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Fortunately, Zuko took to sign language like a fish takes to water.  It made sense, really: he already had excellent hand-eye coordination and dexterity honed by being a master swordsman and a master firebender (and yes, he absolutely was a master firebender, regardless of the fact that he would hotly protest that he was ‘only pretty good.’).  He was also very intelligent, and very determined.  And compared to having to relearn how to do everything from walk to fight after his scar had left him nearly deaf in his burnt ear and with an eye that could only see vague shapes and washed-out colors, learning sign language was a walk in the park.  Well, how normal people took walks in the park, not how Team Avatar took walks in the park.  If team Avatar took walks in the park, they were sure to end in near-death experiences.

Zuko only had to see a word or phrase signed once and he remembered it forever.  When Aang didn’t remember a word, they made one up.  For Toph, he taught her some kind of military naval code that he’d already known, made of taps of differing length and pressure against the ground, and the two of them seemed to delight in having conversations that the rest of them couldn’t understand.  Nobody wanted to protest, however, since Toph had been so torn up about Zuko giving up his voice to save her.  She had been sad and subdued the past few weeks, and she was only just starting to act a bit like her normal self again.

For the rest of them, however, sign language did not come as easily.  So it was often that Aang had to translate for the rest of them.  They would talk to Zuko out loud, and he would respond in sign.  The problem was that he’d gotten so good at it so quickly that even Aang sometimes needed to ask him to slow down.  When this happened, Zuko would pull a face and raise his singular eyebrow before obliging, and they all knew what he was thinking without him having to say it with his hands.

“Hey, it’s not my fault you turned out to be some sort of sign language prodigy,” Aang protested with a pout after asking Zuko to repeat something for the third time that day.

Zuko made a face.  “I don’t like that word,” he signed.

“What, prodigy?” Sokka asked, having understood enough of what Zuko signed to get the message.

Zuko nodded.  “Azula was always a p-r-o-d-i-g-y (he had to finger sign it, since it wasn’t exactly a common word and he doubted Aang even knew the original sign for it, whatever it might have been; they’d probably have to make one up), and it was always super clear that I wasn’t.  So I don’t like that word.”  He flicked his wrist slightly against the word ‘wasn’t’ to emphasize it, and Aang repeated what Zuko had said out loud for the rest of the group.

“Your sister doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” Sokka declared emphatically.  “You are so a… well, you know.  I don’t know any other firebender who can bend rainbow flames.”  And it was true, not even Aang, despite also seeing the dragons, had managed to pick that technique up yet.

Zuko gave a small smile, brightening a little.  Then he turned to Katara, who was struggling to manhandle the heavy cookpot on top of the metal stand Toph had made to go over the campfire.

“Dinner, help?” he signed, using singular words so she could understand more easily.

“Sure,” she beamed at him.  “See Sokka, Zuko never complains about chores, and he even offers to help without me having to practically force him into doing it!”  Honestly, ever since Zuko had risked everything to save Toph, she was acting like she’d never had a problem with him in the first place.  She adored him; they were practically joined at the hip.  Sokka was beginning to think that she liked Zuko as a brother more than Sokka.  Because she had said so.  Repeatedly.

“Honestly, I’ve apologized like, a thousand times for hiding in the echo chamber to escape dish duty last week.  What is the price of your forgiveness?” Sokka whined. 

“One voice,” Zuko signed, smiling impishly.  Aang looked like someone had struck him, and decidedly did not translate for Toph.  Katara did not find it funny either, and she had to force the stricken look off of her face before she turned to thwack Zuko with the wooden spoon.

“What?  I rarely ever make a good joke, and when I do, no-one laughs?” he signed, pouting.  Aang had to translate this as well, since nobody else was really capable of understanding more than three or four words at once yet.

“How many times must we tell you that we don’t joke about our trauma in this family?” Sokka chided gently.

Zuko stuck his tongue out at him.  “Well, what else am I supposed to joke about?  You all hate my tea jokes.”

“We don’t hate your tea jokes, Zuko,” Aang responded.  “It would just help if you could remember the whole joke and not just the punch line, is all.”

Zuko frowned.  If Sokka had said that to him, he would have given a one fingered sign that needed no interpretation.  But this was Aang, and he was being totally sincere and attempting to be helpful, and he was a precious little sweetheart who deserved all the good things in the world, so Zuko just patted him on his little bald head instead.

The campfire crackled merrily in a rainbow of vibrancy, and Katara privately thought that it was almost too beautiful for something as mundane as cooking their boring little stew of foraged vegetables.  But she wasn’t going to tell Zuko this; he’d no doubt take it as a criticism even though she meant the opposite, and she didn’t want to make his face fall in that kicked fox-puppy expression of his that tugged on all their heartstrings hard enough to break them.

The interesting thing about Zuko losing his voice meant that it led the rest of them, especially those who weren’t fluent in sign language yet (which was basically everyone but Zuko and Aang, although Suki and then Sokka were the best after them) to focus more intently on Zuko’s face and his expressions.  His smiles (which, while still rare, were becoming more frequent) were almost always small, but they were genuine and made his eyes light up, and the good one would widen and his whole face would perk up adorably.  Once, Toph had even drawn a laugh out of him, and while it was silent (obviously), the effect it had on his entire body was startling in the best way, his posture relaxing and his shoulders shaking and his eyes crinkling at the corners.  When he laughed really hard at something, his bad eye would be forced completely closed, and it was a testament to how safe he felt around them that Zuko allowed it to happen.

Recently, they’d developed a tradition at dinner.  Aang would tell a story, and Zuko would illustrate it with pictures made out of his flames.  It allowed him to communicate freely in a way that everyone could understand.  It wasn’t a viable means of having a conversation, obviously, but it went perfectly with storytelling, and as a not-so-secret theater nerd (he’d never admit it, of course, but he didn’t hide it very well either, so they all knew), Zuko loved the dramatic effect of it all.

Understandably, nobody wanted to hear ghost stories lately, so a lot of what they heard was Aang’s fond memories of growing up in the air temples, with the occasional air nomad or water tribe fable thrown in.  One night, Zuko’s face had lit up with an idea and he had signed so quickly in his frenzy of eagerness that Aang just looked at him blankly.

“Uhh, come again?” he asked sheepishly, and Zuko just rolled his eyes.

“Be. Right. Back,” he signed dramatically, with exaggerated slowness, over-punctuated gestures, and a sassy look on his face.  He ran to his room, near-silent feet betraying his excitement by how quickly they moved.

“Drama queen,” Katara huffed, but there was a fondness she would have been unable to hide even if she had tried.

“Well, you should be used to it, growing up with Sokka,” her father teased, as said dramatic brother squawked indignantly and Suki hid her laugh behind a hand and put a supportive arm around him.

Zuko came back then, thrusting a battered well-loved copy of Love Amongst the Dragons into Aang’s lap.  The little monk unrolled the scroll, and they could not have predicted the monster they had unleashed.

Not being able to utter a sound did not in the least deter Zuko’s ability to be the world’s harshest theatre critic.  His hands were moving with such force that Sokka had to duck once or twice lest he be decked in the face (Aang would call it an accident.  Toph would call it ‘collateral damage’ and was sure that Zuko would agree with her).

Eventually, the eloquent soliloquies that Zuko had been using his whole upper body to rattle off devolved into a string of signs that made the poor avatar’s face lose all its color.  Hakoda could have sworn that even his arrows paled a shade or two.

That was the last time that Zuko got to pick the story.

[]

Alas, all good things must come to an end, and that end came one morning when a fire nation airship blasted its way into the sanctity of the temple, belching smoke into the pure, clean air of the cliffside.

Zuko pounced his way towards his biological sister (the same biological sister who wanted to kill him, Katara’s mind screamed, and couldn’t this idiot ever think just once before throwing himself into danger for them?!), bending the smoke away from them in a manner rather reminiscent of airbending and reminding them that they were all learning from Aang in the same way that they were teaching him.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Azula, apparently tired of waiting for Zuko to ask a question that he was physically incapable of responding to, decided to answer anyway.  “I’m about to become an only child!”

Zuko, unable to respond in any way that she would actually understand, just rolled his eyes at her and took up a fighting stance.

Azula was clearly surprised and more than a little enraged at the way that Zuko had somehow become a much more even match for her in the short time since he had left (some part of her that she refused to acknowledge even wondered and worried that he might even be better than her now.  She shut this part of her up and shot another blast of fire at him).  She was even more enraged, however, that Zuko would not respond to any of her verbal taunts.  Zuko reacting explosively to her cruel words had been a constant their whole lives, along with the fact that she was the superior bender.  With both of these suddenly gone in one fell swoop, it was like she didn’t even know him at all anymore.  It was probably that uncomfortable realization more than anything else that threw her off her game enough to fall from the side of the air ship.  The broken look on Zuko’s face was heart wrenching, and they’d had to swoop in and grab him on Appa before he could dive after her.

