Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

As far as poetry went, it was … different. If anything was bad, it was the inconvenient timing, rather than the content, although the direct description of female bodies instead of the use of classical allusions was rather crass. Not that Zuko expected any more from the Water Tribe peasant, but really - how much spare time did the boy have to spend thinking about that stuff? Zuko himself  barely thought about girls like that anymore even when he was on a date with one and okay, well, now he was, because of the impassioned voice floating down from above him, but back to his original point, this was all Very Bad Timing.

Zuko gently rolled the edge of his rubber-soled shoe onto a knife-edge crack in the slick wall, shifted his weight and reached up at the same time. Strong fingers curled over another barely-there feature and he clamped his thumb over the first two for extra security, cursing the Boomerang boy (what was his name again? Started with an S…) for winding up the rope Zuko had left hanging over this portion of the wall separating the Middle and Upper Rings. The shadowed section was a blind spot for the Guard and the Dai Li had been strangely occupied the last few nights, so Zuko had thought it safe to leave himself a hasty homecoming route when he'd set off earlier in his Blue Spirit guise to aggressively inquire about a certain flying bison. Clearly, he hadn't counted on haiku-spouting friends of the Avatar showing up. But they'd always been good at foiling his plans, intentionally or not.

This all would have been much easier if he and Uncle still lived in the Lower Ring, Zuko thought. He'd be the last one to begrudge Uncle his good fortune, but he couldn't help but think that he'd already be in bed if they hadn't just moved. This wall was much better maintained than the ones lower down, and the climbing really was very -

"Slow going?" The poetry had stopped, and Zuko could feel the curious blue eyes on him, even though he didn't dare break concentration to meet them.

He ground his teeth in frustration. He wanted the damn rope, but he sure as hell wasn't going to ask for it, though if he wanted to say anything he'd need to try and disguise his voice anyway. Zuko thought of his history tutor from the palace, and tried to channel the deep crackling tone and ultra-courteous manner into his own speech. "Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but this is not as easy as it looks, so I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t distract me."

Peasant, he added vindictively in his mind as his right foot slipped a fraction before finding its grip again on the stone.

"Sorry," Boomerang boy said, and it sounded so sincere that Zuko bit out a reflexive, "Thank you."

He resumed focusing on climbing, trying to get back the rhythm of hands and feet, testing each hold before committing his weight.

"I don't suppose you could speed things up?" came the voice after barely a minute had passed.

Zuko seethed in frustration. "If you’re in such a hurry, you could lower the rope or find something useful to do." Not that he expected the Water Tribe peasant to do either.

Sokka. The boy's name was Sokka. How did Zuko even know that?

Whatever. It didn't matter.

"I could do that," Sokka said, voice thoughtful and grating on Zuko's every nerve. "I’ve got some rope up here. But I don't think you would accept my help, since I'm only waiting around to kill you."

Zuko's eyebrow climbed into his hairline. Raptor-bull - fucking - shit. He'd received a lot of death threats in his life, and this had to be the lamest yet. If he knew one thing about this boy, it was that he wasn't the one of the Avatar's merry band that went around purposefully or even accidentally murdering people. This one was controlled enough to be a half-decent firebender himself. Maybe the dramatic poetry recitation had gotten to his head. "That does put a damper on our relationship," was all Zuko said to that.

"But I promise I will not kill you until you reach the top," the other teenager offered.

Or ever, Zuko thought, holding in a snort of disbelief, because he was prime boomerang fodder right now in his precarious position two-thirds of the way up a high slick wall. What was the boy playing at? "That’s very comforting, but I’m afraid you’ll just have to wait," Zuko said.

"I hate waiting," Sokka whined, and if Zuko hadn't needed both his eyes to search the wall for decent holds through the narrow slits in the mask, he would have rolled them. "I could give you my word as a Water Tribesman."

This time, Zuko did let out a derisive snort. "No good. I’ve known too many Water Tribesmen." Two, to be exact, but that was more than enough when the brother of Miss Steals-From-Pirates himself was one of them.

"Is there any way you’ll trust me?" Sokka asked, openly curious.

Short of handing over the Avatar? No, Zuko thought. "Nothing comes to mind."

"I swear on the soul of my mother, Kya. You will reach the top alive." Sokka's voice was deadly serious now, and Zuko believed him instantly. Something the waterbender had said about that stupid necklace, and the way her voice had broken when she'd savagely demanded he give it back … the siblings had lost their mother, same as him. And how was it that he knew his enemies' tragic backstories anyway?

Zuko sighed. He also knew that Sokka was curious to a fault, and while he might willingly and gladly push Prince Zuko off a cliff, he probably wouldn't do that to the Blue Spirit. Unless the Avatar had spilled the beans about that particular detail to his cohort, but Zuko was pretty sure that he'd already be dead if that was the case. And Zuko really, really wanted to get to sleep as soon as possible, work started earlier than ever these days with the Jasmine Dragon's grand opening mere days away.

"Throw me the rope."

Sokka hauled eagerly on the rope, almost giddy with excitement. The famous Earth Kingdom bandit and legendary swordsman, the Blue Spirit - well, wait till the men of the tribe heard about this fish that their youngest warrior had dragged in. He hoped that Fire Nation wanted posters occasionally spread out to where Dad and the fleet came to port.

Sokka wouldn't have had an image to connect with the rumors about this guy if he hadn't made a habit of perusing the posters himself whenever they came to a reasonably sized town. Mainly he was just looking to see if he'd finally gotten one of his own. Aang had the most, with two-and-a-half if you counted that he was in Appa's, Toph came in second with two and even Katara had one of her own. Hell, even Prince Ponytail had a few, and what was that all about, guy couldn't even prince right. Or traitor right, Sokka thought, remembering something Zhao had said as he'd manhandled the angry teen into snarling submission on Roku's island, because then shouldn't he be helping the good guys?

None of which mattered right now because the Blue-freaking-Spirit was pulling himself onto the top of the wall, famed swords strapped to his back but out and in his hands the second he let go of the rope.

"We'll wait," Sokka said hastily, noticing a slight sway of exhaustion in the slender man's step. Now that Sokka saw him up close, he wasn't even sure if man was the right word. Right gender for sure, but the bandit wasn't much taller than Sokka himself and the dark clothes sagged off his frame in places. "Wait, wait, until you're ready," Sokka encouraged. If he was only going to get one chance to duel the Blue Spirit, he wanted to make the most of it.

After a moment, the masked man-possibly-teenager sheathed the swords and sat down. "Thank you," he said, and took off a soft shoe to shake small stones out of it.

Sokka decided he might as well make conversation. The Blue Spirit was sure to have come across all sorts of people on his travels, maybe he had seen the one Sokka never admitted to Katara that he was looking for...

"I don't mean to pry, but you don’t by any chance happen to have six fingers on your right hand?"

The tusked mask looked at him. "Do you always begin conversations this way?" Nevertheless, he held up his right hand and wiggled five pale fingers emerging from a half-glove.

Sokka felt like he owed an explanation now after that awkward start. "My mother was slaughtered by a six fingered man." He couldn't help falling into the mood of that awful day at the memory. How horribly still everything was, when he saw that man emerge from their home, blood on a black glove and a smell of charred flesh wafting out from behind him … six fingers on that glove, that's what his mind had chosen to focus on at the moment, pulling courage and resolve from the details. "I loved my mother. So, naturally, I challenged her murderer."

He hadn't known what he was doing at the time, and it was painfully obvious. The murderer hadn't even acknowledged him, had only pushed past until Sokka had forced his frozen muscles to raise the club and strike wildly. "I failed." Sokka hated how broken his voice came out. "The six fingered man left me alive. But he gave me these." He tugged down the wrappings on his left forearm, displaying one half of the burn scars that spiraled from his wrists to nearly his elbow. The Blue Spirit twitched violently; Sokka frowned. They weren't the worst scars he'd seen, or even particularly grotesque enough to deserve a reaction like that.

"How old were you?" the bandit asked softly. He'd finished with his shoes and was now coiling the rope with a practiced hand.

"I was ten years old." Old enough, said the hard tone in Sokka's voice, making it clear he wasn't asking for pity.

Gloved hands paused on the rope. "I … I couldn't stand up to my mother's murderer, either."

Surprised, Sokka stared. He hadn't been expecting … empathy, and for a moment they were just two lost boys who'd lost too much, silent understanding stretching between them on the wall.

