Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Li was just some dumb teenage boy, Jin had concluded. He was exciting and mysterious as the new guy, and he was cute, but at the end of the day he still felt the need to comment on girls’ appetites and yell at waiters who made assumptions about who was or wasn’t his girlfriend. He still ran away after one kiss. Though, Jin didn’t take that last part too personally. After all, she assumed that anyone who readily admitted, “it took my uncle 10 minutes to do my hair,” while looking like that, was a little sheltered. Plus, there was the whole thing with the lanterns, and the coupon was a fumbled but well-meaning gesture, and—

Despite his general assholery, the evening had its nice notes.

So, yeah, Li was just some dumb teenage boy, but when Jin told her friends about her date and they all giggled and teased and were teenage girls, that was what she had been looking for.

+++

The daily customers of Pao’s Tea Shop didn’t come for Li. They used to come for a place to hang out, and then Mushi moved in and made the drinks actually enjoyable, and then they came for Mushi. Li was as standoffish as servers came, had taken swords out on a clearly delusional customer, and burned every cup of tea he had to brew himself when his uncle was busy.

Li was an element of the teashop, that was all. He was the same as the creaky hinge on the door or the thin-papered lanterns—a fact of the setting. If he was particularly fun to tease and rile—as long as you could withstand some hot tea “spilling” on you, (as long as you could withstand the days when he didn’t respond to the playful jabs at all, when he was distracted and tight jawed and incurably faraway , when that scar glared at you like the sun)—then nobody would say it aloud.

+++

Li was not a good employee. He was a decidedly bad one, Pao would argue. But his uncle made up for him tenfold with the business he brought, and no matter how terrible a server Li was, he was a server, and that was something Pao sorely needed.

Still—Li mouthed off at him and his uncle as if he had the authority, whispered with his uncle constantly in a way that unsettled Pao, and the line built up everytime Mushi took a break because the customers had all learned not to drink Li’s tea.

To be fair, they had also grown out of Pao’s tea. Mushi had spoiled their palettes permanently.

One day, just after closing, Pao watched Mushi ruffle Li’s hair. He watched Li growl predictably, and it was that predictability which somehow made the moment… endearing? Soft? Sweet? Surely not.

Pao didn’t have children or a wife. He visited his mother and father maybe once a year. None of this had any relevance whatsoever.

+++

Li himself was… here. He hated that he was. He hated that ‘here’ was some back alley, Earth Kingdom teashop. He hated how Uncle barely seemed to care, seemed to have forgotten the mission entirely. Yet no matter how hard he hated it, he was still here . For now. So, Li would learn to accept it. Also for now. He would serve tea, and grumble ‘your welcome’s to that little girl who wouldn’t stop thanking him unless he did, and wash dishes, and sweep floors at the end of every day.

The second the Avatar walked through the front door, Zuko decided that was all bullshit.

+++

Aang just wanted to deliver the posters over the city as fast as possible and get back to the house to await replies. But… Ba Sing Se was big, and he had to get through every part of every ring, and he still didn’t even know why there were rings, it was stupid , and he just wanted to find Appa—but he was getting thirsty, and hungry, and, and he could stop. He could rest, he could get food, he wasn’t on the run right now, it wasn’t life or death, but a lot of things didn’t seem life or death at first, at first they were just a general asking you how Avatar state worked, or a village celebrating a holiday about the Avatar, or—

This was already life or death, wasn’t it? Just not for him, for Appa, maybe, and—

No. Appa wasn’t dead. They would find him, said a voice in Aang’s head, a familiar one, one that he knew the ins and outs of, one with the hesitant warmth which even the tundra brings after 100 years in ice, There was hope.

Aang brought his glider down. He found a tea shop. 

All Aang wanted to do was get a drink, get back to the posters, and find Appa. Aang had not wanted to walk into a teashop only to be met with Prince Zuko staring at him.

He definitely hadn’t wanted it. But it also maybe wasn’t… bad?

OK, yeah, it was bad, sure. Aang knew it was bad, he’d had nightmares featuring the guy. But, the last time he had seen him, Zuko had been hunched over his injured uncle’s body—the same uncle who had helped at the North Pole—and he had been yelling at them to leave, as distraught as he was dangerous.

For a moment, Aang’s and Zuko’s expressions must have been matching, all wide-eyed disbelief. But Aang’s expression stayed that way where Zuko’s tilted down, darkened, culminated in a familiar growl:

“The Avatar.”

Aang stepped back, halfway between a stance to run out and a stance to fight, watching Zuko carefully as his hand flew to the swords strapped to his back, swords Aang had had against his throat before, except then it had been different, a layer of protection—

“The Avatar?”

Several patrons had twisted around in their seats to look, but it was the woman who spoke up who caused some kind of haze to break, and suddenly everyone was talking at Aang, smiles and questions filling the restaurant. Aang blinked, then returned a bright grin and bashful shrug to them. Zuko blinked, as if just remembering where they were. Slowly, hesitantly, as if it pained him, he lifted his hand off his blades.

“If you’re the Avatar, can you bend air?” came the voice of a little boy tugging on Aang’s pant-leg. Aang gave the shop a quick glance, and made a tiny whirlwind to spin a teaspoon around in a nearby cup. This ended with a lot of tea spilled, which he waterbent back into the cup, definitely because he cared about the mess and not to show off, although, considering the applause, he might as well show them his air scooter… 

“Enough!” shouted Zuko, who knew how to kill a mood. “The Avatar and I need to speak. Outside.”

“Li, you know the Avatar?” asked one of the men near the front, a question which was echoed throughout multiple tables.

Zuko struggled with that for a moment. “No, of course not, I—“

“Li?” Aang questioned, tilting his head at the other. Zuko cringed, silent for a second, as if expecting Aang to say something, which... Aang could, he could reveal him very easily, but. He didn't. And when he didn’t, Zuko cleared his throat and proceeded to speak as if he was coming up with every word individually,

“Uh, no, it's just... there’s… a storehouse with… extra tea? The Avatar can choose there from our full selection.”

“There’s other teas? Can I come?” asked the same man.

“No,” Zuko replied quickly and harshly.

“What, so the Avatar gets special treatment?” a new girl put in, something teasing underlying her tone, which absolutely did not land with Zuko.

“Yes.”

That, Aang knew, was definitely not a lie. Still, he almost acquiesced. He had questions for Zuko, ones that mainly started with the word ‘why,’ and ended with words like ‘Ba Sing Se,’ ‘tea shop,’ ‘server.’ Things that would be awkward for Li here to answer, and somehow—thinking of a blue mask, dual dao—revealing him would feel like a betrayal. On the other hand, there was a voice in Aang’s head saying, you want to have a pleasant chat with the evil prince trying to kidnap you?! It sounded suspiciously like Sokka.

“Actually, I’m fine with what you have here,” Aang replied peppily, and Zuko had the audacity to look shocked, genuinely shocked, at the fact he wasn’t rushing to get captured. “Could I get a cup of po cha?”

“I am not making you tea,” Zuko huffed, crossing his arms and turning to the side, and Aang could almost have laughed.

“You were just offering him any tea he wanted...?” pointed out the girl who was teasing Zuko earlier, and at that, Aang did laugh.

“Don’t worry, kid, you don’t want Li’s tea anyway,” another man offered, grinning, “Wait around for his Uncle.”

“His Uncle?” Aang repeated, a tentative relief slipping into his tone, “Z—Li, your uncle, he’s okay?” The last time they’d seen the guy he’d been half-dead on the ground, and it had seemed too sensitive a subject to bring up without risking Zuko giving into instinct and burning this place to the ground.

“What?” Zuko said, less caught-off-guard and more genuinely confused, “Of course he is. He’s out buying useless garbage.”

“Ah,” Aang said, at the same time a man standing behind the counter, presumably the shop-owner, put in

“Have some respect for your Uncle, boy! He’s a wise man and a better employee than you’ll ever be. Now enough of your nonsense, serve the Avatar!"

Zuko’s mouth formed a snarl but he managed to restrain the noise from actually coming out. He turned back with a vicious force, enough so that Aang took a step back on instinct. “What do you want? Nothing? Great. Bye.”

“Li—” the owner sighed, then maybe gave up.

Aang hesitated. This whole interaction, while intriguing, hadn’t really gotten anywhere, and didn’t seem to be going anywhere. He was about to leave, when he remembered the sheets of paper in his hand, and,

“Can I hang my poster up here?” 

Zuko barely glanced at the paper before firmly replying, “No.” Then, he glanced again, and squinted at it. “You… lost your flying beast?” 

“He’s a bison,” Aang replied quietly.

Zuko’s expression was strange for a moment. And then his brow furrowed and his nose scrunched, and, ah, there was anger,

“Leave.”

So. Aang did.

+++

Zuko waited for an admirable 5 seconds before chasing after the Avatar. But when he got to the door, he was already nowhere to be found. A trail of posters fell onto the sidewalk, and Zuko looked up to a glider disappearing over a horizon of buildings.

“What was all that about?” came Jin’s voice from inside.

Zuko let his hand clench against the wood of the door frame for a moment, then slumped forward with a noise of exasperation, and stomped his way back to his serving tray.

As he felt eyes follow him, he realized he would have to answer Jin’s question. He wasn’t calm enough right now to recall how much he had revealed—and why hadn't the Avatar just revealed him entirely?—but he needed some way to make all of it less suspicious. He searched for plausible excuses, and found himself recalling a lengthy, impromptu, and very odd conversation he once had with a cabbage merchant.

“The Avatar… broke some of my stuff,” Zuko said, and that maybe wasn’t a lie? He had done a number on the Wani that first day. Regardless, he got the impression no one really believed him, which. Whatever. Like it was their business anyway.

+++

“The Avatar’s here,” Zuko said, and when Uncle didn’t react, clarified, “in Ba Sing Se. And he’s lost his bison.”

“We have the roots for something good here. You don’t want to go stirring up trouble, or we could lose it all,” Uncle replied easily, as if that was easy, as if the news meant nothing. Changed nothing.

“He came into the shop!” Zuko burst out, but Uncle only raised a brow,

“What did you do about this?”

“Nothing,” Zuko admitted, ashamed, the word bitter in his mouth.

Uncle nodded. “That was wise.”

“How? I could have done something, and I didn’t!”

“Did you have a plan for what to do?” Uncle challenged, taking a sip of tea, calmly, like everything was calm.

“I would’ve—“

“You would not have figured anything out, nephew,” Uncle sighed tiredly, disappointedly, and Zuko’s hands twitched. “Do you not remember what happened to that young man, Jet? Could you have defeated the Dai Li and made it out of the city?”

Zuko knew what Uncle was saying, that he would’ve only gotten himself imprisoned or killed. He knew he needed a plan—but how could he pause for a plan, next to something so monumental? Even Zuko knew, when it came down to it, from an outsider’s perspective, it sounded stupid. But he hated letting those dumb customers, that dumb tea shop, prevent him from his destiny. All of that was so… domestic. Small. Next to the boy who had been right in front of him, next to the one thing that mattered, next to the end of it all.

The end of it all. It wrung with such finality. Which, which was what Zuko liked about it… right? The end of it all . Of what? His banishment? His anger? His life?

“Even with the Avatar in Ba Sing Se, I am not sure pursuing him is the right path,” Uncle continued, something slower, more cautious in the way he spoke, “Be certain it is what you want, Prince Zuko.”

“It’s my destiny!”

Uncle sighed again, and Zuko didn’t really know what was happening. He felt sick. He was going to be in Ba Sing Se forever.

+++

In the dead of the night, the Blue Spirit made his way through the Upper Ring.

After a painstaking search, the Blue Spirit found a house containing two Water Tribe siblings and a girl in green sleeping with her feet on a table. The Blue Spirit saw a flash of orange in his periphery, and dashed outside to see a glider far in the air.

The Blue Spirit did not capture the Avatar for a second time.

+++

Aang did not make friends with the Blue Spirit for a second time.

Not that he was desperate to. Zuko was, surprisingly, the least of his concerns right now. He just—he needed Appa back. He wished he could have claimed he was staying awake last night under the knowledge that Zuko would try to capture him, but really…

Aang had dreams where Appa burned with the air temples. Dreams where when he unfroze from the iceberg, Appa never did. Dreams where Long Feng gave one quick order and Appa was served at the King’s next banquet. But most often, Aang dreamt he was 8 and holding an apple out and his face was being licked and he was hugging warm fur. It was a unique kind of cruelty—a happiness so sad.