He struggled against them, and if he’d had his voice he would have been screaming the mountain down.  Katara had no doubt that his throat would still be raw later with all the strain he was putting against it as he sobbed silently, his mouth forming Azula’s name.

When she caught herself on the cliffside with her hairpin, the effect was instantaneous.  Zuko’s rigid posture snapped like a puppet whose strings had been cut (and Katara had to force aside mental images of what that analogy brought with it).  He sagged, boneless, against the saddle, wiping the tears out of the one eye that could still make them properly.  

His eyes said it all as he looked at them, and Katara petted his hair.

“It’s okay,” she assured him.  “She’s still your sister, and I understand why you don’t want her to die.  None of us blame you.”

The emotional whiplash had exhausted Zuko far more than the fight itself possibly could have, and within minutes he was asleep against the water tribe siblings as Katara idly braided and unbraided his hair over and over again.

[]

“Camping, just like old times,” Sokka mused that night around the campfire, just the six of them.  They’d had a shitty morning and they’d had to separate from the rest of their group, but they were all trying to put it aside and enjoy their evening together.

Zuko shook his head, then pointed to himself, pointed to Aang, and made little running motions with two fingers.  The meaning was clear, and funnier than it would have been if Aang had to interpret an actual sentence.

“Ha, good one!” Sokka congratulated.  

“What?” Toph asked, and Zuko tapped something out on the ground for her.  It made her laugh far harder than the original joke warranted, and Katara squinted suspiciously.

“Did you just tap out a bunch of random curse words for her?” she accused.

Zuko shrugged and stuck his tongue out.  He’d been doing that a lot lately, which was funny considering it was something he’d never done back when he had his voice.  It was far too silly and childish (because that’s what they were, in the end, wasn’t it? Children fighting a war) to be reconciled with the Zuko that they had known only a few months ago, or even before the events with the Kosshi spirit.  But despite everything that had happened, having Katara, the last hold out against him, suddenly warm up to him and completely accept him into their group had done wonders for Zuko, and he was able to fully relax around them in a way that he couldn’t remember ever being able to do with anyone besides his mother, Uncle, and Lu Ten, back when he was alive.  It was nice to have a family again.

[]

Despite having no voice, Zuko still managed to find a way to somehow be loud during Aang’s firebending lessons.  It was not a physical loudness, but it was a loudness nonetheless.

Aang had groaned his way through another set of hot squats and then half-assed his way through the first set of basic katas.  Zuko, clearly, was not impressed, and his face said it all.

“But you’ve made me do these forms like, eight million times,” the little avatar whined.  “I wanna do something more exciting!”

“Exaggeration,” Zuko signed, rolling his eyes.  “And your basic forms are important,” he finished pointedly.  “You can’t expect to move on without your basics.  And your basics need work.”

“Well, how about you show me something cool and then we can go back to doing basics?” Aang attempted to bargain.

Zuko shook his head and sharply tapped his foot against Aang’s calf, causing him to teeter in surprise and lose his balance, windmilling his arms and using airbending to keep from falling.

“Your stance is unimpressive; I know you can do better,” Zuko’s hands scolded.

“That doesn’t count! I wasn’t ready!”

“You must always be ready,” Zuko chided, wrist movements extra sharp to emphasize the word ‘always.’  “Enemies don’t wait for you to correct your stance.  So it must always be correct, even at rest.”  He snapped his fingers sharply when Aang’s eyes started wandering away from his hands.

“You’ll never learn firebending if you don’t even listen to your teacher.”  Zuko shoved his hands so far into Aang’s space that he had no choice but to watch, cross-eyed, as Zuko finished his lecture.  “Now, fifty more hot squats for whining, and then do striking tiger-boar again.”

“I hate hot squats,” Aang grumbled.

“Just be glad I don’t make you do them on one leg,” Zuko replied.  Aang looked at him dubiously.

“That’s a joke, right?  Like, you can’t actually do that.”  

Zuko smiled smugly at him and lifted one leg and bent it towards his calf like a flamingo-peacock before descending into a hot squat position.  He stayed like that a full minute, holding Aang’s eyes the entire time.

“Okay, fine,” Aang huffed.  “I’ll do it again.  Are you happy now?”

Zuko huffed a small lick of pink flames at him.

“I will be when I see hot squats.”

Aang made one final face at him as he got into position.  “You’re such a naggy mom,” he told his sifu petulantly.  

Zuko self-consciously removed his hands from his hips, but he did not soften his scolding glare.  Aang did hot squats and did not complain for the rest of the lesson.

[]

Zuko knew that Katara was sad today, and Sokka was also less obnoxiously cheerful than usual.  He hadn’t called him ‘jerkbender’ once, and when Zuko held up his dao swords, Sokka let the question hang far longer than usual before answering.

“No thanks,” he said.  “I don’t really feel like sparring today.”

Zuko shrugged and sat down next to him, trusting that Sokka would admit what was on his mind sooner or later.  He never was good at keeping things bottled up inside.

He was proven right not even three minutes later when Sokka’s shoulders slumped and he sank down dejectedly to a nearby rock.

“It’s just… today’s the anniversary,” he sighed, as if the words himself were weighing him down.  Zuko realized he wasn’t talking about Suki.

“Bad anniversary?” he signed sympathetically, thinking about his own least favorite days: Lu Ten’s death, his mother’s disappearance, the day he was scarred, the day he woke up from the fevered infection a month later and, upon finding out he would survive, his father banished him.  Come to think of it, he didn’t really have a single positive anniversary on his itinerary.

“Yeah,” Sokka agreed.  “It was six years ago today that our mother was killed by the fire nation.”

Oh… no wonder Katara was nearly catatonic today.  From what he understood, while they both loved both of their parents equally, Katara had been closer to their mother as a child, and Sokka closer to their father (and Zuko hadn’t understood the concept of being ‘close to a father’ at first, or even not being scared of a father, but then he realized that Hakoda acted more like an Uncle than a father, and it made more sense).  So while Sokka was not having a great day at all remembering one of the worst days of their lives, it made sense that Katara was even more devastated.

Zuko sat with Sokka for a while before patting him on the shoulder awkwardly and standing up, sensing that he wanted some time to be alone.  Zuko could respect that.  It was what Uncle had always done for him, and what Azula had never done.  Most of the time, Zuko figured that being a good friend was just doing the opposite of whatever Azula would, and also channeling Uncle whenever a steady, supportive presence was needed.

Katara, however, clearly needed someone with her today.  Of the many things Zuko knew about her, one of the most important things was that she didn’t do well with being alone when she was upset.  She needed someone, and Aang’s attempts to get her to open up about what was bothering her had just been a bit too much for her.  Toph’s style of comfort wasn’t exactly compatible with Katara’s need for it, and Suki was out foraging with Appa.  So that left him.

Well, he amended, as a lemur landed on his shoulder and curled up into his warmth, where he could be found anytime he wasn’t out looking for food or stretching his wings, me and Momo.

Katara sat morosely in the late afternoon light as it caught against the beads in her hair loopies and reflected a halo around her.  The image she created was entirely too serene for someone suffering so much.  Zuko sat down beside her.

“Sokka told you what day it is, huh?” she asked, quietly enough that he had to strain to hear it with his one good ear.

He nodded.

“It’s just… really hard for me, is all.”

“Of course,” Zuko signed.  “Sad is okay, today.”  It wasn’t exactly an eloquent response, but Katara’s understanding of the language was still limited enough that anything more complicated would be lost on her and defeat the point entirely.

“I know,” Katara agreed.  “But that doesn’t make it any easier.”

Zuko nodded.  “Is hard, alone.  Heart hurts,” he declared, making a slashing motion against his chest as if he was being cut deep.  He missed his voice today more than usual, wishing that he had a way of comforting Katara in more than just monosyllables and broken grammar.  He wanted to tell her that he got it, the gut-wrenching feeling of losing the person who had loved you most in the world, of not knowing that the last time that she kissed your forehead or led you fondly by the hand through your childhood home would truly be the last time. Of wishing that you could smell her hair again as it tickled your nose, of missing the way that gentle hands played with your hair and soft thumbs ran against chubby, unscarred cheeks.

He wanted to tell Katara that he was sorry, sorry for what his nation had done to her, and ashamed of what the country that he loved had become, of how far they had strayed from what they were meant to be, and how they had turned the warmth of a hearthfire into a raging inferno that destroyed indiscriminately and eagerly.  He wanted to tell her that he’d drive a knife through his own father’s chest a thousand times if it could bring her mother back.  He wanted to tell her that he’d drive one into his own chest if that was what it took to make things right.

But he couldn’t do any of those things.  He couldn’t save the 41st, he couldn’t save his Uncle, and he certainly couldn’t bring back the dead.  He couldn’t even comfort her in a language she understood.

