the skin the acrobat's strappy top and little white swim bottoms left exposed. Zuko felt annoyed for her, but more than that, he felt for Mai for having to bear witness to it all, even if they had never discussed her feelings for much of anything at all in any sort of explicit detail. 

But Ty Lee just beamed. "Sure!" She said, shoving the massive bag she had carried with ease into his outstretched hands, not caring when he nearly folded under the weight of all she packed for her and Aelita, the others having only brought blankets or towels and little more. "Thanks."

The kid happily sprang into action. As he promptly began to tear through the never-ending tote of wonders, Aelita wondered if she could learn to manipulate hopeless men the way Ty Lee did, especially as the boy all too willingly became their source of shade after spreading out blankets for Mushu and the girls to lounge on. Ty Lee winked at the boy once the sun was blocked from their eyes. "Perfect."

Mai told herself she didn't care. If Lee wanted to all but throw herself at anyone who would pay her any bit of attention, it was no one's prerogative but her own. They were just friends, no more, no less, no matter what she wanted.

And Zuko recognized every bit of the hurt and denial on the face of his betrothed. He remembered the last time he had sat upon these same shores, five long years ago, a different kind of despair clouding his mind then, and he decided to do for Mai what Aelita had done for him to pull her from her thoughts. "Here," he said as they sat, offering up the closest seashell he could find. "This is for you."

Mai looked down at the shell in Zuko's outstretched hand. It was pitifully small compared to others she could see, and it was a disgusting shade of pink that only a child or Ty Lee could appreciate. "Why would I want that?"

Zuko fumbled. "I saw it and thought it was pretty," he said more from memory than from genuine thought, surprised by Mai's reaction. "Don't girls like stuff like this?"

"Maybe stupid girls." 

Several paces away, Ty Lee shrieked. The sulking pair looked up in time to see her accept a pink conch from her hopeless admirer. Wow!" She grinned giddily. "Thanks. This is so pretty."

Zuko deflated. "Forget it."

Unaware of his audience beneath the umbrella, the boy basked in Ty Lee's praise, his face flushed as he finally stammered, "No-not as pretty as you are!"

"Gross."

"Aelita!"

"What?"

Ty Lee glowered but the scowl didn't meet her eyes, even as another awestruck admirer joined the throng, this one larger, harrier, and uglier. They bickered back and forth with the other in an attempt to win her affection. Aelita was impressed by just how easily she ignored them both until the original stepped out of line, leaving the blinding sun to wash over the girls. "Ahem!" Ty Lee cleared her throat and snapped her fingers. "Shade. Shade!"

If Mai hadn't already been irrevocably in love with her best friend before then she sure as shit would be now watching her work the hopeless pair over with flawless ease. Still, she didn't so much as smile as she tried to hide the fact that she was watching. It wasn't so much that she was jealous, it simply wasn't one of the few feelings she deigned to bother with, but it was knowing that no matter how much she might begrudgingly want her, Ty Lee would always be just out of reach.

And Mai hated that it seemed Zuko knew it was exactly that. It made her skin crawl. Knowing that he was seeing her right now in a way she didn't want to see herself only pissed her off more. Mai ignored him when he rose from their shared blanket, and she ignored him even more when he returned sometime later. 

Zuko still offered her one of the two ice cream cone's regardless. "I thought since it's so hot...here."

Mai didn't bother to look at the rapidly melting treats until one slid free from its cone to fall in her lap with a cold, wet plop. The corners of her mouth didn't so much as twitch. "Thanks. This is really refreshing."

Aelita had to bite back her laugh lest she give away the fact that she had been eavesdropping on the entire interaction behind them. Beside her, Ty Lee happily hummed away, their shade ordered to happy silence at her command. That shade had hardly paid her any mind, and the Akira knew it had less to do with her higher necked swim wear and more to do with light and life Ty Lee radiated. 

Aelita wondered what it would be like to hold that kind of power over someone. With practice and the right words, she wondered if she could have that sort of power. Moreover, she wondered what she would do with that power if she truly could bend Zetzu to her will.

"Are you okay?" 

"Hm?" Aelita hummed when Ty Lee's voice snapped her from her trance. "Oh, yeah," she said softly, Mushu sprawled out and snoring on the blanket beside her. "I was just thinking about Zetzu."

"That's nice," Ty Lee said but smile didn't reach her eyes. Azula interrupted before Aelita could consider why.

"Hey beach bums," the Princess greeted, gesturing over her shoulder to a packed kuai ball court. "We're playing next. Lovebirds," she snapped at Mai and Zuko. "That means you too." 

Her brother was secretly grateful for the distraction. When the bickering boys from before scrambled to offer Ty Lee their hand, Zuko rose and extended his own to Mai. She ignored it, him, and everyone else entirely. 

"Let her go," Aelita said as Mai stalked away toward the net with Azula. "You'll just make it worse if you try too hard."

Zuko arched a brow at his old friend. "How would you know?"

"Because I have eyes," Aelita remarked dryly. She softened just a hair when she watched Mai brush past the waiting chi blocker without so much as a word. "And because I get it," she said, her voice solemn and sad. "Our dads all did different things, but Mai, Ty Lee, and I experienced so much of the same life. Mai and I especially. Until Tom-Tom was born, we were both only children, and even now, we're still the only daughters in families where things like that matter. If we had been born anyone else, if our parents had been anyone else, we'd have been free to be whoever we wanted, girl or not, but we weren't, so here are, still living the same life and the same experiences. Except..."

Zuko waited for half a heartbeat when Aelita trailed off, lost in thought or memory. "Except what?"

"Except I think I had everything she wants, at least little while. And I think I almost even had it a second time," Aelita admitted, and the moment the tender confession slipped past her lips, her eyes chilled. Any fleeting flicker of remaining friendship that had seemed to spark between them was quickly smothered as reality reminded her who chose to snuff it out in the first place. "Too bad you and your brother have done everything in your power to take that away from me."  

Zuko didn't bother stopping Aelita when she walked away. She was glad for it. She blamed her wavering resolve when it came to the Prince on her loneliness, even with all the newfound freedoms she had been given. She scooped up a still snoring Mushu from where he dozed on her towel just to remind herself that she didn't want nor need a damn thing from the Prince.

By the time Zuko steadied himself enough to tug out of his shirt and join the others at the courtside, Azula had already begun plotting. "See that girl with the silly pigtails?" She asked the now huddled teens, her eyes flicking lazily to the other side of the net where a stocky girl in a red and white beach top juggled the ball with her feet before the next match. "There's just the slightest hesitation of her left foot. I'm willing to bet a childhood injury has weakened her. Keep serving the ball to her left, and we'll destroy her and the rest of her team. Dismissed."

They quietly spread themselves out amongst their side of the net. It was their serve. Azula, to Aelita's surprise, handed her the ball and gestured the Akira to the back line, no doubt hoping her future sister would prove that their bout the week before had been little more than a fluke. Instead, the Akira lightly tossed the ball into the air before smashing it over the net with a powerful kick that left a deep divot in the sand just to the left of the Princess's pigtailed target. Mushu, seated on the abandoned referee's post, held up a paw in their direction to signal the point. When the opposing team just stared in disbelief, even Azula had to grin. 

The game was played with taps, kicks, and hits to clear the ball over the net and ideally touch down on the other team's court. The nobles drew an eager crowd with their strong, confident movements, the five of them able to move and work around one another without so much as a word. Zuko slid, Mai lunged, and Ty Lee landed on the net with balanced precision after hammering the ball deep into an opening on the center court. If she noticed that most of the watchful eyes were on her, she didn't fuss. When they were up by nine with only one point left required to win, Aelita dove for a mark that should've been just out of reach, lobbing the ball up and back into play just as she hit the sand. Azula took advantage of the opening her sister-to-be gave her, using her brother's knee as a springboard to catapult herself into the air. She slammed the ball with a kick so hard both it and the net caught fire. The opposing team dove away from the hit, happily conceding to their loss. 

"Yes!" Azula cheered. She was positively radiant in her victory, taunting the still-shocked losers with a deranged smile. "We defeated you for all time! You will never rise from the ashes of your shame and humiliation!" She turned back towards her friends and family a completely different calm and sane person. "Well. That was fun."

A pair of boys no older than Zuko parted the watching crowd and made a beeline to Ty Lee. 

The sauntered rather that walked, moving with all the confidence in the world. Where one was broad and refined the other was lanky and purposefully messy, a mop of hair hanging into his eyes. Aelita swore he winked at Mai as he flipped the mess out of his way. The larger of the two was stil zoned in on Ty Lee, his chest bare and his hair pinned back from a chiseled face that no one could deny was attractive. They immediately struck Aelita as jaded, self-important, and vaguely familiar. 

"I'm having a party tonight," The larger said, speaking with smug brown eyes and a predatory grin. "You should come by."

"Sure!" Ty Lee agreed without having to think about it. She shined at parties, especially ones that didn't involve her sisters. "I love parties!"

The shaggier boy sized up the gloomy glaring girls behind her. He smiled at them. "Your friends can come, too." 

Azula frowned. She and Zuko had yet to be acknowledged by the newcomers. "Uh...what about me and my brother?" She asked, purposefully pushing past Mai and Aelita to step into the boys line of sight. "Aren't you going to invite us?" She questioned, and when the two didn't immediately answer, she grew faintly amused. "You don't know who we are, do you?"

The larger boy scoffed. "Don't you know who we are?"

"Chan," Aelita said once her recollection clicked. It had taken some time because she had only ever met the boys in passing as children, both of them children of high-ranking military officers. She wasn't at all surprised or upset to see the two didn't seem to remember her at all. "And Ruon-Jian." 

Chan, the obvious leader of the two only grinned as if the recognition was deserved. "Guilty," He said, winking wryly at the silver-haired girl. Ty Lee giggled. When the socially clueless beauty next to them cleared her throat, he looked at her and dropped his smirk. "Fine, you're invited. Just so you know, though, some of the most important teenagers in the Fire Nation are gonna be at this party, so try and act normal."

Azula only smirked at the irony. "We'll do our best."

Later, when the teens had sat around the dinner table in the little ancient beach house, Zuko confronted his sister. "Why didn't you tell those guys who we were?"

"I guess I was intrigued. I'm so used to everyone worshiping us," Azula answered honestly. Everyone in Caldera had known her name and her face since the day she was born but outside of the mainland, most only recognized her by the procession that typically followed. Without all the fanfare, she was just a regular kid, and even with their scars and the wanted posters that had once been plastered all over their country, so were Zuko and Aelita.

"They should," Ty Lee said between bites. 

"Yes, I know, and I love it," The Princess flippantly remarked. The constant praise and watchful eyes had never bothered her the way it had her brothers, yet she still found the sense of anonymity here to be new and exciting. "For once, I just wanted to see how people would treat us if they didn't know who we were." 

Zuko didn't need to confess he understood the appeal. After all, he had almost been content to live a life where that exact reality had come to be. For a fleeting moment, he thought of a tea shop in the Earth Kingdom, a kind girl, a quiet kiss under the sparkling glow of a dozen lanterns, and his Uncle's excited face when he had finally returned home. The memories only worsened his mood.

"Like waves washing away the footprints on the sand," Lo said poetically. "Ember Island gives everyone a clean slate."

Li nodded in agreement. "Ember Island reveals the true you." 

The teens looked at one another across the table they sat around, each of them sure that if they didn't already know their true selves, they didn't want to discover them. The elder twins ignored their tension and cheered. "To the party!"

To Lo and Li's great disappointment, the children didn't let them tag along. Instead, the teens dressed in silent apprehension and slipped out the door the moment the sun first disappeared beyond the horizon. When Ty Lee and Aelita tried convincing Azula that was too early, she ignored them. With the sky still fairly alight with the glow of the passing day, the five found themself standing at the door to one of the larger, nicer houses on the Island. It sat on stilts to protect itself from the rising tides and yearly storms, and it didn't look to be the slightest bit weathered. Steps led up to a solid door adorned with a heavy gold knocker, and the many windows along the walls glittered with fire light.

"Um..." Chan said when he answered their unexpected knock. He would've been content had the visitor just been Ty Lee, stunning in a strapless red top, haired pulled back in a tail to show off her big grey eyes, but naturally, she came with an unwanted crowd. "You're a little early. No one's here yet."

"I heard you telling someone you'd be partying from dust 'til dawn," Azula admitted. "It's dusk, so we're here."

Chad studied her, utterly baffled. Most of her hair hung straight past her bare shoulders, the golden ties of her red top sitting on her otherwise exposed collarbone. Her skirt sat low on trim hips, her stomach and arms toned, her face largely free of any of the fussy musings many girls her age bothered with, only her lips tinted a bolder shade than was natural. Beautiful, he thought, but damn awkward. "That's just an expression."

"Told you so," Aelita muttered, ignoring the jab to the ribs a still-smiling Ty Lee sent her way. She had let her friend have her way, not arguing with the girl when she insisted on adding color to her cheeks or lining her eyes in coal. While her arms hadn't given her away on the beach, she opted to keep them mostly hidden, her top sitting low on her biceps to leave her shoulders bare but her scars covered beneath sleeves that ended mid-forearm with beaded gold cuffs. Her calf-length pants sat on hips that were finally beginning to feel less sharp with her slowly increasing appetite, and with her stomach on display much like the other girls, she looked every bit like the firebender she was, a sight that still seemed almost unnatural to Zuko after the bulk of the last year. He willed himself not to think about it, focusing on his sister's painful attempt to be a normal teenager instead.

"We are the perfect party guests," she told Chan. "We arrive right on time because we are very punctual," she explained, rapping her hand against her palm for emphasis. 

Aelita rolled her eyes behind the Princess, and some part of her heart ached even as she did. The awkward interaction made her think of Prince Kyojuro, and she hated that she still couldn't remember exactly why. 

Chan debated on turning the freak and her brooding brother away but he was smart enough to know the weird pretty one would take the other girls with her if she went, so he stepped aside and gestured the five into the still quiet house. It was vast and open with high ceilings and tall walls adorned in the trophies of his Dad's conquests and his Mom's collections. Everything inside was either old or expensive. He scowled when he noticed the grey-haired one carried a fucking ferret in her pocket. "Listen, my Dad's an admiral. He has no idea I'm having this party, so don't mess anything up."

Ty Lee caught Aelita's hand before she could flick their host a vulgar gesture. She waved a poilite thank you to Chan before tugging her friend further inside where she saw Ruon-Jian waiting in the middle of an elegant, dark wood dining room. Mai and Zuko quickly followed, but Azula hung back, painting a too-broad smile on her face. 

"That's a sharp outfit, Chan," she complimented, gesturing to the shirt that left too many of his muscles on display and genuinely thought she was doing a good job flirting. "Careful. You could puncture the hull of an empire-class Fire Nation battleship, leaving thousands to drown at sea." When the boy just blinked at her, she smiled even bigger. "Because it's so sharp."

"Um..." Chan trailed off, already desperate to get away. "Thanks." 

Down the hall of the elaborate home, Ruon-Jian grinned as the others approached. Knowing his buddy had already called dibs on the perky one, he focused his attention on the remaining two. "Hey! First ones here, huh Woah!" He beamed when he saw Mushu, crouching down immediately to get a better view. "Is that a fire ferret?"

"No, it's the world's smallest mongoose lizard."

"Aelita!"

"What did I do? You told me to be social."

If the boy was offended by her sarcasm he laughed it off anyway, and Zuko immediately assumed it was in an attempt to get lucky. While he glowered, Mai tugged her hand free of his and asked to be pointed towards the washroom, still skulking about after the events of the earlier afternoon. Ruon-Jian was all too willing to escort her there himself, and Zuko only found himself growing to hate the cocky kid more.

"He thinks he's so great," He scoffed to Aelita as he watched the two go, Ty Lee already distracted by the party's next arrivals. When the Akira appeared to give him the cold shoulder, the Prince moved to stand before her. "Well, what do you think of him?"

"I don't have much of an opinion about him."

"You were just rude to him."

"Some might say I'm rude to everyone."

"I'm not some."

"I hardly know him, Zuko." 

"You like him, don't you?"

The question had been born more from curiosity than jealousy because when it came to Aelita Kenshin, Zuko was far beyond emotions and tendencies so trivial. Months ago he might've felt differently, had felt differently, but that was then, and this was now, and the Prince was still desperately trying to atone for sins he wasn't yet ready to confront. Beyond that, Zuko knew he no longer had any right to any sort of feelings or claims to the Akira in the first place. 

A logical Aelita might have understood that, but she was far past logic now. She arched a brow as she looked up into Zuko's face and studied him for some time. His hair hung loose to partially hide his blazing eyes, longer than she had seen it years. He was too thin despite the wealth of food at his fingertips, and it showed in his face and arms. He was less broad that she remembered him during their years at sea, and his sleeveless kimono top hung limp on him on a way it shouldn't. She felt no sympathy or worry for him. The part of her that he had broken assumed the worst. "If you're trying to trick me into damning myself so you can run to Zetzu, it won't work."

Zuko caught her by the arm when she started to walk away. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Aelita jerked from his grasp before Mushu could sink his teeth into his hand. "You'd love for me to say that I did, wouldn't you? You'd love to convince your brother he couldn't trust me."

"Do you think so little of me?" Zuko hissed quietly, the house gradually beginning to fill with noise and life around them.

"What else am I supposed to think?" Aelita demanded. When the Prince didn't answer, she turned and disappeared into the growing crowd. He let her go. When Aelita found that Ty Lee was surrounded by a gaggle of desperate admirers, she settled for a sulking Azula instead. The Princess didn't acknowledge the Akira, but she didn't send her off either, so Aelita stayed anyway. The pair watched as the hopeless gawkers all vied for Ty Lee's attention until the chi blocker finally had enough, dropping the four that threatened to engulf her with a series of quick jabs to their throats before fleeing to her friends.

"Oh, I'm so glad you're here," she told them. "Those boys won't leave me alone. I guess they all just like me too much."

Azula scoffed. "Come on, Ty Lee. You can't be this ignorant."

"What are you talking about?"

"Those boys only like you because you make it so easy for them," Azula quipped to Aelita's rising annoyance. "You're not a challenge. You're a tease. It's not like they actually care who you are."

When Ty Lee's eyes filled with tears, the Akira scowled at the Princess. "Wow Azula, your sparkling personality never ceases to amaze me." 

Azula didn't bother to snap back when she realized Ty Lee was about to cry. She deflated quickly, actually reaching for her friend's hands. "Okay, okay, calm down. I didn't mean what I said. Look, maybe I just said it because I was a little..." Azula trailed off, her voice dropping to a whisper, "Jealous."

"What?" Ty Lee gasped. "You're jealous of me? But you're the most beautiful, smartest, perfect girl in the world. No offense, Aelita."

"None taken."

"Well, you're right about all those things," Azula agreed. "But for some reason when I meet boys, they act as if I'm going to do something horrible to them."

"Gee, I wonder why."

"No one asked you, Kenshin."

The interaction so very reminiscent of their childhood that it made Ty Lee giggle. "Probably because you would do something horrible to them," she said to the Princess. "I'm sure they're just intimidated by you. Okay, look, if you want a boy to like you just look at him and smile a lot and laugh at everything he says, even if it's not funny."

"Well, that sounds really shallow and stupid."

"It works on your brothers."

For the first time in years, the Princess smiled at Aelita, and there wasn't a bit of cynicism behind it. "Let's try it."

Ty Lee cleared her throat and leaned into Azula's space, her voice a terrible, deep imitation of a boy as she said, "Hey there, sweet sugar cakes. How you liking this party?" 

Azula's answering laugh was so loud and forced that everyone in their immediate vicinity stopped their conversations to stare at her with bemused judgment. Aelita laid a hand on her shoulder. "Maybe you should just shut pretend to be mute and rely on your good looks."

On the other side of the now packed and lively house, Zuko sulked beside Mai on a bench removed from the bulk of the action. Occasionally other teens stopped to introduce themselves and mingle, but most took one look at the hard expressions on their faces and fled. 

"I'm bored," Mai complained.

"I know."

"I'm hungry."

"So what?"

"So, find me some food."

Zuko didn't argue. He'd do anything just to pretend he wasn't reeling inside. 

Azula was pondering the heady excitement that bubbled in her belly when she spotted Chan across the room. He was talking to a girl the Princess immediately deemed inconsequential. When Aelita saw the her eying the Admiral's son, she nudged Azula forward. "Go get ''em', champ."

The firebender glanced over her shoulder at her brother's bride-to-be. Ty Lee had already abandoned them yet again, swept away by a new gaggle of admirers and reveling in the thrill of their attention. "What about you?"

Aelita knew she asked less out of concern and more out of distrust to leave her alone. She looked around the room for Mai or Zuko and spied the Prince at the little buffet table in the middle of the celebration. She saw the misery and discomfort written clearly on his face and grinned. "I'll either rescue your brother or torment him. I haven't decided which yet."

"I vote the latter," Azula declared as she walked away without a single glance backward at the Akira. "Chan," she said as she interrupted his conversation. "I'm ready for a tour of the house."

Chan considered dismissing the pretty weirdo until he realized her beauty easily doubled that of his current conquest. He decided he could ignore the awkwardness if he just focused on her face so rubbed the back of his neck and handed the other girl who no longer had his attention his still full cup. Azula rode the high that came with her first little victory as she set her own cup on the now livid girl's head. The Princess listened to her shrieks as she allowed Chan to lead her to a large open balcony that overlooked the coast. 

"Is this your first time on Ember Island?" He asked in an attempt to break the ice.

"No, I used to come here years ago," Azula answered, and she was proud when she managed to bury any evidence of the effect being here had on her. 

"It's a great place if you like sand," Chan remarked as he looked out on the shores below. When the pretty girl laughed politely at his quip, his confidence and his desire to impress her grew. He smiled as he swept an arm dramatically towards the shore. "Yeah, it's like welcome to Sandy Land!"

The joke was terrible, but Azula laughed when Chan did. He was nice to look at, and the Princess supposed he had a nice smile too. She particularly liked it when he smiled at her, closing some of the distance between them. She blurted out the first almost honest compliment she could imagine Ty Lee giving, hoping she managed to sound coy. "Your arms look so strong." 

Chan reveled in the praise, all cocky and sure of himself in a way he was sure was all ladies loved. "Yeah," he said past a smirk, and unabashed, he flexed his biceps just because he could. "I know."

Azula didn't even care that he thought too highly of himself because she was utterly sure that Chan was going to kiss her, and no one had ever kissed her before. She closed her eyes and waited until she felt the warm press of his lips over hers. She was surprised to find she quite enjoyed the feeling. Her smile wasn't forced when he finally pulled away.

And damn if the sight didn't please Chan. "You're pretty," He complimented with sincerity and zero finesse. 

Azula figured she could train him. "Together," she murmured, stepping back to take in the full view of him, her voice rising in intensity and volume as she continued half mad with pleasure in herself. "You and I will be the strongest couple in the entire world!"

She had prodded Aelita for enough details on the boy she barely remembered to learn not only was Chan attractive, but he came from good breeding too. He was a firebender by the Akira's recollection, and honestly, that was all the more that Azula needed to know. Bold blue flames pouring from her fists as she continued to consider the possibility of securing her a match that would prove just as prosperous as her brothers' if not even more so simply because it would involve her. "We will dominate the earth and prove once and for all that I am the better child!"

Pretty didn't outweigh fucking crazy. Chan paled as the psychopath laughed manically. He took one easy step back toward the door. "Uh..." He said as he went, eying the crowd he was ready to disappear into. "I got to go. Bye!"

He didn't wait to see her reaction. 

Amid the chaos, Zuko took his time filling a small plate with food he hadn't the slightest clue if Mai liked. He had done a shit job at getting to know the person she had become in the years since they grew up. He was doing a shit job respecting her. He was doing a shit job at everything.

Little had gone according to plan since he had returned home, and what did go went to Zetzu's plan, not Zuko's. Thinking of that only pissed him off more. When another teen bumped into him and caused him to dump his plate, the he snapped. "Watch it!" Zuko seethed. "That was for my cranky girlfriend!" He pointed to where he had left Mai as if that would explain his rage, but when he followed the shocked kid's gaze, he found Ruon-Jian there, crowding the person he was meant to respect and protect but had abandoned instead. 

Just another thing he fucked up. 

Aelita watched from a quiet corner of the room as Zuko slammed his hands into Ruon-Jian's back, shoving him away from an utterly indifferent Mai. The boy wheeled on him, not at all realizing what wild beast he was poking. "What are you doing?"

"Stop talking to my girlfriend!"

The boy sneered. "Relax. It's just a party."

It was the wrong thing to say, but Aelita stood back and held onto the goblet of ale that Mushu was practically swimming in, watching as the Prince of the Fire Nation knocked the floppy-haired kid clean across the room and into a vase that shattered with a loud crack. Mai jerked Zuko around to face her, her voice angry. "What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with me?" He hissed, and no one realized he was questioning himself more than he was questioning her, because why the hell was he continuing to sabotage his own happiness when he had damn near everything he had been wanting for the last four years?

"Your temper is out of control," Mai scolded. "You blow up over every little thing. You're so impatient and hotheaded and angry! You're just as bad as your brother!"

"Well, at least I feel something!" Zuko snapped back. "At least I'm my own person! You have no passion for anything! You have no desire to do or be anything other than a pain in my ass! You're just a big blah!"

A part of Zuko regretted the words as soon as he said them but right now he was too angry to care. He saw the hurt that flashed momentarily across Mai's face, but he made no move to apologize.

"I don't give a damn what our father's agreed to. It's over, Zuko. We're done."

Aelita fished a half-inebriated Mushu out of the goblet and slipped out the front door before she could watch Chan toss Zuko out of the party. The silence she stepped into was like a warm embrace. Weeks ago she would have begged to have surrounded herself with the sound and life inside the overflowing home but now that she was there, she found she wanted to be anywhere else instead. The familiarity of her people and her country no longer brought her the solace she thought it should.

Maybe it was because everything about being there felt wrong. Visiting Ember Island without her Dad still seemed abhorrent. Going there while she and Zuko were so at odds felt like a cruel joke. Being anywhere in the world without the family that left her behind felt like a knife to the heart. Home was no longer the Fire Nation. Home was blue eyes and easy laughter, and Aelita was certain she'd never be home again.

She didn't belong here. She didn't belong anywhere.

Chapter Text

Zuko found Aelita waiting for him outside against her better judgment, illuminated by a halo of moonline. He went to her without hesitation.

"Let's go," he said as he reached for her arm, tugging her away from the party and the storm of anger he was feeling. They walked in tense silence, passing shining houses and quiet shops without a word, heading towards a part of the island that even Azula had been all too willing to avoid. Memories of a lifetime long since left behind danced through their minds as they went.

Azula calling out for them to wait for her as they raced toward the beach. Zetzu quietly trailing along ten steps behind. Lu Ten making up animated stories based on shapes in the clouds. Iroh building grand castles with moats in the sand. Ursa steering them towards the theatre at nightfall despite the groans of protest. Sukomo tossing them around the shallows like a pair of giggling rag dolls. Ozai watching the rolling waves with a hand on his son's shoulder.

That was then, and this was now. Now, they stood alone at the base of a path narrow and winding since overgrown with green.

"We haven't been here in five years," Zuko said simply.

"I'm aware."

"We weren't supposed to stop anywhere on our way back."

Back, Aelita observed, not home. "I know."

"But you insisted."

"I remember."

"Why?"

Aelita didn't bother to look away from the dark path. "Because you needed it."

Zuko followed behind when she started up. "I never told you that I wanted to come here."

"I didn't say because you wanted it. I said because you needed it."

"Right," the Prince snorted. "Because you've always been so all-knowing."

Aelita didn't falter. "I knew you then, didn't I?"

Zuko didn't bother to argue. They walked on in silence once more, and when they reached the end of the climbing path, it was almost as if time had stopped altogether.

The house was more of an estate than it was a vacation home, and despite its age and obvious abandonment, it was still far more grand than anything else on the island. Tucked amongst the privacy of weathered rock, peaks and points of the mountainous landscape hugged the grounds on three sides, the fourth opening up to an unobscured view of the ocean and sky. The walls were made of solid grey stone and the roofs were long and angular and tiled in vibrant red. Marble steps led to double doors carved from heavy wood, and deep porches wrapped both the upper and lower levels of the home. Thick rounded pillars supported the roof, and windows lined most of the walls. The vast courtyard and the trail to the private strip of beach behind the house were hidden from sight.

If someone didn't know it was there, their eyes would pass right off the separate path that led to a quaint little cottage nestled somewhere deep behind the trees. Once a house for the staff who traveled with the royal family, it had been left vacant after Zuko's grandmother decided the convenience of having the servants available at her beck and call was well worth sacrificing a handful of the long unused guest rooms in the main home. The cottage, in turn, was deemed not worth Azulon's efforts to maintain, so the Fire Lord offered its sale first to his War Council as a measly thank-you following their colonization of Laoshan, Zuko's grandfather thinking it to be a kind and generous offer to 'own a piece of his family's history'.

Aelita's father, new to the Council then, paid more than he should've been able to afford. Zuko was secretly grateful. He spent more time there than he ever had in the main estate afterward. Now he watched as Aelita tried to look anywhere else than that hidden trail like she was afraid to peer through the trees and see the first signs of black ash and debris.

"It's still there," Zuko said eventually.

Aelita's eyes darted to his. "You're lying."

"I'm not."

"Why?"

"Why would I lie?"

"Why is it still here?" Aelita hissed at Zuko's ignorance. "Why wasn't it burned down or seized like everything else?"

The Prince didn't snap back. "My Father hasn't been to Ember Island since we stopped pretending to be a happy family. He probably forgot about it like he forgot about this place."

"How do you know?"

"I looked into the property archives."

"When?"

The morning you nearly died. "After you were publically pardoned."

"That was weeks ago," Aelita spoke through clenched teeth. "And you didn't think to tell me? You didn't think I deserved to know."

Your recovery felt a little more important. "It must have slipped my mind."

Zuko left her standing there, mouth agape in shock as he took the steps leading to the front doors two at a time. He jiggled both handles. When neither door budged, the Prince kicked until one fell off rusted hinges. He turned back to her with an 'are-you-coming' expression. She did.

It felt like stepping into another world. The inside of the home was a monument to the past, the air hazy with dust and cobwebs but everything was exactly as Zuko remembered. The sitting room behind the front door was bigger than the entirety of Lo and Li's cottage. It was built more for show and flash than it was for use. An unnecessary fireplace dominated most of the eastern wall, but not a single speck of ash could be found. The mantle was lined with relics and knickknacks from generations long gone  - an ornate comb, a golden dagger, a white fan. Several of the walls held paintings and portraits of relatives Zuko never bothered learning the names too, and the moonlight did little to hide their judgmental stares.

The formal dining room was shrouded in darkness to the left, the table at its center far larger than needed considering how rarely guests were invited to suffer through a tense meal. The tapestry behind the table told the story of the dragon hunts, a common topic of conversation among the royals when they gathered there. The lack of rot in the air told Zuko that the shelves in the pantry and the bins in the kitchens tucked further away had been cleared after his family's last visit. Someone knew they'd never be coming back.

He shouldn't have been surprised. It was no secret that they had never been a model family.

Zuko stopped to stare at a portrait near the front door of that very family, a similar depiction of Iroh's family on its left. His parents sat in high-backed chairs regal and proud, he and his siblings no older than eight kneeling before them, Azula in the center, her brothers on either side. The Prince couldn't remember if the faint closed-lipped smiles on he and his siblings' faces had been genuine back then or simply a creative liberty of the painter.

"You have your mother's eyes," Aelita spoke from over his shoulder, keeping close inside the home out of habit despite her anger.

"It's a black and white portrait."

"It doesn't matter. I remember her eyes. They were kind, and they shined like gold. You and Azula have them. The color. But Zetzu's are just a little bit different," she explained. "Darker. You're nearly identical, but," she said as she looked at the painting, "the older you get, the more you favor your mother, and the more he takes after your father."

Zuko snorted, short and bitter. "You have no idea."

Aelita wanted to argue that she had a very, very good idea but the Prince turned to her. "You and Azula have been...friendly."

"I can't exactly tell her off, can I?"

"Would you?" He asked. "If you could?"

"No. I stopped letting your sister get to me a long time ago."

"But she got to you last week."

It was an observation, not a question. Aelita tucked Mushu closer to her chest. His legs twitched and his tongue lulled out of his mouth. His human grinned, but it was a sad, bittersweet thing. "It wasn't her. Not really."

"Then what was it?" Zuko pushed.

"The fact that she was right."

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Toph was the last to evade sleep in their little camp by the hot springs. She lay back with her head on her arms and one foot flat on the ground but still, she couldn't relax with Aang so carelessly bare beside her, his tattoos on full display. Stupid careless little fucker. All of them, honestly, for enabling him.

But didn't really think her friends were dumb or little fuckers. They were big fuckers, and they were being careless, and that was a hill she was willing to die on. Surely it said more about them than it did her that she was the one worrying in the first place. Toph Beifong hadn't worried about shit until they lost Aelita.

Knowing that her friend was alive but not knowing if she was well had wreaked a kind of havoc on the earthbenders heart and mind that she never wanted to experience again.  She suspected the ache wouldn't ease until they got Hot Shot back.

If they got her back.

That mentality was a new one for Toph too. Before she would have operated on a when they got the Akira back kind of mindset, but she had lost Appa on her too, and she was starting to wonder if she was the problem.

Granted, she hadn't been with Aelita when she went down, but that was probably what made Toph feel the worst. She could've argued. Could've been with Aelita in the catacombs. Could have saved her, dammit, because she was the greatest earthbender in the world, and she would have brought the whole city down on itself if she had to just to save her friends.

Maybe.

Toph swore she was simultaneously the most and least affected by Aelita's absence, but she knew that was probably because she had largely refused to process the waves of her emotions around any of her friends, highs or lows included. Even now she kept the bulk of her fears and her concerns to herself, and there was a damn lot she was afraid of.

Finding out that Aelita was actually alive was somehow worse than thinking she was dead. Aang's confirmation that his partner had a pulse hadn't revealed shit else other than that, and that was the worst part.  They knew nothing of her health or her well-being, and all that Piandao and his little birds had been able to assure was the fact that she was seemingly whole and set to marry the fucker that had tried to kill her.

Zetzu was somehow worse than Zuko because as fucked as the elder Prince was, he had never rammed a blade through Aelita's chest. Spirits, Toph was terrified to consider what the younger asshole could and would do to her friend just make her submit. Thinking about it made her skin crawl. The others echoed her worries, sure, but none of them could quite understand Aelita the way she could. From what she saw of him, Chief Hakoda loved and adored his kids, and he would've never pushed them into lives or roles they didn't want. Kyojuro could probably sympathize the most in his own messed-up way, but still, he had been born with all the privileges that came from being a boy.

Toph and Aelita? They didn't have that little bit of mercy. Life was different for girls who grew up in positions like theirs. It was why they managed to hit it off so well. They didn't have to talk about their bullshit, primarily because Toph refused to talk about her bullshit, they wordlessly seemed to just know.

Or, Aelita knew, at least. Toph doubted she was half as good a friend to the Akira as the firebender was to her. Shit, she was sure she wasn't. She had let Aelita break twice on her watch and hadn't done shit either time - once in the Si Wong Desert, again after the fall of Long Feng. Toph would probably spend the rest of her life regretting that, even when they got Aelita back.

If they got even a shell of her back.

The ground vibrated in the distance. Hard. Just too far away for Toph to get a clear picture. She waited and felt and listened. Footsteps. Unnatural ones. Heavy. She sat bolt upright.

"Guys," she said loud enough to cause her sleeping friends to stir. "You're all gonna think I'm crazy, but it feels like a metal man is coming."

There were grumbles and groans of protest and displeasure as the teens began to wake. Aang, closest to Toph, leaned up on one arm as he tried to process the nonsense his friend had just spewed. He blinked one to wipe away his sleepy haze, and he blinked a second time when a too-bright light shined in his face. Standing on the lip of the surrounding crater was a hulking beast of a man they didn't recognize. He clutched the letter tied off in black ribbon that his hawk had intercepted earlier that day in one hand, the other reflecting the moon's glow off of the metal that made up his right arm from the elbow down. Even in his half-delirious state, the Avatar could make out the distinct markings of the third eye tattoo in the center of the man's forehead.

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Zuko studied Aelita in the dimly lit house that felt more like a tomb. There was disgust in her eyes. Resentment. Betrayal, worse than he had ever seen in her before.

Worse even, than when she realized he betrayed her.

"Azula was just trying to get under your skin," he insisted. 

"It worked. She did," Aelita said, turning away from Zuko to study the face of young Lu Ten. She guessed him to be just shy of seventeen based on the uniform he wore in the portrait. He had his late mother's square jaw and wideset eyes, and his father's mouth and nose. He stood just behind the General's right shoulder, and the painter had managed to capture the Iroh's pride in his son as he sat tall. Aelita could almost see the obvious love between them.

And still, Lu Ten had barely been older than Zuko was now when he died following in his father's footsteps.

She had nearly done the same, but she had been fighting for the wrong cause, all for a man who might have loved her, sure, but hadn't cared enough to protect her from the wolves at their door.

"Your Dad was a good man," Zuko argued.

"Good by who's standards? Yours?" Aelita scoffed, turning to face the stiff-backed Prince. "He practically gave me away. He didn't have to do that. I was his daughter, not a tool for him to trade."

"He couldn't have refused my Grandfather even if he wanted to. You know that, Aelita."

Zuko was right. She knew it because she knew the royal family's history.

Before the births of Iroh and Ozai, too many of their ancestors had only birthed one firebender per generation as was the case with both Sozin and Azulon, thus narrowing the potential line of succession and the royal family's prospects. Even before the loss of Lu Ten, a deeply seeded desire to produce the strongest possible heirs had been born inside the palace. It was the sole reason Aelita had first been selected for Zuko over Mai. The Fire Sages delved deep into the family histories of any potential bride, and while the name Kenshin had been tied to no notable figures before the rise of her Father, it was synonymous with a long line of strong, steady firebenders in a way the Irimi name was not. 

But even knowing this, Aelita couldn't deny her disgust. "He wouldn't have had to refuse had he not put his ambitions before me. He didn't have to climb rank the way he did. He could've just blended in. He didn't have to draw attention to us. Our ancestors were craftsmen and grunts for richer men's forces. No one would've noticed me if they hadn't noticed him."

Zuko couldn't argue that. Still, he insisted, "That wouldn't have changed who you are."

"Wouldn't it?" She chuckled. "I might have still been the Akira, but if we had just been a happy, normal family, do you really think I could have left my Dad behind?"

They were both quiet for some time, the air heavy with tension. Zuko said plainly, "You left me."

"I did," Aelita nodded. "Because I thought it's what my Father would've wanted. He always spouted off about how sad it was that we were at war, and that burning through the world just because we could went against nature. He made himself out to be the good guy he wasn't, and he died letting me think that he had always tried to do the right thing. Standing against the Avatar felt like spitting on his memory. So I left," she shrugged, and Zuko swore he saw her blink away tears. "And look where it's gotten me. See what it's done to me. See what it's made me," she said, and her voice sounded so very small. "I'm not a good person, Zuko."

The self-loathing on her tongue was a punch straight to his gut. He debated on telling her everything right then and there just to ease a little bit of that misplaced guilt. Zuko opened his mouth and said her name but stopped short before he could bear her all of he and his brothers' sins.