Aang rubbed at his eyes as if it would lighten the dark circles, as if it would cure sleeplessness. He picked up another pile of posters as if the Dai Li wouldn’t just take them down.

He didn’t exactly try to go to that spot in the Lower Ring. It was subconscious, something left over from their encounter yesterday or last night, that brought him on a direct path to the tea shop.

Regardless, he was here, and he ordered a cup of tea that he had a feeling he wasn’t going to get. If the look on Zuko’s face wasn’t enough to let Aang know he would actually just attack this time, then the unapologetic reach to his dual dao was a hint. And then—

“The Avatar!” Zuko’s Uncle greeted cheerily, “Nephew, aren’t we lucky to have such an auspicious guest?”

Zuko’s hand faltered over his swords’ hilts. His expression wasn’t surprise, but it was maybe something close to betrayal.

“…I wouldn’t call it luck.”

Zuko’s Uncle brewed Aang a cup of tea, then served it to him when Zuko refused to. Which. Sure. Aang didn’t have to be here for Zuko, he didn’t really know why he came anyway, but… that didn’t mean he had to leave. Zuko wasn’t a threat here, and as much as Aang had an itch to run or, or do something when Zuko was around… he didn’t have to.

So. Aang performed airbending tricks for the better part of an hour, then invented various games with impatient kids waiting in line, then let a couple of old ladies gush over him. It was… nice. It was also weird; Zuko kept staring at him, and Aang kept glancing at Zuko; but that was more Zuko’s fault for becoming Li from the teashop than it was Aang’s for getting tea.

No one in the shop knew anything about Appa, because of course they didn’t. Aang still asked everyone who came in. 

+++

The Avatar asked everyone who came in about his magic cow. Just before he exited the shop, Zuko heard him quietly ask one of the old women he’d been speaking to if she could put one of his posters on the wall.

About a minute later, Zuko went to rip a poster down, and was promptly stopped by a wrinkled hand,

“Don’t you dare touch that poster, young man! I don’t care what the Avatar’s done to you, he’s a sweet boy. He wants that bison because he loves it, though I doubt you could understand such things.”

Zuko didn’t take down the poster under the eyes of that woman. Then, he didn’t take down the poster when she was gone.

+++

That night, the Blue Spirit did not capture the Avatar for a third time. 

+++

A fourth time.

+++

Fifth.

+++

The posters weren’t working. The Dai Li were getting rid of them at seemingly inhuman speeds and Joo Dee kept “reminding” them about it. The only poster that managed to consistently stay up was the one that he put in Pao’s Tea Shop, which…

He asked Zuko about it, once, who responded by tearing it down immediately. A man beside them casually put it back without giving either of them a second glance.

Not that it mattered. It wasn’t like any of the customers had information. But. It made Aang feel… something.

Today, the neighborhood kids had brought chalk. They had already drawn out what Aang thought was an incredible rendition of him, though the firebending was obviously not a reality. Aang helped draw some flowers and monkeys, until a few girls made a game out of drawing paths of circles and seeing who could jump through them the fastest.

Aang had just won with his airbending for the third time when he felt the familiar sensation of eyes burning into the back of his skull. He turned around with a shit-eating grin, and waved,

“Li! Did you wanna turn?”

Zuko’s lips formed a—not exactly a snarl, more of an… obstinate pout. Like he was taking the challenge seriously. Which he was, apparently, because the next thing Aang knew Prince Zuko was dashing forward with far too much drive for a teenager entering a childrens’ game. He nimbly jumped between the circles with all the light-footed dexterity of a blue-masked vigilante.

“You didn’t beat Aangy’s time,” said the girl in charge of timing.

“Aangy?” Zuko questioned. Aang waved brightly again.

By the time Aang got back to the house, sunset was nearing its end. Katara was waiting by the door, and when she saw him, she smiled briefly and then frowned.

“Aang!” she greeted, “You’ve been spending an… awful lot of time putting up posters recently.”

“Yeah,” he replied, pausing in his tracks.

“Okay, well,” Katara said in her worried tone, with her worried face, “if you need anything, remember you can talk to me. To us.”

“Yeah,” Aang replied again, and he meant it, to an extent, remembering the cold feeling of shutting her out at the Serpent's Pass. He offered a small smile. “Thanks, Katara.” 

He did mean it, honestly, except—if he told the others about Zuko, they’d just turn him over to the king, and… he didn’t want that.

“Of course,” Katara said, a little warmer, though the underlying concern was still there. She put a hand on his shoulder, walking him inside. He leaned against her, and, unbidden, his eyes started to close.

+++

For once, Aang was asleep when the Blue Spirit visited. He woke up with his arms half-tied, and before his heart even had time to start pounding, he had airbent himself directly out of the window on pure instinct.

Zuko followed silently, but the damage was done. Katara’s voice carried through the house with a,

“Aang! Everything alright in there?”

Pretty soon, Aang’s room was full with his 3 friends, while he and Zuko were in a bush in the garden. He heard a foot stomp down, hard, and then Toph was saying, “He’s—“

“Yeah, everything’s fine!” Aang shouted. Zuko shifted back slightly, rustling the leaves, and gestured at himself, as if saying: I’m right here? As if Aang had forgotten, or not seen, as if telling him: warn them about me, you idiot!  

“…Are you sure?” Katara asked, at the same time Sokka asked,

“Where are you?” 

“The garden! I, uh, wanted to take a late night walk?” Aang tried.

“Oh,” Katara’s tone wasn’t confused anymore, it was sad, and Aang wished it would go back, “You want company?”

Aang cringed, but replied, “Uh, no, I’d really rather be alone right now.”

“Okay, if you’re sure,” Katara said and the disappointment in her voice became guilt in Aang’s chest. Zuko once again gestured to himself wildly.

“Just be careful,” Sokka allowed with a yawn. 

“Yeah, Twinkletoes,” Toph finally spoke again, something knowing in her tone, “careful.”

Aang and Zuko both heard footsteps recede into the background. They both stayed stock-still and silent for a few, long seconds. And then Zuko was rushing forward, swords drawn, and Aang was airbending backwards.

Aang propelled himself up, jumping onto a nearby tree, and Zuko wasted exactly no time in climbing after him. However, seeing as the place was lined with trees, Aang just jumped between them, Zuko following a good few behind.

“How did you get to me in the Pohuai Stronghold?” Aang asked, not shouting, but loud enough for the sound to carry to Zuko. He swore he almost saw Zuko stumble.

“What?”

“How did you find out I was there? How did you get in?” Aang repeated insistently.

“Why didn’t you tell your friends I’m here?” Zuko asked back, like this was some kind of question-time. Maybe that was honestly what he had assumed.

Aang decided to spell it out for him, “Do you think you could find Appa?”

Zuko paused in his tracks, and Aang hopped a couple more trees back, before stopping as well.

“…I could find Appa,” Zuko said quietly, and Aang wasn’t sure if he was speaking to him or to himself.

Zuko shook his head, as if clearing his thoughts, took time to assess the lead Aang had on him—prompting Aang to airbend back a couple more trees—and slowly, reluctantly climbed down. Aang was about to follow, but he watched Zuko dash away, and knew he was only returning to the tea shop.

The Blue Spirit hadn’t captured the Avatar for a sixth time, and Aang had no idea if he had made a friend.

+++

At first, Aang wasn’t sure how to feel about seeing Jet again, but Aang had been hanging out with Zuko, so really, how much worse could his company get? And then, the word Appa was out of Jet’s mouth and nothing else mattered.

They finally were onto something, something real.

It happened fast, and it happened slow. Too fast and too slow. It happened in a promise, a hope of a reunification with a friend, and then the crushing defeat of a coldly, cruelly empty room, and then Jet, and Long Feng, and Jet —

And Jet was, he was,

He—

+++

The Blue Spirit wasn’t going to help the Avatar. That wasn’t the plan. The plan was: capture the beast, bait the Avatar.

It was just—there was something in seeing the thing—beast, cow, bison, whatever —chained up and… and alone… and it didn’t make a difference, it shouldn’t, and he was going crazy if he thought those big, round eyes in any way resembled the ones the Avatar wore in Pohuai, the ones he wore in the tea shop when he asked if anyone had seen ‘Appa.’

It didn’t make a difference.

It didn’t. It shouldn’t.

+++

Appa was there. Appa was there. Appa was here.

On the shores above Lake Laogai, Aang hugged his best friend for the first time in weeks, and Katara did too, and Sokka did too, and Toph did too, and Momo jumped on top of his head, and Aang had a family. And Appa had a family.

+++

A bison went free. A Dark Water Spirit mask was thrown into dark water, and Zuko wished it felt more like a death.

Uncle was waiting for him above the lake. All he said was,

“I am proud of you, Nephew.”

Zuko felt vaguely ill. He swallowed it down and went back to the apartment.

+++

“How did Appa get out anyway?” Sokka asked.

Aang smiled. “Oh, I have a few ideas.”

+++

“Are you alright, nephew?”

Zuko swallowed down something which was either saliva or bile, he couldn’t make out the difference. He gripped a hand against a wall. 

Uncle sighed behind him, “I thought this might happen—“

Zuko braced his shoulders, stood up straight, and kept walking.

+++

“You have to promise to be nice to him.”

“No, we don’t!” “I will not be.”

+++

Li from the teashop could and would ignore the Avatar if he came in again. His new plan was his old plan—he’d sweep floors, do dishes, serve tea. For now. He’d accept this life. Also for now.

The Avatar, two Water Tribe siblings, and the little green one walked through the front door, and Zuko decided that was all bullshit.

Chapter Text

The last thing Katara needed right now was to see Zuko.

Because, firstly, he was Zuko, prince of the Fire Nation, heir to the throne, face of all evil. But secondly—she couldn’t believe Aang had been going to see him. It was more than that it was stupid and dangerous, it was that… when he had been so cut-up about Appa, when he had passed sleepless night after sleepless night, when he had let himself slip half-way into mourning, he hadn’t gone to her. He had spent his days at some teashop with Zuko, because apparently that was better than being with her, with any of his friends, and she—she didn’t get it. It wasn’t like she was jealous, or anything, this was... different. This hurt.

“Explain it again,” Sokka was demanding, and Katara’s hands dug into the carpet. She didn’t want to hear it again.

Aang sighed, leaning back with the sound, and resting further into Appa’s side from his spot in the open entryway, where he had refused to leave without seeming to think about it. Katara felt herself soften a little.

“Look, he’s weird there! I know it sounds crazy, but I don’t think he’s a threat,” Aang re-explained, but this time added, “I… I think he could be an ally.”

“You’re right,” Sokka decided, “it does sound crazy.”

“Look, I can’t explain it, I just have this feeling —“

“Oh, right, forgot to trust your Magic Avatar Feelings ,” Sokka made some stupid, wavy gestures, which must be meant to represent magic, “the same ones that got us trapped in a swamp—!”

“Can you pinheads shut up for one second?!” Toph yelled, loud enough that Momo ducked behind Katara from his position on her head. “What more do you people need to know?” she continued, throwing her arms wide in exasperation, “Prince Jerk is here and Aang wants us to see him! It doesn’t matter, we can take him if he tries anything.”

Katata opened her mouth to retort, but Aang cut in first with a relieved,

“Thanks, Toph. I think.” Aang turned his eyes on the rest of them, all wide and hopeful, and so utterly him. In a way… it was good to see. Katara had made sure Aang wouldn’t give up on hope, on the world, on himself, at any point, but he hadn’t been whole with Appa gone. So. Yeah, it was good to see.

Katara let out a huff, crossed her arms, and offered, “Aang, if you want us to go, we’ll go. But that doesn’t mean we have to like it. And like Toph says, we won’t hesitate if he tries something.”

“He won’t,” Aang promised, his conviction still as baffling as when this conversation began.

+++

The last thing Sokka needed right now was to see Prince Zuko.

They had Appa back, and that was great. They’d convinced King Kuei to dismiss Long Feng, and that was great. They still had a lot to do, obviously, planning the invasion, and then, you know, invading. But, considering their track record, things were greater than usual currently. There was no need to ruin that with Fire Nation nobility.

Then again—Sokka supposed there was some merit in it. Some. Not much. Not enough to justify it, but, hey, keeping enemies close and all that. Plus, finding out that Aang had been casually hanging out with Zuko for a week had been heart attack-worthy. If this was something that was happening, he’d prefer to be able to monitor it.

So, here he was. Trudging along to some teashop, because apparently that was where Zuko would be, and—OK, yeah, Sokka did actually want to see that. 

