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He finds himself down in the cove by the cliffs, perched uncomfortably between two rocks just beyond the tide line, looking out across Yue Bay as the sun sets on a cold winter day.
He's alone, thankfully. As grateful as he is for Aang’s hospitality, Zuko very much needs break from his screaming horde of little airbenders. There are three now, all girls, each more trouble than the next. He has no idea how Ty Lee does it, but then again, he has no idea how Ty Lee does most of what she does.
Still, at least the constant mayhem kept him distracted. Now, alone with only the crashing surf and the muted sounds of the city in the distance for company, his emotions threaten to overwhelm what meager defenses he has left.
Suki and Sokka are away for the night, off to see Toph in the city. Zuko quietly declined their offer to join them. Suki gave him a long, pointed look but didn’t press him—she just arched her eyebrow in that way she always does to cut through whatever brave front he's attempting. In the end though, neither of them forced the matter. He needed space after the day’s events, and they knew him well enough to give it.
He stands in front of a building that is familiar-but-also-not, Earth Kingdom stylings refashioned in brick and metal instead of the original wood and stone. He wonders what became of the first Jasmine Dragon after the war, and feels a sharp pang of regret that he never came to know this place as well, the shop where his uncle spent the final fourteen years of his life.
Packing up his uncle's apartment over the shop takes the better part of two days, it would have taken far longer had it not been for Sokka’s relentless drive. Zuko lets Sokka busy him with an endless series of small tasks—if he pauses, the weight of it all will come bearing down on him again. Whenever he begins to drift and stare out into space, Sokka seems to miraculously appear with some trivial matter that needs his attention.
(Distractions from an empty cup that will never again be filled.)
He won't acknowledge it, not there. He doesn't let himself break down until late at night, when the three of them are bundled up on the too-hard and too-small bed in their guest room at the temple. It crashes over him like breakers after a storm, and his body shudders with tears as Sokka cradles him and Suki presses her forehead against his.
So he cycles—numbness to anger, grief to exhaustion.
A sea raven swoops down from its perch atop the rocks overhead and Zuko startles, reflexively raising his arm to send a small fireball in its direction. It squawks indignantly before striking once more out to sea.
Zuko remembers an evening several winters before, sitting on a shore not unlike this one. Suki had pointed to the ravens circling the bay, her green eyes cold and bright in the fading light as she told him of the strangeness of their life cycles—no sea raven ever remains in the same colony it is born into; once fledged, the young sea ravens set out alone across the sea, wandering for years before they finally nest in a new colony far from their own.
It was reflected in their name in the old Kyoshi language, one Zuko couldn’t pronounce for the life of him. (Suki found his poor attempts immensely amusing... he’ll forever remember it as the first time he made her laugh.)
She'd described the name as meaning something like, ’peace in perpetual separation,’ and Zuko couldn’t help but think of it now as he watched another bird swoop down, plummeting into the water before returning triumphant, an eel-fish in its beak.
It's his last afternoon in the city, and he finds himself alone for the first time in nearly three weeks—Sokka and Suki will be traveling home with him in the morning, but today both are at City Hall, their presence required for a trade meeting between Kyoshi Island and the United Republic. He wanders through Dragon Flats, marveling at the packed rows of buildings where there had once been nothing but dirt roads and muddy fields.
The smells and sounds of the district fill him with a deep longing, reminding him of a place that he cannot return to, a home and a nation that are no longer his. It’s been seven years since the Manifesto of the Fire Republic, six since he ran from the palace set alight behind him, clad in only his nightclothes and carrying nothing but a pair of tarnished dao.
The streets here are packed with Fire Nationals, the ranks of former colonists now swollen with expatriates from what had been his nation. Some still recognize him, a few even offer shallow bows in passing. Even if they did not, the fineness of the silk they wear would betray their former allegiance, loyalty to a dead regime. He supposes he should be worried, walking alone in a place where he is so easily recognized. Yet these days it seems the government in Caldera is more than happy to ignore his continued existence.
Perhaps he is simply no longer a threat. The Fire Republic prospers—supporters of the old monarchy are few and far between. What remains of the nobility has fled the country, taking their fortunes with them. They certainly have no interest in waging another war on his behalf, content instead to live lives of luxury as exiles in Republic City or Ba Sing Se, grumbling at soirées over past glories.
The world has moved on, and he is now just one man among many.