Sokka shifted uncomfortably after a moment, and spoke to draw his mind away from the disturbing thought of exactly what that mask and dark clothes could be hiding, such was the feeling of shared experience he'd read from the other's voice. "What's the saying around here? There’s not a lot of money in revenge." It didn't make him feel much better, but Sokka was trying to set things right in his own way. Keeping the group safe as they tried to help Aang save the world - it wasn't revenge, but at least it was something to do that was a little bigger than training toddlers in the village. Was this what drove the Blue Spirit too, to hassle Fire Nation forces and rob the rich to give to the poor? Which, for all Sokka knew, he could be hindering right now. This guy didn't look like Upper Ring material, not with his worn clothing and plain weapons.

"Well, I certainly hope you find him someday," the Blue Spirit offered.

Sokka sighed, and  reminded himself that he wasn't supposed to be making deep emotional connections with people he was about to fight. But it had been nice to talk to a guy his own age for a change; that hadn't happened nearly enough in Sokka's life, and he was starting to wonder how much he was missing out on. "You ready then?"

"Whether I am or not, you’ve been more than fair." The Blue Spirit stood up, drew and separated his swords with an efficient spin that Sokka was not jealous of, not at all, and then after a moment of thought, set the right one point-first into a crack between the stones.

Vaguely insulted, although rationally he knew dual-wielding was a pretty hefty advantage, Sokka reached over his back with his left hand. He unsheathed the meteor blade with as much of a flourish as he could muster, and matched the other's ready stance. "You seem a decent fellow. I hate to kill you," he joked, flippant.

"You seem a decent fellow. I hate to die." The Blue Spirit did not do humor like Sokka could - but not many could match that high standard - and Sokka wondered for a second if the fighter thought that Sokka was actually serious about wanting to kill him. He didn't think so, but the way the masked swordsman had spoken that last sentence made Sokka think that he'd get along great with this one never-say-die-firebender that Sokka knew.

On an unspoken mark, both fighters leapt to engage. Metal clashed, sparks striking from the blades, and the fight was on.

Zuko quashed down the feeling of being oddly exposed, carrying only a single blade, and thought back to his very first lessons in swordsmanship. The moves for a rapier were much different than dual dao, operating on a straight line with more focus on jabbing with the tip than cutting with sweeping edges. Posture upright, feet closer together than was his habit, for small, light steps based on quarter-turns of the feet.

Two small jabs, both blocked, then a slash avoided with a slight lean. Not a bad start from the Water Tribe warrior. Zuko tilted his head in acknowledgement, then sent the same attack right back at Sokka.  It was parried with the same ease. Impressive; Zuko tried to remember if he'd ever seen the teen with a sword. Much less a sword as fine as the one he was wielding now - Zuko was keen for a closer look but not at the price of getting hit.

Satisfied that it wouldn't be over quickly, they started going back and forth more rapidly, but still content to probe the other's capability. Zuko was surprised at how well Sokka knew his way around the sword; had he found a master since they'd last met? He had always been agile, Zuko knew, but precision in fencing came from the wrist, and it took a while to build up the strength for that with a heavier blade. The strange black sword was half the width of his own, but it still was no rapier.

Zuko curbed his natural instinct to launch an overwhelming offensive in true firebending fashion, and let himself be herded towards a ruined staircase where some rich earthbenders had probably gotten high and bored and decided to trash the place. He refused to give up the advantage of the high ground, though, and it served as a good defense in addition to his own slightly taller frame.

"You are using the Llama-ostrich-neck defense against me, huh?" Sokka was the first to interrupt the clanging steel with speech, and something about that term rang familiar from long-ago lessons.

Well, it would be impolite not to engage in conversation, Zuko heard the chiding of his history tutor in his head. "I thought it fitting, considering the rocky terrain."

It was getting harder to parry the jabs of the straight black sword now, as Sokka advanced with increased tempo and ferocity. Zuko kept finding his empty right hand shifting grip on a sword that wasn't there to pair an offensive strike to the defense he was currently forced to maintain.

The Water Tribe boy either had breath to spare or just didn't know when to shut up. Zuko would bet on the latter. "Naturally, you must expect me to attack with Leaping Hawk-Goat," Sokka said gleefully.

Did he? Zuko's eyes narrowed underneath the mask; now he was pretty sure the other teen was just making shit up. It was common sense that Sokka should try to come up under his guard, but such an attack certainly didn't warrant such a stupid name. Although Zuko had been largely self-taught once his mother … for the past six years, that is, and when even was the last time he'd fought swords with swords? Zuko could barely remember, because he didn't count those hook abominations of Jet's.

"Naturally," Zuko replied anyway, struggling to maintain the vague tone of polite interest. He could make shit up just as well as Sokka could. "But I find that, uh, Pouncing Pygmy-puma cancels out Leaping Hawk-Goat, don’t you?" Almost as well, perhaps.

He was making better progress now, having changed the angle of attack to force his opponent sideways on the narrow stair. It was all about footwork, now, keeping balance on the uneven terrain, staying mobile but able to brace against a hard strike when necessary. Water Tribe clearly didn't have as much experience in this area as Zuko did. That still didn't stop him from chattering, though. "Unless the enemy has studied his Barking Turtle-Seal."

Isn't that just another name for any South Pole resident? Zuko bit back the very uncourteous observation and dropped off the ledge behind him to land soft-footed. Sokka abandoned the stairs with a move that Ty Lee would barely recognize as a backflip, but landed well enough. "Which I have!" He crowed in that annoying tone of his.

Zuko felt that this was a good a time as any to shut the other boy up, and started attacking with relish. He was getting more used to Sokka's style; the other boy was more inclined to give ground, especially in a sideways fashion, than to meet an attack head-on. Typical Water. So what would happen if there weren't any more ground left to give?

Zuko led with the point but contained Sokka's retreat with broad swings of the edges. The slight curve at the end was made for this, forcing someone used to straight swords to parry in unexpected areas. Sokka might be able to match Zuko's speed, which was a feat in and of itself, but Zuko was able to commit his full force behind every blow, using the rules of momentum well-trained into him from firebending. He was getting more used to his empty right hand, too, giving in to the instinct to spin instead of curbing it, but making sure to complete the turns to whip the weapon back around to bear.

"You are wonderful!" Sokka exclaimed, without a hint of his trademark sarcasm, heedless of his increasing proximity to the edge of the wall.

"Thank you," Zuko said, genuinely pleased. "I’ve worked hard to become so." Had anyone outside of his own sword-masters ever said something like that? If so, Zuko couldn't remember. It felt… nice for this mostly self-cultivated skill to be complimented. Zuko knew better than to start showing off, however; not that he had that many more tricks in him with just a single blade.

Sokka was a body's length from a precipitous drop right now, and although it might be convenient Zuko didn't particularly want to kill the other boy. Perhaps he would yield soon?

"I admit that you are better than I am," Sokka said, blue eyes sparkling. Oh, there had to be a trap in that, there was nothing the Avatar's crew enjoyed more than laughing at Zuko's failures.

"Then why are you smiling?" Zuko was annoyed that he'd deigned to ask, and resisted the urge to check the air behind his head for a boomerang. He advanced with the dao and Sokka gave up another half-step towards the edge.

"Because I know something you don’t know," Sokka said, his tone almost sing-song and probably designed particularly to irritate Zuko.

Zuko did know at least that no flying fur-ball was going to show up to catch Sokka if he was pushed over the edge, but what else the Water Tribesman might have up his sleeve was a mystery. "And what is that?"

Sokka's face was the picture of smug as he  announced: "I am not left-handed."

…. Zuko knew that, actually, from his first introduction to a boomerang, but he didn't have time to curse his lack of attention at the moment. Sokka had switched the sword to his other hand and now Zuko was too busy backpedaling.

If a wooden mask could look surprised, Sokka was sure that it would have. He was secretly disappointed that he couldn't relish the moment of dawning comprehension in his opponent's eyes as Sokka laid down his carefully-crafted line. Oh, well. Either way it was, if he were to so flatter himself, poetry in motion. He had the famous Earth Kingdom swordsman on the defensive, three points of contact on the ground as he used his right arm to brace a stumble on rough stone. This was far more of an ego-boost than the giggles of a roomful of noble girls could bring to Sokka's warrior's pride.