“I saw a sea raven this morning.”  She interrupted his maudlin musings.  “Spirits, I hate those fucking birds.”  Katara rarely ever cursed, but Zuko figured that if there was ever a time, it was now.  “I just… every time I see one, I remember the flag of the people who took her away from me.”

Zuko’s face froze in shock and recognition, and Katara looked at him curiously.

“What?” She asked.  “Do you know them?”

In answer, Zuko lifted a hand and created an image with his bending of the flag of the Southern Raiders.  Katara gasped.

“That was them!” she cried, and Zuko, very very carefully, directed a small, hot jet of flame into the stone of the cliffside they were sitting on.  He didn’t want there to be any confusion for what he had to say next.

“We can find them.”  He carefully etched the words into the stone with his bending, and Katara waited patiently for the five minutes it took him to do so.  Years from now, and decades and even centuries, the characters would baffle anthropologists.  Such a simple, vague phrase, burned into the stone forever.  Entire thesis were written on the subject, trying to decode its meaning. What must it have meant, and how important it must have been, to necessitate the time and effort of burning words into rocks? And they weren’t wrong.  Both Zuko and Katara knew that there was nothing more important than the love of a mother; not to them.

“Really?”  Katara looked at the words, then at Zuko, then down at the words again.  “You would do that for me?”

“Of course,” Zuko agreed.  “For you, anything.”  His face was so sincere and so open, and so, so vulnerable that Katara wanted to cry, and she would have wrapped him in her arms right then if it wouldn’t have removed his only way of communicating with her.

“I don’t think Aang will like us going to get revenge,” she began, unsure.

Zuko shook his head.  “No,” he signed emphatically.  “Justice.”

It said a lot about the state of the world that, although Katara couldn’t even hold a conversation in sign, and didn’t even know words that a typical teenager might use frequently like ‘dress’ or ‘fun’ or ‘date,’ the word for justice was burned into her mind and her muscle memory forever; it was burned into all of theirs.  

They were children fighting a war, and wearing the mantle of justice because nobody else could.  But today, it was a mantle that Katara was going to wear with relish.

She nodded to Zuko and left to get ready.

[]

“So we just go in there and make them tell us where the Southern Raiders are?” Katara asked, and Zuko shook his head.

“No,” Zuko’s fingers were faintly glowing, lit by his own bending so that Katara could see them.  She’d never seen a firebender do that (he must have learned from the sun warriors, she mused.  He sure did seem to have gained a lot more than Aang from the experience, which was strange since, from what she understood, they had received the exact same lesson), and was so fascinated by the glowing under his skin that she had to ask him to repeat himself.  

“Sneak,” he signed slowly, making sure she was paying attention.  He started finger spelling with the alphabet Aang had taught them so that he could elaborate.  It was slow and clunky and ineffectual for having an actual conversation or keeping up with day to day life, but at least Katara knew all the letters, and Aang wasn’t there to translate, so it would have to do.

“C-a-n-n-o-t l-e-t them (he knew that she knew this word, so he didn’t bother to spell it) w-a-r-n Southern Raiders.”  The sign that he and Katara had made for the raiders was a flapping motion like the wings of a sea raven, but also sharp and violent.  Katara thought it fit quite well, although it only added to the heavy mood of what they were about to do.  Coupled with the veins of rainbow fire coursing under Zuko’s skin, the eerie aura of it all reminded Katara uncomfortably of the night the Kosshi spirit had tormented them.  She shook these feelings off and focused back on Zuko’s face.

“Okay, so we get in, get the information, and then slip out without being seen?” Zuko nodded his confirmation.

The first part of their mission was not exactly the exciting rain of furious justice that Katara had imagined, but she knew that it would come later.  So for now, she tried to be content and mirror Zuko’s silent steps.

Zuko seemed to thrive in the shadows. He had no problem with stealth and silence and had what Sokka referred to as ‘crazy ninja skills.’  Katara chafed against the very idea of sneaking around for what she wanted instead of taking it in a sort of trial by combat, of letting the whole world know just who had bested them.  She had spent her whole life feeling invisible, a woman in the Southern Water Tribe, forced to keep the secret of her bending from the rest of the world as if it was something shameful, simply so the fire nation wouldn’t kill her for it.  She felt trapped, viewed as a helpless guardian of the hearth and home when she knew that she could do more, be more.  She knew now that their tribe had been less sexist than the north, but that didn’t mean that everything was fair and equal for her, and less sexist was still sexist.  She never wanted to be invisible again, hated hiding, hated sneaking around and feeling hunted.

Zuko, on the other hand, had spent his whole life wishing he could be invisible.  Any attention that he had garnered- from his sister, his father, his nation- inevitably only led to bad things for him.  He spent his time waffling between wanting his father’s approval and wishing that Ozai would leave him alone entirely, as surely being ignored had to be better than being mistreated.  These thoughts had made him feel treasonous ( surely, he scolded himself, my father is always right.  He only treats me this way because I deserve it), but that didn’t make him stop wishing he could just be left alone.  Zuko by nature was a very introverted person, and a quiet, soft soul incapable of lying or hiding his feelings or even socializing without being and feeling unbelievably awkward.  All of these were bad qualities for royalty to have, but there wasn’t exactly anything that Zuko could do about that.  

What he could do, however, was practice his ninja skills, working at them until his steps were silent enough to go unnoticed even by Azula, and finding secret passageways and hidey-holes to utilize to avoid his tormentors or sneak to the kitchen, where an indulgent cook or servant would get him something to eat after his father had decided that his sub-par bending had lost him the ‘privilege’ of eating dinner that night.  Those nights were rare when his mother was still around, but after she’d left, it seemed Zuko was forbidden from eating more often than he was allowed.  He’d always felt terribly guilty about disobeying his father and avoiding what he had then considered justly deserved punishment, but the needs of his growing body would temporarily override his nearly unshakeable loyalty.  Besides, he had discovered that the servants always knew when he had been deprived, and learned quickly that if he didn’t seek out food, they would sneak it to him, even when he asked him to stop.  There was no reason to risk them being punished for his sake, so he would go to them.

The results of all this were that Zuko was a paradox, a firebender just as comfortable in the shadows as under Agni’s blessed light.  He was the Blue Spirit, and the Blue Spirit was him.  It had taken him a long time to understand this, but he didn’t become someone different when he put on the mask.  He simply allowed himself to sink into the comfort of another facet of his personality without thinking about the pressures of day-to-day life.  Losing his voice had made him realize this even more: the Blue Spirit was silent, and so was he.  And from there, everything else had clicked into place.  He didn’t need to wear the mask to be the Blue Spirit, and he was still Zuko when he put it on.  He bent fire, flowed like water, stepped as light as air, and stood his ground as if he were of the earth.  The elements were connected, just as Uncle had said, and so was he.  The illusion of separation had fallen away, and the person standing behind it was who he was meant to be: just Zuko, and everything that entailed.

He breathed deeply under the light of Tui.  Sokka had told him that some scholars had theorized that the moon didn’t make Her own light, but instead reflected it from the sun.  Zuko felt the light rejuvenate him and suddenly knew, deep in his gut, that it was true.  Sun and moon. Agni and Tui. Zuko and Katara.  Brother and Sister.

Zuko reached for Katara’s hand and she gave it to him.  He squeezed it gently in support and she squeezed back.  He put his swords in the handle of a door to keep the unconscious guards they’d just disabled from leaving and warning the base, and then led her through the halls until they found the map room.  All fire nation bases were organized in nearly the same way, and Zuko knew the steps by heart.

Zuko had always been good with maps, and had an uncanny ability of memorizing the topography and geography laid out on them in seconds.  This ability had only been honed by living on a ship.  He scanned the map of the fire nation’s current naval positions quickly with his good eye, took note of where they were right now, and then took a deep breath and matched the knowledge of the bases with the physical sensation of his chi, until he knew that he could follow the pull of the light of Agni and Tui, and that they would point his internal compass towards the coordinates he’d etched into his memory.

He nodded at Katara.  They were ready.

[]

Zuko’s hands were gentle and steady against Appa, and the bison lowed fondly.

“Sleep,” he signed to Katara, the light under his skin dancing and sparkling.  It was so beautiful and ethereal, and Katara almost wondered if he wasn’t meant to be among them, wasn’t meant to live in this body as a human when the blood of Agni and the first dragons apparently flowed through his veins.  It was almost like something was straining to escape his human skin, like the light show was a beacon, a sign to the spirits that the awkward, scarred teenager was actually one of them.

Katara knew she was being silly, but sometimes watching Zuko move was like watching Aang in the avatar state: when he lost himself to the joy of bending just for the beauty of it, or when he sparred with Sokka, it was like he was something other, something more, and sometimes Katara felt her chest seize up in awe and fear, and she nearly forgot to breathe.  She sat in the saddle, a deep anxiety taking root in her gut.  What if Koh taking Zuko’s voice was just the beginning of the Spirit’s attempt to regain one of their own, piece by piece?  What if they decided Zuko was too good for this world of humans who only sought to hurt him, and that they wanted the prince for themselves.