As he wanders toward the bay, he passes a flower shop tucked down a side alley opening out onto the docks. He’s struck by the name, Red Azalea painted in sloping red characters on black.
He enters the shop on impulse, and the air around him seems to turn to glass as he recognizes the tall, thin figure trimming fire lilies behind the bench.
“Mai?”
The name slips from his mouth before he's even aware he's speaking. He hasn’t seen her in nearly a decade, not since they screamed at each other across his sitting room in the Fire Lord’s apartments. She'd declared that she was leaving—for good this time—and in response he'd lashed out in anger and desperation.
("As your Fire Lord, I command you to stay!")
He remembers her knives pinning him to the wall by his robes, her eyes filled with hate and regret as she spat those final words.
("She was right about you, you're just like your father.")
Looking back, he can summon little of the righteous outrage he'd felt then. How far he’d fallen from those first hopeful months of his rule, and how bitterly it had all come to an end...
He's brought back to the present as Mai's eyes snap up, pinning him where he stands. Her entire body stiffens, and Zuko finds himself unconsciously shifting into an opening stance. The silence stretching between them breaks abruptly when a small child comes barreling down the stairs and latches herself onto Mai’s leg, babbling happily about sea dragons and ice blue flames. She's so excited that it takes her a moment to even notice his presence—half-hidden between empty pots underneath the table, she peers out at him with bright golden eyes.
Mai still hasn't said so much as a single word to him, and Zuko is too frozen from shock to care. He hears another voice instead, coming from the stairs behind her. It’s low, mocking, and so terribly familiar.
“She’s not yours, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
Zuko tears his eyes away from the child and looks back up past Mai. For a single joyous moment the face he sees is his mother's—an illusion that shatters as he recognizes the discordant coldness of the woman’s eyes and the ever-present curl of her lip.
Azula, standing not even three paces from him, alive and seemingly whole. He hasn’t seen her since the day of the comet, their fateful Agni Kai. Her escape four years later and subsequent disappearance have haunted his dreams for nearly a decade.
(He still remembers rushing to Capital Prison in the dead of night, the stench of burnt flesh when he found his father, face slack in death, blackened and charred from the waist down.)
His hands are ablaze within seconds, bracing for an attack that doesn't come. Azula barely even acknowledges his presence save for a cold glare. The guarded blankness in her expression is something he has long associated with Mai; here they are two complementary masks.
“Come, Izumi.”
The little girl—Izumi—is oblivious to the tension pervading the small shop, she bounds up the first two steps and buries herself in the hem of Azula's robe with a happy sputtering sound. Azula plucks her up and turns back up the stairs, leaving without another word.
Mai spares a quick glance back at the pair, a soft look that he’s never seen before on her. He can't read Mai any better now than he could then, but he wonders if she might finally be happy.
Her gaze snaps back to him, and he catches a glint of metal as she very deliberately adjusts her sleeve.
“Leave, don’t come back.”
Zuko balls his hands into fists, his scar pulling tight across his face as it twists in rage. He'd had his suspicions, especially when Mai disappeared from the capital mere days before his sister's escape, but to have it confirmed like this... hot anger pools deep within his gut.
That little girl... their little girl, a child that could have—should have—been his. He's still dwelling on that image—the gold spark in her curious eyes and Mai's uncharacteristic soft contentment—when it hits him. He is the intruder here. As much as it might hurt, this isn't about him at all—they were living a quiet life here until he stumbled across their shop in some twisted act of fate, or perhaps just terrible luck.
(He never was the lucky one.)
He breathes deeply and lets the anger within him cool. Part of him still wants to demand answers—Agni knows he has a thousand questions—but the wiser, calmer part of him (the part that is Iroh and not Ozai) knows that it is not his place to ask. So instead he schools himself, gives her a stiff bow, and then leaves before his emotions have a chance to overtake his self-control.
When he hears the noise behind him, Zuko jumps before recognizing the familiar green. He looks at her in surprise, blinking salt from his eyes. “I thought you’d gone to see Toph?”
Suki smiles back at him, the warmth of her expression tinged with unmistakable worry. Zuko is relieved when he sees no pity in her gaze, only exasperated affection. “And let you brood out here until you freeze yourself to death? Not a chance.”
Sokka appears behind her, holding blankets and a clay traveling pot filled with tea. “You’re an idiot, but you’re our idiot.”