"You are amazing," the Blue Spirit admitted as Sokka forced him back up the badly formed staircase-of-a-stone-pile with a flurry of well-timed strikes, designed to keep the opponent from regaining balance.

"I ought to be, after studying with Master Piandao," Sokka couldn't help but boast. They'd come across the famed sword master shortly after meeting Toph, and while Aang was staring at rocks trying to get them to move, Sokka had spent time learning the ways of the sword. He'd practiced every day since, but hardly ever against a real opponent. It was nice to have proof that he had improved, after all. Sokka doubted that anyone, let alone a renowned swordsman, would have called him amazing after his brief week with Piandao.

He pushed his advantage hungrily, feeling the thrill of nearing victory as he cornered the Blue Spirit against a partially collapsed wall. Sokka was used to being on the defensive, and he had to be careful that he didn't get ahead of himself now that he was winning for once. But he wanted this so badly, and he was this close. What had started as a serendipitous opportunity to test himself against the best had become an actual chance to best the best, and Sokka wasn't about to let it pass by.

He saw an opening and recklessly threw his full body weight behind his next move, using the flat of his blade to pin the Blue Spirit's weapon against a portion of the wall that had crumbled to waist-height. The shadowed eye-holes of the mask betrayed no emotion, but the grunt of surprise told Sokka everything he needed to know; his opponent had not expected that. Adrenaline and willpower let Sokka double down on the pressure trapping the other man's sword. Metal screeched in protest.

"There’s something I ought to tell you," the Blue Spirit said, straining against Sokka's superior leverage.

"Tell me," Sokka said, waiting to hear the sweet sweet phrase of I yield.

The blue-and-white mask was inches from Sokka's own and grinning maniacally. He heard the same grin in the voice underneath not a second later. "I’m not left-handed either."

Well, monkey-feathers, Sokka thought, slack-jawed. He had walked right into that one.

The Blue Spirit used that moment of inattention to break Sokka's hold with an elbow to the inner arm. Before Sokka knew what was happening, a solid kick to his hipbone launched him off the crumbling structure to the main wall below. He felt his sword catch on something before it was torn out of his grip; as he fell, Sokka found a grim satisfaction in seeing both swords fly through the air past him. Sokka scrambled to his feet not far from the coil of rope, retrieving his weapon in time to look up and see the Blue Spirit spring down to the same level with a cheeky flip.

That somersault was almost scarily polished, but it was just unfair how the Blue Spirit landed perfectly next to the twin blade he'd set in the ground at the very start of the match, and nonchalantly plucked it out with his right hand, left hand resting on a cocked hip. Damn but that cut a dashing pose.

…Reminiscent of the Fire Princess, actually, when she was about to announce some diabolical plan or make a scathing remark. The next time they ran into each other, Sokka would have to ask her if she had any relatives who were into swordfighting. It would be just his luck, too, if all his most skilled enemies came from that one crazy family, although he wasn't sure if he could survive yet another. Sokka almost wished for the good ol' days of Zuko chasing them, armed with nothing more than a dinky ship and a remarkable resistance to head injuries. Azula, with the latest inventions of the Fire Nation clearly at her disposal, was a much greater threat and honestly Sokka couldn't imagine anyone worse.

And yeah, there was definitely a family resemblance in the way Sokka was getting attacked right now. The Blue Spirit wielded the blade with the grace and precision of the princess, backed with the wild ferocity of the prince (banished prince? traitor prince? malnourished fugitive? Sokka still wasn't sure on his status, but whatever kept the guy away was fine). Was there yet another sibling in the royal nest, or was this a cousin of some sort? Couldn't be a sibling, they'd all be firebenders, Sokka knew somehow, and given Zuko's penchant for kicking perfectly good weapons to shards he couldn't imagine that swords got the appreciation they deserved in the royal court.

Sokka knew that he would be better off pondering his opponent's family tree when he wasn't getting his ass kicked all over the Upper Wall, but he had good instincts and sometimes it was better to let those take control in a fight. "Who are you?" Sokka still had to ask.

"No one of consequence," the Blue Spirit replied, which wasn't an answer, but it did ease Sokka's mind somewhat because if there's one thing the Fire Nation Royal family didn't do, it was humble.

"I must know," he insisted, an almost pleading tone entering his voice. And if the Blue Spirit wasn't one of those who had taken up the recently popular hobby of Avatar-hunting, did he take students, because Sokka had nothing but time on his hands while they waited around for the Earth King. He knew he wasn't supposed to be admiring his opponent's technique as he got disarmed, but hot damn if that little twist hadn't had just enough force to send the weapon flying without cracking Sokka's wrist with the shock of it.

"Get used to disappointment," the Blue Spirit growled, and why was that so familiar…

Bigger things to worry about right now, Sokka, he told himself as he made a leaping catch for the descending sword handle. Ha. Boomerang training to the rescue!

Sokka charged forward with renewed vigor, only to be stymied because the Blue Spirit still had the high ground. And the extra height, but only just barely. Sokka's attack was met with an attack, and where their earlier battle had been punctuated by an occasional pause, now there was no quarter offered.

Sokka was managing to hold his own but he knew it couldn't last. He was giving ground and parrying with barely a chance to strike back. In desperation he took the sword in both hands, trying to summon strength to his failing arms. He could have sworn that the man underneath the smirking mask was smirking too as the Blue Spirit misled him in strike after strike that hit nothing but air. Light-footed, the swordsman maneuvered around Sokka as if the mask rendered him as immaterial as the spirit it represented. With a frustrated cry, Sokka lunged blade-first for his target, only to be tumbled to the ground by a well-placed foot and his own momentum, sword flying from his grip as it contacted stone.

If Sokka had had the strength, he would have slapped his own forehead. "Kill me quickly," he groaned, embarrassed to have been … airbent into submission by someone who wasn't even the Avatar. Wait, did he really say that out loud? Curse those stupid poetry lessons! He shouldn't be giving the masked swordsman any ideas.

Fortunately, the Blue Spirit didn't seem to be in a killing mood; Sokka's defeat had probably looked hilarious to him. The bastard was barely breathing hard. Hmmm, was it possible he was an actual airbender? That certainly would explain the breath control, and Aang would be so pleased … and there went Tired Sokka Brain firing in all random directions. Sure, the guy who carries deadly weapons and robs fat Earth Kingdom merchants is an airbender. Almost as inconceivable as saying Prince Zuko is skilled with broadswords.

"I would as soon destroy a stained-glass window as an artist like yourself." The Blue Spirit's mask was looking down at Sokka, contemplating. Still tangled up in his own limbs and trapped in strange thoughts, Sokka barely registered the compliment.

"However, since I can’t have you following me, either…" the bandit raised the sword, hilt first, and Sokka's mind snapped to fully alert.

"Wha  - no! Not my head!" he cried, throwing up his arms, and owww, that burned. "I do not want brain damage! I'm the Idea Guy."

The Blue Spirit paused, as if he wasn't quite sure what he was hearing, and Sokka took the opportunity to scramble out of range. Time to put the tried-and-true, fully Katara-disapproved yet entirely effective Talk It To Death strategy into play. And hey, had that been a haiku just now? Well, as Madame Macmu-Ling said, there was never an inappropriate occasion to practice poetry.

Was Sokka ... reciting medical-themed poetry at him? Zuko blinked under the mask, and lowered the sword in confusion.

"I'm the Idea Guy," finished the Water Tribe boy, and yeah that was definitely five-seven-five. Despite the odd topic, at least it was more tasteful and straightforward than the previous verses involving female chests and various fruits.

"If my brain swells up, from a little head-bashing, then no more ideas." Zuko knew that he was expected to reply in kind, but rhythm had never been his strong suit, except on the tsungi horn.

And even if he hadn't neglected his poetry studies during his time at sea, he wasn't sure he could compose a poem in the common tongue. Poetry had been firmly encoded in that same stiff language as official proclamations, operas and military orders, where the alphabetical writing system made filing so much easier. But the last thing Zuko needed to do at the moment was give himself away by using a foreign tongue - he'd been mostly monolingual for the past few years but it wasn't like he could forget how he learned haiku.

Frustrated and mute, he let the boy jog off with a parting verse: "Thank you for the fight! Maybe do it again soon? Big fan of your work."