Katara clenched her fists, and it was with a sharp pain that she realized that her blood was quite literally bubbling angrily, called to the surface by the force of her bending reacting subconsciously to her fury.  There were bruises forming on her arms, and although she could heal them, she decided to leave them and pulled her sleeves down instead.  Let it be a warning to anyone who tried to take Zuko or Aang or any of her family from her that she wouldn’t let them.  Her mother had been stolen from her, but she refused to lose anyone else. She could be a force of nature on her own even if she didn’t have the blood of spirits to aid her.

Blood was still blood, after all, no matter where it came from, and all blood was water.  And all water was hers to command.

She was exquisitely, excruciatingly aware of that hours later, as she pulled a grown man to his knees without even touching him.  She knew that she only had to twitch her finger and she could kill the man in a second, block off an artery or burst all the veins in his body at once.  She could fill his lungs with his own lifeblood and watch him choke on it.

She could even pull every drop of moisture out of him at once, mummify him instantly and toss his corpse to the waves for La to do with as They pleased.  And a large part of her wanted to, so badly wanted to, but she wanted him to look her in the eyes first.

She brought his face up, yanking the blood on his neck, tugging on the marrow in his bones with a ferocity nearly too great for human hands as her heart ached and her mind screamed for justice.  Behind her, Zuko growled, and it was only more terrifying in its silence.

The captain of the Southern Raiders looked at this terrifying creature in the shape of a teenage girl, and the companion who stood at her back like a sentry and bared his teeth at him and growled but somehow didn’t make a sound (and how?  His mouth was moving, the chords in his neck were standing out… there was no way to do that without making a noise), and if the terrifying blue-eyed demon hadn’t had control of his every muscle, vein, and bone, he would have been wetting himself.

The spirit looked into his eyes and her face changed, twisting in anger and hurt and confusion.

“He’s not the guy,” she boomed, her voice not overly loud, but the captain felt the waves of power behind it, and it was terrifying. 

Her silent companion wore a look on his face that clearly said “What the fuck?!”

“Who was captain of the Southern Raiders six years ago?” the spirit-in-the-body-of-a-girl growled.

He felt no compunction over throwing Yon Rha to the wolf-bats.  The spirits clearly had it out for his old captain, and he wasn’t planning on standing in the way.

Suddenly, the force holding him painfully in place left him in a rush, and the-spirit-in-the-body-of-a-girl and the-spirit-in-the-body-of-a-boy left him, with the only proof that the whole thing hadn’t been a nightmare being the bruising covering his body and the crushing ache deep inside his bones.  He never quite moved with the same ease after that; it was as if something had been ripped out of place and never quite put back to rights.

[]

Katara looked down at the man who killed her mother and she couldn’t do it.  No, that wasn’t right- she chose not to do it.  She saw his snivelling, pathetic form whimpering and crying on the ground (and how was it fair that he got to have a voice, that he could use it for such pathetic things when Zuko’s was ripped from him?  How was it fair that he got to have a mother when he only offered her up like a lamb to a slaughter?  How was it fair that he got to live amongst people who shared his culture and belief system when Aang was the lone survivor of a genocide?), and she pulled her ice shards back, commanding them to melt into puddles .

This man deserved to suffer, but he already was.  At this point, death would be a blessing that he did not deserve.  She could not extinguish a fire where there was none.  This was just a husk of a man, a monster that had been declawed and caged and broken, and there would be no satisfaction in putting him out of his misery.  No, if (or, it was quite possible, when) Katara ever killed a man, he would be on his feet and not grovelling at hers.  If she ever chose to make that choice that no-one could come back from, it would be for justice, and for peace and the good of others, and not her own satisfaction.  She was not like Aang, did not believe that everyone deserves a second chance and that all life was sacred, but this had been a mission for her, and her own closure, and she got to decide how it ended.

It was not with mercy that she turned away.

[]

The fire lord’s old vacation home at Ember Island was much nicer than they were used to, even when dirty and covered in years of dust and evidence disuse.

Although it didn’t stay that way for long.  The gaang supposed that it wasn’t all that unusual that Zuko had a compulsive need for cleanliness that bordered on a neurosis, being that he was a prince and grew up in a palace and all.  It was rather unusual, however, that he was not only capable of but willing to clean the place himself.  Honestly, there was barely anything for the rest of them to do, what with the way Zuko kept finishing tasks before they had a chance to even start them.  

“Well, if you didn’t already have a job as royalty and firebending teacher, you could’ve been a maid,” Katara joked the evening after they got there.  The great room, in complete disarray only hours before, was gleaming.  Zuko didn’t dignify her teasing with a response, his hands too busy scrubbing old scorch marks off of the baseboards.

“Hey, if he wants to make us a clean place to live, then I say we should let him do it,” Sokka piped up from the newly-scrubbed kitchen, where he was using his space sword to slice open a coconut he’d found outside.

“Yeah, but when are we gonna do my firebending lesson?” Aang

whined.

Zuko’s hands momentarily stopped scrubbing.  “Hot squats outside,” he 

ordered.

Aang made a face.  “I shouldn’t have asked,” he grumbled, but knew better than to argue.

“You are going to teach him today though, right?” Suki asked, rubbing a spot of soot off of Zuko’s nose.

He nodded.  “Later, at night,” he signed.  

“At night?” Katara asked, confused.  “Isn’t firebending at its weakest then?” 

Zuko nodded again.

“Then why…” Katara began, but Sokka interrupted.

“Oh! You want to make sure he can firebend at night too, so he’s ready for anything!”

Zuko nodded a third time and beamed at him.  “You’re really smart,” he told the other boy.

“Thank you!  Finally, someone around here appreciates me!” he declared haughtily, but he was blushing.

“So you’re just gonna make him do hot squats for the next hour and a half until the sun sets?” Toph asked.  “I always knew you were my favorite.”

Zuko smiled again, and Toph must have felt it in his vital signs, because she smiled right back.  Her smiles were still fairly rare, since the Kosshi spirit, even as Zuko’s became more frequent, and most of the ones she did give out were directed at the banished fire prince.

He tapped out something that made her milky eyes light up with pure happiness, and she threw her arms around his neck.

For all the progress he’d made with being part of a loving and supportive group, Zuko still didn’t seem to know quite what to do with this, so he just patted her on the back awkwardly.

“Pick up dust with bending?” he tapped out on the ground, and she laughed.

“There’s no dust left for me to pick up,” she said out loud for the benefit of the others.  “You’ve vanquished all of it.”

Later, after Aang’s firebending lesson when everyone else was asleep and it was just the two of them sitting on cushions on the floor of the living room after being woken up by their own nightmares and running into each other while they wandered the halls aimlessly, Toph would lean into Zuko’s warmth, and she would let him take her hair down and run his hands through it and braid it, something that Katara had asked for many times but never been allowed, and she would quietly acknowledge to herself that she enjoyed the feeling of hands that treated her with such aching gentleness not because the person they belonged to worried that she would break if they weren’t careful, but because they knew her and loved her for who she was and were expressing that tenderness through touch.  

Toph fell asleep not too long after whatever intricate creation Zuko had been making with her hair was finished, to the feeling of fire-warmed hands softly stroking her back as she leaned against his side.  The others found them like that in the morning, and Toph glared at them (she’d been told she had a very intimidating glare) and felt their hearts stutter in fear as they swallowed whatever they’d been about to say that may have included the words ‘aww’ or ‘cute’ or ‘sweet.’

Good.  She was still in charge here, after all.

[]

Zuko was prodding Aang through firebending lessons with loud hands the next day when Sokka and Suki returned from town.

“I don’t see groceries,” he pointed out, and Katara wasn’t sure how someone with no voice managed to pull off a wry tone, but Zuko’s hands were apparently very talented like that.

“We dropped them by the door,” Sokka began, barely acknowledging Zuko’s statement (or his own growing sign language skills) before launching into whatever it was that had him so excited.

“There’s a play about us!” Suki announced, interrupting whatever grand reveal Sokka had been dramatically working up to.  He shot the Kyoshi warrior a disgruntled glance, but his attention was quickly pulled back to what was, in Zuko’s opinion, a truly garish poster.

Sokka had no sooner read the words “Ember Island players” than his hands were ranting so violently he almost seemed to be vibrating.  Katara caught the words ‘mother,’ ‘love,’ ‘dragons,’ ‘awful’ and a violent downward slashing motion that couldn’t mean anything good, but he was going so fast that even Aang looked nearly as lost as the rest of them.

“Ummm, I don’t think Zuko likes the Ember Island Players, guys,” he said.  If Zuko’s angry little pout was anything to go by (and they would never tell him this, but Suki and Katara shared a look and both privately agreed that it was kind of adorable), this was a huge understatement.