What could he tell her? 'By the way, you did hurt someone but it wasn't the Avatar and it sure as shit wasn't to protect me. Surprise! It didn't seem like it was anyone important. That makes it better. Right?'

Spirits, that was barbaric. No, he couldn't. He wouldn't. What good would it do? What would it change? Why did he want it to change in the first place? She watched him, and for a split second, Zuko was sure she could see directly into his very soul.

"I hurt you, and you want to be mad at me for it."

It was the truth, so Zuko tipped his head just barely in agreement.

"You hurt me," she said casually. "I want to be mad at you for it."

He didn't so much as bat an eye. "I guess that makes us even."

"I guess so," She nodded. "Just tell me one thing. Would you have given up everything for me if I had asked you to? If I had stopped to tell you the truth before I left, would you have chosen me over your family and your throne?" 

"We've had this conversation before, Aelita."

Her fast twisted in confusion. "I..." she trailed off, trying to remember, not wanting Zuko to know for some reason that she couldn't. "Humor me." 

The Prince swore he was being made for a fool. "Don't patronize me."

She was quiet for a moment. He waited. Her voice was soft. "I'm not."

He knew without question she was telling the truth.

"In the ghost town by the river," he recalled, waiting for a recollection in her that never came. "After...After my Uncle was hurt. And he taught us to redirect lightning. And we talked about what could happen. Between you and my Father. Back then. How do you not remember?"

"It's...blurry."

"What do you mean?"

"There's a lot I don't remember. Can't. Not all of it, at least. Something about my head trying to protect me," she explained with obvious discomfort. "According to the Shaman from Bhanti. She...called it a survival tactic. To keep me from getting too upset. Because," she gestured vaguely from her injured chest to the Prince. 

"So what do you remember?"

She shrugged. "Bits and pieces. I remember Aang, and Toph, and Katara, and Sokka," she spoke slowly, like it were a chore to recall. "And I know I cared about them. A lot. But I couldn't tell you why. If I try to separate the little moments with them...I just can't. Some of them I can. But not all. I remember feeling loved," she said, and her voice broke at the end. "And important. I don't know if I deserved it. I remember traveling to the North Pole, and blaming myself for losing Princess Yue, and I remember seeing you there," she said, and there was no denying the tears behind her eyes when she looked at him now. "But I don't remember what we said or where you went or how you ended up in Ba Sing Se but I know you were there with Zetzu and Azula. I remember watching people die. In a library and underneath Lake Laogai. I don't...I don't know if I could have saved them. I remember fighting with Aang, but I don't remember if we ever made up. Before."

She couldn't continue, and somehow her lack of clarity only seemed more awful to Zuko than anything else. "Is that what you meant earlier? When you said you thought you had what Mai wanted?"

"Yeah," Aelita said."I think. I don't know."

"And Zetzu...knows?"

She nodded. "You never answered my question, Zuko."

He blinked slowly, his mind still trying to process everything he learned. But she deserved to know. They both did. Zuko had been avoiding that answer ever since Aelita first left, weeks only after they had become something more. There was no point in running from the truth anymore.

"No. I wouldn't have. My honor was more important."

Aelita smiled slowly, sad and knowing. "Yeah, I thought so."

"There you are," a voice rang out from the darkness before Zuko could say more. He and the Akira turned away from one another as his sister crept inside the abandoned house. "I thought I might find you here together. It seems fitting. Just like old times." 

Zuko was sure there was implication behind his sisters' words but he chose to ignore them, staring once more at their family portrait. "Yeah well, those summers we spent here seem so long ago. So much has changed."

Any taunting Azula considered quickly died. Standing in the house made her feel like a child again in the worst way. "Come down to the beach with me. Come on. This place is depressing."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Aang's quick reflexes saved their lives. He watched as the metal man tensed his stomach, and then a split second later a horrifying, deafening boom ricocheted through the air. The stone wall the Avatar rose was just enough of a deterrent to keep his waking family whole. Still, the explosion's impact sent the stone and the teens flying.

Toph took Aang's spot before the dust settled, sending an avalanche of jagged rock hurtling up towards the assailant with what should have been deadly speed and precision. His second boom obliterated the attack before it even came close.

Aang had sheltered his family from the falling earth with a dome of air solid enough to give Katara an opening. Water from the springs rose with her as she swept her arms, surging forward with the intent of washing the man away. Behind her, Sokka scrambled for his sword and boomerang. When the third explosion collided with the wave, the heat turned the water to vapor, covering the camp in a thick cloudy haze.

Sokka and Kyojuro didn't need to confirm their plan out loud. The warrior heaved his boomerang in the direction of the new, dangerous foe and prayed he had remembered where the man stood. The Prince, unable to see clearly through the fog, counted to a quick two before raising his fists towards the ledge, transforming the slope into a river of molten stone.

Appa's warning bellow cut through the tense silence a moment later, telling the teens that their retaliation attempts hadn't succeeded. Kyojuro barely had time to dive behind a lip of the crater with the others before another shot burst where he had previously stood. They were effectively pinned down, unable to move without opening themselves up for a risk none were willing to chance.

"This is crazy!" Sokka declared through gritted teeth. "How can we beat a guy who blows things up with his mind?"

Aang looked to Katara. Her hands were trembling where she knelt, even if her face was steady and determined. She had witnessed the devastation that came from this strange, powerful kind of bending in a first-hand way even the Avatar hadn't. She had been the one to pull him free from death's embrace, all because of this terrifying gift. 

He glanced at Kyojuro, the only other one to have really seen the extent of combustionbending. His expression was grim and like Katara, the Prince seemed to shake. He answered Sokka with ragged words. "I don't think we can."

Aang hated that he agreed. He hated even more that he was afraid, even as he knew what he needed to do.

 He turned his mangled back to his friends, already moving away from them before they could object. "Jump on Appa, I'll try to distract him! "

In his exploring with Momo earlier Aang had learned that a valley of natural stone pillars lay just behind the metal man like an old weathered maze. He charged the combustionbender head-on.  Aang used the last bit of fog as his cover, pushing air from his feet to propel him up the slope next to Kyojuro's lava. The metal man saw him coming too late, and the airbender was able to leap over his head before the deadly energy could make contact. Aang hit the valley of pillars running. He leaped from rocky ledge to ledge, panting heavily and hoping he could make it somewhere safe enough for Appa to reach him, unease tickling his spine.

Unease turned to genuine terror as combustion after combustion slammed into each pillar mere breaths after his departure. The energy from the bursts seemed to set the air to vibrate and left Aang feeling uncomfortable in his skin like he couldn't get away fast or far enough. He wove back and forth in zig-zagging patterns, hoping to lose the assailant who had slid into the valley on heavy determined feet. Aang knew that he could only run so long, so taking a chance, he shot a palm out blindly behind him. Two of the pillars behind him snapped in half and hurtled towards the combustionbender.

The attack did little. The man blew through stone with ease. The Avatar continued to flee but a faint distant voice chimed in his ear, telling him he was in danger. Aang listened. He turned mid-leap and with both hands, he propelled himself backward as a detonation went off where he just stood. Still, the explosion's energy and his unsteady position sent him flying toward the ground. He bounced off the earth with a heavy thud, head spinning, just conscious enough to know he needed to hide.

Aang ducked behind a thick pillar as the combustionbender approached. The air between them was dead silent, and the monk didn't dare to move, even as his heart hammered. Fear threatened to do him in before the man even touched him. He hadn't realized just how horrified he was by this strange, terrible power. He hadn't let himself think about it until now. Ba Sing Se had been the brutal reminder that Aang wasn't invincible. He was just a kid. He wanted to be a kid. He wanted to protect his friends and be with them and be a normal fourteen-year-old boy. 

While the Avatar continued to panic, the metal man came closer.

"Go," the voice in Aang's mind spoke again. "Run," it said, and when the boy remained still, it pleaded. "Flee. Live. Go."

He should. He needed to. He would. He did.

Aang took one deep, steadying breath before encasing his body in a suit of rock. He stepped out from behind the pillar. The metal man spotted him. Aang propelled himself forward. Appa bellowed in the distance. Sokka tightened his grip on the reigns. The man locked in on the Avatar. Aang kept going. The man began to inhale. Kyojuro subconsciously reached for the closest person to him. Toph didn't shrug him off. Invisible energy rippled around the third eye tattoo. Katara held her breath as Appa dove down.

At the last second, Aang jumped. His feet, stone and all, touched the metal man's head as his shot began to fire off. Aang pushed off hard, dropping the rock and warping the air around him. He rode the colliding forces of the combustion and his own bending high into the air, the man reflexively ducking from the rock, his explosion slamming into the valley wall in the distance somewhere way off target. Appa swooped beneath a now-falling Aang, and Katara flung an arm out to tug the Avatar in the saddle.

They were out of the combustionbenders range before he could gather his bearings.

"I'm okay," Aang reassured Katara as she checked him over, Momo landing on his shoulder with a chorus of frantic chitters. "I'm alright."

"Well," Toph said, swatting away Kyojuro's worried hand as the Prince sighed in relief. "That was random."

Katara tensed even as she made sure that Aang was no worse for wear. Behind her, her brother continued to steer Appa away from the danger. She refused to turn around and face him. She couldn't. She was afraid they were both thinking the same thing.

A new threat. A deadly one. And a reminder of what their friend could be facing alone in the capital.

"I don't think so," Katara admitted to the others. "I get the feeling he knew exactly who we are."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Zuko and Aelita willingly followed Azula out of the house and down to the secluded stretch of beach from their childhood. Washed-up logs had pulled in a semi-circle around the ashes of a crude fire pit lined in stone. Mai sat opposite around the pit from Ty Lee, the latter trying to mask concern with joy, the prior not bothering to hide her lingering disgust. Still, Zuko went immediately to his bride while Aelita flocked to Ty Lee and Azula sat alone.

"Hey," Mai said to the Prince by way of a half-hearted peace offering. 

Zuko's eyes glinted with accusation. "Where's your new boyfriend?"

Any shred of forgiveness in Mai melted away. She turned away from him. Across the circle, Aelita scoffed. Zuko ignored her. He reached for Mai. "Are you cold?" He asked gently. 

She swatted his hand away. Zuko cursed under his breath. Azula grinned. She was entertained.  Ty Lee, on the other hand, was far from. She hated to see Mai so low and defeated. It had been so much easier to ignore the sting of the arrangement when she convinced herself that Zuko and Mai at least had a slim chance at being happy. 

It wasn't that Ty Lee didn't want to admit she was in love with her best friend, it was just that she knew it didn't matter. Optimist or not, she knew that she could never have what she wanted because Mai was simply the perfect daughter. Even before she had been promised to Zuko, Ty Lee had always known her friend would follow the path laid out for her, marrying a noble of her parent's choosing and continuing carefully curated bloodlines. 

That, of course, would require Mai to marry a man, and she would do it without a fight. She hadn't when it came to Zuko. That casual indifference and acceptance had hurt Ty Lee. It was why the acrobat so often threw herself into the attention of anyone who would give it. She leaned into Aelita for a similar distraction now. Something about watching Mai lie there and take the vitriol made her want to scream, no matter how much she felt for Zuko in this situation too. So, Ty Lee blurted out to change the subject, "I'm freezing!"

Zuko swore he saw jealousy there when he looked across the beach to the circus performer. It was gone in a flash, so the Prince offered her a half smile for her efforts. "I'll make a fire," he said, glancing up to the estate on the bluff above. "There's plenty of stuff to burn in there."

No one offered any assistance. Aelita felt Azula's eyes on her the moment the Prince rose while Mushu slept off his swim in the ale in her arms. She braced herself for the quips and questioning that never came. The Princess was too intrigued to torment. After all, she thought to herself, the best players knew when to pass and when to hold. She'd sit back for now and watch the night unfold before her eyes.

Unfortunately for her, Aelita had decided to do the same. She leaned into Ty Lee when Zuko returned a short while later, arms loaded with old wood and his family portrait. The chi-blocker beside her balked in shock and disgust as he began to build the fire. "What are you doing?"

Zuko barely glanced up at Ty Lee while he arranged the scraps of brush into a peak. "What does it look like I'm doing?" He asked as he stood, flicking a little flame into the pile of dry wood. The fire caught immediately and roared to light, illuminating the horror on Ty Lee's face.

"But-" she stammered, sitting up straight when the Prince casually tossed the portrait into the flames and Zetzu's face began to slowly burn. "But it's a painting of your family."

Zuko watched as his entire family went up in smoke. "You think I care?"

'You do," Aelita answered before Ty Lee could, not once tearing her eyes away from the flames. She could admit that watching his family burn felt like a sick sort of poetic justice.

"You don't know me anymore," Zuko snapped back, choosing to feel angry rather than guilty because guilt was just too much. "Remember? So why don't you just mind your own business?"

The Akira didn't flinch but the girl beside her frowned - not so much because of the outburst, but because a part of her understood it. "I know you."

"No, you don't," Zuko insisted, immediately turning on the other girl. "You're stuck in your little 'Ty Lee world' where everything's great all the time."

Ty Lee gaped. Aelita continued to watch the fire. Mai glared. Azula watched them all. Her brother's bride hissed in Ty Lee's defense, "Zuko, leave her alone."

But the Prince reveled in the release that came with unleashing his frustration on someone else, even if that person didn't deserve it. "I'm so pretty. Look at me," He taunted Ty Lee, flipping himself upside down to stand on his palms. "I can walk on my hands. Whoo!" He cheered enthusiastically, falling into the sand with a soft thud. "Circus freak."

Tears welled in Ty Lee's eyes, the slightest bit ashamed but not at all embarrassed. "Yes, I'm a circus freak," she rasped, her voice just barely trembling. "Go ahead and laugh all you want. You want to know why I joined the circus?"

Mai rolled her eyes and settled back on the log where she sat. "Here we go."

Ty Lee ignored her and the hurt that came from her easy dismissal, focusing all of her fury on Zuko instead. "Do you have any idea what my home life was like? Growing up with six sisters who look exactly like me?" She shoved herself up from where she had sat next to Aelita and began to pace, unable to keep still. "It was like I didn't even have my own name," she cried, the weight of the memory forcing her to her knees. "I joined the circus because I was scared of spending the rest of my life as part of a matched set. At least I'm different now," She insisted, glaring at the Prince who wasn't sure who she was trying to convince of her words. "'Circus freak' is a compliment."

The fire pit was silent for a long moment before Mai hummed, "Huh, guess that explains why you need ten boyfriends, too."

Ty Lee's hurt-filled eyes snapped in her direction. Mai didn't back down, even as the acrobat squawked, "I'm sorry, what?"

"Attention issues," Mai quickly deduced. "You couldn't get enough attention when you were a kid, so you're trying to make up for it now."

Ty Lee snapped. She rose to her feet, hands on her hips as she spat in the direction of the person she so normally adored. "Well, what's your excuse, Mai? You were an only child for fifteen years, but even with all that attention, your aura is this dingy, pasty, gray-"

Mai cut her off. "I don't believe in auras."

"Yeah," Lee snorted, feeling the last little bits of her heart crumple into dust. "You don't believe in anything."

Mai forced herself to remain steady and calm even though she felt anything but, not when Ty Lee looked at her with such obvious disgust. "Oh, well, I'm sorry I can't be as high-strung and crazy as the rest of you."

'I'm sorry, too," Zuko said, rising from the sand to face the bride he at least wanted to consider his friend. "I wish you would be high-strung and crazy for once instead of keeping all your feelings bottled up inside. She just called your aura dingy. Are you gonna take that?"

"What do you want from me?" Mai hissed, her control breaking as the words she didn't intend to speak spilled out. "You want a teary confession about how hard my childhood was? Well, it wasn't. I was a rich only child who got anything I wanted as long as I behaved, and sat still, and didn't speak unless spoken to. My Mother said I had to keep out of trouble. We had my Dad's political career to think about."

"Well, that's it, then," Azula shrugged. "You have a controlling mother who had certain expectations, and if you strayed from them, you were shut down. That's why you're afraid to care about anything, and why you can't express yourself."

"You want me to express myself?" Mai snarled as she shoved to her feet "Leave me alone!" She shouted, her chest heaving by the time she was done, four sets of eyes on her.  Zuko's softened and Ty Lee's filled with tears but Aelita's and Azula's continued to observe.

"I like it when you express yourself," The Prince said and genuinely meant it, vowing to silently to them both to be better and do better even if he was what neither of them wanted. He reached out to lay a reassuring hand on her arm.

"Don't touch me!" Mai shrugged away, not quite ready to forgive Zuko just yet. She dropped back down onto her log. "I'm still mad at you."

"My life hasn't been that easy either, Mai," he defended himself. 

"Whatever," she huffed. "That doesn't excuse the way you've been acting."

Ty Lee interrupted when the Prince opened his mouth to defend himself. "Calm down, you guys. This much negative energy is bad for your skin. You'll totally break out."

"Oh you sweet, oblivious girl," Aelita muttered softly to herself from where she sat, shaking her head and mouthing a silent count down to Azula. "Three...two..."

"Bad skin?" Zuko barked. If he noticed Aelita's 'I-told-you-so' expression she shot to his sister, he ignored it. "Normal teenagers worry about bad skin. I don't have that luxury," He huffed as he stalked over to stand directly in front of the acrobat, pointing to his scar. "My father decided to teach me a permanent lesson on my face!"

"Sorry, Zuko, I..." Lee began to stammer out an apology that the Prince refused to listen to.

"For so long I thought that if my dad accepted me, I'd be happy. I'm back home now, my dad talks to me. Ha!" Zuko said past a half-mad laugh, finally whirling to face Aelita, speaking to her as if she were the only one there.  "He even thinks I'm a hero. Everything should be perfect, right?" He asked, closing his fists tightly and releasing them over and over as his nails bit into the skin of his palms, the fire behind him burning brighter with each clench until the Prince finally exploded all the terrible awful he hadn't wanted to admit. "I should be happy now, but I'm not. I'm angrier than ever and I don't know why!"

Aelita kept her eyes on his even as the fire behind Zuko roared. Azula, dare she say it, was almost impressed. "Well," the Princess said to her brother, drawing his attention to her. "There's a simple question you need to answer then. Who are you angry at?"

"No one," Zuko lied as he realized the gravity of his admission. "I'm just angry."

Maybe it was because she wanted to help him, or maybe it was because she was too petty to avoid joining in, but Mai quickly turned on her intended. "Yeah, who are you angry at Zuko?"

"Everyone," the Prince stammered around his growing panic. "I don't know."

"Is it Dad?" Azula pressed on.

"No, no."

"Your uncle?" Ty Lee joined in.

"Your brother?" Mai asked before Zuko could answer.

"Me?" Azula tossed out.

Zuko barely managed to choke out a denying 'no'. It felt like the world was closing in on him.

Aelita almost felt bad. "Me?" She asked.

"No," he answered quickly, looking at her despite the distance he had put between them. "Not anymore."

Not ever, really, if Zuko wanted to be honest with himself because it was too easy to see why Aelita had chosen to follow the path she had, especially when he looked in the mirror and saw what he had become.

"Then who?" Azula demanded to know while her brother paced. "Who are you angry at?"

"Answer the question, Zuko," another voice said, and the Prince wasn't sure he could tell who was speaking to him anymore because he could hardly focus on anything over the sound of the pounding in his heart and head.

"Talk to us."

He couldn't hear.

"Come on, answer the question."

Couldn't breathe.

"Come on, answer it."

Couldn't function.

"Tell the truth, Zuko."

Just couldn't take it any damn longer.

"I'm angry at myself!" Zuko thundered, the fire behind him erupting with an intense fury that none of the women backed down from.

"Why?" Aelita asked before the flames had even begun to die. She wondered who needed to know it more - her or Zuko.

"Because I'm confused," the Prince relented. "Because I'm not sure I know the difference between right and wrong anymore," he faltered, his head hanging low. "I don't know if I ever did."

Aelita's immediate instinct was to tell Zuko that the scar on his face was proof that he had always known the difference. 

She ignored that instinct.

"You're pathetic," Azula snorted past a smug grin, her words breaking the heavy silence that followed her brother's confession.

And it was so very fucking like her. It took conscious effort on Aelita's part to not fly off the handle in rage and annoyance. Instead, she arched an eyebrow in the direction of the Princess. "And you're not?" She challenged.

The mood on the beach shifted from curious to tense as the old rivals stared one another down like a scene out of their past, right down to Aelita's defense of Zuko. Typical.

Mai thought to herself that some things never changed. Still, she found that her annoyance with Zuko had gradually dissipated. She even felt the slightest bit sorry for him despite his miserable behavior. "I know one thing I care about," she said to the Prince as she rose and began to make his way to his side. When Zuko didn't pull away, she tipped his chin up to force him to look at her in a manner that was more nurturing than it was intimate. "I care about you," she admitted freely and meant it too.

Not in the way she cared about Ty Lee, but it would have to be enough to matter.

Zuko offered Mai half of a smile because it did. He tried not to notice the way Ty Lee clutched at Aelita and looked the opposite direction, and he tried not to notice the way Aelita didn't do either. Still, he found it bothered him less than it did before.

"Well, those were wonderful performances, everyone," Azula said, cutting through the almost tender moment with her flippant words. Her gaze flicked over to the Akira, the only other person who had managed not to lose their shit. "Wouldn't you agree?"

Aelita's voice was flat as she tilted her head back to stare at the moon. "I'd say the night proved to be quite enlightening."

The lack of emotion behind her words bothered Zuko more than her cool siding with his sister. He'd worry less if she fought back. "I guess you two wouldn't understand because you're just so perfect," he prodded at her subtly with no real malice, just wanting to see how she would react.

"Well, yes, I guess you're halfway right," Azula said before Aelita could pay her brother any mind. The other girl continued to gaze absently at the light in the sky while she spoke, far more of a freak than Ty Lee would ever be. "I don't have sob stories like all of you," the Princess shrugged, not allowing herself to be too concerned with her youngest brother's bride. "I could sit here and complain how our Mom liked every other child in the world more than she liked me, but I don't really care," she lied to herself as much as she did the others, truly making a conscious effort not to pretend Aelita didn't exist. "My own Mother," Azula said, hanging her head despite herself. "Thought I was a monster."

'She's just like her Father,' she remembered hearing her Mother say to her Uncle when they thought she wasn't listening. 'She's just too strong.'

You didn't love the ones you feared, and Azula knew that just as certain as she knew the fact that her Mother feared her.

Her, but not her darling Zuko and the instability that came from being as weak as he was. Her, but not her timid Zetzu and the horrible abilities no one truly understood. Her, but not the daughter she would have preferred to have, even though there was no denying now that Aelita was more powerful.

But power didn't mean shit when you didn't know how to use it, and her Mother had hit the nail on the damn head. Princess Azula was her Father's daughter, and she knew how to use every bit of cunning and fire she had.

"She was right, of course," Azula said too casually. "But it still hurt."

Aelita could feel four sets of eyes fall upon her even as she continued to watch the not-quite-full moon. She finally looked back at the others, each of them sitting silently as if they were waiting. "What?"

"Well?" Ty Lee prodded. "What about you?"

"What about me?" Aelita asked back as Mushu began to gradually stir awake in her lap. She stroked his ears absentmindedly to ground herself. "All of my family's skeletons have been on display for a long, long time."

"Yeah, but you never talk about them," Ty Lee pointed out. "At least not with us. You keep everything inside and just roll with the punches and never act like anything is wrong. That's not normal."

"Lee, if you haven't noticed, I'm probably the least normal person here."

"Aelita come on," the acrobat pleaded somewhere between concern and frustration. "I'm serious. We worry about you."

"Speak for yourself."

"Azula!"

"At least she's honest sometimes."

"You two are terrible," Ty Lee groaned in frustration with the Princess and Akira. She reached out and shook Aelita as if she could force some sense into the other girl. "Tell us something. Anything. Let us be your friends. Talk about what it was like not having a Mom. Tell us about your Da-"

Zuko cut Ty Lee off before she could finish her sentence. "Don't go there," he warned her gently.

Aelita appreciated it more than she was willing to admit. Seeing the faint traces of relief in her eyes made Zuko almost feel like her friend again.  Ty Lee meant well, and they all knew it, but it was clear to anyone with half a brain that Aelita didn't want to be the subject of this interrogation, and honestly, keeping to herself was probably the smartest thing for her to do with his sister around.

But Ty Lee wasn't so easily deterred.

"Fine," she sighed. "Then tell us what we missed out on in the last four years. What was traveling the world like?"

"It wasn't exactly a leisurely vacation," Zuko remarked dryly so that Aelita wouldn't have to.

The corner of her mouth twitched up just slightly.

"Oh! I know! Tell us about that cute boy from the Water Tribe!"

Aelita's smile disappeared.

"You seemed very close," Ty Lee wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. "We haven't gotten to talk about boys or dating like normal teenagers," she continued, not noticing the way Aelita was shutting down before her. "And your boyfriend's not here to get jealous," she added in a sing-song voice that was enough to make her friend snap.

"He is not my boyfriend," she hissed even as she faintly heard Mai mumble 'now-you've-done-it' under her breath. "A boyfriend is someone you choose to be with, and I didn't choose Zetzu. I have never had a choice. I was passed around from brother to brother whether I wanted it or not. I had no say. I am doing what I'm expected to do."

Aelita regretted it as soon as she said it. She snapped her mouth shut and looked away from the shock and awe so clearly painted on Ty Lee's apologetic face.

Azula loved every moment of it. "Awh," She taunted. "I'm sure Zetzu would be so upset to hear that."

"That's enough, Azula," Zuko warned. She ignored him.

"I'm just saying, the change in your relationship was so refreshing to see. I remember our poor brother always following you around like a little lost puppy when we were kids, but it looked like you were finally starting to return the sentiment. I mean, there's no expectation for you two to spend so much time together, especially since it's an arranged marriage," she pointed out as she leaned back casually on her log, braced on her palms. "Our parents certainly didn't. But you and Zetzu seem to be together any time he isn't parading about for our Father's approval. I even heard," Azula said proudly, watching her oldest brother out of the corner of her eye. "That you and our brother were very cozy in the royal spa a few weeks ago. And I suppose that might've just been you 'rolling with the punches'" she said as if either option would've just been pathetic excuses. "But by all means, don't feel like you need to hide in the bathhouse the next time you choose to kiss our brother."

Silence. Painfully, awkwardly long silence. Ty Lee's jaw fell open, and even Mai looked surprised, but Aelita knew when she was being baited, especially when it came to Azula.

Choose.

Zuko knew he was being baited almost as much as the Akira, but it still took some considerable effort for him to school his expression into casual indifference.

Choose.

His sister picked her words with a purpose, spitting Aelita's misery right back in her face, and at that moment, he had the first glaring realization that he wanted to get her out of his family's grasp.

But now wasn't the time, so Zuko draped a lazy arm over Mai's shoulder to pull her flush against him, whispering an apology in her ear like he wasn't wholly focused on whatever Aelita was going to say next.

The Akira gave herself a moment to breathe before she snickered under her breath. "Thank you for your permission, Princess," she said as she turned back to face the others. "I'll be sure to keep that in mind."

"So," Mai said matter of factually in a way only she could do without being terribly offensive. "Is that why you ran off with the Avatar and stuff? Because this whole blaming it all on thinking your Dad would've wanted it thing is bullshit. You never had any control over your own life before, and I get it, so when you had the opportunity to make a decision and do something for yourself, you did."

Aelita blinked in surprise, her hold on Mushu tightening the way it felt like her lungs were. "Sounds like you're projecting, Mai."

The apathetic girl arched a questioning brow in the Akira's direction. "Am I?"

Aelita didn't answer. 

"Well!" Ty Lee exclaimed, jumping up and drawing the attention back to herself before a new layer of tension could blanket the teens. "What Lo and Li said came true. The beach did help us learn about ourselves," she said cheerfully, plucking Mushu from Aelita's arms and nuzzling him against her cheek. "I feel all smoothed. I'll always remember this."

"He'd bite me if I did that."

"That's because he doesn't like you anymore, Zuko."

"Momma's boy."

"Takes one to know one."

Azula stood as her brother and her sister-to-be began to bicker.  Her eyes were mischievous as she purred, "You know what would make this trip really memorable?"

Later, after they had slipped back into the party and wreaked havoc inside the once-grand house, Zuko and Aelita sat alone on the little sun porch in Lo and Li's quiet cottage. All five had sat there when they first returned, giggling and regaling in the memories of Chan's horrified face as they destroyed artifact after artifact. Azula, the ringleader of the chaos, was the first to yawn and disappear inside, exhausted from the little bit of vulnerability she had shown on the beach. Mai and Ty Lee went in together sometime later, any of the previous tension between them long forgotten. 

But Zuko and Aelita sat in silence for a long, long time, neither of their reeling minds willing to quiet themselves so that they could sleep. Instead, they listened to the sounds of the waves crashing against the docks just beyond the cottage, waiting to see which of them would cave first.

In the end, it was Zuko.

"You deserved it," he said without thinking about where this conversation could and would go. All he knew was that she deserved to know. When confusion clouded Aelita's amber eyes, he continued on. "Earlier you said you remembered feeling loved and important but you didn't know if you deserved it. You were, and you did. And what happened to the Water Tribe Princess wasn't your fault," he continued, unable to stop himself even if he tried. "What happened with us..." His voice trailed off, but he cleared his throat and kept going. "It doesn't matter. Not anymore. What matters is you saved Uncle and I. You found us a boat and you got us out of the North Pole. We sailed to the Earth Kingdom, and you saved him. Us. I didn't...I didn't join Zetzu and Azula until Ba Sing Se. I don't know what happened to you in the library or Lake Laogai, but I do know you don't need to blame yourself for whoever you lost. I know you don't just give up on people. I don't know what went down between you and Aang, or if you made up...before. But I know your friends didn't just leave you behind. They ran. They had to. We...we would've brought them down too if they hadn't. So."

He turned to look at her then and found Aelita blinking back tears, her hands still in her lap where Mushu had promptly fallen back asleep after shitting on Chan's floors at his human's behest.  "Why are you telling me all of this?"

Because there was a time when she was his entire world. "Because you deserve to know."

Chapter Text

Previously

Zetzu had learned at a young age that being his Fathers's least favorite child came with certain benefits. Since there were far fewer expectations for him to amount to anything worthy of his family's legacy, he could come and go as he pleased in a way his brother and sister had never quite been able to. Looking back on it now, the Prince found it beautifully ironic. His family's conscious decision to largely ignore his existence would soon be their downfall.

Despite whatever Azula might have wanted to believe, Zetzu had always been the smartest and most clever of their siblings. Sure he may have spent most of his childhood bouncing back and forth between being starved of attention and horrified of being seen, but eventually he learned to use the general lack of care of his existence to his advantage. Being largely unnoticed and mostly unwanted meant the young Prince could slip through the shadows and watch from the first row as history unfolded before his very eyes. He listened, he learned, he studied, internalized, and observed. He absorbed text, moments, and mannerisms like a well-fed leech; more than that, he had developed an uncanny ability to retain information and emulate desired traits.

Ultimately that was how they had come to be and really, he supposed that wasn't a bad thing. Anyone was much better than the alternative - a meek and meager perpetually eight-year-old boy, forever disturbed by a conversation he wasn't meant to hear and couldn't fully remember.

Zetzu loathed that broken child at the core of their very being. He never wanted to be that boy and thankfully when it mattered most, he wasn't. This time, at least.

The Prince's audience with the War Council couldn't have gone better. It was his first sitting with his Father's advisors since his newly assigned bullshit title, and Zetzu had promptly proven they could not only talk the talk but walk the walk. He supposed his success was greatly in part thanks to the man he prepared to see now.

After all, the grand and accomplished General Iroh was one of the few that the best version of himself was based on. Zetzu had watched and worshipped the man despite his Uncle's obvious preference for Zuko, though the Prince didn't really hold it against the General. This Zetzu was patient, understanding, and forgiving.

He understood that his twin was a greedy bastard who demanded more attention than he deserved. He forgave their Uncle, their Mother, and their Aelita for falling victim to Zuko's bullshit. He waited patiently for it all to blow up in his brother's face.

And along the way, Zetzu had added some of the little traits and mannerisms he had gleaned from their Mom and Aelita, both women loved and adored by their people and nearly everyone they had come in contact with. The Prince had channeled bits of all three in his meeting with the War Council, and it had worked beautifully in his favor.

An aerial fleet and a seed planted in his Father's mind. Spirits, Zetzu truly couldn't have asked for more. No one suspected a damn thing, and the Prince was close, so fucking close to perfecting the poison that would allow him to force Aelita into the Spirit State at his will.

She'd forgive him eventually. He reminded himself of that as he strode unabashed through the palace halls. Even after genuinely impressing the Fire Lord and his advisors, no one much cared what the Prince did after they dismissed him for the remainder of their meeting. He had found the note from his Uncle waiting for him in his room. No one would even notice that Zetzu was gone.

And really, why not just go straight to the source? He didn't have time or the patience to figure out his Uncle's cryptic bullshit on his own. He traced a finger over the end of the scroll in his pocket as he went.

'Learn the truth of your family's scorched legacy, or be doomed to repeat history.'

🌊⛰️🔥🌪️
Currently

Aelita and Zuko found themselves alone in a carriage together shortly upon their arrival back to the capital. They had left Ember Island that evening after another day of 'relaxation' and Azula had promptly taken the first carriage available upon their landing in the harbor, just a little of her petty childlike jealousy showing through as she insisted both that Ty Lee and Mai ride with her, leaving the Prince and the Akira behind.

They had hardly spoken since Zuko's attempt to give Aelita some semblance of clarity. She had largely retreated into herself for the rest of their time on Ember and even Ty Lee had been almost willing to give the other girl some space.

Zuko couldn't help but wonder if he had made things better or worse by telling her pieces of the truth.

His brother would probably say worse considering that he knew about the Akira's fractured state and still willingly kept so much from her. It felt exceedingly cruel to Zuko.

Maybe that made him a hypocrite. He was keeping nearly as much hidden from his old friend.

The Prince had yet to hear back from the mercenary he had hired. As confident as Zuko was that Aang was alive, he had zero proof and even if he did, what good would it do to tell her?

But Aelita was starting to suspect that Zuko knew more than he was letting on. She wouldn't allow herself to look at him now as they rode through the darkening city. She still didn't know how to process anything he had told her. His words had felt like claws scratching down a wall of black adamant in her mind that had just barely buckled. Aelita needed more to crack through those heavy walls, and feeling so close but still so far was driving her slowly insane.

It was a surprise it hadn't gotten her killed. She had found herself face-to-face in her dreams with the trio of shishi spirits the night of Zuko's revelations, and they had turned on her almost instantly, hunting her deeper and deeper into the Spirit World, chasing her with a cold animosity she swore she could feel in her bones. It was nothing short of a miracle that she stumbled upon a familiar fire ferret before the beasts could sink their teeth into her. The spiritual version of her friend led her to a jagged cliff face that felt all too familiar. Before she could question why it did, one of the shishi lunged and she and the spirit both tumbled over the edge. Aelita swore she fell straight back into her physical body. She nearly scared Ty Lee to death when she jolted upright with a strangled sob.

And she still had Zetzu to deal with.

This was the longest Aelita had gone without seeing the Prince since he forced his way back into her life and as much as she wanted to blame him for her suffering, some dependent and damaged part of herself missed him. She didn't think it would have been possible, but when she thought of all the days and weeks she spent seeing no one but the Zetzu, she supposed it made sense.

It made sense, or she was broken beyond belief. Both possibilities were probable.

"Copper for your thoughts."

Aelita looked away from the sleeping city outside her carriage window to the Prince sitting across from her. She only halfway lied. "I worry about your sister."

"Don't," Zuko said immediately, unwilling to admit he had been thinking the same thing because it would be so very like Azula to cause chaos between Zetzu and Aelita just because she could. Those similar fears had stolen the words out of his mouth up until then but if he sat in silence any longer with Aelita this close, he was going to lose his mind.

"Easy for you to say," She argued with Mushu sitting upright in her lap like a guard waiting to attack. "She has every ability to turn your brother against me. It would be her word against mine."

"Azula always lies and Zetzu knows that." And I would never let her hurt you like that. "I didn't know his approval mattered to you that much."

Aelita frowned. "Shouldn't it?"

"I don't think it ever mattered to my Mom."

"But I'm not your Mother, Zuko."

He looked away from her as their carriage rolled through the palace gates. "I know."

But I'm not sure Zetzu does.

The thought jolted Zuko, slamming into him with unexpected force but once it settled, so very much made sense, from the way his brother trussed Aelita up and isolated her and paraded her around when he saw fit, to convincing himself the very fucking fruit that could kill her was her favorite like it had been their Mom's.

Zetzu was trying to turn the Akira into their Mother.

Zuko bit back the bile that rose in his throat. He didn't speak the rest of the journey up the long lane.

To neither teen's surprise, Azula was nowhere to be found by the time they stepped out of the carriage. To Aelita's shock and Zuko's relief, neither was Zetzu. All that waited for the Prince and the Akira were several nameless servants and Aelita's silent maiden.

Kanao seemed to bounce between worried and relieved as she set her quiet sights on her lady. She bowed deeply to the Prince but it was clear her attention was fully on the Akira. Aelita's attention shone right back on the other girl, ignoring the pointed stares of the other servants. She gestured for Kanao to rise and Mushu all but flung himself into the maiden's arms while he began to chatter like an old friend who needed to tell her every detail from the weekend passed.

"Traitor," Zuko muttered under his breath. He slipped past the pair while the other servants either bustled outside for his and Aelita's belongings or waited to be tasked. "We've been traveling half the day," he said to the Akira. "Come on. We need to eat."

"Thank you for the kind offer, Prince Zuko, but I'm alright. I'd like to go see your brother."

The firebender stopped and looked back at the girl. "If Zetzu wanted to see you, don't you think he'd have been waiting for you?"

Zuko saw the fainted flash of hurt dance behind Aelita's eyes. Beside her, her handmaiden tensed while the remaining servants flitted off to prepare his meal. He didn't speak until only the three of them stood in the otherwise empty hall. "I didn't mean-"

"You wouldn't have said it if you didn't mean it," Aelita cut him off. "And while your concern is touching, Zuko, I think I'll take my chances. If Zetzu wishes to send me away once I find him, so be it. It won't be the first time I've been dismissed, and it certainly won't be the last. Come along, Kanao."

Zuko cursed to himself and exhaled steam as she went.

Aelita only slowed when Kanao tugged her into the shadows as they rounded the corner into the next corridor. "What's wrong?" She asked when she saw the nerves so clearly etched into the other girl's face. "Are you okay? Is it your sister? Is she alright? Do we need to go-"

Kanao shook her head in denial and mimicked taking in a deep, slow breath to tell her friend to calm. She peaked a timid glance at their surroundings to make sure they were truly alone before gesturing to the center of her forehead.

"Zetzu. Did something happen to Zetzu while I was gone?"

Kanao could only shrug and look confused because honestly, she wasn't sure. She motioned in the direction of the War Room across the palace and shook her head again.

"He didn't visit with the Fire Lord's council?"

Kanao held up a single finger.

"Only once," Aelita said and her friend nodded. "Why? Did something happen?"

Again the maiden didn't have an answer.

"Where is he?"

Kanao gestured to the wing of the palace that held both the Akira's and the combustionbender's chambers and mimicked the motion of a key turning in a lock. She then pointed to Aelita's throat and flexed her slender fingers.