Well, at least he wasn't going to follow Zuko home. And next time this happened Zuko was going to have some scathing verses ready. Too bad Water Tribe peasant took up a full phrase; it didn't leave room for enough of his other favorite insults.

Next time, Zuko realized belatedly as he trudged over to collect his other sword. What was he thinking? They weren't friends. They weren't even enemies, particularly, except when the other boy got in between Zuko and the Avatar. So by Fire Nation standards they were basically strangers. Although Zuko supposed he could slot Sokka into the vague category of honorable opponent if he really wanted to. Which meant that Zuko could teach him swordsmanship so that they could try to kill each other better, and that would be...nice.

Zuko slung the coiled-up rope across his body and shook his head fiercely as he did so. Where had all these thoughts come from? The Blue Spirit persona tended to be creative, sometimes to the point to where it might be interpreted as treason if Zuko weren't given a chance to explain himself.

Maybe the Blue Spirit could be creative, as one needed to be when breaking into maximum security military bases, but Prince Zuko wasn't allowed to. Prince Zuko getting creative meant Azula burning someone (just him if he was lucky), months of firebending square bolts into round holes because the ship's budget couldn't afford the right ones, or Uncle tutting and splurging on an interior decorator because Zuko thought that red and green looked nice together on the teashop walls.

But he was still wearing the mask and well… the little sparring bout had been the least tedious part of his day. He could do without the chatter, but it sure beat Dai Li interrogation, which had been mostly arts and crafts plus waiting, then half a minute of intimidation tactics. Maybe he should set the bison free tomorrow when he found it, get the Water Tribe boy out of his hair once and for all… it would help Prince Zuko focus on his mission, with the added benefit of putting the Avatar on the run again through less creepy-agent controlled areas. But then Zuko would miss Uncle's grand opening, and he couldn't do that to Uncle, not after they'd gone through so much to get here.

In any case, such important decisions were not to be taken when sleep-deprived. Zuko stifled a yawn and almost stepped out of the shadow straight into the Dai Li's line of sight.  He changed direction to reach the adjoining street in a different fashion, but balked hard when the silhouette of a giant appeared against the wall of the house opposite. The man had to be a guard, at least eight feet tall and casually earthbending - or worse, just tossing without bending - a torso-sized boulder in one hand.

Damn. A small part of Zuko knew that it would be too much to ask the giant if he could put down his rock and Zuko would put down his swords so that they could try and kill each other like civilized people, and then go the fuck to sleep.

The larger part thought that he should probably curl up in the branches of that broad maple-oak sheltering a disgustingly kitsch miniature topiary collection for a few hours and wait for the guard to change. That would be half past five the morning on Earth Kingdom clocks, which meant... about an hour before sunrise? Zuko cursed both the Earth Kingdom's ridiculous method of measuring time and the inability of his tired brain to do math as he vaulted the fence and barely avoided squishing a rose-bush that had been re-shaped as a koala-sheep. He picked his way over to the tree and pulled himself up into the lower branches, finding them broad and well foliaged as expected, allowing his dark clothes to blend into the shadows.

Zuko took off the mask and tucked it beside him with his swords, rubbing at his face with a hand. At least he would get back home in time to be sure of intercepting the delivery of white dragon tea before Uncle could get to it and accidentally brew himself a cup of deadly poison. It might be a battle of wits but there was no way Zuko was going to let Uncle drink first after what had happened last time. With the worries of the upcoming day chasing his contemplation of the night's events from his mind, Zuko closed his eyes.

Even so, the last thought he had before falling asleep was one of the Blue Spirit's, who had finally thought up a proper reply for Sokka's parting verses. The Prince Zuko part of his brain complained about too much treason, not enough scathing insults, but it didn't stop the feeling that warmed his body at the soft rhythm, like a memory of Mother's lullabies.

Fire names Water

Honorable opponent

Perhaps, one day, friend.

Chapter Text

Prince Zuko is skilled with broadswords.

Ridiculously so, as Sokka's sore muscles were now constantly reminding him. Sokka would like tell his Mind Palace that next time it connected "Prince Zuko has a pair of dual dao" and "Sokka needs a sparring partner", it could just send the part were Sokka went and had a practice match with the man in question right back where it came from.

Because Sokka knew he wasn't a bad swordsman, and he wasn't out of shape either. But he hadn't even gotten close to landing a strike on the frustratingly nimble Fire Prince. Who, it seemed, moved completely differently than when he bent fire, yet in a way that was still somehow terrifyingly familiar. Sokka was sure that he'd never seen the other teen wield a sword before though, so how that could be familiar was … disturbing, to say the least.

Sokka had only fought against dao once in his life, and that had been with the famous Earth Kingdom bandit, the Blue Spirit. Wielding only one sword at a time, and Sokka knew how different that should be. So why in the Four Nations should his brain be tying those threads together with a pretty bow and inviting him to take a peek at the gift underneath?

There was, Sokka would like to remind himself, such a thing as coincidence.

Anyway, the ugly lump-of-floating-steel in his Mind Palace that held all things associated with his mostly-painful encounters with the Fire Prince would need to be completely scrapped and rebuilt if Zuko showed even the slightest hint of being a smooth-talking, gracious vigilante.

There was simply no way that Prince Zuko was also the Blue Spirit.

The alternative is ... inconceivable.

Prince Zuko is not bad at impressions, and sometimes they're even funny.

His Iroh was confusing but offered surprisingly good advice for where Teo should try and find his lost wrench, and his Azula had some choice comments about Haru's moustache. While Sokka did indeed want to kill that thing with fire, he wouldn't  be nearly as cruel as the Fire Princess about expressing that wish. It did, however, put such a lovely mental image in his head that he nearly missed the next impression in the line up due to his loud snickering.

Yet Sokka could swear he'd heard that overly polite phrasing and crackling voice before, and it definitely wasn't from a history tutor like Zuko claimed and why would Sokka even know Zuko's history tutor? Before he could place it, Toph broke in.

"Boring," she drawled with an exaggerated yawn for extra effect. "Do the Fire Lord!"

"Yeah, what's the Fire Lord like?" Aang echoed, and really he could be as dense as an earthbender sometimes. Sokka barely resisted asking Haru sarcastically if any other earthbenders wanted to get in on burying the current good mood under a pile of metaphorical rocks.

"Yeah, Zuko," Katara added, voice caustic. "What's the most evil man on the planet like? Oh, let me guess. Completely evil."

Or, you know, a waterbender could throw a bunch of ice on it. Sokka was flexible. And his own sister. Was an idiot. If he'd had anyone to bet with, Sokka would bet that in another minute they'd be asking him to fix the steaming dungpile that had until now been a pleasantly social evening, one of the first they'd had since they'd brought a living, breathing firebender on board.

"He's still a person!" Aang was surprisingly quick to defend. "The Air Nomads taught that all life is sacred. That includes the Fire Lord. Besides, he can't be all evil, right? I mean, he's got kids, so he must have people he loves and cares about too!"

And didn't that go over like a lean-to in a blizzard.

Zuko crouched down, low and dangerous, and his fire-streaked eyes bore into Aang's. "He sets kids on fire, Aang. That's what the Fire Lord is like."

"Eh heh he he he, " Aang's trademark good-natured-but-nervous laugh came out extra shaky. "That does sound pretty evil."

Zuko gave him a look that Sokka interpreted as no kidding, do you see any other Air Nomads here, then rolled down into a lotus position, probably to do some of that anti-arson meditation he seemed to engage in regularly.

Aang was usually a sensitive kid who knew when to let things go, but the thing about being able to fly away was that he never knew when to stop poking things. "So, does he actually look like his portraits? Because you should see the ones of me, they definitely did not pick the best artists. I don't want to end up going after the wrong person!"

Even though Sokka wanted nothing more than for Aang to drop the subject, he had to admit that it was a good question. None of them besides Zuko had ever seen the Fire Lord in real life. And did they really want to be chasing around the wrong person just because he was wearing a pointy crown? Given some of the previous Team Avatar adventures, that wouldn't be too far out of the realm of possibility.

Zuko was still looking that strange combination of angry and sick, and the answer he gave sounded like it was being dragged over razor spikes coming out of his throat. "He looks like me, Aang. That's how you'll recognize him."

Since when were the badgerfrogs at this temple so damn loud?