“Nope, not going,” he signed clearly and slowly.  “Would rather have my father burn the other half of my face.”

Aang’s marbles clattered to the ground, his favorite trick forgotten as he stilled, and the juxtaposition with his usual constant flurry of movement made it look even eerier than it had any right to.

“Zuko!  We don’t joke about that!” he scolded, like he was talking to a particularly naughty child who was also particularly scandalous, somehow.

“Maybe you don’t.”  Zuko stuck his tongue out at the avatar, which was, in Aang’s opinion, a terrible response to being told to ‘maybe don’t joke about your father’s heinous abuse, please?’.

“What? What did he say?” Toph asked.  Katara didn’t know exactly what he said, but she was guessing by Sokka’s and Suki’s expressions that they did, and she figured that it wasn’t something they should repeat.  But Zuko did have a right to have his ‘voice’ heard, even if it was saying the dumbest thing that anyone could possibly think of, so Aang sighed, his resigned expression making him look every one of his 112 years.

“He said he’d rather have his dad burn the other half of his face off than go see the cool play about us.”

“Terrible play,” Zuko corrected.

“Not the point!”  Sokka, Suki, and Aang yelled at the same time.

“I don’t know what you want me to do, honestly,” Zuko grumbled (well, signed with a grumpy expression that made it very clear that he was supposed to be grumbling).  “No one laughs at my tea jokes, and nobody laughs when I try to make jokes about losing my voice, or when my dad fried my face.  I’m running out of material.”  Aang interpreted to the others with a dubious face.

“Maybe try making jokes about different childhood memories?”  Sokka suggested.  No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he realized that they were probably a terrible idea.

“Like the time my grandfather tried to kill me?” the firebender asked, and of all the times to not be sarcastic… 

“Your grandfather tried to kill you too?” Suki groaned.  Honestly, with everything she’d learned about Zuko’s past at this point, a little light arson on her village (where nobody was actually hurt except their houses) seemed, somehow, like it had been the best case scenario.

Zuko nodded, seemingly unperturbed.  “Oh! There was this one time with Azula that was actually kind of funny, looking back-”

They had to wait for Aang to finish his frustrated screaming before he could translate.

[]

In the end, Zuko got dragged to the play.  He made it very clear that he was not pleased about this, pulling his hood up over his face, his sulking so apparent that it would have been less loud if he could somehow scream at them.

“Stupid,” he signed, cranky enough that he was apparently reducing his vocabulary to that of a toddler.  Well, he probably definitely had more to say, but then he would have to uncross his arms, and that would ruin the image he was trying to project.  He really just couldn’t catch a break.

“Maybe it will be a good play.”  Katara regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth, as Zuko’s facial expression told them that he was about to uncross his arms to monologue something about how the Ember Island Players “ruined the sanctity of the art” or something like that.

Thankfully, they reached the playhouse before Sifu Theater Nerd could begin his lecture, and Sokka sent a prayer of thanks to Tui and La and Oma and Shu and even Agni that they’d dodged that fireball.

“Um, Zuko?” Aang asked when they got to their seats, risking poking the metaphorical dragon, “I was hoping to sit there.”

Zuko looked at Aang, his grumpy expression taking on a hint of confusion.  He looked at the bench beside them, which was already pretty crowded.  “Just sit in my lap, then,” he offered, hands away from his body as he signed as if ready to move apart and make space for Aang.  “I don’t mind.”

That was not what Aang meant, but Zuko was so genuine about it that he didn’t argue, just huffed a bit and plopped down onto Zuko’s thighs.

Hey, at least he was warm.

“Why are we in the nosebleed section?” Toph complained.  “My feet can’t see a thing from up here!”

“Don’t worry,” Katara laughed, “I’ll tell your feet what’s going on.”

‘What’s going on’ happened to be about what Zuko had predicted, if the first scene was any indication of what would be coming the rest of the play.

Zuko looked at the actress’s revealing costume (that would certainly not keep anyone warm in the South Pole unless they also happened to know the breath of fire, which was kind of impossible for a waterbender), and the bust that was practically spilling out of it.  He didn’t think there was anything wrong with dressing however you wanted, but to portray a fourteen-year-old girl from a tribe that their nation had ravaged in that manner, and with an buxom actress clearly brushing the backside of thirty, seemed highly suspect to him.  She was a child, and if ‘Sokka’ wasn’t made to wear a costume that bared his entire chest and most of his legs, he didn’t see why ‘Katara’ should be.  

And to make it seem like she was some sort of weeping damsel in distress, when he knew that what actually happened was that she’d been laying into Sokka for being a sexist jerk (a story that she told with fondness and no small amount of satisfaction; and hey, the avatar had been rediscovered because Katara was telling the patriarchy to shove it, so Zuko thought she had a right to be pretty damn proud)...  Well, Zuko had been irritated before, but now he was mad.  Agni, this play was going to be bad for his blood pressure.

Huh, Uncle was right, he did need some calming tea…

Stage-Uncle was scarfing down cake off the plate like an untrained fox-puppy, which also made Zuko mad.  Uncle didn’t behave in such an uncouth manner!  On the deck of their ship, Uncle would drink tea, play pai sho, and properly (if a bit enthusiastically) indulge himself in roast duck.  Using chopsticks, like a proper human being.

“See?” Zuko cast them all a look that was somewhere between irritated and ‘I-told-you-so’.  “This sucks.  P-R-O-P-A-G-A-N-D-A.” 

Ok, this was a war and they were in enemy territory.  They all knew the sign for propaganda.  The finger-spelling was unnecessary (it was very necessary, in Zuko’s opinion.  An important part of a properly smug ‘I told you so.’).

“Ugh, did I really sound like that?” Zuko asked, the moment actor-him opened his mouth.  “Probably a good thing I lost my voice, then.”

Aang resolved to always fake a laugh at Zuko’s tea jokes, if it meant that it would get him to stop telling other jokes that would make them want to cry instead.

The rest of the first act was not much better.  Granted, Toph’s entry was kind of funny, although Zuko knew that the playwright didn’t do it on purpose.  They probably genuinely thought that Toph was a big burly man who utilized echo-location, because the ‘sources’ for the play were not exactly going to be eager to admit that they got their asses beat by a tiny blind girl, now were they?

Even if that tiny blind girl was one of the most terrifying people he knew.  He tapped out as much, and Toph smiled back at him with too many teeth, like a tiger shark.  Zuko knew it was fond though, at least when she sent it his way.

The person in the row in front of them, however, didn’t seem to think so, as they coincidentally happened to glance in their direction during a lull in the action.  They gathered their stuff and left their seat, and Zuko knew that it wasn’t because of the terrible mockery of theater being played out on stage.

The romance scene between him and Katara made him want to puke, and he could tell she felt the same way as she mumbled something that sounded like “that’s my brother, you fucking freaks!” under her breath.

She also smacked Zuko’s arm when he hung his head in shame as the actor-him brayed ‘you smell, Uncle, and I hate you for all time!’

“I know that that isn’t even close to what you said.  You made a mistake, but you’ve been through a lot and you were confused.  Don’t let them trivialize your trauma.”

Zuko smiled at her, and on his lap, Aang snuggled in closer in support.

As soon as they’d finally left what felt like it should have been a crime scene, Katara let loose a string of words so foul that Sokka knew Gran-Gran would have been punishing her with a month’s supply of whale blubber soap scrubbed against her tongue.

“Damn,” Zuko signed, impressed.  “That was creative, and I say that as someone who lived with navy men for three years.”

“Sorry,” Katara said, blushing slightly (or, more than slightly, but only so much was visible with such a dark skin tone) when Aang interpreted.

“Don’t be,” Zuko reassured.  “I’m proud of you.”

“Stop corrupting my sister!” Sokka demanded.  

Zuko raised his eyebrow.  “Your sister?”  His face clearly betrayed his disdain.  “She is our sister, and she is amazing.”

“You’re damn right!” Katara agreed, proud of herself for knowing the whole sentence without needing translation.  She might not be as quick with the language as the others, but she was still pretty fucking impressive, if she did say so herself.  After all, it wouldn’t have been fair of her to be perfect at everything.  

It was a full moon that night, and Katara couldn’t sleep.  Sokka wanted to be alone with Yue as well, and Suki could respect that.  It couldn’t have been easy for him, losing someone that he loved like that.  And just because a part of him would always love the Moon didn’t mean that he couldn’t love her with his whole heart as well.  So she left him to it, alone on the balcony on the second floor.

By the front of the house, Katara and Zuko sat on the beach, watching the stars.