Sokka wraps the smaller of the blankets around Zuko's shoulders as Suki curls up on the rock beside him and threads her fingers through his. He then wedges himself on Zuko's opposite side, draping the larger blanket haphazardly over them all. Zuko's overcome by the gesture, the easy warmth of their affection. His shoulders drop, releasing a tension he wasn’t even aware he was carrying.
He breathes out, pushing past the lump in his throat to speak. “I just wish…” Zuko falters, “I pushed him away, and we were just becoming close again, and now he’s gone and I’ll never get to tell him... there was so much I needed to tell him.”
He swallows tightly, wiping the tears threatening to spill from his unscarred eye. “I failed him, again and again, and he never gave up on me. Not when I was banished, not after Ba Sing Se, not even after I lost it all..."
Sokka grips his arm and doesn't let go. "He was proud of you, Zuko. Even after everything, he was so proud of you. Do you know how many letters I had to sort through that read 'Zuko this' or 'Zuko that'?" He gives him an exaggerated eye roll. "The guy thought the world of you, he didn't give a damn about some stupid hairpiece."
Zuko manages a choking laugh even through shallow, uneven breaths. He tries to calm himself and order his thoughts while Suki rubs gentle circles in his back. When he risks glancing up at her, she gives him that probing look that tells him she knows what's bothering him goes well beyond Iroh, and there's no way for him to avoid it. Zuko takes a deep breath, steadying himself. He'll have to tell them eventually anyway, and he's too tired to carry this weight alone.
"I saw my sister today.” He admits in a quiet voice. Suki stiffens and Sokka’s eyes go wide with alarm.
“And Mai too, down in Dragon Flats. They have a flower shop, and a daughter.” He chuckles bitterly, “I can’t begin to express how weird it was seeing Azula of all people acting maternal.”
Sokka sputters while Suki turns to him sharply. “Did they hurt you? If they did, or threatened you...” Suki’s voice is tight with old anger.
Zuko chokes back a laugh, “No. In fact, they didn’t want anything to do with me. Azula turned away from me without saying a word, and the only thing Mai said was 'leave.'"
Sokka manages to regain some of his composure, and gives Zuko the look he usually reserves for whenever Aang says something outrageous far too casually. “I mean, not that I'm doubting you, but a flower shop? Are you absolutely positive it was them and not, I don't know, some sort of bizarre grief and cactus juice fueled hallucination?"
"They named it the Red Azalea." Zuko replies.
Suki snorts. "Ah, okay. That makes more sense."
"Must your family always be so dramatic?" Sokka groans. "Like don't get me wrong, it's better than lightning and scary blue fire, but sheesh."
"So what then? Are we just going to leave them be? At the very least we need to tell Aang." Suki buts in.
(Zuko suspects that if Azula and Mai are both living in Republic City, he and Ty Lee almost certainly already know, but that's a conversation for another day.)
Zuko sighs. “She’s different now. I spent so long thinking she was incapable of change, but seeing her... she's not the 14-year-old girl I remember, not anymore. I don’t think she wants power or the throne now any more than I do."
(He knew it when he met her eyes in that shop, and if he was being honest with himself, he'd known it when he found his father's body instead of an empty cell. What else hadn't he known about?)
Zuko glances back out to sea, thinking of a little girl and a flower shop, soft looks from the coldest of people. "It’s funny how that for both of us, it took losing everything before we could find what it was that we really wanted.”
Suki is still tense, but Sokka brushes it off. “Not saying I'll sleep well tonight, but I trust you. And besides, who wouldn’t trade some dusty old throne for a piece of this.” He flexes his free arm overdramatically, earning a groan from Suki and a feeble smile from Zuko.
They sit in silence for a while before Sokka catches him staring out to sea again. He follows Zuko's gaze, out to where the sea ravens are riding a thermal upward in slow spirals over the bay. He places his hand on Zuko’s cheek, guiding him to meet his eyes. “Seriously through, we’re here for you. You’ve had to come a long way, further than the rest of us, but you’ve found your nest.”
Suki rests her head against his shoulder as Sokka smiles at him, and despite the darkening sky and the freezing spray from the surf, Zuko doesn't feel the least bit cold.
Sokka cocks his head and cracks a smirk. "Now come on, let's get back before Ty Lee gets worried and sends her little flying terrors to come find us."
Zuko laughs. Well, he certainly can't argue with that.