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Chapter Text

"Will he live?"

The Firelord was facing towards the window, amber eyes fixated on anything but the shell of what his son had been some four hours ago. Before he had placed his hand on the child’s left eye and the ear and burned it till the smoke was enough to choke all fifty seven of the guests present in the Agni Kai chamber, and hopefully himself too. His hands were clasped together behind his back in the perfect imitation of a tyrant. Not that he wasn’t one already, Chief Healer Pongdakorn decided privately, before wishing that there was anyone even close to a waterbending healer present in the room. The young Prince needed— Agni, he needed a miracle to stay alive. He already knew that Ozai’s question was not one of fatherly love or any affection- it was as cold as his heart and merely a formality.

Something to show to the public along with the lies that they would get fed.

He remembered the Agni Kai. He remembered every cursed moment of that sham of a sacred duel in excruciating detail, and how he wished that he had gouged out his own eyes before seeing the boy crumple to the floor within seconds.

Ozai still hadn’t removed his hand from Prince Zuko’s face.

The horror was visible on the faces of a few, and the ones who had truly felt nothing but emptiness, as dark and deep and brutal as the ocean- had their faces frozen in a twisted smile. Just like their Firelord and Crown Princess.

The healer cleared his throat, not particularly caring of the bile in his stomach that would be lying on a puddle on the floor the minute the Firelord had stepped out of the room. “I… I don’t think so my Lord.”

“Then I don’t see why you’re needed here.” He spun on his heel in one graceful movement, gracing him to a probing stare, and Pongdakorn’s carefully maintained mask slipped for a split second before finding its way on his features once again.

“I didn’t understand my Lord-“

“I said.” And Ozai’s voice had a velvety feel to it, making his nerves sting with hatred and fury. “I don’t understand why should I waste medical faculties and supplies on a person who’s already about to grace the spirits. And thus, there is no need for your services.”

'So this is what death feels like", Zuko's mind whisped to him, creeping into his thoughts like ivy.

Seeping into every cell of his body like poison.

Father killed him.

Father killed him.

Father killed him.

His heart head hurts.

He is dead.

He doesn't understand why his mind is spitting back the same loop of five sentences at him. He knows that he's dead. He know's that he's a dishonour to his family. He knows that his father eliminated the weak link.

What a man.

Killed his own son on the stage in front of everyone.

Azula was laughing when he fell down, and smiling gleefully when he begged like a citizen of the Earth Kingdom.

Maybe he was meant to be a peasant anyway.

Un- Uncle Iroh.

Uncle Iroh must be ashamed of him too.

Stupid, foolish, crazy him.

Couldn't shut his mouth for a meeting.

Azula would hav-

Azula would have begged for forgiveness too.

Azula wouldn't have begged for forgiveness.

He was dead.

Then why was he thinking?

Dead people couldn't think.

His eyes opened, a gust of wind flowing on his face, his hair whipped backwards, his burn cooling within moments.

(I DON'T NEED ANY CALMING TEA-)

(Azula always lies. Azula always lie-)

(I just want my honor back-)

(You're just a child!)

(Our daughter looks beautiful, just like you Mai-)

(Hello, Zuko here.)

(Why am I so bad at being good?)

(I understand.)

Zuko understood, even if those whispers only made him more confused.

Images flashed in front of him, just as the whispering ceased.

A glowing boy in an iceberg, a crowd of people bowing to him, even more cheering, Azula chained to the gutter, his father's corpse being burned with four people in attendance, someone named Kiyi, a bearded man and a woman who looked like Mai naming their son Iroh, a new nation, him standing in front of Sozin's portrait while Azula jeered, him confronting his father, him hugging a tattooed boy, a pair of siblings fr-

"AAGH!", He screamed, his throat hoarse and dry, and he jerked his arms and legs, thrashing as though he was trapped in one of the infamous quicksands of the Earth Kingdom.

He couldn't move, even if he felt as though as he could.

It was almost as though he had been paralysed, not unlike how he was paralysed with terror moments into the first and last Agni Kai of his life. He tried to open his eyes, forgetting that they were already open.

Darkness.

It was a damp, terrifying abyss of nothing but darkness, blinding him, choking him, making his existence seem like a mistake in the history of everything that had and had yet to exist.

But something in him told that he had to keep still, follow the policy of neutral jing of the Earth Kingdom unlike the positive jing of the Fire Nation.

A mere hour ago Zuko would have spat at the very thought of acting anything like peasants, but anything was better than slowly suffocating to death.

He was already supposed to be dead.

He suppressed every human urge in him to start flailing his limbs and stayed as still as he could, praying to every spirit that could hear him to allow him to live another day.

"Interesting.", A voice mused.

Zuko tried to turn his head to where the voice had a come from, only to recieve an amused chuckle from his right.

The voice seemed to be omnipresent, making him fear that he might have found way into a ancient spirit's belly.

(How did this happen? He woke up, prayed to Agni, wore his armbands, got killed by his father all the while the image of his sister smiling was imprinted into his mind-)

He opened his mouth to speak, but no words left his lips, or if they had then he must have been deafened in those moments.

The voice lost all emotion it had earlier, turning into a cold and unflinching whisper, one which creeped into his bones, "Interesting indeed."

A million thoughts raced through his mind, a thousand questions and the massive headache from witnessing both the past and present made him want to claw his eyes out, his eye out.

It spoke in a tired tone, one which Zuko was familiar to, after being labeled a failure by nearly every noble his father had in his fist, "Stop it child. I can hear every thought in that head of yours and I must say, you are interesting. Your past and future are such contrasts, yet the shift between the two of them is so swift, that I'm rendered speechless. Trust me on this, even if you shouldn't trust me about anything else."

All Zuko could do was pray to Agni.

The voice chuckled, with no warmth present in their tone, "Agni can't save you boy. I could trap him in a loop of time for all the eternity till every flame in the world extenguishes."

Zuko's eyes widened with panic, and he tried to keep his mind as blank as possible, no thoughts finding way into his mind so that he could protect himself further.

The voice seemed to be amused yet again, "You've been trapped in here for three years now boy, dead to everyone who ever existed or ever will. You're nothing but a shadow of an existence, hidden by me."

He was talking to a madman.

"I think you mean mad spirit."

"You're all crazy, where am I?", He somehow strangled a few words out, before his throat tightened of its own accord and he was choking on nothing once again.

He could feel the approval he was being regarded with, "Impressive young Prince, breaking out my bounds isn't an easy task. You might be a failure in comparison to your entire family, but you have something they don't. My grudging respect."

Zuko narrowed his eyes, trying to make out who was speaking to him.

A pair of glowing black eyes appeared out of nowhere, inches away from his face and Zuko had never been more thankful for how the spirit had essentially forbade him from as much as whimpering like a kicked deer-puppy.

He had no idea how black eyes were glowing in infinite darkness surrounding them, and that too without exposing a single body part of the spirit, that is, if the spirit had a body.

"You have my full permission to speak."

The invisible band around his neck, threatening to close his windpipe at any moment loosened, and he took a deep breath, damp air rushing into his nose. It smelt of rotten carcasses, and Zuko could only wonder if he was the first to survive the onslaught of the spirit.

"Who are you?", He asked, his right eye narrowed in what he hoped was anger, if only to mask how terrified he truly was.

"None of your concern."

"Then what's the use of letting me speak?"

"Why, I wanted to hear your voice tremble."

"I can't remember a single thing that happnened in the past three years, and I doubt that you'd leave me comatose or wipe my memory if you wanted to see me beg and plead."

"I'm suprised by how much I seeped into your soul, and that too in mere three years."

"You think that three is small?", Zuko questioned, his daring growing second by second.

"The last person I infected took some thirteen years to even start acting like me.", The tone was way too casual, and nonchalant, as though the two of them were discussing the time it took to grow a tree, not.... not whatever the eye said.

"You're infecting me?"

"That is what the last person said, but I prefer the word inspiring."

"The only thing you're inspiring me to do is to kill you."

"Many people have tried, including Kuruk, but ultimately they all failed. Their skeletons adorn the wall, you know?"

Beads of sweat were on Zuko's upper lip as his eyes widened in horror, hoping that he had misheard the words, or it was just a very cruel prank the spirit was playing on him.

"You just told me that I can't trust you. Why should I believe that there are... are-"

"Keep going on like that and I might lend you part of my soul so that you can return to the mortal world."

Zuko chose to ignore the last words, his focus only and only on his survival, "What about those flashes of memories?"

"I was just toying with you.", The eyes showed an emotion which Zuko was sure was cheekiness.

Every pulse of his body felt as though it had been ignited by lightning, furious enough to yell in a voice which would make the voice, or rather the eyes to finally show something other than either no emotion, or something which made it very clear that Zuko was nothing more than a pawn in a very elaborate game of pai sho.

And Zuko didn't have any tiles left, while the spirit knew each and every move Zuko could possibly play in a desperate attempt to beat him.

That was too far of a stretch, all he could do at that moment was to make sure that he had a single tile remaining in his grasp, far away from the reach of the spirit.

"You would have been yelling at me right now if I didn't have you in my captivity for over three years.", The voice remarked in a tone which suggested that it was discussing which tea to drink.

"What do you mean by that?"

"You're so hotheaded Zuko, almost like Sozin. The family resemblance is uncanny. Not that I have toyed with you enough, I think I should tell you my version of the story."

"Who are you?", Zuko asked again, his voice laced with irritation and anger.

"One of the more ancient spirits, born a few weeks after the world was formed. I can chose my form, but my preferred form is a dark blue cloud, because it's easy for me to visit the mortal world in that manner."

Zuko openly gaped, and regretted the decision within seconds, a thick liquid dripping down from Agni knew where onto his tongue and he coughed, the acidic taste reminding him of how he had once ate fireflakes doused in- well. It didn't matter anymore.

"What you saw is what would have happened if your father had let you live, a meaningless search for the Avatar till you became a golden name in the name of the world, the Firelord who ended the Hundred Year War, the one who brought an era of peace, but unfortunately for you. You died. I made a pact with the other spirits, provided that you allowed a part of me to reside in your left eye. I'm afraid that you don't get a choice."

The next time Zuko opened his eyes, he was greeted by the a bald monk (how did he know who he was? why was everything from his left eye clear as day when it had been burned into a slit narrower tha-) looking at him with a mixture of curiosity, apprehension and fear.

He decided to go with what happened in the memories he had witnessed.

"Hello, Zuko here."

Chapter Text

"Quieten boy.", A voice grumbled, ruff and completely different from the willowy voice which spoke to him earlier.

Zuko screamed like he never had before. He screamed as though father was burning him again, generations of Firelords staring at him with glee as the black fire of their family got extinguished.

Black fire.

Black abyss.

His voice faded into darkness.

He closed his eyes, any image he had seen upon getting back to the Earth wiping itself from his memory. Any scent, texture, anything was foreign to him as he shook his head, hoping that it was all but a nightmare, induced by the medicines he had been given upon losing the Agni Kai.

But father wouldn't have given him any aid, not when he humiliated father by begging for his- his life.

He weakly wondered how he had become so critical of the Firelord.

Firelord.

That was something new, he noticed. All his life he had called the Firelord 'father' as a mark of respect, and now he was referring to his sire as the Firelord. It was certainly a grander title than mere father, but it felt like he was cutting the last ties to that man with the dagger Uncle Iroh had given him.

Surprisingly, Uncle hadn't turned into Prince.

He tried to weigh the pros and cons of waking up from his self induced condition, and he remembered the last images he had seen.

Glowing eyes.

Tattooed boy.

His eyes snapped open and his body shot up, his forearms supporting his body as he tried to search for the tattooed boy, the one he had seen in those memories which he would have in a different life.

The voice decided to greet him again, this time reverting to how he remembered it, "The Avatar isn't here. It was a memory you saw."

His eyes widened and he opened his mouth, as if to say something but as usual nothing come out.

The boy was.... was the Avatar.

Master of four elements, the link between the Spirit World and the Mortal World- he was a child.

He wasn't sure whether he was simply speechless at losing three years of his life to a spirit in exchange for living again, or whether the spirit had blocked his vocal cords as if they were chi paths and the spirit a chi-blocker.

He wanted to talk to Ty Lee.

He wanted to talk to Mai.

He wanted to know where he was.

He knew that he was looking at his surroundings without registering anything, and he slowed down, chest heaving with hasty and shallow breaths as he closed his eyes, squeezing them tightly.

The sensation of experiencing memories which he would have dismissed as a hallucination started to set inside him, sinking like a pebble in the pond.

(Azula killing the Avatar-)

(Father welcoming him home.)

(A child named Korra.)

(The turtleduck pond.)

(His grandchildren playing with him-)

He opened his eyes, terrified of the images he had seen.

This time, he took notice of where he was.

It wasn't a dark abyss this time.

"Wher-", He spoke, or rather questioned, staring at the cottage in front of him.

He could see the rotten wood on the steps leading up to the door, ones which would give way the moment as bird landed on it, the broken and cracked window with black scorch marking on the edges, the roof blown off from one side and pieces of what... what seemed to be a child's doll, torn into pieces lying on the ground.

His knees shook with something he couldn't identify in a thousand lifetimes and before he could recieve a response, he fell to the ground, his lone eye filling up with tears as images flashed through his mind yet again, only this time the headache he had felt any other time had subsided into a dull throbbing within moments.

He could see it.

People, his people burning this house to the ground ten years ago, Uncle Iroh shaking his head as he muttered that the soldier shouldn't have left his duties, a child crying as his doll was torn into pieces in the chaos.

"I think you get it now.", The voice whispered to him, a tiny glint of sorrow reflecting from the sharp edge the words were uttered with.

Zuko's body shook and his head, formerly hidden in his hands rose up and gave the house another fleeting glance as he whispered, "Where are we?"

Approval dripped from every word the spirit murmured into his ear, even if the spirit was inside him, "We are in what will known to be Xin Dong Forest twenty years later."

Xin Dong.

One of the more famed Earth Kingdom poet from the era of the old Earthern Kings, the one aming countless whose works had been banned in his nation, reminding him of the days his mother had sneaked him to her room when father and Azula were training, reading him some of his poems.

Contrary to what everyone said,he hadn't found those poems to be tasteless and savage. He had been surprised, if he was honest about how backward peasants and uneducated Earth Kingdom citizens had such a refined way of putting their ideas forward.

He and his mother had agreed that it was a true pity that Xin Dong hadn't been born in the Fire Nation, where his artistry would have blossomed into something truly majestic.

"What do I need to do?", He asked, his voice pitifully low, gauging how much more time he had to live if he voiced any protests against the Spirit.

"Young Zuko, I thought that you knew enough, but clearly that isn't the case.", The voice sounded disappointed, as if Zuko was supposed to know everything after witnessing a few memories.

He decided to ask a new question, determined to know something before the spirit killed him fo-

"Ah Zuko, why would I kill you when I kept you alive for all those years? Still foolish and hasty, I see. Ask what you want."

"What did you do to me?", He gritted out with some effort, sweat dripping from his bow from anxiety.

"Kept you alive."

"Why?"

"So that you could teach the Avatar firebending."

"Where is the Avatar?"

"Your guess is good as mine."

(Azula always lies)

(The spirit always lies)

To a passerby it may have seemed that a madman, one who was trapped inside the memories of the war, weeping for his lost family and home, dressed in nothing more than rags as he begged for a spirit to revert things to normal.