"Locked in his room. Like he was that morning. Why?"

Kanao clutched her stomach and acted as if she were faint.

"He says he's ill," Aelita said, but she could see the doubt on her friend's face. "But you don't believe it."

The handmaiden nodded.

"Well then," Aelita said, already turning back in the direction of the kitchens to go out on an old familiar limb. "I guess there's only one way to find out."

The moon had taken over the sky by the time she rapped her knuckles on Zetzu's door with one hand, a small tray balanced in the other. When no one answered, the Akira reached for the handle. Locked, just like her friend claimed it would be.

Locked, just like it always seemed to be in childhood when Zetzu hid away from his family.

The thought came to Aelita out of the shadows in her mind. And maybe, just maybe she was reading into it too heavily, because maybe it had become a habit for the Prince to leave his door locked when he was inside, but Aelita couldn't shake the sound of Azula's voice ringing in her ear.

'I wouldn't waste your time. Zetzu's good for nothing when he's like this.'

The changes in him had been so drastic that Aelita swore she rarely saw a glimpse of the boy she used to think she knew. People changed over time, sure, but Zetzu had stepped in front of Aelita in the shadows of Omashu a brand new man. One that carried himself like the Prince his family thought he should have been.

'Like he used to be when we were kids. You know, the real Zetzu.'

The real Zetzu. Timid and afraid and a little bit stunted because the world was cruel and he was smarter than he was ever given credit for.

"Zetzu," Aelita called out. "It's me. I wanted to see you. Is everything alright?" She paused and waited for a response that never came. "I have a surprise for you. I think you'll like it. I worked really hard to get them just right."

Silence.

"I don't know if something happened while I was away," she continued.

Maybe. Just maybe.

"But I do know that every hour is a second chance," she said, repeating a phrase from their past. "If you'd like, I'd be happy to help you get to yours. I'll be in my quarters when you're ready."

When there was still no answer Aelita knelt and set the tray outside the door.

On the other side of it, Zetzu listened as her footsteps eventually faded down the hall. He slumped back against the door and trembled. He'd been like this for...honestly, he wasn't sure how long. It wasn't the first instance of them misplacing time. Memories blurred as they shifted from self to self.  The last thing the boy could remember was going to see their Uncle, and being confronted with something they hadn't wanted to know or hear, and then an overwhelming feeling of fear. He had been locked inside his room since then, convinced it was better to pretend he didn't exist and neither did whatever the horrible, awful truth was.

But Aelita Kenshin had sounded so genuinely concerned. Zetzu sat up on wobbly knees and reached for the door handle. His heart hammered as he twisted it slowly and his breathing came out in deep, ragged gasps but as he gingerly tugged open the door, no one lunged for him. No fire licked his skin. No disdainful eyes looked down upon him.

Instead, all Zetzu found was a tray waiting for him, loaded down with a cooling kettle of tea and a plate full of fresh sesame balls.

Across the palace, Zuko hadn't gone to dinner after Aelita left him. He couldn't stomach the idea of food or the Akira alone with his brother.

It was sick, wasn't it? Wanting to replace your mother with your bride? Zuko was sure it had to be, but he hadn't the slightest clue how to go about curing Zetzu. He lost himself in the thought as he wandered back to his chambers, slipped inside, and fell backward in a heavy heap on his bed.

A knock on his door pulled him from his thoughts. He wasn't sure how long he had laid there in loathing, but the Prince groaned regardless as he rose, ready to bite the head off of any poor soul that happened to have come calling because he had explicitly told the first one he found that he was to be left alone.

But Zuko found the hallway outside of his chambers empty save for the fleeting glimpse of a shadow disappearing around the corner. The firebender opened his mouth to call after them but stopped when he caught sight of a tightly bound scroll sitting at his feet. He picked up the parchment and stepped back into his room. When he unraveled the short note, the sight of the familiar scrawl made his heart pound out of rhythm in his chest.

'You need to know the story of your great-grandfather's life, love, and demise. It will reveal your own destiny.'

In her own room, Aelita had fallen asleep before Kanao had even finished setting the dinner table. She was drained physically and mentally and she didn't have it in her to stay awake any longer.

But a wall of fire rose in the corner of her mind and Aelita found herself moving towards it, drawn to the man who parted the flames and stepped forward.

He looked barely old enough to be considered an adult, maybe eighteen or nineteen at the oldest. His cheekbones were sharp, his forehead broad and his eyes solemn. His shoulder-length hair lay limp, and his skin appeared to be stained with sweat and ash. He wore a style of dress Aelita had only ever seen in old portraits, but every part of her recognized him instantly.

"There is much for you to learn, Aelita," spoke Akira Shukaku. "Find my home at the Black Cliffs during the summer solstice. You need to understand how the war began if you want to know how to end it."

In the hall outside the Akira's chambers, Zetzu clutched the plate of uneaten sesame balls in his trembling hands.

"Bad idea," one of the voices shouted inside his head.

"Going to get caught."

"Going to get hurt."

The boy ignored the voices as he propelled himself forward, not bothering to knock because he didn't have to. A frantic handmaiden was there flinging Aelita's door open. When she saw the frazzled Prince standing there, she tugged him inside. The boy looked up to see Aelita seated at her table with a map of their Nation sprawled open before her. Her eyes were almost relieved as she looked at him.

"Zetzu? Perfect. I was just going to send Kanao for you."

"Me? You wanted me?"

"Of course. I need you, Zetzu. You're the only one that can help me."

He could barely help himself when he was like this. "N-no. I can't. I just came to thank you. For these." He held up the plate. "Thank you. I like them with my-"

"With your tea. I know. I'll have Kanao pack us some for tomorrow because I need your help getting out of the capital."

His eyes widened. "What? No. You can't."

"You're right. I can't. I can leave the palace to go into the city, but I can't go anywhere outside Caldera. But you can. And we have to go tomorrow."

Every warning sound possible screamed inside Zetzu's head. "Why?"

Aelita debated on lying. After all, she had learned she couldn't trust anyone but herself, not completely, but Zetzu looked at her with such sad, accusatory eyes. Not like he expected the worst out of her, but like she was the one person he hadn't expected to hurt him. Every word he spoke seemed to take conscious effort for him to manage, and he stood before her as if he were uncomfortable being in anyone's attention for too long.

Aelita understood Azula as she looked at the Prince. This was the Zetzu she had honestly expected to one day come home to. And she had never lied to that Zetzu before.

"I was visited by one of my past lives tonight," she explained. "It's a long story, and I can explain it on the way, but it was the Akira that Fire Lord Sozin killed. He wouldn't stand with the Fire Nation after the Air Nomad genocide."

"Standing against Sozin would have been suicide."

Aelita arched a surprised brow in Zetzu's direction. "How would you know?"

Because deep down the boy knew far more about his Great-Grandfather than he was willing to admit. "It was a war, wasn't it?"

"I guess so. Still, that's all I really know about Shukaku. I know nothing of his life up until his death, and I don't know what he had to do with the war since he refused to fight. But he said if I went to his home on the summer solstice I would see and I would learn. He lived near the Black Cliffs, and the summer solstice is tomorrow," she said as she traced a path from the city to the cliffs on her map. She looked up to see the familiar face of a little boy watching her. He was disheveled and grown, his hair long and loose and limp and the third eye tattoo an almost unfitting addition, but it was Zetzu. "Akira Shukaku told me I needed to learn how this war started if I wanted to be able to stop it. And you told me that you and I want the same thing. I want to end this war someday, Zetzu. It isn't right. You and I both know that. And I believe you. I think you want that too. So I need you to help me so I can help us."

Zetzu had learned at a young age that being his Fathers's least favorite child came with certain benefits. There were far fewer expectations for him to amount to anything worthy of his family's legacy, so he could come and go as he pleased in a way his brother and sister had never quite managed. And when Aelita looked at him like that, like he mattered, the boy was almost sure he could do anything.

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Roku had come to the young Avatar in a dream.

"Aang," the man had said in a voice like weathered smoke, emerging from a wall of fire the night before. "It's time you learn of my history with Fire Lord Sozin. You need to understand how the war began if you want to know how to end it. Meet me on my home island on the day of the summer solstice."

And so they went, Aang's family not questioning him even now as he stood at the crook of Appa's head and bent the condensation around them like a moving cloud the evening after Roku's visit. They sat in the saddle, all but Toph looking over the bison's side for a better view of an island they had no idea how to find.

But Aang didn't need a map. Their journey had taken the better half of a day, but the young Avatar had known the way even if he couldn't explain how. He cleared away the cloud cover once they were safely out of sight from any of the larger surrounding islands, his breath catching in his throat as he first laid eyes on a barren strip of land. "There it is. That's Roku's home."

"But," Katara said as they began their descent. The little island they headed towards was nothing more than a wide strip of black rock and a rounded-off mountain. "There's nothing here," she insisted.

Toph accepted Sokka's hand and climbed down from Appa as they landed. As soon as her feet touched the ground, her eyes widened. "Yes, there is," she said, gliding her feet over the stone and dirt to paint a view in every direction. As she did, Kyojuro knelt beside her to run the dirt and dust through his fingers. "An entire village, hundreds of houses..."

"All buried in ash," the Prince finished, looking up to the quiet slopes. "Because that's not a mountain. That's a volcano."

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Azula found her oldest brother alone in the Royal Gallery. She had yet to see either of the twins since their return home the day before. She had been reveling in the comfort of some well-deserved solitude damn near the entirety of her last twenty-four hours. Now Azula was relaxed and recharged and ready to torment her siblings however she saw fit. She slipped behind Zuko as he studied a portrait of Fire Lord Sozin in his prime, the faces of other Fire Lord's past watching him right back. "It's never too early for a sitting with the court painter, Zuko. Make sure he gets your good side."

The Prince could've cared less about the teasing. He'd been turning the words from the scroll over and over in his mind ever since the note had shown up at his door. He had done little more than study any old texts that he could, barely eating or sleeping, and still, he had nothing that could make it make sense. Figuring he had nothing else to lose at this point, he glanced over his shoulder to his sister. "I need to ask you something. What do you remember about our Great-Grandfather's history?"

"Oh, Zuko, it's so strange how your mind works," Azula sighed but recounted the lore anyway. "Fire Lord Sozin began the war, of course. He spent his early years secretly preparing for it. He was as patient as he was clever. He famously waited for the comet, later renamed Sozin's Comet, and used its power to launch his full-scale invasion of the world. In the end, he died a very old and successful man."

"But how did he die?"

"Didn't you pay any attention in school, Zuko?" Azula chided with a pointed stare. When her brother said nothing, she sighed. "He died peacefully in his sleep. He was ancient."

The Prince was thoroughly unimpressed and all the more confused because he didn't understand what could be so monumental or destiny-altering about an old croon kicking the bucket in his sleep. "What about our Great-Grandmother?" 

"What about her?"

"Who was she?" Zuko asked. "All I can remember is her name, but what was she like? Where was she from? What did she do? How did she die? Why don't we know more about her?"

Azula frowned. "Why the sudden interest in our family tree?"

Zuko scowled, hoping his sister would assume he just had jitters regarding the future. "Does it matter? Humor me."

Azula rolled her eyes. "I probably know as little about Great-Grandma Shula as you do. As far as history is concerned, she was nothing more than Sozin's wife and Azulon's mother. That's the way it was for our Mother and Grandma Ilah. The only reason we know more about Mom and Grandma is because they were around. Great Grandma Shula was dead by the time we were born. I think she died having Princess Sunzo," she explained, only vaguely remembering the name of the powerless little sister who lived in her grandfather's shadow and did nothing remarkable with her life. "Honestly, Zuko," Azula said, and her tone was matter-of-fact and not at all sad. "It'll probably be the same for Mai."

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No one had batted an eye when Zetzu sent word to the stables to saddle him a pair of komodo rhinos. No doubt the boy was sure it helped his siblings often asked for more. Still, lying had been foreign and uncomfortable. He had been relieved when no one questioned where he'd be going or why or with whom.

Aelita said it wouldn't have mattered if they did. He was a Crowned Prince after all, and he could do as he pleased. Besides, he had been so hard at work lately, and a bit of fresh air and sun would do him good.

It all sounded so much prettier from her lips.

So pretty that the boy hadn't bothered to ask how she knew where to go as they navigated the streets of Harbor City and skirted the coastline south of the Great Gates of Azulon. He didn't ask what exactly Aelita would need to do once they made it to the Black Cliffs, and he didn't bother pointing out the fact that there were certainly no homes or settlements amongst their tall rocks.

Instead, they listened as Aelita spoke about anything and everything but the task at hand, watching her more than he watched the passing landscape while they rode.

They had never seen her in their family's royal armor.

Elaborate and primarily black, it was adorned with scarlet detailing and fine golden tracing. The armor extended across her shoulders with sturdy pieces and down to the top of her stomach. The Fire Nation insignia was visible in the middle of the gold belt that sat around her waist. Zetzu knew it would have been similar to the armor she wore traveling with his brother but now unlike then, it was far finer and detailed in ways reserved only for the royal family.

That was his doing, and knowing that brought him great pride, even if the boy knew he should've been ashamed of the means he had taken to win her.

Aelita felt Zetzu's eyes as they approached the cliffs while the daylight continued to fade. They were due east of the Great Gates of Azulon, just far enough that even by rhino the journey had taken a chunk day. They'd have arrived sooner if she hadn't had to coach the Prince through his every interaction thus far, even if they had been few and far between.

He showed no signs of the Zetzu she had come to know over the last months. No confidence or swagger. No jealousy or short temper. Just innocent apprehension and fear. So Aelita had carried on exactly how she would have when they were young - occasionally filling the periods of silence with safe topics and largely one-sided conversations.

One-sided other than when he told her about the aerial fucking fleet he and the War Minister were working together on, but that would have to be a worry for another day. She was too electric from nerves over her current mission to focus on anything else.

They reached the Black Cliffs just the shortest night of the year began. The area was named for the dark rock of the harsh stone dropoff. The flat planes above were ample and green and gave way to an uparralled view of the sea far, far below. The cliffs wrapped around a small, secluded cove with an empty island at its center.

Aelita pulled her rhino to a stop and scanned the land around them. Zetzu saddled up beside her.

"Th-there's nothing here," the boy said as he fought the panic rising inside him. "This was a waste of time. We should turn back before someone notices we're gone."

"Even if someone does notice," Aelita said while she slid out of her saddle. "You're one of the Crown Princes, remember? You're allowed to exist as you please. Your brother and sister do. You should..." She trailed off when Mushu hooped down and scurried off toward the slightest unnatural rise in the ground. She followed when the ferret began to dig. Her rhino didn't move as she left him behind. Zetzu scrambled off his mount to follow after. By the time he reached her, Aelita had crouched down beside Mushu and began to tug grass and weed free from the ground, digging past a thin layer of dirt until she unburied the old rusted curve of a decades-old helmet.

She didn't want to know if the white she peaked beneath was stone or bone.

"Is that..."

"Look," Aelita pointed to another pile just beyond the first. She moved to it and tugged free several charred pieces of slate. "These are roof tiles. Zetzu..." she barely breathed as she looked around the cliffs a final time and realized she had stood here in a vision before. "I think this is it. I think this is where Akira Shukaku's home was. They must have burnt it to the ground after...after."

The boy trembled as a heavy feeling of dread settled over him. "I don't like this. I think we should go back."

"We can't," Aelita insisted despite the fear etched on the Princes' face. He looked like a child playing soldier in his armor. "I'm right where I'm supposed to be, and now I need you to protect me."

Zetzu's eyes went wide. "Protect you?"

"My body is going to be vulnerable when I go into the Spirit World."

"Spirit World? No," the boy quickly stammered. "No. You can't. I can't. I-"

"Are stronger than you give yourself credit for," she said as she reached out and cupped her hand on his trembling cheek. "And I trust you to take care of me. Let me do this, Zetzu. For us."

Back in the palace, Zuko lay flat on his back in his bed reading the message on the scroll over and over again. He hadn't learned a damn thing in all his research that day that he didn't already know, and none of it seemed significant. "What does this mean?" He asked himself out loud.

After staring at the words so long his eyes stung, the Prince groaned and tossed the scroll aside. It landed haphazardly across one of the lanterns on his bedside table. Just as Zuko moved to flick it off to prevent a fire, he saw the faint lines of text that the light revealed on the other side of the parchment. Zuko moved to kneel before the lantern and held the scroll to the small flame.

"The Fire Sages keep the secret history in the Dragonbone Catacombs."

Zuko wasted no time. He pulled on a hooded cloak and disappeared into the night, heading north of the palace to the Fire Sages High Temple. He hadn't been there in years, but he knew the Catacombs to be buried deep underneath the Sage's place of work and worship. He kept to the shadows as he went, moving like a spirit in the dark. The Temple was surrounded by a wall built more for secrecy than defense, and Zuko slipped over it with easy grace. The Temple itself was divided into three levels and lit by torches both inside and out. It was nearly identical to the one on Crescent Island.

Zuko thought of Aelita for the first time that day as he remembered the last Temple he visited. It was the place where everything had changed.

He had been so wrapped up in unraveling the mystery left for him that he hadn't paid any mind to the Akira or his brother, but he couldn't think about either of them now. He ducked behind a pillar as a Fire Sage walked through the open courtyard. Zuko watched as the Sage stopped atop a large medallion fashioned in the shape of a flower. The man crouched low and delivered a blast of fire into the center of the stone. The medallion opened up to reveal a hidden passage leading down that Zuko couldn't see from his hiding spot. He waited until the Sage stepped inside and allowed the ground to seal back up around him. When the Prince was sure the coast was clear he moved to the medallion and pushed fire from a closed fist through the cracks around the floral detailing. The ground opened up to reveal the secret passageway - a long and winding stone staircase. Zuko began his journey down.

He walked down and around for what felt like ages in total darkness save for the ball of fire he held in his hand to light the way. Eventually, the steps opened up to a chamber nearly the size of the throne room, torches dotting the long walls. The skull of a fully grown dragon sat between each torch and above him, a dragon spine and its long rib cage hung from the ceiling. Archways and winding halls jutted out from between many of the beast's heads, and Zuko knew that down those side spaces, he would find the urns containing the ashes and histories of Fire Lord's past. He followed the fire and bone until he came to an ornate door embossed with a metal sculpture he recognized to be of his Great-Grandfather. Zuko placed his left hand over a small Fire Nation emblem. He pushed flame through the cracks and watched as his fire lit the entire door. Smoke poured out of Sozin's eyes, nose, and mouth just before the door creaked open.

Zuko stepped into the room beyond and pulled down his hood. He knew it immediately to be a tomb. Still, Zuko did not shudder. The round room was lined with large funerary urns. On either side of the door stood statues of dragons rearing back on their hind legs. It centered around another enormous coiled stone beast wrapped protectively around a small urn. In front of it sat a wooden table filled with six scrolls.

Zuko froze. The pages had been unsealed and left in a ransacked heap. Someone had been here. Recently. And they had left in a hurry.

But the Prince hadn't come this far to turn back now. He moved to the parchment and picked up the first scroll.

"The final testimony of Fire Lord Sozin," Zuko read aloud. "As I feel my own life dimming, I can't help but think of a time when everything was so much brighter. I remember my friend and destiny I thought I would have."

Zuko settled down on the floor and dove into his Great-Grandfather's history, desperate to know what it had to do with him and whoever else had been there first.

On the island that Roku had once called home, Aang sat cross-legged in meditation while his family watched over him from their seats on a solidified lava swell, his closed fists pressed together. The other teens held their breath as his arrows began to glow.

On the Black Cliffs, Zetzu anxiously paced back and forth while Aelita focused on her breathing, crossed-legged and fists pressed together. She slipped into the Spirit World with more ease than she thought she possessed any longer. When she opened her eyes, she stood outside of her own body at the edge jagged drop. Shukaku smiled at her from the front door of a little slat house that hadn't stood in a hundred years. Zetzu was nowhere to be found, the Prince trapped in the land of living.

And beside the young Akira sounded a familiar female voice that she had not heard in far too long.

"Hello, Aelita."

She was no older than forty-five in her eternal form, her face only recently beginning to show the first signs of age, a constellation of freckles adorning her cheeks. Her hair was pinned into buns on either side of her head, and her flowing robes were still elegant but a clear sign of the time she lived in. She looked at Aelita with kind, proud eyes.

"Akira Tulan," Aelita smiled back, fighting the urge to fling her arms around her past life. "But," she said, her smile fading. "I thought I was here to learn from Shukaku."

"You will," Tulan assured as she offered the girl her hand. Behind her, Gamabunta, her badgermole companion tunneled up from the ground. "But first you must learn from me, and see the mistakes that led to our downfall."

Aelita spared a parting nod in Shukaku's direction before climbing on the back of the massive mole behind Tulan. Her past life watched them as they went.

They emerged in the middle of a little Earth Kingdom village Aelita could vaguely remember but couldn't quite place. Houses and shops lined a few short streets with a jagged mountain range in the distance. The Akira could hear the sound of running water and pickaxes striking rock from opposite sides of the town. People bustled this way and that, men, women, and children, but none noticed the spiritual pair.

"Welcome back to Tu Zin," Tulan explained. "My home. A mining town. It was named for an ancestor of mine long ago that first discovered rare and valuable resources buried deep underground. My Father ran the mine that employed most of the town for as long as I can remember."

An old carriage pulled by an ostrich horse stopped just down the way from them. Aelita watched as the driver hopped down and hurried to the door. He pulled it open and held out his hand for a girl of fifteen. Her eyes were bright but her face had yet to fill in with half the freckles it one day would.

"That's you," Aelita smiled as she looked at the younger version of the woman beside her. Teenage Tulan wore her hair down in a too-long braid, and despite the times, the current Akira was sure the billowing cream and tan dress was one of the finest she had ever seen.

"It is," Tulan as she took in the sights and sounds of the town long since abandoned in the present. "And I was a mischievous young thing. I was always running off to the river or following my Father's men to the mines. It drove my parents mad, especially when I told them about all the friends I made that they couldn't see. They worried I had an overactive imagination, especially when I went on and on about the river spirit I liked to play with." Tulan grinned as she thought of Rin, the first spirit to have ever connected with her. "They wanted to nominate me as a potential bride for the Prince of the Earth Kingdom, but the last thing I wanted to be was a lady."

The teenage Tulan thanked her father's servant and turned to head in the direction of a tailor down the block. The second the man turned to tend the ostrich horse, she lifted her skirts and took off in the direction of the nearest mine shaft. She beamed as she crawled down into the tunnel lit only by scare torch lights. She dropped her skirts, pushed up her sleeves, and set to work raising large stones and cracking them in half to reveal glittering rock inside.

"I didn't want to leave Tu Zin," the Akira explained. "I loved the mines, I loved the village, I loved my people, and above all, I loved to earthbend. But," she said as a sickening crack sounded somewhere deep inside the dimly lit shaft. "Sometimes those loves got me in trouble."

Aelita could feel the ground shake and heard the sounds of horrified screams deeper inside the mine. A young Tulan followed until she came upon the sight of several already injured men trying to heave a massive pile off another whose lower half was trapped. The ceiling continued to crumble and cave around them, and only one of the attempting saviors was an earthbender.

"Get out of here, Tulan!" One of the men cried when he saw her, but the fifteen-year-old had already joined in trying to move rock after rock.

"No!" She yelled back while she flung stones away with her bending. "I won't leave you!"

But the mine was coming down too quickly, and even Aelita knew it from where she stood. She held her breath as she saw the panic rising in her past life. The entire ceiling of the shaft gave way.

The tunnel was plunged into dust and darkness. Men screamed, and Tulan's eyes began to shine blue. When the dust settled, the mine had all but collapsed in on itself everywhere but where the Akira and the workers stood. A shell of hard air wrapped around them. The men blinked in shock, their comrade now free, and one by one they began to bow to Tulan as her eyes returned to their normal hue.

Unbeknownst to Aelita, Aang watched with his own past life as a teenage Roku fell to the ground in the streets of Hari Bulkan, wracked by images of a girl he didn't yet know bending both air and stone. It reminded the monk of the moment he had outside a Fire Nation factory weeks ago, watching as his best friend struggled to breathe.

"I discovered I was the Akira by accident," Tulan told Aelita with a faint chuckle. "Just weeks before the earthbending masters arrived in our village. The Zeizhou Province was a hub of spiritual energy, and it made narrowing down their search hard. They confirmed what I already knew, and then they sent me off into the world."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that. The Fire Nation was preparing to name my Avatar, and the masters saw no point in delaying our meeting or our journey.

The world shifted and even though they stood more than a century in the past, Aelita recognized the balcony they had perched upon immediately. "We're back in the Fire Nation capital."

Strings of lanterns lit the sky above and the sound of merriment could be heard from the courtyard below. Dozens of Fire Nation's most influential citizens gathered in their finest and drank and celebrated beneath the railing where the two perched.

"Did you know that Aang and Shukaku share a birthday?" Tulan asked. Aelita shook her head.

"You, my child, are an oddity. If an Akira dies before their Avatar, the spirit that connects us from life to life waits and slumbers, rebuilding their strength and allowing their last incarnation to work from the Spirit World. Except in rare cases like yours, they don't typically emerge in the human world again until the spirit inside the Avatar selects its new host. Two births across the world, connected by fate."

"So you and Roku shared a birthday?"

"We did," Tulan nodded as her past crept onto the balcony. Her hair had been pinned up for the occasion, complete with a floral headpiece that should have been excessive but somehow wasn't. She was wrapped in what Aelita would have considered to be far more of a gown than an everyday dress, the fabric glittering under the moonlight. She dripped in gold and jade even as she looked like she could be swallowed up by her nerves. "And," the adult Tulan said as the teen hid in the shadows to watch the merriment below. A slow, bittersweet smile graced the woman's face. "So did Roku's closest friend."

A set of doors opened in the courtyard below and a pair of teenage firebenders emerged to stand on the top steps. One stood nearly half a head taller than the other, long and lithe while his friend was stocky and solid. They seemed to be the opposite of everything the other wasn't - the tall one with hair halfway down his back to match his height, the other will all of his darker locks pinned up. They began down the stairs together as the crowd murmured their well wishes for their birthdays. The taller of the two distracted himself on his way down, tripping over his feet when he caught sight of the girl he had spent too long admiring. His shorter friend caught him by his wrist before he could fall on his now violently red face. The friend laughed, and Aelita was too distracted to take notice of the headpiece so similar to the ones now worn by the children of Ozai.

Just as her heart knew Aang now, it recognized Avatar Roku then.

The crowd suddenly went quiet as a trio of Fire Sages entered the courtyard. The sturdier of the two boys hurried the rest of the way down to the steps to meet them. "Did something happen to my father?"

"No, Prince Sozin," the lead Sage began, and Aelita's eyes went wide. "We are not here for you. We're here to announce the identity of the next Avatar."

A wave of whispers ran through the crowd as the Prince of the Fire Nation locked eyes with his equally surprised best friend as he flocked to his side. The Sages dropped to their knees at the taller boy's feet.

"It is our honor to serve you, Avatar Roku."

One by one the crowd of nobles fell to the ground to bow to the new Avatar. The Crown Prince blinked beside his friend, but he too slid down to kneel before Roku.

"Sozin," Aelita exhaled as she watched in awe. "Fire Lord Sozin was Roku's friend."

"Back then he was just Prince Sozin," Tulan recalled fondly. "And they were the best of friends. So much so," she continued as the crowd was motioned to rise and the Sages explained that the Avatar's partner was there and waiting. "That he refused to receive me without Sozin by his side."

Aelita saw one of the Sages point to the balcony where they stood behind the sixteen-year-old Tulan. Sozin's eyes followed the movement before drifting back to Roku. He clapped his friends back in encouragement.

Aelita wondered what Aang would've thought had he ever known his past life to have been so close with the man who ordered the slaughter of his people.

The young Avatar still didn't know what to think about any of it. As he watched the history unfold through Roku's eyes, he hadn't the slightest clue that his best friend watched through the eyes of her own past life. Neither was none the wiser of the other's proximity. They both stood silent beside the adult versions of the Avatar and Akira before them as the teenage firebenders took the stairs to the balcony step by step.

The younger Roku froze at the top of the stairwell, turning frantically to his best friend. "I can't do this, Sozin."

"Yes, Roku, you can."

"I can't."

"You can."

"I can't."

"Do you want me to go first?"

"Please."

Sozin sighed and rolled his eyes but reached for the door that opened to the balcony. He took the first confident step through, but he stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of the earthbender standing before him.

Aelita and Aang both read the awe in his eyes as he took in Tulan.

But Roku hadn't expected his friend to stop. He slammed right into the Prince. Sozin was knocked unceremoniously to the ground by the sudden force. Roku cursed and turned an even deeper shade of red than he had before. Sozin rolled onto his back and rubbed at his already aching head. "Thanks for that, Roku. You're a real pal."

Rolling female laughter across the balcony seemed to remind the pair that they weren't alone. They both fell silent as Tulan walked to the fallen Prince's side. She stood over Sozin with an easy smile that stole his breath away. "Hello, Your Highness. My name is Tulan."

Chapter Text

"A single smile changed everything."

Five simple words written in Fire Lord Sozin's perfect scrawl. They rocked Zuko to his core. He knew where the story was going. He knew how it ended. He wasn't sure he wanted to know the rest.

He considered putting the parchment down or torching it right then and there. Either way, Zuko could walk away from his Great-Grandfather's history and live the rest of his life in ignorant bliss if he just stopped reading.

But ignorance and bliss had never really seemed to be in Zuko's cards, so he continued on the uncomfortable journey despite the violent ache rising in his chest.

In the spirit world, Aelita watched as a sixteen-year-old Sozin slipped a message to a servant while the new Avatar and Akira attempted to soothe their first meeting jitters.

"I should have known then and there that Sozin would grow to be an ambitious man," Tulan remarked somewhere between fondness and regret. "He convinced his father, Fire Lord Kazan, to have me as their honored guest during my time in the Imperial City. My Avatar and I were to be given two weeks to acquaint ourselves before we set off into the world together, and the Prince hoped that by acting as my host, he would alleviate some of the pressure from Roku. It was a clever cover."

The world shifted. Aang and Aelita stood next to their past lives on opposite sides of an open field outside the city's watchful eyes. Prince Sozin took up one end, calf-length pants cinched around his waist, beads of sweat dripping down his bare chest. Tulan and Roku panted heavily on the other. Both were a barefoot display of lean muscle in sleeveless training tops in the colors of their nations. Patches of burnt grass littered the field and rough stone lay scattered in unnatural piles.

Sozin grinned. He pivoted on one heel and kicked high, a trail of fire following the arch. It fanned out with speed in Roku's direction. The young Avatar slapped his hands together, creating a wedge to split the flames while his best friend pressed forward to close the distance between them. The Prince dropped low and swept wide once more, a new wave of ember now aimed at Roku's lower half. A wall of stone ripped down the middle of the field before the attack could make its mark. Sozin looked over the rock to find the Akira grinning at him in a 'don't-forget-about-me' manner. Tulan surged towards the wall on rolling earth. She slammed closed fist after fist against the hard rock, punching out boulders the size of a turtle duck's shell. They shot out with wicked speed and deadly precision.

Sozin's face was a wash of pleasure and admiration for the new challenge. The Prince ducked and bobbed around the flying stone, almost losing track of his friend in the process. He brushed away Roku's fire just before it made contact with his skin and caught the Avatar's fist in his hand. He pushed the other boy back, both of them skittering away from one another. He looked down as the ground beneath his feet trembled. Sozin dove out of the way just in time to avoid being crushed between two tall flat pillars of earth that jutted up and clapped together. The Prince then met Roku head-on in a flurry of fire.

"Is this the best you and your partner can do, oh mighty Avatar?"

"Please," Roku panted from behind a grin. "Wouldn't your Father be so disappointed to hear you've struggled so much against a little girl?"

The Prince cursed loudly but remained smiling. Aelita wasn't sure what she hated more - seeing just how good Sozin had been even before his prime, or thinking of how very much she was reminded of herself and Zuko as she listened to the Avatar and the Prince taunt and banter with one another as they traded nearly even blows.

Across the field, Aang just barely noticed as the faintest particles of earth began to move beneath the feet of the firebenders. Suddenly those feet were ripped out from beneath the teenage pair, the two of them tipping forward until their skulls collided together. They fell hard on their stomachs with a resounding 'oof', utterly dazed and confused.

"What the..?" Roku asked as he rubbed his now aching head.

Tulan strolled lazily to their sides. She conjured a perch of hardly visible dust with a flick of her wrist and sank onto it casually. "Don't forget boys, dirt is earth."

Sozin wanted to nod in approval but the throbbing in his head only allowed him to roll onto his back and squeeze his eyes tightly shut instead. "I think you broke my face with Roku's face."

The Akira simply shrugged. "He said 'little girl' like it was a bad thing."

Roku sputtered in his half-hearted annoyance as his new partner stood and made zero effort to help either of them up even though she was meant to be on his side. He rolled off his stomach and turned his head to check on his friend but found Sozin's gaze focused wholly on Tulan as the Prince watched her go.

"Do you think Akira Tulan is related to my friend Toph somehow?" Aang asked Roku as Fang landed once more behind them. The Avatar only chuckled as he climbed about to take the boy to see more of his and Sozin's shared past.

In the human world, Zuko continued to devour the text depicting Sozin's life, not allowing himself to slow down and think about what any of it meant or how uncomfortably familiar it felt.

"Soon the time came when my friend Roku had to leave the Fire Nation and face his destiny as the Avatar. He needed to travel the world so he could master the other elements and grow with his new Akira, but I had grown accustomed to her presence, and I quite enjoyed it."

Aelita found herself standing in the oldest section of the palace library. She could see the night sky in the windows beyond. The teenage version of the woman beside her lounged in one of the two large reading chairs before the roaring fire. She wore a simple crimson dressing gown gifted to her by Roku's mother, the light material covering her neck and shoulders. Her skin had been freshly scrubbed and her hair was still free and slightly damp and drying in the summer air. She flicked through a tattered old copy of 'Love Amongst The Dragons'.

Sozin paused between the library shelves when he caught sight of her. He stood like a ghost in the shadows as he took her in, watching as the play unfolded in the expressions written on her face. The wafting steam coming from the tray in his hands finally snapped the young Prince from his trance.

Sozin cleared his throat to announce his presence. Tulan quickly snapped the written copy shut and rose as if she meant to bow.

"Please," Sozin halted her with a grin. "I think we're past the formalities now."

Aelita grimaced when her past life blushed. "Gross."

The adult Tulan elbowed her lightly. "You didn't hear me chiding you when you happily cozied up with his great-grandson."

"I didn't hear you at all when I was happily cozied up with his great-grandson. You didn't show up until right before we stopped being cozy or happy."

The teenaged Tulan settled back into her chair. Sozin set the tray on a small table next to her and claimed the only other open seat before the fire. She glanced at the tray to see it laden down with two cups, a bamboo chasen, a kettle of steaming water, a bowl of matcha powder, and a plate piled high with mochi. She looked back at the Prince. "What's all this?"

"A late-night treat seeing as neither of us are sleeping like we should be," he explained as he set to work pouring the water from the kettle over the matcha. "You have an early start tomorrow, and I plan to see you off, but..."

"But?"

Sozin slowly set down the kettle while he searched for the right words. He picked up the chasen to steady himself and began to whisk. "But I'm not ready to say goodnight or goodbye yet."

The Prince didn't look at her again until the tea mixture had turned a bright, frothy green. When he finally glanced up, she was smiling at him softly, even more beautiful somehow than she was the first night he saw her. She picked up one of the empty cups and waited for him to pour. "Then don't say goodnight."

Sozin returned her smile. They settled back in their chairs with their cups of tea. "Are you ready to see the world?"

"As ready I'll ever be, I suppose," Tulan sighed. "I don't know. Do you think we'll be alright?" She asked. "Roku and I? It was one thing when I left my village on my own, but trusting someone else is a little bit frightening."

"If you're safe to trust anyone in this world," Sozin said genuinely. "It's Roku. You'll see it for yourself in time. I promise."

"I guess I'll have to take your word for it," she said with a small, appreciative grin. "Princess Zeisan came to wish me well this evening."

Sozin's smile faltered. "Of course she did."

"It was a kind gesture, Prince Sozin," Tulan insisted. "Much like this is a kind gesture."

"Kind is about all she's good for," the boy muttered.

The Akira only looked at him with a puzzled stare. "Why do you hate your sister?"

"I don't hate her."

"You certainly don't like her."

"Can you blame me?"

"She's been nothing but welcoming and respectful to me, so yes, Prince Sozin, I can."

Sozin groaned and swirled the tea in his cup. "You're an only child, right?" He asked. The Akira nodded. "Then you wouldn't understand. Everything has always been a competition between us."

Aelita frowned where she stood. Her past life mirrored her expression."Why?"

"That's just the way things are with siblings."

"Does it have to be?"

Aelita saw the doubt flash just briefly across Sozin's face before it disappeared. "In my family it does. Here, try one of these," he said, reaching for the plate of treats and holding it out for the Akira. He smirked once more. "Unless you're scared you'll cry again like you did with the fire flakes."

"Oh for spirit's sake, it was one time! And I'm an earthbender for crying out loud, I'm sorry that I don't have an unnatural spice tolerance like you freaky firebenders!"

The Prince laughed, deep and full-bellied. "Don't forget, Akira Tulan, you'll be a freaky firebender soon enough."

The teenage girl couldn't help but laugh with him, clearly enjoying the joyful sound as she watched him with soft, dream-filled eyes. "Hopefully not too soon."

"I've seen enough," Aelita insisted to the grown earthbender beside her, turning away from the scene that felt too raw. She walked out of the library and into the hall of a Fire Nation home she didn't recognize, unaware that Aang was watching nearly the same scene from Roku's eyes.

"Look at him," teenage Tulan whispered to the Sozin as they hid in the shadows outside the Avatar's childhood room. She peaked around the doorway to see him standing before his bed unmoving, all of the treasures and relics of his life up until then spread before him. "Does that look like someone ready to travel the world with a stranger?"

"You've been here a fortnight and you've thoroughly kicked his butt on more than one occasion. I'd hardly consider you a stranger anymore."

"Prince Sozin-"

"Just Sozin. When it's only us, just Sozin."

"Oh, that was smooth," Aelita was forced to admit.

Tulan merely nodded while her younger self flushed. "Talk to him, Sozin. Please. For me. I-I want us to be the best team we can be, and I want him to be happy."

"If you're this nice to Roku all the time, you're either going to give him a big head," Sozin smirked as he ducked out of way from the Akira's swing. He held up his hands innocently. "But I'll go talk to him. For you, Akira Tulan."

The Prince of the Fire Nation slipped into his best friend's room as if he hadn't been there the entire time. "Hey, why aren't you packed yet, all-powerful Avatar?" When Roku didn't so much as look at him, Sozin failed his arms in legs in a set of exaggerated fighting moves. "Come on, show me how it's done using all four kinds of bending."

Roku only glanced over his shoulder to the Prince and sighed. He sank onto the edge of his bed. Sozin sat beside him."I started packing, but then the Fire Sages told me I won't need any worldly possessions anymore."

"Tell that to your partner. Have you seen how many bags she made me stuff into your carriage?"

Roku chuckled. "I did. But...she still seems so much more ready for all of this than I am. It all happened so fast. Everything's gonna be different now."