“Remind me again why we can’t just turn him in?” Sokka asked, less because he was hoping for a new answer, and more to be difficult.

Aang didn’t fall for the bait, smile staying placid and sunny. That kid was good. “He hasn’t captured me yet, so we don’t turn him in! Fair, right?”

“No,” Sokka said, and was pleased when Katara simultaneously gave the same reply. 

+++

The last thing Toph needed right now was to hear another breath of these numskulls’ griping.

Personally, she was close to neutral on the whole Zuko thing. She thought it was a bigger deal that the big fuzzball was back, and that if Aang was on some especially starry-eyed high because of it, they might as well go along for now. And Zuko sounded crappy, duh, but the only time she’d met him, he was helping them fight his crazy sister. And then his uncle was hurt, and… Toph wanted to make sure that kooky old guy was alright.

“I can’t believe we’re really doing this, he tried to—“ Sokka was saying, and Toph punched him squarely in the arm.

“I can’t believe you’re still complaining about it,” she retorted.

“We’re here!” Aang announced brightly.

+++

The last thing Zuko needed right now was the Avatar and his friends in the shop.

“Leave. Now,” was what he said, which he thought was quite generous, and turned his back on them sharply.

There was a sound of indignation from one of the girls—the waterbender, he was pretty sure—as if he should be grateful for their presence. The nonbender said, “Believe me, I would love to,” and then there was a whooshing of air, and the Avatar was in front of him.

“Hi, Li! Could I get a cup of matcha?” he asked brightly.

“No,” Zuko scowled, with practice.

“You work in a teashop and you can’t make tea?” the earthbender asked incredulously.

Zuko turned back to face her, “Of course I can make tea! I’m just—“

“No, he can’t,” put in one man who came in here a lot for someone who very vocally hated the server. Which seemed to be most of the customer base, actually.

“Yeah, say, Li , how’d you end up working here anyway? Seems like an unusual choice for you?” the nonbending boy—the leader of the group, (Zuko was pretty sure, if not the Avatar then the eldest made sense, and he seemed to be the planner)—asked nonchalantly, leaning forward with a hand on his chin.

Zuko gave him the most withering glance he could, and tried not to grit his teeth as he replied, “My Uncle and I came to the city as refugees; we needed work.”

“Uh-huh, likely story,” the boy’s sister scoffed, which earned her some odd looks from the customers, who included a considerable amount of refugees.

“He’s telling the truth,” the green one said with certainty. How she knew, Zuko wasn’t sure, but he’d love to try out the ability on Azula.

“Really?” the Water Tribe boy gave her a highly suspicious look, “Are you sure your feet aren’t broken—?”

“Why else would I be here—!“ Zuko tried to put in, and then wished he could take it back when the waterbender’s eyes widened, and they were all fully yelling now,

“Oh, I don’t know, how about to track down the—!”

“Haha, okay!” They were broken up by the Avatar bending in between them, a large swath of air ruffling their clothes. “Li, do you know if your uncle’s gonna be here soon? I bet he’d make us tea."

Yeah, he probably would, thought Zuko, enjoying feeling miserable instead of furious for a moment. He let out a long, stuttering, angry breath. Then, as collected as he could, tried,

“We can continue this conversation outdoors." It was the same angle he had aimed for the first day the Avatar showed up. Of course, it would be harder to fight 4 than 1, especially if he wanted to do it discreetly, but. They definitely couldn’t do it in the shop, so one step at a time.

The nonbender raised an unimpressed brow. “Yeah, I think we’re good right here.” 

“But please, Li, if there was something you wanted to do out there, feel free to try it here,” his sister challenged, arms crossed in a way Zuko could only find completely childish.

The little earthbender meanwhile gained a wide smile across her face. “Yeah, try it! Maybe that’d make this less boring!” she said and punched one hand against the other.

Right. And get taken away by the Dai Li, they would want that. Zuko scoffed. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

“I think your customer service is pretty terrible,” the nonbender replied without missing a beat. The Avatar laughed, and it caught Zuko by surprise—not the Avatar laughing, but the laugh itself. It was different from his previous moments of joviality in the shop, more open and free and unrestrained and... Zuko almost felt like he could recognize it.

“…Where is the cow?” Zuko’s mouth asked with precisely no permission from him.

The Avatar’s laugh softened into a grin, and he said, “Nearby. Outside.” The nonbender elbowed him,

“Don’t tell him that!” he hissed, as if Zuko could have used the split-second information to outrun the whole group and steal the beast without anyone stopping him. Then again, a past him might’ve tried. Should he have tried? What did it say about him that he didn't?

“Yeah well, we should probably go check on him,” the Avatar said conversationally, politely, choosing a polite way to excuse themselves.

“Fine by me,” both the waterbender and earthbender said, in much different tones. The nonbender simply glared at him as they left.

The Avatar hung back a moment longer, looked Zuko dead in the eye, and quietly, genuinely, said,

“Thanks.”

And then they were gone. So. That was that.

+++

“It is weird,” Katara said reluctantly, as they walked back to Appa, “how he doesn’t—can’t attack us there.”

“He’s planning something,” Sokka decided, a thoughtful hand at his chin, “why else would he be here?”

“I don’t think so, Sokka,” Aang shook his head, “He seemed surprised when he first saw me.”

“He’s here cuz he’s a refugee,” Toph reminded, picking her nose.

“Okay, but that doesn’t mean he’s not planning something!” Sokka’s voice rose higher as he spoke, “Since he knows you’re here—!”

Toph flicked what she had been picking from her nose at him, and Sokka recoiled with several noises of disgust. “Look, all I know is that everything he said in there was the truth.”

Sokka hummed discontentedly, then brightened suddenly, "Oh! That’s a great idea, Toph! We should go back to interrogate him.”

“Really? You’ll come again?” Aang asked, just as they reached Appa, and Sokka wished—for the sake of having a team with any self-preservation skills—that he wouldn't say it so hopefully.

+++

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

“Hi, Li! Could I get a cup of oolong?”

“So, about your coming to the city as so-called refugees—“

“Would you like to have this conversation outside?”

“No, he wouldn’t! We wouldn’t!”

“Do you have any plans involving the Avatar, Li ?”

“Plans? I—yes, of course.”

“…“

“Lie.”

“Yeah, believe it or not, Toph, I could figure that one out.”

“I do have a plan! It’s just—it’s kind of… on hold right now, but—“

“Truth? Half-truth maybe.”

“Hm. Why are you here?”

“We’re refugees.”

“No, why are you really here?”

“We’re refugees!”

“I can’t work like this.”

+++

It was worst when Uncle was there. The Avatar and his friends were a grating enough presence without someone willing to brew them tea. Not only willing, insistent upon. Uncle chatted to them casually and pleasantly, and if Zuko wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, then it was a sensible cover, a part of the disguise, but it just, it just— 

The Water Tribe boy, at least, seemed as unhappy about his Uncle's friendliness as Zuko. His sister also appeared to find it odd, but she seemed more openly curious than suspicious. The one good thing about it was that the boy had quickly become more interested in observing Uncle than questioning Zuko.

Because that was. A good thing. Obviously, definitely.

And it didn't matter if it led to the Earth Kingdom one explaining to Uncle various intricacies of earthbending—which the nonbender had warned her against, as if it would be useful in a fight to know that “Earth sculptors are all fuddy-duddies who think precision and power are mutually exclusive”—and it didn’t matter that the Avatar tuned out as soon as things got science-y and started playing Elements with the waterbender, who was only half-paying-attention to the game, which seemed to upset him. It didn’t matter, because why would it? Sure, Zuko hadn’t really thought about the fact this group discussed and did other things than actively plot against him, but that wasn’t… relevant to anything. And sure, the way the earthbender talked a mile a minute with a bright smile about a fighting style Zuko couldn’t understand, might in some way resemble Ty Lee but a lot more unkempt. Sure, the Avatar and the waterbender were playing the children’s game all children played, the one he played with Mai and Azula, the luck-based one—sufficient to say he always lost.

This didn’t— It wasn’t— It wasn’t important. 

It wasn’t.

+++

The next time they came in, Zuko was out, but his uncle was in. Katara really had no idea what the old guy’s deal was—he helped them at the North, he seemed patient and amicable, and yet he travelled around helping Zuko. Zuko, who yelled smoke at him for well-meant proverbs. Zuko, who kept Katara’s healing away when he was injured. Zuko, whose sole purpose was to hunt a 12-year-old who he had, on multiple occasions, seemed half-allied with.

Iroh, the Dragon of the West, near-conqueror of Ba Sing Se, served Katara tea. Enthusiastically. And was talking with Toph as if she was an old friend? And he had done the exact same thing yesterday too?

“Hah! Yeah, maybe when I’m old as you!” Katara caught the end of the joke which had Toph and Iroh laughing. Aang laughed too, though he seemed a little lost.

Sokka had been alternating between staring at his untouched cup of tea and Iroh. Well, he had been glaring, really, and recently switched to staring.

“You really don’t hate us, do you?” Sokka asked abruptly.

Iroh paused in his laughter, though his smile stayed solid. Maybe it changed in some way—but it stayed. “I really do not.”

“Then why your arrangement with your nephew?” Sokka questioned, narrowing his eyes. Katara leaned forward subconsciously. This was an answer she had been waiting for.

Iroh sighed. “My nephew is… a complicated young man. He has been through much strife—“

Katara couldn’t help her scoff. Her hand flew to her necklace of its own accord, thumbed across the familiar grooves, traced a carving that may as well have been a part of her skin.

“—he has not yet chosen his path. I know what path I would have him choose, but I can only guide his hand. Only oneself can forge one’s destiny.”

“That’s bullshit. No offense,” Sokka said, and Katara smacked his arm. “Hey! I’m just saying—destiny? Did nobody learn a lesson from Aunt Wu? You can totally do more than ‘guide his hand.'”

“Do you really think so?” Iroh challenged, raising a wry brow.

Sokka faltered, considered. “OK, yeah. The guy’s more stubborn than a moose lion, loves his evil nation, and hates Aang; I get it.” 

Iroh’s smile twisted, became a momentary grimace, then smoothed into something wistful, “That’s not quite what I meant, but—“

“You know, if you really want to prove you’re on our side,” Sokka interrupted, leaned onto the counter, lowered his voice, “you could give us some intel on the Fire Nation. And a map.”

Iroh hummed, stroking his beard, “I am afraid I do not have much more information than you currently—“ he held up a hand at Sokka’s expression— “I am sure your friend will attest I am not lying.”

“He’s not, and he won’t,” Toph confirmed, then leaned back and plopped her bare feet onto the counter. Eurgh.

“But I can put you in contact with some old friends, who might be in better positions to monitor the situation,” Iroh finished.

“What kind of old friends?” Sokka asked, as suspicious and dissatisfied as always. Which Katara kind of loved him for, at least when she wasn't hating him for it.

“I believe you have already met a couple,” Iroh grinned, the smile more genuine on his features than a few iterations of it had been over the course of the conversation, “Avatar Aang’s friend, King Bumi, and his brief teacher, Jeong Jeong.”

"You’re friends with Bumi?” Aang asked incredulously.

Iroh laughed. “Indeed. He is a very wise man.”

“Yeah,” Aang nodded, his grin wide, “he is.”

“Jeong Jeong too?” Katara asked. That one seemed more likely—both Fire Nation and all, but it was still of some curiosity.

“Yes, he is an excellent bender, one of the last true masters,” Iroh explained, “I wanted him to train Li, but… his father had other ideas on how he was to be taught.”

Katara’s stomach squirmed at Iroh’s tone and sudden frown. But Sokka barrelled on, 

“A map from Jeong Jeong, I should’ve thought of that!—and these people will have intel?”

“Possibly,” Iroh replied.

Sokka nodded slowly. “Right. We’ll talk more when your nephew isn’t here.” He pointed behind himself without turning around, and sure enough Zuko was walking through the door carrying some kind of shipment. His eyes searched for his uncle first, so of course they caught the group.

“In the name of—“

“Hey, hey, no need to get riled up!” Sokka said, putting his hands up and starting to walk out. Katara followed, then Aang and Toph. “You’ve got some ego, we weren’t even here for you.”

“Yeah, your uncle’s way cooler,” Toph grinned, and punched Zuko in the arm as they passed. Zuko almost dropped the packages he was carrying in response, reacting full-bodily. He slammed the stuff down on the nearest table just to scowl at them leaving.

But Katara knew what punches from Toph meant. She felt something twist inside her, and couldn’t place the sensation as unpleasant or not.