Zuko didn't know what was normal anymore.

He choked on his words and spittle as he pleaded to that someone, anyone, "Who are you?"

"I'm afraid I cannot tell you that."

"WHAT CAN YOU TELL ME THEN?", His voice became a shout even before he knew it, voice hoarse and scratching at his ears.

"That you are safe."

Zuko's eyes widened with indignation, his heartbeat amplified, the noise coming from a nearby stream being nothing but music to his ears as he tried to search how exactly was he safe.

The idea of the spirit who had been showing memories of the past, as though he was a bystander, the spirit who had stolen three years of his life, the spirit who had kept him locked in what he could only describe as death for three years keeping him safe was a idea he had never even thought he would even consider.

He racked his mind, trying to come up with a reponse which his father or Azula would have said, when the voice, or rather the spirit, spoke again.

"Your fathe-"

He couldn't take being babied around anymore, even more so information about himself being locked up away from him and a scream tore out from his throat, "YOU'RE EVEN CRUELER THAN MY FATHER YO-"

Father.

(Father wasn't cruel to him)

(He was never cruel to him)

He wondered when that particular thought had started to occur to him, even make him say it full conviction the moment he spoke those words, as though he knew that the Firelord was cruel.

Not to mention, the issue with calling him Firelord instead of Father.

But surprisingly, something in felt natural when he referred to him using a title rather than familial relations.

He felt safe.

The spirit wasn't lying... this time.

"So you're keeping me safe. But you're crueler than anything I've heard about. What I said about my father was-", His sentence broke off at the end, unsure of how to defend the man who had killed him, especially when the Spirit seemed to know Zuko better than Zuko did himself.

"You called me more cruel than your father, yet I would save you in every lifetime, every time you are ever in danger, no matter what happens. Even if I am in deepest ends of the Spirit World, I will save you."

"Why?"

"Why not?"

Zuko grunted and grabbed a broken chair next to him by its legs and hurled it a good fifteen feet away, not stopping to measure how strong he had turned, whether it be due to the spirit possessing him or it was something he could do.

He hadn't eaten in three years.

One half of his face was still a sopping mess of a fresh burn, even if his ear and eye were working perfectly.

He had been dead for some three years.

"NO MORE LIES!", He roared, saliva dripping from his mouth even if it felt that he hadn't drank anything since the day his mother had stopped breastfeeding him.

"That's where you're a bit blind - no offence - young Zuko. No matter what you say, I will not stop lying to you. By be assured, I will keep an eye - I apologise for the eye metaphors - put for you."

"You're worried about offending me about a burnt eye.", Zuko muttered he he heaved himself up from the ground, inspecting what he was dressed in.

He was dressed in robes which he and Azula would have made fun of, while his father would openly hunted the person sporting such dusty and tattered clothes out of the Palace himself, lightning avoiding the person by mere inches.

"Dull grey.", Zuko spoke, as though he was reciting facts instead of finding himself stranded in the front of a burnt house, away from his nation, a spirit inside him and a growing urge to end things, cry, or both.

The spirit kept quiet.

And so did Zuko, determined to play the game even if he wasn't familiar with the rules, let alone how to keep up with an experienced player such as a soul who had apparently taken birth some five weeks after the world had formed.

His left leg shook slightly as he limped towards the house, a gash from where he had fallen down starting to bleed.

He paid it no attention, like all other injuries of his, it wasn't causing him any pain.

Half of his face looked like a smashed brick but he felt as he had just washed his face.

The wonders of the world.

Maybe something was there, clothes bigger than him, a torn hat, and if he was particularly hopeful, a dead spider rat which he could firebend and eat.

He wondered how had he turned into such a desperate man within moments, clearly remembering how proud he had always been of his nation and himself, even if his father told him that he was worthless.

Something in him always knew that he was worth something.

He took care to avoid the damp parts of the steps leading to the small patio and the half burnt door, his feet, bare, dusty and slightly wet.

He leaned against the door, trying to push it open but when it only creaked in response, the spirit spoke again.

"Rip it out. I'll help you."

He decided to take those words with a grain of salt, but he ripped out the door either way, coughing as dust flew into his face, aching to escape the rusted hinges of the door, his actions a catalyst for them.

Sunlight was creeping into the house like an unvited guest, the cracks of the window providing the trespasser a path.

He rummaged around the house, and all he found were a pair of boots and a rusted knife.

The footwear was ill-fitting, but it was better than bare feet with calluses on them, and he decided to put them on anyways, trying to remember if he had any trace of other humans nearby.

He hadn't.

As for the knife, he held it at an arm's distance from himself, trying to decide what to do.

(Him and Uncle Iroh cutting of their hai-)

He was the Firelord in another life, and with that thought in his mind, he brought it closer to his head, intending to cut off his hair when he realised two things.

He was about to cut off his hair, a link which no Fire National, let alone Royalty would have ever done. Even on death's door, the hair was cut off carefully, a mark of the person's honor and loyalty to themselves, and their nation.

Something in him knew that it was a deed which he would have never forgiven himself for, but at the same time he felt oddly at peace.

The second thing he realised was that his hair, which had come up to his shoulders before... everything- was cut at chin length, not a single strand falling into his face despite him doing a variety of physical activities moments after he was a human again.

It was adorned in a topknot, which he let loose immediately, lest anyone recognise him.

"What did you do?", He muttered the moment his hair was free from its bounds much unlike the owner of the hair, unsure of whether he was speaking to himself or to the nameless spirit.

"I'm not nameless."

"What do I call you then?"

"Whatever you wish."

"Does bitch sound good?"

"I don't think so."

Zuko decided to go with Jeon, the name of his firebending sifu.

A stiff name, suiting one who couldn't portray warmth no matter how hard he tried. Or didn't try.

It befitted the spirit.

He didn't spare the house a second look as he stepped outside, not squinting despite the afternoon sun determined to blind everyone.

"Go to your west."

He stepped on the doll's head as he moved towards the west, towards the next human establishment he would hopefully find.

                   *****

"It's surprising."

"What's surprising?", He asked, not really caring about the spirit anymore.

He had accepted that what he was doing were the actions of a madman, but he was already supposed to be dead, had been dead, so the words had less impact than what Jeon had desired.

"How differently you're behaving. In the memories I saw, you were... were like a- let's not discuss that."

"I think you have infected me beyond what a healer could reverse.", He responded snarkily, a useless threat hidden in his voice, for nothing could harm the spirit .

It was true, Zuko knew it. The manners and views of the spirit had seeped into his soul like the flavor of the tea leaves Uncle so lovingly told him about. He wasn't sure whether he recognised himself or not. The older Zuko would never have.... never in a million lifetimes would have casually announced his father to be worthless, cut off his topknot like a stray hair, decided to eat a dead spider-rat for his survival.

He would have never even recognised that he would have refused to do those tasks.

"You amuse me."

"Glad that I'm of some use to you."

"Pleased as well, my boy."

My boy.

He gulped, his eyes threatening to overflow with tears.

"You're free to cry."

(Jeon always lies)

(Azula always lies)

(Father won't kill him)

(Father killed him)

Yet another string of meaningless words added to his string of prayers.

"Crying is for the weak."

"Just when I had thought that you were a far cry from what you once were, your older self comes and shows how truly wrong I am."

But Zuko's attention wasn't on Jeon at that moment, his eyes were fixated on a apple lying on the ground instead.

A red apple, ready to bite into, juicy and crunchy-

There wasn't supposed to be an apple around.

It was too convenient.

"What did you do?"

"Tweaked the actions which happened in the past, made a group of nomads drop food as prayer to a spirit."

"I don't care-", Zuko murmured to himself and leapt forward, as though someone else would steal a fruit lying on the dusty ground, ready to slit his throat for food.

As he had expected, he landed on the hard ground belly-first, ignoring the way his boots pinched his toes and his hand reached forward for the fruit, as though it would disappear within moments if not grabbed.

His fingernails were grimey, dirtying the fruit, but he bit into it anyways, rolling the chunks of fruit around in his mouth as he savored everything about it.

The way it felt on his tongue, the taste, the smell, the color- it was as if he had been a puppet all his life, moving without experiencing anything. It was only then that his senses had finally roused from a three year old slumber.

"I wonder what your father would say."

"Would probably be jealous that I have a spirit on my side."

"Our side. And it seems like you aren't that like your older self, I can already sense my own chi within yours."

Zuko stopped eating momentarily, gulping down any bits that were inside his mouth.

"What do you mean?"

In response, Zuko roared black fire, his throat working without him realising it.

Jeon's voice was nothing more than a terrifying whisper when he spoke again, reminding Zuko that no matter what he named the spirit, he still was a mere pawn,"Your eyes are black, young Zuko."

A valuable pawn.

Chapter Text

"I want you to go through your katas again."

Zuko scowled, not understanding why he had to do tasks involving physical strength such as training when the last he had eaten food was some two days ago, the trail of fruits those nomads had dropped.

"I haven't eaten in-"

"You have a spirit residing inside you, do you seriously think that you require food to keep you alive?", Jeon asked incredulously, as if Zuko had announced that he was a Air Nomad while dressed in his Royal Robes.

He missed his Royal Robes. Heavy and itchy they may be, but-

It was better than being shirtless because the rags which made up his shirt was in a deplorable state.

"What am I now?", Zuko muttered, his question directed at himself and Jeon, still in shock over the events of the past... past- 

He didn't even know which time he was in.

He was even more taken aback by how casually he was taking those moments which would have utterly ruined him once upon a time, how much he was at ease, a spirit residing behind his left eye, him being dead for over three years, and undoing his topknot as he would undo a sash on his shoes.

Let alone topknot, he had straight up chopped half his hair off.

His shoes were still hurting his feet.

His burn wasn't hurting him at all.

Quite the contrary was happening instead. His eyes were black, his body mass seemed to have doubled in the past two days, and his sight and hearing had been enhanced beyond what he could ever imagine.

The previous day, when he had stopped by a lake, his left ear had already alerted him to the roars of wild tigerdillos before they could have arrived and torn him apart with their teeth.

He warily raised his hand, bringing his index finger near his burn to examine his burn when Jeon stopped him.

"You'll only hurt yourself more."

Zuko stopped bringing his finger closer to his burn, but still didn't put his hand down, "Like you care."

"I've been working harder than you could imagine to keep your burn safe from infection and insects in this forest, not to mention your hair. I care about you Zuko."

"Why wouldn't you drop me off in a town or something if you really care, maybe even Ba Sing Se. Atleast tell me how close I am to meeting another person and when am I!"

"You died two days ago."

"So I'm trapped in the middle of nowhere, mentally thirteen, physically seventeen, and somehow going crazy about this and still absolutely calm.", Zuko said, his words limp and devoid of any emotion.

Maybe Mai would like him back.

Maybe she already liked him back.

He suddenly understood why she behaved the way she did, and by the time that particular realisation had set into his mind, he had already started walking again.

"I think I told you to practice your katas."

The spirit had secrets which Zuko was terrified yet eager to find yet, too many secrets for someone to count in their lifetime even if Agni helped them, but it had one advantage, one which made Zuko follow whatever Jeon said.

It was truly looking out for him.

Granted, Zuko was preparing himself to be shocked later in his journey, when the spirit revealed that it was part of more elaborate, grander and far more important plan in the history of the world, but for now?

He was thankful for the guidance.

"Sword katas, not firebending ones."

"I don't have any swords."

"Then anything which doesn't require firebending. I'm afraid that you're still not mentally ready to firebend any time soon, not to mention that we are deep in the Earth Kingdom. Besides, where we're going, you won't need firebending."

Zuko was now standing at the outskirts of a village, one which would have been called a town in better times. 

Wooden pegs were present at odd places, and after walking for a short while, it was clear to him that those pegs marked where the foundations of new buildings were to be constructed.

Unlike Caldera, the buildings which were present there lacked any stability, seeming as though they would fall down at any moment. The property present there would have been constructed by Earthbenders with little regard for measurements and physical appearances.

Zuko couldn't blame them.

In the war, having a place to call home was a sign of foolishness in the Fire Nation's eyes, for not surrendering when they had the chance. For the people of the Earth Kingdom it would have been sign that the Spirits were looking out for them.

"I am looking out for you."

"Why did you want me to come here?", Zuko muttered softly, ignoring the look a boy his age gave him.

"Go to the lopsided building."

Before Zuko could indicate that he had heard Jeon's words in any shape or form, the boy from earlier marched up to him, his steps not making a single sound, as though he was floating on air despite a of broadsword attached to his waist, which was also adorned by a tattered red belt, presumably stolen from- he didn't want to think where it had been stolen from.

Zuko doubted whether he could even hold it without breaking his wrist, but some sort of weapon was better than bare fists.

The boy was come up to his nose, and yet somehow Zuko felt as though he was being towered over. Atleast the boy wasn't a bony half dead skeleton. Now that Zuko looked at him carefully, he could see lithe muscles peek out from the large tear in his left sleeve.

Surprising.

He spat out something he had been chewing, one hand on the handle of the sword as he gave Zuko a sort of inspection, bright green eyes judging whether Zuko was worthy enough to been graced to a conversation by him.

Zuko noticed that he did know how to use the weapon after all.

"Looking for business?", His question came in a curt tone, not matching his high pitched voice, even if it did match his determined expression.

Maybe Zuko would have acted like that in another universe.

"Yes.", Zuko decided to go along with whatever the boy had assumed about him. Some money was better than none.

"You're half burnt like the rice Gao made. Why should we take you?" The boy asked casually, expertly avoiding the people on the street with a look that could have frozen the magma in Caldera's volcanos. Zuko trudged behind him, his own steps failing to demonstrate the grace and lithe speed they were renowned for in his class when he was still the Prince of his nation.

"Well... I'm strong."

Strong was an understatement. He did have the core strength needed for many of the feats firebending and swordsmanship required, though it was only a matter of time before Jeon pulled the Earth from under his feet and revealed that he had lost every skill of his; other than failing miserably.

The boy spun around on his heel, barely stirring up any dust while the people sidestepped. A few of them even gathered around them and he faintly wondered if they were waiting for an impromptu play. He regarded Zuko with laziness, as if strength was something as common as the earth. He confirmed Zuko's thoughts a few seconds later. "Am I supposed to be impressed by that?"

"I know how to use the dual dao." He added, the uncomfortableness of the situation and setting making beads of sweat collect on his upper lip.

There were certainly better places to hold such conversations, weren't there? Why was a half empty bazaar full of people who reminded him of the freshly graduated cadets from the Fire Nation Military Academy the chosen place to talk about someone's skills?

The boy didn't seem to mind though - the street nothing more than a fly buzzing near his ear for him, and replied. "Interesting.", The 'r' was rolled out, and he gestured for Zuko to follow him after a few more seconds of a scrutinising look.

Zuko had the faintest feeling that people were mildly dissaapointed at the outcome of the entire conversation.

"You didn't even ask me my name." He noted quietly before mentally berating himself for pointing that particular feature out. Zuko was... as Fire Nation as Dragons were. Both of them were also supposed to be dead, but judging by his vision of the future- two of them lived.

Lies slipped off his tongue like butter, mirroring Azula's skills like a well polished knife.