After a moment it became clear that everyone expected Sokka to take on the role of bomb-diffuser; he knew he had to say something soon or else Zuko would go stomping off. He wasn't sure why that hadn't happened already, except that the firebender looked like he couldn't go anywhere right now without breaking. And was it just him or was getting hot in here, the fire almost uncomfortably warm? Either way, the pressure in the room was about to explode so he said the first vaguely funny thing that came to mind. "So…. does that mean the Fire Lord is hot?"

He delivered the line with his best carefree aplomb, leaning back with one arm crooked behind his head, the other ending with an exaggerated angle of the wrist. Sokka breathed a little easier as the circle erupted into uneasy laughter, until it became both more genuine and directed at him. His eyes widened as he realized the full implications of what he'd said, and yeah he'd be cackling like Toph was too if Haru had said something like that.

At least Zuko was turning red from something besides rage now, and it was almost cute in a way that let Sokka admit that, even if the mistake was unintentional, he wasn't wrong. He was secure in his masculinity like that. After all, how many guys had made out with a princess and the moon? Just him. And Katara could shut up, because even if they were the same person it still counted.

Later, when he remembers this evening, he won't be too surprised that his mind chooses to store the fact that an embarrassed Zuko is less of a fire hazard than an angry one rather than dwelling too long on his reaction to that strange, crackling voice that he swears he's heard before, muffled by a mask.

Prince Zuko has no reaction to Sokka's scars.

Sokka wasn't sure why he would expect anything different. For one, the burn mark sported by the firebender was easily one of the worst Sokka had seen on a still-living person. Still, Sokka had gotten used to the way that new people reacted when he undid the wrappings on his forearms. Usually a look of horrified pity, sometimes followed by invasive questions. He supposed Zuko could relate.

But for such a reactionary person to have no reaction at all? At least a little bit suspicious. Almost as if … he'd seen them before …

 "Hey, you guys match!" The chirpy voice of their resident eight-year-old broke in to Sokka's thoughts, and he looked down to find the Duke's gaze flickering between his arms and Zuko's face. "What happened?"

The Duke usually hung around with Teo, but the inventor had gone off with Haru to test some device that required an earthbender's assistance, so he'd attached himself to the swordsmen today since apparently Sokka and Zuko were the least terrifying of his options.

Given the sounds of the fierce three-way bending melee taking place in the training arena, Sokka could see how helping with the laundry seemed like the safer choice.

"I don't want to talk about it," Zuko growled, with a facial expression that Sokka hadn't seen since the last time someone had yelled "The Avatar's escaping!"

Which was more than enough fear factor to overcome the initial appeal of stomping around in a sudsy tub for half an hour, and there went their half-naked free labor running off into the shadows of the temple.

Sokka sighed and dropped his arm wrappings and shirt into the tub with the rest of the laundry. "Great, Jerkbender. Now you've gone and scared a little kid."

Zuko just looked at him as he added his own shirt to the pile. "And you think discussing someone trying to melt my eye out of its socket wouldn't scare him either?"

What followed was a silent contest of wills about who would have to assume the Duke's role in this mission, but to Sokka it was just logical that Zuko should do it, because for one he was really good at stomping, and also he could firebend his pants dry so it wasn't like excess splashing was a concern for him.

So how was it that Sokka found himself climbing into the tub instead, while Prince Scowly just stood beside it with his arms folded over his chest and … scowled?

"Do you even know how to do laundry?" Sokka muttered under his breath, and started kicking the clothes around in the soapy water. Sometimes he wished his sister could be just a bit more traditional. With waterbending this would be easy. But he'd pissed her off the night before, and Zuko existed in a constant state of pissing her off, so they were just going to have to do this the old-fashioned way.

"Of course not," Zuko smirked, and added: "Peasant," for good measure.

He was a terrible liar.

Yet another reason he couldn't have possibly seen Sokka's scars before, Sokka noted. Which reminded him …

"The Duke is young, okay? Don't you think he's been through enough to give him nightmares without adding you to the list?" Stomping on dirty clothes was surprisingly therapeutic. Yet another reason Zuko should be the one doing this, not Sokka.

"Why wasn't I on it in the first place?" Zuko sounded genuinely concerned. Sokka couldn't tell if this was because Zuko was offended at the slight to his former Avatar-hunting villain persona, or worried about the Duke's self-preservation instincts.

"Look, the war - it's too big for him, right now, compared to what he actually knows. Which for now is us, here. And he looks up to us older guys and doesn't particularly care what element you bend or where you came from. Do you want that to last into this new world Aang's trying to build, or to turn him into a hate-crazed child-soldier who's not willing to give anyone different a second chance?" Sokka reasoned, only thinking a little of Jet.

He'd hit a nerve there, Sokka saw as he observed the expressions warring on the un-frozen side of Zuko's face.

"Fine," the prince huffed finally, and turned to go after the child. "But I'm not telling him about my scar."

"Fine with me."

Prince Zuko doesn't like to talk about his scars.

Neither does Sokka.

Prince Zuko is not left-handed.

Sokka knows, because he enlisted Katara's help on the matter, and she's left-handed, so she notices when the system is against her. Not that he had told her outright what he was looking for. He'd just taken advantage of her natural mistrust of the firebender to get a second pair of eyes on the lookout. "Sleight-of-hand tricks," he'd prompted her. "Sneaky, Fire-Nation-bad-Water-Tribe-good, kill us all in our sleep, there-are-children-and-Momo-present." With much elaborate gesticulation.

And then her imagination had taken off and she was watching the former prince like a lion-hawk, only to report mixed findings at the end of the day.

Zuko had written out the grocery list using his right hand. But he chopped the soup vegetables with the knife in his left, although sometimes when she'd chuck another one onto the pile and there wasn't enough space left on the chopping board he'd just switch hands and continue like that wasn't odd at all. He washed dishes with the cloth in his right hand, but ate with his left, which resulted in Toph finally respecting his personal space because even she couldn't put up with the constant elbow-bumping, and Katara didn't get why this was important because at the end of the day Sokka hadn't done any chores, now had he?

Which, Sokka argued, had not been the point of this investigation at all, but Katara just sniffed and said that it was the only result, because Zuko hadn't spirited any knives into backs with sleight-of-either-hand so what else were they supposed to learn from this?

Puzzled, Sokka could only settle on one conclusion, which he then dutifully added to a blue ceramic shelf in his Mind Palace.

Prince Zuko is not right-handed, either.

Prince Zuko is a jerk who almost burnt Sokka's eyebrows off.

Sometimes, Sokka just had to roll with how his Mind Palace chose to relate information in seemingly irrelevant ways.

He'd been walking by Jerkbending training when he'd spotted the adorable sight of Aang hanging off the edge where the training area was sunken into the rest of the building and flailing his feet, complaining that he was too short for this particular move.

Naturally he'd stuck around to heckle for a bit, because Aang appreciated the distractions almost as much as Zuko hated them. Sokka grinned as Aang did some more futile kicking at the wall, although he did feel a bit bad for the kid who clearly wasn't used to having to do pull-ups with his tattooed stick arms. Welcome to the real world, little buddy, where not everyone can get a boost by using bending.

"You won't get any traction off the wall unless you use your own weight to make it stick," Zuko said in a tone between a grumble and a yell. "Stop flitting around like a butterfly-wasp. You only get one try. One attack, and if you fail it's over. Again."

Aang did better this time, getting the extra boost his arms needed from the push of his foot against the wall, and he managed to get a leg up and over in some kind of kick and land in a crouch not far from where Sokka was watching.

"I did it!" the airbender announced happily, and Sokka hid his genuine smile at his friend's success in a slow clap designed to irritate one firebender in particular.

"And what's this cute little jerkbending move called?" he asked, sarcasm level as finely tuned as his clap to hit harder at Zuko than at Aang. Although having Aang around was a huge boost to his snarksmanship since he seemed to dodge or deflect it with as much ease as real arrows.

"The Pouncing Pygmy Puma!" Aang volunteered with his signature cheer.

"Riiiight," Sokka let the word drag out as long as he could, because those words were coded into his Mind Palace with a haiku calligraphed onto a tusked blue wooden mask, but could he really add this to his evidence board, because a lot of bending forms apparently borrowed names from animals, just like in swordsmanship, so it could be just a coincidence.

The number of rooms in his Mind Palace that stored objects of coincidence were far less numerous than the ones that didn't.