+++

“Li, how were you taught as a child?”

Zuko and Sokka both looked at Katara like she was crazy for the question. Zuko, like he wasn’t sure if he was being insulted, and choosing to take it that way just to be safe. Sokka, like he knew she wasn’t insulting him, and wishing she was.

“What?” Zuko asked, waited long enough to comprehend that the question was genuine, then replied with his eyes darting like he was sure it wasn’t, “Well, uh, I didn’t go to school—no, I’m educated, I mean—I had a private tutor.”

“No, like—your,” Katara gestured vaguely, and was hit by that surreal realization of how they could so easily turn Zuko the Fire Prince over to the authorities which she got everytime she had to waffle around her words like this, “your teacher.”

“What are you talking about?” Zuko asked frustratedly, like it was her fault he was an idiot.

“Your bending teacher,” Sokka clarified, loudly and harshly, pushing the limit on what they were 'allowed' to say by Avatar-Rules, like always.

Zuko straightened up quickly, turning a narrow, blade-sharp gaze on Sokka. 

“Li’s an earthbender?” questioned a girl who came in here a lot. Sokka smirked.

“I’m out of practice,” Zuko gritted out.

“Like you are at juggling?” the girl asked with a smile that creased her eyes, a teasing thing. Zuko ignored this.

“Li juggles?” Aang asked, now tuned back into the conversation after waterbending tea for half an hour while Zuko and Sokka were arguing.

“You bet! Li, show him!” the girl urged, and threw a handful of mealware at him, clearly already suppressing laughter.

“No,” Zuko tried, but Aang began tugging on his sleeve eagerly, which he pulled back from with intensity. 

“I’ll do it!” Toph offered with a wild grin. Zuko looked more than a little lost as Toph grabbed the various items from him. For the ensuing minute, sounds of clattering wood and 12-year-old laughter filled the restaurant.

“You never answered. How you were taught,” Katara brought them back on topic, for the sake of bringing them back on topic, and certainly not because something squirmed in her over the sight of the almost-domestic scene.

“Oh, right, uh,” Zuko cleared his throat and shook his head, and Katara wondered whether he had been in the same line of thought as her, briefly, at the same time. The idea was uncomfortable. “I had tutors for that too? How else would I? I—why do you want to know.”

How else would I. The sentence echoed in Katara’s skull. She pictured herself, young and proud of her newly-found skill and eager to learn, pictured herself in a world where there was someone to teach her. A tutor. Tutors, plural. Many someones, all carrying a tradition of her tribe, passing it down to her. Pictured a world where she wasn’t grasping at straws, at some vague feeling in her bones; wasn’t forced into thievery for her own peoples’ scroll; wasn’t being refused by a master from a half-foreign, half-familiar, half-forgotten sister of a culture. How else would he? Katara knew the answer—he wouldn’t. There was no world where he would’ve had to do it any other way.

Katara’s grip was tight on the table, and when she met Zuko’s gaze, his brow furrowed ever-so slightly. Sokka must have been watching her, because she heard him saying,

“Okay, we’re leaving.”

And. They did.

+++

The next day, the Avatar and his friends were late. Zuko had thought, by a certain point, that they weren’t coming, which… was relieving, right? He didn’t want them here. He either wanted to ignore them or deal with them, and he couldn’t do either of those things with them in the shop, so. Them not being here was the best option. Great.

But they did come in, finally, about a half hour before closing. The sister was trailing behind, her hands in fists, and she was pointedly not looking at the Avatar. So. There had been a fight. And all Zuko could think was that the girl trailing behind the group, still angry, was such a goddamn child.

Zuko began the same way as always: tell them to leave, which didn’t work. Tell them to go outside, which didn’t work. Tell the Water Tribe boy repeatedly that he did not have any useful maps, info on military movements, or secret war strategies.

“Why did you have multiple tutors?” the earthbender asked, out of the blue, maybe ten minutes in. For whatever reason, she appeared aggressively neutral on Zuko, so he didn’t search for bad intent behind the question.

“Uh, I was... as a child, I was pretty bad. At bending,” Zuko explained, avoiding the group’s gaze, “Not that I’m not good now! I am. Good. At bending,” he added—he wasn’t about to suggest he was bad at fighting in front of the enemy. He checked their expressions quickly, and finding them blank, continued to explain, “my father thought the teachers were the problem. That they weren’t, uh, disciplining me enough, so. He would get stricter ones.” Zuko cringed at the phantom feeling of harsh words turning into rattan canes on wrists turning into—

“Well that’s stupid,” the Earth Kingdom girl scoffed. "Strict teachers are the worst. Did your dad tell them what to do?"

Zuko wasn't sure. He wasn't sure if he wanted the answer to be yes or no.

“Huh. I always assumed he would’ve trained you himself,” the Avatar commented, casually, and Zuko’s heart skipped a beat at the thought. His father had taught him plenty of lessons. None of them would he want to repeat.

“I’m sure he was a pretty busy guy,” the nonbender pointed out.

“Yeah,” Zuko’s mouth felt dry, “That’s why.”

The Water Tribe girl’s expression had changed by the time Zuko met her eyes’ again—less fighty, more… more... Zuko couldn't place it. It was something open and searching, something that was searching him, staring at him.

“Anyway. I’m a great bender now, well—you’ve seen me,” Zuko shrugged, now seeming an appropriate time to remind everyone: he was, in fact, a formidable threat.

“Yeah, we have,” the nonbender boy spat, but he was looking at his sister when he said it. Zuko didn’t know what to do with that.

+++

Sokka was prepared to give it up. Sokka was prepared to give, case in point, because that was what he did. That was what he was. What he had to be. So, yeah, when they were given their stolen letters, when they were given their dad, a promise of him, Sokka knew already it was never a promise for him. Katara would go, and he’d stay and plan a war. Because being a man, the man, the eldest child, was never about being more (maybe he thought it was once—he was wrong, he miscategorized), it was about giving more.

Katara offered to stay behind. Sokka wrapped her in a hug and kissed her cheeks over and over. Then, it hit him,

“Don’t visit Zuko.”

Katara drew back, affronted, “Why not?!”

She thought that he thought that she couldn’t handle herself. Which wasn’t true, but the truth would probably be too close for her liking. “You need to focus on the invasion plan. You know those old guys will mess it up without you,” he said instead.

“You think I can’t handle myself,” Katara accused, not buying his shit for a second. And Sokka realized he had just ensured Katara would not be budging on this matter. She’d stay behind, and Sokka would worry about her the whole time. Not that he wouldn’t have worried anyway—he just hated that he’d have a valid reason now.

+++

Only the Water Tribe girl came in the next day. By herself, she held herself higher, chin up obstinately, as if daring you to call her in incapable, unprepared, childish in any way.

Yeah, that was a fucking kid.

Chapter Text

“Where’s the Avatar?” were the first words out of Zuko’s mouth, because of course they were. It took him another moment to add, “And where’s the—your brother?”

“Not going to ask about Toph?” Katara scoffed, wondering whether if anyone else had come in here alone, he would’ve asked about her. Whether she was relevant to anything in his mind. 

Zuko’s brow furrowed. He rephrased, “…Why is it just you?”

“Why should I tell you?” Katara sniffed, hoping to come off as dismissive and uninterested and impressive. Hoping to come off like her heart wasn’t hammering in her chest, like she was brave and strong and not thinking about being tied to a tree in the middle of nowhere. Like she couldn’t feel rough bark pressing into her back, couldn’t see a necklace dangled in front of her face like fish bait.

Yesterday, Katara had thought Zuko might have been hurt the same way anyone had, by absent fathers and sour old teachers. So, she had come here, trying to see that again. Call her curious. Call her kind.

But then Zuko rolled his eyes and turned his back to her, loading a tray with empty tea cups, continuing his work. It was that easy for him. To ignore her entirely. She remembered how he growled and retorted each of Sokka's snarks, and yet, what? She was nothing to him? She, who could have killed him at the North Pole. Katara realized then—she didn’t have to feel strong to act strong, she just had to feel angry.

(This was an insight which, if she had been thinking about it, she might have realized Zuko shared.)

“Hey! I’m not done with you!” she shouted, marching right over and grabbing his shoulder. He shook her off with more force than necessary, ceramic cups clinking and clattering on his tray,  many eyes turning on them. Which wasn’t unusual—the gaang and Li the server were a known spectacle.

He was finally glaring at her.

“You’re going to answer my questions,” Katara declared, taking a seat up front. Zuko followed reluctantly,

“I don’t have to—“

“Why are you so awful?” she asked. Which was a useless and redundant question, and one she had been longing to get out from the moment Prince Zuko’s ship had appeared on the Southern horizon. It wasn’t important; it wasn’t going to get her an answer she liked; and it wasn’t anything to do with the battle strategies and war theories Sokka thought he was smart for obsessing over. That was the whole point. The answer wasn't important; what Katara needed was the feeling of asking.

+++

“Why are you so awful?” the waterbender asked petulantly, and was every part a little sister.

Zuko sighed, half tempted to keep ignoring her, but he figured that would just make her more insistent. “I haven’t even done anything to you recently,” he pointed out bitterly.

“But you’ve wanted to!” the girl shot back.

“Yes,” Zuko agreed.

She gestured pointedly, as if he had just proved her point. Zuko frowned,

“Look, I’ve never wanted to do anything to you. If you just stopped helping him—“

“Yeah, right!” the girl stood up fiercely, jostling the table, “Unlike you, I’m a good person, and I’m actually trying to help the last hope for the world!”

The last hope for the world. To Zuko, that didn’t seem an inaccurate way to describe the Avatar. Everything relied on him—that they agreed on.

“You once told me you wanted your honor, and it makes sense, since you don’t have a shred of it!” she yelled, and Zuko could hear the heads in the room turning, but he didn’t care about that right now.

“You’re wrong about me!” he yelled back with equal grit-teeth stubbornness. There was some murmuring. He bit his tongue and tried to remind himself that this was just some Water Tribe peasant. It didn’t matter if she thought he was a bad person—of course she did.

Of course she did.

That didn’t mean he was. And if he was, should he care? Would Azula? Would Father? Not that Father would have to worry about it; Father was always right. Father was always great. (Was he always good? )

“Oh, I am? How dare you! You—you—“ the waterbender struggled, face twisting, clearly trying to bring up some specific event but failing to find a vague enough way to say it here.

Zuko could think of lots of events she might be trying to reference. His general chase to capture the Avatar, the day he threatened some old woman in their village and wrecked their wall with the Wani, the burning of Kyoshi Island. He remembered all of it. It had all been necessary, they were all events he imagined would do his family proud, and he didn’t regret any of it. He didn’t. He didn’t.

“I’m not... I had to do what I’ve done. I don’t enjoy it! I have to do it,” Zuko said, and he wasn’t justifying himself to some little girl, she was just... wrong. She was wrong, she was wrong, she was. (Because if she was right, if he was some needlessly cruel thing, then either he would hate himself or Father would take him back or both.)

“No! You don’t!” the girl yelled, then her gaze softened so suddenly it was almost scary. Her eyes were doing that weird thing, that searching of him, which she’d done a few times before. Plenty of people had given him that look throughout his life, actually. He hated every single one. “You don’t,” she repeated, quieter.

She opened her mouth, as if to ask something else, and her eyes were so earnest that Zuko was sure whatever it was would be worse than any interrogation in the world. Luckily, he never had to find out, since that was the moment Uncle came bustling back into the shop, carrying way too many new, stupid, fancy dishes.

Uncle greeted the waterbender cheerily, because of course he did. Then, unforgivably and treacherously, he put in during some small talk,

“Nephew, did you inform our guest of the opening tomorrow?”

“I—“ 

“We’d be honored if you visited our new tea shop, The Jasmine Dragon, in the Upper Ring,” Uncle finished with a slight bow and wide smile.

“It’s an honor to be invited,” the girl replied poisonously. She gave a bow back to Uncle, then stuck her tongue out at Zuko on the way out.

Zuko really hated the Avatar’s friends. And when Uncle patted him on the back and gave him a warm smile, Zuko hated him too.

+++

Zuko was infuriating. He was a symbol of every injustice in the world, yes, but he was also just annoying. He was more stubborn than a sabertooth mooselion, and not half as well-mannered. He thought he was so right and justified in every awful thing he did and said, and he wasn’t even doing it out of any personal motivation, Katara didn’t think; it was some weird, noble quest he thought he was on. All Katara wanted to do half the time was punch his stupid face, and then she would think about being a kid and saying the same about Sokka, and… she would stop thinking about it.