"Don't want to know it." He was barely spared a glance, a stark contrast to the small scene they had created just a few minutes ago.

"My age?" His curiousity was piqued easily, and he found himself questioning the boy's unorthodox ways of hiring people as they shouldered through the now slightly less crowded street.

"Don't wanna know it." The boy waved his hand in the sort of unbothered way so many people did. They took a sharp turn into an alley with broken cobblestones and a short stretch through am area shrouded with enough shade that one would feel they were in an abandoned hallway.

"I could be an assassin for all you know." He tried to make a joke which fell flat the minute those words exited his mouth. The conditions surrounding the appearance of the village should have been warning enough, but Zuko never knew to take the surroundings into account— because of course, he didn't.

The boy twisted on his heel yet again, only this time it wasn't as lenient of a motion as it was the previous time. His face revealed uncertainty for a split second before his hand traversed towards the weapon slung on his hip with surprising steadiness. Zuko resisted the impulse to recede into the darkness of the roof. “Do you mean that you aren’t an assassin?”

Oh Agni.

Well. He could work with this. He’s worked with far less and is sure that he might make it out alive.

Not that he could die.

“Listen kid—” The word felt foreign on his tongue, seeing that he was thirteen some... two days ago.

(I died two days ago. I died three years ago. And then I spent three years comatose. Jeon threw me back in time. So I died two days ago. I’m thirteen. But I’m older than a thousand years.)

If only—

And then he got punched in the face.

The place they had arrived at was a shack, one which barely earned that shoddy title at that. The knobs were rust-covered, the door creaky and the path barely lit even as the rays from the sun found the back of Zuko's neck. He pinched the bridge of his nose when the boy opened the door with a rough shove, the noise from the hinges enough to make an owl-cat wish to lose its ears.

Enough to make him wish that he lost his ears.

The room wasn't better, but it still felt as though he had stepped into a new world with nothing more a sickening feel in his stomach and something falling into his eye. He simply pretended that the tear in his eye didn't exist.

It was damp and musty, light falling in ways Zuko couldn't even have imagined existed outside of the frosted glass of the Fire Sages' Temple. Though it seemed like it wasn't required; after all, dust caked windows seemed to achieve the effect well enough, masquerading as something one wasn't was an easy task.

There was a man bent over a wobbly table in the centre of the room (why was there a table in the centre of the room? It seemed... unsettling.) There was the scent of something unnatural in the room, though it might have been him who was emitting the stench.

Light was still an uninvited guest.

"Why in Oma's name is he bleeding?", The man had initially raised his head to greet his friend, but his mouth open to speak words of familiarity quickly twisted into a concerned expression.

Either he was a lousy assassin, or a brilliant actor.

Perhaps both.

"Called me a kid." The boy crossed his arms, blatantly ignoring that he was the one who had dragged Zuko to this dump of a house after probably breaking his nose, muttering about how he was eat up his medicines as if he was some spirit who was forever hungry for bandages.

"You're thirteen, you are a kid." The man spoke slowly, and Zuko was reminded of Lu Ten.

Ah.

There wasn't any time for it though.

There wasn't time for anything.

"I was the one who took down the laison officer the Firelord sent and you were there! Kids don't kill-"

Children... were killing.

"Hand him a shirt." The man's voice was curt and demanded for his words to be followed, yet Zuko felt oddly comforted by it.

"To wear or to clean up his face?"

"Half his face is burnt off."

"To wear or to clean up?" He repeated his question as if he hadn't heard Kenta's words.

"Both will work.", Zuko spoke for the first time, grabbing a clean enough vest of sorts from a heap of (hopefully) clean clothes. He held up the article of clothing, a questioning look on his face, "Is this clean?"

The boy nodded, while the older man hummed, giving him permission to wear the shirt.

"What town is this?", He decided to voice his questions as he pulled down the shirt over his bare torso, not caring about the consequences of his question.

He found himself wondering how he had changed within a span of five days yet again.

"Three years, and our chi is one now. Along with the memories which I make you witness. You've changed over a span of three years.", Jeon whispered to him.

The man eyed him curiously. "Your name?"

"Lee." He answered without a shadow of hesitation. Lies came easy to him now, something that would have never happened

"You got beat up by Kenta here." He gestured towards the scowling boy with his thumb.

"I let myself get punched. There's a difference between the two."

"Huh- I like that attitude."

He allowed himself to relax at that, because there was nothing else he could do.

Nothing. At. All.

Chapter Text

Zuko raised an eyebrow (his only remaining one) as the the uncharacteristically pristine cup in his hand was already moving away from his lips, "This is poison. Trying to assassinate an assassin? I shouldn't have let my guard down."

He could feel Jeon humming in approval, even if it was Jeon himself who had warned him about the uncertain death he was holding in his left hand.

His hand was clammy with cold sweat, brows drawn together in a look of intense concentration as if he had just not announced those Ming and Kenta's intentions a few seconds ago. The liquid in the cup moved to and fro as their gazes met level, and he spoke again. "What was the aim of poisoning me? It doesn't... make any sense."

"We wanted to—" Ming, the older of the two men started speaking before abruptly ending his sentence. The silence overtook the room like a fog for a few seconds before he finished his sentence. “—make sure that you weren't Fire Nation.”

That made sense. Firebenders always had the option to burn the poison out of their blood, leaving nothing but the stench of death and rotting carcasses in the air.

Kenta's eyes were still wide, letting the newcomer — he called himself Lee — have a good look at his expression of pure shock; he was certain that he had caught a small smirk hidden behind his cup. It dissapeared just as quickly as it had appeared and he tried not to freeze in fear — he very nearly had. The tone of his voice, the look in his eyes.

It would be difficult to describe the subtle brotherhood of a boy and a young man that was here established in the half abandoned villages of the Earth Kingdom.

No one said that it was so. No one mentioned it.

But it dwelt in the dingy room, and each of the two felt it warm them even as the sun set over the horizon. It was more than a mere recognition of what was best for the common safety. There was surely in it a quality that was personal and heartfelt.

And then there was Lee.

He tried to glance discreetly at Ming, that single look of surprise, fear, awe and every emotion in between telling his friend every thought that had fleeted across his mind.

Lee was too common of a name.

Black eyes met his green one in a moment where he was caught offguard, and he tried to resist the urge to stand up and scream at him. He was far too calm for someone who had just detected poison in his tea.

He just tried to prepare himself for what Lee would say next, or maybe even for Lee to stand up and motion for Fire Nation soldiers to jump out of the woodwork and crevices and arrest them.

But no such thing happened.

"Clever, using a poison which can't be traced back once the victim's dead." Lee spoke after a pause, as though he had carefully chosen his words, rolling them around his mouth to judge their weight like a goldsmith weighing ornaments before speaking out loud.

Kenta was still suspicious.

He wished that he hadn't put his hair into a ponytail. Ponytails were childish,,, but so was having loose hair. Oma no—

"You're looking at me as though I'll kill you within moments." Lee spoke calmly, tilting his head to one side as he leaned back on the sofa, his tone and body language showing nothing but nonchalance. The scarred teenager caught Ming looking at him quizzically and responded im a light manner, as if they were sworn friends. "Why, can't I sit comfortably? Look at Kenta, he looks like... he saw me return from the dead."

Kenta felt a drop of sweat roll dowm his forehead, and he frantically tried to sit in a relaxed manner — thus undoing all his efforts — but he was determined not to let Lee gain the upper hand.

But he was afraid that chances were that he was already late.

ted the urge to get up and scream, or even pull out his hair, bony and pale hands tugging at the choppy bangs he had given himself in a fit of madness.

He was terrified, with no idea of what the future held despite having the power to see it all. There was no memory or vision from which his mind could evolve a daydream or calm himself, and thus he could do nothing but lean back against the sofa.

In stark contrast to his earlier predicament, he could however think about slimy hands made of the worst nightmares of mankind, reaching out for him as gunk oozed from them, the squelching sound as they wrapped themselves around his neck as he pleaded for his last moments—

No. He wouldn't plead, he'd look death in the eyes—

"I won't kill you. Trust me on that."

Zuko chose the ignore the nagging voice that was Jeon, his attention solely on the man attempting to interrogate him. His gaze was sharp, a dark fire present behind the eyes in the true manner of Sozin's descendant.

"Who are you?" Ming shifted in his seat slightly even as he asked him the question, almost as if he was afraid of who Zuko was. People almost flinching in fear before him was something he was largely unfamiliar with, mainly because of how insignificant his entire life had been. He was neither a prodigy nor born with a prophecy dictating his life- and there was no reason for him to be the centrepiece of whatever event he attended unless everyone else was so utterly boring that there was only him.

He found that fear was uncomfortable and numbing.

No wonder he had been a weakling in his father’s eyes. The sheer chill that ran up his spine at being revelled with fear was probably what his father craved for, and so did many of the men in the Fire Nation that fell prey to whatever his nation had morphed into.

His father being on the receiving end of such fear made lightning spark across his veins, alive and blinding white. He could just imagine looking the man in the eye as the Avatar defeated him, the way he would make the man who sired him fear for his very existence after seeing his son crawl back from the afterworld.

There it was again, him openly showing contempt and hatred for his father, something which would no doubt fester into something even more ugly, something which even Zuko would fear to live through.

"I'm not here to kill you. Not when you've shown me such kindness.", He spoke in a level tone, glancing at the teacup present in his hand, still kept hot due to his firebending, steam rising from it.

It would have been inviting picture if not for the circumstances.

Three people, of nearly the same age seated around a broken table, having a conversation over poisoned tea.

Ming started, not knowing how to respond despite being a few years older than the two of them, "Well, I-"

Zuko's behavior almost reminded himself of Azula.

Azula, but with higher stakes, and unlike his sister, he was slowly losing his mind.

He closed his eyes, his face the picture of understanding, "I understand. You can never take too many precautions. The question remains- Do you want to join me?"

Zuko's eyes widened momentarily, an action he hoped went unnoticed in the shadows of the trees outside the window. He didn't know why he had spoken those words, he didn't even realise what he had did till it was too late.

"Just follow my lead."

The words were said as though it was Lu Ten was teaching him how to do the most basic of firebending, from when he was six and he had just firebending, afraid of his father scolding him for being so slow.

He just realised who his fake identity was based on.

Lu Ten.

He had heard about how Lu Ten was ruthless, both in the battlefield and in court, a presence to be afraid of if you weren't family.

Maybe even then, he still remembered the day his father had come home from court with his face the image of rage, apparently humilated by Lu Ten pointing out the mistakes in his plan for.... for something.

Even Ming made a small humph sound at that, snorting at the very notion.

"Join you? On what?"

"On the path to make a proper reputation.", Zuko answered nonchalantly, taking a sip of the tea with no hesitation, ignoring the way Kenta's jaw nearly dropped to the floor.

Till a few seconds ago, he could hear Jeon whispering to him in a voice so low that he could have almost missed it, "The tea won't harm you. I'm one of the most powerful spirits in the world, not to mention-"

Zuko stopped listening after Jeon told him that the poison would be harmless.

After all, there were only two possibilities.

Either he would die, or he would not.

"...Are you crazy? That tea is-"

"-Delicious, that's what it is. Although it could use a bit more time to steep, my uncle would say.", He leaned down to place the cup on the table, making sure that both Ming and Kenta would be able to see that it was empty, and that he still hadn't died.

Of course the poison could be a slow acting one, but judging by the looks on their faces, he was supposed to dead right now, or gasping for his last breath at the very least.

"You aren't-", Kenta's words trailed off, eyes flickering from Ming to the cup to Zuko, waiting for some sort of reaction.

"Dying? I've done that many times, but I always find a way to come back to life. Do you agree with my proposition?", Zuko leaned forward, his chin resting on his fist, a mildly curious expression on his face.

Kenta and Ming exhanged a small glance, and Zuko yawned, as though this entire deal was below him, a tiny scratch compared to half his face and the drops of the poisoned tea stuck to his lips.

It would have been below him in another world, where father loved him and he was about to-

"He never loved you Zuko, unlike me. I despise humans, but I hate you less than everybody else. I would hesitate before draining your chi, unlike-"

Ming spoke, "What is your plan?"

Zuko smiled, something which sent shivers up his companions' spines, "Defeat the Firelord of course, but first we take care of local matters, wait for a sign from the spirits and- The next thing we know, Ozai is off the throne."

"Sign from the spirits? Do they even exist, they left us all this time-", Kenta's voice was filled with disgust.

"I believe in spirits, and that's all you need to know."

Chapter Text

“Who is it this time?”, Zuko asked, leaning over the desk so that he could glance at the paper, hopefully read the letters written there as well.

Despite him living in the Earth Kingdom for some three years, along with Kenta and Ming teaching him the script used in southern Earth Kingdom every night before they went to bed, he still had difficulty in grasping them.

They didn’t ask questions, something which was to be expected after seeing him survive the poison without any effect. On the contrary, it was as if the poison had strengthened him. As expected from a boy who carried the spirit of death and time in his left eye.

Grasping another dialect was something that Azula would have done easily, without breaking a sweat in-fact, but Azula wasn’t the one who killed her own countrymen for a living.

It was Zuko.

He faintly thought about how far, or rather how low he had come. The reason behind his death was speaking out in defence of the Forty First Division, and here he was. Murdering his fellow Fire Nation citizens.

The one thing which consoled him was that he wasn’t murdering innocents, people who had been fed propaganda for their entire lives. They were only targeting the higher ups, the one who had seen the reality, but had chosen to blind themselves with the comforts of Caldera, sending innocents to their death while they sat in the War Room, not having seen a battle in the past decade, other than the occasional visit to the Ember Island Players.

He wasn't killing their guards, but his friends were. He couldn’t say anything for them, after knowing their history.

He barely suppressed a scowl, and Jeon barely suppressed a snappy comment.

It seemed as though the spirit had been impatient lately, his mood worsening with every passing day, and Zuko hadn’t been receiving any memories as far he could recall, although that could easily be Jeon erasing his memories.

These three years had taught him a lot; how to kill someone before they even knew that they were being killed, hide in the most cramped spaces for hours, and the fact that he had his own guardian spirit really helped.

But the most valuable lesson he had learnt was that keeping a guard against Jeon was ultimately a failed but valiant attempt. It wasn’t as if Jeon didn’t appreciate the efforts, he found it amusing- and murmured about how it was part of the reason why he had chosen Zuko.

It felt nice, to be not compared to his sister everyday.

“Just… just a very vague letter.”, Kenta said, squinting at the letters in front of him, trying to make sense of what was going on.

“Let me see.”, Zuko snatched the sheet from him, reading the letter with some effort.

His eyes widened, interpreting the words of the letter with ease, and a small grin appeared on his face, and he flicked the page with one finger, as Kenta looked curiously at him.

“We can finally kill that bastard tonight.”, He patted Kenta on the back, whose expression changed into one of triumph within seconds, as he started to drill him for more information.

“You can?”, Kenta asked, not believing his words. His expression was that of a three year old who had been informed that his mother wasn't named ‘mama’.

“The harvest is bountiful, that means we’ll get a lot of money- and from what it seems like, we have a clear opening today afternoon- see this part.”, He pointed to a hastily written letter, as if written by an excited relative informing that they may not starve that year.