Sokka was spared the mental housekeeping for a moment when Zuko turned to his student with the shadow of a smirk and announced: "You're ready to try it with fire. Remember, with firebending, the best defense is more offense. Like this."

Before either Aang or Sokka could react, the Fire Prince took three quick steps to accelerate towards the wall, leapt and grabbed the edge although he barely needed to due to his height and also the two steps he'd managed to take up the actual wall, and that's what the trailing-leg kick was supposed to do, Sokka noticed before he was too busy ducking down (not falling, definitely not falling) into a crouch that he overbalanced and now he was on his ass, but at least the arc of flame was high above him now and not in immediate singe-your-eyebrows-off range. With a quick twist and a snap of the head back around, Zuko finished the move crouched but with both feet firmly planted, glinting golden eyes locked with Sokka's own. The accompanying snarl was implied.

The smirk was not.

Prince Zuko is a friggin' acrobat ninja who clearly thinks that anything another type of bender can do, firebenders can do better. Even without bending involved.

That, more than anything, was what pissed Sokka off the most.

They were gathered at of one of the many deep pools that formed where waterfalls cascaded over the cliff edges, for an afternoon of waterbending training. Sokka had invited himself along because Aang had sounded too excited about training alone with his baby sister, and Teo had wanted to fly deeper into the canyon forever, but he needed Aang to guide him though the tricky currents, and it had all snowballed from there so now absolutely everyone was training a water-related skill on a blistering hot midsummer day.

The actual waterbenders, of course, were doing their thing while standing in the shallows, which gave Sokka the perfect opportunity to test out the combination snorkel-periscope he'd been crafting with Teo. Unfortunately they'd failed to take into account the differing amounts of refraction when water got in the tube and the device was submerged to different depths, which made his view of Katara and Aang a bit blurry, but functional enough for your basic spy gadget.

A view which was abruptly cut off as two splashes flooded the snorkelscope.

Sokka was already underwater, so he saw the perpetrators flash by; one pale-and-red figure stretched out knife-like headed for the depths, and the other curled up in ball, long black hair billowing about him as his momentum was arrested by the water.

Sokka surfaced to hear Toph cursing from where she'd been showing off her sandbending to the Duke by the edge of the water, and shook the water out of his device. A moment later Haru popped up for air, grinning. The earthbender spotted the other teen and yelled: "Sokka! Up for some cliff-jumping? That one's next!" He pointed at a towering pillar that ended in a slight overhang over the deepest part of the pool.

Well. Sokka was by now an old hand at jumping off cliffs, sometimes even voluntarily, and he'd be damned if would let an earthbender and a firebender best him at his own element. "I'm in," he announced, and swam shore to deposit the snorkelscope on dry ground.

"Wait - where's Zuko? Why hasn't he come up yet?" he asked when he'd given the gadget to Teo. The Water Tribesman in Sokka had a brief flash of panic before he remembered the water wasn't cold enough to kill, and why was he so concerned about the jerkbender in the first place. Besides his place in the whole defeat-the-Fire-Lord scheme and the fact that dredging pools for bodies was just about the worst work Sokka had ever been forced to take part in and he wasn't eager to do it again.

Haru didn't look overly worried though. "Firebenders can hold their breath a long time. Or at least, that's what Zuko told me."

Sokka disapproved of this development, as a proud citizen of a Water nation, although he begrudgingly admitted that it made sense, what with the emphasis on breath control and the Fire Nation being actual islands.

He disapproved even more when Zuko surfaced and started towards the shore, and how was he also this good at swimming, although, again, islands.

"Race to the top!" Haru shouted, and was off before Sokka could snort and say name your handicap, earthbender. To which head start was not an acceptable answer, and how was Zuko catching up to Haru? Who was now visibly earthbending himself better footholds, which was even more unfair than the fact that they were both already three body lengths above Sokka, who hadn't even started.

Although he couldn't even start right now because something was tingling at the back of his brain, watching the way Zuko made his way up, opposite hand and foot flowing together relentlessly higher, non-supporting leg flagged out for balance. His unexpectedly silent straight-limbed grace was in contrast to Haru's grinding earth-aided ascent. It was, Sokka thought, decidedly not slow going.

And Sokka had definitely seen this before, on a dark night in Ba Sing Se, except now Zuko was caught up to Haru and they were both using their free limbs to try and push each other off the cliff while still climbing.

Haru managed a solid shove that caused Zuko's foot to slip and now he was hanging from the cliffside by fingers that were losing their grip one-by-one, but before the last one popped off he managed to get a push-off with both feet and tucked into a somersault as he started to fall.

Sokka startled at the familiarity of being somersaulted over in a still-annoyingly-sleek fashion, until it morphed into a sharp dive as Zuko plunged into the water.  

For a brief moment, Sokka was jealous of how clearly comfortable the firebender was in his opposite element. Then all thoughts vanished, overshadowed by pleasant exertion and eager anticipation, as he set his hands on the warm rock and began to climb.

Prince Zuko is comfortable going both ways.

Up and down cliffs, that is. Curse you, teenaged Mind Palace!

It's a comical contrast though, the pedantic severity with which Zuko was explaining proper abseiling technique to the Duke versus the careless cliff-climbing display of yesterday. Or with the way Zuko went around the air temple jumping over bottomless holes in the floors as casually as the actual airbender that the temple shortcuts were designed for.

He wouldn't let the Duke within two body lengths of the edge without being firmly tied in to an anchoring boulder. The kid looked almost comical in the self-tied-under-strict-supervision harness with knots almost as big as the Duke's fists.  Sokka had to admit that the child seemed way too eager to start over the edge, and the excess caution was probably a good thing.

"What if I don't have time to make the harness?" the Duke asked, confirming Sokka's theories about the kid's apparent wish to end his already short life by plummeting off of a cliff. "Sometimes, when we were living in the trees, we had to run away really fast because the soldiers were coming."

"Look, if it's an emergency you could do it like this." Deliberately slow, Zuko passed the rope behind his back and under one thigh, hooked his arm over the anchoring end and under the trailing one, using the tension to support himself for a few steps down the steep rock face. Sokka winced reflexively, thinking that of all the places he didn't want friction burns, the inner thigh was near the top of the list. Apparently that was something he and Zuko both agreed on; the firebender quickly pulled himself back up over the edge and stressed: "But only in an emergency. You're not a firebender, so you're less burn-resistant, and that way is going to hurt a lot for you."

And even though the rope was very nice rope - probably taken from the royal equipment closet, Sokka would guess - he could still see a faint redness on the skin of Zuko's forearm where the rope had run over it and used the friction to keep the teen from falling off the cliff entirely.

"So use the harness, and have your partner check every knot you tie," Zuko finished his object lesson with an approving tug on the knot . "Now, what's the most important thing to remember before you step off?"

"Don't let go?" The Duke's face was screwed up in concentration underneath his oversized helmet.

"Breathe?" Sokka found himself absorbed in the impromptu climbing lesson and took a guess based on what he'd been hearing yelled across the training grounds at Aang for the last week.

Zuko's look transitioned from mildly pissed to everyone around me is an idiot.

"Oh! I know!" the Duke's face lit up. "Make sure you tied knots in the ends of the rope so you don't fall off the end!"

"Good." Zuko said shortly, but in a kinder tone than Sokka heard him use on Aang. "Now take off your harness. You're going to re-tie everything perfectly, and I'm going to watch and test your knots."

Even Sokka groaned at that because it was going to take the Duke forever with his tiny hands.

"But I'm ready to go down the rope now!" the Duke protested.

"You're eight and you have the attention span of a - of Aang," Zuko said sharply, and that really was a low blow at Aang, Sokka thought, but even he couldn't refute it.

"You're only going down the cliff when I say so." Zuko finished with a narrow-eyed glare that intimidated his pupil into obedience.

Later, when both Sokka and the Duke had practiced to the point where Zuko grudging admitted that if they had to rappel down a cliff, they probably wouldn't die, Sokka lazily watched the mesmerizing flick of Zuko's wrist back and forth as he coiled the rope. The motion was familiar and expert, but that last part wasn't so surprising. Zuko had spent three years at sea, so it didn't automatically warrant inclusion on the evidence board slowly building in Sokka's Mind Palace.