The opening of the Jasmine Dragon was all the Upper Ring was talking about, and Katara would most certainly be in attendance.

“Mushi! It’s so good to see you!” Katara greeted enthusiastically, and bowed deeply to Iroh, because it made Zuko furious. She glimpsed up, and sure enough, he was glowering. Her smile grew.

If Sokka were here, he’d probably be freaking out over the proximity of the new tea place to their apartment. But. Sokka wasn’t here. He was with Dad. Which was… good. It just meant that the only person here was, was—

“Back with more questions, waterbender?” Zuko said, in what was probably meant to be a condescending way. Or maybe everything he said came out generally angry. But that wasn’t what her mind was catching on, it was waterbender which was playing on loop. Usually, Zuko called her “peasant” or some variation thereof, a few “girl”’s and “little girl”’s thrown in there. Because he was the worst. But this—there was no real insult in it, unless the Fire Nation viewed every other form of bender in derogation. Which was possible, but maybe—

“Do you not know my name?” Katara asked incredulously.

Zuko’s face scrunched. “…Why would I need to?”

Katara’s cheeks heated, indignation building in her chest. “You’ve been chasing me for months !” A couple of eyebrows raised at that, and her face grew even hotter at the picture that painted. Ew.

Zuko rolled his eyes, and Tui and La, he really did have a punchable face, didn’t he? “Fine, what’s your name, then?”

“You really have no idea,” Katara shook her head, “Not even a guess ?”

Zuko pouted in concentration for a moment, and he finally offered, “It has an ‘a’ at the end?”

“What does it start with?” she pressed, like someone asking someone else to dig an extra foot in their grave.

“…S,” he finally tried.

“You think I’m Sokka?” Katara gaped. Zuko shrugged. She glanced around quickly, and upon her eyes catching the girl who would come into Pao’s Family Tea House all the time, she turned and pointedly asked, “What’s my name?”

“Katara,” she replied easily.

Katara spun back to Zuko with meaning. Zuko just repeated, “Katara. Are you happy now?”

“How could you not know it! Do you know any of our names!” she persisted, “How can you possibly do what you do, and not even know the slightest thing about us?!”

“I already told you, I don’t care about you,” Zuko said matter-of-factly, “If you just stopped travelling with the Avatar, then I can assure you, I wouldn’t want to concern myself dealing with…” he sniffed, his eyes trailing her hair in qilliqti, her bending pouch, her necklace,

“…your kind.”

+++

Zuko considered saying Water Tribe peasants, but instead went with a neutral “your kind,” which he thought was pretty polite of him.

+++

Everything felt still for a pin-drop moment. And then everything—the words and every other part of it—was bursting out before Katara even realized,

“You are the most idiotic, selfish, racist moron who ever—!” Zuko was unreactive—not intimidated, not moved, uncaring —and all Katara saw was fire thrown at her people, at mothers and mothers and mothers, all she heard was your kind, “Ugh! I wish I could—!” Zuko’s face finally twisted, a furrow of the brow, and Katara was satisfied for the brief moment before she realized with horror that her vision was blurring.

+++

The girl—Katara was about to cry. And Zuko didn’t know what to do with that, except he did, except he knew what it was like to be so angry tears would come unbidden.

“We’re taking this outside!” she shouted, and Zuko followed her stomping trail. They went out back, and she was already into fighting pose, whipping water out of her pouch, and… Zuko got it. He’d want a fight too, if he was the one with shaking fists and a runny nose.

But there was something else in her eyes, separate from rage, something that told him she’s just protecting herself, really, something that was scared of him. And Zuko—he felt taller. He felt like there was gold weighing down his hair.

He hated it.

And... his fight was never with any pesky, Water Tribe siblings anyway. The Avatar wasn’t even here right now.

“Why are you crying?” Zuko asked, because. He wanted to know. 

Katara didn’t take this well, it seemed, judging by the water drenching him a second later. But it just drenched. It wasn’t an icicle in his heart. 

“You’re a horrible person, and you don’t even know it!” Katara screamed, but her voice turned and trembled halfway through, and then she was right up to him, banging fists not-that-hard against his chest, and Zuko could only see Azula after Father watched her mess up a form, young and not yet hiding tears from her brother, Azula throwing smoke at his face as if it’d fix things . “You think the war is just some—some glory grab! But it hurts people, real people—it hurt me.”

There was one, long, shuddering breath from the girl whose fists had stilled against Zuko’s chest,

“You killed my mother.”

Zuko hadn’t. Zuko had never killed anyone. He would’ve remembered, he would have held it with him, the same way his father and sister wouldn’t. But he wasn’t entirely obtuse, he knew what she meant. The war did. The Fire Nation did.

“I’m sorry,” Zuko said, because he was, “They took mine too.”

They. Why did he phrase it that way? What did that mean?

Katara didn’t reply. At some point her hands fell to her sides. At some point she left, or maybe he went back into the shop; he couldn’t really remember.

At some point it started raining.

+++

It was still raining the next day. There had been no pause to it, pattering against every roof of every bedroom in Ba Sing Se, lullabying the collective to sleep. It was natural for a waterbender to like the rain, Katara supposed, but honestly she didn’t understand who wouldn’t.

Maybe Fire Nation princes.

That seemed as good a guess as any, she thought, observing Zuko’s turned back as she stepped into the Jasmine Dragon doorway. She didn’t announce herself. She let him turn and see her himself, came closer to check whether he was scowling—

Your kind. 

They took mine too.

—or not.

Zuko turned. Zuko saw her. Zuko put down his serving tray, and in front of a room full of prestigious customers, leaned into some foreign bow, and said in rehearsed speech,

“I’m sorry for what I said yesterday. It was insensitive.”

Katara stared at him, slack-jawed, “…Did your uncle put you up to this?”

Zuko frowned, “No?”

“Oh,” Katara said, and then looked at him for a long time. He looked back at her, wordless, waiting, for something. It took her a while to realize he was waiting for her to give her forgiveness, which… was definitely not going to happen, but what she did offer was, “Do you wanna go outside?”

Zuko glanced around, made eye contact with his Uncle, got a very encouraging nod, and then set down his tea tray and walked stiffly outside. Which, Katara was learning, was maybe just the way he walked—militarily. Like he was always headed for his death. She briefly thought about Sokka marching in front of the group, calling himself the leader, and then stopped thinking about it with purpose.

They found a back alley corner, the kind of place one would go to get murdered, and Katara kept her hands hovering by her bending pouch, until Zuko sat down on the curb and gave her such an unimpressed look, she was embarrassed into sitting down too. Though she did it with a huff and her arms crossed, to preserve her dignity.

“So, uh, you probably have some questions?” Zuko guessed.

“Why are you a tea server?!” Katara yelled, finally, which was one of the more satisfying things she had experienced in her life.

“Yeah,” Zuko sighed deeply, leaning back and turning his head toward the sky to tell whatever it is he was about to, “Uh, well. We are refugees, I didn’t lie about that.”

“I know,” said Katara, because Toph had told them, and because it turned out they did not need Toph to tell when Zuko was lying.

“Right, uh, anyway,” Zuko coughed, and continued, “We—you know how my sister’s hunting me, right? Well, uh, some of Uncle’s friends got us passports to Ba Sing Se—and, Uncle’s friends are really weird, they had all these flowers, and I guess they worked in a flower shop, but they were ugly flowers—" Tui and La, he was a bad storyteller, Katara could be here forever and be no closer to having an answer— "but, I guess, the passports were still good, cuz they got us here and, uh. It’s a big city, I mean you know that, so. No one really notices new people, and Azula would have a hard time finding us.”

“Ok, that’s—ok,” Katara began, because she was still trying to sort out what he had even just said, “Right, your sister… you have fought her, but I thought that was just because you’re both after Aang? I mean, I guess… are you and your Uncle technically traitors because of the North Pole?” she asked, trying to keep the incredulity out of her tone. But, c’mon, how was she supposed to react to the news that Zuko—Prince Zuko—was a traitor to the Fire Nation. It was too delightful to handle.

“I am not a traitor!” shouted Prince Zuko, who was currently having a nice, open chat with Katara of the Water Tribe. A cringe crossed his face when she was silent, and he added, “Though, officially … that is what she is after me for, yes.”

“Huh,” said Katara, because huh. Zuko had started chewing at his lip, his eyes narrowly focused at a random brick in the wall, so Katara kept speaking before he could get too lost down whatever road his mind was leading him, “But if you weren't a traitor—“

“I’m not!”

“Officially a traitor,” Katara amended with a roll of her eyes, “Then, she’d help you, wouldn’t she? You’d be hunting Aang together?” She said the thought aloud, and was suddenly really grateful for Zuko’s (technical) treachery.

“She wouldn’t help me,” Zuko said like it was obvious.

Katara’s brow scrunched, and she wasn’t able to stop herself from saying, “She’s your sister.” A second later her mind replayed Azula shooting lightning at her own uncle, and she bit her tongue. Zuko didn’t reply, though, instead he was staring at her like she had just cussed his mother out, or put a knife in his side. It was kind of uncomfortable, so she opened her mouth to ask another question, but out of nowhere, he beat her to it,

“Why is it just you?”

“I’m not telling you where Aang is,” Katara replied, like someone who wasn’t totally insane yet, despite fleeting and rare and totally deniable, thank you very much, feelings of sympathy towards Fire Nation royalty.

“Hm,” Zuko acknowledged, “What about your brother?”

Katara let out a long-suffering sigh. “He’s with our Dad. He has this stupid idea he has to prove himself to him.” There was more she wanted to say about that, but it was hard when she wouldn’t even let herself think it.

Zuko nodded, as if it was the first thing she had said that made perfect sense.

+++

“Uncle, I’ve—I’ve been feeling strange lately,” Zuko confessed that night, while Uncle was lighting their new and completely unneeded incense.

“Oh? How so, nephew?” Uncle prompted, and that was all Zuko needed to slump back onto his bed and explain,

“I—the girl, the waterbender, Katara, she’s… we’ve been talking, and it’s weird. I should hate her, she works with the Avatar! But she’s… she’s… it’s weird ,” Zuko felt his face heat halfway through the description, because even he could tell he was doing a bad job, “I just—I know this must sound… bad… and I promise I’m not forsaking our cause! My mission and loyalty to my nation always comes first, but… I think she’s… good?”

Uncle hadn’t turned around, so Zuko couldn’t see his expression, and he started to twist his blanket edge with his fingers anxiously, “I—I mean, she lost her mother, because of the war, and, uh. I think, from her perspective, it’s—it’s... ugh, she just makes me feel. Weird.”

Zuko only realized he had been speaking to the floor when Uncle put a hand on his shoulder and he definitely did not startle a little. Uncle met his eyes finally, and Zuko saw… joy there? Hope? That couldn’t be right.

“How exactly does she make you feel, Prince Zuko?” Uncle asked, in an odd tone that made Zuko wonder if he was somehow being made fun of, “Other than ‘weird.’” Okay, he was definitely being made fun of.

“The other day she reminded me of Azula,” Zuko rushed out, all in one breath, “I mean, not Azula now —when, when we were kids. She reminded me of Azula when we were kids,” he repeated quietly.

Uncle’s expression fell for just a moment, before returning to something calm, but Zuko still felt that moment like a slap. Of course Uncle would disapprove. Uncle wasn’t treasonous. 

“All the ground feels different, when one is wearing new shoes,” Uncle said, which didn’t seem like a relevant statement in the slightest, but what was Zuko expecting from Uncle?

+++

It happened after one of the war meetings. The incredibly, increasingly boring war meetings. Katara had barely touched the books Sokka gave her on battle strategy—they were just so wordy and unemotional, how was she supposed to read something without a romance plot?—and all she did was make sure none of the Council of Five suggested anything seriously boneheaded, like the one who wanted to use the Water Tribe forces as distraction, as if that was necessary or a good use of such valuable resources and troops.

Katara stretched as she got out of the stone chair, breathing a sigh of relief, and already planning her post-work refreshment from the newest teashop in the ring.

Today, she was going to tell Zuko her home’s history. She was going to tell him about a tribe targeted and attacked and worn down ruthlessly by invaders who took fathers, and sons, and daughters, and mothers. She was going to tell him the bare-faced truth of not just the war, but of the Fire Nation, and if his traitor rear couldn’t handle it, couldn’t learn from it, then she would cut off whatever it was they were doing.