“Working under the sun is hard as always, especially my last straw hat was torn- but I’m sure that we’ll manage to not get burnt.”, Ming read, stepping out of the corner he had been sitting in.

“Under the sun- afternoon. Last straw hat was torn- wear commoner’s clothes, and it seems like he has guards.”, Zuko expounded, his voice barely containing his happiness.

“What are we waiting for?”, Ming asked, a huge grin now present on his own face.

It was an expression which people saw rarely on his face, unless he was interacting with children. If that was the case, then the tall as a door, broad shouldered man; who had took down people without breaking a sweat – turned into a friendly stranger, one who tried to talk to every child who looked at him curiously, putting them at ease.

“Nothing.”, Kenta said gleefully, getting up to prepare their materials.

"Don't carry your broadsword, you won't be able to act like a peasant then.", Ming told Kenta, and Zuko nodded.

***

Zuko adjusted his obi, taking care so that it wouldn’t give way, letting his weapons fall out of his clothes. Then he glanced at the mansion again.

“Here he comes.”, Kenta muttered to him, handing him a stack of hay that some very kind farmers had given them, on the condition that they would finally kill the mayor of their town, making him the fifth official to die in Paibi, leaving them free to farm rice instead of wheat.

Zuko had his own secret deal with the farmers- he wanted a pouch of wheat, in case of emergencies when he needed to make something explode. And that was in addition to what the farmers were already paying them, so he figured that it was a good deal. A bag of food, some working weapons, and a pouch of wheat was a good enough trade, even though the last one was only for him.

When the job was over, they’d pack up and leave.

It was something they had discovered long ago, when Zuko was trying to rebuild their reputation from below the ground, and unlike Kenta- he wasn’t an earth-bender. Staying at one place for too long was risky, and so was expecting anything more than enough food to last them till their next job came by.

“Ming’s in place?”, Zuko asked, his voice lowering so that nobody could hear his words.

Kenta nodded.

A cry rang out, followed by two guards crumpling to the ground as if they were made out of twigs, falling down the moment a breeze hit them.

***

“Go, go, go!”, Kenta whisper-shouted, clapping Lee on the back before rushing to the garden walls, breaking it easily as he slammed through the brick and mortar, unharmed as he reached the other side.

“Oof, I guess I needed more force.”, Kenta muttered to himself, before he realised where he was- surrounded by armed Fire Nation guards. He quickly bended a large enough rock, using it to smash the window closest to him, on the second floor.

He was a below average earth-bender, maybe even weak- and he would be the first to admit that. Having spent most of his life on the run, with Ming looking out for the both of them- he never really had the chance to practice earthbending. That wasn’t mentioning the time they… they- he didn’t want to think about it. But what he would attest to was the fact that he knew how to use the small supply of earth he did have access to, having needed to be stingy with it before.

“Nice day gentlemen, and women!”, He taunted the guards, the ones he was envious of for having their element around them no matter what, but he quickly suppressed his thoughts, using his earthbending to climb up the wall, albeit a bit clumsily- but it did the job and that was all that mattered, slipping inside the corridor through the broken window, the shards of glass scratching him.

He could only hope that Lee had infiltrated the house, using the distraction he and Ming had created to his full advantage, even if he didn’t need it.

There was a time where he would have tripped over his own feet if Lee had even glanced at him, such was his fear of the ‘Poisoned Boy’, the name he was usually referred to by others. It had lasted for about a month before Lee had made the both of them sit down, and talked to them as if they were childhood playmates. It was something else which unnerved him about Lee. His eyes indicated that he had lived hundreds of years, if not all the years that had ever existed, but he hadn’t aged physically in the past 3 years. It was if an immortal spirit was stuck inside the body of a sixteen year old, cursed to roam the mortal world for all of eternity.

But… but Lee seemed too human, he laughed when someone made a bad joke, cried when his scar was touched and-

“Not today buddy.”, He muttered, staring at the dead body in front of him, a thin pillar of earth stuck through his neck, its ends barely visible.

He quickly bended the earth out of the dead man’s neck, and back into the bracelet made out of dirt that he always wore around his wrists and moved inwards, to the large courtyard.

***

“Who are you?”, The man stammered out, sweat on his upper lip.

“Prince Zuko, firstborn of Lady Ursa and great-grandson of Roku.”, Zuko snarled, the knife in his hand being the only thing keeping his son standing at the doorway at bay.

Without a care, Zuko threw the knife at the mayor’s son, hoping that he wasn’t wearing some sort of hidden armour, as from what he could see, his armbands were the only form of protection he had.

The man fell to the ground with a thud, life draining out of him slowly.

Zuko glanced at the door, checking of it was locked or not.

“Let’s talk.”, His victim pleaded, his behaviour extremely different from two days ago, when he had kicked a farmer, demanding more taxes.

“I know that you want to kill him and not look back, but listen to him.”, Jeon said, stopping him breaking the mayor’s neck.

Zuko stopped himself from rolling his eyes, and chose to draw his hand back, before he leaned close to the mayor’s ear, and said a single word.

“Speak.”

And speak he did, he spoke till his throat hurt, and Zuko listened, he listened till he could no more.

“There are plans to conquer Omashu? I’ll know if you’re lying.”, Zuko said in a cold whisper, clutching the collar of the mayor’s sabai, his eyes wide with fear.

The man nodded, glancing at the door in the hope of seeing guards tush in to rescue him. His eyebrows rose when he heard footsteps, while Zuko stayed still.

He knew those footsteps.

“I thought they killed you idiots.”, Zuko spoke loudly, making sure to meet the mayor’s eyes, savouring the way fear gleamed in his amber eyes as he realised that no help was coming.

“We’re not leaving you that quickly, ‘Poisoned Boy’.”, Ming replied in a calm tone, stepping over the dead body as if it was nothing more than a pebble, ready to be picked-

Here he was.

“Ooh, I like this knife. Not meant to throw, but stab. I like it.”, Kenta remarked, presumably kneeling down as he searched his pockets.

Kenta, who always collected stones just because he hadn’t seen Earth for two years straight- was searching the pebble for dust.

Zuko faintly wondered if his little gang could defeat Azula’s.

And then faintly wondered if Ty Lee and Mai still remembered him. He wondered if Azula used his name as a warning, hidden in good natured jokes.

“Lee? You good?”

Zuko’s right eye narrowed, and it shined momentarily- a warning to not speak about his real identity.

“Yes. Just found out that there are plans to conquer Omashu. He says that his nephew is a captain- and they’re currently training guards for the new Governor of Omashu.”

“You look way too sure that the Fire Nation will win.”, Ming remarked, now standing next to Zuko, his arms crossed.

“Trust me on this friend. Something in my gut tells me that it will happen.”, He spoke quickly, hoping that he wouldn’t see through his lies.

He knew that his cover was falling, and it was falling fast, and he could not nothing other than try to hold the last pieces of pai-sho in his hand, and see as Ming defeated him.

He had one resort, the White Lotus tile, but he didn’t know how to play it, and he’d rather not use it till nothing was left.

His only hope was that he was a good enough of a player for the game to end in a draw, as many tournaments among masters were.

“Finish him quickly Lee, we need to go.”, Ming ushered him, a stoney expression on his face.

Zuko nodded, and slit the mayor’s throat, leaving him lying for someone to discover later.

***

“I’m going to tell them.”, Zuko murmured to himself,, the sun falling into his eyes.

“Go ahead.”, Jeon encouraged, his voice a whisper just like how Zuko remembered it the first time seeing Jeon’s eyes.

He had never seen them again.

“Lee, you fine?”, Kenta stopped walking, turning around to look at him, his eyes full of concern.

Zuko didn’t deserve it.

Zuko didn’t deserve anything that he had gotten in the past three years.

“I’m a firebender.”, He blurted out, sinking into the ground, much like those guards they had killed.

Ming didn’t turn around, still walking, and Kenta turned around once again, only this time it was away from him.

“I…”, Zuko started, hoping that he would say something which would persuade them to talk to him again, but he knew that he should simply be grateful that they hadn’t started fighting him and he nodded, even if they couldn’t see him.

“It was nice knowing you.”, He spoke after a while.

"And it will be even nicer knowing you for the rest of our lives.”, Ming spoke quietly, still not turning around.

“You coming? Because if you get lost then I’m not searching for you.”, Kenta spoke as well, his voice barely audible.

Zuko blinked.

“We always knew you that you’re a firebender, you koala-bear.”, Ming said, cracking a rare smile as he turned around to look at him.

“There’s no other way your tea is always hot.”, Kenta added.

“YOU GUYS-“

Chapter Text

Ming wasn’t a man of many words, other than all the times when he held a conversation with his friends.

He supposed that it was just something he was born with, because whenever he tried to remember his childhood, all he saw was his mother slaving away, all the while they waited for his father to come back. 

He didn’t remember whether his father was even alive or not, but it didn’t matter.

He had his own family to take care of now. 

Lee and Kenta.

Kenta, he was someone which Ming himself used to be once upon a time, and while it was too late to try protecting his innocence, and he had no intentions to save his innocence in the first place, but he felt that he had a sense of duty towards the eighteen year old.

Lee… Lee was different. He hadn’t aged in the past three years, and it was only now that he seemed to grow a bit older. But something in him told that he could trust Lee, even with him surviving concentrated shirshu poison, and him hiding the fact that he was a firebender. 

A firebender with black fire.

He knew that he could trust the two of them, and he was certain that trusted them, not that it was difficult to do after all they had been through; but even he knew that Lee had many secrets.

His thoughts were interrupted when he felt a small figure bump into him, seemingly alone.

“Excuse me, I think you dropped this flower.”, Ming said in a small voice, kneeling down so as to not scare the small boy. He smiled tentatively, his brown eyes twinkling in the dusk.

While Ming wasn’t a giant, he was… was as tall as a door, so he figured that it did make him a giant, but the feature which was the most responsible for scaring people away was a knife scar which ran along his left cheek.

He only hoped that the child wouldn’t be afraid, or that he wouldn't notice that he had not dropped a rose, but Ming had produced it from his pouch.

It was a simple but effective tactic which he used, so that his people wouldn’t fear him.

The child gave him a look, or rather gave his cheek a look, before he took the flower, his hand hesitant as if he was being given hope for a split second, only to take that hope away from him.

The most despicable of tortures, in Ming’s opinion.

“Thank you.”, He replied in a small voice, turning around to look if anyone was observing their interaction.

“Have this as wel- I won’t hurt you, it’s fine.”, He said, just as the boy ran away, kicking dust up into his eyes.

Had he been an earthbender then he would have bent away the dust, but he was nothing more than a skilled healer, so he was left alone, kneeling in the middle of the road with a dusty loaf of bread in his hand.

“Those street wench-”, A man started, giving him a look of pity, one which people gave to those who pawned their jewels, bought them back and pawned them again.

Stuck in a cycle.

By their standards, he was stuck in a cycle of being kind.

He got up, the bread already inside his pocket once again, “Giving a child a flower gives them nothing more than a flower.”

The man humphed, clearly believing that he was an idealistic fool, “You were giving him food.”

“I can live for a couple of days at the least without food, he needs it more than me.”, He said evenly, choosing not to make eye contact with the old man, walking away in the direction he was intending to when he noticed something.

The man had amber eyes, and the way he spoke reminded him of some of the soldiers-

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t met mixed people ever before in his life, he was one himself - but something in him told him that he needed to keep a close watch on this man.

And he wasn’t one to argue with himself.

“Admiral Zhao really believes that he’ll be able to take the Northern Water Tribe.”, The man guffawed, alcohol spilling all over his beard, “At least I’ll be able to prove my loyalty to my nation if that fool does something. Curse my old bastard for taking a whore as his wife.”

Ming believed that he had truly sunk low, much like what he wanted to happen to this Zhao’s ship.

His… he couldn’t let his mother’s home be taken by the Fire Nation. 

He took a deep breath, trying to make sure that he was not visible from the rooftop. He had been lying on his stomach for the past hour, having lied to his friends about where he was going.

It was taking all of his skill to not make water drip from rotting wood, and even more of his fine control to not fall down from the slant. He had used his waterbending to make makeshift claws for his fingers, using them to hang on the outer side of a bar’s filthy roof. He prayed to Oma for the first time in his life so that the wood would not creak, and it seemed like his prayers were working until they were not.

“HEY! WHO ARE YO-”, The man found him by pure chance, when he was scanning the sky for… for something he hadn’t bothered to listen to. 

His words were slurred, and he was in the outhouse of a cheap bar - but just the fact that a Fire Nation soldier felt comfortable enough to drink in a Earth Kingdom port was alarming enough for him to let go of his grip and use the water present there to make a slide of sorts, allowing him to slip down the roof. For all he knew, the bar could be filled with more and more soldiers.

He didn’t look back the minute his feet touched the ground, embracing the feel of his father’s element and he ran till he could run no more.

“Let me get this straight, we discovered two plans of the Fire Nation, both of them targeting Kingdoms- in a span of a week?”, Zuko asked, already planning on talking to Jeon later.

Hopefully, this little secret of his wasn’t as publicised as his other one.

Ming nodded, his eyes full of disbelief, “I… I don’t know. Maybe what we need next is for the dead prince to pop up alive again, huh?”

Kenta let out a nervous laugh at that, just as Zuko stiffened.

That… that secret of his would get him killed.

“That would be a surprise for sure, having the man come back to life.”, Zuko muttered, staring at his lap.

“Boy.”, Ming quietly corrected him.

“Hmm?”

“The princess is what… thirteen or fourteen this year? The boy died some three years ago. He was… eleven, I think?”, Kenta mused, tilting his head back so that he could get a proper look at the damp, ugly roof.

Ah, Zuko even found a hole in the roof.

“Fourteen, judging by what I know.”, Ming informed, his head shaking as he followed Zuko and Kenta’s actions.

“But he was a boy.”, Kenta’s voice came in a smaller tone than what Zuko had expected.

“He would have burned the Earth Kingdom down if given the chance.”

“Lee. That was supposed to be his future. Not his past.”

Zuko sighed, letting himself fall to the ground, “I suppose you’re right.”

“This doesn’t explain what we’re going to do.”

With all these events happening… Zuko contemplated running away from his worries, but he knew that Jeon would never let him. And he couldn’t leave his friends alone. But his biggest worry was about the Avatar.  

It had been three years since he had gotten burned, and the water tribe siblings were supposed to free him from the iceberg already. He had full trust in his friends, but he doubted that they could stand against the Firelord and… and his sister alone.

“What do we do now?”, Kenta voiced their collective fear.

Zuko sometimes considered that for someone who was supposed to follow the principles of neutral jing , Kenta was like a firebender.

Choosing to confront problems even before they came anywhere near him. He stayed on the offensive in most situations, but now that he thought about it, Kenta believed in waiting for the next step as well. It just surfaced rarely, but when it did, it was as if he was a different person altogether.

“Such contrast, in one person. Just like you.”, Jeon whispered into his ear, sending shivers up his spine.

Zuko knew Jeon well, which was how he knew Jeon had basically admitted to changing the circumstances by a hair’s breadth, just for him to lose his mind over something he couldn’t control.

“You can control it, but-”

“We can’t kill the head of the mission. In both cases. The leadership would just get transferred to equally capable people, and it would be for vain.”, Ming mused, looking them in the face.