The sunset had mellowed them both out, it seemed, and the way the blood red sky reflected in the clear gold of Zuko's eyes gave them almost a warm, gentle quality. Sokka shook himself out of his lazy reverie and forced a scowl onto his face, to match the one that seemed to be Zuko's default expression. He'd gotten pretty complacent around the firebender, almost comfortable, and even if the Fire Prince had proven himself to Aang, Sokka knew better than to fully trust Zuko, especially with all of his very suspicious characteristics.

He doesn't pin "Prince Zuko coils rope like a seasoned sailor" to his evidence board, though, because a small, rebellious part of Sokka just wants this moment to last.

Prince Zuko is wanted in the Fire Nation, dead or alive.

So is the Blue Spirit.

And Sokka was holding Zuko's arms behind his back, marching him into the depths of the Fire Nation's most impenetrable prison. "Don't worry, I'll figure it out," fell as an empty promise from his lips, and Zuko didn't relax under his grip. Sokka had known going in without a plan was risky, but when he'd thought how bad could it possibly be, his brain had gotten stuck on if Dad's not there and I took this risk for nothing. He hadn't, until this moment, really considered what Zuko had risked volunteering his services on this mission.

Now Sokka had plenty of time to think it over, watching his … friend, yes, he supposed Zuko was his friend because it would be callous to think of him as anything less in this moment - watching his friend be bound and led off by two hulking guards to be processed. And something in his stomach was twisting, because he knew that there was no chance that Zuko wouldn't be identified, and then the prince could, technically, legally, be killed right then and there.

Sokka clung to the iron cool of all the reasons that it would be disadvantageous for whoever ran this rock to actually do so, but that didn't stop him from letting out a gasp of relief when he finally saw them bringing Zuko back. Dressed in prison rags now, hands notably chained behind his back in a way that guards didn't bother with for the usual inmate, even of the firebending variety. Head held high and posture prideful in a way that, in Sokka's personal opinion, was bound to piss someone off.

And even though Sokka knew that that kind of attitude was a Very Bad Idea when your literal existence accomplished the same thing, he couldn't help but be proud of how the very good the Fire Prince was at it. 

Until the guards shoved Zuko into his cell, and Sokka heard the distinct crack of a fist striking flesh, and the sound of a body colliding involuntarily with the floor.

The heavy thump of a blow landing sounded again, shocking Sokka's frozen form into motion.

He fled from his shadowed corner, because it had suddenly become all too real, even more real than seeing an albino pushing a "don't worry he's only mostly dead" body in a wheelbarrow and muttering about a machine, and Sokka couldn't stand to witness more because he knew that even if he could take the prince by the shoulders, shake him, and beg him to for once in his life just stay down, it would be useless.

Sokka was panting and his stomach was in open rebellion by the time he found a place to double over and be sick. None of this, he thought distantly, would have been a problem half a year ago. Probably he would have been happy if he'd caught news of the execution of the Fire Lord's son. But this was Zuko, and maybe also the Blue Spirit, and he was socially inept but a good teacher anyway, unfairly skilled at both bending and non-bending combat, made tea that could wake the dead and attempts at jokes that made people wish they were dead. And Sokka … well, for all he knew, Sokka had just become an accomplice to his friend's torture and murder.

Sokka knew that there was a big difference between mostly dead and all dead, but he didn't want Zuko to be either.

He wishes his brother-in-arms was neither Prince Zuko nor the Blue Spirit.

Prince Zuko is super dead.

And Sokka didn't even have a chance to thank him for saving them from being served Little Sister Pancake for breakfast, much less ask him if he was the Blue Spirit.

Sokka wasn't sure how he felt about this. He was even less sure how he felt about the way they had all left Zuko without so much as a 'good luck' to face his sister alone, one teenager against Princess Zap-Happy and an airship armada. On the one hand, it could speak of the trust they'd developed in the firebender since he'd signed on. On the other hand - they had no idea if or how they would get out of this temple, and this was an unspoken consensus that if they had to sacrifice one of them to buy their freedom, best that it be Zuko.

It was an uncomfortable reminder of how they still treated the Fire Lord's son, even after the Boiling Rock (even after they'd done the very same thing, at the Boiling Rock).

Sokka really hoped Zuko wasn't dead, but there was a lot of fire and buildings collapsing happening back there, and even if Zuko was the Blue Spirit on top of being a ninja-acrobat-firebending-dragon-dancer who liked to pretend gravity didn't affect him, he couldn't fly. And he didn't even have his swords; Sokka should know, because he'd grabbed them and slung them across his own back during their mad rush out of the common sleeping area.

At least, Sokka thought bitterly a few minutes and a difficult farewell later, they were going back to pick up the pieces. Aang was a good kid like that. If it had been up to anyone else, they would never have flown back towards the firestorm engulfing the temple.

For a moment, Sokka was relieved to see Zuko standing on the back of an airship. That feeling was immediately amended to extremely pissed as the firebender chose to ignore them completely and instead of standing conveniently still for them to swoop in and pick him up, started running off the edge of the airship. Which, Sokka would like to remind him, was currently in the air.

As if that weren't crazy enough, Zuko was heading in the wrong direction. Who in their right mind would be leaping towards Azula, instead of away?

The less said about the mental stability of the royal siblings, the better, Sokka supposed. It could, he allowed as he watched Zuko land on the other airship while punching fireballs, also be seen as an extreme amount of confidence in their own abilities. He wasn't sure which thought was scarier.

Not to mention that grabbing Zuko off of an airship that also had Azula on it was going to be fifty times as complicated as before, with only three other airships hurling fireballs at Appa, and Sokka was sure that the jerk knew it.

That didn't mean that he was okay with it when Zuko went and blasted himself and Azula off the zeppelin envelope and into free fall. Even if it did suddenly make a rescue operation much more feasible.

And just how comfortable was this guy with falling to his death, anyway? The scarred face showed nothing more than a cold mixture of anger and hurt, but still no apparent thought for the impending ground. If Sokka weren't so frustrated with Zuko and his obvious desire to end up a smudge at the bottom of the canyon, he might have been more prepared to actually catch the skydiving teen.

Surprisingly, Katara was the one who had the presence of mind (who had the honor) to reach out and pull the falling prince to safety, her way of a belated thank you for earlier.

Sokka's best friends, words, deserted him as he tried to calm himself when they finally turned away from the source of all that fire.

"She's not going to make it." The jerk hadn't even noticed how terrified Sokka'd been. Zuko had been watching Azula the whole time, and for a moment, Sokka felt the body next to him tense, as if preparing to jump (oh no, not again, said a resigned voice in Sokka's mind, along with fresh panic and shouldn't he be used to this by now?). But then Zuko forced his muscles to relax, and Sokka couldn't stay mad at him in that instant because he knew exactly what that took from him (Sokka couldn't have done it, this morning, when every muscle in his body screamed at him to move, to do something, that was his sister and the rock was falling too fast, too far away).

"Of course she made it." There was a mix of relief, fear and annoyance in Zuko's voice, and Sokka let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding.

Prince Zuko is alive, and Princess Azula is alive, and Sokka never thought he'd be quite so happy about that.

Prince Zuko is not Suki.

But he is the Blue Spirit.

Well, it wasn't like the situation could get any more awkward. Sokka was already not wearing pants, and he had his hair down and a spiky flower in his mouth, so what was one more heap on the ol' humiliation pile than the very attractive prince of the Fire Nation (and that thought more than anything told Sokka which head he was thinking with right now) sitting down in front of Sokka and demanding to know about the six-fingered man.

At least that effectively solved Sokka's thinking-with-the-wrong-organ problem.

"It's not a day I like to remember," he started, before: "Wait. How do you know about the six-fingered man?"

Zuko just fixed him with a Look. "In Ba Sing Se. You told me. Well, not me me. Other-me. I guess that's why you're confused. I thought you must have figured it out by now, but - "

"You're the Blue Spirit." Sokka said faintly as the blood rushed back to his head. No, the other head. The one with a face, which was currently turning very red. Because of all the blood rushing, and internal cringing. His haiku had really been sub-par that night. Not that it mattered to Zuko, Sokka supposed. The Fire Prince could barely talk like a person, so he could hardly be qualified to critique poetry.

"Uh, yeah. Sometimes, that is. Did Aang - he never told you? You never asked?"

Zuko's current eloquence being a case in point. But wait: "Why would Aang know anything about the Blue Spirit?"

"Huh," the firebender replied, and tilted his head to the side. "I didn't think he would be any good at keeping secrets. I busted him out of Pohuai Stronghold, when Zhao caught him."