The weirdest part was... she was hopeful. Zuko was a terrible person, who had done terrible things, but he seemed to get that the war was terrible, in a way his father and sister certainly didn’t.

They took mine too.

Aang has once said he thought Zuko could be an ally, and at the time, Katara hadn’t been sure whether to chalk it up to some Avatar-destiny-sensing powers, or Aang being the most painfully optimistic person alive. Now, though… she could see it too.

It was a complete coincidence that it happened. It wasn’t in the throne room, or even leaving the meeting; it was a random pass-by in the hall. The Kyoshi warriors were passing by, so Katara said hi, and one of them said hi, and they both froze. But they turned back around, where Katara just took off running.

She recognized that voice.

She knew that voice.

Normally, she’d go find the gaang; she’d run into Sokka’s arms and start explaining, and they’d come up with the plan together, but Sokka wasn’t here; Aang wasn’t here; Toph wasn’t here. Nobody was here—or, close to nobody.

Katara ran into the Jasmine Dragon, pulled Li the server away from his job, and started to speak in panicked breaths in an alleyway, 

“Your sister is here!” she rushed out, “Or, your sister’s friend at least—uh, Ty Lee! I think they’re disguised as the Kyoshi warriors!”

Zuko cursed, a lot, an impressive string of them, before saying, “Of course she’d find me here. Of course.”

“And me! She’ll—she wants the Avatar, and she wants you! We, we,” Katara couldn’t believe what she was about to say, but that wasn’t stopping her from saying it, “we need to work together.”

Zuko stared at her in silence for probably not as long enough before nodding, “Ok.”

Katara stared longer, “Ok? Really? You’re—you’re okay with that.”

Zuko’s face turned sour, that pouty kind of anger he sometimes hilariously wielded, “You’re the one who suggested it!”

“I guess I did,” Katara agreed, now feeling off-footed from both her previous encounter and how easy her solution had been. She had really imagined this turning into a yelling match fast, but for some reason they had skipped over that part today, and she needed a moment to catch up. “Ok,” she breathed, “ok.”

“I can sneak us into the palace,” Zuko said without a shred of doubt, “It should be easier than Lake Laogai.”

“You were in Lake Laogai?!”

“Uh, no,” Zuko backtracked with a blush, and then flustered quickly on when he realized how stupid that sounded, “Whatever! It doesn’t matter! I won’t have my mask, I threw it away, like an idiot, but, uh. As long as no one sees us, we’ll be fine.”

“I was under the impression that was the definition of sneaking in,” said Katara, just to be difficult.

Zuko scowled, “Do you want my help or not?”

“Well, now I’m kind of wondering how much help you’ll be—“

“Whatever! Meet me tonight. Here.”

“Hey! You meet me tonight, here,” Katara said, which was silly, but she was the one generously letting him in on her plan, not the other way round.

“Fine,” Zuko rolled his eyes.

“Fine!” Katara snapped at her newest ally, that ally being Prince Zuko, heir to the Fire Nation.

+++

Zuko came dressed in some stupid all-black outfit, and Katara came with her own much less stupid black robe and hood. It turned out he hadn’t just been being cocky about his sneaking skills, which was kind of surprising, considering most of the time the guy was as light-footed as a camelaphant.

They got into the palace, no problem, and to the rooms set up for the Kyoshi Warriors, no problem. It was after that point when Katara realized: Zuko had just not had a plan.

“Are we going to fight them?” Katara whispered, as they stood backs-against-the wall by the door.

“Uh,” said Zuko, “yeah, that’s—we’ll do that. Yes.”

Katara made a face at him. He was being weird, even for him. “You’re being weird. Even for you.”

“Whatever!” Zuko whisper-shouted, and Katara shushed him. There were sounds of movement inside the room, and the pair stood stock-still, not letting out even a breath until they heard some short chatter about makeup.

They let out a synchronous, silent breath, and Zuko nodded, which Katara guessed at length was the signal to go, when he kept nodding more insistently at her.

So. She went.

She bust open the door, whipped out her water, and was instantly met by two swords at her throat.

Her heart stuttered in her chest. What.

Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee looked at her impassively, as if she was as threatening as a frogsquirrel. Which, she figured, blades threatening to break skin on her neck, she was.

From behind her, from behind the arms holding her back, came that familiar rasp, “Sister, I have brought one of the Avatar’s friends. She will be useful bait. I hope you can take this as a token of good will.”

No.

Katara felt tears pricking at her eyes, and forced herself to swallow them down. She already looked like enough of a fool. She wouldn’t cry. What she really wanted was to turn to see Zuko’s face, needed to know what was there, if there was even a hint of regret.

“Hm,” Azula hummed disinterestedly.

She wouldn’t help me.

Zuko couldn’t really be doing this, Katara thought, insanely, for a half-second. He was just faking this. He had had a plan after all—( he had had a plan, it was just one where she was thrown to the tigerdogs, she didn’t let herself think.)

She’s your sister.

“Ty Lee, chi block her,” instructed Azula. The swords were lifted from her throat suddenly, and she was shoved forward unkindly, barely enough time for a breath, let alone to fight against the fists quickly targeting distinct nerves along her body; her body which was falling limp and numb as her mind. As she fell, she caught the edge of Azula’s sharp smile,

“It's good to have you, Zuko.”

Chapter Text

“I trusted you!” Katara shouted, and Zuko wished it was a lie. He could almost tell himself it was—why would she have trusted him? It was a silly thing to do. A stupid thing. A kind thing. “But you really are the Firelord’s son through and through—you’re cruel and violent and terrible and bad! You’re a bad person, Zuko!”

The final statement was choked off in what Zuko would like to believe was anger, but sounded more like an aborted sob.

Azula feigned a yawn. “Are we going to sit and listen to this drivel all day? Take the peasant to the Dai Li, Zuko. They’ll deal with her.”

Zuko didn’t. He didn’t move at all. The feeling was kind of like shock, like he wasn’t sure what he had just done, despite the fact he had planned it all. (Look—he finally had a plan. And it worked. Uncle would be proud, except he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t. Zuko knew that in his bones.)

Mai groaned. “Ugh, I’ll do it.” She grabbed Katara by the upper arm, and tugged her limp body off unceremoniously.

And. Katara was gone. 

From behind where she had been blocking his view, Zuko could now fully see his little sister. Azula had her hair down. She was wearing green. She was smiling at him, in that way only she could, in that way which was a far cry from sincerity,

“Well, well, brother,” she began, and Zuko felt the distinct sensation of a past life echoing through him, “looks like you’ve finally done something worthwhile. If only you had brought the Avatar; that would make your life much simpler, I’m sure.

“As it is,” she had began to circle around him slowly, somehow making the step pattern seem natural, or maybe she just naturally was the same as a bird of prey, “you could still be imprisoned for treason. If it wasn’t for my incredible generosity, that is.”

“I’m not going to thank you, Azula,” grumbled Zuko, who had not once missed her little speeches over the past 3 years.

Azula’s smile fell abruptly at that, into a self-righteous kind of pout. “I wasn’t asking you to thank me, dumdum. I’m saying you’re going to have to bring a lot more to the table than that pathetic tribute.”

Azula did it so easily—just like that she wasn’t Katara, or waterbender, or even little girl. She was tribute, and she only existed in relation to him, to usefulness. It had been a long time since the walls around him had felt so similar to those of Caldera Palace.

“Okay,” he said, “what am I going to do?”

+++

Ty Lee had given him a big hug, said a lot of sugar sweet things; Mai had given him her own softer hug, and then Zuko had promptly been kicked out of their room. Apparently they would have the strategy meeting tomorrow, which made Zuko think they were having the strategy meeting now, and planning to tell him as much as they saw fit tomorrow. He would’ve stayed and eavesdropped, but a Dai Li agent was waiting outside to escort him to his own room.

He allowed himself to be walked a good distance away from the ‘Kyoshi Warriors’ before he demanded,

“Show me where the prisoner is being kept.”

The agent paused his steps, stuttered in his reply—clearly a weak link in their force then, Zuko himself had been trained out of any stammering before the age of 7, and even that was later than Father had wanted—

“I-I’m not sure whether the princess wants that information shared with you, sir,” he said, more question in his tone than answer. 

“And I’m sure it’s fine! It’s an order not a request,” Zuko barked out in reply, and felt an unexpected heat in his hands. He felt like he was back on the Wani, half-prince and half-boy, a supposed authority with a lack of true status that left him screaming orders at a crew who were meant to be scared of him, meant to be deferent.

“Right,” the agent coughed, “of course. Forgive my disrespect, Prince Zuko.”

Forgive my disrespect. Having the words handed to him was like some sort of prize, a long-sought achievement. And all he had to do was wield a threat and an angry disposition.

You really are the Firelord’s son.

The agent turned and began leading him the opposite direction. They followed a long path of various twists and turns, which Zuko made mental notes of. They eventually came to a stairway hidden by a wall, requiring earthbending to be opened, which Zuko took note of as well. The tunnel he subsequently was taken down was at least twice as long as the whole path through the palace—a thing of rough edges, dripping stalactites and subsequent slippery ground, natural rock. The end of the tunnel was only openable through earthbending, too. But the agent didn’t open it, not fully—he motioned up quick, small sections of the rock, such to the effect of prison bars. Which. Made sense.

The agent’s earthbending was smooth and quiet enough as to not wake Katara, despite the extreme restlessness of her sleep. At first glance, Zuko could chalk her tossing-and-turning up to the fact she had no bed but an uneven, stone-cold ground—(weren’t prisons meant to have beds, cots at the least?)—but he couldn’t pretend he didn't recognize the consistent fitfulness, the whimpers, the tight brow,

Katara was having a nightmare.

It felt wrong, sick, to be a spectator to such a thing. And yet Zuko stood rooted; his feet may as well have been part of the stone, to see her curl into herself and let out a louder whine that sounded suspiciously like, “Mom.”

The dream must have culminated soon after that, Katara letting out a cry, leaning forward, her eyes blinking blearily open. The second she was registering she was awake, her hand was reaching forward, holding onto nothing in the place of whatever she had expected. 

Reaching out, by accident, in Zuko’s direction.

I trusted you.

The glaze over her eyes cleared, and she recognized him in an instant. He didn’t have time to see her reaction, as he turned roughly on his heel, and marched out. He vaguely heard the Dai Li agent bend the wall back in place, start following behind him. But he didn’t turn to look.

+++

The dream was always the same. That was the worst thing about it—Katara would give anything for it to distort, even in the most terrible way, even if it shifted and altered itself into some new and horrendous torture. She would have taken that over the reliving. Because if it changed, then maybe the scene wouldn’t be so real, so constantly fresh to her. If this time the gored blood leaking from that throat turned into moths, if the smoke in the air whirled into storm clouds, if even a single hair on Mom’s head sat in a different place on her skull, then maybe all of it would become fantasy. Maybe it would really be a dream, and not a memory.

Still, if this was a routine, there was a singular step to it which carried relief. Ever since she was 8 years old, Katara woke with her head buried in Sokka’s chest. With his arms protecting her from the rest of the world. 

Tonight, Katara’s hand was clutched around thin air. Tonight, she woke to no one.

Or rather—the person she woke to was stood outside prison bars, and had recently stabbed her in the back.

She was glad he left but a moment later, because she would have had to scream bloody murder at him, and all she really wanted to do was cry.

+++

“Ideally, when the Avatar comes for the bait, the Dai Li stationed around the perimeter of her cell will have him apprehended before he can even leave the area,” Azula was explaining to a map of the crystal catacombs, “However, assuming his earthbending isn’t as pathetic as it was last time I encountered him, and he overpowers the Dai Li forces, I will drive him toward this southern cavern, where the natural rivers are the fewest and smallest. Zuko will be waiting for him and the waterbender there, with me and the Dai Li behind them. Mai and Ty Lee will have the palace secured from above.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” put in Ty Lee, her mouth scrunched to the side of her face in confusion, “Why would the Dai Li try to capture him in the cell? I thought you needed to get him to the caves.”

Azula’s head shot up abruptly, her gaze narrowing on Ty Lee like a blade being sharpened. There was a clear challenge in her tone as she slowly asked, “Oh, really? Whyever would that be?”

Ah, so the plan was already decided. They were in the ‘telling him whatever they saw fit’ part now. Ty Lee clearly wasn’t cluing in yet, though, as she tilted her head further and barrelled on,

“Well, do you really think being captured is enough to send him into Avatar State?”