“I look Fire Nation enough. Maybe I can sneak on the ship, and kill-”, Zuko suggested, just before he realised how foolish his idea was.

If anyone saw the left side of his face, then he would be ou-

“We can go to Pohuai for now and get poison like always.”

“Let’s just go to sleep for now.”

The journey to Pohuai was not an easy one by any means.

But they finally reached a village where they could stay before their  path went through thick forests.

“You suppose that I could lavabend?”, Kenta asked in jest, staring at Mount Makapu with awe.

Zuko regarded him with a look of playfulness, “Sure, go ahead. Climb up the mountain and go collect the lava. Maybe you’ll finally cook for us using lava.”

Kenta nudged him in the back, “Oi. There’s a reason why we keep you around.”

“I’m not a good cook by-”

“We meant the fuel, you’re good enough with an axe.”, Kenta quipped.

Zuko knew that he were tempted to call him by his nickname ‘Fireboy’ but… it was clear why they couldn’t.

“I apologise… I don’t have enough money to- maybe this would work?”

Zuko and Kenta turned around to see Ming try to barter with a shopkeeper for a pair of sturdy shoes.

It wasn’t going well.

“He’ll use our name just about now.”, Kenta murmured to him, his arms crossed.

Ming, seemingly tired of the shopkeeper’s nagging- leaned closer to the man, whispering a few words into his ear.

It was followed by the man turning his head to look at them, his eyes wide with an open mouth the moment he spotted them.

Kenta waved cheerfully.

They got three pairs of shoes.

Chapter Text

If Zuko could use one word to describe his surroundings, it would be damp.

It was clear that it was about to rain in a few days, and the humidity was determined to remind him of that piece of information till it became ingrained inside him, much like how Jeon had.

“You finally remembered me.”, Jeon drawled, his tone suggesting that he wanted to do anything other than be there.

“I did.”, Zuko murmured, taking care to avoid his mouth being seen by his friends, the way his lower lip trembled.

“The weather really is terrible.”, Jeon remarked, his voice soft- but it felt as if something was grating into Zuko’s brain, grabbing hold of it so that he couldn’t see, feel, breathe, be.

It was a miserable existence- but better than no existence.

And besides, the pain could be explained by his mental state, and not by Jeon.

Jeon hadn’t hurt him.

(Yet)

Zuko tilted his head upwards, his eyes widening as he tried to take in the world around him- make it a part of his very being.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Kenta toy around with a small pebble, crushing it to dust between his fingers only to make it into a pebble once again with a swift motion of his hand.

Ming was doing the same, whistling as he made the dew stuck on the grass into small bits of ice, almost crystalline in appearance.

They had been walking for the past two hours, occasionally making small comments about anything- anything to get their mind off what they had discovered in the past two weeks.

The silence unnerved him, but also soothed him. 

It was like drinking anything even resembling water after being parched for four days- a split second where it was soothing, calming him with hushed whispers about how his mouth could finally feel something wet other than his blood, but also the feeling of his stomach being stabbed as the liquid made its descent, every cell of his body hurting, a conspiracy to make him writhe on the ground with pain.

The silence was-

He was still getting used to feeling the world like Jeon did.

The sky seemed as though a child had dipped his fingers in sand, and then streaked them across the sky, leaving strips of a pale orange across it, with flecks scattered across the vast expanse pf the infinite universe. The silence included, gave the atmosphere an ominous aura, as though he was back in that cave. 

Let alone a few days, it would rain in an hour.

“Lee, you fine buddy?”, Ming asked, turning around to glance at him, while Kenta stopped walking altogether.

Zuko’s eyebrows furrowed together as he nodded with hazy eyes, “What- yeah.”

He was met with a raised eyebrow, Kenta clearly questioning when he was going to stop lying, but he just gave a weak smile in response.

“So when are you going to stop lying?”

“You know the answer as well I do, Jeon.”

They had opted to walk through the woods, if only to avoid the Pohuai Stronghold. It was useless to kill a military commander stationed outside the nation, something they had learned quickly. Soldiers were like crops in a field, and the commander  the sickle. They could break a sickle, burn it even, but ultimately, using a different sickle wouldn’t make any difference. 

Crops would be cut either way.

The path they were walking on was dusty, covered with vegetation and to some extent- muddy.

Ah.

Seemed like Ming was having a bit too much fun with waterbending. 

“The road is surprisingly flat.”, Kenta remarked, and they all stopped walking for a moment, as though it had been a prior agreement.

Roads in the woods shouldn’t be flat and even.

It would have been smart to voice what they were thinking, but acting ignorant was its own reward.

Let the enemy think that you’re a fool, a gambler- and then make play him into the gambler’s hands.

“Too many animals and some of the soldiers I guess.”, Ming said, as if testing the waters. 

“I think you’re right.”, Kenta nervously chuckled, before they continued moving forward.

The path to the Healer’s home was long and winded, as though someone had taken a piece of flexible rope and stretched it beyond what it was could muster, leaving it at a near breaking point.

The sky itself had turned dark, a crack of lightning present for a split second as though foreshadowing something which was about to happen; a flash of a future memory.

It was followed by even more flashes of lightning in the sky, a contrast from the dark grey, Jeon muttering something about how he couldn’t handle the humidity.

Like everyday, Zuko found himself questioning how powerful Jeon really was. 

Defying death, time, memories, weather, everything seemed to be what firebending was for Azula. 

And yet he was forbidden to kill Zhao.

The one person whose death would make all the difference, and he-

Something about how some things are unchangeable.

His death was changeable.

Yue’s death wasn’t.

“You’re far more important than her, young Zuko-“, Jeon’s whispers started again, but Zuko chose to ignore it- the rain which had started roughly a minute ago making his hair stick to his face.

Ming was walking, no motions other than the movement of his legs present as the rain seemed to avoid him all together, as though he was  the nightmare mothers warned their children about.

Then again, their repute was something which inspired the Earth Kingdom citizens.

Kenta wasn’t showing off an impressive feat of earthbending as well, and Zuko doubted that he could- but he had instead used small flecks of dust to compress together just below where the drops of rain were falling. Zuko doubted that it was an easy task, but whatever suited him.

Zuko liked the rain, making no attempt to create a boundary of fire between him and water- harmless water, at least in the form of rain. 

He knew that he would be making a trip back here soon, if his vision of the Avatar chained up in the Stronghold was correct.

Omashu was falling, Bumi surrendered, people-

His one vision had already come true.

“Shirshu poison once again?”, The healer questioned, giving Zuko a pointed look.

It had been months since they had started working together, when Kenta and Ming had somehow dragged Zuko to meet the old lady after he drank the poison, but they still never had found out her name.

It was better that way. They didn’t have any other description other than ‘old mad lady’ if they got caught, and the war had left a disturbing number of people who fit the criteria.

“Might not have worked on me but works well on others.”, He muttered, his voice barely audible as he leaned against the doorway, a scowl on his face.

The first time they had met, he was afraid that she may have seen her children die in front of her eyes, lost her home to his nation, when in reality her madness was a guise of sorts for some of her more… adventurous ventures.

Such as supplying poison.

“We thank you for-“

“Keep it to yourself, I’m too old for this.”, She replied off-handedly, her back turned to them as she rummaged through dusty shelves for precious vials of the nearly translucent liquid, “Besides, you’re only getting rid of this for me. Don’t want to get into trouble, do I? Who’s gonna take care of Miyuki?”

“I’m sure that she’ll live by herself.”, Zuko remarked, throwing the cat a dirty look.

Miyuki hissed at him.

“Picking fights with an animal. How amusing.”

Said the spirit who was apparently on the bad side of every spirit Zuko was aware about.

"And more powerful.", A soft whisper followed, sounding more amused than anything.

Something in Jeon vaguely indicated that the world could be ending and he would still greet the news with mild amusement.

"I know everything already- no sense thinking about what I know with any other emotion than amusement."

Zuko chose to ignore those words, crossing his arms instead as he oversaw the transaction, as though he was a guard present for the safety of corrupt officers, lest they get caught in action.

He vaguely remembered witnessing such interactions as a child, when his father was simply Prince Ozai, nothing more than a spare heir, third in line for the throne.

What would he think of his son-

"We'll end the war before he can think, young Zuko."

He shut off his ears to such whispers, nevermind the headache he would undoubtedly be subjected to.

The old woman patted Kenta on the back, the most physical contact she had ever initiated with the three of them, her usual languid smile back on her face.

It should have been impossible for someone to switch their expressions in the blink of an eye with such a convincing manner that-

He nodded as he turned around and walked out of the building, his thanks expressed wordlessly, eyes hollow as he scanned the periphery of his surroundings.

The lady eyed him with concern, "Is he fine?"

Kenta paused for a moment before nodding furiously, his ponytail shaking, "He just needs time to himself every now and then."

It was lifeless outside, almost as if-

He sighed.

No use comparing the world using metaphors, he supposed.

It was already worse than Koh's lair.

The day had been lacklustre, and while he would have been thankful for such an event, especially when their pockets were full of money and their stomach full of food; the day in itself felt uneasy, like he had eaten food which had to be thrown up, washing it down with diluted cactus juice.

(Kill the-)

Zuko blinked furiously before the memory could form an image, but some parts about him killing someone-

He frowned, shaking his head as if an act that simple and meaningless would stop everything.

Maybe in another world it wouldn't have hurt so much.

Maybe in another world, Sozin would never have-

Maybe.

His past, present, future- he himself hinged on that single word.

Maybe.

"I was thinking that we should go to Pohuai.", Kenta said quickly, his words tumbling one after the other as if they were soldiers in the battlefield.

Untrained children.

"We can't kill Shinu, or whatever his name is.", Zuko replied, barely glancing at him, one foot following the other as they made their way to the muddy river they had set camp on, with him in the lead.

"I know... he's been kinder than most of the Generals and stuff, not sending soldiers on rampages- but I was talking about getting some information about the Fire Nation's plans.", Kenta said, sounding hurt when Zuko didn't pay him any attention.

He spun around, his eyes set into a determined glare, mouth pressed into a line, the darkness making his scar even more threatening than what it really wa-

There was a spirit concentrated behind the chi paths of his left eye.

Nothing could- nevermind.

Spirit or no spirit.

Zuko was still-

"We can't risk getting caught.", He said plainly, his words as firm as he could make them, "And I don't have a good feeling about whatever's going on- you won't get it."

"Like we didn't get how you got stabbed in the neck, proceeded to pull it out of you, and when I healed you- I was expecting you to die, but it was like I was healing a scratch?", Ming asked, his voice lowering.

"Yes. Like that.", He affirmed, knowing that both his friends knew that he was struggling to keep his voice from shaking.

He had been up and walking a few days after everything, killed people who he remembered meeting in gatherings (almost dreams in a different world, he supposed) and yet his knees shook as he talked to his two allies.

"Lee. We won't force you, but think about it."

He tilted his head backwards, looking at the murky sky with an expressionless face, his words barely audible.

"Let's go. That was stupid of me."

"It kind of was, but we can't ignore our gut feelings. It's fine."

"Suspicion keeps us alive, I know."

"You mixed the drops of shirshu poison with water?", Kenta asked, turning to look Ming in the eye.

"Not yet. We'll go in the night."

Zuko narrowed his eyes as he raised his left hand, curling his thumb and index finger, jerking his wrist forward in the blink of an eye. 

Wordlessly, Kenta dashed out of the bushes he had chosen as a camouflage, and sprinted towards the wall, using his bending to soften the ground where he stepped, lest any sound alert the archers. He was dressed in deep grey clothes, his feet covered with strips of black cloth, as if they had been bandaged after a particularly nasty accident.

He barely stopped to get a firm footing on his element, instead using his earthbending to propel himself a good 6 feet or so, before his hands latched onto the brick and mortar wall, the earth molding around his fingers as though they were gloves, and he climbed up the wall with ease, even though Zuko knew that his arms were probably straining from the effort.

This particular trick was something which never left Zuko unimpressed, no matter how many times he did it, in countless circumstances and times, reminding him of the wonder he had felt as a child, when he had seen Lu Ten bend lightning for the tenth time in an hour for his amusement.

Kenta swung himself to the other side of the wall, landing in the narrow strip which could be barely called a pathway with a small thud.

He waited for a few seconds, his breaths shallow and his fists already moving to protect his chest in the case a soldier had heard the muffled noise.

Zuko waited with bated breaths, and when nothing happened, Kenta leaped to the other side of the garrison wall, and it was as if he had never been there, a mere memory of a person.

Zuko knew it was his signal, and it was time for-

He ran forward, his steps making little noise as he used his firebending to step into the sky out of seemingly nowhere.

He supposed he truly resembled a spirit, the small steps of fire under his feet not creating any form of light, making it seem as though a shadow was skipping on nothing but air, a hallucination of sorts.

A brick jutted out from the top of the wall, and Zuko silently thanked Kenta for lessening his work and effort as he gripped it with his left hand, using it to swing himself to the other side of the wall, using his firebending to provide him a boost of sorts.

The darkness acted as a cover, with him using it to its full potential.

After about half an hour of tiptoeing around as if he was walking on eggshells, occasionally disarming guards when needed.

He was currently clinging to the roof, his body pressed against the brick wall, damp with his sweat when he heard footsteps.

For a split second, he feared that his hands would lose the shoddy grip it had on the fragments of rocks sticking out of the otherwise smooth surface, courtesy of Kenta.

"-the Firelord about how I captured the Avatar-"

And Zhao was gone, followed by a man who was nodding meekly at his words, hand moving furiously as he scribbled everything that was being dictated.

Zuko had no doubt that the scribe wished to cut out more than half of what Zhao was reciting, but he was bound by his duty.

His voice was a soft whisper, "Raava, the Avatar-"

-"is a being who bonded with the spirit of Light and Order."

"Isn't Raava supposed to be the spirit of Light and Peace?", Zuko asked, staring at his bowl of unfinished gruel. 

Jeon's voice sounded amused, as if Zuko was a child not understanding the concept of anything, "Young Zuko. What makes you think that any spirit stands for something so straightforward?"

Where the fuck was Kenta again?

"Interesting.", Ming muttered, flipping through the files he had stolen from Shinu's office.

Although stolen wouldn't be the correct word, he supposed.

Who knew that rich people were willing to sell out people who crossed or outdid them?

His eyes narrowed as he scanned a page, his attention fixed onto a single sentence.

"Very interestin- Lee? Kenta?"

His two friends exchanged glances, and he suddenly felt like someone had dumped him into a glacier, naked and freezing.

Their plan had been for him to sneak in a few minutes ahead of them, find anything about what they knew, while the two of them 

"I found-"

"The Avatar.", They said simultaneously, taking a step to the opposite directions, revealing a short boy with blue tattoos inked into his skin.

Oma, he could see the baby fat on his cheeks-

"The who?"

"The literal Avatar. With the four elements. Blue airbender tattoos, although I'm not sure how Lee knew that- but anyways. He's Aang, and he's the Avatar."

"Don't wander off!", Zuko hissed, his tone showing how alarmed he was.

"I didn't even-", Aang protested, eyes wide with indignation at being accused of something he hadn't even committed.

He internally winced, making a small effort not to speak responses formulated to events which never happened, "Yeah yeah. Just follow us."

It was unspoken that they couldn't kill anyone while Aang was around,with him being a pacifist and all.