Zuko felt Agni’s light reflecting off of Tui, filling him with energy that was surprisingly strong for the nighttime, almost feeling like the sun on a cloudy day would.  He supposed it made sense, since the moon was full and thus brighter than usual, but it was still somewhat of a shock for him to feel so connected to Agni’s light even at nighttime.  The sun warrior’s temple had opened his mind and his heart to the endless possibilities of his bending, and now he truly understood that Agni’s light was always with him, even when he couldn’t see it.  Sometimes it was stronger than others, to be sure, but it was always there nonetheless.  This new awareness made meditating at sunrise feel like drinking in the sunlight at high noon on a cloudless day, and the old Zuko might have found the power overwhelming, running as he was on his rage.

The new Zuko wrapped himself in its warmth, and let it fuel his newfound joy for life.  He couldn’t remember ever being this happy before, not since he was a very little boy, and if he’d only had his Uncle’s forgiveness, then there would be nothing else weighing him down.

Well, besides the war and the threat of his father killing him, but that had been his whole life, basically.  He wasn’t worried about his father killing his friends, though, because he’d die before he let that happen.

Besides, he had faith in Aang.  It was a new feeling, having faith in something, but even though he worried about Aang’s ability to do what needed to be done, he knew that they would win, somehow.  He felt it the same way he felt the sun inside of him and the fire in his veins.

“Do you ever think about how everyone we love is somewhere under these same stars?” Katara eventually interrupted his wandering thoughts.

“Yeah,” he signed, realizing it was true, and that even if Uncle would never forgive him, the thought of him somewhere, safe and under the same sky made him feel comforted.  “Yeah, I do.”

[]

Faith, Zuko decided a few days later, was stupid.  Aang was missing, and he was a bundle of nerves.  Whatever peace he’d found the other night with Katara had fled, leaving the normal suffocating anxiety in its place.

This is what I get for deciding everything will all work out, he thought to himself as he and Toph searched the beach for their wayward avatar.  Toph was talking about her birth family, and Zuko tried to listen and be sympathetic, really he did, but the end of the world was coming and they were missing not only the avatar but also the last representative of a culture that had been almost completely destroyed almost exactly one hundred years ago to the day.  It felt like an ill omen.

“You’re not listening at all, are you Sparky?” Toph asked, and Zuko sighed.

“Sorry,” he tapped out against her arm.  “I’m trying, but…”

“I get it- bigger problems,” Toph sighed.  “I wasn’t doing a great job at distracting myself, either, to be honest.”

“Was I too hard on him?”  This took him a bit longer to tap out, since they were still walking, but Toph seemed comforted by the contact of the taps of their code against her skin.  

“I mean, if you hadn’t attacked him, I probably would have,” she sighed (and, okay, she would have attacked him for fun anyway, but also because she thought he was being a knucklehead in this case). “For such a light-footed kid, his skull sure is dense.”

Yes, they had known they had to attack before the comet or else there wouldn’t be a world to save anymore (and that had been a fun conversation last week, when Sokka suggested waiting and Zuko had to break the news to them that waiting wasn’t an option), but Zuko head was full of what-ifs.  If he’d just let the poor kid have his stupid beach party, would he still have run away?  Was this all Zuko’s fault for stressing him out?

“It’s not your fault,” Toph somehow made it sound like an order, and Zuko wasn’t surprised that she knew what he was thinking.  She knew him well, perhaps the best of all the gang, and she could read his vital signs like a book (well, if she’d been able to read books…).  “I don’t know what happened, but I’m guessing spirit world mumbo jumbo.”  

As an earthbender, especially a blind one, Toph put stock in solid things, proven things, things like rocks under her feet and metal in her hands.  Spirits seemed kind of pointless to her, just floating around in another world that almost nobody could access, and to top it off, even if she could get there, they all buzzed around in the air where her feet couldn’t find them, so it’s not like there would be much for her to ‘see,’ anyway.  When Toph imagined the spirit world, she imagined the same sort of nothing that filled her useless eyes.  It would be like riding on Appa but without the security of a wooden saddle and a gentle giant of a furry beast under her.  No thank you.  Twinkle toes could have that nonsense all to himself.

“Hopefully wherever he is, he’s safe and he’ll find something to help him fight the firelord.”  They were sitting on a rock now, having come to the end of their section and waiting for the others, so they were able to converse much faster.  Zuko and Toph spent a lot of time alone together, and Zuko had known the code for years, so he was pretty quick at it.  Not quite as fast as sign, since he had to tap out each letter individually, but still fast enough that they could have full conversations with relative ease.  Toph, thankfully, was just as quick on the uptake after having spent her whole life training herself to quickly pick up on every little vibration in the earth and sound in the air and deduce what it signified, so Zuko didn’t have to slow down for her.

“Wouldn’t that be better luck than we’re used to?” Toph snorted, and Zuko also chuckled.  Toph was still slightly thrown off every time it happened, since she could feel his body going through the movements but there was no actual sound to go with it, but she still enjoyed it because the nervous pounding of his heart would slow for a short while, and he always released a warm puff of air in her direction that was unique to his laughter.

She loved it, every single time.

[]

Zuko didn’t tell them where they were going as he steered Appa away from the fire nation, but Katara guessed that had as much to do with his natural flair for the dramatic as it did with Aang not being there to translate and him not wanting to waste time explaining at a level they could understand with their merely-proficient sign.

He didn’t bother explaining when they expressed doubt at what Aang would be doing at a seedy earth kingdom tavern, either.  And, okay, everything seemed to fall into place for them when they saw the bounty hunter lady, whose creepy mole creature surely wasn’t far away.

“Prince Pouty,” said bounty hunter greeted.  “I say you made up with your girlfriend.”  Zuko couldn’t say anything, but Katara loudly expressed her disgust.

“He’s not my boyfriend!  He’s my brother!” She corrected angrily, and the woman raised one sleek black eyebrow, taking in their vastly differing appearances.

“He’s adopted, alright?!” She snapped defensively.

“Alright, alright, calm down,” the woman held her hands up placatingly.  “I don’t really care that much.”

“Where’s your creepy grandpa?” she turned to Zuko, who promptly started signing at her angrily, forgetting for a moment that she couldn’t understand him.  His Uncle was kind of a sore spot at the moment, and he didn’t approve of Jun calling him ‘creepy’ (even if, he had to grudgingly admit, it was true with regards to the way he had behaved towards her).

“What, crococat got your tongue?” she asked him, and Sokka had to put a hand on Katara’s arm to keep her from punching Jun.

“We need you to find someone,” Suki broke in, sensing de-escalation was necessary.

After a bit of back and forth, they went out back, where Zuko’s face softened as he gave Nyla soft little nose pats.

“Stop spoiling her if you want her to find your friend,” Jun admonished him, and Zuko stepped back reluctantly. 

Apparently, it was pointless, as she couldn’t find him anyway.  Luckily (or perhaps unluckily, for anyone with a working nose), Zuko had something of Uncle’s.

[]

Sokka decided that in the coming years, he was definitely going to make sure that the part about the Dragon of the West’s sweaty sandal stayed out of the official narrative of their victory.  Now that the shirsu had the scent, he rather wished he could convince Zuko to part with it, but judging by how the other boy’s nervous hands held fast to it like a lifeline (and the fact that he’d kept it for months), that wasn’t going to happen .

Old people camp was alright.  It smelled a bit like mothballs, but there was a hot meal that none of them (read, Katara or Zuko) had to cook, and nicer tents with actual pillows, so he wasn’t going to complain.  

He was a bit peeved that Piandao showed clear favoritism for Zuko as a former student, but when he saw how happy his swordmaster was to see the prince, and how he ruffled his hair with such a fond smile, he decided to let it go.  Besides, Zuko’s confused expression at receiving affection from an adult was totally worth it.

Zuko’s Uncle was asleep, so they had to wait outside the tent.

“You don’t have to wait with me,” Zuko signed, but Sokka shook his head.

“You need someone to translate anyway, and with Aang not here I’m probably the best person to do that, and I don’t want to keep you waiting any longer than necessary.  Besides, you look like you could really use some support right now.”

Zuko gave him a small, nervous smile.  “Thanks.”

“Anything ya need, buddy.”  Sokka clapped him on the shoulder.  Then his face became more serious.  “He’s gonna forgive you, you know.”

“I don’t know.  I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t.  I don’t deserve it.”

“Hey, don’t think like that!  You made a mistake, yeah, but he’s made plenty of mistakes too.  And if he’s half the man you say he is, he’ll definitely forgive you, because he loves you.  And if he doesn’t, Toph and Katara will personally kick his ass, little sister style!”

Zuko bit his lip nervously and didn’t respond, and Sokka understood that all they could do now was wait.

[]

When Iroh woke up, he saw his Nephew and the water tribe boy (Sokka, the old general remembered) sitting next to him.  He had known, of course, that Zuko had defected to join the avatar, and he was so, so proud of him for finding his path after such a long hard road.  But he was also worried about his nephew’s safety, and knew that guilt would be eating away at his Zuko over the way things had been left between them.  That didn’t matter, now, though, because Zuko was sitting in front of him, alive and whole and with an anxious, endearing expression, and Iroh finally had the chance to put him at ease.