“Why does he need to be in Avatar State?” Zuko demanded, trying to catch Azula's eye, but she was busy staring murderously at Ty Lee. He had never heard the term she used before, but he could picture well enough what she was referring to—he could still feel the drenching, arctic cold of a typhoon wielded by a boygod, still see Zhao carried under waves by a hand as large as a bridge. Why Azula wanted to induce such events, Zuko felt he ought to know.

But it wasn’t Azula who answered him, it was Ty Lee who began, “Oh! It’s really smart, actually, Azula read it in a scroll she found! If we want to break the cycle—”

“It doesn’t matter,” cut in Azula, who always lied, “it’s only a last resort.”

“Huh? Oh!” Ty Lee realized, eyes widening. Her gaze shifted worriedly between Zuko and Azula, and eventually landed on the latter, “Sorry, Azula.”

Judging by his sister’s pursed lips and nails digging into the table, Ty Lee would surely suffer consequences for her words. Zuko could almost get to the why but there was some wrench stuck in the gears of his mind, something blocking him from grasping it. He tasted bile at the back of his throat.

+++

Ty Lee did her part, for whatever it was worth. She just hoped Zuko understood her. If she was going into this thing knowing she may come out with twelve-year-old blood on her hands, she thought he deserved the same courtesy. He was always such a wimp when they were kids.

+++

Azula lifted her eyes from Ty Lee coolly, posture straightening as she finally made direct eye contact with Zuko, as she promised what he had been waiting and dreading and praying for, “Zuko, by the end of this, you’ll have your honor back. You will have Father’s love.”

He has this stupid idea he has to prove himself to him.  

Zuko had two little sisters in his head, speaking about two different fathers. But that’s the thing. Only one was his. And only one was his.

+++

That night, Azula and Ty Lee were off doing… whatever it is they were doing, some kind of training or scheme, Zuko hadn’t been paying close enough attention if he’d been told. So, he got to spend some time in their room with Mai. Alone time with Mai was generally pleasant, if devoid of any of the typical activities one would expect from two teenagers in a relationship. They flirted more and kissed more depending on the proximity of other people, their romance a public thing, which Zuko didn’t dwell on. He didn’t really care. He did like Mai, a lot, but he liked her more sitting next to her than with his tongue in her mouth. Especially when he had… other things on his mind.

Zuko wasn’t digging around Azula’s stuff, but he spied the scrolls in her drawer, and couldn’t help noticing how they were… common. No royal seals or insignias or carriers. They were ruddy and torn around the edges.

So, he reached over and grabbed one. Unfurled it. And found himself staring at his own face.

As a matter of practice, Zuko burned every bounty poster of himself which he encountered during his travels. Uncle’s as well. As a matter of choice, he didn’t read a single one.

Zuko read. Mai peered over his shoulder to check what he was looking at. The poster was simple, nothing too surprising. All “Ex-Prince Zuko” and “Traitor” and “Wanted Dead or Alive” and a reward that was… slightly lower than the one for the Avatar. There was a note of irony hidden in that, but Zuko wasn’t particularly interested in unpacking it.

“Was Azula’s mission to capture me or kill me?” Zuko asked boredly.

“Either,” replied Mai, “she was going with capture, though.”

Zuko nodded. “Yeah.”

You will have Father’s love. He had thought Father’s love was a banishment in place of an execution. Maybe being wanted alive would be the next step.

+++

At first, Zuko had spent most of his time pacing his room and making his candles flare, holding fire in his hands. When that did nothing to relieve the burning in his gut, he took to wandering the palace halls. Often he found himself retracing the steps to that hidden passageway. 

So, when he found Azula and Ty Lee ahead of him, following the same trajectory, he followed. Subconsciously, he chose his steps lightly—imagined himself in a blue mask.

After a minute or so, Ty Lee giggled, and Azula sighed deeply,

“Zuzu, if you must tag along, would you save yourself a shred of dignity and walk like a normal person?”

This, coming from Azula, who walked like a ruler was being held against her back. Still—Zuko let his steps fall heavy again, and strode up beside the two of them. He definitely, definitely didn’t slow down when a Dai Li agent waiting for them opened the tunnel entrance. It was just that the path was so narrow he had to fall behind. That was all.

The path got darker and the air got danker, and the blue fire in Azula’s palm played cold shadows against the stone, against her face.

They were let into Katara’s cell—completely in—by another waiting agent. Zuko stayed rooted in the tunnel until Azula beckoned him impatiently.

Katara stood up abruptly from a curled sit, almost shifted into a fighting stance, and then took stock of the three of them against the one of her, and let her fury flicker to hesitation and finally to tight-jawed anger. Zuko had to give her credit, it was more held-back than he could’ve accomplished. 

“We’re here to ask a few, simple questions, water filth,” Azula sniffed, “if you can manage to understand them.”

Katara inhaled sharply, and Zuko was sure when she opened her mouth there would be her usual, righteous reply, but her voice shook, and, oh, she was scared. Of course she was scared, “I don’t have anything to say to you.”

“But I have so much to say to you, it’d be a shame to leave this conversation one-sided,” Azula simpered, “Like how your precious brother was apprehended a few days ago. He refuses to speak, so he’s not very useful—but maybe a few of his fingers would be, for negotiations and such.”

“You’re lying!” replied Katara, frantic but correct, “Sokka’s not in Ba Sing Se right now.”

“Ah,” Azula raised an eyebrow, “perhaps wherever he is, the Avatar is with him?”

Katara’s jaw snapped shut. She turned her head to the side defiantly.

“Aw,” Azula pouted unkindly, “Well, if you’re not feeling talkative, there are plenty of other ways we can have fun.”

Katara’s eyes widened, her understanding coming a second before Zuko’s, and Azula snapped her fingers. A single, blue flame lit between them,

“Ty Lee, chi block her. Squirmers are bothersome.”

Katara’s body tensed completely. The terror in her eyes was raw as the red clay that piles in rivers, as fresh blood. If that wasn’t the right way to react to the threat of burning, Zuko had never known what was. Zuko knew fire, and Zuko knew fear, and Zuko knew: Maybe she wouldn’t squirm. But, oh, she was going to scream.

Zuko stuck an arm out in front of Ty Lee when she made a move. To her credit, she stopped. He turned on his sister,

“Azula, what the fuck are you doing!” he bit out roughly, “This isn’t necessary!”

Azula contemplated him for a moment. She doused the flame causally, which would have been relieving, except a sharp smirk painted itself on her lips. Amusement, or satisfaction maybe, twinkled behind her eyes,

“Oh? Perhaps you should conduct this questioning then, brother,” she said, a command phrased as an offer, “if you’ve got better ideas.”

Zuko spared a glance towards Katara, something he had been vehemently avoiding since her eyes had landed on him, “I—we don’t need an interrogation, the Avatar will realize she’s missing eventually, and come for her.”

Azula’s eyes narrowed, “Humor me.” Zuko stayed silent a beat too long, and she continued, “Unless, of course, you really are a traitor, which would be a shame considering that Father—“

Agni, she was insufferable. “Fine, okay! Where, uh—Katara, where’s the Avatar?” he tried.

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Katara scoffed. Well, at least he got a reply, even if it was an unsurprising one. Her sanctimonious glower was so familiar it almost hurt.

Azula shrugged, relit the flame, “Okay, well, I guess if that was your best shot—“

Unbidden, series of punishments that had been delivered to Zuko throughout his life flashed before his eyes. He heard his own voice say,

“Stop giving her food. Don’t let her eat until she gives an answer.”

Despite her next words, Azula’s eyes sparked momentarily—he had surprised her, (impressed her?), “Hm. Pretty pathetic as suggestions go, but it’s good enough for now, I suppose.”

+++

Luckily, Katara was asleep when Zuko arrived at her cell again. He took out the wrapped parcel from his cloak, and placed the bowls of steam buns and rice onto her floor. While he had been enjoying finally having decent-sized meals again, now that he was in a palace and not a customer service job; he admitted giving half his food left them both with… plenty of food still. He brought a pillow and blanket too, hoping she had enough sense to hide them. (Was it kind, or was it a twisted extension of cruelty, to offer luxuries to the one you imprisoned?)

Zuko turned back to make his quick exit, only to find—

“Mai, I… I can explain,” Zuko said, and then failed to explain.

Mai sighed from her spot leaned against the tunnel wall, “Whatever, like I care. You know, you guys are a lot more boring than you think you are.”

“Oh,” Zuko replied dumbly, “Uhm, if you could, maybe… not mention this to—“

Mai rolled her eyes, “Yeah, yeah, Azula won’t know.”

+++

Azula instructed Mai to make sure Zuko wasn’t bringing the prisoner food. Luckily, Mai was better at lying than her boyfriend.

+++

Sokka had been sick with nerves before getting to Chameleon Bay, then when he did get there, it wasn’t much better. Even if he couldn’t keep his grin off his face, couldn’t help laughing too loudly at every one of Dad’s jokes, it was that squirming kind of excitement, the kind that made it hard to swallow down your food.

All he could think about was how he was meant to prove himself to his father, to this person who he loved and missed and longed for for 2 years, to this man who he had no idea how to impress. He wasn’t 5 anymore and getting carried back to the village on his father’s shoulders after catching his first fish. He didn’t know how to prove he was a man now, especially when that word made his stomach squirm and his mind force upon him the memory of smiling and laughing in a dress with Suki.

He didn’t know what he was anymore. And he didn’t know whether his dad was going to like it.

And then Dad was saying all this stuff about, “you don’t have to prove anything” and “I’m already proud of you,” and for a moment, all Sokka felt was complete and total bliss. The next moment, came an empty pang in his chest. He didn’t deserve this. He hadn’t done anything. And he wasn’t sure whether he was being told that was good enough, or that it was all that was expected from him anyway.

So—when departure night came, when all around him were warriors, were friends he’d half-forgotten the faces of, laughing and chatting and making jokes at each other’s expenses as they packed and readied the ships with practiced ease—Sokka knew this was his moment of truth. This would decide if he was worth anything at all. He needed to do this.

So why was it—standing in front of his father’s boat, ready to board—that all he could think about was the fleet disappearing into the distance? Why, on a sandy beach on a temperate day, could he only feel the chill of the South Pole? Look, it wasn’t like he was picturing himself—13 and foolish—watching half of his whole world sail away into a war that had already taken Mom. No, it was so much worse than that—he was picturing himself, on that boat, fading into the horizon line as Katara watched him go.

Spirits, Katara. Twice the time he spent worrying about himself, he spent worrying about her, alone in a city full of Dai Li agents, who probably hated her, and the Prince of the Fire Nation, who undoubtedly hated her. He tried to tell himself it was only a week—Aang would learn about Avatar State from the guru, then come pick him up on Appa, and they’d all be back together like normal. Of course, it was one thing to tell himself that, and another thing to keep imagining scenarios where Aang became more of an invincible, unstoppable power than a boy and only dropped by to tell Sokka he wasn’t needed anymore, or where Aang came to retrieve him, but he had acclimated to a life at sea so well that he stayed by choice —

The point being, when Sokka caught sight of Appa in the sky a full week early, he felt a momentary, shameful relief.

This feeling was of course crushed the second the words “Katara” and “trouble” were out of Aang's mouth.

+++

Toph’s visit to her mother turned into a kidnapping. Sure, why not. Overall, the event was less stressful and easier to deal with than talking to Mom.

Aang’s mission to master Avatar State turned into the revelation Katara had been imprisoned. Toph figured if they left Princess Priss for a few days, she’d be out on her own. But they might as well play it safe, so. Sure, why not. 

+++

“The Avatar’s back,” Mai informed boredly from her spot leaning against the balcony. Zuko looked up, and, sure enough, there was the sky cow who he had freed maybe a week ago. Lake Laogai seemed like a lifetime away. Like a stranger’s memories. He briefly imagined finding the beast now, with Azula. He imagined blades slicing through underbellies instead of chains. He imagined rocks thrown at turtleducks.

“Mai, send a Dai Li agent to ‘leak’ the news. Use that nervous one, with the scar. He’ll be convincing without even meaning to,” Azula commanded, then turned sharply on her heel to face Zuko, “You get in position.”

+++

Zuko knew his role. He knew how this would go. Azula had gone over the plan with him again and again, as if he was a particularly dense child, until he shoved her out of his room. He knew the Avatar and Katara would be driven into the very cavern where he was currently scorching the ground in revenge against the slick spot that tripped him. All this to say—he knew the Avatar would be here. He knew Katara would be here.

He didn’t know Uncle would be with them.