(He killed thousands of Fire Nation soldiers and-)

(That... that was a lapse, and Aang wasn't in control. Not his fault.)

It only made it harder for them to protect Aang, in case anything unfortunate happened.

"Your friends will be fine.", Kenta spoke out of nowhere, glancing at the frogs suspended in a half frozen sphere of water, suspended in the air by Ming.

Using their limited resources for something as trivial as frozen frogs wasn't helping either.

But then again, Zuko knew that Ming would have sliced an innocent passerby to pieces if the action ensured that he and Kenta were safe.

"You're a good firebender.", Aang remarked, and he dismissed the compliment as if it was a piece of stray smoke.

"Barely above average."

He was thankful for his ability to bend two colors of flame instead, even though his orange fire had been exchanged for weak, pathetic, red fire.

(The Firelord would be so ashamed. His son who killed his trusted advisors, his son who was still alive.)

"No... you're against the Fire Nation."

"Hard to see why."

Kenta lifted his arms higher, bending the gravel above them slightly higher, even though most of his effort was concentrated on keeping the makeshift tunnel collapse on their heads.

While their plan had been to leave the stronghold together, this new factor made things... different.

He ignored the way Aang was undoubtedly looking at him, having gotten a good look at his scar when they were rescuing him.

It wasn't as much as rescuing as it was breaking his bonds and leaving a drop of shirshu poison on the floor.

Their signature.

"What were you guys doing anyway?"

"Getting plans about the Fire Nation.", Ming replied in a curt voice, teetering on the edge of being rude rather than concise.

"...Are you guys- like a-"

"We're not like Jet.", Kenta said, collapsing the tunnel on one end as soon as everyone was out of the darkness and their feet were planted on the ground again, a sigh of relief heard from everyone as they finally felt  gently flowing air on their skin.

"You know him?", Aang sounded surprised, and Zuko knew that they had to tell him the truth soon.

Ming smiled grimly, "Word gets around in the Earth Kingdom."

"Why were you searching for Fire Nation plans?"

Zuko exchanged a glance with Kenta, before deciding to rip off the bandage.

"We're assassins. We kill the people who are high up in the chain of power- and thwart plans. No, we do not hurt innocent Fire Nation people, not even the guards. Just knock them out.", Zuko spoke, his voice extremely even as he waited for a reaction.

"I...You kill people?"

Ming nodded, "We are not Air Nomads, Avatar, so I apologise if our actions cause you any hurt. However-"

Aang took a step back, his hands extended in a placating manner, "You don't need to be so high and mighty in front of me!"

Kenta blinked a few times, "That is... very kind of you, Avatar. But you need to understand that you are a mythical figure of sorts."

"I'm just-"

"-a child. We'll call you Aang, but forgive us if our previous conceptions about you get in the way.", Zuko bowed swiftly, and contemplated what to do before he smiled at Aang.

Aang nervously smiled back, his finger toying around with his staff and Zuko briefly wondered whether he would be of any use to him or not.

Leafs rustled, reminding them where they were.

"Will you teach me firebending?"

"Thought you'd never ask."

"And water and earth?"

"I'm...I'm really bad at earthbending. And- I suppose the Avatar should have better teachers. But I can teach you how to levitate a pebble in the air and all- that's as far as I know.", Kenta replied, his voice coming off as a bit harsh, lest Aang make an insensitive comment.

"I'm not proficient in waterbending either, simply healing and a few tricks. And I can't heal anything more than a broken bone."

"You can find teachers with us! Me and my friends-"

(Katara. Sokka. Suki. Toph-)

"It's just a fever, but they need time to rest, even while sucking the frogs. Maybe an hour or something.", Ming reassured Aang- The Avatar, his mind supplied- a small smile present on his face.

He still couldn't believe that the Avatar had allowed them to accompany him on his journey to save the world from the Fire Nation's tyranny, and was just counting his blessing so far.

"Thank you.", Aang replied gratefully, and for a split second he feared that he would be kicked out of the camp now that his use was over.

His fears turned out to be irrational.

"We'll protect you three.", Kenta said, his voice surprisingly even yet hoarse, as if he had been aching to speak those words out loud, "You're... you're children, and forgive me for saying so- but we have more experience than you. We'll be a part of the team, and that's that, I guess."

Ming nodded, followed by Kenta.

"And we have information as well.", He added, before recounting what he had heard about Omashu and the Northern Water Tribe.

"Omashu... We have to-"

"King Bumi is one of the greatest earthbenders to live, and has protected his city for over 89 years as a capable leader. I believe that he'll be fine.", Kenta said, nodding furiously, as if he wanted to make himself believe those words.

Ming caught a glimmer of something in Lee's eyes, but chose to ignore it.

"We need to save the Northern Water Tribe first, but I believe that the plan will take months to be put into actio-"

"We're talking about Zhao here. He won't hesitate to lick the Firelord's boots if it means that he'll be able to do what he wants- to a certain level.", Lee spoke in a low voice, his face illuminated for a split second by the lightning before turned around, his eyes darker than anything than what he had seen in his friend's eyes so far.

"Very dramatic."

Said the person controlling the weather.

"Still dramatic."

Chapter Text

The sun rising and illuminating the outer walls of the ruins, eventually finding its way onto Zuko’s line of sight felt like a threat, a knife held at his throat and threatening to press deep into the unprotected flesh, letting blood drip down his skin like a delicate waterfall of blood.

Sokka was the first to rouse from his slumber, traces of exhaustion and fever still clinging to his being like unpleasant stench from a factory, but Zuko chose to ignore it— for it wasn’t disturbing him beyond a crinkled nose and a few swears from Kenta.

Of course it wasn’t— yet it was Sokka’s dirty sock which had led to the Avatar being freed from his seemingly eternal sleep to awaken the world to freedom.

Zuko crinkled his nose at the thought, almost as if he could smell the stench of the sock instead of the smell of the wet earth, toeing the line of dark and light.

Almost like his conscience.

“Lee, you fine buddy?” Kenta broke into his thoughts, penetrating the harsh and impenetrable image he wished to display to his friend. “You’re looking like you’re going to be sick. Did the weather take a dump on you too?”

“Not yet. Just thinking about something.” He lied through his teeth, hoping that Sokka wouldn’t be coherent enough to question his translucent lie and demand to see what he hid.

Kenta hummed at that, kneeling down to tilt a cup towards Sokka’s mouth and to provide him a drink after a long night of undisturbed sleep. “Here, this will make you feel better. Your sister’s fine now- there, there.”

Zuko sent Agni a quiet thanks for the state Sokka was in- because he just knew that his old friend would question what he was being offered, and with good reason at that too.

“What…what is it?”

Ah. So not that out of touch from the world.

“Just medicine for strength. My friend brewed it earlier, and Aang helped him, so you can be sure that we’re not poisoning you.” Zuko said as he helped Sokka straighten, his hands pushing against his sweaty and soaked shirt, the cup now placed on the floor.

Kenta noted the newly formed cracks on the rim of his cup that Sokka had placed on the floor with no care for the owner’s feelings with mild disappointment in his eyes.

(That’s about a week worth of wages gone in a few seconds. Or… wait no. Two weeks. Ugh. Kenta thought as he made a small face at the thought.)

“Where- where are Katara and Aang?” The comfort of the tea lulled Sokka into a faint sense of security before he woke up properly, blinking his eyes as he propped himself up on his elbow, staring the two strangers in the face.

But it wasn’t— these people weren’t Katara or Aang, and unless the Earth had stopped rotating on its axis, he certainly didn’t remember seeing these two people before... everything. Their entry to the ruins was hazy and some small events might have been lost from his memory, but something as significant as gaining new companions was something he was sure wouldn’t slip his mind.

“Standing and waiting for you near the entrance of the ruins. Blasted rain’s been going on for over 2 hours now.” Kenta answered in an annoyed tone as he got up, still slightly miffed at the way his precious tea-cup had been handled, bending down almost as soon as he had straightened, picking up the delicate ceramic before scowling.

They were the types of glasses used by teachers and students in Ba Sing Se, the delicate moulding of the base of the cup acting as a means to show how their education brought them comfort.

His education was shown by the dust he bended and the poison he kept on his person all the time and the cup he polished with his own hands.

He spared Sokka a single glance, hoping that this one look would communicate all his annoyance and his aim to extort 20 silver coins from Sokka before the end of the year.

All Sokka had registered so far was that he was exhausted enough to go to sleep a total of fifteen seconds after waking up, gaze lazy as if someone had cut off the blood supply to his brain, leaving him incapable of the simplest of tasks; not to shaking as he got to his feet one of them.

And the two people in the room, one hunched over himself while the other one was looking at him intently, as if trying to read his mind with those terrifyingly black eyes of his, reminding him of the abyss he had grown used to after a few weeks of travelling in the Earth Kingdom.

“And… who are you?” Sokka asked after a few seconds, now standing erect as he surveyed the people still kneeling on the floor, the smaller of the two still more engaged with the loss of a single cup, muttering small curses out at every few seconds.

The scarred boy raised his head and it took everything in Sokka to not make an expression of either pity or any similar emotion.

The boy had been hurt, and he had been hurt badly, and Sokka knew from experience that staring at someone’s injury would do but add kindling to the fire -

(Wrong… wrong choice of words, he realised after a few seconds after that particular thought had passed through his mind, grateful that he had not uttered those words out loud, making his thoughts known to everyone in the room)

Aang’s voice pierced the awkward silence as he appeared out of nowhere like a little butterfly-bird during spring, although that could have just been Sokka not paying attention to the small, creaky door at the peripheral of his vision. “Sokka, you’re finally awake!”

His friend’s face was split into a huge smile as he nipped towards him, pausing only for a moment to inspect him with those grey eyes which the world had thought would never be seen again after the first comet of Sozin had passed, and especially not after Azulon’s era. “The healer was right!”

His eyes narrowed in turn, not aware about any healer who lived nearby, because he would have seen some signs of it. “What healer?”

The scarred boy had stood up with silence that he was sure even the best of his tribe’s hunters didn't possess, their kills always haunted by the slow thud of their slow footsteps on the ice field. He was already walking towards another one of those alcoves bent into the walls of the room that Sokka had failed to notice earlier, a raspy voice answering his question. “Nobody knows her name. She’s just the ‘the healer’ and it’s better not to ask for her name.”

“…You didn’t answer who you were.” He said as evenly as he could, one hand already pressed against Aang’s shoulder with more force than needed for the minute possibility that he might need to shove Aang out of the room and take the two of them on. Alone.

He doubted that he was in the best shape to engage two people in a fight, that too in a rather enclosed space where he couldn’t use his boomerang and his mace was out of reach. They clearly had the advantage, but they would be idiots if they even entertained the thought that he wouldn’t give them a fight they would remember for the rest of their life.

Maybe they were the ones who had taken his weapons.

“I’m Kenta and that’s Lee. You haven’t met Ming yet, he’s teaching Katara some waterbending right now.” The other boy, his hair tied back into a rough ponytail answered, his scowl turning into a small frown as he brought up the cup to his eye level, inspecting… something Sokka didn’t know about much, his gaze adorned with the care one would afford their child instead of whatever that was. “You probably know us.”

Sokka’s brows furrowed as he tried to remember where he had heard their names and for a moments, nothing came to mind before his glance fell on Lee’s scar again.

The boy with the sca-

The Creeping Ivy, he realised with a jolt as he involuntarily took a step backwards, one arm already ready to shove Aang away and fight them on his own. Out of everything he had expected to face when he woke up, the Creeping Ivy were not.

(Why is the brotherhood of the Creeping Ivy here? Did the Firelord hire them or Zhao; no no, I can’t think about that now, I need to get Aang to safety for now, tell him to take Katara with him—)

Maybe Katara and Aang could be safe that way, even if he would die protecting his sister and friend from one of the most notorious assassin associations in the entire world, let alone the Earth Kingdom.

Lee raised his single eyebrow as he tilted his head to look him in the eye. “We won’t hurt you. We’re just here to-“

“-to what?” He demanded in a harsh tone, almost as if he was barking like a deer-dog instead of speaking like a human being.

Aang’s gaze flickered between the two of them. “What are you two talking about?”

“What if they’re like Jet and the Freedom Fighters?” Sokka turned to face Aang, his teeth gritted and eyes narrowed in mild anger at his friend’s trusting nature. “Where did you even meet them?”

“We rescued Aang from Admiral Zhao. I think you him, big ears, ugly face, even uglier sideburns.” A man with a scar so white that Sokka could have sworn it was made out of the tundras he lived on said in a dry tone as he crossed the threshold of the door, crouching in a way which made it clear that he had done it many times before. Sokka noticed that his left hand already reaching for the water-pouch slung at his waist in anticipation of a situation where weapons were pulled out and the matter came to fists over words.

Katara followed him, her clothes drenched and dark after waterbending in the rain ever since the sun had risen, only to be covered by the veil which were the clouds.

That must have been Ming, the waterbender. He already knew that Ming wasn’t from their tribe, unless the Fire Nation had made a few stops—

He refused to entertain that particular thought.

"Admiral Zhao?" Sokka spluttered, looking at Aang, who to his credit lowered his head in the approximation of an apology for not telling him about the events of the previous day, his sickness be fucked.

The hushed conversation between the now fading rain and the dead leaves outside the window reflected the mood of the room.

“Sokka. You were sick— we couldn’t just tell you everything without making you even-“ His sister started, only to stop when she couldn’t find words to complete her sentence, and nobody volunteered to step in on her behalf until that boy Lee stepped in, breaking the thick silence ad though he was breaking a twig.

“They were afraid that you’d be a bit too suspicious of our intentions, and… and they didn’t want that.” Lee said his words in a tone which commanded the attention of all those who listened to his words, whether it be a simple Water Tribe warrior or one of the most infamous assassin guilds in all of Earth Kingdom.

“They’re assassins.” He took an unsteady step backwards, towards where Katara was standing as his words came out more of a statement than the threatening hiss he had hoped would escape his mouth. “They could be like Jet!”

“We’re not like the Freedom Fighters or Jet.” Ming said in an even tone, hoping to diffuse the tension in the room, or at least delay the fight which could break out at any second.

“You could be lying for all we know.” Sokka shot back, his expression twisted in suspicion. “We don’t have any way to know whether you’re telling us the truth or not.”

Ming’s face hardened at the accusation that was carelessly thrown at them like rotten vegetable peels, and Sokka involuntarily took a step backwards.

And that was how Ming felt obligated to make his intentions clear to a person he had met a total of eleven hours ago, voice booming as if that single gesture would be able make the words stick inside Sokka’s head.

“If there’s one thing we do, it’s being honest—” Zuko's lips pressed together into a thin, tight smile at those words as Ming continued preaching about how they had their own sets of codes and morals despite being contracted murderers, oblivious to Zuko’s inner turmoil. “—and that is why lying is something which we never break, even in the pain of death, that is, unless we’re with enemies.”

Zuko’s eyes landed on the child monk, clearly uncomfortable by how Ming’s words and phrases had become slightly more violent to the point where he could sense the tension coiling inside of Aang like an eel-serpent, sprung and ready to lash out by the gentle means of a small request to divert the conversation away from death.

“And do tell me, who are enemies to you?” He spat back as soon as Ming had finished speaking.