"She's just had a little more time to adjust than you have," Sozin insisted after his conversation with the girl the night before. When the nerves had yet to fade from his friend's face, the Prince reached up and removed the flame headpiece that had been passed from generation to generation up until then. He placed it into Roku's hands. "Here, hope you're at least allowed to have this."

The Avatar went wide-eyed. "But this is a royal artifact. It's supposed to be worn by the Crown Prince."

Sozin closed the other boy's fingers around the piece. "I want you to have it."

Roku blinked but a small smile crossed his face. He slipped the circular base of the crown around his top knot and secured it in place. He and the Prince stood. They wrapped one another in a final embrace. When Sozin left the Avatar to finish packing, a radiant earthbender stopped him at the door.

"Just Tulan," Aelita heard her past say as she climbed onto the back of Gamabunta. "When it's only us, just Tulan."

"Hey," Aang blinked when he realized he was back on Fang, soaring through increasingly familiar skies. "We're almost at the Southern Air Temple!"

"This was the first stop on Tulan and I's journey," Roku remembered with a small smile. "It was the place where we were trained to master airbending. By starting our training with the element new to us both, would walk on even ground, and grow humbly side by side. And humbling our time together was."

From a temple window high above the clouds, Aelita watched as a still sixteen-year-old Roku and Tulan collided mid-air on borrowed gliders, both clad in orange and yellow robes identical to the ones she had grown used to seeing on Aang. She leaned out the window to see them land in a tangled heap of leaves and limbs when they crashed into a tree growing off the side of the mountain. A bald young monk with kind grey eyes laughed merrily from a ledge above them.

"Who's that?" Aelita asked.

"A dear friend of someone you love," Tulan said, smiling fondly as the monk disappeared to mount his sky bison and fly to their rescue."Monk Gyatso."

"No way. Like, Aang's guardian Gyatso?"

Tulan was still watching the young man when he emerged from the clouds on Norbu's back, her eyes a little far off and distant. "The one and only."

The sun shifted in the sky to show the passage of time. When the three teens emerged from its glow, they took to the sky with confidence and ease on their gliders, hooting and hollering in innocent eighteen-year-old glee.

"Hey Gyatso," Roku called to the still-grinning monk now soaring in the middle of their little formation. "You wanna see a new glider trick?"

The Avatar didn't wait for an answer as he looped upside down in a series of rolls. Gyatso scoffed his eyes at the simplicity. "Check this out!" he shouted back. With a hard tug, he heaved himself up until he could stand upright on his glider, balancing on the wooden frame.

"He's air surfing!" Aang cheered. "I can't believe I never thought of that."

"He's air surfing," Aelita nodded in awe. "I can't believe Aang never thought of that."

"Show off!" Tulan snorted from a little ways below Gyatso. She blew out a gust of wind just strong enough to knock him off balance. The monk stumbled in the sky as his glider fell out from under his feet. He reached out with clumsy hands as he dropped, catching the edges of his friends' gliders. The Avatar and Akira managed to hold his weight between them but just barely. They lost control of their flight and with three shouts of panic, they dropped lower and lower until they landed with a heavy thud on the flat training grounds of the Temple below. They laughed madly together this time when they realized they were all indeed alive and in one piece.

"That's amazing!" Aang dreamily sighed from his seat on Fang. "I can't believe you two were friends with Monk Gyatso just like I was!"

Roku could only smile. "Some friendships are so strong, they can even transcend lifetimes. Tulan and I spent years mastering airbending, building valuable relations, and learning about the spirits. From there, we traveled to the Northern Water Tribe."

The world around Aelita had changed once more to another place familiar to her. A short distance away, a twenty-three-year-old version of her past life sat in quiet meditation before a beautiful koi pond, the fish inside a mirror image in a never-ending black-and-white dance. Tulan's hair had been cut shorter, and her face was now heavy with freckles. She wore a thick parka and a necklace of heavy wooden beads from her time in the South.

"This is the Spirit Oasis inside the North Pole."

"It is," Tulan nodded while her other half allowed his current life to witness his struggles with this hardest element. "Waterbending was especially challenging for Roku, but in time, he mastered it as well. Before I knew it, another four years had passed."

Aelita couldn't hide her slight grimace. "The Northern Water Tribe was a little bit... backward until recently, even if you weren't there to learn waterbending. What did you do for four years?"

Tulan smirked as the waters of the Spirit Oasis rose like a living thing to wrap gently around the meditating woman. "I had ways to occupy myself."

Aelita blinked and the Akira was gone.

"I spent a year in the Spirit World."

"A year?"

"Yes," The adult explained as months passed in another blink. "The North and South Pole were once home to portals that connected the two worlds until a time long, long ago when our past lives saw fit to close them. But, that's a tale for another time."

Aelita looked out into the Oasis again, her past life sat once more where she had previously been. This time, a twenty-four-year-old Roku charged into the wintergreen with a hoot and holler of pure joy. While his current life watched on in the distance, he all but threw himself at Tulan, wrapping the Akira in his arms and tugging her up as she came back to her body. They laughed together like giddy children as he spun them in giddy circles. A crowd of proud-looking waterbenders watched on from the Oasis entrance as Roku finally set his partner back on her feet. He smiled and gripped her shoulders as if he were afraid to let go. "Welcome back, old friend."

Gamabunta appeared behind the grown Tulan and the two Akira's climbed onto his back. The elder spoke as he began to dig.

"Finally, it was time that I taught Roku earthbending. But, the peace and stability Avatar Kyoshi had brought to my land was beginning to crumble," she said as they emerged on the other side of the world in the remnants of a tattered settlement along the edge of the Si Wong Desert. The young adult version of herself stood amongst the dust and debris, Roku a short distance away as he looked through the remains of what Aelita deduced was a black-market animal trading post. He lifted two cracked halves of a large, scaly red egg. A small growl from a partially buried basket by his feet caught both of their attentions. Tulan jogged to the Avatar's side as he blew away the sand with a gentle gust. Wrapped tightly around one another like a bonded pair was a dragon hatching and a baby badger mole. The adult Akira smiled softly, but only for a moment before the world shifted once more. It stopped somewhere along the green slopes of the mountains outside her village. "Though I was a servant of the world and the spirits, I still felt fiercely protective over my people. Where they needed me, I went."

A twenty-five-year-old Roku stroked the muzzle of a fully grown Gamabunta. He stood by as his friend embraced her gradually aging parents, her traveling dress hiding the thin plates of armor beneath it. She made her sniffling mother smile when she promised to bring back some sort of trinket from the northern coast. Her smile faded when she turned her back to them.

"I don't like this," Roku reminded her. "I should be going with you."

"No, you shouldn't," she insisted. The Avatar bent down on one knee and cupped his hands. She placed her foot in his grip and allowed him to help hoist her onto Gamabunta's back. She looked down at him as she settled in for her journey. "If King Jialun and Queen Guo Xun's war for resources makes it outside their own borders, you'll need to be the one to stop it. And I won't have time to train you if I'm busy stopping a different war. You're finally making strides in your earthbending, Roku."

"You don't have to say finally like that."

Tulan smiled wickedly at her partner. "Don't miss me too much, old friend. I'll be back before you know it."

A chill ran down Zuko's spine deep beneath the Temple. The words on the parchment refused to go unread. "I'm not ashamed to say I had more than one motive when I ran to the aid of Akira Tulan's people. I already knew what I envisioned for my legacy, even if I had planned to go about it differently then."

The smell of sea salt was almost overwhelming as Aelita took in the signs of the tsunami-ravaged village along the Earth Kingdom's northern coast. In the remnants of a ruined town square, her past life argued with a still-bruised and bandaged elder.

"If the spirits didn't curse us, then who did?" The man demanded to know, gesturing to the devastation around him as his people worked to bury the few bodies they had managed to reclaim from the sea. "The Grand Lectors say the Northern Water Tribe controls the ocean. You can't tell me this doesn't reek of their doing!"

"I can tell you, Magistrate, because I know the Northern Water Tribe," Tulan patiently insisted. "I know Chief Rohan. He is a kind man and a wise ruler. He wouldn't lay waste to a territory he has no qualms with. He wouldn't bring unnecessary war to his people."

The man scoffed. "You think you know, Akira Tulan. You've spent too much time out and about in this world! You've ignored the word of our King! You've ignored the threats our people face!"

"Then enlighten me, Magistrate," Tulan half desperately pleaded after getting nowhere with the man. "What has the Earth King said? What threats do we face? Who would be so reckless as to stand against the home of myself and Kyoshi?"

"How dare you!" The Magistrate seethed. "How dare you compare yourself to Avatar Kyoshi! You don't even deserve the legacy of Akira Ragnar, and he was a Southern Water Tribe brute! A thug! Avatar Kyoshi always had the best interest of the Earth Kingdom at heart while you...you..."

"Have been based in Tu Zin for the last two years," she reminded him. "Shutting down illegal trade, keeping the peace between Ba Sing Se and Omashu, and teaching the Avatar earthbending. And now I'm standing in your village, and you're the only thing stopping me from helping your people."

Aelita was almost certain the man was going to explode but a disheveled woman in tattered, water-soaked clothes came shouting. "Magistrate! Magistrate!" She yelled, stopping to point toward the decimated harbor. "Fire Nation ships! Fire Nation ships flying the imperial flag!"

Tulan's breathing hitched. The Magistrate glowered at her. "I told you girl. Half our ships are still out to sea in safe waters. The rest are on the bottom of the ocean floor. We're ripe for the picking unless our mighty Akira does something!"

She didn't bother to respond. Instead, the young earthbender raced to the waters edge. Sure as the woman had claimed, three Empire Class Fire Navy ships had dropped anchor a safe distance from the shore. A contingent of smaller, man-powered boats paddled towards them, filled to the brim with Fire Nation soldiers.

The younger Akira fell to her knees in the sand. Even after ten long years apart, she knew the man standing at the front of the closest boat.

"It had been three weeks since Sozin's last letter," Tulan explained. "We had made a point to keep in contact as we could whenever Roku and I would be staying in one place long enough for a reply to find us. He had never once mentioned sending a small fleet to the Earth Kingdom. He certainly hadn't mentioned that he'd be leading them."

The man looked more like the Sozin that Aelita knew from portraits and sculptures. His face had grown more sharp and he was no longer clean-shaven. His eyes were serious as he studied the coastline, but they softened when they found Tulan. He launched himself from the boat before it came to a stop, wading through knee-deep water. When the earthbender didn't rise, he offered her his hand. "Hello, Akira Tulan."

"I hadn't known she'd be there," Zuko read. "But I had hoped. She was on the other side of the Earth Kingdom training Roku the last I heard from her, but I had set out shortly after her most recent letter to lay eyes on an island I hoped to seize from the Water Tribes. When the tsunami struck, I saw an opportunity, and I took it. Internal conflict was stirring under King Jialun's rule. By lending my aid when the Earth King refused to give his own, I was able to plant seeds and ideas in both their nation and my own. Seeing the Akira after ten years apart was an unexpected bonus. I had missed Tulan more than I was willing to admit."

Aelita could see unmistakable feeling on the young earthbender's face. She could see it because she recognized the relief and adoration in her eyes. Tulan didn't care that there was an audience. She threw herself at Sozin the moment she realized he was real.

The sudden show of affection caught them both off guard. Sozin instinctively wrapped his arms around her but was knocked off balance by the force of their embrace. They toppled backward into the shallow waters, the Akira landing unceremoniously on top of the firebender.

She cursed while he laughed. Tulan scrambled off of him and pulled him to his feet as the last of his men climbed from their boats to wait for his orders. She jerked her wrist and sent a breeze his way just strong enough to blow the water from the fine uniform she had never seen him in. "You're here. I can't believe you're here. Why are you here?"

Sozin caught her hand and held her eyes with his own. "To help," he said simply.

"She looked at me as if I hung the stars in the sky," the Fire Lord wrote and Zuko hated that he could picture the same expression on the face of a grey-haired girl.

Tulan watched as the young man she adored bowed to the shaken Magistrate and offered his sympathies and support."Sozin had been Fire Lord for two years by that point, and he encouraged international relations more than any of his ancestors before him at that time. He encouraged his people to seek wisdom and connections outside of the Fire Nation, and to my knowledge, he offered aid freely and avoided conflict both inside and outside his borders. I had no reason to question his motives, and his arrival backed my claims that the Earth Kingdom had little to fear. With the extra hands and his gifted supplies, I was able to focus on what I did best as the Akira. I worked with the local spirits to tend the battered land, and I gave the villagers peace as I helped them mourn their dead. Thanks to Sozin, I was able to win the faith and backing of not only the Magistrate, but the entire region."

"It was all just a part of his plan," Aelita cooly remarked as time passed in rapid succession and the town before her gradually appeared less grim. "Sozin wanted to make the Fire Nation out to be the greatest civilization in history so that the war could be our way of sharing our greatness with the rest of the world."

"It was," Tulan agreed with the girl. "But affection can be blinding."

Under the glow of a then-full moon, the Magistrate thanked both the Fire Lord and the young Akira time and time again. Sozin, the picture of diplomatic humility, only apologized for not being able to stay longer and swore that a secondary relief fleet would be there before the month's end. Tulan did much of the same, promising that when she returned, she would come with the Avatar. The grateful man bid them a final farewell and left the two alone at the edge of the village. Gamabunta snorted and swiped his massive paws back and forth across the ground, eager and ready to reunite with Roku and Fang.

Sozin grinned at the impressive beast. "I believe that's your call to get moving."

"I guess so," Tulan sighed. "Roku will be sad he missed you."

"And I'll be sad I missed him," Sozin admitted. "But I've already been away from the Fire Nation long enough. My people need me." He said as he gently caught the trembling girl under the chin and forced her to meet his eye. "Just like the world needs you and Roku."

Tulan offered him a bittersweet smile. "We'll find our way back to one another soon."

The Fire Lord stepped closer to her, shortening the distance between them until they were nearly breath to breath. "Is that what the spirits whisper in your ear, Akira Tulan?"

"It's what my heart whispers to me, Sozin," she said as her lips gingerly brushed his own. "Because I believe our fates are somehow intertwined."

Aelita walked away without waiting for her past life. Tulan lingered in the past a moment longer.

"Roku continued his training while I was away," she explained when she caught up to her current life. They walked through the Earth Kingdom in a matter of steps until they came to a halt in the mountains just beyond Tu Zin. "I left him under the guidance of my own earthbending master, Sud."

The two Akira's watched as Roku, nearly twenty-six and far from the too-gangly boy he had once been, moved barefoot and bare-chested beneath the glowing sun. He swung his arms in quick motions across his body to bend a large piece of earth, riding up the side of the mountain. An older earthbender matched his movement and pace, his skin dark and his face determined. The two competed for speed, weaving through the towering trees as if they were merely minor obstacles. Sud seemed to overtake the boy in no time flat.

"He was uncompromising, stubborn, blunt," Tulan described her old teacher the same way Roku remembered him to Aang. "And a lifelong friend."

Roku was lost from sight as the two raced through the thickest part of the brush. Sud crested the mountain and brought his landmass to a skidding stop, tossing his hands in the air in an apparent victory until he realized he wasn't alone. The Avatar already sat there, reunited with his Akira, her hair now pinned in the buns her young incarnation had come to know her with. Roku poured himself and his partner steaming cups of tea. They shot one another a wicked grin before offering the third glass to their teacher.

"We spent another two years in the Earth Kingdom. It was bitter work," Roku explained to Aang as the Avatars found themselves flying above the edge of the Wulong Forest. Beneath them, Tulan sat on Gamabunta's back with Aelita, the four of them watching as the grown pair battled the forces of an approaching tidal wave with shining blue eyes.

"But the results were worth it," Tulan assured the girl behind her as she and Roku flowed easily from element to element, a seamless duo forged by time and trust.

In the Dragonbone Catacombs, Zuko's heart hammered in his chest while he continued Sozin's story. "I stayed busy in those two following years. Twelve had passed altogether since I last saw Roku and Tulan side by side. When they returned to me, they were a fully realized Avatar and Akira. But I had changed as well."

Aelita stood with Tulan along the edges of what she could only assume was once the throne room though it was far smaller and less imposing than the one she knew. There was no wall of fire before the dais, and the space seemed almost inviting as a twenty-eight-year-old Roku burst into the room, dressed once more in familiar Fire Nation robes, his gifted crown still pinned in place. "Sozin!" He beamed with open arms. "Or should I say, Fire Lord!"

"Customarily, my subjects bow before greeting me," the man on the throne pretended to scowl but the look quickly faded into a grin as he rose. "But you're the exception."

The two laughed as if nothing had changed between them at all because, at the time, nothing had. They met before the throne in a tight embrace similar to the one they shared before the Avatar's departure.

"After all those years, he was still my best friend," Roku explained to Aang from their side of the throne room.

The two men pulled apart and held one another at arm's length, taking in all the growth of one another. Sozin was still broader than Roku but not by nearly as much, and the difference in height between them had shortened to only a small margin.

Looking at the Fire Lord, Aelita thought he reminded her far more of Zetzu than he did Zuko.

Roku smirked. "There's someone else who wants to see you, Sozin, though I am a bit hurt you wrote her more often than you wrote me," he said, pretending to be offended as the doors to the throne room opened wide.

Tulan stood tall in the entryway in a dress of Earth Kingdom green, the wooden Air Nomad necklace hanging from her neck. Her skin was painted gold from years spent in the sun, and blue beads gifted to her during their with the Water Tribe helped to hold her hair back in two buns. Her face was heavily freckled and her smile radiant. "Hello, Your Highness."

"All it took was one smile. It drove my Father mad," Zuko read, back aching as he soaked in his family lore. "He never saw me marry or produce an heir before he died. I had refused every potential match he presented me. I'd accept no other bride. My little sister had been born a disgrace and bending-less disappointment, so I knew I faced no threat to my inheritance even when I defied his rule. Illness took him two years before I realized I was in love with the Akira."

Zuko tossed the scroll away and buried his head between his legs. He breathed in slowly, deeply, willing himself to keep down his dinner. Fate was a cruel, fickle bitch, because he already knew that the story on the paper didn't have a happy ending.

Akira Tulan wasn't the woman his Great-Grandfather ultimately ended up marrying, no matter how much he claimed to love her. But Zuko needed to know why. For his sake, and Aelita's, even if he wasn't sure he'd ever be able to bring himself to tell her what he had learned. When he was certain he wasn't going to puke, he picked up the discarded scroll and began to read once more.

"All that was left was to convince her she that was mine."

In the ghost of the past, Aelita and Aang both watched as the Fire Lord abandoned all sensibility, dignity, or protocol. Roku happily stepped aside as he was all but forgotten entirely, his partner already lifting her skirts and running. Sozin met her halfway, catching Tulan as she threw herself into his outstretched arms. The Fire Lord held onto her like a lifeline. When he finally spoke, his voice was hoarse and just a little bit breathless as he made a promise he couldn't keep. "I'm not ever letting you go."

"She loved him," Roku told Aang. "And he loved her. And as their friend, I couldn't have been happier. I saw the best in them both. I loved them fiercely. And I never once considered that things could end badly. I had always believed that when love was real, it would find a way."

"It was one of the few beliefs that Roku and I didn't share in the end," Tulan explained to her next life, having just recounted the words of her old friend as they watched the Fire Lord spin her into the next memory.

Aelita found herself standing in the middle of an early summer celebration. Her heart thundered in her chest when she saw the eager crowd part for a woman in an elegant crimson and white kimono.

Roku and Sozin stood side by side at what she quickly realized was an alter. Aelita held her breath as the woman approached.

"Ta Min," Tulan explained and the young Akira let out a sigh of relief when she realized she wasn't looking at her past life, but a beautiful woman who oddly reminded her of Aang. Her kind eyes were trained wholly on the Avatar. "Believe it or not, there had been a time she didn't even he was alive, but Roku was very persistent. I was thankful for it. Through their marriage, I gained another dear friend."

The blushing bride and groom turned to face Akira Tulan, the young earthbender utterly resplendent in Fire Nation red. As she began to pray and plead to the spirits to bless the happy couple, a simple golden band glittered on her slender hand.

Aang had yet to notice it.

"Not many people can say that they had the Fire Lord as their best man and the Akira as their acting Priestess," Roku recalled fondly to the boy. "And it made for some entertaining dinner debates when we were all together. You see, Tulan and Sozin's wedding was meant to take place just a few short months after my own, and neither could agree on just what sort of role they wanted me to play in their day. Both wanted me to mimic their position in mine."

Aang sucked in air so hard he nearly choked. He whipped his head toward his past life. "Their wedding? They were engaged? Like - like Zuko and Aelita? Or Zetzu and Aelita? Or Zuko - Zetzu - my head hurts." The monk groaned as he rubbed his temples.

Zuko felt much the same as he followed along with his Great-Grandfathers recounting of events and the engagement he casually seemed to gloss over, the first terrible sight of what was to come.

"On wedding days, we look to the future with optimism and joy. I had my own vision for a brighter future."

Young Tulan remained close to Sozin as they navigated the crowd of nobles mingling about the celebration for Roku and his bride. They received many of their own congratulations and well wishes. Those were accepted with warm smiles and thanks but after some time the Fire Lord steered the Akira in the direction of her partner.

"Excuse me," Sozin said to the beautiful woman on Roku's arm. "May we borrow him for a moment?"

Ta Min had never been one to deny Sozin or Tulan when they called for her new husband. "It's not very traditional," she teased, reaching up to place a kiss on Roku's cheek. "But, okay."

She threw herself back into the celebration without noting the confused expression on the earthbender's face. Tulan allowed her love to take her hand and lead her out of the party onto one of the palace's upper balconies. Roku followed along equally lost.

"What's on your mind?" He asked when the three were alone and Sozin had shut the door behind them.

The Fire Lord wasted no time. "I've been thinking hard about the state of the world lately."

Tulan tensed along the balcony railing but the Avatar only laughed at his friend's timing. "Sozin, it is my wedding! Have a cookie. Dance with Tulan," he said with a wink, clapping his hands on Sozin's shoulders. "Lighten up!"

"I know, I know," Sozin sighed, shrugging from Roku's grip. "But just hear me out. Right from the start, I was destined to be Fire Lord. And although we didn't always know it, you were destined to be the Avatar. And," he said with a soft smile as he looked at Tulan. "You were destined to find me, and I to find you. The Akira and the Fire Lord. It's been unheard of until now. Doesn't it seem like an amazing stroke of fate that we all know each other so well? That we've come together so perfectly? Together," he paused on a hopeful wind. "Together, we could do anything."

The air on the balcony suddenly felt thick and heavy with oncoming tension.

"Yes," Roku said slowly. "We could."

"The Fire Nation is enjoying an unprecedented time of peace and wealth. Our people are happy, and we're fortunate in so many ways. But in the Earth Kingdom," Sozin turned to Tulan and took his hands in hers. "You yourself have expressed your mounting worries and frustrations over King Jialun. He's still at odds with Queen Geo Xun and the rest of Omashu, and their tensions don't show any signs of easing any time soon. He silenced the Earth Sages shortly after your journey began because he knew you were young and in no position to oppose him. He did nothing to help you after the tsunami struck Chenbao and the people blamed the Northern Water Tribe. You were forced to leave Roku's earthbending training to someone else while you prevented the start of all-out war and still, what did he do? Send spies to the North and Sole in an attempt to cause a rift between the tribes for his own benefit."

Tulan fought the sudden urge to deny the words even though they were undeniable. "Where are you going with this?"

"I've been thinking," Sozin explained, gesturing to the city beyond the palace gates. "That the Fire Nation should share their prosperity with the rest of the world." He looked past his bride to his oldest friend. "In our hands is the most successful empire in history. It's time we expanded it."

Tulan appeared too stunned to speak. Her partner, on the other hand, snapped at the Fire Lord. "No! The four nations are meant to be just that: four."

"Roku," Sozin said, stepping suddenly between the Avatar and Akira. "You haven't even stopped to consider the possibilities."

"There are no possibilities," Roku insisted. Turning on his heel, he stalked back off towards his celebration. "This is the last I want to hear about this."

"And it was," Tulan admitted. "For Roku, at least. But things were different between Sozin and I. I wasn't as righteous as the Avatar. But, many an Akira were not. Figures like Akitaru were an anomaly. Akira Ragnar..." She trailed off as the Fire Lord turned his attention back to his bride. He held out his hand and waited to see if she would take it. "Akira Ragnar was possibly the truest embodiment of what it means to be the shadow who lives between the light and dark of this world."

Aelita watched with bated breath as her past life looked at the man before her as if she were truly seeing him for the first time.

But all it took was a single smile to change everything.

"And I was so very much like him."

Chapter Text

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Aelita was going to be sick. She didn't dare look at the spirit standing beside her as a young Tulan slipped back into the post-wedding celebration on the Fire Lord's arm.

It felt too much like looking into Aelita's future rather than her past.

"Sozin was a product of generations of ambition and instability,"  Tulan explained when the girl was silent. "History taught the ruling family of the Fire Nation that worldly power, landmass, and obedience equated to greatness. I glimpsed a sign of those beliefs in Fire Lord Kazan just as Ragnar saw in Zoryu, as Akitaru sensed in Chaeryu, and so on. Sozin was the next step in a centuries-old cycle. He reflected Kazan's shortcomings as a ruler and a father. But I saw a boy who loved and supported his friends openly and fully. I saw a man who took the time to hear me and run to my aid even when I hadn't asked for it. I saw a Fire Lord who united his people, uplifted even the poorest of his nation, and ushered in an era of unprecedented technological development. And until then, Sozin had never acted upon his upbringing in front of me, so I truly believed the gentle and caring boy I loved had grown to be an even better man. When I finally began to catch a glimpse of the being beneath the ambition, I wanted nothing more than to turn a blind eye. I didn't want to accept who or what I was beginning to suspect Sozin truly was. I thought if I did, I'd have to admit I had never truly known him at all."

The celebration fell away. The two Akira's stood between a pair of the glittering lakes that dotted Caldera. The sun dipped lazily below the lip of the dormant volcano. Sozin turned a hand over slowly as he watched a firefly walk across his skin. As he lounged next to Tulan on a too-large blanket, he looked almost normal. His bride-to-be, without a trace of anything that could be mistaken for Earth Kingdom on her, stared quietly out onto the still waters.

"You're dwelling on the mess with the Beifong's, aren't you?"

"How can I not? They're one of the world's biggest financial powerhouses," Tulan groaned, holding her thumb and pointer finger together until they were nearly touching. "And I was this close to winning their support of the Southern Water Tribe. Akira Ragnar might have left his people more stable than they've been in centuries, but they're still leaps and bounds behind the rest of the world in terms of advancement, and there's the matter of the rising aggression in the spirits in either Pole. Their more remote villages are on constant alert after the string of recent attacks. The North has no aid to give their sister tribe. A loan from the Beifongs would allow the South to keep up or at least keep pace with the rest of the world. And the entire family was on board until Jialun's xenophobia made its way to Gaoling. All my hard work and negotiation wasted thanks to the fear the Earth King sews."

"However much you planned to ask the Beifong's for, double it."

Tulan's head whipped around in Sozin's direction.

"The Fire Nation will give it as a sign of our goodwill," he said, sitting up and tugging her hands into his lap, the firefly finally abandoning him. "In a matter of weeks, you'll stand before my people and become my wife. My people will be your people, and you'll belong to them as much as you do to me. We support our own here. And I would do anything you asked of me," the Fire Lord insisted as he rubbed a thumb over the band on her finger. "And I'd do anything even if you hadn't asked it, anything that would keep you happy and safe and mine. Haven't I proven to you my loyalty? My dedication?"

"Of course you have."

"Haven't I shown that you and I want the same things out of this life? That you and I are two halves of one whole?"

"Sozin -"

He dropped her hand to cup the young Akira's cheek. Sozin's smile was soft but his gaze was almost predatory.

Aelita couldn't watch anymore. She closed her eyes.

"Besides," Sozin said as he traced the bottom line of Tulan's lips. "Our nation has the abundance and the means to share with the world."

Aelita couldn't help but hear the emphasis he put on 'our'.

"Surely you can see that, Akira Tulan. Even if your Avatar cannot."

Aelita didn't open her eyes until she heard the sounds of a crew preparing a ship to pull out of port. She was on the metal deck of an old Fire Navy cruiser nearly identical to the one she sailed the world in with Sozin's great-grandson. The past Tulan stood in the center of the chaos doling out orders and conversing with a man Aelita guessed to be the captain. Hair hair was pulled back into her signature style and long gone were the red robes she previously wore with Sozin. She was dressed for what could have been war or a day in the fields. Her eyes were determined but red-rimmed. Gamabunta bellowed derisively from where he hardly moved, almost too big for the ship and unable to see when he wasn't on solid ground. Tulan offered him a sheepish apology. She looked up when a deep, thunderous roar echoed through the clouds above.

A glistening blue dragon emerged from the glare of the later summer sun. The young Tulan's face lit with relief but the spirit beside Aelita was weary. The past Akira dashed down the gangway and hit the dock as the magnificent beast landed.

"Sozin!" She cried as the Fire Lord slid off the dragon's back. She met him halfway and clutched his arms. "I was afraid the messenger hawk wouldn't make it to you in time. There was flooding. Even Rin could only do so much. There are entire villages underwater. Roku is still in Agna Qel'a. I have to go. I-"

"You aren't abandoning me, Tulan."

The Akira blinked in surprise. "I'm not abandoning anyone. I didn't expect you back from Shu Jing for another two days, but I sent word. I can't wait any longer to leave. Tu Zin and nearly the entirety of the southeastern coast-"

"Are not your problem as of now," Sozin insisted, brandishing a short note from his robes and setting fire to it beneath his fingertips. "We're to be married in a matter of weeks, Tulan. There's no time for you to run off."

"Sozin, we can postpone the wedding. We'll have to. My family-"

"We will not!" The Fire Lord hissed. "You will not run away from this! From me! I am your family now! I am what matters! The flooding is a tragedy but it must be the Earth King's problem."

The Akira looked as if she'd been struck. "It won't be the King's problem and you know it. That's why I have to go. I love you, but my people need help. They need resources and relief and they need me."

"I need you, Tulan!" Sozin snapped. When the Akira moved to step away from him, he gripped her wrist and held it tightly. "Your new people need you." He gestured wildly to the flurry of life on the docks. "These are you people now. I am the Fire Lord and you are about to become my wife. We can revisit this notion after the wedding, but you can't just come and go as you please."

"The longer I wait, the more people that die."

"So is life, Tulan."

She jerked free from his grasp. "What about the generosity and prosperity of the Fire Nation?"

"You'll have it after you become my wife."

"I won't barter your goodwill, Sozin."

"You will if you want my aid. Your priority is here now. Your loyalty is to the Fire Nation. To me."

"My loyalty is to the world. I'm the Akira first, I'll be your wife second."

"Then you won't be my wife at all."

The young woman blinked in surprise. When she cleared her eyes, Aelita wondered if Tulan was seeing the firebender clearly for the first time. "Is that the ultimatum you're giving me, Fire Lord Sozin?"

The man squared his shoulders and held out his hand. "Make the right decision, Akira Tulan."

"She abandoned me under the cover of darkness that same night, leaving me with nothing more than an apology and the ring I had gifted her," Zuko read his Great-Grandfather's recounting of an experience he could've never known they'd share. "I should have known better. I underestimated the Akira's sense of righteousness. I put too much faith in her affection for me. Akira Tulan was one of my greatest shortcomings as a man and a ruler. By the time I woke, she was long gone."

"Ultimatum or not, I'm not sure if Sozin would have let me leave of my own free will, and I wasn't brave enough to find out, so I ran," the older earthbender explained as she turned and led Aelita toward a glowing light. When they stepped through the halo, the two were back on the muddy, ruined soils of Tu Zin.

"How did you get out?"

"The Fire Sages weren't always the corrupt figures you know them to be. Many were once loyal to the Avatar and Akira. They helped to smuggle Gamabunta out of the capital on a merchant ship heading for the Earth Kingdom. And Roku, bless him, knew exactly where to find me."

The shadow of Fang's long body glided over the hills. The dragon flew so low to the ground that Tulan could reach up and stroke his smooth underbelly. Roku slid off of Fang and floated on his partner's breeze to settle in behind her on Gamabunta.

"Whatever state we find your village in, we'll face it together."

Aang's throat constricted. He watched from the spirit version of Fang as Roku and Tulan journeyed into the ruin side by side in a way that he and Aelita too often had in their short time together. "What about Sozin?"

"The Fire Lord was as stubborn as he was proud," Roku sighed. "He chased after no one, not even Tulan. His advisors were able to spin a tale that painted him a grand martyr, and some of the Fire Nation turned on the Akira. Tulan left the dealings with my people to me, and while I loved and adored my homeland, my relationship with the Fire Lord became nearly nonexistent. But," Roku smiled just faintly as a deep bellow echoed off the mountain walls. The boy behind him turned wildly in search of Appa. "She and I had other friends to support us."

The bison that crested the horizon wasn't Aang's, but the young Avatar knew her all the same. "That's Diki! That's Monk Gyatso's bison!"

Aelita watched as the giant flying creature landed in the center of what had once been Tu Zin's main street. The airbender at the reigns was twenty-nine but still retained the same kind, mischievous eyes of his youth. He wore a style of traditional Air Nomad robes that pinned up at one shoulder and left the other uncovered. His arm and a sweep of his torso were exposed down to his waist, exposing a surprising set of muscles and the blue tattoos that adorned his body. Gone was the baby softness his face once held, but he beamed nonetheless when he saw his old friends.

"Ba Sing Se denied my request for aid, but Gyatso and several other monks from the Southern Temple had set out to aid the towns and villages impacted by the flooding," Tulan explained. "The devastation stretched far and wide, but there was yet more happening in the world that needed attention. Roku knew where I needed to be. He would come and go as he could, but Gyatso stayed by my side for the better part of two years."

Time passed before Aang and Aelita. Roku flew to and from one village to another when duty allowed, occasionally with his wife and eventually their baby in tow, Ta Min eager to help and the Tulan all too happy to see them. But more so than the passing growth of Roku and Tulan or the repairs to the healing villages, the teenage pair took in the fleeting moments between Akira and the airbender. Aang was almost certain that Gyatso had glimpsed the sadness behind Tulan's eyes and made it his mission to erase all her pains.

They worked. They bickered. They taunted. They laughed. They smiled. Gyatso happily made a fool of himself. Tulan's answering appreciation was undeniable.

Aang found himself comforted by the sight of the two together. Gyatso reminded him so very much of Sokka.

Aelita wasn't quite sure she had the overwhelming urge to cry.

"Am I reading too much into this, or...?"

"You're not," Tulan assured. She watched as Gyatso proudly reached for her just because he craved the contact. She didn't fight it. Instead, with Diki and Gamabunta romping around in the distant fields like a pair of overgrown pups, the past Tulan leaned into the airbenders' embrace.

"I wasn't looking for love or comfort, but Gyatso found me anyway," Tulan told Aelita. "I had no desire to ever marry after the grand failure that was my previous engagement, and unions of such simply weren't standard in Air Nomad culture, but we were happy nonetheless. There were times we were together more than we were apart, but he understood my duties and I understood that he was quickly becoming a monk that the other airbenders looked to for guidance."

Fifteen years passed in the blink of an eye. The Tulan standing atop a mountain in the Earth Kingdom was a near mirror image of the one standing beside Aelita now. Gamabunta slept lazily in the warmth of the midday sun while his human studied the sky above. Unbeknownst to her, a time-kissed Gyatso crept behind her with the same wicked grin that had given his face the smile lines he wore like a badge of honor. When he stood just over her shoulder, a dark stripe of hair lining his upper lip, his whispered 'miss me?' made the Akira nearly jump out of her skin. Her skin was flush when she turned to face him and her expression was more fiery than any firebenders but every thought of retaliation vanished when Gyatso pulled her into his arms and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips.

"No matter which direction life sent us in, we always found our way home to one another."

Roku and Aang tore through the clouds on Fang as the previous Avatar remembered the day their happiness began to fade. "Tulan was visiting the Southern Air Temple when a rumor of conquest landed on my ear. I didn't tell her. Not initially, at least. Still, I went to investigate on our behalf. I wasn't prepared for what I found."

"I had never felt such a rage or a sorrow in Roku," Tulan recalled. She had pulled Aelita onto Gamambunta so the mole could tunnel them back into the grounds of the Fire Nation royal courtyard. "Sozin had claimed the very village he once helped me save as his first foreign colony. By the time Roku caught wind, he had already commandeered two more. He came straight to fetch me. We knew waiting to confront Sozin would only deny the inevitable, so I climbed on Fang and asked Gyatso to watch over Gamabunta while I was gone. I promised to be back soon, but I was wrong."

A Fang from history landed just as the two Akira's slid off the badgermoles' back. A greying Roku and Tulan didn't wait to be welcomed or greeted. All four viewers followed as the partners stormed into the palace with their heads held high. They listened as the past Tulan reminded her friend to keep a level head. Her hesitation at being reunited with the Fire Lord after seventeen years apart was clear. It only further fueled Roku's rage.

"I know about the colonies, Sozin," he barked as they charged straight into the throne room. "How dare you occupy Earth Kingdom territory!"

"How dare you, a citizen of the Fire Nation, address your Fire Lord this way?" the stranger upon the dais snapped back, ignoring the appearance of the Akira entirely to hide the shock that seeing her after so long gave to his system."Your loyalty is to our nation first. Anything less makes you a traitor."

"Don't do this, Sozin," Tulan warned as she stood tall beside her partner. "Don't challenge us. It will only end badly. It's over."

"Don't you dare speak on matters that no longer involve you."

"You're occupying my lands by force, Sozin. I will speak however I please."

"I'm saving your lands, Akira Tulan. If you and the Avatar can't see that, then you're more foolish than I thought."

"I'm warning you, Sozin," Roku said in a deceptively calm manner."For the final time. Pull your forces from the Earth Kingdom, or I will personally deliver them to your doorstep."

From opposite edges of the throne room, the previous Avatar and Akira warned their current forms.

"We underestimated just how far Sozin was willing to go."

Pure pandemonium broke out in the heart of the palace. An entire regiment of Imperial Firebenders burst through the doors Roku and Tulan had stormed through. Several more flooded in from secret passageways behind the throne. Sozin rose from where he sat.

"It was easier to focus my rage on the Avatar," Zuko's Great-Grandfather recalled in his text. "His presence enraged me, but hers unnerved me. So I sought to get rid of them both."

The firebenders launched themselves just as their Fire Lord made his first move toward the Roku. Tulan willingly let the Avatar have that fight. She focused her attention on the guards. Stone and air met fire and the tapestries and other fineries or the throne room began to burn. In the midst of it all, Roku and Sozin were two different forces hell-bent on destroying one another. They skittered backward as fire met fire, their initial blasts almost evenly matched.

Almost.

Sozin would suffer defeat before he backed down.

Roku knew it, and the weight of it having come to this between the two of them was too much for the Avatar. Fire met fire once more. It licked the walls and ignited the throne room. Tulan folded stone in upon stone to smother it, shattering the foundations at the center of the palace. The dome of air she formed kept the shattering roof from caving down upon the dueling men. Sozin didn't seem to care. His attention flicked to the Akira, and Roku's eyes began to shine as he followed the Fire Lord's focus.

And he was lost to the power.

"I wasn't planning on killing the Fire Lord," Roku grimly admitted. "Truly. But even at our best, the Spirit State is a mighty, damning thing."