“Young Sokka, while I appreciate you being here to support my Nephew, I would be much obliged if you could give us a few minutes alone.”

“Um, about that…” the way that the water tribe boy rubbed his neck sheepishly and couldn’t meet his eyes immediately sparked a sense of unease deep in Iroh’s gut that mingled with his chi, as did Zuko’s expression, his good eye was widened in fear.  Iroh knew that expression on his Nephew’s face: he was expecting rejection.

“Zuko’s voice is gone.”  Sokka decided to just rip off the bandage.

Iroh’s unease turned to tightly-leashed panic.  “What do you mean, gone?”  He forced his voice to stay steady.

“He uh… there was an incident, with a Kosshi spirit at the Western Air Temple, and Aang had to call on Koh to help get rid of it.  But he tried to steal Toph’s face, and Zuko jumped in and traded his voice away instead.”

“I… I see…” It was a lot to process.  A Kosshi spirit with enough power to necessitate the intervention of a being as powerful as Koh would have needed a lot of skeletons to feed on, skeletons that he had paid a crew of mercenaries to get rid of.  It appeared that they hadn’t done their job, and now Zuko was paying the price for it.  He should have been more diligent, should have checked after them, and then maybe Zuko would not be suffering now.

“Aang taught us all sign language, but someone needs to be here to translate Zuko’s apology.  He’s been working really hard on it,” Sokka continued, and Iroh held up a hand.

“My nephew does not need to apologize to me.  There is nothing to forgive.  I was afraid, and sad that it appeared that he had lost his way, but Zuko has always had a pure heart.  I knew that he would eventually find it again.”  He turned back to Zuko.  “I am so, so proud of you, Nephew.” 

He opened his arms, and Zuko launched himself into them like the child he still was.  Tears were streaming freely from his good eye and pooling at the corners of the scarred one, and Iroh cupped the back of his head and whispered soft platitudes into the ear that still worked.

Eventually, Zuko pulled back, and his hands made some sort of fluid-looking, complicated movement.  Sokka swallowed thickly before speaking.

“He says, ‘So, you’re not mad… that I’m broken?’”  It was physically painful for him to repeat (and Iroh could tell because it was physically painful to hear), and he pulled Zuko back into his arms.
“Oh Nephew, you are not broken!  You could never be broken.  You have been hurt, but you are strong, and you did it to save someone you care about.  I am upset at what you have gone through, but I could never be anything but proud of what a brave, selfless, good boy I have been blessed with.  The spirits have seen fit to grant me a second son every bit as perfect as the first, and nothing you could ever do would make me think any less of you.”

His Zuko was flat-out sobbing now, and it was a strange, heartbreaking sight to watch him lose his composure so completely and yet for not a sound to leave his lips.  

He’d meant what he said when he told Zuko there was nothing broken about him, but by Agni, if he ever ran into Koh, he would punch him in every one of his stolen faces without so much as twitching an eyebrow.  And then he would burn his insectoid body to a crisp, consequences be damned.

“Well,” he said eventually, when Zuko had calmed down.  “Why don’t I make some tea, and then you boys can start teaching me sign language so that I may talk freely with my nephew again.”

Zuko’s small, watery smile was worth everything Iroh had ever been through just to have his child in front of him again.

[]

“Then will you come take your rightful place on the throne?” Sokka translated for Zuko as they sat in front of a cookfire eating spicy noodles that made his (and, from the looks of it, almost everyone else’s) mouths burn but that Zuko was digging into with relish.  

“No, Prince Zuko.  Someone new must take the throne.  Someone young, and idealistic, and with a pure heart ( and who hasn’t committed war crimes, Iroh added in his head, but he wasn’t going to open that can of worms at the moment).  It has to be you.”  He wished that he could afford to let his sweet Nephew take a few years to enjoy the childhood that he had missed, but he knew that nobody would accept him on the throne, not after what he had done at Ba Sing Se.  Even having his tea shop was already pushing it.  Nobody would accept him with real power.

“Me?!” Zuko signed, slack-jawed with surprise.  “But I’ve made so many mistakes, and I can’t even talk!” Sokka interpreted and wished that his friend had better self-esteem. 

“All the more reason to keep someone close who cares about you at all times, to act as an interpreter.  I’m sure one of your wonderful friends can do it, or they would be willing to take turns.”

“Sure thing!  Like we were ever gonna leave you anyway.”  Katara snorted and threw an arm around him fondly.

“But…”  Iroh knew that Zuko was wrestling with the fact that he didn’t want to be fire lord, which was pushing up against his unshakeable sense of duty to his nation.  He thought for a minute, chewing his lip, and when he began again, his hands were slow, hesitant.

“Democracy, maybe?” he offered.  Suki translated, and Iroh sighed.

“It is too dangerous, on the heels of a war,” he began.  “The fire nation is a very traditional people, who believe by and large that the fire lord rules by divine right.  Even if they are not pleased with the current fire lord, and believe me when I say that some of them are not, they would balk at the idea of having anyone not of the royal line leading them.  And even if we could transition to a democracy eventually, it would not be safe to do so right now, when any corrupt Ozai loyalist or war-mongering official could win, whether honestly or otherwise.  And with so many of our people still steeped in propaganda, it would very likely be a bitter brew that resulted.”

“And there’s no way you could be fire lord and, you know, not put it on the shoulders of a sixteen-year-old?” Toph was blunt enough to say what the rest of them were thinking but biting their tongues about.  She liked Uncle, but seriously, even though Sparky would be a great fire lord, she didn’t like the idea of him working himself to the ground to try to fix a century of mistakes that weren’t even his fault.

“If I could, I promise you that I would, even though I want the crown probably even less than my nephew,” Iroh told her kindly.  “But I have done many terrible things in my own time, and I did not have the excuse of being young and of having spent most of my life in a palace where I had no reason to question being told that the fire nation was doing what we were for the good of the world.  I left for the war when I was older than Zuko is now, and I saw the devastation and I created more, and I did not think to question it until I lost my first son.  The son of my blood paid with his life for my mistakes, and now it seems as though the son of my heart must pay in a different way, because I will never be considered an acceptable candidate for the throne by those the fire nation has wronged.”

Zuko did not like to hear his Uncle speak badly about himself, but it’s not exactly like he could say that he hadn’t done those things, and any comfort that he could offer would seem empty, and his Uncle would likely thank him but tell him that he didn’t need to try to make him feel better.  Besides, they had a war to win, and talking about Uncle’s past wouldn’t help them reach that goal.

They planned a bit more, and figured out their destinies for the day quickly.  It was rather anticlimactic, almost like picking something off a menu at a restaurant instead of the hugely significant steps that they were actually taking.  But then again, Zuko supposed that they had all been building to these destinies for a long time.  He had to face Azula, and Katara would go with him because who better to take to face a bad sister than a good one?  Katara was also a healer, and a waterbending prodigy to rival Azula’s own abilities with firebending. She was probably even better, honestly, having gotten where she was in far shorter of a time period.  

Sokka was a tactician, and Sukki was a warrior, and Toph could bend metal.  He couldn’t think of any three people better to take down a whole fleet of airships.

And Aang would be there when it was time to face his father; he had to be, and if Uncle had faith, then so did he.

As the three other present members of their group climbed on top of an eel hound that Piandao gave them (but not before pulling Zuko into an awkward one-sided hug and ruffling his hair one more time), he and Katara hopped on Appa.  Zuko took comfort in the shaggy fur and slow, rumbling breaths of the sky bison below him.  Katara squeezed his hand and curled into his side as they shared Appa’s neck.  It was an admittedly tight fit, but neither of them wanted to be alone in the saddle right now.

Zuko would never be alone if Katara had anything to say about it (and she absolutely would, the world would burn before she didn’t have a say in it).

[]

When Azula challenged Zuko to an Agni Kai, and Zuko accepted, Katara was very, very tempted not to translate it.  But she wasn’t about to actually go through with that; it would be a violation of Zuko’s trust and autonomy.  

“Are you sure?”  She couldn’t help but ask first, and Zuko nodded.

“Honor,” he signed.  “Valid throne, gotta do it.”  Katara took that to mean that if he wanted to have his claim taken legitimately, an Agni Kai was the only way to do it in this situation.  She still wished her sign was better so that Zuko could say what he was really thinking and she didn’t have to extrapolate so much, but Zuko wouldn’t be taking this challenge if there were any way to back out of it and fight Azula together.  She tried to respect other cultures, she really did, but if there were a couple of things she thought the fire nation could do without, it was their manic obsession with honor and the insane amount of spices that meant everything you ate here came with a side of pain.

“He’ll accept your challenge,” she yelled to Azula.

“I’d like to hear that from him, if you don’t mind!” she yelled back, and there was something insidious in the inflection of her voice in a way that was different than the typical Azula-threat.  It was all over the place, teetering on a knife’s edge, one randomly-placed high note away from becoming completely deranged.