“Not you.” Kenta said in a placating manner, arms extended outwards as if all one had to do was make a few sweeping gestures and everything would be calm again.

“Why are you here?”

“To teach the Avatar what bending we know.” Zuko pointed towards his friends and then towards himself. “Earth, water and…. fire.”

“Fire?” Katara’s tone turned sharp faster than Zuko could blink, and she took a step backwards, her face ashen as ruins of the houses his people set fire to.

“You didn’t know that he was a fireben- Stay away from him Aang! He’s Fire Nation!” Her hand moved to draw out a water whip, undoubtedly taught to her by Ming in the early hours of the day when Zuko and Kenta were caring for Sokka, their attention on making sure that he wasn’t too uncomfortable lying on the ground.

“Ah, you’re trapped young Zuko. Just like how you were when your sister played pai-sho with you— trapped in a corner.” Jeon felt as though that was the appropriate time to remind Zuko of his existence.

Not that he had ever forgotten; both the presence of the Ninth Guardian of the Nine Gateways and the day he had truly learnt what it felt like to be helpless.

(Shut up, he mentally whispered.)

"Aah, don't mind me. Just thinking about how to infect you further." Jeon's reply was nonchalant, even if Zuko feared his words.

It still paled in comparison to the day he had woken from his slumber, his senses being granted back to him with the stench of terror and apathy lingering to them like the sweet scent of the blood he was so familiar with.

Huh.

Ninth Guardian of the Nine Gateways.

He didn’t know when he had acquired that particular piece of information about Jeon’s identity, but it was better than nothing.

And that was when he remembered.

He was a firebender.

“Do you think I support the Fire Nation after this?” His finger jabbed at the rough and clumpy skin around his left eye, trying to ignore the visions he was being greeted with each time he made contact with the burn scar he had been brandished with when he was a child.

(A ring)

(Him kneeling)

(The world—)

“Do you?” He demanded again, and when he received no response; Ming spoke up.

“You’re children. We’re not. Allow us to keep you safe and teach the Avatar bending. I… I think we should let Aang decide this.”

Five expectant gazes met one firm gaze.

“Yes. They’re coming with us.”

Chapter Text

98 BG

“We've known each other for about an year, three more if you count the time you… had me captured, and I still don’t know your name.” Zuko had remarked once upon a time when he had gotten tired and exhausted of referring to Jeon by the name he had decided in a fit of frustration and rage, seeing that using the same name again and again not only drained him of any sense of freedom (for he as trapped by somebody else's decisions yet again), but also brought up memories he wished to suppress badly, like the one attempt he had made at drawing a picture of his mother and then hiding it underneath his pillow in shame, resolving to never pick up a brush again.

His father had found the painting a few days, and that was how his memory which would have been mildly adorable if looked at from afar had cracks at the edges once one got close enough to inspect the finer details. The darker details.

There was a heavy weight on his chest and it was almost as if the trees in the forest were all staring at him, thinking of the monster he had become with a shame that didn't belong to them.

…

Breathing was hard.

Then again, he supposed that he couldn’t complain very much. Even a single, weary breath was better than none at all.

Perhaps it sounded too much like something an airbender would remark but he was long past the point of caring about sounding like a child of the winds.

Firebending came from the breath, he remembered that much from his days a bright eyed child in the sickening heat of the Fire Nation— and a single breath would do no good to any firebender, unless they had the lungs of a seal-shark.

It was still better than nothing.

The Firelord wouldn’t have liked his new mentality, having chosen something over everything, and he wasn’t sure if his Uncle would as well, having murdered half the Earth Kingdom with cold eyes. He already knew that Azula would scoff at him before using that single breath to set life ablaze.

He had gotten no response from the spirit yet, and he felt the pressure put forward his question once again deep in his bones, as though he would die if the question was left unanswered- which was exactly what he did.

He put forward his question again.

“There must be something other spirits call you. Everyone has a name.”

”I don’t.”

“That’s impossible.” He had argued back despite knowing that he would get brushed aside, his own left hand brushing away the webs on the door of the unoccupied Fire Nation checkpoint while the other was occupied by a small fire, black and gleaming in multifaceted ways which even the most expensive of Black Tourmalines wouldn’t be able to replicate in a thousand years, their reflected light falling short of the beauty only this cursed flame could have possessed.

”What even is the use of a name?”

Zuko fell silent at those words, his dark gaze now fixated on a single, dead leaf clinging to an equally dead branch. There was a silence in the presence of the primordial spirit; a strange chill in the air, something he would have expected to encounter in the freezing Water Tribes and not the moderate climate of the Earth Kingdom. At least, the part of the Earth Kingdom where he lived.

“What do you mean by that?” He asked silently, once again resuming his task of somehow opening the door, fingertips rough and dust covered from trying to find the handle in the darkness of the night.

There wasn’t much time left before the soldiers arrived, and he doubted that he could spare any more. Granted, a few hours were lying spare before they would arrive, but he’d rather not take any chances.

”I meant exactly what I had said.”

And that was the end of Jeon's cryptic replies, Zuko knew that much like the back of his hand. There was no other nudge or shove towards the right direction he was going to receive.

And thus Zuko had kept silent till he was heading back to the undoubtedly burnt out campfire where Kenta and Ming would have been waiting for him, eyes weary with sleep. He had intended to be silent the entire time he headed back to the camp, an attempt to give Jeon the same treatment the Firelord had given him countless times when he was a small child, but the silence was broken soon by the spirit themselves.

“You need names to identify yourself. To give yourself a purpose.” Jeon answered their own question as they crossed a creek, feet wobbling as they landed on a strange mixture of grass and sand underneath the soles of his too tight boots. They were cracked at the toes, of course: there was nothing he owned that could even think about measuring up to his life as the Firelord's immediate family. “Humans do not know who they are, and that is why you had to resort to making words just to identify each other and yourselves.”

“I’m sure that spirits have names too.” He replied with gritted teeth, now regretting his decision of asking them a new question, already readying himself for the ensuing headache.

And he had thought that his Uncle’s proverbs were confusing.

”You were the ones who gave us names. We were fine without them.” Jeon’s voice seemed as though they were on the brink of screaming, much like how Zuko himself was.

They continued. “Agni, Tui and La— Nobody used names. I know who I am, and the Spirits know who they are, and thus there is no need for us to use names.”

Zuko slowed to a stop, hands gripping the bag he had stolen from the desk of a certain officer he had already forgotten the name of. “What about Oma and Shu? They were humans, and they learnt earthbending from the badgermoles, didn’t they? Did they have to give up their names or—” His voice trailed off at the end, unsure of what to say next.

And then, Jeon fell silent.

Present

“I don’t trust them.” Sokka murmured to his sister as they flew away from the ruins of Pouhai, his eyes narrowed into slits and drilling holes into Kenta’s back, arms crossed as he leaned against the firm wood of Appa’s saddle.

Behind him, the sky joined the earth, edge to edge with a perfect closeness. One one side was the pale lilac that covered the dome that was the sky just before the sun set, while the trees on the ground seemed to be extended upwards in a effort to cutch the last of the waning sunlight.

“I trust everyone but Lee.” She muttered back, a sense of bitterness present in her eyes as she looked at the scarred boy- who was busy sharpening his swords, barely even paying them any attention. She hurriedly crossed her legs when he turned to look at her when he felt her eyes on him, black eyes beady and out of place with everyone else’s coloured irises.

It was one of the many things which unsettled her. Nobody had black eyes, only spirits did, Gran-Gran had told her. Evil spirits at that.

The reddening sun did nothing but help that peculiar feature stand out, an dark and bleak ink stain on expensive handmade paper used by the nobles of Ba Sing Se. They were unsettling, and she could almost feel her read parts of her which hadn’t been written yet- only that was a ridiculous notion. There was no way that just having oddly coloured eyes meant that he was a soothsayer or a shaman. It just meant that he was odd. Nothing more, nothing less.

On the contrary, the reach of the sunlight made everyone else's eyes glint under a warm shade. Even Appa’s fur no longer looked white, rather it seemed to comprise of waves of all the shades of orange that could ever exist. From the ones she had seen adorning a little girl’s bangles to the color of the flowers which grew in King Bumi’s lavish gardens.

He held her and Sokka and under the agonising scrutiny of his gaze for a total of fifteen seconds before opening his mouth, contemplating whether to speak or not, and then deciding not to say anything in the end.

It was unbearable, that’s what it was, she thought and broke the silence herself after a few seconds of thinking about the only thing she could say that wouldn’t lead to a brawl on a bison’s back.

“So where are you from?” Her voice was sharp and clear, multifaceted as she readied herself to examine every word they replied with- resembling a diamond in more than one way.

“La Shi for me, and Li Haong for Ming.” Kenta snapped to look at her, answering her frankly, quite easy question instead of Lee, who was still observing everyone with beady eyes, arms resting on top of his knees, and Katara hummed softly as a way to acknowledge his response.

His eyes were watery from staring at the landscape around for the past hour or so, and Katara realised that she herself had done the same the first time she had ridden Appa. Looking at the world from the sky was something she hadn’t even thought was possible, yet—

The biggest proof of the impossible was sitting right in front of her.

She had heard the names of those towns in passing, La Shi by Aang itself. It was supposed to be famous for its pottery, five skilled earthbenders living in each lane at the very least. That might have been true a hundred years ago, but she hoped that it was still full of skilled benders- free from the tyranny that was the Fire Nation and the Firelord. Sokka nodded sharply at his response, the cold whistling of the cold wind at the altitude Appa preferred making it even more than difficult for each other to converse properly.

“I said- La Shi for me, and Li Haong for Ming!” The earthbender shouted as he repeated his answer, and Sokka sighed as he ran his fingers through his hair, flicking out a few dust-balls.

“We heard you, don’t worry!” Sokka cupped his mouth with thinly gloved hands, yelling back his response. “No need to shout!”

“You’re shouting as well!”

He threw up his hands in exasperation, rolling his eyes as Katara nudged him, which was really shoving her elbow into his ribs disguised under a different name.

Her voice was an urgent hiss even though she knew that none of their new companions could hear them, thin brows drawn together like the bow of a Yuyan as she glanced at Lee, then Aang’s figure. “Stop being mean to him. It’s Lee we need to watch out for.”

Sokka’s features sharpened with realisation before he spoke again, harshly this time. “What about you, Lee?”

Ming’s eyebrows furrowed together, and Sokka drew in his legs closer to himself before remembering that they were in the air. Sure, the three of them were better benders and fighters than the three of them, Aang was the one who could move clouds with a single breath, perch on top of a sphere made of air and whisper to the wind in ways the world had probably forgotten.

“I don’t see-“ He protested uselessly as Sokka cut him off immediately with a contained sweeping gesture of his hand.

“Hometown. Now.” Sokka’s voice hardened, hand gripping his knee tightly and deep blue eyes set on Lee’s eyes.

It was the only real way to hold a conversation with a person who had popped out of nowhere, he supposed.

Black eyes glanced at blue and green before answering, his jaw tightening as he tilted his head downwards. Despite the expression being what Sokka hoped was the universal gesture of submitting to someone, he had the strangest feeling that Lee was disregarding it completely. He looked like he was bored.

“Caldera.”

Lee’s raspy voice was surprisingly audible against the sharp and loud noises of the wind, giving the impression that he was familiar with how to ride flying bisons…

It shouldn’t have been possible—

Katara filed away to examine that later with Aang. After all, he was the expert on flying bisons, and she doubted that they would find a zoologist specialising in animals who were supposed to be extinct in these rural areas. Ba Sing Se still existed, and so did the City of a Thousand

“Caldera as in what?” Sokka asked again, his voice devoid of any emotion as he was still unsatisfied with the answer he had just received. He ignored Kenta and Ming’s looks of horror, shock and betrayal followed by one of acceptance in quick succession. It was something he would have examined later, had he had more time- but the pressure to find out the truth about this new firebender was far superior to a small recognition that Ming and Kenta had been kept in the dark all along.

Aang turned around, a mute spectator to their small circus so far. Katara caught sight of his face almost immediately and came to the conclusion that whatever Zuko had said wasn't upto any good.

“Caldera as in the Firelord’s home.” Lee curled his fingers into an almost fist, as though testing how far he could push his hosts’ limits before letting it lose like the ties of an armour, the sinews of the muscles relaxing almost immediately, the string of a bow let loose.

And when he raised his head, it was accompanied by a makeshift knife held below his chin and the furious glares of two siblings.

Ming and Kenta refused to meet his eyes.

“You do know that I can burn through this stupid rope you used?” Zuko muttered as Sokka lead him to the edge of the clearing, blinking as the heavy smoke from the campfire made its way towards him like a hand determined to wrangle the last breath out of his lungs. “And that making me sit a few feet away from you will do nothing but—"

“We both know that you won’t escape, your friends are with us.” Sokka replied in an even tone, prodding him with the blunt end of his club, ignoring the dampness of his clothes with ease. The sentence was incomplete but both of them knew what he was making not-so-subtle hints towards.

That his friends would be in danger if he did anything daring.

(You fucking idiot- how the fuck did other me not capture you the minute he found you?)

The thick smoke clogging his lungs had him wondering if it was poison gas instead of mere smoke. Perhaps it could have been the damp, musty air present inside Jeon’s cave.

Now that was something which could and probably would choke him.

“They can kill you before you can blink.” He replied nonchalantly, as though he was discussing the weather with a dear old friend and not someone who would not hesitate to slam his head into a brick wall if needed. Though he supposed Sokka would be his dear old friend in another world, and preferably in the future as well.

“The Avatar’s name is still honoured enough for them to listen to what Aang sa—” Sokka shoved him unceremoniously, and Zuko could feel the stares of everyone else burning into his back.

His stomach was already taunting him with anxious nerves, and he had no idea how his friends would respond to the secret that had been revealed, complete with the unfurling of grand curtains and grand trumpets.

They had been fed enough lies, and all he could do was make sure they didn't vomit all the gruel made of falseness at his face.

Jeon would—

He had no idea what Jeon would do.

But he couldn't allow all those years spent in— he couldn't allow himself to show his true expressions to anyone. True expressions, true emotions, true self; true anything.

Agni.

He didn't know the truth himself.

“I’m pretty sure that Aang said that I could sit with you—” His voice was a silent sing-song tone, mirroring an eerie children’s rhyme; one which mothers would sing in a weak attempt to imitate the tone of a forgotten spirit, coming to snatch away a particularly misbehaving child.

“He’s thirteen.” Sokka answered curtly as they took their final few steps forward, even as his tone decreased in volume, stuck between a whisper and a quiet voice.

“You do realise you’re just going back on your word?” He quirked up a thin eyebrow, unimpressed at how the conversation had gone, hands gripping the bowl Sokka almost shoved into his hands as if it was a dead baby rabiroo carcass he wanted to discard as soon as possible. Maybe even act like nothing had happened in the first place.

If only he had been afforded the same luxury at any point in his life.

Sokka lost his train of thought at the quick response, tongue flicking across his lips before he finally spoke. “You really are a pain in the ass.”

“Glad to have the honour.” Zuko grinned at the lacklustre insult, sitting down on the cleanest boulder he could find, his attempts lacking the grace drilled into him after years of being taught etiquette by the finest teachers in the Fire Nation followed by learning the silent grace of the finest assassins in the Earth Kingdom.