Sokka frowned. "He told us that you did that, but - "

"As the Blue Spirit."

"Huh." Now it was Sokka's turn to tilt his head as he mulled that over. "Aang did not mention that part."

 "Sounds about right," Zuko said, with a mix between a derisive snort and a fond laugh that sounded out-of-place coming from him. "Anyway, you asked me if I had six fingers, and then you told me about your mother."

He had, hadn't he? And there had been something comforting in that anonymous confession, a real empathy that had resonated between them as they'd both laid down their masks for a minute and understood each other on a fundamental level.

"Why do you want to know? " Sokka asked, reluctant not so much because of the pain associated with this topic but because damn it, now he was going to have to completely re-arrange the rust-bucket-of-a-ship space in his Mind Palace.

"Katara mentioned your mother's death before, when we were imprisoned together in Ba Sing Se, and again just now when she was yelling at me. I think somehow she's connected her anger at that to her anger at me.''

And yeah, that was a very Katara thing to do.

"You already know what happened," Sokka said evasively, hands grasping opposite forearms subconsciously.

"Can you remember any details about the soldiers who raided your village?" Zuko asked, frowning, eyes darting to Sokka's folded arms as if he could find a clue in the traces of fire written there, or as if he was disapproving of Sokka's need to hide them.

"There a lot of six-fingered men wandering around the Fire Nation?" Sokka retorted, taking defense in sarcasm.

Zuko took it in stride, though his frown deepened. "No, I mean… details like what the lead ship looked like?"

Did Sokka look like he'd been kidding when he'd said he didn't like remembering that day? Still, he cast his mind back to the ash-strewn snow, the foreign ships in their home ice. "Yeah ... " There had been banners, ugly flags of blood red decorated with -- "Sea ravens. The main ship had flags with sea ravens on them."

"The symbol of the Southern Raiders." Zuko fixed him with a hard look, but his voice was gentle. "I know who killed your mother, Sokka."

The world froze but somehow there was a rushing sound inside his ears, and Sokka didn't know where it could possibly be coming from because nothing around him was moving, he himself wasn't even breathing. Had he forgotten how? Did it even matter, when after all these years, just like that,  it was all possible - everything he'd never wanted and always needed? Sokka felt like he was floating, detached from his body, a bereaved ten-year-old, a teenaged warrior, that breathed out faintly: "I'm going to kill him."

He swallowed, hating how his voice had come out, and tried again as he came back to himself, but was still unable to keep a waver out of the words. "I'm going to kill him. After the war - will you help me find him?"

Zuko considered, but didn't take long to respond. "If you need me to. Are you sure it's a good idea to challenge him again?" It went unspoken that they both knew what had happened last time.

"Challenge?" Sokka smiled sharply, but with no joy behind it. He spoke with a chill in his voice, the same one that still hadn't left his body. "I've learned my lesson. There's not going to be a challenge this time."

"So you're going to murder him." Zuko's voice was neutral.

"I'm going to kill him," Sokka protested, but the semantic difference echoed weak even to him.

"By surprise? Without giving him a chance to defend himself? That's murder, Sokka. What will that make you?" Zuko's tone was as sharp as his questions.

"Well, what else am I supposed to do?" He was close to shouting, and oh how he wanted to scream, but that wouldn't even begin make things right. Sokka wanted to fight. "Let my mother's murderer walk the earth a free man? Let him sleep under the same moon as her children?"

"I don't know," Frustration rang through Zuko's words too now. "I don't know what your culture demands. But I know you, Sokka. You have honor, a warrior's honor. Trust me, that's not something worth losing for someone like that."

Anger flared up inside him, because Zuko's words resonated with Sokka, but the vibrations were all pain and Sokka was hurting enough already. "What would you do, if you found the person who killed your mother?" He challenged the firebender instead, burying his confusion in aggression. "You don't want revenge?"

He saw a stricken look flash across Zuko's face. "Don't … I … that's not important." It was a weak attempt at deflection, a stuttering parry.

"Don't tell me you haven't thought about it! What would you do, Zuko?" Sokka's tone was sharp, designed to cut and not particularly caring how deep.

"Fine!" Sokka tasted blood in Zuko's cry, and it didn't satisfy him like he'd thought it would. All he felt was that gaping emptiness growing bigger as Zuko's pain added to the weight of his own.

"I know, okay? I know exactly where he is." Cracks were starting to appear on the half of Zuko's face not frozen by fire. "And I know he'll kill me, the next chance he gets. He'll probably even enjoy it. He looked like he was enjoying it."

A true firebender, Zuko was quick to turn defense to offense with a strike of his own. "Do you think she wants you dead, Sokka? Her children consumed by a quest for revenge?"

No, his traitorous gut reacted, shattering the frost. No, she wouldn't want that. Not Mom, who was a healer not a fighter, even though she protected them better than any warrior could have ever done.

She wouldn't want that. Yet here he was, sparring with live steel and hurting a boy who'd offered to help him, because what else did they have in lifetimes shaped by war?

"You're right," Sokka said, fighting instinct to lay down his weapon. "She doesn't. But I need -- gah!"

Sokka didn't know what he needed anymore. He'd thought he'd need a fight, but maybe he simply didn't know another solution besides revenge. Something else that Zuko said caught on a corner in his mind, and he seized on the distraction. "You said, 'it looked like he' - but you couldn't have been able to…" He gestured to his face. That, he was sure, had happened the first time, because they were the same in that way, Sokka and Zuko, even if they'd never said it aloud. "So you faced him again?"

"Yeah. I did." Zuko's voice was hard yet quiet, sheathed steel that had been forged in the hottest flame. "Before … before I came here. I had the chance to kill him. It would have been easy, way too easy. I held his own weapon in my hand and … I couldn't do it, I wouldn't fight... Again. But for a different reason. It's not my destiny. He's not my destiny. He doesn't get that power over me any more. I'm free."

Sokka … wanted that. Needed that same freedom, more than he needed another battle.

But there was something else that he needed to hear, first.

"Who killed your mother, Zuko?" Sokka wasn't sure why it mattered, except that he couldn't imagine what it was to face your mother's killer, to know the face of your mother's killer, and have the strength to choose freedom instead. And he had the feeling he knew, anyway, the answer was there in everything Zuko didn't say, hiding in plain sight like the fine lines of barely-there scars that crisscrossed pale skin.

Sokka's question was met with a sharp inhale, followed by a long, measured exhale. "She's alive, actually. He told me that. Right before he tried to kill me with lightning. So it doesn't matter -- "

"It does matter, Zuko!" Sokka was back to yelling, and he was also just so tired. "You put a face to this person, this monster who killed Mom, you drag him out of the shadows while still hiding in your own? Don't you think I need -- Do you think I won't know exactly what you've been through? Say it!"

It would be a surrender, he knew, an acknowledgement of defeat. But he needed to know that it was one he could walk away from, and live to fight another day.

"It was the Fire Lord. My father."

Things were breaking apart, a kaleidoscope of fragments shifting and re-forming  as a rusty metal ship was torn apart and the objects inside set adrift, re-arranging, taking on hues of blue and white, finding a new form, mesmerizing as it rose out of the ashes, and absolutely magnificent.

Zuko might be the strongest person Sokka had ever known.

Sokka might be strong enough to walk away and re-make himself.

He laughed, sharp and bitter although the tone didn't reach his words, one thing standing out among the shifting pieces in his Mind Palace. "You could have ended the war, right there and then, you complete asshole. It would have been more than just revenge. Why would you throw that away?"

The man who answered was earnest, sure of himself in a way that Sokka yearned for. "It's not throwing it away. It's knowing myself as more than what he makes me. I'm not going to let his legacy define me. It's over, Sokka. And I'm glad it's over."

"I can't just give up. You of all people should understand. If I don't take revenge - is it like giving up?" Sokka's voice had gotten smaller as he struggled with the last lure of bloodlust.

"No, it's not. It's … letting go. It's different. You give up because you're weak. You let go because you're strong enough to take the fall and land on your own two feet."

"I …" There was nothing more to say, just feelings stuck in his throat that words couldn't hold, and a relief that wanted to be shed as tears.

Zuko understands, just like the Blue Spirit did, that day on the wall. And Sokka finds that he can let go.

Katara can't.

But that's a different story.