It was clear to Aang and Aelita that the Avatar felt too much. His Akira recognized it. Tulan cried the firebender's name but her voice was drowned out by the flames and settling rock. Several more guards attempted to rush to their Lord's side, and she was forced to shift her focus let they be caught in the crossfire.

Sozin was too far gone to back down now. Electricity began to flicker through the air.

Roku stepped forward, wrapped in a vortex of moving air, stone, and fire with no water in sight.

Aelita saw the moment Tulan realized Sozin was going to die.

Aelita knew the moment Tulan realized Sozin's death would sit on Roku's conscious.

Aelita felt the moment Tulan realized she couldn't allow either to happen. Love and history meant too much to her, even if one had faded.

A violent wind sent the guards flying. Tulan began to move as Roku lifted both arms to point at the Fire Lord. She ran as Sozin lifted only one, his middle and forefinger aimed straight at the Avatar.

The ground surged. Lightning danced. The two opposing forces raced.

A surge of air from somewhere in the middle of the madness sent Avatar and Fire Lord both skittering back in a cloud of haze. The master of all elements settled back into himself and his old friend was forced to slow. Roku hadn't sent the attack, and Sozin hadn't expected it. Neither could place one another or Tulan. They breathed heavily and waited for the dust to settle, both hoping and praying that their fight was done.

The smell of blood and burnt flesh hit them before the sight did.  As the ash and debris settled, Akira Tulan stood in the midst of where the two opposing forces collided. One steady palm still pointed in the direction of either man, but that alone wasn't the sight that stole the breath from their lungs.

The entirety of Tulan's left side had been scorched so badly she had been burnt down to the muscle now roasted on her bones, her dress a largely blackened fray that barely hung off her ghastly frame.

Jagged rock jutted up from the ground to pierce her right side where her ribs should have been. The cage that surrounded her organs simply could no longer exist. The remaining bits of her green silks had been stained a deep red.

"Nothing would ever erase that sight from my mind," Sozin wrote. Zuko could see it too clearly.

It was Ba Sing Se all over again.

Tears streamed down Aang and Aelita's faces as the Akira's hands and head fell. Roku surged for her, the Avatar chanting her name like a broken mantra. As gently as he could, he snapped off the tip of the stone that pierced her, knowing that pulling it from her completely would only quicken the death that even he didn't have the power to stop. The bonded two fell to their knees as Tulan slumped her head against his shoulder.

"Couldn't let..." she attempted to say. "Not a...killer...Roku."

The Avatar could do little more than press his forehead to hers and beg her forgiveness.

Until Sozin moved to make a step forward. The ground behind the Fire Lord splintered and he was jerked high about his ruined palace, a shard of rock so similar to the one buried inside Tulan pierced his robes and left him dangling from the rough pillar of earth. He could feel the Akira's eyes meet him a final time before they drifted shut forever.

Roku's answering sobs weren't a violent, ear-splitting thing. The calm of it was all the more terrifying. His soft, muffled sounds somehow called to Fang and the brilliant red dragon landed amongst the debris with a wail of his own. His cries, on the other hand, were undeniably full of pain and grief and he no doubt scented the death in the air. Any remaining guards had the good sense to flee. Roku pulled Tulan into his arms like a sleeping child and climbed onto the dragon's back. They flew to where Sozin dangled about the earth, the Fire Lord too in shock even to flinch.

Roku consciously considered slaying his best friend for the first time, but even after all that had just transpired, he could not.

"I'm sparing you, Sozin," the Avatar declared while he cradled the limp frame of the woman they both loved in such very different ways. The Fire Lord couldn't take his eyes off her somehow peaceful face. She smiled in death as if she had accomplished her very life's purpose. "I'm letting you go because there was a time when you were my friend. I'm letting you go because it's what she would have wanted," Roku said as his voice finally broke. "But I warn you," he spoke between his teeth, sucking in a deep breath to prevent himself from completely breaking. "Even a single step out of line will result in your permanent end."

Neither Roku nor Tulan had it in them to show their charges the despair that followed after the Akira departed from her earthly form. The Avatar had returned to the Southern Air Temple to find that Gyatso had already known the news to come. Gamabunta had simply gone to sleep in the stables that morning and had refused to wake despite his previously perfect health, and Gyatso had known.

It hadn't made the funeral to follow any easier.

"Sozin and I didn't speak or see each other for twenty-five years after we lost Tulan. She and I remained connected through the bond we shared, but I mourned having her by my side all the same," Roku explained sadly as he and Aang perched amongst the clouds on Fang's back. They watched as time went on beneath them. The years showed on the face of the previous Avatar, but still, he persisted with Ta Min and soon their daughter by his side on a familiar island. "Both the mortal and spirit worlds were largely at peace. While the shadow inside the Akira healed, Tulan tended to the spirits displaced or angered by the evolving lands. I kept enough pressure on King Jialun that he kept his horrors to a minimum. The son who succeeded him was even more withdrawn from the world and the nuances of his greater kingdom. I was free to spend most of my spare time here, at my home."

Beneath them, a Roku now the same age as the man journeying with Aang slept beside his wife. He jolted upright when the floor beneath them began to shudder. The smell of smoke and sulfur had him dashing to his window. Balls of fire and molten stone spit out of a black sky as his island's twin volcanoes roared to life. Roku dashed back to Ta Min and tugged her to her feet, either not noticing or not caring when the headpiece given to him by Roku fell to the floor.

"Let's go!" The Avatar yelled to his wife as they fled from a home situated too close to one of the shaking slopes. To his obvious relief, the start of the eruption had awakened their entire little settlement. Men, women, and children all fled towards the boats waiting in the black sand. The elder pair only made it a short distance before Roku let go of Ta Min's hand and motioned for her to go on without him. Aang was almost certain the only thing that kept her going was the obvious desperation on the Avatar's face. She continued to run but kept one arm outstretched in a final hope that he may take her hand.

He didn't.

"Roku's island was a hundred miles away," Zuko read about the impending devastation. "But I could still feel it rumbling and see the black plume of smoke. I had never seen anything like this catastrophe."

Aang watched with reverent awe as his predecessor fought torrents of more violent than anything he had seen Kyojuro conjure. Roku flicked seamlessly between all four elements, bending a thick and tall wall around the village as a molten rockslide threatened to swallow the entire area whole. When lava began to spill over its top, he carved deep channels into the earth to redirect the flow away from the still-filling boats. With powerful sweeps of air, he blew raining fireballs off course so they landed far from his people. And even from the base of the volcano, he began to push and pull the currents, tugging the little boats out to sea and away from harm. "This is amazing, Roku! You're battling a volcano, and you're winning!"

The Avatar didn't smile. "Unfortunately, my success didn't last long, Aang. There was no way I could do it all. Battling the elements was hard enough. I had to do it while I could barely breathe. The poisonous, volcanic gases were overwhelming."

As Roku explained, the past version of himself tried to charge upwards to the lip of the volcano. He collapsed to one knee a short distance from where the danger emerged. The air around him was thick with fumes, and the aged man was wracked by a coughing fit that stole the air from his lungs. His panicked dragon attempted to beat the smog away with his mighty wings, his bellowing roar pained. "It's all right, Fang!" Roku insisted between his fits. "Get out of here! I'm fine!"

The smoke around them cleared with nearly double the speed. Aang looked around to find an aged Sozin sitting upon the back of a dragon nearly identical to Fang save for the blue hue of its scales. "Need a hand, old friend?"

Roku blinked up at the ghost from his past. "Sozin?"

The Fire Lord ignored the shock and slid from the back of his mount. He gripped the Avatar by his collar and hauled him to his feet. "There's not a moment to waste."

Aang was struck by the melancholy of it all as he watched the old friends take on the monstrous mountain while the citizens of the island fled further into the ocean. From where he stood, it looked like so little had changed between the pair. They moved like two halves of one whole as if they had always been meant to fight side by side rather than head-on.

He wondered if Aelita and Zuko had ever been so very in sync.

Roku stood at the lip of the volcano and risked a glance over his shoulder. Through the heavy haze, he counted the boats bobbing in the water. He blinked back tears when he counted them all. As if the volcano knew it had been cheated, it roared beneath the Avatar's feet. Somewhere down its side, Sozin watched as the bested man fell.

"He's dying," Aelita said to Tulan. They had been watching the remainder of Roku's life from a place between the worlds, and Aelita knew she was about to see it come to its end.

The earthbender nodded."Even an Avatar's body has its limits."

Roku wheezed as he struggled to breathe. The world beneath him shook and the heat pouring out of the volcanoes increased as it prepared for its final surge. The Fire Lord closed the distance between them and stood over the man now weak from his longer, mightier fight.

Roku reached for his old friend as the edges of his vision began to darken. "Sozin," he gasped with a trembling, outstretched hand. "It's too much. Please."

But the Zetzu's Great-Grandfather only watched as Avatar Roku slowly slipped from this life.

"Without you or Tulan, all my plans are suddenly possible. I have a vision for the future, Roku."

Sozin brought his thumb and forefinger to his mouth and whistled. The sound of beating wings was drowned out by the rumbling of the volcano, but a giant blue beast emerged from the smoke and ash. The Fire Lord had only spent half the time battling the disaster that Roku had, and he still possessed the strength to climb onto his dragon's back. With one final glance tossed in the direction of the man who had once been his closest friend, Sozin disappeared into the night.

Roku felt his heart shatter for the final time. He no longer had it in him to stand, not even as a desperate Fang rushed to his side. The red dragon refused to leave him, no matter how much the Avatar pleaded. Instead, Fang settled down on the trembling ground as a swell of debris and molten rock began its race. The two wrapped around one another and held on tight as the earth reclaimed them both.

The world fell away from Aang and suddenly he was overwhelmed by a blinding light. He blinked twice and wiped the moisture from his eyes with the back of his hand. When the glow seemed to dim, he looked around to find himself standing somewhere between life and death with Roku. Before them, Fang slowly uncurled his long body and lifted his head. The previous Avatar, still a bit weak, attempted to sit upright on shaking arms. A woman's hand appeared before his face.

Aelita and Aang both watched as the ethereal form of Tulan reached for Roku. "It's time for us to go, old friend."

The Avatar accepted her hand and their fate with one last bittersweet smile. "Until we meet again."

A distant cry echoed through the in-between. Aang turned away from his past to search for the wailing's source. He stumbled over his own feet when he nearly came face to face with a nun in orange and yellow robes. "Who's-" he stammered as the woman lay a red-faced babe in a cradle. He stepped closer to look at the fresh child and realized that he stood in a familiar room."Wait, that's me, isn't it?"

The previous Avatar only nodded. With nothing left to show him, Roku said a silent prayer that neither Aang nor the young Aelita would make the same mistakes he and Tulan did. "Make sense of our past, Aang, and you will bring peace and restore balance in the world."

Aang slipped back into his physical body before he had a chance to ask Roku to stay.

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

In the Catacombs, Zuko had to take a break. His hands had been quaking, the parchment shaking in his hands. He had just read about the certain death of the last Fire Nation-born Avatar.

History was quickly catching up to Aelita.

"With Roku gone and the great comet returning, the timing was perfect to change the world, and I would not make the same mistakes of my past. I would come second to no one. I knew the next Avatar would be born an Air Nomad, so I wiped out the Air Temples. I knew the next Akira would be born one of my own, so I set my Sages out to find them. I would make them, or I would break them. It didn't matter which."

Aelita was standing once more on the Black Cliffs. Instead of Tulan, a young firebender now sat by her side, his feet dangling over the jagged edge, his face tilted back as if he could still feel the sun on his skin. A slightly younger version of himself stood to their right, watching as a fleet of warships sailed away from the Fire Nation. Shukaku didn't bother to open his eyes. The eighteen-year-old sighed as he remembered a life far too short.

"I was born on Bhanti Island on a dark and solemn night. Smoke and ash had drifted south on the wind, and my Mother knew. She was a shaman, and she knew that Avatar Roku was dead. And," he said, finally turning his head to look into the eyes of his current incarnation. "She knew I was the Akira. My people were innately spiritual and reclusive. It's why the mainlanders whisper of our dark powers and black magic. My Mother wanted to keep my identity a secret for as long as possible. The first signs of war were undeniable even before Sozin struck the Air Nomads. My people wanted no part of it. They sheltered me from the rising tensions of the world for fourteen years, and by all accounts, I had a happy, normal childhood. But I knew even before my Mother told me what I was. I befriended the spirit that connects one Akira to another. So she sent word to Air Nomads requesting their assistance in uniting me with my Avatar mere days before the arrival of Sozin's Comet, thinking there was still time. She never heard back. An entire civilization was gone in the blink of an eye. The Fire Sages came for me a month later. Sozin was confident with the Avatar gone, there would be no one else to influence me. He would've damned the whole Island had I said no, so I didn't. I spent the next two years training with his masters and his Generals and absorbing his propaganda in much the same way you did. But, not everything that came from that time was bad."

A young woman walked quietly to the Shukaku of the past. She wrapped her arms around his waist and lay her cheek on his spine. Both the memory and the spirit smiled softly.

"My wife. She was a servant in the Fire Lord's palace, and our love was easy. Still," both grins faltered. The Shukaku from memory shuddered when the sound of heavy booted footsteps began to hum in the distance."Sozin kept me largely cloistered away from the rest of the world. He was too hesitant to promote our association after his very public blunder with the last Akira. This house was the extent of my freedom. At sixteen, he found me a waterbender with no loyalties to any one nation or cause, some supposed descendant of an old pirate queen called Tagaka. The lessons were brutal but effective, and soon another two years had passed since the decimation of the Air Nomads, and I was the only Akira our lineage has known that journeyed the world without their Avatar. Fire Lord Sozin wanted a weapon."

Aelita watched as the past Shukaku seemed to resign to his fate. He turned to face the trio of approaching men in old, angular Fire Army uniforms that the girl only knew from dated texts. Her previous incarnation tucked his now trembling wife behind him. One of the soldiers removed his helmet. Aelita thought he bore an uncanny resemblance to Zhao.

"Good morning, Akira Shukaku," he said, inclining his head slightly to the young pair. "Ma'am."

The boy squared his shoulders. "Times are far from good, General, when a messenger hawk brings me a notice that I'm to pack and prepare for conquest. The Northern Water Tribe? Really? Fire Lord Sozin can't be so foolish. They aren't pacifists like the Air Nomads. Sailing against them will only result in bloodied seas."

"You'd do well to watch your tongue," the General snapped. "Fire Lord Sozin is no man's fool. He knows the strength of the Northern Water Tribe; that's why he demands your aid in wiping out the threat."

"I refuse."

The General gawked. "You what?"

"I refuse, General. I'm the Akira. I'm the last Akira. I'm meant to aid in harmony and stability, not to rain down destruction. I understand that Fire Lord Sozin wishes to share our prosperity with the world, but this is not how we go about it. I will happily negotiate peace, but I won't be a pawn in a war I didn't start. I'm a neutral man, General, not a soldier."

"You just signed your death wish," Aelita remarked dryly. She knew the rest of Shukaku's story. She had already seen how it ended. She blinked and the carnage of those terrible twenty-four hours surrounded her. Bodies, blood, and burnt flesh. Still, the spirit of Shukaku remained seated along the edge of the cliff. He felt no need to be an audience member of his own terrible history.

"I did," the young man agreed, his voice heavy with regret. "I knew your Avatar Aang was alive. Somewhere. Somehow. I couldn't explain it, but I knew. But I was too much of a coward to do anything about it."

Aelita couldn't look away from the terrible scene unfolding around them. Where the young couple had once stood in relative peace, a beaten-down Shukaku stood with his back to the roaring waters.

"My Lord," the past Akira pleaded through heavy breathing. "I belong to your nation, I am nothing but your humble servant. But here you bring an army to my home, you attack my wife and you condemn us both to die. What is the meaning of this?"

"Because my boy, even though you're of this nation, you're more loyal to your dead Avatar than you are to me. A pitiful waste of the true power of the Akira," An elderly Sozin said while motioning to a slain soldier on the ground. "Chasing a ghost and trying to please the rest of the world. I asked you to take out the Northern Water Tribe, but you asked to remain neutral. You may bend water as you bend fire, but it seems you've forgotten where you were born. In war, there's no such thing as neutral. You've left me no choice."

Aelita felt her heart drop when Shukaku's wife was hauled into the fray, shackled and bleeding from a split open lip, her face heavily bruised, her stomach just so slightly swollen.

"Sozin, please!" the eighteen-year-old begged. "You said it yourself, the Avatar is dead! You wiped out all of the Air Nomads! I serve no one, I just wish to raise a family!"

"The Avatar may be gone, dead with their people, but if the Akira lives and won't fight for the Fire Nation, then they must be destroyed as well," Sozin said as he circled the boys' crying wife, holding a dagger of blazing fire he willed from his palm to her throat. "This is your last chance to join me, Akira Shukaku."

Shukaku looked at the woman he'd move mountains for with a broken gaze. "Never."

"So be it."

Aelita watched in horror as the woman fell dead. She felt Shukaku's despair as his eyes began to glow a haunting shade of blue. With a heartbreaking cry, fire poured from his mouth like that of a dragon. The waves from the ocean below thrashed into the cliff so hard and so high that even Sozin looked afraid he might be swept away.

"I knew," Shukaku told Aelita. "I knew I was at my end, Spirit State or not. And I knew that if I fell then, that we would be no more. So I made a deal with the shadow that connects you and I because there is a way to force him from our body, Aelita. There is a way to break the bond, though I hope that is something you never consider because I hope you will find it in you to be stronger than I."

A disembodied voice hummed a reply somewhere deep inside both Shukaku and Aelita. Calm, comforting, and familiar, but sad nonetheless. "Raava does not yield, and neither do we. Our time will come. Rest my boy, and be free."

"Fire Lord Sozin," Shukaku spoke in the same voice that Aelita had first used in the North Pole. Zetzu's Great-Grandfather at least had the good sense to appear afraid. "You may have won the battle, but you have yet to win the war. This isn't over yet."

"Fire is an element that either commands respect or consumes fear, Akira Aelita. Do not fear it as Tulan and I did," the spirit of Shukaku warned the girl. "Do not be plagued by our indecision. Face the cruelty of this world head-on, and end the suffering we were too foolish not to in our own separate ways. "Make sense of our past, Aelita, and you will bring peace and restore balance in the world."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Chapter Text

Zuko emptied the meager contents of his stomach along the edge of his Great-Grandfather's tomb.

Akira Shukaku should have been Aelita.

Akira Shukaku was Aelita, and Fire Lord Sozin had killed him.

Zuko bent over and wretched again, clutching onto the scales of the carved dragons to keep himself from completely keeling over. There had been a time when he was thoroughly convinced he hated Aelita, but Zuko never wanted her to die. Even on his worst days, he didn't want anyone to die. He had tried to save Zhao, hadn't he? He had put a blade in Aelita's hand when Zetzu refused to and he had told her to defend herself.

He wasn't a monster. He wasn't destined to turn into one.

Zuko wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. He wasn't sure what game his Uncle had been playing at in having him come down here but he didn't want to be a part of it anymore.

Still, the Prince had gotten this far. Zuko begrudgingly walked back to the table that held the tossed-about tomes and picked up the fourth of the five scrolls he had been reading. Only one scroll left to atone for Sozin's sins. There had to be more. There had to be redemption.

There wasn't.

"I watched as the cycle of the Akira ended with Shukaku," his Great-Grandfather wrote. Zuko snorted at the falsehood but continued. At least Sozin had gotten one thing right, he knew the Avatar had somehow eluded him.

"I wasted the remainder of my life searching in vain. I know he's hiding out there somewhere. The Fire Nation's greatest threat, the last airbender."

If only that had been true. Sozin's descendants had made the Akira a far larger threat than the Avatar. Zuko didn't care what his brother or Father wanted to believe.

That was a jarring thought too. He didn't trust this new Aelita who had given up and given in. Maybe it was because he didn't want to admit his part in beating her down so much she could have broken. Maybe not. Either way, it bothered him less than it should.

Zuko reached for the final scroll. He only found half. The parchment had been crudely torn, the edges rough and uneven and slightly singed. His eyes began to scan the little bit of text it contained and the Prince soon found himself staring at the beast that was his family's lineage. It wasn't quite complete, but Zuko knew enough of Sozin to know that the man had tried to paint the history of the Fire Nation as having begun with his regime. It listed only those the most important to him.

Fire Lord Yoriko, daughter of Fire Lord Zoryu, grandmother to Sozin. Married to Kauro of the Tanaka clan, descendant of Avatar Szeto.

That was a jolt. Slim and diluted or not, Zuko thought he would've been told he had some distant connection to the most revered Fire Nation Avatar in history. Szeto was practically a deity to this day. The crimes of Aang and Roku didn't matter amongst the outer Islands, they still celebrated the festival throne in honor of the former Grand Advisor to Fire Lord Yosor.

Capital Island certainly didn't.

Agni Kai's weren't permitted during the Festival of Szeto. It was considered a spiritual offense to burn others during the celebrations. Zuko's Father had maimed him on the first day of the festivities. His banishment had officially begun before the last.

He shook off his immediate disdain and continued to read about Fire Lord Yoriko, hoping somewhere on the scroll he'd learn whatever it was his Uncle deemed to be so important.

Mother to Prince Yichen, nonbender, died after falling from a palace balcony during his thirteenth year, and Prince Kazan.

Fire Lord Kazan, son of Fire Lord Yoriko and father to Sozin. Married to Meng Yao of the Sei'naka clan. Father to Prince Sozin and Princess Ziesan, nonbender, title and wealth renounced upon marriage.

Fire Lord Sozin, son of Kazan. Married to Shula of the Fujihara clan, possible descendant of Akira Rika.

Zuko managed to fight the urge to once again empty his stomach. He'd remain blissfully ignorant and lean into the possibility that his Great-Grandmother wasn't somehow related to one of Aelita's previous lives.

Maybe he'd mention that uncomfortable possibility to his brother one day just to spite him. He went back to Sozin's family history.

Father to Prince Azulon and Princess Sunzo, nonbender, died during her sixteenth year when her ship was attacked en route to her wedding with the Mayor of the Yu Dao colony.

Fire Lord Azulon, son of Sozin. Married to Ilah of the Saowon clan. Father to Prince Iroh and Prince Ozai.

Iroh, General of the Fire Army, passed in the line of succession. Married to Tamura of the Shirakumo clan. Father to Prince Lu Ten, killed during the siege on Ba Sing Se in his twenty -first  year.

Zuko paused to say a silent prayer for his fallen cousin. He paused again. He had no choice but to because the parchment had been shredded just beneath the details of his Uncle's household. There was no further mention of the little brother who would go on to become the Fire Lord over Iroh. There was no reference to the woman that Ozai would marry or the three children she would bear him. Not a damn thing.

"That can't be it!" the Prince cursed out loud, tearing through the shrine for any sign of the remnants of his family tree. "Where's the rest of it?"

He wasn't sure why this was the part that unsettled him after it all. But dammit, a Sage had clearly updated Sozin's lineage at some point since Lu Ten's demise. Maybe it was the feeling that they were being erased. Maybe it was the shrinking thought that they deserved to be. Maybe it was the culmination of it all, of every terrible truth he had learned that night.

Either way, Zuko hadn't made sense of a single thing his Uncle had wanted him to, but he was determined now, and he would get answers one way or the other.

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

On the ruins of the previous Avatar's home, Sokka paced relentlessly. Aang had recounted his viewing of history from Roku's eyes in great detail. The others remained frozen where they stood. It was too easy for them to replace Tulan in the story with Aelita. Sokka felt like he was going mad trying to make himself understand.

"You mean, after all Roku and Tulan and Sozin went through together, even though Tulan loved him and Roku showed him mercy, Sozin betrayed them? Just like that?"

"It's like these people are born bad," Toph shuddered.

"No," Aang quickly disagreed, earning him shocked stares from four of his closest friends. "That's wrong. I don't think that was the point of what Roku showed me at all."

"Then what was the point?" Kyojuro asked. "Cause it all sounds pretty bad. I mean, Sozin was a guy who had everything, and look how he turned out. Look what he did to Tulan and everything she cared about. That's fucked up."

"Language, Kyojuro, please."

"By the spirits, Sokka, don't you start repeating Aelita. Toph does that more than enough."

"She'd be disappointed if I didn't."

"Can we get back on track?" Katara groaned to the bickering four, her eyes still red and bloodshot from all the tears she cried listening to Aang. "I just wanna get out of here. I feel like I'm standing on a tomb."

The young Avatar quickly sobered. He looked up to what would have been the mouth of the volcano as if he could still see his past like standing there. "Roku was just as much Fire Nation as Sozin was, right? Just like Aelita," He reminded them and his once more somber family. "If anything, their stories prove that anyone's capable of great good and great evil. Everyone, even the Fire Lord and the Fire Nation have to be treated like they're worth giving a chance, And," Aang said looking between them all. "I also think it was about friendships."

Toph turned away and blinked back all the emotions she didn't know how to deal with. "Do you really think friendships can last more than one lifetime?"

The remaining teens met one another's stares. Slowly, one by one, soft bittersweet smiles graced their lips. Aang stood and moved to Toph's side. He took her hand in his while Katara moved to grip the other. "I don't see why not."

"Well, scientifically speaking, there's no way to prove that," Sokka argued.

"He's got a point there," Kyojuro agreed.

"Oh, shut up you two! Just hold hands."

"Fine, but if Aelita gets mad that I touched her boyfriend while she was away, I'm blaming you. She scares me."

"Hold hands with all of us, Kyojuro, not just Sokka!"

"Oh! That makes more sense. No thanks."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

At the Black Cliffs, the current Akira slammed back into her own body just as her previous incarnation disappeared beneath the surf. Her eyes flew open wide and blue. She choked on water she hadn't ingested, tipping forward in the grass as she attempted to suck in air.

"Aelita!" Zetzu cried as he dove for her, falling onto his knees and forcing her to look up at him. He jerked away as if she had burnt him when he caught sight of her eyes. "Aelita..."

Mushu wiggled his way onto her lap and pressed his smaller forehead against hers. Her breathing slowly evened. The glow in her eyes dimmed until they were brown once more and Zetzu let out a strangled sob of relief. Aelita reached up to stroke Mushu's fur and realized her face was streaked with tears. Her body was weak. Her mind was fried. Her heart ached inside her chest. The boy called out her name once more.

"I'm fine, Zetzu," she insisted though her words came out hoarse and trembling. "I'm fine."

"You don't seem fine," he argued. "What was that? What happened?"

Aelita couldn't keep the words in even if she tried. She didn't stop to consider the fact that she sat with the great-grandchild of the man who had caused her past lives so much pain and devastation. She didn't pick and choose her words. She didn't care about her tone. She didn't base her recounting on whatever version of Zetzu she was dealing with right now. Aelita was at her limit.

She told him everything.

Zetzu listened. He hung on to every word. Aelita barely noticed the range of emotions that adorned his face as her story went on. She was too busy grappling with the intensity of her own conflicting feelings to pay him much mind.

Zetzu denied. They raged. They grieved. They thought and they reflected. They saw glimpses of their past, present, and future in the tale that Aelita spun. It was damn near a dead ringer for the testament they found deep in the bowels of the Dragonbone Catacombs only so much better.

There had been a hint of doubt in Sozin's words. Zetzu supposed maybe it should have made more sense, or maybe they should have been a little more sympathetic. After all, Tulan had left and Zetzu could understand what leaving did to a man better than anyone.

But the Akira had loved the Fire Lord. So much so that she was willing to die for him.

Zetzu conveniently ignored Aelita's implication that Tulan's sacrifice was more for Avatar Roku's conscious than it was to save his Great-Grandfather. The spirits couldn't have given the young Lord a better omen.

They had assumed he was doomed those nights ago when he found out too much of a truth he didn't want to know but now there was hope.

Fresh tears had welled in Aelita's eyes by the time she finished her retelling but the Prince was smiling for the first time since she had come back to him. The Akira didn't have it in her to hide her disgust.

"What's wrong with you?" She demanded to know with enough malice behind her words to raise Mushu's hackles. "Why do you seem so happy? How are you smiling? This is fucked up, Zetzu. So beyond disturbing. Your family...the Avatar...the Akira...me and you...it's like we're all connected in the worst way. Spirits, didn't you hear how it turned out? Does it not break something in you?"

"Why would it? Don't you see that this is a sign?"

Aelita flinched as if she had been struck. This Zetzu wasn't bothered by it. He was still riding his newfound high.

For her own stability, she wanted to convince herself that he was being optimistic. Hell, maybe he even meant to atone for his great-grandfathers' sins. But something about the manic gleam behind Zetzu's eyes told Aelita she couldn't be that lucky.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," Zetzu said, reaching for her hand and making a mental note to skin the ferret the first chance they had when it lunged for him. He glared at the thing as he snatched his fingers back. "We get the second chance that Sozin and Tulan never had. That's what this is. That's what we are. We get to right wrongs. We get to change history. This is our destiny, Aelita," he declared as he pushed to his feet with obvious enthusiasm, pacing the Cliffs because he couldn't possibly sit still any longer. He threw out his arms in celebration. "And it doesn't even have to be difficult! We know exactly what not to do!  We know where everything went wrong!"

"Yeah," Aelita snorted with a slow, disgusted undertone to her laughter that would've made the hairs stand on the back of the neck of the Zetzu she had come here with. She clutched Mushu tightly to her chest as she rose and began to stalk off toward the still-waiting rhinos. "Everything went wrong when Tulan agreed to marry your great-grandfather. Luckily for you, I don't have much of a choice. Lucky for me, you'll never be Fire Lord. We're off to a great start."

He was on her so quickly she didn't have time to react, her senses dulled by the throbbing inside her heart and mind. Zetzu gripped her arm and forced her to face him. Her spine slammed against the rough ridges of the leather saddle and the rhino beneath it bellowed in frustration but remained otherwise unmovable. Aelita was effectively pinned with an animal at her back and a beast at her front.

"You're hurting me, Zetzu."

"You're wrong."

Gone was the timid boy Aelita had all but had to drag out of the palace. Here was the confidence and cruelty she had only recently begun to know. Here was her own personal Sozin, title or not.

"I said you're hurting me."

"And I said that you're wrong," Zetzu hissed, the third eye mark on his forehead looming down at her. "We will be Fire Lord. You will stand by our side, by choice or otherwise."

She could only blink up at him in surprise. "We?"

They ignored her question. "I've told you time and time again that we want the same things, haven't I, Aelita?"

"You have. I want to end the war. You want to end your father. Our desires coincide," she relented as she continued to try to wrap her mind around everything Zetzu had implied. "That doesn't explain how you become Fire Lord. You've said it yourself, you're third in line for succession, birth order be damned. Firebending is what determines who sits on that throne. The firebending the Sages consider pure. Yours isn't that. Zuko's and Azula's is. Even without Ozai in the way, you'd have to get through them."

"Come on now, my Akira, I thought you were smart enough to figure this out."

"Fuck you."

"Propositioning me will get you nowhere, darling."

Aelita had to fight the urge to spit in the combustionbender's smug face. When she continued to glare at him, Zetzu dropped his smirk and rolled his eyes with exasperation. "That was always the plan, Aelita. I thought it was obvious."

Suddenly it was. Zetzu watched as any trace of indignant rage fell away from Aelita's features. "You're going to try to get rid of all of them, aren't you? Not just your father. Zuko and Azula too. You're going to try to kill them."

"I'm not going to try," Zetzu reassured and for the briefest of seconds, Aelita almost dared to be relieved. "I'm going to succeed."

"How?"

His deflated just slightly. "I haven't decided yet, but we can figure that out together."

"I never agreed to hunt your brother or your sister," Aelita hissed.

"Why wouldn't you?" Zetzu challenged. "Look where all your kindness and compassion towards either of them has gotten you."

"You're just as much at fault as they are."

"We can argue the semantics of your life later, Aelita. The blame that you insist on placing isn't important," Zetzu said as he finally released her from his grip and moved to ready his own rhino in a far steadier manner than he had when he first tied the beast. "What matters now is figuring out what to do with this Roku of yours before he can sway you from me like he did Akira Tulan."

"What are you going on about now, Zetzu" Aelita huffed, following the Prince to study his expression, some part of her afraid that she somehow let it slip that Aang was alive. "The Avatar is dead."

"Please for the love of spirits tell that to Zuko."

"Why would I do that?"

"Because he's convinced the monk is somehow alive," Zetzu said casually as he tightened the straps that had come loose on his saddle. "I told him you would know if that were the case."

Aelita turned her back to the Prince to hide her shock. She set Mushu on top of her rhino and mimicked Zetzu's actions as she tried to keep her voice casual. "Why does he think that?"

"For probably the same reason Zuko believes he deserves to sit on the throne," the teen snorted. "He's delusional."

Aelita worked in silence. She couldn't speak if she wanted to.

Zuko knew.

He knew, and he hadn't said a damn thing to her.

She flinched when she felt Zetzu standing too close behind her. He sighed and wrapped both arms around her waist, tugging her to him until her back fit flush to his chest. "I'm sorry," he said as he fought for some semblance of control over his actions, trying desperately to beat the most unsavory parts of himself into submission. "You've had a trying night. You need rest. Let's get you back to the palace and into bed. We can figure out what to do about Zuko later."

Aelita tensed in his arms but turned to face the Prince anyway. If this was her Sozin, she wouldn't handle him as Tulan handled hers.

She would be better. The young Akira laced fingers that wanted to tremble behind her intended's neck and reminded herself to play the game. "Thank you for bringing me here tonight. We needed to know."

Her subtle little 'we' only reassured Zetzu more. "We did, and now we do, and I meant what I said before. We'll be better."

"We already are," Aelita agreed, purposefully staring at the combustionbenders mouth despite the revolution she felt at the thought of those lips on hers again. "We have no Roku to sway me anymore."

"I wish it were that simple," Zetzu murmured, dropping his forehead against hers and closing his eyes.

"What do you mean?"

He was silent and mulling for some time before he lamented. "I learned something unsettling while you were away," he explained as he pried himself away from her with considerable effort because he was so pitifully starved for comforting touch. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of tattered parchment. He up the folded square of it as if it held the secrets of their world. "The last airbender wasn't your true reincarnation of Roku, Aelita. It was Zuko."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

In the Capital City Prison, Zuko found his Uncle waiting for him on the damp floor of his cell. From what the boy could see, the man who had raised him was no worse for wear than he was on his last visit. His long gray hair still hung in a limp, stringy mess. His skin had lost any hint of color the skin had given it. His rags were dank and dingy, and any trace of excess weight he had once carried had been robbed. Still, Iroh kept his back to the Prince, sitting cross-legged before the to the furthest cell wall.

It only enraged Zuko more.

"You sent this, didn't you?" He accused, tossing the now crumpled letter that started it all through the stiff bars. "I found the secret history, which by the way should be renamed history most people already know! The only secret part about it was Sozin's history with the Avatar and the Akira, but none of it mattered anyway! You said I needed to know about my Great-Grandfather's life and love, but he never loved anyone but himself! You said that I needed to know about my Great-Grandfather's death, but he was still alive in the end!"

"No," Iroh said, finally turning to look at his boy. "He didn't. He wasn't."

Zuko snapped. He was tired of the games and the runaround and the bullshit and the way that the secret part of that history made him feel. "What are you talking about?" He hissed.

"You have more than one great-grandfather, Prince Zuko. Sozin was your father's grandfather," Iroh explained. His gaze subconsciously flittered from the scar on his nephew's face to his unmarred eye. "Your mother's grandfather was Avatar Roku."

Zuko took a step away from the cell door. He was almost certain his Uncle could hear the thundering inside his chest. He wanted to insist that it was a lie, but Iroh's eyes told him that he only spoke the truth. His thoughts wandered back to the Dragonbone Catacombs.

"The family tree," he said slowly. "In Sozin's tomb. That's what was missing - my Mother's connection to Roku."

Iroh only offered him a slight nod for confirmation.

"Someone was in there," Zuko blurted. "Before me. Someone knew about what was in the Catacombs. They know everything. They read Sozin's testament, and they destroyed any mention of my Father's family. Who? Why? I know that you know."

"You need only to look in a mirror to find the answer, Prince Zuko."

The boy exhaled steam as he tried to steady himself. This, he chanted silently, had nothing to do with him. Aelita might be the Akira, but Zuko wasn't Sozin.

He couldn't say the same for his brother. 

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I fear that Prince Zetzu does not want to learn from our family's complicated history," Iroh said calmly and matter-of-factually. Zuko winced and dropped to his knees at the mention of his twin, trembling as he lowered his head. Iroh continued anyway. "Because understanding the struggle between your two great-grandfathers, Prince Zuko, can help you better understand the battle within yourself. Evil and good are always at war inside you and your brother. It is your nature, your legacy. But, there is a bright side. What happened generations ago can be resolved now, by you, Zuko," he said, and his boy lifted his head to look him in the eye. "Because of your legacy, you can cleanse the sins of our family and the Fire Nation. Born in you, along with all the strife, is the power to restore balance to the world."

The Crowned Prince remained unmoving as his Uncle turned away from him and reached for a brick along the back cell wall that just barely jutted out further than the rest. Iroh removed the loose stone. When faced his nephew once more, he clutched a small bundle swathed in red cloth. Gently he began to unwrap the fabric. Zuko stood slowly.

"This is a royal artifact," Iroh explained as he cupped the missing headdress. "It's supposed to be worn by the Crown Prince."

Zuko watched as his Uncle rose and closed the distance between them. He stared at the relic in the older man's outstretched hands, his mind still reeling from all he had yet to process. He wasn't sure how long they simply stood there, neither of them speaking.

Here was the second chance he wasn't sure he deserved, but Zuko took it anyway.

Iroh moved back to his hiding place in the wall as his nephew studied the headdress he now held. "I have one last thing for you, Prince Zuko," he said as he pulled a second object from the hole and slid the loose brick back into place. "Though I simply ask that you return this to its rightful owner."

The Prince looked up from the crown. His Uncle's face was solemn and just a bit regretful. "What is it?"

Iroh stepped closer to his boy and held up a black leather journal. The golden lotus stitched on the front cover glittered in the moonlight.

"This belonged to Sukomo Kenshin."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

There was no grand revelation for Aang in the days that followed his solstice visit with Roku. No magic epiphany came to him in his sleep. He felt none the closer to being able to take down Ozai. The spirit state still remained firmly locked behind whatever chakra was blocked the day he almost went down. And Aelita felt just as far away as he had before.

All in all, he hadn't learned shit other than what he had told his friends about good and evil. So, the teenage Avatar did what he did best - he put off his problems for another day and dicked off instead. Luckily for him, Kyojuro brought his number of traveling masters up to three and the Prince of the Earth Kingdom was all too willing to test his own merit. Aang would never complain. Lavabending aside, having been taught by Long Feng rather than the badgermoles meant that Kyojuro deployed a style of earthbending far different from the one wielded by Toph, and that was the standard that the monk prepared to judge himself against. As mighty as she was, Aang had learned the blind girls' tactics and motives in a way he was still learning the Princes'.

Still, why not kill two birds with one stone?

"Okay," Aang said as he tied his headband securely over his eyes. "I'm ready for some training!"

The trio of benders formed a make-shift triangle around the now sightless Avatar. He shifted into an earthbending stance that mimicked Toph's, his feet bare, his shirt discarded since their camp was hidden from sight amongst the rocky outcroppings surrounding Fire Fountain City. The two earthbenders stood closest to the town. Katara kept her back to the cliff they had made their temporary home, a crystal clear lake lying just beneath it.  She pulled water from its basin and wove it around her in a spinning circle. She and the other two inched closer to the monk.