The world that he was living in was full of things that didn't make sense, like the next stitch of an old grandmother’s blanket— but Sokka not having a response up his sleeve was worrying indeed.

Then again.

Some things just happened.

"I let you win for once, young Zuko. It turns out that I much rather prefer the old Sokka."

(Fuck you)

Of course it was Jeon.

He somehow made himself comfortable on the boulder, nerves still full of fear despite his earlier bravado. His fake bravado.

How he longed for death. 

A dour look graced Sokka’s features as he walked backwards towards their small party, and Aang was so engrossed in trying to find out what was hidden behind those stern eyes he had seen rarely, mostly wrinkled at the edges as if he was trying to hold off his own laughter while narrating a funny joke that he failed to notice that a cold breeze blew through all of them.

He sucked in a deep breath when Sokka sat down on the boulder next to Kenta, hands coming to rest on his knees almost immediately, mouth turned downwards in an angry scowl. “He’s pretty smug for a damn spy.”

Kenta opened his mouth to protest for his friend’s innocence before Ming’s look silenced him. He couldn’t make sense of it, but he had the faintest idea that whatever relationship Lee and his friends had was far more complicated than his friendship with Sokka and Katara.

Aang’s eyes flickered between the two of them and he gulped before warming up his body with short, controlled breaths.

Like the ones a firebender used after a particularly large feat of firebending.

Their firebender was watching on curiously from where Sokka had deposited him, black eyes shining in the darkness with the keenness of a predator.

Surely he couldn’t hear them from such a large distance?

“I don’t think he’s a spy Sokka.” He said after a few minutes of rolling around the words in his mouth, eyes fixated on Katara’s tightened jaw and closed off body language. “I think that he’s just—”

“Just what?” Katara snapped, eyebrows drawing together and teeth clashing against each other as her grip on her bunched up clothes tightened. “He’s so calm, and there’s no way that he’s not a spy— he’s from Caldera for Tui’s sake!”

“It doesn’t make sense.” Sokka muttered, eyes fixated on a smooth, round and glowing stone placed too close to the fire. It had sharp red lines running over it as though they were the veins of rock- keeping it alive by drawing power from the fire. “There’s no reason for him to just tell us about his past.”

“Have you considered the fact that maybe he’s trying to be honest?” He suggested tentatively, flinching backwards as Sokka growled in frustration.

“There’s something—” He stopped less than midway of his sentence, turning to look Kenta and Ming in the face with something akin to realisation in his eyes.

“You didn’t know he was from Caldera either, did you?”

Ming shook his head with solemnness, a glimmer of acceptance flickering across his features. “There’s a lot of things I don’t know about him.”

“Do you know how old he is?” Katara held her spoon to her lips as she asked the question before downing the way too salty food down her throat, the movement barely visible in the dim light.

“Well-” Kenta shared a guilty look with Ming, and Sokka blinked in surprise.

“You don’t even know his age?” He asked incredulously, placing his bowl beside him with a sense of shock, eyes clouded with an emotion Aang couldn’t identify. “How old are you?”

Ming looked taken aback at the reaction he had received, but recovered soon enough and quickly responded. “I turned twenty about two months ago, and Kenta’s sixteen.”

“Lee looks sixteen.” Aang commented idly as he learned back on his palms, the bowl of burning hot soup forgotten in wake of a more pressing matter, wanting to include himself in the conversation without invoking any of his friends’ irritation.

It reminded him of Monk Tashi’s lectures about his duties as the Avatar, and how even looking at the other kids' play would lead to the doom of the world.

The world hadn’t ceased to exist yet.

Everything except the lives of everyone he knew was still there, alive in one way or the other.

The wind tore through his robes for the second time in fifteen minutes, yet another reminder of what he had failed at. What he had run away from like an owl-cat with his tail between his legs. He had allowed the world to witness nights dark beyond the darkest abyss lit by the flames of the Fire Nation, and for the days to be more grey than the previous one to become the norm, like a form of cataract setting early.

He realised that he had missed what were probably pivotal parts of the conversation during his inner contemplation of the duties he had shirked away from.

Getting lost in his thoughts wasn’t the problem he wished to resolve. After all, a large part of what made the Air Nomads spiritually enlightened was their ability to observe the world through the eyes of their souls rather than the ones clouded by judgement. And the only way to step out of that hazy fog was through inner contemplation.

The problem arose when he tried to trace the grain-like path of history with his bare fingers, when his thoughts started blowing out the open window of his brain like pages from a desk.

“-well that’s not what a sixteen year old is supposed to act like.” Sokka protested, the vein on his forehead pulsating like a warning sign to not push his buttons further. “Unless he’s a fairytale of some sort, I doubt he’d just… be so calm while telling us that he lives five doorsteps away from the Firelord.”

“He’s… always been strange.” Ming quietly admitted after a few seconds. Though Aang didn’t know whether it was his status as the world’s saviour that compelled him to confess the truth or some unknown calling from the voice in his head.

He inwardly hoped that it was the latter option.

“In what way?” Katara’s voice was laced with suspicion and the dim light only made it harder for him to catch sight of the expression on her face.

“A lot of ways.” Kenta answered gravely, his head lowering to stare at the soup in a small, strange trance. “Not all of them good.”

The earthbender recovered quickly and snapped his head upwards, an expression of apologeticness painted on his face with rough strokes. “I’m not telling you anything more, sorry. That goes against my morals as a friend.” His gaze flickered between Katara and Sokka while Ming looked almost proud at his words. “I hope you can understand.”

Aang nodded firmly at his words. “We understand.”

Katara and Sokka didn’t seem to understand, but that was (probably)fine.

An unnatural silence fell on the group, the only indications that time still went on being the sharp crackling sound of burning wood and the rounded smell of the sweet air.

“The soup’s really nice.” Ming commented off-handedly, his sincerity reflecting in his voice.

And then Lee’s shout pierced the bubble they had hidden themselves inside in hopes that no unpleasant truth would be able to find its way to them.

“I can hear all of you talking about me!”

Katara scoffed even as her cheeks reddened under the harsh wind (which didn’t make sense; the wind wasn’t supposed to be harsh—) and for the longest moment, they tried to ignore Lee’s already scarce presence.

Aang felt a sense of misplaced anger bubble up inside his chest as the moments passed and everyone tried to swallow the soup, still ignoring the boy a mere fifteen feet away from them.

“I’m the Firelord’s son!”

... Perhaps it wasn't too late to lose himself to his inner thoughts yet.

Chapter Text

They were like rabid animals, thirsty for blood and flesh in the form of answers for the questions. Every gesture, every attack was yet another question, a doubt that needed to be solved immediately and their hunger and thirst quenched as soon as it came. They hadn’t even voiced out anything so far, and it was all conversed through actions, the way they all tensed and . These actions still seemed to be far better than the ones he had taken, fat better. There wasn’t even a question about it, now that he gave it a second thought. He was completely, and utterly an idiot.

I knew we shouldn’t have trusted you. Katara got to her feet in an instant, an action so swift that he could have almost missed the way her bowl fell to the ground. I got a bad feeling from him! Sokka seemed terrifying in the dark, and he hadn’t even thought of his friend as terrifying in his life, the adjectives stopping at ridiculously serious of the situation called for it. We should give him a chance— Aang’s eyes spoke in the chaos, widening and then flitting close to avoid the spray of water and the stream if pebbles that flew across his face, barely avoiding the skin.

And then there was a band of ice around his neck and pebbles striking his ankle hard enough to make him kneel, yet nit hard enough to hurt. He was sure that Ming and Kenta would never hurt him, and yet the way it made his heart clench was a bit too much for him, if such a thing existed. It brought him disgust when the mud on the ground splattered on his face, and then he raised his neck upwards.

It was a sign of defiance enough for him, and something unnatural stirred in his gut, the mud no longer a source of disgust and muck. His eyes closed of their own accord; tight. The makeshift collar around his neck tightened, just a by a bit, barely even noticeable. Yet it was noticeable, the way his eyes bulged, the way a breath dared to escape his nose in the form of steam. He could not see it, the way he looked so despicable and yet so pitiable, like a deer-dog who had life beaten out of it by life and sticks alike. All he knew was the Agni Kai platform, and the way it was cold underneath his hands while his face burnt.

He blew a plume of smoke from his mouth, and nobody reacted while the smoke spread like a thousand feathers, ruffling itself to death and parting to reveal him, a utterly mortified and confused expression on his face. Not sure whether it hurt more to be taken as nothing of a threat or to breathe, he let his thoughts flow through him, letting out a small sigh.

Zuko wasn’t used to this sort of crowd, if it could be called that. Five didn’t make a crowd, but he wasn’t that much of an idiot. Ming and Kenta could snap his neck without even stopping to think about the life that would bleed out in the way of breaths stolen from peace, and Katara was… she was Katara. All his life he had been left alone, neglected by his father in favour of Azula and a hundred mundane tasks. He didn’t have any experience of this sort of attention, or any kind of attention now that he thought about it. It was as if he had been dropped on the surface of the sun, soul alight and skin discarded in favour of ashes.

And there was one thing he could do, the only thing that came to his mind, that was to yell at them to leave him alone. Jeon nudged him with a whisky whisper, a dull and heavy feeling in the back of his head. It was akin to a headache, probably the one he had felt the day his mother had left, and when his relationship with Azula had soured unexpectedly before mellowing into something that was much more tolerable. He hadn't thrown any knives at her head after that.

“I can explain-“ He started speaking, the smoke making his voice heavy and scratchy all at once, and then his mouth closed of its own accord once he caught the look on Katara’s face, indignation and fury tattooed on the face and arms crossed, with one hand discreetly hovering over the water pouch she carried in her person. It was before she had gained any experience, but he wasn’t going to provide her with any.

It was probably a bit too late to realise what a blunder he had made, and yet he couldn’t do anything to stop the regret at his words overtook him. It wasn’t even regret, really. Just anger, and even that word fell short. He chose anger because nothing else came to mind, nothing else to describe the way blood pounded in his ears and the Firelord’s voice in his head reminded him of how he would always be a failure, even with the ill granted favour of the spirits in tow, and the sheer agony behind his eye.

“Explain what?” Kenta barked in a tone rougher than his manners, truly feeding into the illusion that he was a helpless prey surrounded by the most vicious of animals. He could always punch fire and run away, bidding his time like a half rotting gambling addict that clung to old taverns, that remained a respectable option, but he was still here, held back by both the earth that surrounded his feet, clamping together to form a mould around his feet and rendering him immobile and Jeon, who was telling him to stay. Though commanding would have been a better word.

Stay for what, exactly?

There was nothing he could do right now, at that very moment.

“My.. my past.” Just these three words seeped enough energy from him to make a droplet pf sweat appear on his forehead, and he yelled at Jeon, his words hidden in his mind yet visible to what seemed to be half the Spirit World.

Why am I feeling this fucking weak, you pathetic fuck? His chest heaved with laboured breaths, and he let his head hang, the pain behind his eye subsiding into a dull throbbing ache and the waves of anger ebbing in his body and mind both. But, he need to mold the rage into something useful, even if it was catered to a single specific situation. He couldn’t get defensive, or aggressive, leaving him nothing but numbness as the only option. That wasn’t not the aim, and it made everything that he’s endured for the past few years useless. He faintly wondered whether it would be better to just slip from the world, eyes slipping shut and skin cooling for the first time in his life as he slept an eternal sleep.

“I can’t believe you betrayed me.” Ming muttered, voice rough and dutifully stripped of any affection that Zuko was used to, after years of knowing the man. Never had he imagined that he would be on the receiving end of such harshness, yet there was something that made him feel like he deserved it. Deserved everything that had happened to him, and everything that would happen to him, yet there was something that wanted to rebel against it. He hadn’t done anything wrong, on the other hand he had carried out every order that had been told to him. He opened his mouth to protest when Ming muttered some more, clearly unsatisfied with the way Zuko had so called betrayed him.

He hadn’t—

He stared at the people who were supposed to be his enemy is another life, and took a deep breath, one of the many he would take if things came down to a fight. He’d be outmatched, a thought that had been lingering at the back of his head for the past half an hour or so, or at least from when he had first been stupid enough to reveal something about himself that could have put him in danger.

Ot was late, but he cursed his older self, the one from just a few minutes ago with bitterness coating his throat, words dying on his tongue.

If only h was Azula, she wouldn’t have done anything like this. She would have been probably ruling the fire nation by now, sitting on the stone with an expression smug enough to burn the faces of a thousand dragons and light a thousand lamps.

“I have –“

Sokka pushed his way to the front of the group, hand roughly clasping Ming’s bicep as he stepped forward, towering over him in a way that seemed impossible to comprehend, and he was dismayed to see the beginnings of seemed to a decent muscle definition. He could take him down within seconds if he needed to, especially with everyone behind him, clearly on the edge. If only Mai was here, then everything would be fine. At least he’d apologise for telling that he'd come and see her after the Agni Kai, because that was the least of what Mai deserved.

“There’s something strange about you, and I’m pretty sure Aang noticed as well.” He twisted his neck to lock eyes with Aang, one hand already beckoning him with a lazy, swift gesture. “Aang! We need you over here!”

And then he was staring Aang in the face.

I promise never to be this idiotic again, please just use your Avatar powers. The look in his eyes must have something particularly powerful, because Aang took a step backwards, eyes widening as he stared him the face, before looking at Katara.

“There’s something… strange inside of him.” Aang admitted after a few seconds of terse silence, during which Ming had apparently decided that only a frown suited his face, and Kenta hadn’t met his gaze even once, shying away. The uncomfortableness of the setting was clear, and there was no escape from it.

“It doesn’t make sense, you’re supposed to be dead-“ Kenta finally muttered, voice hoarse and low as though half of it still stuck to his throat, blood and bile trying to wash it down. His expression was withdrawn, that much Zuko could see in the reflected light of the moon and Katara’s eyes widened at his words, disbelief and confusion tattooed on her face.

“What do you mean by that?” She asked, voice a bit too high for what could be passed as normal, posture relaxing. Even Sokka and Aang seemed taken aback at that, in more senses than one. While he had been just a couple of steps away from Sokka, just within kicking distance really, there was now a larger distance between the two and Aang looked thoroughly disturbed, as though someone had narrated the details of gutting a moose-deer to him, using more words and gestures than they should have.

“His father killed him, in an Agni Kai.” Kenta gritted the words through his teeth, fists clenching before he darted forward, an action so sudden that Zuko flinched as he grabbed hold of his shirt, clenching hard enough to turn his knuckles white. Ming’s face showed that he had just remembered that particular fact, and Zuko faintly wondered whether his earlier sympathy for him would get him out of this situation. Hopefully.

“What are you?”

“I…” Zuko searched for the words that could best explain his situation, and then went with the easiest one, ignoring the way everyone stared at him. “My dad killed me in a completely unfair Agni Kai, this spirit called Jeon has been possessing me ever since I died to make sure I’m alive, and I’m very much on your side and I just want to make sure the war ends and-“ He swallowed, even if hurt to. “-tell Mai I love her. That’s all. Also, can you please let me out of this ice choker?”

Chapter Text

Basically my real life is a mess, so I'll be cancelling the plan for a second book in June.

It either comes out in October, or this series is on hiatus.

I hope you understand, and I'm sorry if this update dissapointed you.