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World १
— I try to heal you beneath the sun, your god.
And she hadn’t known what grief had meant until this blinding moment, this fractured golden second, this heart-wrenching glimpse into the misted spirit world. Zuko is limp in her arms, and her breath catches, and all she can think of is her mother; and then the sky on the South Pole at dawn, soft light and shades of pink and peach and orange writhing beneath the icy waters like the stories of koi fish in the Fire Nation, and she’d meant to ask him to take her; and finally, that little vial of sacred healing water.
And she wants to scream at the injustice of it all, because really, she can’t be thinking that she’d rather save Zuko over Aang, but – Spirits, even on the cusp of death, Zuko’s body is warm. His soul is a giving yellow flame, his heart an organ of fire, his hands always soft on her face.
It’s so lonely in this pavilion. Her hands shake as she smooths water over his temples and wrists, hoping to soothe first his tortured mind and then the place he had been struck by lightning. She is so afraid. The last time she felt like this was when Aang had fallen, arrows glowing a hot blue and a black burn on his back and through the sole of his foot, his powerless form bathed in the earthy emerald light of the catacombs. Zuko hadn’t been on their side. Zuko had always been here or there –
Focus, she tells herself, and she pushes her hair back over her shoulders and tries to still her trembling fingertips. He moans, lips parting, and a flicker of fire forms between them, sparking candle yellow as always. It raises her hope the tiniest bit, that he is not so weak yet, and she breathes deeply, once, twice, calming herself –
The art of healing comes from nature, not the physician. Therefore the physician must start with the tide, with a cleansed mind, with an open palm.
♥︎
World २
— Ginseng tea tastes so much better when poured by your hand. There is no war here.
Zuko works the tea shop with a charisma that’s undefinable. The broodiness of his character is tempered by the softness of his appearance, the line of his jaw, the way he smiles. The jade green robes help too. It’s nothing new, because he’s always been like that, ever since they were children, playing near the turtleduck garden, his mother chasing after him and her and Sokka and Mai and Ty Lee and Azula.
Officially, he’s working an apprenticeship under his uncle here in Ba Sing Se, but unofficially he just wants to be near his uncle. The shop is scented with the blending fragrances of expertly-brewed tea: she can smell ginseng and jasmine and orange blossom and and golden monkey. Gauzy curtains shift in a gentle breeze, and when she slips her throbbing feet out of her beautiful new sandals, the mint dragons stretching lazily across the enormous carpet are as soft as cashmere beneath her feet.
When she finally sees him walking toward her, a blinding smile on his face, her heart leaps, twists, breaks open, readies itself for the sunlight he seems to carry with him –
But he turns to the girl at the corner table, giving her a smile she’s never seen before, softer, sweeter, almost doting. H e pulls out the pad he uses to write orders, and she can’t help but notice that his hand shakes slightly as he uncaps his pen. The both of them – Zuko and this foreign girl – are bathed in light, even though the skies had been covered with grey clouds before. The girl has dark hair that falls silkily over her shoulders and dark brown eyes that sparkle and she wears a baby pink kimono embroidered with golden meadowlarks. She’s envious. especially of those eyes, which are nothing like her crystalline blue.
He hadn’t even noticed her due to this girl. Hadn’t even caught sight his best friend of twenty years, even though she picked one of the most prominent tables in the middle, while the other girl had been sitting in the corner. Hadn’t even looked at Katara, the girl who’d been half-in-love with him for half of those twenty years.
She looks at the napkin set in front of her.
“Hey, Jin,” she hears him say, an undefinable warmth in his voice, “What can I get you?”
♥︎
World ३
— In this last world, here is the closest our souls brush against each other, a folk tale.
So both become other people, and the situation holds a certain tragedy, that this is the only way they could have ever eclipsed. In a world where the moon stays at half-mast always. In a world where a mad girl rules with sparking lightning. In a world where the war has been lost.
She brushes carmine across her cheekbones, uses butter to soften her lips, and tries desperately to aid these broken laketowns. Her reflection and shadow are both ghostly things that disappear if looked at for too long. In her path to heal, she loses herself to the poisoned green rivers. P ainted lady, painted lady, painted lady. There are too many children calling her name from the mists.
She becomes a spirit herself.
He pulls on a blue-white mask, cuts his hair, and fights for his own survival in a world that hunts for him. He too, falls into a half-spirit place, his body drifting in and out of the seething fogs. In this, there is no honor. There is only hopelessness. He stumbles into the village of Jang Hui.
And one night, their paths cross, soul and body.
The two lovers from the tale of sparrow river meet again, for the last time.
And after, never again, for not even death touches them.