Aang felt the vibrations from the ground with the seismic sense Toph had all but beat into his head. He quickly dodged the series of earth pillars that jutted out of the ground and raced his way, side-stepping them with light feet. He rolled in the opposite direction when the stone beneath him began to melt, popping up as he heard the rushing water at his back.  Without missing a beat he redirected the whip Katara had sent his way, sweeping it wide to target both her and Kyojuro. The second the water flew free he heaved a boulder with his mind and launched it at Toph.

She caught it before her with a grin. "Good job, Twinkle Toes. Visualize, then attack."

She heaved the stone back at Aang's head. He burrowed himself into a protective hole like a baby badgermole before turning his attention fully on Kyojuro. The two met in a flurry of flying rock just as Toph's attack slammed square into Katara's chest. She tumbled back onto her ass with a heavy thud and a glare shot in the other girls' direction. The waterbender picked herself up and dusted off the dirt and mud that now covered her clothes. "Maybe you should take your own advice, Toph!"

"What's the matter?" the earthbender sneered, crossing her arms over her chest. "Can't handle some dirt, Madam Fussy-Britches?"

Katarar's eyebrow twitched in annoyance. She jerked her palm upward and lifted a sizable wave from the lake below. She flicked it at the unsuspecting Toph. The other girl sputtered in rage, now completely soaked to the bone. Katara smirked. "Oh, sorry. Did I splash you, Mud-Slug?"

By the time Aang and Kyouro surfaced from their own dueling, the two girls had launched themselves at one another, now wrestling like a pair of overgrown hog monkeys in a pile of mud.

"Are we taking a break?" The Prince panted, Aang still blindfolded nearby. "Or are we looking for a reason to go skinny dipping? Because I've only ever read about it, but I don't think you need a reason."

The Avatar lifted his shoulder in a 'beats-me' shrug. Behind him, Sokka smirked as he slipped out from behind Appa. He lifted one of the practice swords Master Piandao had sent him with and charged his friend. "Sneak attack!"

Aang, completely casually and without so much as turning his head in the warrior's direction, created an earth wall that Sokka subsequently slammed into face-first. He lowered it and his dazed and confused friend fell at his feet. Aang lifted the corner of his blindfold and glanced down. "Sokka, sneak attacks don't work if you yell it out loud."

"I don't know," Kyojuro argued as he watched brown sludge continue to fly. "It seems to work for them."

Almost on cue, Toph snickered at Katara. "Hungry for a mud pie?" She asked as she kicked the mess into the other girl's face.

Katara shrieked and wiped the grime from her eyes. "I'll give you a mud pie!" She snapped as she bent a stream of the slurry at her friend and knocked her down. Toph rose with newfound determination. She and Katara prepared to clash once more but the waiting Avatar cleared his throat.

"Uh, guys, I thought we were supposed to be training me."

Embarrassment washed over Katara in a way it wouldn't quite hit Toph. She dropped the mud that hovered before her. She was covered in the thick mess from head to toe. The brown tinge mercifully covered the red that flushed her cheeks. She stepped out of the mud pit with a forced calmness, folding her hands neatly together. "Very well, pupil. I believe we've had enough training for today."

Katara turned and fled in the direction of the lake without waiting to be dismissed. Toph only rolled her eyes.

If Katara wanted to be Miss Prissy Ass, let her. She didn't care. Toph wasn't so emotionally stunted that she couldn't admit a heavy blanket of tension had settled over their family since Aang's little adventure with his past life. Something about knowing the history that led to their current war was unsettling for all the worst reasons. Still, Toph sure as shit wasn't going to process or confront the muddle of emotions that she or anyone else in their ragtag group of misfits felt. That was Katara's thing, not hers.

Toph bent the mud and muck from her clothes and bones and jogged over to where the boys watched after the retreating waterbender. "While Katara cleans up, let's go have some fun!"

It was all the convincing the three idiots needed.

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

The sun on Zuko's skin felt strange after the week he had spent largely locked away in his chambers. He had practically paced a path onto the floor in his room as he tried to decide how to best move forward. He still didn't have an answer, and he was going stir-crazy on top of it, so that morning he fetched a fresh loaf of bread from the kitchens and retreated to the relative tranquility of the turtle duck pond in the garden.

He felt his Mother here.

"What do I do, Mom?" He quietly asked as he tossed crumbs to the happy little family. The turtle ducks plucked up the hunks of bread and were none the wiser to the face journal that Zuko kept permanently on his person felt as if it were going to burn a hole through his robes.

He wondered what it said about his surroundings that he wasn't comfortable leaving it in his room.

A lot. It said a lot.

It said more that he was used to it.

It said even more that Zuko was still holding onto the journal in the first place.

It belonged to Aelita. She deserved that piece of her father, and Zuko knew it, but he wasn't sure she wanted it. He recalled the blame and despair that she carried in her voice the one and only time they had discussed her dad since...damn near the day he died.

General Kenshin and Princess Ursa had always been one of the few taboos in his and Aelita's friendships. Even before their world went to shit, they weren't a regular topic of conversation. Zuko wanted to believe he was protecting her by keeping hold of it, except that was only a half-truth.

Curiosity killed the cat.

Zuko had flicked through the pages of the journal the same night it came into his possession. He stopped when he came to the last entry. The smudged characters told the Prince that the book had been hastily closed before the ink completely dried. He only read the first line before slamming it shut himself.

"I'm so sorry, Firefly."

It was an invasion of privacy Zuko couldn't bring himself to breach no matter how good he swore his intentions were. Still, he had avoided Aelita since the journal had fallen into his possession. That of course had just as much to do with the revelations over their shared history as it did with his misplaced loyalty.

He'd avoided Zetzu too, but that had been far easier. His twin was largely preoccupied with Qin these days, his meeting with their Father and his Generals apparently having gone far better than Zuko had hoped it would. The Prince had no desire to see his brother now, not when he had run from the scorched legacy they stood to inherit.

But the spirits it seemed had decided that Zuko couldn't run from his problems forever. He saw Mushu before he spotted Zetzu or Aelita, the ferret launching himself at the remaining loaf with such an intense curiosity that the Prince almost pitied the fool that got between him and his next meal. The Akira and her betrothed emerged from the palace a moment later. The two of them were arm in arm and lost in whatever tale his brother was currently spinning, a basket from the kitchens clutched firmly in Zetzu's free hand.

Zuko felt as if he were watching his Great-Grandfather's final testament play out before his very eyes. He didn't have time to flee from the terrible sight.

"Mushu, where did you -" Aelita started to call until she caught sight of her companion. "Prince Zuko."

Zetzu's steps slowed. He reluctantly pulled his gaze from Aelita's face and looked to where his twin sat. He smirked. "Oh, hello brother."

"Hi," Zuko said in a clipped manner, pushing himself to his feet as the branches of their Mothers' favorite tree rustled overhead. The journal in his robes felt like a stone weighing him down. "I was just leaving."

"Nonsense," Zetzu insisted with a wave of dismissal. "Aelita and I were just going to sit down to enjoy our afternoon tea together. You should join us."

"No thanks."

"Come now brother," Zetzu said with a wicked gleam. "I insist. As much as I love Aelita's sesame balls, we won't possibly be able to finish them all. You'd be doing me a favor if you helped keep them from going to waste."

Zuko opened his mouth to object but Aelita beat him to it, shocking both royals. "Prince Zetzu is right," she spoke past a saccharine smile. "We'd love for you to join us. After all, we'll all be family in just a few short weeks. It would be good to put our grievances to rest before then."

Zuko saw the challenge in her words. He didn't give a damn if she hid the dare behind pretty words, he knew when she was baiting him. He took a bite anyway. "I'd like that," he lied in an almost-broken rasp.

"Wonderful," Aelita grinned, tilting her head to look up at his brother. "We'll need another tea setting, my Prince. Do you mind?"

"Of course not," Zetzu answered with devious delight, leaning down to lightly brush his lips over hers as Zuko's fists clenched. His smile was twice as wide when he pulled away and handed her the basket. "Anything for you."

Aelita hummed happily and watched him disappear back into the palace, swiveling on her feet like a giddy school girl or an average, everyday Ty Lee.

The second they were alone she whirled on Zuko and the malice in her eyes was nearly palpable. "I know that you think Aang is alive."

Chapter Text

If looks could kill, Zuko would've already dropped dead. The look was justified of course, because Aelita knew about his suspicions regarding Aang. More than that, she had confirmed them because if she thought any differently than him, she wouldn't be nearly as angry.

"Zetzu told you, didn't he?"

"That doesn't matter," Aelita hissed. "What matters is the fact that you didn't, Prince Zuko."

Every one of the burned benders walls went up at the casual use of his title. "We're back to that now?" He asked.

"Don't change the subject."

"Fine," Zuko growled in a low whisper, stomping towards the Akira and snatching the basket from her hands lest she chuck the entire thing at his head. "What was I supposed to say? 'Oh hey, by the way, Aelita, you're blaming yourself for the wrong death.'"

She stepped away from him and Zuko felt as if he watched the spark inside of her sputter out before his very eyes. "Thank you for the reminder."

The boy cursed himself and exhaled steam. He took three, long slow breaths before looking at her again. "What do you remember?"

Aelita shook her head. "Don't make me say it."

"You weren't in control of yourself," Zuko insisted. "It's not your fault."

"That's easy for you to say," she snapped. "You've never killed someone Zuko, by accident or otherwise. You've never felt your hand pierce through someone's flesh. You've never felt their organs wrapped around your skin. You've never...you've never felt the flow of their blood slow in time with the beating of their heart." Aelita blinked back her tears, determined to not let them fall, but she stepped closer to the Prince so he could see all the damage that had transpired. "Because I have, and I can't even put a face to those awful moments. I can remember exactly how it felt when I realized what I had done, but I can't force my memory to produce a name, and somehow I think that's worse because no matter how much you try to swear to me that it's not my fault, I will never be able to forgive myself if I don't know. And maybe that's what I deserve. Maybe this is what I get. I don't..." she trailed off, her voice cracking. "I don't think Aang ever really wanted to kill you, or your father, or anyone else. And I think I didn't understand back then, but I do now."

Aelita almost convinced herself that she had him when Zuko reached for her. She stilled despite everything in her that wanted to run. He brushed away the tears that had trickled down her face. "You have to pull yourself together or Zetzu will know something is wrong."

Aelita scoffed and batted his hand away. She away because as callous as it seemed, Zuko was right.

He laid out what damn well could've been the same blanket used by Sozin and Tulan as she flicked away any remaining sign of distress from her eyes.

"This used to be my favorite spot in the palace," she admitted as she tried to focus on the sounds of the splashing turtle duck family or the smell of the surrounding blooms.

"I know," Zuko said while he pulled out the plate of sesame balls, the soft footfalls of an approaching Zetzu sounding in the distance. "Mom's too."

"Zuko, I'm -"

"Not my Mother?" He asked with a raised brow when she turned back to him. "I know you aren't. Does Zetzu?"

It was all the warning that Zuko could give before his brother stepped back into the gardens with a teacup and saucer in hand.

"Does Zetzu what?" The Prince in question asked. He noted the distinct tension that radiated off both his twin and his bride as he approached. It made him grin.

"Like to spend time in the gardens," Zuko answered before the Akira had a chance to. "Aelita and I were just remembering how much she and Mom loved to."

Zetzu's smile faltered. "I don't like to spend time anywhere in the spirits-forsaken palace."

"Don't be so pessimistic," Aelita chided as she scooped up a now crumb-covered Mushu and sank onto the outstretched blanket. "You're starting to sound like your brother."

"You're starting to sound like your brother," Zuko mimicked in an overly high-pitched manner.

Aelita flicked him a vulgar gesture but accepted the plate of onigiri he passed her as he finished removing the last items from the basket. "Ooh, please tell me these are filled with spicy salmon roe."

"You have a shorter attention span than your ferret."

"We're both food motivated, fuck off."

Mushu chattered in agreement. Zetzu rolled his eyes and found himself wishing for the return of the tension that had so clearly been there before. "They're not," he explained as he sat so close to the Akira he could pull her into his lap if he so desired. "They're made with umeboshi."

Aelita's face soured and she passed the plate back to Zuko. The Prince snorted.

Zetzu blinked slowly. "Am I missing something here?"

"No," Aelita said at the same time Zuko argued 'yes'.

"She hates pickled plum," the elder twin explained while the girl in question made a point to ignore him as she poured their tea.

"It's not that I hate it," Aelita argued. "It's just not my favorite."

Zetzu's brow furrowed. "Since when?"

"Since conception."

The look the combustionbender gave the Akira was incredulous.

"What?" Aelita asked as she set down the kettle and reached for her cup. "Dad said it was the only thing Mom craved her entire pregnancy. He told her if she ate much more of it she'd ruin the taste for me. She didn't listen."

Zetzu stared blankly at her for an uncomfortable moment but slowly a sad, almost patronizing smile slipped across his face. He reached out and cradled her cheek. "Darling, I think your memory is blocking things out again because that can't be true."

Aelita's jaw tensed beneath his touch. "My memory is just fine right now, thanks."

"It can't be," Zetzu insisted, ignoring the way that Mushu growled at him. "I'm not saying you didn't lose your taste for the stuff somewhere along the way, but to say you've never liked it is just silly, because I distinctly remember wandering the markets with you every summer after you came along and trying anything and everything you could find made with pickled plum. You probably made yourself sick of it."

The hair rose on the back of Aelita's neck but she refused to look at Zuko. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"That's because-"

"Because it didn't happen," the elder Prince interrupted his brother. "But Mom knew every stall that sold umeboshi. The kitchens kept it stocked for her. She used going to the markets and sampling her way through the vendors as a way to immerse herself in our people. She started bringing Zetzu and me along with her when we were old enough to complain about being left behind."

Zetzu opened his mouth to argue but Zuko spoke loudly over him, looking straight into the pale face of his brothers' bride. "He's not thinking about you. He's thinking about our Mother."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Toph wasn't sure who of their family needed a distraction most because frankly, they had all been handling Aang's retelling of the past like shit.

Sokka was hyper fixated on the fact that Aelita's past life had shacked up with the Great-Grandfather of the Terror Twins.

Kyojuro was beating himself up for the mistakes of a past Earth King who sounded like a stupid greedy fuck.

Aang was pondering the hidden meanings of the spirits or the universe or whatever else Avatar Roku hadn't explicitly spelled out for him.

And Katara was Katara. She took every injustice in the world as a personal insult.

Thank fuck no one seemed to want to talk about their bullshit. Toph couldn't and wouldn't handle that. Love them as she might, she had no desire to deal with the inner workings of her own mind, let alone those of anyone else.

Maybe that was why she hadn't been good enough for her parents. Maybe she was just as terrible as they were.

Toph knew she sounded like a whiny brat when she thought like that but she couldn't help it. The constant guilt and gnawing sadness hadn't really started until Aelita was gone. Leaving her parents was easier than it should have been. After that, life had been too busy for her to stop and give them much mind. Honestly, she hadn't even let herself think of Lao and Poppy Beifong until that shitty day in Ba Sing Se when the fake letter from her Mother landed in Toph's hand.

And then she was angry. So fucking angry because they still didn't get it. They still didn't understand. They didn't see her as an earthbender or even a real person for that matter. Toph had run away from home just as much to escape their bullshit as she had to help Aang and they still wanted to treat her like a pretty, fragile porcelain doll.

But Aelita understood. Fire Nation or Earth Kingdom, blind or not, none of that mattered. They were the same in so many ways and knowing that had helped Toph finally find her place.

And then poof, one of the first real friends that she ever made was gone, and the grief that followed the loss had forced the floodgates open on the earthbenders emotions. It was the first time that Toph had really questioned her decision or her place. She loved her rag-tag group of misfit friends more than she'd care to admit, but loving them had been what made the loss hurt as bad as it had in the first place, and she wasn't sure if their happiness together or whatever was worth the pain when one of them was gone.

And dammit, she felt even worse knowing Aelita was alive and alone. It definitely felt worse as they walked through what was probably the largest, shadiest city in the Fire Nation that they had visited so far. She'd have killed to know what her friend thought of this place.

Tucked amongst Shouhon Islands' rough terrain, it was situated on the shore of a polluted bay. The streets were clean, sure, and their industry of supporting their war was clearly booming based on the dozens of factories that surrounded the city, but there was an unmistakable air to the place that just screamed not to go out alone after dark. Con men and tricksters thrived in back alleys and shadowy walkways. Money was moved from hand to hand and thuggish men brandishing swords not nearly as nice as Sokka's watched every passerby. Toph kind of loved it.

Kyojuro didn't. He grimaced as he looked up at the growling, firebreathing face of Fire Lord Ozai in the center of the city, streets lined with buildings and houses jutting out from it in a radial fashion. The statue of the fucker was bronze and damn near as tall as the inner walls of Ba Sing Se. The Prince wondered if the ruling bastard was actually as trim or imposing as the monument depicted. The towering man was bare-chested and larger than life, his fists clenched as his head tilted back in a roar. Fire poured out of the statue's mouth and hands, and Kyojuro could feel the residual heat from where he stood.

"I bet Long Feng would've tried to have a statue like this built one day if you hadn't exposed him," he told his friends.

Aang nodded his agreement, but Sokka was focused wholly on the three-story coop down the road. "Look at all those messenger hawks!" He pointed out as birds with missives tied to their legs swooped in and out and about the city "You know, I've been thinking about getting one for myself. That way, I wouldn't have to talk to anyone. I could just send them messages."

"I gotta say, I like the idea of not talking to you."

Aang ignored the way Sokka glared at Toph as he rummaged in the pocket of his pants to pull out a single coin. "So, guys. What are we gonna get with our last silver piece?"

"We can get more money," Toph declared to her friend's surprise. She smirked as she turned and pointed to a shadow-filled alleyway. "Right there."

The three boys followed Toph's direction. From where they stood they could see a table with two men sitting across from each other and a small crowd of people gathered around them to watch the action. One man put down money as the teens crept closer. The other lifted one of the three shells on the center of the table. The boys just barely made out the shape of a small pebble beneath the shell. The man covered the stone once more and began shifting the trio around the table with meager speed and forced flare.

"This is where you seeing people are at a disadvantage. Everyone guesses wrong because the dealer moves the rock at the last minute. But I can feel it with my earthbending," Toph explained. As she spoke, the hopeless patron tried to keep track of the pebble to no avail because quickly and inconspicuously the con man flicked up the smallest bit of the shell and kicked the rock up into his sleeve. He stopped moving the shells and arranged them horizontally on the table once more. The clueless gambler pointed to the one in the middle. The scam artist lifted the shell with a smirk to reveal no pebble underneath. The patron cursed as he stomped away.

As the crowd parted to let the loser pass, the con man caught sight of Toph and her glazed-over eyes. He beamed. "You there! Wanna play a friendly game?"

It took everything in her not to smirk.

Katara knew her last few moments of peace were about end when she heard the first sounds of raucous laughter echoing up the path that led to their camp several hours later. She sighed and went back to stirring the stew she was growing tired of eating and making without Aelita there to share the responsibility of cooking with. Piandao, spirits bless them, had insisted upon restocking their coin and dry goods before they left his estate, but those supplies were dwindling under the demands of feeding seven hungry mouths, especially when one of which was connected to five large stomachs.

Katara looked up from the pot when the gleeful chortles grew too loud to ignore. Her eyes widened when she found all four of her two-legged friends carrying baskets ladened down with produce, dried meats, and other items from the markets they should've never been able to afford with their last silver piece.

"Where did you guys get the money to buy all this stuff?" She asked as Aang proudly plopped his basket at her feet.

"Toph got us money," He explained while he plucked up a fresh apple and savored the first delicious tart bite with a grin. "She scammed one of those guys in town who moves the shells around all sneaky-like."

"She used earthbending to win the game," Sokka said as he added his goodies to the rest, not bothering to tell his sister just how much Toph had played up the blind-and-helpless act before proudly taking the con for everything he was worth. "Classic!"

"Ah," Katara folded her arms over her chest in obvious displeasure. "So she cheated."

"Hey!" Toph cried, dropping her basket next to the others and whirling on Katara. "I only cheated because he was cheating! I cheated a cheater! What's wrong with that?"

"I'm just saying this isn't something we should make a habit of doing."

"Didn't you say you stole from a pirate?"

"Shut up, Kyojuro."

Toph snorted and turned away from the waterbender. "Why, Katara? Because it's fun? And you hate fun?"

"I don't hate fun!" The older girl shrieked, looking around desperately to find a tool to use to prove her merit. She settled on Momo, snatching up the feasting lemur and plopping him unwillingly onto her head. She pointed at him as he squalled and flailed his little arms. "See?" She grinned in an uncomfortably forced manner. "Fun!"

"I know I'm a little stunted socially and all, but is that what you consider fun?" Kyojuro whispered to Sokka, sneaking away from the impending fight one slow step at a time.

"Not at all."

Aang tossed the rest of his apple to a grateful Appa, lifting his headband to reveal his tattoos and bowing at the waist. "Katara, I'll personally make you an Avatar promise that we won't make a habit of doing these scams."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Aelita's skin was red and angry by the time she pulled herself out of the wash basin later that evening but still she felt dirty. She had scrubbed her body until it was raw and bleeding, desperate to wash away the way it felt knowing Zetzu was using her for more than just a means to an end.

She refused to think about Princess Ursa. She couldn't. She had already been sick twice, she didn't want to make it a third time.

Acting as a replacement for his husband-to-be's mother was wrong on so many monumental levels. It felt like an insult to the memory of a woman whom Aelita adored and respected. It felt incestuous, even more so than knowing about the history between Sozin and Tulan. It made her feel cheap and used like she held no value on her own, and somehow that was worse than being treated like a tool for war.

But worse than anything was the fleeting voice in the back of her head that told her she could use this.

Aelita didn't dare look in the mirror as she dressed for bed. She was far too disgusted with herself for being willing to sink so low.

But she could, dammit. The tactician in Aelita knew that she could use the forced revelation to her advantage when it came to manipulating Zetzu.

Clearly, he had known it too because the Prince had promptly whisked her away from his brother before Zuko had even finished speaking. He all but drug her to the sparring ring without another word muttered in her direction, snapping instead at the first servant he passed to fetch her sparing clothes. Zetzu gave her roughly two minutes to change on her own before launching into a brutal assault to cover up his twin's accusation. Luckily for Aelita, she was damn near back to form, her movements sharp and precise and her body far less sluggish the longer she went without poison though her chest did still feel heavy and leaden. They kept it up for hours, Zetzu only barking out what she could do better and reminding her without actually saying it just how formidable he had grown to become in the years they spent apart.

He didn't touch her in any manner that couldn't be considered practical, and Aelita was thankful for it. She was equally grateful when he didn't join her for dinner after they parted ways. She needed to think.

She needed to calm her racing heart but it was damn hard to do so when she walked out of her bathing chambers to find Zuko arguing quietly arguing with Mushu in the middle of her quarters.

Sharpened icicles stopped just shy of the Prince's throat, Aelita's hand pointed in her direction, her hair and skin now completely dry. Zuko didn't so much as flinch. "Hello to you too."

"For fucks sake, Zuko," Aelita hissed. "Are you trying to startle me into an early grave?"

"No," he couldn't help but smirk. "But the look on your face was pretty funny."

"I hate you."

"I'm well aware."

"What are you doing here?" She asked with an exasperated sigh. The sky outside her freshly unbolted windows and balcony was black and still and the palace beyond silent. She glanced at the candles lit on the dining table and noted how far down they had burned. "It has to be after midnight."

"It is," Zuko confirmed as he reached down and lifted the basket Aelita had yet to notice and Mushu had yet to finish raiding. "But you left this behind when you ran off with my brother."

Aelita's throat tightened. "I don't want to talk about your brother."

"Good. Neither do I."

The two teens remained standing on opposite sides of the living space but Akira finally let the ice fall to the floor in a puddle of water at Zuko's feet. He glanced down at it with an arched brow. "Does Zetzu know you can do that?"

"I thought you didn't want to talk about him."

"I don't," said Zuko. "But the last I heard, you were still being kept under bending suppressants or whatever."

"They wear off eventually," Aelita quickly lied. She changed the subject before the Prince could see through it. "Why didn't you just send that back to the kitchens?" She gestured toward the basket.

"I thought you'd want it."

"It's a basket."

"It's a nice basket."

"Are you okay? You're acting weird."

"Are you? Your skin looks like it got mauled by a cat."

Aelita sighed and dropped into one of the chairs at the little dining table. "Zuko, your mom was a wonderful person. She was the closest thing to a mother figure I ever had, and maybe that's why I feel so disturbed."

"You aren't the only one," the Prince agreed but he remained standing. "But you need to be careful. I...don't want you to end up the way Mom did."

Aelita's expression softened. "You think about her a lot, don't you?"

"Every day," Zuko admitted. "Especially now that we're back here. And I still don't even know what happened to her," he said as his gaze dropped to the floor, his fingers flexing around the basket handle. "And I hate that. I don't...you don't deserve whatever happened to her."

Aelita opened her mouth but no words came out. She hadn't the slightest clue what to say. Before she could think on it much longer, Zuko set the basket on the table before her. "I'll leave this with you."

She huffed and shook her head. "I really don't want this."

"I really don't care," he said as he turned for the door. He stopped as his fingers skimmed the handle, but he didn't look back at her. "There's something inside."

"What? Stale sesame balls and cold onigiri I didn't want in the first place."

"No. Just look Aelita," he said. "But keep it to yourself, or we won't be the only ones in trouble."

Aelita's shoulders tensed. "What are you talking about, Zuko?"

"Open the basket and find out."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Aang's Avatar promise lasted all of a night. When Katara woke the next morning, she found herself already alone in the camp, a note scribbled into the dirt nearby that her friends would be back soon. The pattern continued for the next several days, none of the others inclined to move on to the next village while they were still managing to return to their camp each night ladened down with gold and goodies.

Toph was on a roll. She allowed herself to be seen stumbling around Fire Fountain City like she hadn't the slightest clue where every bump or bend in the road was, bags of coins jingling on her hips.

The stupid fuckers fell for it every time.

She subtly twitched the ground so that dice landed on whichever face she needed to bring home the biggest purse. She pretended the hammers at the test-your-strength games were too heavy to lift over her head before using her launching the mallet from behind to ring the bells with ease. She tripped up the wheels of nobleman's carts before launching herself to the ground while crying and clutching her 'wounds' until they bought her silence with bags upon bags of gold.

Katara was the only one not amused.

"Guys," she lectured on the fourth evening, her family scatted around the remnants of a dinner that had been nothing short of a feast after their most recent trip into the city. "I think these scams have gone far enough. If you keep doing them, something bad is gonna happen."

Toph only rolled her eyes from where she lounged against a rock, one foot kicked up as she picked her teeth. She pulled a pouch filled with coins from her pocket and tossed it without warning at Katara's feet like a feeble peace offering. "Could you for once stop being such a sourpuss and just lighten up?"

"Oh, I'm sorry!" The waterbender scowled with her hands on her hips, not bothering to reach for the money. "You think I should be more like you? Like some wild child?"

"Yeah!" Toph snapped, her temper rising. "Maybe! Maybe then you'd see how great we have it! I mean, look at us!" She leaned back against her rock and crossed her arms behind her head. "We're traveling around the world! Making easy money!"

"Trying to end a war!" Katara interrupted hotly, disgusted by the way her friend could be so flippant about their current reality. "To bring down a tyrant! To get our best friend back before she gets hurt or worse, Toph!"

"Do you think I don't know that?" The earthbender argued, her ears practically ringing as she tried to deny her bitter conscience. Sokka, Aang, and Kyojuro had been stunned to silence, and somehow that only made her feel worse as they watched the battle of wills unfold. "Because I do!" Toph insisted. "We all do Katara! And we will! And when we do, we're gonna see that Hot Shot was fine all along! She's tough! She's smart! She's probably playing the Terror Twins as we speak! So why shouldn't we have some fun along the way? Don't you think that's what Aelita would've wanted? We're five teenagers with no parents to tell us what to do!"

Any trace of Katara's anger melted from her face. "Ah. I see. You're acting like this because of your parents."

"Whatever," Toph scoffed.

Katara continued anyway. "They were controlling over you, so you ran away, and now you act like your parents don't exist. You act like you hate them, but you don't. You just feel guilty."

"I do hate them," Toph insisted.

"I don't think so," Katara shook her head, her tone matter-of-fact and wholly unsympathetic because she was still too angry to coddle. "I think you miss them, but you just don't wanna deal with that, so instead you act like this crazy person."

"Look, I ran away to help Aang!" Toph shot back, pointing to the still-stunned Avatar. "I ran away because he and Aelita asked me to!"

"You know what?" Katara tossed her hands up and accepted defeat when it came to the younger girls' subconscious and motives. "It doesn't matter, but these scams put us all at risk, and we don't need that." She pointed to her forehead. "We've already got some third-eyed-freaky-Zetzu-wannabe-but-scarrier after us."

"Speaking of that third-eyed freak," Sokka interrupted, desperate to cut through the heavy tension. "I think I've come up with a name for him. What do you think of Sparky-Sparky-Boom Man?" He deflated when his suggestion was met with silence. "Just think about it."

Katara glared at her brother before huffing at Toph once more. "We have enough money! You need to stop this!"

"I'll stop when I wanna stop and not when you tell me!"

"You'd stop if Aelita asked you to!"

"That's the difference, Bossy Britches! She wouldn't tell me, she'd ask!"

"You'd still listen to her!"

"Yeah, because Aelita understood what it was like! You don't!"

"You don't want anyone to understand! You just want to feel sorry for yourself!"

Katara and Toph glared at one another for a long, uncomfortable minute until the earthbender decided she couldn't stand the roaring in her head any longer.

"Whatever," she huffed, pushing herself to her feet. She looked straight ahead as she stalked past the other girl on the way to the City, her shoulder roughly checking against Katara as she went, the bad of money jumping into her hand. The waterbender growled in indignation but made no move to stop her.

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Aelita was eight and trying to stay up way past her bedtime for her Daddy to come home after too many days away while he defended one of the colonies from Earth Kingdom rebels. She fell asleep in his big bed despite her insistence that she wasn't sleepy but she woke it was still dark and her Daddy was back. He was still wrapped up tight in his armor and huddled over a black journal and he scribbled down line after frantic line. Aelita was so excited to see him that she knocked over his pot of ink when she launched herself into his arms but he just laughed and hugged her right back.

Aelita was nine and too big to call her Dad 'Daddy' or cry when he went away because she was old enough to have been promised to one of the Princes of the Fire Nation even if she thought boys were still a little gross. Zuko was still extra gross but at least they were friends and he didn't care that she was still sad when her Dad had to go cause she was. She sat in her Dad's lap as he wrote notes she didn't bother to follow in his little black journal cause she was too busy trying to remember every detail of his face just in case. He closed the leather thing and tapped the front cover and promised he'd give it to her when she got married but Aelita hardly paid that any mind cause there were tears in her Daddy's eyes when he said it.

Aelita was ten and she came out of her bedroom in her school uniform to find no sign of her Dad in the kitchen or the dining room. She was struck first by the oddness of it because he always made her breakfast whenever he could even though they had just covered foraging and survival in class but then came the fear that he had been called away at night without so much as a goodbye for his girl. She ran to his room and burst through the closed door to find him sleeping and haggard and hunched over his desk with the little black journal open before him and one hand still desperately clutching his quill. When Aelita managed to shake him awake he offered her a smile that was more bittersweet than it was sad while he explained that her studies were canceled for the foreseeable future because Fire Lord Azulon was dead and Princess Ursa was gone.

Aelita was eleven and she all but ran home from the palace because Zetzu had blown a hole in the wall where Azula had been standing a split second before and she was scared and all she wanted was her Dad. He was set to ship out with an entire battalion of men beneath him any day now but she had to tell him what she saw because the Fire Sages said whatever Zetzu had done was the result of black magic or angry spirits or both and Aelita simply didn't understand what that would mean for her friend if she could even consider him that. Her Dad was busy packing when she got there but he stopped and listened when he saw how distraught she was and he rocked her when she cried. When she was finally calm he asked her to recount every detail but this time he wrote them all down.

Aelita was twelve and she wasn't that worried about the fact that her Dad should've been home by now because he was probably just busy juggling Zuko's father or the rest of the War Council. She busied herself around their little quaint house while she waited not because everyone was staring to tell her she'd need to be a good wife in just four more years but because she wanted her Dad to come home to cleanliness and comfort because nobody ever took care of him the way he took care of her. She noticed the closed journal on his desk when she went to put away his washing about five minutes before she was summoned for his execution.

Aelita was sixteen and she sat with a boy from the Water Tribe as she tried to think of every possible way to help them win a battle against Ozai on her home front but she hadn't been allowed to finish her core junior service years at the Royal Fire Academy for girls nor had she been privy to the Fire Lord's shortcomings as the daughter of a dead man deemed traitor. Sokka understood that she had only seen and heard so much but he knew her Father would've been keyed into vastly more as a General on the War Council. Aelita thought of his little black journal for the first time in years but she quickly remembered that it had gone up in flames with the rest of the life she previously knew.

Aelita was still sixteen but she was wrong about her Dad's journal because Zuko had given it to her four nights ago. It stared back at her as she rocked back and forth on two of the chair's four legs, her arms crossed over her chest as the book firmly closed. She hadn't been able to bring herself to read a single page of the damned thing. She wasn't sure she wanted to.

She did. Desperately.

But more than that Aelita was scared of what she may see or find. She didn't think her heart could bear any more pain or disappointment where her Father was concerned and she was almost certain that book would contain pages of it. She wasn't sure if she could go full spirit state after everything her body had been through but she damn sure couldn't risk it to appease her curiosity.

She had half a mind to burn the thing but none of the heart or will to actually follow through. Aelita stood and tucked the journal amongst the other books and her shelf and decided to ignore its existence for another night.

Chapter Text

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

The palace halls had been mercifully empty when Zetzu made his way to the training wing, even the moon's light refusing to shine upon him through the large windows. He'd been wound tighter than a bowstring in the days since his brothers attempted undermining before the Akira. He was tense and on edge as he shrugged out of his tunic to stand bare-chested in the middle of the sparring ring where their sister and Aelita had gone toe to toe. He tried to ignore the feeling as he approached the practice dummies, desperate to release some of the pent-up tension.

He'd love to aim it at Zuko, but there was a time and place, and now was not it.

Besides, Zetzu was almost positive that if he did, he wouldn't be able to contain the power roiling beneath his skin. Only at his worst did he stop caring if someone were caught in the crossfire, and he had staved off his worst thus far, even if just barely. Zetzu didn't need or want to blow up the entire palace and everyone in it.

Just one.

Well, maybe three.

The combustionbender exhaled and counted to a long, slow ten, once, twice. Phantom words from a man now long since dead echoed in his mind.

"Find your center. Feel your chi."

Zetzu began to tap along the relatively realistic training dummy with the heel of his palm, mapping out the trail of chi as it moved throughout the body from its center, stopping in the middle of its faceless head.

"Don't let them win."

Easier said than done. He repeated the chi's path, his hands colliding just a bit harder with the dummy. The confident, calculating and completely in control Prince Zetzu was not trying to turn Aelita into their Mother, fuck Zuko very much.

Unfortunately, the battered and broken child inside of him was a different story, and no version of him could help but wonder if that was where their love for the grey-haired girl had been born.

Except this wasn't love, and no matter how badly they wanted him to deny it as he anxiously paced their room, Prince Zetzu knew it was true.

It was infatuation.

It was desperation.

It was a damn pitiful attempt to bring back a little piece of the only person in this world who had ever tried to protect him from a legacy that seemed to have no place for him unless he wrote it in his own blood.

The heel of Zetzu's palm connected with the head of the dummy so hard that it ripped at the neck, hanging limply off its shoulders by just a strand.

Looking at it almost felt like looking into a mirror.

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Less than an hour after the grand blow-up that was Toph and Katara, Sokka strolled out of Fire Fountain City's large aviary with a proud messenger hawk perched on his arm. The bird's feathers were largely a deep russet, its eyes golden and piercing, and two sets of sharpened talons danced along the warriors' exposed skin.

He was tickled pink.

"Hawky, welcome to Team Avatar, my name's Sokka," the boy said as they strolled through the bustling streets. He grinned at the bird and pointed to his chest. "I'm your new owner. As such, I should warn you that there's already a lemur in our group, and we'll have our fire ferret back soon enough, so I don't wanna see any fighting until Mushu tries to steal your dinner. That's the ferret. Your Mother spoils him, but that's okay because I'll spoil you," Sokka scratched his new winged friend on the chest between the straps that held the scroll compartment on its back. The bird squalled in delight and preened under the praise. Any signs of a warrior battle-hardened by seventeen disappeared as he cooed over his new pet. "Good little, Hawky. Who's got pretty feathers? Who is..." Sokka trailed off and doubled back to the town message board he had just passed by. Tucked amongst the notices, advertisements and wanted posters signs was the sketch of a face far too familiar. The warrior cursed under his breath and the bird cawed in agreement. "You're right, Hawky. This is bad."

To Sokka's relief, Toph had not only beaten him back to camp, but her monumental brooding had managed to send the others scattering when she returned from wherever she had gone immediately after her argument with Katara. Appa was the only one who hadn't fled, the bison chewing lazily on scattered hay as the earthbender lounged against him, one foot planted firmly on the ground. She didn't so much as bother turning her head in Sokka's direction as he approached.

"Toph, while I was in town, I found something that you're not gonna like," he explained with no other bullshit or preamble, reaching into his pocket and unfurling the parchment he had snatched down from the message board.

"Well, it sounds like a sheet of paper, but I guess you're referring to what's on the sheet of paper."

Sokka fought the urge to roll his eyes. "It's a wanted poster. Of you. They've nicknamed you The Runaway."

Toph shot upright with a wicked grin. This was some of the coolest shit of her life.

"A wanted poster! That's so great! 'The Runaway.' I love my new nickname!" She opened and closed her palm in a grabbing motion despite knowing all she could do was feel the crumpled parchment. "Is there a picture of me? Does it look good?"

Sokka blinked slowly, not expecting the reaction he had received. "Well, yeah, actually, it does look pretty good," he said as he passed her the poster. "But, Toph, you're missing the point. Maybe Katara was right. These scams are drawing too much attention to us."

"Oh, don't be such a worrywart like your sister," Toph waved off the warrior's concern, standing up to meander towards her bags. She snatched up a pouch of coins along the way and jingled them in Sokka's direction. "Think of it this way: Now you've got plenty of money to help with the invasion and the rescue plans."

Those plans overlapped and were damn near one in the same and they had begun to dominate Sokka's every waking thought since they left Piandao's estate. Take down Ozai, bring Aelita home. His eyes softened. "Well, that is true. I had this idea of making armor for Appa. We'll want him as close by as possible in case..."

In case any of them were hurt in the process and needed out.

In case they failed.

"Just in case."

If Toph noticed the desperation in his voice or the fucking messenger hawk on his arm, she didn't point it out. Instead, she smirked and clapped her friend on his back. "Well then, here's a little extra, so you can get yourself a nice new map of the Fire Nation. You know what?" She shoved the pouch into his hands. "Make it an atlas."