“He kinda can’t talk!” Spirits, this was kind of a weird conversation to be having at the moment, in that it was comparatively normal and nobody was throwing fireballs at each other.  Zuko stood awkwardly to the side, not really knowing what to do until the real fighting started.

“What do you mean he can’t talk?!  He’s never done anything but talk, even when he should have shut up!” Azula demanded, almost petulantly (and forcing herself not to think about the one time that talking when he shouldn’t have had cost her brother the most).  In this moment, Katara was reminded that the fire princess was actually her age, and that they were both little more than children.

“Uh, there was sort of a spirit incident?” She offered.  There wasn’t really any other way to explain it, not unless Azula decided she had the time to sit through a ghost story without trying to kill them.

“You broke my Zuzu?!” she cried, enraged.  “How dare you?!  Only I get to break my Zuzu!”

Zuko looked very confused by the turn that the conversation had taken.

“I didn’t do anything; Koh did!  And he’s not broken!”

“Whatever!  Let’s just do the Agni Kai so I can get my Zuzu back under my thumb where he belongs and then go burn the face off this Koh thing!”

Zuko felt that now might not be the best time to mention that Koh had many faces, none of them his own.  He wreathed his hands in rainbow flames, and Azula’s eyes widened.

“Why Zuzu, you’ve learned a few new tricks!” 

Zuko shrugged.  It’s not like he had any other way to respond that Azula would actually understand.  Then he leapt into the air, sending out a stream of white-hot, flowing fire that seemed more liquid than anything.  Katara watched, mesmerized.  He was moving like she was moving, but then the next minute, he was rooting himself in the ground like Toph, taking control of his sister’s blue flames and sending them off to the side like he was splitting rock.  The ground shook slightly, and Azula doubled her efforts.

This was the least trouble Zuko had ever had fighting Azula.  He was keeping up easily, and something in him told him that if he’d only been willing to kill or disfigure, he would have won already.  But this family had already inflicted so much violence and damage on each other.  He would never turn into his father.  

He’d finally caught up to his prodigy sister, and all he felt was a deep sadness, all the way down to the marrow of his bones.

He was afraid, not for himself but for his damaged, beautiful, broken little sister as her already shaky composure seemed to flee her completely.  She was beginning to realize that she wouldn’t win this fight, and it was making her desperate, like a wounded animal that had been cornered.  Then he felt the electricity start to build in the air, and all other thoughts fled from him.

He dove towards Katara as Azula broke one of the cardinal rules of an Agni Kai, and aimed for a spectator.  But he realized as the lightning left her fingers that he wasn’t going to make it in time.

The shift is instinctual.  He doesn’t realize it’s happening until there’s a golden dragon with a damaged eye standing in front of Katara in a blaze of glory.  His scales are lit from within by veins of rainbow fire, and they bleed up and shine from the spaces between his gleaming scales like rivers of magma.  He takes the lightning to the chest as he roars, silent and stoic, and the electricity arches around him as he stands in its center like a beacon, breathing a plume of kaleidoscopic flames into the sky that is so powerful that it can be seen by everyone in the fire nation, and to the edges of the earth kingdom.  Far away, it brushes the edge of another beam of powerful spiritual energy as the Avatar wages a fight with the fire lord’s very being.

The cold fire arches around the dragon, buzzing against his scales and his wings and scorching the point of impact in his chest as he takes it in and sends it up to join the fire in the sky, where it cannot hurt anyone.

Zuko knows that he could shift back, become the human version of himself again and switch between the two as easily as changing his clothes, but right now he is too tired to even lift his weary head.  His chest hurts, and his heart has taken both a physical and emotional beating.  He wants to protect Katara, but he also knows she can protect herself, and he is so tired.

“Zuzu!”  Azula’s cry is anguished, and raw, and so, so very human.  She hadn’t wanted this to happen.  She hadn’t wanted to kill him; she just wanted to get rid of this usurper who had taken his attention away from her.  She wanted him to be all hers again.  Mother was gone, and Father was off conquering the rest of the world, and so it would have just been her and Zuko forever, and he would have been upset about her getting rid of his friends, but he still would have loved her anyway because for some reason he’d never stopped loving her no matter how many awful things she’d done to him just for the fun of it, and to test and see if he would eventually say that enough was enough and decide to cast her aside.  But he never did, not even when she laughed as his face was burnt because she honestly hadn’t known what else to do or how else to react.  Zuko’s face was an open book to her, and she had seen the love there even as he took a bolt of lighting that she herself had shot.  The fact that he’d just turned into a dragon was somewhere in the back of her mind, but it oddly wasn’t her greatest concern at the moment.

“You… you let me kill him!”  She screamed at Katara, enraged.  “You let him take that for you, and now you’re going to pay for it!”

“Stop!” the water tribe peasant dared to challenge her.  “He’s… he’s still breathing!  If you let me, I can heal him!”

“You’re lying!  That’s all sisters do, is lie to their brothers!  You want to hurt me, just like everyone else!  Zuzu was the only one who never wanted to hurt me, and now you’ve gone and gotten him killed!”

“Just shut the fuck up and let me get to him; we’re wasting time!” Katara snapped, and her voice was filled with such venom that she was surprised to see that Azula actually did (Azula was kind of surprised herself, to be honest).  She didn’t exactly want to turn her back to Azula, so she kept her face towards the other girl as she edged backwards towards Zuko.  Once she had reached the great dragon (and okay, that was going to be a lot to process later), she pulled water out of her flask, pushed it to glow, and set it against his chest.

As soon as Zuko was stable, she watched as Azula fell to her knees under a deluge of all the emotions that Katara guessed she’d been pushing back almost her whole life.  While she was distracted, Katara pulled water from under a nearby grate where she could feel a reservoir, and encased Azula in a block of ice so thick she wouldn’t be able to burn through it right away.  Then she picked up the ice with her bending and floated it over to the grate, where she picked up a set of chains, unfroze her hands, and tied her up tightly.  Then she melted the ice, and felt no satisfaction as she watched Azula scream and cry and gasp for breath.

[]

Katara couldn’t exactly move a dragon, so when the rest of the group got back, they found her leaning up against his side, trying not to fall asleep as the adrenaline wore off because someone had to keep an eye on a captive Azula.

“What the fuck is that and why does it have Sparky’s heartbeat?” Was the first thing anyone asked when they’d somewhat gotten over their shock, and it predictably came from Toph.

“This is Zuko,” Katara sighed tiredly.  “Azula shot lightning at me, and then suddenly Zuko was a dragon and he took it himself and shot this giant fireblast into the sky.”

“So that’s what that was…” Suki breathed in awe, not taking her eyes off of the sleeping dragon.

“He’s pretty small for a fully grown dragon,” Aang muttered, stepping up, feather-light, to place his hand on Zuko’s snout.  In his sleep, the dragon huffed and leaned into the touch.

“What are you talking about? He’s bigger than Appa!”  Katara argued, looking at Aang in disbelief.  From his place in the courtyard nearby, Appa lowed his agreement.

“And for an adult dragon, he’s still pretty small,” Aang replied.  “Back when the dragons were still around, they were usually a fair bit larger.  But I guess it makes sense, since Zuko as a human isn’t all that tall either.”

“He’s taller than everyone but Sokka,” Suki pointed out.

“Yeah, but none of the rest of us are done growing,” Aang said.  “But Zuko’s almost seventeen.  The monks told us that by the time boys reach seventeen, they’re as tall as they’re going to get.  So it makes sense that that would hold true for his dragon form as well.”

“As much fun as this conversation on dragon physiology is, perhaps we could save it for a later date?” Sokka asked, grunting as he lowered himself painfully to a sitting position.  Katara noticed his broken leg and jumped in immediately, pulling her bending water out to heal him.

“Sounds good to me,” Toph agreed, already curling up against Zuko’s scaly side.  “I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but I’ve almost died today, I’m exhausted, and dragons make even better heated pillows than sky bison.  No offense, Appa.”

Appa just groaned and continued looking for edible foliage.  It appeared he wasn’t all that bothered by who Toph preferred to sleep on.

[]

Zuko opened his eyes at sunrise the next morning, taking in the all-over aching and sharp stabbing pain in a body that was much bigger than it was supposed to be.  He knew he could shift back if he wanted to, but he was still tired and his family were all asleep against him, and Aang was here and alive and so was everyone else and so that must mean that they’d won .  And he wasn’t surprised, but he was still so, so relieved.  He didn’t see Azula, but he figured someone must have moved her to a safer location.  He knew that Katara wouldn’t have killed her, because she would have known that Zuko wouldn’t want anything to happen to her.  So he had faith that she was at least physically alright.  The rest could be sorted out later.  He lifted his long, elegant neck and curled it around the others, providing an extra layer of protection for his little group.  They were his hoard now, and he would keep them safe always.