"I do like expensive atlases."

"Of course you do," Toph nodded as a revived Sokka turned back towards the city. When she was sure he wouldn't turn around, she crouched and tucked the parchment into the pocket of her bags. "And that's why this wanted poster is going to stay our little secret."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Aelita felt as if her lungs were on fire. Every deep inhale made her chest hurt, and it was a struggle to keep down the remnants of her meager lunch. She hunched over, hands braced on her knees as she struggled to breathe.

"Get up."

"Fuck. You."

"You know how I feel about your scandelous proposit-"

"Finish that. Sentance. And I'll. Drown you."

Aelita peeked up at the sounds of her betrothed's chuckling. "Zetzu," she sighed between her ragged panting. "We've been at this for hours," she motioned to the secluded stretch of river on which they stood, miles outside of the Capital City. "You dragged me out of here before sunrise."

"Please," he scoffed, arms lazily folded across his chest, his royal armor discarded next to their resting mongoose lizards, the simple red tunic worn beneath now heavy from bouts of her waterbending he hadn't been able to deflect. "It's not like you were sleeping anyway. If I recall, you were staring aimlessly at your bookshelves when I found you, so it's not like you had much better to do."

The Akira fought the urge to flick him a valgur gesture, but he was only partially wrong. She had hardly slept at all since the night Zuko left her the basket that contained her father's journal. She'd been fighting to stay awake nearly as hard as she'd been fighting the conflict of emotions she felt towards the damned piece of leather and parchment. Whenever she lost that fight, she quickly found herself being hunted like prey, the pack of monstrous shishi on her tail, the beasts often joined by a myriad of other vengeful spirits. She had yet to determine where their thirst for her blood stemmed, so she avoided the accidental forays into the Spirit World like she avoided facing her father's ghosts.

Still, Zetzu didn't need to know that. Thankfully, she had started learning to predict the cycles of his moods and personalities, especially after a member of his family upset him, so she had time to prepare herself to school her own turmoil in his presence.

First had come the flash of rage and defensiveness, as shown by the brutal training session he had put her through immediately following Zuko's mention of their mother and the combustionbenders' confusion. Then seclusion, which had come and lasted for several days. According to Azula's taunts, her betrothed had secluded himself in his own chambers. He hadn't spoken of that temporary absence when he let himself in her door early that morning. Aelita only slightly regretted not trying to take advantage of that period while she had it. She had found the timid, childlike version of Zetzu to be the most maliable, but she hadn't been able to bring herself to face him that soon.

She had been mercifully as ready as she'd ever be to face the swaggering version of the Prince that stood before her in the first hours of dawn, the sounds of the booming quarry downriver drowning out the sounds of the sparring match he'd insisted upon. He was still the only one to know he'd taken her fully off the poison that suppressed her powers, though she was sure Zuko had his suspicions, so their impromptu practice session had needed to be held somewhere where they wouldn't be discovered.

"I forgot," she snapped, standing only to catch the waterskin he reluctantly tossed her way. "I'm supposed to exist at your family's beck and call."

"Not theirs," he said with a smirk while she drank deeply, her own amor tossed beside his own, bits of her shirt singed from their match. "Just mine."

This time, she did flip him the insulting sign of her hand. "Whatever you say, Sozin."

Zetzu only grinned more. "Does this mean you'll start calling my brother Roku? I'd love to see his confusion."

Aelita only ignored his comment, drinking until she was finally sated. "Can't we be done for the day? You said it yourself, I'm damn near as strong as I was before, and there is such a thing as pushing yourself too hard."

"You are, and there is," he agreed with a nod, holding out a hand for her to toss the skin back to him. "With your waterbending, atleast." And she was. The downed trees scattered along the riverbanks were just a small piece of proof of the matter. Either by instinct or muscle memory, she had ridden waves, created whipping arms of currents, hurled jagged shards of ice and then vaporized them on the spot, all the while dodging or blocking his offensive, even if his attacks had been merely a fraction of what they could be. She dealt with tremors, some, especially when attempting her more advanced bending, but he refused to accept responsibility for the lingering damage his poisoning might have caused. "Who taught you? The girl from the Southern Water Tribe?"

Aelita blinked slowly. "I don't think so. Not really. I think we learned together. Mostly. We had a Master. The exact details are...just beneath the surface. Thanks to you."

The Prince sighed, catching the waterskin in one hand as it hurled his way a little more forcefully than necessary. "My love, really wish you'd stop blaming me for how that interesting mind of yours tries to 'defend' itself. Regardless," he said, releasing the cork and drinking directly from the same spot her lips previously touched. "You've yet to firebend."

Aelita only glowered. Just as she hadn't yet touched her father's journal, she hadn't yet called upon the element simmering just beneath her skin, though it wasn't for lack of trying, even if her attempts had been feeble. More than once in the span of the exhausting session, she had considered trying to call her fire to light, but she had broken out in a cold sweat each time, the phantom feeling of her hand pushed through the chest of a faceless soul still lingering on her skin. Still, Shukaku's parting words echoed in her mind.

"Fire is an element that either commands respect or consumes fear, Akira Aelita. Do not fear it as Tulan and I did."

"It's not that simple."

"Aelita, I've tried to be patient with you. I allowed you to start reacquainting yourself with water first. It's time to move on to fire.0

"It isn't that simple!"

"For you it is!" The Prince insisted. "I've seen what you can do firsthand! I watched you cradle lightning in your palm! Do you know how advanced that is? It's unheard of! Do you know how far these abilities could take you in a fight that mattered?"

"Do you know what it feels like when that palm slides through the chest cavity of another human?" She quickly shot back.

Zetzu's argument died on his lips. For a moment, he just stared at her, looking as if he were truly seeing her for the first time. "Is that what this is about?" He asked, but confusion quickly turned to disgust. "Is that why you won't firebend? Because that's ridiculous. If you're thinking about the damage you've done with that fire, don't. Let that bleeding heart of yours die."

Aelita chuckled, the sound devoid of humor and instead full of mirth. "Is that what you did, Prince Zetzu? Is that how you learned to live with what you've done?"

Rage and regret washed upon his face, but when he stalked to her with pure malice radiating off his skin, she didn't flinch. Aelita stood her ground, looking squarely up at him. Zetzu vowed then and there to kill whoever had told her about his old master. "You have no idea what I've done, Akira Aelita."

The girl stepped forward until they were chest to chest, damn near nose to nose. "The ship captain."

The Prince blinked once. Twice. "The ship captain?"

"The innocent man you murdered in the Earth Kingdom," she hissed. "I know what you did to him!"

"You certainly think you do, at least," Zetzu grinned down at her. "My bleeding heart had been crushed long before that. It's time we do the same to yours. But," he said as he wrapped one arm around her waist, pleasantly surprised when she didn't immediately pull away from them. "Sure, we can be done for the day." He placed a soft kiss on her brow, then released her, much to her confusion, and strolled towards their discarded armor. "You can rest on the way to Nikara. And I suppose if all goes according to plan, you won't need your firebending to help us seize control. Unless you're an anomaly as the Akira, you wouldn't be able to use it then anyway."

The Prince didn't need to look back to know she was following close behind now. They loved it when they held her interest.

"Wait," Aelita called after him. "What's in Nikara? That's nearly a two-day ride. And-"

"And that's why we need to get moving, my love. We need to oversee Qin's operations."

"Qin?" She asked, catching him by the arm and forcing him to face her once more. Since when has he ever been based in Nikara? I thought his factories and warehouses were just outside the city."

"They were, but things have changed since we began preparations for the silly little invasion your old companions planned. It's just an extra precaution to protect our military assets."

"The...the invasion?" Aelita stammered, blinking back panic and confusion for plans that felt familiar and far away. "But...but the Avatar is dead...and Ba Sing Se had already fallen...so..."

"So, when else could any remaining rebels hope to possibly defeat the Fire Lord other than when he can't defend himself? Honestly, I'd be disappointed if those terrorists you foolishly aligned with before didn't come knocking at our door. Whatever attack they can manage to string together will be squashed, of course, but when we spill the necessary blood that day, we'll be able to blame it on whomever manages to lead their charge - my gold is on that pair from the Earth Kingdom - the little blind girl and the forgotten Prince. With their abilities, it would be the most believable. Or maybe we'll need to pin the blame on the waterbender, just in case anyone examines the bodies a little too closely before we have time to dispose of them. I'll think on it during our travels."

"Zetzu, what are you talking about

"You asked how I planned to take out my family - that's it. Or, that's when I should say. You'll help me kill them all on the Day of Black Sun."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

The tensions between Toph and Katara only continued to rise to insurmountable heights after their initial fight, and the waterbender wasn't sure there'd be any bouncing back from it this time.

The Runaway.

The people of the nearby city had taken such notice of Toph and her reckless bullshit that they had actually named her 'The Runaway'. Worse than that, Katrara thought as she paced their camp and waited for the culprit in question to return, was the fact that the earthbender knew and she hadn't planned on saying a thing. She added selfishness and self-absorbedness to her mental list of Toph's crimes, and the wanted poster balled tightly in her fists.

What she wouldn't give to have Aelita here to help her navigate the headache that was the Beifong brat. She was the closest thing to a happy medium when it came to the two very opposite ends of the bridge that Toph and Katara stood on. Would she have probably been fine with the first not-so-innocent scam or two? If it kept their friends fed and clothed along their journey, yeah. Would she have been so reckless as to have drawn this much attention to themselves? Absolutely not, because she wasn't that childish.

But Katara knew the only reason her best friend carried herself the way that she did was because of all the terror and pain she had endured. She knew the Aelita that came back to them would have likely only endured more.

Thinking about it simultaneously broke Katara's heart and enraged her more.

Aang and Kyojuro smartly gave her a wide berth. They busied themselves with the mundane that needed doing around camp, hoping to stay in the waterbenders good graces, holding their breaths as they heard the sound of Toph and Sokka's approaching laughter.

Katara was on them before they could even set down their newest riches.

"Well, look who decided to join us! Where have you two been? Off scamming again?"

Sokka valued his life far too much to answer.

Toph had no such self-preservation skills. "Yes, we were."

"And I suppose you don't think what you're doing is dangerous at all?" Katara asked, giving the earthbender one last opportunity to come clean.

She didn't. "No, I don't."

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

"Well then," Katara bristled, holding out the crumbled parchment. "What's this?"

Toph, fully annoyed now, huffed in exasperation. "I don't know! I mean, seriously! What is with you people?" She pointed to her clouded eyes. "I'm blind!"

"It's a wanted poster of you!" Katara snapped back as the boys watched on in uncomfortable silence. "'The Runaway!' Is that what you're called now? Are you proud of this?"

Toph's expression chilled. "Where did you get that?"

"It doesn't matter where I got it. The fact is-"

"You went through my stuff!" Toph interrupted, her anger now boiling. "You had no right!"

Katara's heart thundered in her chest. "Your stuff was messy, and I was just straightening up, and I happened to stumble across it!"

"That's a lie!" Toph accused with a point of her finger. "You're lying, Katara!"

The waterbenders resolve only hardened after being called out. She stalked forward towards the other girl, determined not to back down, batting Toph's hand away. "Fine! It's a lie! But you've been so out of control lately, I knew something was up! I knew you were hiding something and you were!" She held up the wanted poster once more. Toph snatched it from her hands and pushed past her with a hard bump from her shoulder. Katara scoffed. "Don't you walk away from me while I'm talking to you!"

The earthbender rolled her eyes. "Oh, really, Mom? Or what are you gonna do? Send me to my room?"

"I wish I could!"

"Well, you can't! Because you're not my mom, and you're not their mom!" Toph barked, gesturing to where the three boys now waited silently and stiffly side by side.

Katara crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her chin. "I never said I was."

"No," Toph snorted, "but you certainly act like it! You think it's your job to boss everyone around, but it's not! You're just a regular kid like the rest of us! So stop acting like you can tell me what to do! I can do whatever I want!"

"I do not act that way!" Katara shrieked, looking to her brother for backup. "Sokka, do I act motherly?"

He immediately tossed up his hands in mock surrender. "Hey, I'm staying out of this one."

Katara turned her attention to the Prince. "What do you think, Kyojuro? Do I act like a mom?"

"Do I look or act like a man who ever once had a positive female role model in his life to possibly compare you to?"

Katara shifted desperately to Aang and shot him a wild stare that told him to take her side. He ran a sheepish hand over his face to hide his discomfort. "Well. I, uh-"

"Stop rubbing your eyes and speak clearly when you talk!'

All three teen boys straightened at her tone. "Yes, ma'am."

Toph could only scoff and storm in the opposite direction. "I can't be around you right now!"

Katara bit back the obscenities that danced on the tip of her tongue. "Well," she huffed as she turned her back on the earthbender, shouting stubbornly over her shoulder. "I can't be around you!"

Kyojuro took another step back and whispered to the other two boys, still very much fearing the seething waterbender before them. "Is this normal when you're friends? The fighting?"

"No," Sokka sighed, his eyes darting back and forth between the retreating female figures, remembering too many times when he had been the one picking fights with the grey-haired girl the Avatar had insisted they were keeping. "But it's a lot easier when you're more than that."

"He's right," Aang agreed. "Which is why we have to fix this."

"Yeah," Sokka nodded. "Because Aelita will kick our asses if we let her family fall apart."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

The Akira managed to keep the shock and horror off her face simply because she didn't entirely believe what she was hearing. "You want to use the invasion as a cover."

"Beautiful and smart," Zetzu purred. Without asking or warning, he gripped her by the waist and lifted her onto one of the saddled lizards. "I'm not foolish enough to believe I could just so boldly boast of the slaughter of my remaining bloodline and then take the throne with no objections from our people. Sure, we could ignore or silence those objections, but the transition of power will be much smoother if the Nation believes we're taking up the crown to avenge my family and finish what Sozin started."

She gripped his wrists so he would stay put, allowing him to think she enjoyed the contact. He grinned up at her, male and smug, stepping between her legs before she could toss the other over the side of the mount to sit astride. Aelita fought back a grimace, forcing herself instead to look hesitantly hopeful. "Because you think this is our second chance, right?"

"I really do. You just have to believe it, too. We'll right every wrong, and we'll live and be happy. Don't you want that?"

When he looked up at her optimistic desperation, Aelita thought she saw bits of the little boy she had once known, who just wanted acceptance. But more than once, she had seen glimpses of that boy and then lost him again. She needed to know how much of that child lived within him. So, Aelita cupped Zetzu's cheek with one hand and he practically melted into the gentle touch. "That sounds so nice. But, what happens after the eclipse?"

"Then we take whatever plans our Father had for the end of the world and we make them our own," Zetzu shrugged as if it were simple child's play. "I won't deny he's a skilled tactician, or at least his council is. They're meeting today to discuss how to capitalize on Sozin's Comet when it returns. I'm meant to make sure the tools and weapons I've designed will be ready by then. That's why we're setting our for Nikara."

"Isn't it more pertinent that you're at this meeting? Can't any General supervise Qin?"

"I trust no other General with certain tools I've requested. Qin has been -" the Prince searched for the right word to not upset his bride. "Persuaded to only discuss the status of those tools with me."

Aelita didn't have it in her to worry about what those tools might be; if she pried for too much, the Prince would be onto her. "Sozin wanted power and control," she said as she stroked his skin with her thumb. "He wanted all the nations under his rule. What do you want, Zetzu?"

Zetzu turned his face to kiss her palm before meeting her eye once more. "He wanted power, control, and the Akira. He only had two. I'll have all three."

Any hope Aelita had tried to cling onto the hope that her childhood friend was redeemable died there on the riverbank. Still, as she accepted the fact that she would truly have to finish what Tulan and Shukaku could not, she knew now was not the time to strike the descendant of Sozin down. Not when the threat of his instability was only one of the great evils her world faced. So, she closed her eyes and leaned into his embrace, and just before she pressed her lips to his, she whispered, "I have a proposition for you, My Lord."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Toph was sure the boys she called her friends couldn't be any more stupid if they tried. Well-meaning, sure, but dumber than a box of rocks when you put the three of them together. She had expected them to try to mend the rift between her and Katara, none of them had any ability whatsoever to not stick their nose in someone else's business, but the forged apology letter they had tried to pass off as the blind girls was a new level of idiotic.

Still, she applauded their effort, even if neither she nor Katara had budged in the day that passed since the destruction of the friendship that either refused to mourn out loud. Toph hadn't the slightest clue where the waterbender had stormed off to after dinner and she didn't completely care to find out. She purposefully dangled both feet off the ledge she sat upon, listening to the gentle sounds of the body of water below, forcing her mind to focus on her other senses because Sugar Queen could absolutely take care of herself and wouldn't end up like -

Toph didn't let herself finish that thought. She nearly jolted when she heard the sound of approaching footsteps, but by now she had memorized the gait of every single person she cared about. She knew it was Sokka even before he sank beside her and said "We need to talk."

"Lemme guess: You came out here to tell me that your sister's not as annoying as I make her out to be."

"Nah," Sokka shrugged much to Toph's surprise, neither of them knowing that Katara treaded water beneath them in the glow of the setting sun. His sister went nearly still as their words echoed down the rocky cliffside to where she had gone to clear her head after a painfully tense day and several ridiculous ploys from the boys that only served to piss her off more because she hadn't wanted to hear from them, she had wanted to hear from Toph. Now, as she listened to her brother list all of her faults, she wasn't sure she wanted to hear from anyone at all. "She's pretty much a pain," Sokka said, and still Katara remained frozen in place, her annoyance rising. "She's always got to be right about everything and she gets all bossy and involved and in your business."

"Yeah, I don't know how you could deal with it." Toph snorted in agreement, and Katara's face grew hot with anger, but just as she decided to swim away, her brother's voice sounded again. Genuine, and just a little bit sad.

"Actually, in a way, I rely on it."

"I don't understand," Toph prodded.

"When our mom died, that was the hardest time in my life," he admitted, and his sister's heart fractured a little more. "Our family was a mess, but Katara? She had so much strength. She stepped up and took on so much responsibility. She helped fill the void that was left by our mom."

The earthbender was silent for half a heartbeat. When she finally spoke, any of the gumption or annoyance previously in her voice had vanished. "I guess I never thought about that."

Sokka leaned back and braced himself on his palms, his face tilted towards the same orange sun he hoped Aelita had enough freedom to look upon. The here and now with Toph felt strangely reminiscent of a moment he had shared with the firebender that now felt like a lifetime ago. Back then, it was a night that changed everything. Maybe this could be that sort of moment now.

"I'm gonna tell you something crazy," Sokka said. "Something I've only ever told Aelita about before. But honestly? I'm not sure I can remember what my mother looked like. It seems like my whole life, Katara's been the one looking out for me. She's always been the one that's there. And now, when I try to remember my mom, Katara's is the only face I can picture."

Beneath his sister tried feebly to blink away the silent tears that threatened to overtake her, early giving into the overwhelming wave of emotion entirely when Toph finally spoke again.

"The truth is sometimes Katara does act motherly," she said gingerly, fresh guilt and sadness slipping past her defenses bit by bit. "But that's not always a bad thing. She's compassionate and kind. We've all been falling apart ever since...you know, but Katara's been taking care of all of us. She actually cares about us. About me," she conceded as she wiped away a single tear with the back of her hand. "You know, the real me. That's more than my own mom."

Katara, deeply touched by Toph's words, sank deeper into the pool of water, letting its comforting touch wrap around her.

Toph, deeply repulsed by her show of emotion, punched Sokka in the arm. "Don't ever tell her I said any of this!"

The warrior promptly ducked his head to hide his smirk, content to let both Toph and his sister continue to think his healing gesture had simply been foolish luck. "My lips are sealed."

Later evening, after the boys had long since disappeared with Momo and Appa to further test the merit of Sokka's hawk, Toph found Katara tending to a dinner of fish and vegetables roasted above the fire. Before the earthbender could say a word, the other girl began to speak in a rushed, nervous plea. "Hi, Toph. Um, I wanna-"

"Katara, stop," Toph said, holding up a hand to cut off her friend, finding that swallowing her pride wasn't nearly as bad as she thought it to be. "You don't need to apologize. I was the one being stupid. These scams are out of control, and I'm done with them."

The waterbender was silent for a moment, letting the words sink in, and then a grin undeniably similar to the one her brother so often used to wear slowly crept across her skin. "Actually, I wasn't going to apologize. I was gonna say...I wanna pull a scam with you."

Toph blinked once. Twice. Then she squawked, "What? You wanna pull a scam?"

"Not just any scam," Katara clarified. "The ultimate scam." She rose from her place by the fire and slung an arm over the younger girl's shoulders, her voice full of mischief. "Whaddaya say, Toph? Just me and you. One last go. You in?"

"You know I'm in! Now what's this idea of yours?"

It was simple in theory. According to the wanted poster, The Runaway was worth ten times more the total of all the previous scams combined. Katara wanted to collect that reward herself by being the one to turn the blind criminal in. Then, when the coast was clear, Toph would just need to metalbend herself out of jail, and the outrageously rich team would be on their way.

Unfortunately for them, even the best of theories ran the possibility of being proven wrong.

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Zuko walked back to his room in a daze, his mind still trying to process all he had learnt and seen. When he started the day off lounging and visiting with Mai at her family home, the Prince having made repairing their friendship a priority, he'd been almost happy for the mindless morning. But then, she had let slip that his sister would be spending damn near her entire day in a war meeting with their Father and his council, and he had not been invited.

He could have ignored his feelings of being slighted had she not also mentioned that Zetzu had been sent personally to check on the status of the machines of his own design that were meant to be used in the very battles being discussed that day. Zuko, it seemed, was the only one without a role in what he knew his Father hoped to be the end of the war. Zuko, it still fucking seemed, was unwanted, even less so than his brother was.

He still wasn't good enough, and that didn't sit well with him. Not after he had damned himself time and time again just for a shred of approval.

So naturally, the Prince had set off to demand answers from his sister at once. He had found her in the royal spa, servants pruning her to look her very best before the strategizing commenced.

'Oh, Zuko. Don't be so dramatic. I'm certain Dad wants you there. You probably just weren't invited because it's so obvious you're supposed to be there.'

But naturally, Azula had been invited, because she was the Princess.

He had stormed away not long after, determined he would not go, no matter his sisters' insistence that he just show up. And he had done exactly that, gone back to his quarters where Mai had been waiting for him now that she had accepted their engagement couldn't be ended so easily so they might as well stick together. She had quickly reminded him what had happened at the last war meeting he had sat in upon, but just as he settled in to sulk, the messenger appeared at his door.

'Everyone's waiting for you. The high admirals, the high generals, the war ministers, and the princess have all arrived. You're the only person missing. The Fire Lord said he would not start until you arrived, sir.'

And so Zuko had gone.

And regretted it almost immediately.

And left feeling more confused and conflicted than he ever had.

And in his addled haze, he hadn't noticed the girl who had managed to sneak into his room until he had firmly shut the door.

"Zuko," the soft, pleading voice spoke. "I need your help."

Chapter Text

The Runaway

"I had a dream about a burnin' house, you were stuck inside, I couldn't get you out. Laid beside you and pulled you close, and the two of us went up in smoke." - Cam

🌊⛰️🔥🌪
Previously

Prince Zuko walked into the Fire Lord's War Room with his head held high. It didn't matter how much of an imposter he was coming to feel like; this was everything he had dreamed about for so many years. His father had finally accepted him back. He was wanted.

Much like they had during the only other war meeting the Prince had attended, half a dozen of Ozai's most trusted generals sat around the edges of a large, dark wooden table. The Fire Lord took its head, Azula now proudly stationed at his right hand. Two vacant spaces remained on his left. Zuko ignored the watching eyes of the generals and approached the table.

Ozai gave his son what could almost be considered a smile. "Welcome, Prince Zuko. We waited for you," he said as the boy bowed deeply and settled down into the spot closest to him that his middle child typically occupied. The Fire Lord turned back to his Council and the broad officer whom had most recently joined the Council. "General Shinu, your report."

"Thank you, sir," the man said as he rounded the opposite end of the table, gesturing to the map of the Earth Kingdom sprawled across its center. Red markers symbolizing Fire Nation troops now encircled the previously impenetrable city. "Ba Sing Se is still under our control. However," he pointed to swaths nearby covered in green. "Earthbender rebellions have prevented us from achieving total victory in the Earth Kingdom."

The Fire Lord rested his elbows on the table and leaned towards his General. "What is your recommendation?"

"Our army is spread too thin, but once the eclipse is over and the invasion defeated, we should transfer more domestic forces into the Earth Kingdom."

Zuko kept his face neutral despite his piqued interest and rising panic at the mention of the invasion. Azula and Zetzu mentioned it during their journey back to the Fire Nation, Aelita's friends having once hoped to utilize the eclipse and its effect on firebending to launch their final strike, but he had been so preoccupied trying to keep both himself and the Akira alive that he hadn't thought much of it since then.

The Prince mentally kicked himself in the ass for the carelessness. He was certain all of his and Zetzu's plans were about to fall apart, because he was certain the last airbender would be leading the charge, if not only to take the Fire Lord down, but to get the Akira back. 

Zuko wondered what it said about him that he was less worried about his father's life and far more concerned about what the discovery of the still living Avatar would mean for Aelita should Aang fail.

Ozai turned to his daughter. "Princess Azula, you requested to lead the invasion countermeasures. Where do you stand in your preparations?"

"The bunkers have been stocked and prepared." She answered quickly, stunning her brother yet again because Zuko would have never been so bold to make that sort of request himself. "The entirety of Hari Balkan could live peacefully below ground for several days, but that certainly won't be needed. The followers of the Avatar are broken, defeated, and have little support left to rally behind. Troops stationed in the Royal Plaza and along the city watch towers will easily eliminate the bulk of whatever forces they might manage, though I have considered allowing one or two of the rebels through just so I can have a little fun." Azula smirked, and the Fire Lord looked to be all too pleased with his prodigy's cruelty.

"And what of the Akira, Princess?" One of the council members asked. "Will she be a part of your forces in the Plaza?" 

Azula's smile fell. "Of course not."

Zuko spoke up before he could stop himself. "Why not?" He questioned, already hoping and praying that if he could get Aelita to the front lines, the Avatar would settle for having his Akira back and retreat before the Fire Lord had learned he was still alive.

This was his chance to finally get his former friend out, even if it meant damning himself in the process.

"This would be the perfect opportunity to truly test the Akira's loyalty," Zuko went on. "And to show our people the power the Fire Lord commands."

Ozai nodded slightly in approval but remained silent. Azula on the other hand, struggled to bite back her own annoyance because she would sooner die than share her glory after her recent embarrassments. "Because, brother, " she hissed past a completely fake grin. "We don't wish to waste the suprise of having the Akira on our leash during some silly little invasion. I believe we save that reveal for a final assault on the Earth Kingdom."

Zuko opened his mouth to argue, but Gong, the cunning general tasked with leading the Fire Lord's domestic forces and one of the only women on the council, spoke first. "You mentioned security for the citizens of Hari Balkan, Princess. What of those in Harbor City?"

Azula could read the concern on the General despite the older woman's best efforts to hide it. Any other day, she might have pounced on that fear, but the irony of having her brother sitting across from her in this moment wasn't lost on her. Years ago, he had lost everything from what the Princess assumed was similar sentimentalities, but unlike Zuko, Gong had at least been smart enough to pose her objection as a question rather than outright defiance. The Princess met her brother's stare directly as she spoke, as if she were issuing him a challenge personally. "With any luck, they'll panic just enough to get in the rebels' way."

Zuko felt as if the bottom dropped out of his stomach.

Nothing had changed.

He had traveled to the farthest corners of the world. Saw lands and peoples and cultures that had been completely and utterly decimated by his forefathers. By him.

Had grown to care for a girl from the Earth Kingdom who treated him with kindness. Had felt protective of a little boy who'd nearly been thrust onto the front lines. 

He had witnessed the scars borne by his people along the way. By the Fire Lords' subjects. By his own Uncle.

By Aelita.

Zuko had seen and felt and experienced all this in his years away from home and still, the leaders of his Nation were willing to sacrifice the lives of innocent citizens for their own gain.

Nothing here had changed.

Except for Zuko.

All but Gong began to chuckle, and the sound stirred painful memories inside of a Prince who had apparently not learned yet to shut his mouth, only how to play the game. "The citizens who call the Harbor exist to push trade and make the lives of those inside the Capital more enjoyable. Most of us here don't pay them any passing thought until we need their goods or services." Zuko shrugged. "Their presence will only be missed when we begin to feel the shortages of what they provide." The Prince looked to his father. "It may be worth sending some of the more skilled laborers or desirable merchants to the mountains outside the city until after the Invasion. Trade and supply lines will feel a minimal impact if so."

"I agree with the Prince," Gong offered, and Zuko wondered if only he knew the woman still had family in the Harbor despite having grown wealthy enough to reside in the Capital herself. "Our noblemen will grow discontent if they are inconvenienced, and while we can easily silence these qualms, why waste our time on such when we focus on the greatest task at hand: wiping out the remaining rebellions in the Earth Kingdom."

Ozai was silent for some time before inclining his head just slightly in approval.

Zuko couldn't quite tell if the passing glance his father gave him was meant to be patronizing or approving.

"As you wish, Prince Zuko, General Gong. While my second son prepares our weaponry, my first son will identify which citizens should be prioritized. General, your forces will lead their evacuation."

Murmurs of support rose from the gathering, with Zuko and Gong both thanking the Fire Lord for their orders. Shinu once more began gesturing to the map spread between them, pointing out regions and provinces where Fire Nation troops had met the most resistance. Ozai once more looked to his son. "Prince Zuko, you've been among the Earth Kingdom commoners. Tell me - do you think that adding more troops will stop these rebellions?"

The question was more a test than it was a genuine expression of trust in his judgment, and Zuko knew as well. He kept his answer short but sure, desperate to never see the inside of the War Room ever again. "The people of the Earth Kingdom are proud and strong. They can endure anything, as long as they have hope."

Ozai seemed pleased with the response. "Yes, you're right," he agreed, much to the boy's pleasant shock. But, before Zuko could embrace any small bit of relief, the Fire Lord punched out a hand and set the Earth Kingdom pawns to light upon the map. "We need to destroy their hope."

"Well, that's not exactly what I-"

"I think you should take their precious hope and the rest of their land and burn it all to the ground," Azula quickly cut her brother off, smug satisfaction written across her face.

"Yes," Ozai beamed at his daughter with malicious pride. "Yes, you're right, Azula," the Fire Lord said as he rose, passing the layout of the Earth Kingdom on the table, stopping instead beside the larger map of the entire world painted upon the floor. "Sozin's Comet is almost upon us, and on that day, it will endow us with the strength and power of a hundred suns. No bender will stand a chance against us."

"What are you suggesting, sir?" Shinu questioned.

The Fire Lord turned to face his Council. "When the comet last came, my grandfather, Fire Lord Sozin, used it to wipe out the Air Nomads. Now, I will use its power to end the Earth Kingdom - permanently." Ozai moved to stand in the center of the map. His son hid trembling hands beneath the table. "From Prince Zetzu's airships, we will rain fire over their lands with the Akira at the helm, a fire that will destroy everything. The world will see her as a leashed monster, and I her handler. And then, out of the ashes, a new world will be born, a world in which all the lands are Fire Nation and I am the supreme ruler of everything!"

No one noticed when Prince Zuko was the only person who didn't begin to clap.

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Currently

Zuko gripped Aelita by the wrist and tugged deeper into his quarters, away from the door and any possible listening ears. "Are you trying to get us both killed?" He silently hissed. "Do you know what people will say if they saw you sneaking in here?"

"Believe me, coming to you wasn't my first choice, but it's not like I have many other options."

"What are you talking about?"

"I told you, I need your help. There are things I need to do. Things I have to know."

Zuko looked at his old friend then, taking in every detail he could manage from the determination in her shoulders and the slight trace of fear in her amber eyes. She had donned a set of armor he hadn't seen on her in nearly a year now, this set equally as ornate as the ones still on his own shoulders. Her skin gleamed faintly under the dying moonlight, and several strands of silver hair had fallen loose from the knot on top of her head as if she had run a great distance here without stopping. Her fists remained clenched at her sides, but they trembled just barely. Zuko met her eyes once more. "Does it have to do with my brother?"

"No. Yes. I -" Aelita sighed, desperately trying to find the right words to convey what her instincts screamed at her to accomplish. "It mainly has to do with me and my past lives. And my Dad. And you."

The Prince jerked away as if the Akira had slapped him. "Me?"

"Where did you find my dad's journal, Zuko?" She asked, closing the distance he had just made between them, the fire within her that had been simmering since his betrayal beneath Ba Sing Se now steadily rising.

The firebender retreated once more. "I didn't -"

Aelita cut him off and continued her advance. "How long have you had it?"

Zuko drew back further. "Only since -"

"Why did you give it to me?"

"Because you -"

"Why didn't you just burn it?"

"It wasn't  -"

"You know how I feel about my Dad, were you trying to hurt me?"

"I thought -"

"Did you think that would break me?"

"No, you're -"

"Have you been trying to get me to snap?"

She had backed him against a wall, and the Prince had nowhere else to run. "I'd never -"

"Were you hoping I would kill your brother?"

All the remaining color drained from Zuko's face. "Do you really think that lowly of me, Aelita?" He asked before she could interrupt him again. "Do you really think that I would use you to...to -"

"To do exactly what Zetzu plans to during the invasion?" She clarified, watching as the realization began to slowly set over him. "I really hoped not, Zuko, that's why I came to you."

His voice was low and full of what Aelita couldn't tell was rage or disbelief when he finally spoke again. "He wants it all, doesn't he?"

"I'll answer your questions if you answer mine."

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The plan was simple in theory. The Runaway's wanted poster stated that she was worth a substantial amount, ten times more than what the girl had already earned from all her scams combined. So, who was better than Katara to turn her in and collect the reward, especially when her wanted friend in question could just metalbend herself out of prison?

Except Toph hadn't found herself in a metal cell, and when Katara had set off to accept their final earnings, the town magistrate wasn't alone.

Outside the town limits, Aang had already begun to worry as Sokka and Kyojuru secured the last of their belongings to Appa's saddle. The girls hadn't told them the specifics of their plan, but they had been adamant that their camp be fully cleared before their return, just to cover their asses with a quick getaway. "Do you think this scam of theirs should be taking this long?"

"I was just wondering the same thing," Kyojuro admitted, glancing at the sun now beginning its slow descent beneath the horizon. 

"We'll go check it out," Sokka assured them all, knowing not one of them would relax until they set eyes on the girls. He fished a treat out of his pack and tossed one to both hawk and lemur. "You two behave. Appa's in charge."

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Aelita sat beside Zuko at an ornate round table in his sitting room, Sukomo Kenshin's still closed journal now sitting in its center, a small sealed scroll beside it. The Prince had humored the Akira by fetching both the book and Mushu from her own chambers. When he had returned with a deep, ferret-sized bite on his hand, Aelita bent the water from a nearby carafe until a small bit shone bright and blue in her palm. 

"How long?" Zuko asked while she pressed the healing waters into his skin, the split sides gradually pulling themselves back together while Mushu remained glaring at him from his human's lap.

Aelita knew he was referring to the power she wasn't supposed to have. "Since my fight with Azula. A little before, actually."

The Prince felt his spine stiffen. "Does that mean this is a courtesy? Did our friendship earn me a warning before you try to take down my family?"

She ignored the insinuation, pulling the now faintly pink water from his skin and flicking it back into the discarded carafe. Then she reached instead for the journal and held it between them. "Where did you find this?"

"Don't change the -"

"I need to know, Zuko," Aelita interrupted, her voice carrying just enough torment to stop the Prince in his tracks. "I told you already, I'll answer your questions if you answer mine. Now, tell me where. Please."

They held each other's stare for several heartbeats before the elder teen conceded. "Uncle Iroh. He didn't tell me how or why," he said, cutting off what he knew she planned to ask. "He just asked me to return it to its rightful owner. That's you. You - you might be mad at him, but I think your father was always writing that for you."

Aelita's free hand curled into Mushu's fur. "Did you read it?"

"Only a page," Zuko admitted. "It's for your eyes. Not mine."

"What did it say?"

"'I'm sorry, Firefly.'"

She dropped the leather as if it burned her and stood abruptly from her chair, retreating to the far corner of the room with Mushu in her arms. Even with her back to him, Zuko slowly knelt to pick up the pages upon pages of Sukomo Kenshin's writing. "I didn't give this to you to hurt you, Aelita. I wasn't trying to break you. I just wanted to do the right thing for once."

The Akira whirled on him then. "I have given you dozens of chances to do the right thing, Zuko," she hissed, tears shining faintly behind her eyes. "Time and time again, you chose not to. Why should I believe that anything is different now?"

The boy felt his hackles rise purely by defensive instinct.

But then his conscience spoke, and it sounded hauntingly like his Uncle's voice. "I haven't given you any reason to trust me," Zuko admitted, hanging his head in shame. The words began to tumble out then, broken and disjointed and honest in a way that he wasn't sure he'd ever be ready to be. "When I had no one else, I had Uncle Iroh. And you. Even...after. And I still turned on you both. For what I thought was honor. But recently, I...I've had my eyes opened to things...things I probably should have seen for a long time now. Has Zetzu...told you about our family tree? About our family history?"

"Only bits and pieces," Aelita said, still trying to process the confession hanging between them. "But Akira Tulan showed me the rest. I know everything."

Zuko couldn't understand how she seemed so nonplussed. "Does it not break something in you?"

Aelita looked at him then, well and truly studied the person whom she once had been the closest person to her heart. There was pain, there was regret, and there was brutal honesty. Enough so to give her the faintest trace of hope that she was making the right decision.

She sank back into the chair next to her former friend. "Funnily enough, I asked your brother the same thing. He told me that he took it as a sign that Sozin and Tulan were being given a second chance, and that we could do everything right this time. Oh, and of course, you're actually my Roku in this situation since he believes Aang is dead. He's not, by the way," she said, and Zuko began to mutter silent curses. "You were right about that. But, since you're clearly the true version of Roku reincarnated, I'm supposed to kill you. And Azula. And the Fire Lord. I don't think I'm forgetting anyone else. Mushu, did I leave anything out?"

Zuko didn't know whether he should laugh or cry.

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Now stuck together in a wooden cell that neither of them could bend, Katara paced back and forth frantically while Toph's mind drifted to the metal man who tracked her friend down. The older of the two girls assumed the haulking beast of a combustionbender had saught them out to claim The Runaway's reward, but something about the thought didn't sit right with Toph.

Katara hadn't once accompanied her for any of her heists, so no one should have known they were accomplices, not unless they already knew their history.

"Wait! It's a trap!"

"Really? No kidding!" Katara snapped, only halting her pacing to glare at the place where Toph had now stood on edge. "Is that why we're sitting in a wooden cage right now? Gee, how'd you figure out it was a trap?"

The earthbending ignored her friend's snark, her own panic finally setting in. "Not for us, Katara! He wants Aang!"

Silence for one heartbeat, two, and then Katara exploded with regret and moral superiority. "I can't believe I'm so stupid! See? This is exactly why I'm against these scams! I knew this would happen!"

"But this was your idea!"

Katara groaned and slumped against the cell bars. "I know," she admitted. "I wanted to show that I'm not so motherly. I wanted to show you that I can have fun too."

Toph hated the sadness she saw clearly written on her friend's face, and was reminded painfully then that she didn't have the slightest clue how to comfort the people she cared about, not the way that mattered. Her parents had certainly never made the effort to teach her. So, she did what she thought Aelita might do and tried to make her friend laugh. "Katara, you are fun. If nothing else, you're at least fun to argue with."

The waterbender snorted at the half-hearted compliment. She started to quip back at the earthbender, but shame at her own actions changed her voice. "I know your relationship with your parents is complicated. I shouldn't have said what I said. And...and I shouldn't have acted like you didn't care about Aelita."

"It's okay," Toph assured with a half-hearted smile. "I was really mad when you said all that because...well, because, maybe it's true. The part about my Mom and Dad." The earthbender struggled to blink back tears. "I try not to think about it, but when I left, I probably really hurt them. And I can't let myself think too much about Aelita. Not when we have no way to really know if she's alright."

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Aelita wasn't sure if it was bittersweet or just outright sad irony that she could still read the emotion behind Zuko's eyes as he waited for her to speak. The anger there had been simmering since long before his explosion on Ember Island. Some of the sadness might have been there their whole lives. But the genuine determination and concern she saw now took her back to simpler times.

She knew that neither of them would ever truly trust one another again, not the way they once had. Too much had been shattered between them, and they had spent the better part of the last year already grieving one another's loss, even if the hurtful choices of the other still hurt something inside their souls.

And still, despite the wounds that had yet to fully heal, she knew without a doubt they were the closest thing to safety one another had inside the palace walls. They had saved, shielded and armed one another time and time again, both figuratively and literally. They might not ever be the friends they once were, and certainly not whatever else more they had once been, but it was painfully clear to both that neither wished to repeat the mistakes of the past.

So Aelita explained it all, and Zuko listened. The Prince was silent as she recounted each and every interaction she had experienced with Zetzu since he had exploded back into her life and the cryptic warnings of her past lives. He was so unnaturally still throughout it all that even Mushu climbed off of his human's lap and onto the Prince instead, the ferret nudging the clenched fists resting upon his knees.

Zuko had always known his relationship with his twin wasn't normal. Even before Zetzu had been sent away, they had been far from brotherly.

Maybe it was his fault.

Maybe it was their Fathers, for pinning them against day one.

Maybe some of the blame could even be placed on their Mother for allowing so much of the tension to happen.

But still, as much as he had grown to dislike his brother, a part of Zuko would always love his twin, and that part of him could never have imagined Zetzu would actually want to see him dead.

Azula, sure, but not Zetzu. But Zetzu was planning to eliminate damn near the entire royal bloodline during the very potential invasion Zuko had spent part of his evening planning the counter offense to. He looked away from the Akira.

"Why are you telling me all this?"

"Probably for the same reason you brought me this," Aelita said, drumming her fingers on the still unopened leather. "I just want to do the right thing for once. I -"

"You've always done the right thing," Zuko interupted evenly, still refusing to meet her stare because if he did, he didn't think he'd be able to say all he was slowly coming to realize. "Always. Even when you left. When you choose the Avatar. Your destiny. I didn't understand then," he reached for the still-sealed scroll and for a moment, he debated on torching it before he could damn himself any further because the Prince knew once he handed it over, there would be no going back.

Zuko held the parchment out for Aelita and finally looked into the confused amber eyes that he was desperate to find an ally in once more. "But I do now."

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The town was easily silent despite the sunset still illuminating the streets, the hustle and bustle the boys had come to know beside Toph having vanished. It left Kyojuro on edge and wanting to find the girls as quickly as possible. He called over his shoulder to Aang and Sokka as they walked behind him. "Where do you think they might be?"

"Where do you think anyone is?" The Avatar asked in answer, taking in the rows and rows of shop stalls closed earlier than they had seen in days. He was about to comment on the unsettlingness of it all when his airbenders hearing picked up the near-silent inhalation of breath that haunted his dreams. "Sokka, watch out!" He shouted as he dove for his best friend beside him, the two just barely skittering behind the corner of a building as the street where they previously stood exploded. Kyojuro, to Aang's relief, had followed their lead and found his own cover. "It's Sparky-Sparky-Boom Man!"

Sokka frowned. "You know, I'm starting to think that name doesn't quite fit."

Still locked in the wooden cell and unaware of the distant booms, Katara continued to fret despite her surprisingly tender moment with Toph. "What are we gonna do?"

"I don't know," the younger girl admitted, slamming her frustrated fist against the unmoving bars. "I wish we had some earth or water. We need bendables."

Katara stopped pacing. "What about the space rock bracelets you and Kyojuro made from the meteorite?" She asked hopefully. "Can't you make us a saw?"

"I left it back at camp," Toph groaned, mentally kicking herself in the ass. "I was worried the guards would take it. I - um, Katara? Are you okay?"

Next to her, the waterbender had begun running frantically in place, pumping her arms and lifting her legs in rapid succession. "Just fine."

"Well then, mind telling me what in the fuck you are doing?"

"I'm making my own water," Katara explained as she wiped the faint trickle of sweat that had begun to form between her brows. She flicked out the droplets with as much force as she could muster, a shallow slice beginning to form in several of the wooden bars. She ran several more beats, then reached underneath her arms and repeated the process.

Toph couldn't help but grin. "Katara, you're a genius! A sweaty, stinky genius!"

Several blocks away, Sokka, Aang and Kyojuro had been able to do little but cower from the onslaught of attacks sent their way from the half-metal brute.

"This guy is too good!" The Prince exclaimed between explosions, the three now taking shelter behind the ruins of a damaged fruit stand, their clothes all tinged with dirt and ash from a shot that had landed close enough to send all three flying. "We still don't really know how to fight someone who shoots fire from their brain!"

"We should split up," Sokka insisted. "He can't chase all three of us."

The three tens gave one another a small nod of understanding before darting from their hiding spot, each one of them heading down a different alley or side street, or in Aangs' case, rooftop. The Avatar knew he'd likely be putting himself directly in the combustionbenders' line of sight, but it was worth it to take the attention off his friends. He leaped from roof to roof, passing directly over their assailant's head at one point, blasting the man back with the surge of air he pushed from his feet. Aang didn't wait to see if the attacker stumbled, moving faster and faster towards the towering statue of the Fire Lord in the center of town. The Avatar surged for another ledge, but an explosion ricocheted just steps from where he planned to land. The wall of wind he wrapped around his body collided with the force to send him flying backward. He slammed into the stone chest of Ozai hard enough to send sparks of light dancing through his vision. He fell unceremoniously to the ground with a thud.

Even dazed and winded, Aang could feel the vibration of the combustionbenders' heavy, steel footsteps as he approached. The Avatar propped himself up on trembling hands, his vision blurred around the edges. Mercifully, the town streets were still completely bare, so Aang thought that even if he couldn't save himself, the villagers would still be safe from the devastating blast the man inhaled and prepared to release.

A thick block of ice encased the brute's head just before the monk could pray for the spirit's forgiveness. The man jerked and thrashed, revealing the Avatar's family looming just behind him. Katara made a break for the boy in the midst of the confusion and tugged him to his feet. "Aang, get up!" She cried as the others already began to move once more, the bounty hunter already using his metal arm to shatter the frozen water. Sokka and Kyojuro easily balanced the airbenders' trembling weight between them as Toph stood like a solid wall at their fronts.

"Let's get out of here!" She shouted over her shoulder just before the now royally pissed man launched another explosion their way. Toph quickly slammed a foot down and hurled a massive boulder of her own towards the blast. The two opposing forces met halfway with a deafening boom. The boulder shattered, and unbeknownst to the teens, a fragment of rock ricocheted towards the combustionbender to hit him square in the third eye inked upon his skin. The man reeled back, the unnatural wall he now felt between himself and his chi. He roared with anger and took aim in the general direction of where the teens continued to flee. The air around him ignited instead with energy he could no longer properly control. The force of it sent him flying back into the stone walls of a shop behind him with a sickening crack somewhere in his side.

By the time he had the strength to stand once more, the Avatar and his friends were already long gone.

Back at their fully packed camp, Sokka chuckled as he settled himself behind Appa's reins, Hawky perched happily on his shoulder. "Hey, I got it!" He called to the others as they flopped unceremoniously into the saddle, all three still panting from their dash back to Momo and the bison. "It's the perfect name for that guy - Combustion Man!" When even the lemur remained silent, the warrior went on. "You know, cause Aelita called it combustionbending?"

"Good job. Sokka. Really. Innovating. Now. Can we. Get outta here. Before Combustion. Man. Catches us?"

Sokka only grinned as he urged the bison into the sky. "See? It fits so well!"

The teens flew straight up until they could coast in the safety of the clouds. Aang was fast asleep after a quick healing session with Katara, his body still worn out from the fight. Kyojuro tugged out their stolen map of the Fire Nation and began debating a landing spot with Sokka, the Prince pointing out a seemingly unremarkable island that would take them slightly out of the way of their final destination of the Black Cliffs, but would ultimately put more distance between them and the bounty hunter they had left behind.

"Sounds good to me," Sokka yawned from his spot still behind the reins. "I'm exhausted. Hawky, how about you, buddy?" The bird cawed, and his human took that as agreement. "Yeah, you're such a lazy little bird."

Behind them, the waterbender rolled her eyes at her brother's antics and prepared to curl up next to Aang, but Toph's hesitant voice stilled her. "Katara?" The other girl said. "I need your help."

Katara softened at the sound and looked back to see that her friend had dug parchment and a quill out of one of their bags. "What is it, Toph?"

"I need you to write some things down for me. I wanna send a letter to my parents."

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It was Aelita's turn to avoid Zuko's stare. She was afraid that if she looked at him now, she'd struggle to dissociate him from the family planning such brutalities against the world. Instead, her eyes darted from line to line once more, taking the very roles the Prince before her was being assigned.

"This - this is so much worse than anything I could have ever imagined."

"I know," Zuko admitted, hanging his head in shame yet again. "I always knew my father could be ruthless, but this...I wanted to speak out against this horrifying plan," he tried to assure both himself and Aelita, the truths he'd been trying to deny for weeks now finally spilling out like water from a broken dam. "But I'm ashamed to say I didn't. And I'm sorry." Zuko slipped out of his chair and sank to his knees at the Akira's feet, his face just inches above the floor. "I'm so sorry. My whole life, I struggled to gain my father's love and acceptance, but once I had it, I realized I'd lost myself getting there. I've completely forgotten who I was."

It was silent other than the sound of Mushu's soft, confused chattering from where he perched on the table, head swiveling back and forth between the two battered teens. Aelita wasn't sure she really had the words to convey the war of emotions battling inside her, a part of her still so angry, and another so very sad.

Zuko heard the scrape of a chair being pushed back. He braced himself for the strike he deserved.

A gentle hand gripped his arm instead and hauled him to his feet.

She wouldn't tell him everything was alright. She wouldn't tell him she had forgiven him, because for now, that would still be a lie. Instead, Aelita looked at the Prince of the Fire Nation with determined amber eyes he knew all too well. "I haven't recognized the reflection in my mirror for a long, long time. But we don't have to be lost alone anymore. I know you, and you know me. That's why I came here. I need your help, Zuko. I need answers. I need you to protect me so I can enter the Spirit World." She pressed the awful scroll into his chest. "I need you to help me put an end to all this. That's what we're meant for. That's our destiny. Our second chance."

Zuko blinked back the tears in his eyes, desperate not to let them fall."You're asking me to stand against my family."

"I am."

He took the scroll from her hand and stepped away. For the first time since he'd returned home, the conflict roaring inside of him had finally died down. Zuko was faced with the biggest choice in his young life, one that he would never be able to undo. 

As the Crowned Prince of the Fire Nation set the parchment to light, he thought it was a surprisingly easy decision to make. 

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Chapter Text

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Aelita felt as though she had already lived this moment once before - riding toward the Black Cliffs beside a Fire Nation prince under the cover of darkness. Only this time, she rode a mongoose lizard, and they had less than seven nights until the eclipse. No time to spare.

Which was why Zuko still couldn’t understand why she insisted on venturing into the Spirit World now of all times - when there was so much else to do and he had no idea how to drag her back if anything went wrong. As the cliffs rose in the distance, his mind drifted to a frigid cave tucked into the barren landscape of the North Pole.

“I’ve only seen you go into the Spirit World once,” he said into the wind. He’d already asked her for every detail she could recall about the place only she and Aang could reach, and the instability of it all kept his nerves taut. “I hauled you and the Avatar across a tundra in a blizzard, and neither of you stirred. I fought your friend with you lying right beside me, and you didn’t even flinch. I wouldn’t have known how to pull you back if I tried.” He shot her a glance. “Are you sure this is the best time to go wandering somewhere I can’t even reach you?”

“I have to, Zuko. Akira Shukaku told me to make sense of our past. That’s how I bring peace. That’s how I restore balance. And to do that, I need the Spirit World. Time passes differently there. History stays imprinted. Spirits don’t forget. If I want to understand our past, that’s where I need to be.”

“He also said you needed to face the cruelty of the world head-on, didn’t he? The cruelest things in our world are back home. Shouldn’t we be preparing you for that?”

“You know, I’m already starting to regret telling you important details again.”

Mushu huffed in agreement, but Zuko ignored them both. “When the eclipse arrives, you’ll have the perfect opportunity to do...”

“To do what exactly, Zuko?” Aelita asked when he trailed off. For a moment, she thought he’d pretend not to hear her - but finally he spoke, voice low and strange.

“After the North Pole...before Ba Sing Se...Azula and Zetzu tracked you to some ruined village in the Earth Kingdom. Along a river.” He paused, and when she didn’t answer, he knew she didn’t remember. Guilt twisted in his stomach. As much as he’d love to forget the awful things he’d done, he couldn’t imagine how trapped Aelita must feel in her own fractured memories.

“I tracked them - my brother and sister. And Uncle...he tracked me. And he got hurt. Badly. But you saved him. And then you stayed awhile. Uncle trained us side by side like he did all those years at sea. Then we fought—because you told me you would kill the Fire Lord if there was no other choice.” His voice grew tight. “There’s no better time to do that than during the eclipse. No one but you will be able to bend. We’ll all be at your mercy.”

If Aelita noticed that Zuko still counted himself among his family, she didn’t say anything. Instead, she thought of the nearly identical conversation she’d had with his brother earlier and wondered if this one would end the same.

“It’s not that simple.”

If Zuko noticed the way Aelita subtly braced herself as if expecting a fight, he didn’t comment. Instead, he surprised her—almost as much as she had surprised him.

“Then make me understand. Please.”

The jagged edge of the Black Cliffs emerged out of the darkness as the Akira considered his request. Truthfully, she wasn't even sure she fully understood it herself. Her mind felt like a battlefield scarred again and again, and some days she still questioned whether she could trust even her own thoughts.

“When you’re raised the way we were..." She let the words hang for a moment. “It doesn’t seem impossible. Hurting someone. Killing them. We duel with fire instead of words. We’re encouraged to maim our opponents. We went to the Royal Academies and were trained as children to become officers who would send men to die in the name of the Fire Nation.”

She swallowed. “So believing we could take a life if needed, of course, it didn’t sound so hard. And it sounds like I believed that back then, along that river. I think I argued about it with Aang more than I ever did with you. I can’t recall the words, but I can hear echoes of us being disappointed in each other.” Her voice thinned. “But he was right. A part of my soul died in Ba Sing Se, and I don’t think I’ll ever get it back.”

Aelita buried one hand in Mushu’s fur, grounding herself, gripping her reins tightly with the other as the blackened earth of Akira Shukaku’s final battleground came into view. “And as selfish as it sounds… I don’t want to give up the little bit of me I have left. But the world needs me to. And I have to find a way to be okay with that.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “That’s why I’m going into the Spirit World. Because maybe...if I remember who I was before...I can understand why I have to finish what Tulan and Shukaku couldn’t.”

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A nearly full moon shone through the branches above the small forest clearing where four teens had set up camp. Beyond them, a mountain rose like a black silhouette against the sky, and a field of fire lilies stretched from its base all the way to the outskirts of the nearby village they planned to scout in the morning.

The island Kyojuro had chosen lay caticorner across the sea from the Cliffs, where they would soon rendezvous with Chief Hakoda and anyone else he had managed to gather. Exhaustion hadn’t yet conquered the adrenaline from Combustion Man’s ambush, so instead of resting, the group sat around the campfire - humans and Momo alike sharing the glow - while Appa slept under thicker brush deeper in the forest. Hawky had flown off shortly after they landed, a letter tied to his leg.

Toph suggested scary stories to pass the time.

Sokka flailed his hands dramatically as he neared the climax of his tale. “Suddenly, they heard something down the hall in the dark. Ooohh! It came into the torchlight...and they knew the blade of Wing Fung was haunted!”

With a shout, he leapt to his feet, drew his space sword, and pointed it into the firelight.

No one reacted.

Sokka slowly slumped back down.

“I think I like the ‘man with a sword for a hand’ better,” Aang said from where he lay sprawled on the ground. Katara sat hunched over her knees beside him. On the other side, Kyojuro idly tossed a rock from one giant hand to the other, while Toph slouched against a fallen log.

“Water Tribe slumber parties must stink.”

Katara perked up. “No, wait - I’ve got one. And this is a true Southern Water Tribe story.”

Sokka groaned. “Is this one of those ‘a friend of my cousin knew a guy who knew a guy’ stories?”

“No. It happened to Mom.”

Sokka went rigid. Aang sat up. Toph tilted her head. Kyojuro dropped his rock entirely.

“One winter, when Mom was a girl, a snowstorm buried the whole village for weeks,” Katara began. “A month later, she realized she hadn’t seen her friend Nini since the storm. So Mom and some others went to check on Nini’s family. When they got there, no one was home. Just a fire flickering in the fireplace.”

Her voice deepened into an eerie rasp. “While the men went out to search, Mom stayed inside. And when she was alone, she heard a voice...” Katara hugged herself, shivering theatrically: “‘It’s so cold...and I can’t get warm...’”

Kyojuro - massive, fearless Kyojuro -hid behind Aang’s shoulder, peeking out with just one terrified eye.

Sokka abandoned him for the safety of a nearby tree.

Kyojuro promptly scurried behind Toph.

“Mom turned and saw Nini standing by the fire,” Katara said, leaning forward into the flames. “She was blue - like she was frozen through. Mom ran outside for help, but when everyone came back...Nini was gone.”

“Where’d she go?” Sokka called weakly from behind the tree.

“No one knows. Her house has been empty ever since, but sometimes people see smoke rising from the chimney - like Nini is still trying to get warm.”

Katara shuddered at her own tale.

Toph inched closer to Katara.

Kyojuro followed.

Aang wedged himself between them.

Sokka threw himself across all three.

Suddenly, Toph jolted upright with a gasp, knocking Sokka face-first into the dirt. “Wait - did you guys hear that?”

Everyone froze. Toph stood, cupping a hand to her ear, toes pressing into the soil. “I hear people under the mountain. And they’re screaming.”

Sokka brushed himself off. “Pfft. Nice try.”

“No, I’m serious,” Toph insisted. “I hear something.”

“You’re probably just jumpy from the ghost stories,” Katara offered.

“You said listening to those would be fun,” Kyojuro whined. “I’m not having fun.”

Toph stomped the ground, and a pillar of stone shot up into Kyojuro’s back, knocking him onto Sokka and shutting them both up. She strained again—but found only silence. “It just… stopped.”

Aang practically climbed into Katara’s lap, Mushu shaking between them. “Okay, now I’m getting scared.”

“Hello, children.”

All four teens screamed and collided into a pile of limbs.

From the shadowed woods stepped a small, elderly woman. Her back was gently hunched with age, thick grey hair hanging past her shoulders. Deep lines marked her face, though her eyes were kind and bright. She wore a simple brown yukata trimmed in deep red.

“Sorry to frighten you,” she said warmly. “My name is Hama. You children shouldn’t be out in the forest by yourselves at night. I have an inn nearby. Why don’t you come back with me for some spiced tea and warm beds?”

Any distrust of strangers evaporated from Sokka’s mind at the word beds.

“Yes, please!”

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Zuko might not like it, but he knew Aelita needed this. Deserved it. He’d heard every tremor of hurt and sadness woven into her voice, every shard of regret she tried to keep from spilling out. That, she had never deserved - no matter how bitter he had once been over the choices she’d made.

She sat cross-legged at the exact place she had told him her previous life had made its last stand. Her eyes were closed, fists pressed together, breath slow and rhythmic - inhale, release, inhale, release. Mushu sat perfectly still before her, more unmoving than Zuko had ever seen the ferret. He stared at his human as though he could see straight through her skin and bones to something older beneath. Somehow, he was supposed to serve as both guide and tether.

Zuko, however, was just supposed to keep watch.

He felt wound tighter than a bowstring. Every instinct screamed against the idea of standing by helplessly while she slipped into a place he couldn’t follow - especially after the small scraps she’d shared about the spirits haunting her dreams.

“The night terrors you used to have,” he blurted, shattering her request for silence. “They weren’t just dreams, were they? Those were dark spirits. Your guard is down when you’re asleep - so they hunt you. Won’t they just hunt you now? How are you supposed to learn anything if you’re running the whole time?”

Aelita didn’t even blink. “There aren't many truly dark spirits - there’s only one. The rest...they’re still light. Just unbalanced. Like our world is. We affect them more than we realize.”

Zuko threw his hands up, disbelief flaring. “And how do you know that?”

“I just do,” Aelita said simply.

And she did - because some ancient part of her had learned that lesson again and again, even if the memories themselves were gone. She ignored Zuko’s muttered curses as he turned away to collect himself, and instead let her thoughts drift toward a name she knew was important.

Rin.

She was almost certain Rin mattered - somewhere, somehow - but she kept the name to herself as Zuko paced in tight, anxious circles.

Rin, and a winding river that felt like home.

Water like the waves that struck the base of the cliffs—steady, rhythmic, inevitable.

Crashing and retreating.

Coming and going.

Going.

Going.

“Aelita,” Zuko whispered.

She didn’t move.

“Aelita,” he said again, louder now, panic edging into his voice.

Still nothing.

He lunged toward her, dropping into a crouch as fear carved through him - sharp, remembered, and far too familiar. He reached for her shoulders, for her hands, for anything he could shake or grasp - 

- but he could no more reach her now than he could on that bloodstained night so long ago.

Aelita Kenshin’s eyes were open.

Staring past him.

Bright.

Unseeing.

And shining a haunting, impossible blue.

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Aang slipped into the trees under the excuse of needing a moment of privacy while the others packed their things. He gave Appa a soft pat, promising the bison he’d be safe resting in the brush and that they’d return for him in the morning.

Meanwhile, Hama hovered maternally over the remaining three, fretting over their exhaustion and insisting they all deserved a hot bath and a good meal. None of the teens protested. They followed her into the village - streets empty, lanterns glowing in soft rows - until they reached an inn perched atop a hill behind the closed market stalls.

It was small and old, like its owner, but warm in a way that made the night feel less sharp. Inside, the air smelled faintly of citrus and wood polish, and Hama ushered them into a dining room where a long, sturdy table sat set for six. Bowls of fruit and a plate of castella cake waited for them as though she had always known they were coming.

When Katara stood to help with the tea, Hama tutted gently. “Rest, dear. Let me take care of you.”

“Thanks for letting us stay,” Katara said as Hama poured steaming spiced brew into each cup. “Your inn is lovely.”

“Aren’t you sweet?” Hama smiled, settling in among them. “But you should be careful. People have been disappearing in those woods you were camping in.”

Sokka choked immediately on his tea. Kyojuro thumped him hard between the shoulder blades.

“What do you mean, ‘disappearing’?” Sokka wheezed.

Hama stirred her cup, gaze distant. “When the moon turns full, people walk in… and they don’t come out.” She rose, moving toward the kettle. “But don’t worry. You’ll be completely safe here. Now - who’d like more tea before bed?”

They all drank more than they meant to. Cake was devoured. Warmth seeped into their bones.

Afterward, Hama showed them to the rooms. Though the inn had four spare chambers aside from her own, Kyojuro insisted they double up so she would have one free in case any other travelers arrived. She argued gently; he insisted firmly. In the end, the Prince won.

Thank the spirits, because if he were left alone, he was certain he’d dream of Katara’s tale of Nini and wind up sleeping on one of his friends' floors. 

The other teens agreed without hesitation. The girls followed Hama up the stairs. The boys, left on their own, drew spoons to determine who was stuck sleeping solo.

Sokka lost - but he took Momo with him, which softened the blow.

Hama guided him down a long, dimly lit hallway to the room nearest the end, just before a dark window and a ladder leading to the attic. Still, the space itself was pleasant - clean and quaint. A white bed sat centered against the far wall, framed by pots of lush bonsai trees. Shelves held antique pottery and intricately carved wooden figures. The large window above the bed looked out to the moonlit meadow and the mountain’s silhouette beyond. The room smelled faintly of jasmine, from either the tea or freshly burned incense.

As much as he felt like a hypocrite admitting it, Sokka always found himself startled to encounter places like this in the Fire Nation - warm, welcoming, normal. He’d expected so much worse upon arriving, no matter how many times Aelita had insisted her people weren’t inherently cruel. And yet, they had seen cruelty. Plenty of it. He could not scrub out the memory of Aang’s tyrannical “headmaster,” or the indifference of General Mung at his weapons factory.

As badly as he wanted to focus on the good Aelita had tried to show him, the son who had lost a mother couldn’t forget what her nation had taken. He wanted to be the steady presence she would need after the invasion, but some wounds were old and deep.

Sokka slid out of his shoes. Stowed his sword within reach. Momo climbed beneath the blankets with a tremble.

“Who knows,” Sokka muttered as he crawled into bed. “Maybe I’m just being cynical. My instincts have been wrong before.”

Momo’s only answer was a frightened chirp and deeper burrowing.

“I know, buddy. This place is creepy,” Sokka whispered, petting the lumpy shape beneath the covers. “I don’t know if I’m even gonna fall asleep.”

But sleep found him sooner than he expected.

And when his eyes finally drifted shut, it wasn’t Nini haunting his dreams - it was Aelita Kenshin’s sad, beautiful face.

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Every journey into the Spirit World that Aelita could remember had begun differently from the last. Tonight, she hadn’t yet been surrounded or hunted. Instead, she stood in the center of nothing at all.

The Akira turned slowly, taking in the endless cinders and ash drifting through what she assumed was smoke. If this place had once been a forest, it certainly wasn’t now. All that remained were the skeletal ribs of trees and roots draped across jagged pillars of rock. Soot rained like black snow, settling onto her exposed skin. The stench of smoke and despair overwhelmed her senses, and she fought the urge to cough.

The haze thickened to the north, swallowing whatever lay beyond. The land to the south was equally broken and barren - lifeless, but somehow familiar in a way she didn’t want to investigate.

Aelita exhaled. She’d told Zuko that time passed differently in the Spirit World. She wondered now if the world itself was trying to show her the future.

"Well, this is a great start," Aelita murmured to herself, disappointment already settling in. The smoke from what had to have been a mighty fire clung to her despite her attempts to fan it away and gather her bearings.

She couldn't do either. The smoke continued to wrap around her throat, and if Aelita were being honest with herself, she hadn't really thought this part through. She didn't have the slightest idea of where to go or what to do now that she was here. Going into the Spirit World had felt so very vital as she had ridden out of the city, but standing here now, she realized that she didn't actually know how she was meant to make sense of anything.

"You did this," a phantom voice whispered in her mind. She was too distracted to notice just how much it sounded like Zetzu.

Because she had done this, hadn’t she? Like always, Aelita had convinced herself she understood what was being asked of her and charged in with only a hint of hesitation. She couldn’t even complain—she had the sinking feeling that she’d orchestrated every terrible moment herself. And for what? To maybe play a hand in protecting a world that had never been kind to her? To die for a boy she barely knew, simply because a spirit had chosen them?

"Why him?" The unseen voice asked.

Why Aang? Why either of them? Did they really deserve this? To carry the weight of the world on their shoulders? They were mere teenagers, dammit. Sixteen and fourteen - or maybe fifteen now? She couldn't remember the Avatar's birthdate if she tried, because so much of her mind had been blocked from her, her mind and memories as thick as the fog wrapping tighter and tighter around her. She had willingly given as much of herself as had been forcibly taken from her. Why? Why had she agreed to any of it? It wasn't because she thought it was the right thing, not really. She had taken the road that led her here because she thought it was what her father would have done in her shoes.

"His fault," the familiar voice echoed. "His fault."

Aelita wanted to blame her Dad. She needed this to be his fault. If Sukomo Kenshin had chosen differently—if he had prioritized her over his ambitions—he wouldn’t have drawn Zhao’s ire or the accusation that damned them both. If he had just loved her more, he wouldn’t have left her clinging to a martyr’s memory, following a path she didn’t understand.

The haze grew so heavy she couldn’t see more than an arm’s length in any direction. The ruined forest was silent, except for the thousands of voices murmuring in her mind.

"You and me, against it all," promised a gentle tone.

A harsh whisper cursed, "You left us all alone."

"I'll be watching you from the stars, I promise," a girl swore.

"You may hold the body, but you don't bear its weight."

"More blood was on his hands than there ever has been on mine!"

Aelita fell to her knees and clasped her hands over her ears.

A desperate boy insisted, "We can run away."

"Why won't you stop them, Akira Aelita?" A wailing woman asked.

"That will be your duty, my sweet winter child."

"You abandoned us, Akira Aelita, and that's something you have to live with."

The soft ash covered the sound of approaching footfalls.

"I'll wait for you," said a voice so full of hope and understanding.

A man continued to repeat over and over again, "You brought the war to Ba Sing Se."

"You won't be able to save everyone. You have to forgive yourself," someone known only to her soul warned.

A sad voice questioned, "How can you move forward when you keep regretting the past?"

Tears had already begun to roll down the Akira's cheeks.

"Promise you'll come back," begged the voice that felt like home.

But she didn’t know where home was anymore—or if anyone who had ever wanted her still would. She was close to hyperventilating. Only the warm breath on the back of her neck forced her to turn.

She immediately wished she hadn't. 

A monster from her childhood nightmares towered above her: a hulking, half-black-half-white thing, its colors split in jagged sections. It crouched on four elongated limbs tipped with disturbingly human hands. Two smaller arms twitched as if eager to seize her. Its face was like a hairless skull stretched too thin, mouth hanging open with rows of razor teeth.

Aelita scrambled backward. Rage and judgment gleamed in its eyes.She tried to think of something, anything she could say to the beast to appease it, but yet another voice she thought might but a spirit but couldn't entirely place echoed through her mind, telling her that they didn't want her help.

"I..." The Akira stammered past her fear and despair, hating herself once more for landing in the middle of a mess she wasn't actually prepared for. "I..."

The spirit roared, hurling a blast of furious light from its maw. It tore through the haze, momentarily revealing more of the charred forest floor.

Aelita ran.

She darted behind the skeletal remains of a wisteria. One of the spirit’s long arms splintered the wood as it swiped. She lunged blindly through the smoke, her field of vision narrowing to her own feet. The roar echoed again, slightly farther now, but still too close.

She pushed harder, weaving between blackened trunks, leaping over smoldering logs. Jagged rocks rose around her as the smoke thickened. She risked a glance ahead: a ridgeline—or the end of the world—loomed in the distance, a wall of impenetrable haze behind it.

The spirit roared again, closer.

Aelita didn’t hesitate. She lowered her head and ran toward the unknown.

The voices only grew louder.

"His fault..."

"You have to forgive.."

"You abandoned us, Akira Aelita..."

"Promise me..."

Aelita would have given the universe anything - her breath, her blood, the last flicker of her soul - if it would just make everything stop. For a moment, she truly considered letting the raging spirit at her back take her. Her sprint faltered into a stagger. She glanced over her shoulder.

Nothing.

Only smoke, curling around her skin like a living thing, swallowing the beast that had been hunting her. She wondered distantly how long it would take to find her if she simply...stayed. If she quit running. If she finally let something claim her.

She nearly did.

A gravelly clearing of a throat scraped the silence open. Aelita turned toward the path she’d been fleeing down - toward the wall of smoke now blocked from her path. 

It was like looking straight into a nightmare.

The figure in tattered black robes carried the shape of a man, but where its face should have been, there was only void. Blank. No eyes. No mouth. Not a damn thing. 

Yet the spirit spoke her name with chilling confidence, as if it had known her all her life. Almost as loud and familiar as the voices gnawing at the inside of her skull.

Aelita couldn’t face any of them. Not the spirits. Not the past. Not herself.

She bolted right, ignoring the chorus calling her name. Her lungs burned. Her thoughts shredded. She didn’t care where she went - only that something, anything, take her somewhere she didn’t have to think or remember or be.

The fog thickened, wrapping so tightly around her that instinct - pure animalistic terror - told her to stop. She skidded to a clumsy halt at the edge of a cliff. The drop was steep, the whitewater river below roaring like a thousand snarling beasts. Maybe it wouldn’t kill her if she fell. Maybe it would. Maybe she didn’t care anymore. Maybe it's what she deserved. 

She spun. The spirits were gone, either having retreated or been swallowed by the suffocating haze.

Aelita needed to breathe. Needed to gather herself. Needed to understand the past that was tearing her apart.

She couldn’t. She wasn’t ready. She wasn’t strong enough. She had never been.

She turned to run - and met the worst version of herself.

Lightning screamed in her reflection’s palm. Blood - thick, fresh, undeniably not her own - ran down her arm. She wore a grotesque parody of unity: Fire Nation red twisting with Water Tribe blue, a mockery of the peace she once dreamed she could bring after a century of war. Her eyes glowed a piercing, merciless blue.

The part of her she had tried so hard to bury advanced on. Watching her every move as it had in the terrible, lonely room that Zetzu had isolated her in on their journey from Ba Sing Se. 

Aelita stumbled back.

The Akira reached forward.

The scarred little girl fell.

The ground vanished beneath her feet. Aelita plunged, breath ripped from her lungs before the icy shock slammed into her. Water crashed into her mouth and nose. Her heart hammered so violently she feared it would burst through her ribs. The current seized her, yanking her down, deeper, faster.

She didn’t know which way was up.

She didn’t know how to save herself.

She didn’t know if she wanted to.

For one fragile, dying second, Aelita begged the universe for someone, anyone - for her Daddy, if she were honest with herself - to save her. Just once. Just this once.

But he wouldn’t.

She wouldn’t.

The last bit of air fled her lungs. Darkness swallowed everything.

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Unbeknownst to Sokka, Zuko had finished the first night of his vigil only an island away from him without once sleeping, the Prince too worried for what might happen to the Akira if he were to close his eyes.

Instead, the warrior himself awoke to soft sunlight and the figure of the innkeeper standing directly over him. He nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Wakey, wakey!" Hama said as if he didn't jolt bolt upright at her unexpected appearance. "Time to go shopping!" 

Despite Sokka's grumblings and a heart that still threatened to beat out of his chest, the warrior dressed and joined the others. Hama was eager to care for the teens and show them her village. She handed each of them a pair of onigiri so they could eat while they walked, and only Sokka seemed to notice that Aang's were filled with pickled plum while the rest of theirs were made with spicy cod roe. 

Still, he, like his friends, was quickly distracted when they entered the village's market district. Katara, by the delightfully warm woman who reminded her so much of her Gran-Gran back home. She watched as Hama smiled and chatted with the workers in the stalls, her basket gradually filling with the best each vendor had to offer with no extra charge. 

"That Mr. Yao seems to have a thing for you," Katara said with a mischievous grin as they strolled away from a still waving butcher. "Maybe we should go back and see if he'll give us some free komodo sausages?"

Hama blinked up at the girl with one startled hand over her heart. "You would have me use my feminine charms to take advantage of that poor man?" She asked seriously. Before Katara could stammer out an excuse, the older woman returned her own devious smirk and hooked her arm through the girl's. "I think you and I are going to get along swimmingly!"

Several stalls down, the other teens pretended to look at produce as a villager questioned the shop owner, wondering if they'd overhear the same conversation for the third time that morning.

"You won't have any ash bananas till next week?" The man asked.

"Well, I have to send the boy to Hing Wa Island to get them," the owner replied. "And it's a two-day trip."

"Oh, right." The villager nodded, echoing he same worried tone as many others had. "Tomorrow's the full moon."

"Exactly. I can't lose another delivery boy in the woods."

The teens left the stall laden down with goods for both themselves and their host, speaking to one another in hushed tones.

"People disappearing in the woods, weird stuff happening during full moons?" Sokka whispered. "This just reeks of Spirit World shenanigans."

🌊⛰️🔥🌪

Aelita could feel the blinding light even through her closed eyes.

For a while, she simply lay where she was and refused to open them, wondering if she were dead, but then a soft head nuzzled against her neck. It chattered softly in her ear, kind and familiar but different than Mushu's call.

Aelita blinked slowly, opening her eyes to find herself sprawled on her back against green grass. She sat up with a groan. She was damp and exhausted but honestly felt better than she probably should, given her less-than-graceful plunge. Still, she didn't move from her spot on the ground as she took in her new surroundings. 

Long gone was the death and decay she had first found upon her arrival in the Spirit World. A woodland of light and light and sound and color rose around her, the surrounding flora bright and tall and unlike any she had ever seen before.  The roaring whitewaters had given way to a gentle, winding river of a clear, pale blue much like the calm skies above. Spirits chirped and cheered in the distance, one particularly brave dragonfly bunny hovering just beyond her reach. Beside her sat the largest river otter Aelita had ever seen. It was easily at least as large as the mongoose lizards she had left behind in the physical world, and they watched her back with equally curious eyes.

"Well, you are by far the cutest thing I've seen thus far," she admitted. "And you don't seem to be too upset with me. Does that mean we can be friends?"  

The otter promptly flopped across her lap, as if claiming her.

Aelita let out a shaky laugh—thin, bewildered, but real. It shouldn’t have been possible to laugh, not so soon after the panic that had nearly hollowed her out. The fear still clung to her bones, distant but persistent. Yet there was something grounding in the spirit’s soft fur and steady warmth. Something that made her feel safe. Wanted.

"I haven't felt this way in a long time," she whispered. "So thank you," She reached out to give it a gentle rub, but stopped abruptly when she caught sight of herself.

Her hand. Her skin.

Unmarked.

Smooth, flawless, untouched by the scars that had carved her story across her body. She lifted her other palm, her breath catching when she found it just as clean.

Only then did she notice the clothes.

Her armor was gone.

In its place: a pink cheongsam embroidered with flowers and curling patterns of red, white, and gold. The neckline structured and proper, the sleeves short and neat, the hem a length she knew instinctively—down to her ankles, slits to her knees so she could run, spin, dance.

Her Daddy had surprised her with the elegant material after he'd returned from a journey to the Earth Kingdom. Ursa had then insisted she take the fabric to her own personal seamstresses to be made into the dress that Aelita had ultimately worn the day of her father's Agni Kai. 

Her stomach twisted. Panic surged up her throat.

Her skin went clammy. The air felt too thick, suffocating. Her hair suddenly clung to her neck like a hand she couldn’t pry off. She reached to shove it back - 

And realized it barely reached her shoulders.

Not the grown-out, near-mid-back length she had endured because Zetzu hadn't wanted her to cut it. 

Aelita scrambled to the riverbank, ignoring the otter’s worried chatter. She leaned over the glassy water, desperate to see the face she was sure wouldn’t belong to her anymore.

Instead, she found the face of her twelve-year-old self staring back at her. 

🌊⛰️🔥🌪