Zuko’s shift into his battle stance came slow. He had left Uncle a letter. He threw the first fireball, and it came out sloppy. He couldn’t let Uncle get involved, not again, not if it turned into a mess. Azula covered for him with her perfect, precise shots. He wrote that he was leaving and not to follow. Uncle countered a strike of blue flame, dispelling it quickly. He told him not to follow.

Someone elbowed him in the side in passing, and Zuko heard Azula’s hiss in his ear,

“Uncle’s a traitor. Forget him. Remember what you’re fighting for.”

A shard of ice flew at them, promptly melting in a wall of blue flame. Azula rushed Katara, while Zuko forced their strategy to realign in his mind, and turned on the Avatar. When the he made eye contact with him, he saw a question in his eyes. A curiosity that wasn’t hopeful, but was open. Zuko struck forward a fist of fire, and the boy’s eyes dimmed to solemn acceptance. Which was good—that was easier to swallow in a fight.

The Avatar bent himself back, the burst of air billowing Zuko back a few paces, and jumped to an off-hanging rock on the wall. Zuko whipped fire as long-reaching ropes, and the Avatar pulled a wall of crystal in front of himself. Zuko kept his barrage up, until the crystals were being flung at him. He dodged just in time, and managed to catch the flash of orange and yellow that was the Avatar. He was about to pursue when he saw orange flames that weren’t his own—

Uncle was fighting too many Dai Li agents, was losing. Crystals rose up around him, trapping him. 

Remember what you’re fighting for. If Zuko was fighting for Father’s love, was he also fighting to throw away Uncle’s? If he was fighting for his honor, was his second betrayal in less than a week honorable?

Zuko saw Azula’s left arm and right leg encased in water, and didn’t have time to ponder any of this. He broke a streak of fire through the bonds, and suddenly he was fighting Katara, while Azula took the Avatar.

Fighting the Avatar was a game of chase, fittingly. Fighting Katara was pure will, two forces pushing against each other, relying on their own power being greater. Fire turning water to steam, water dousing fire. 

“I don’t know what I ever thought you were!” Katara shouted nonsensically. You really are the Firelord’s son. “I don’t know why I thought you could change!”

“I have changed,” Zuko replied. Remember what you’re fighting for.

Dai Li agents came to help him, surrounding Katara. When they seemed to have her subdued, Zuko searched out the Avatar’s form. Azula and her own Dai Li helpers had him backing toward a wall. Zuko made his way over, stood beside his sister, got into stance.

He watched helplessness flicker into the Avatar’s eyes as he realized the sheer number of them against him. His eyes went straight to Katara, and Zuko couldn’t help following the gaze—she had a ring of water around her, tendrils lashing out of it, holding off earth and earth and earth. There were too many against her. No matter how raw her power, how easy it came to her, she couldn’t keep this up. Zuko watched the Avatar realize this in real-time. He watched grief and then something worse, something more grim, seep into his features. He watched him turn his back on her.

It felt like watching a mirror.

Crystals shot up in a structure around the Avatar. They slowly glowed brighter and brighter, and a sickening smile drew itself over Azula’s face. 

Why does he need to be in Avatar State?

A boy possessed, quite literally, by all the strength in the world rose out of rock. Rose purely through the air, like it was nothing, like he was a puppet on strings. His eyes were all-white and almighty and devoid.

At some point, Azula had worked her way to the rear of the Avatar. 

It’s really smart, actually, Azula read it in a scroll she found! If we want to break the cycle—

Azula’s stance, her circling arms, were easily recognized; the move Uncle had once said Zuko was too warm to master. 

It doesn’t matter, it’s only a last resort.

Zuko was so stupid. It was obvious, smart; it made perfect sense. Azula was going to kill the Avatar. The Avatar, scourge of the Fire Nation. The Avatar, who liked honey in his tea.

Remember what you’re fighting for. Zuko had no idea know what that was.

Those bright, blue-tinged sparks gathered around Azula’s fingers. She held the crackling force in her hands, an extension of herself, as deadly as herself. She pointed it at the Avatar’s back.

Zuko would’ve liked to claim it was instinctual, what happened next. But it wasn’t, it never could’ve been, he was too unpracticed—he had to think through every step of it. He had to see what was about to happen, and decide and plan and know what he was about to do.

It was with a clear mind that Zuko took lightning into himself. It was with a clear heart he guided it out, fingers pointed away from the Avatar.

There came a moment before fury where Azula’s face was purely stricken.

Then, the world was destroyed. Ground burst into rubble, agents on agents sucked waist-deep in stone; the screech of crystal shattering drowned out the screams of those it ensnared; the shards seemed to glow the same spirit-sick shade as the Avatar’s tattooed skin.

Nothing hit Katara. Nothing hit Uncle. Zuko looked up, god-fearing, and made direct contact with the Avatar’s empty gaze. 

Nothing hit Zuko.

The light dimmed out of the Avatar’s eyes. Hundreds of feet in the air, a boy’s limp body started to fall, and Zuko wondered if Azula wouldn’t get what she wanted after all. But Katara acted in a split-second, a river’s worth of water bending her up to catch him.

Zuko could predict exactly how the ensuing minutes would go. Katara and the Avatar would escape, alive. Azula would magically survive an all-powerful attack, and Zuko and Uncle would be brought to the Firelord in chains, then executed very ceremoniously.

This prediction was wrong.

Avatar saved, Katara traversed waves of her own making to get to Zuko. Her skin was ice-cold, he noticed, as she grabbed his hand,

“Come on, we’ve got to get out of here!”

“What?” Zuko asked, which he thought was a pretty reasonable question. She just tugged on his arm more forcefully,

“Let’s go!”

“Not without Uncle,” Zuko replied this time, since this was apparently happening. Katara looked around frantically, and then pulled Zuko forward into water that held him up, which was a unique feeling to say the least. She bent them rapidly forward to the makeshift, crystalline trap Uncle was bound by. She threw a strike of water at the luminous rock, which did precisely nothing. Her eyes flicked to the unconscious boy under her arm, and muttered under her breath,

“Where’s Toph when you need her?”

There were groans and sounds of movement. Rubble began to piece itself back together, to lift itself off of agents, as the Dai Li who weren’t seriously hurt regained themselves.

There was a solemnity in Uncle’s eyes, but no anger. “You must leave me,” he said, which was the stupidest thing to come out of the wise old man’s mouth yet.

“No,” Zuko said. An earthen hand flew towards his head, and was blocked by a wall of water.

“You must go.”

“No,” Zuko repeated emphatically.

“Katara, get yourselves to safety,” Uncle redirected his attention to a more reasonable source. Katara nodded, face grim.

“No!”

There was the distinct sound of flame, and the steel yell which could only come from Azula.

“Zuko, I am so proud of you,” Uncle told him, like a prayer, like last words.

“Uncle—“ whatever Zuko had been about to say, which even he wasn’t sure of, was cut off by blue fire shot between the two of them. He didn’t catch another glimpse of Uncle, or of Azula, because water around his feet was taking him up, out, away.

A sky beast came into view. Katara’s hand tightened around his, as did her grip around the Avatar,

“It’ll be okay,” she said tearfully, “we'll be okay.” 

Zuko wasn’t sure if she was speaking to the Avatar, or herself, or him.

Chapter Text

Mountains kept caving in on themselves. Fields of flowers burst into gravel and dirt. Valleys opened wider and wider until the land was void—one gaping maw.

In all of these scenes, buried bodies surfaced from the mess. In all of these scenes, Aang was holding the world in his bare palms.

The images faded in and out of darkness, of light. There were passing faces, passing love. Here Gyatso, there Katara. Aang touched them and they turned to earth. In a momentary flicker, Aang saw himself, shot through with lightning, Azula behind him. This, too, soon returned to nothingness.

+++

Zuko would probably be freaking out right now, if he could follow what was happening. But he was still stuck on Katara not leaving him for dead, on himself leaving Uncle for dead. He swayed a little on his feet, but swallowed down the sickness. He wouldn’t collapse in front of his enemies while they were… saving him? Yeah, that was what was happening, because while Zuko had been considering all this, reality had gotten them to the magic cow and the rest of the Avatar’s crew.

While they were still at a little distance, the nonbender shouted, “Katara!” And then, the Avatar’s body was abruptly placed in Zuko’s arms. Katara ran into her brother’s crushing hug, which the earthbender joined in on. Zuko pretended not to notice the choked sounds of sobs. Instead, he focused on the boy limp in his arms. He was as incapacitated as he had been at the North Pole. And the environment here was a lot more conducive to escaping with a victim.

“Thank the spirits you’re okay,” the brother breathed as soon as he let Katara at arm’s length, “Now, if you’ll excuse me for a moment, I have to go murder Prince Zuko.”

Zuko startled. He attempted to get into fighting stance, but to do that he would have to drop the Avatar, and that would be—

The earthbender punched the nonbender in the arm, and Katara gave him such a withering glare it probably hurt equally. He began to protest, but then she nudged him in Zuko’s direction. His eyes caught on Aang, and he prioritized.

The brother lifted Aang from Zuko’s arms, firmly and meaningfully and undeniably gentle. Zuko let him. He took the boy onto the saddle on the beast’s back, and gestured Katara and the other girl up,

“Okay, we need to get out of here! Katara, start healing Aang!”

“Yup, we are getting out of here,” the Earth girl said, and shoved Zuko towards the beast with her, “Oh! But first—”

A bar from a nearby grate ripped itself off by command of the little girl’s hand. The metal twisted crudely around Zuko’s wrists, chafing skin.

“Hey! What was that for!” Zuko realized a second later just how stupid of a question that was. There were a lot of things it could be for. But what the earthbender ( metalbender, apparently?) went with was, “That was for Sokka not to burst a vein.”

“Thanks,” the brother muttered under his breath, “Can we leave him behind?”

“No,” Katara and the other girl replied synchronously.

The brother shook his head, upset in an unsurprised way. As if this was unsurprising. This, this… loyalty? Sudden and undeserved, quite possibly temporary and wavering, it still seemed like the only thing to call it—loyalty. To him. With him. Again, Zuko wasn’t following.

Not that he was given much chance to think, seeing as next thing he knew, the stone ground below him was rapidly scaling upward, slanting diagonal, and unceremoniously dumping him and the little girl onto the beast.

Up close, Zuko could see Katara was holding water to the Avatar’s ears—water that glowed with the same brightness the crystals of the catacombs had, the brightness the Avatar’s hollow stare had held. There was some irony in that. Katara’s gaze was focused and sharp and so full of fear. Her brother’s held something similar as he, absentmindedly, tucked a stray strand of hair from one of her braids behind her ear. That stood out in Zuko’s memory, later, strangely vivid. The rest was kind of a blur from there, save the nonsensical phrase of—

“Appa, yip yip!”

—and the huge, swooping feeling in his stomach that accompanied it.

+++

Katara had done this before.

The Avatar State was a vicious thing, all-encompassing and shining and powerful. It left Aang in a cold sweat, his pulse slow, his face so soullessly slack in his sleep Katara felt like she was looking at a ghost. It took him, a boy, made him a god, then spat him out as a boy again. It was cruel. Maybe she was being unfair—no, she knew she was being unfair—that it was sacred and useful and needed and… and she was still the one calming him down at the Southern Air Temple; in front of the sandbenders. She was still the one holding his still body after the Siege of the North, warming him until he gained enough energy to shiver again.

So, yeah, Katara had done this before. It just…  had never been this bad.

As Katara moved water across Aang’s temples, reaching to soothe the weary lifeforce inside, she caught glimpses of his inner scene. Not for long, and too vague to do anything with, but she was sure that was what it was. She thought she saw herself at one point.

After what could’ve been ten minutes or a lifetime, there was a whimper from Aang’s lips, and he gradually stirred. She held him against her tighter without really meaning to.

Aang’s eyes blinked open—stone-gray and lackluster and real —meeting hers blearily. The first word out of his mouth was gentle as anything, as him,

“Katara?”

She nodded, felt the tears rise in her throat, heard them in her voice, “Yeah. Yeah, it’s me.”

“I… Did I…” Aang tried, rubbing at his eyes, and Katara shushed him kindly,

“Yeah, you did. Just rest now. Get a little more rest,” she advised. He nodded and leaned back on her easily.

For the first time since they took off, Katara let out a full breath, one that emptied her lungs. She looked up from Aang’s face, and found Zuko’s staring back at her.

Oh. Yeah. She hadn’t had time to register the absurdity of that yet. A fundamental fear crept up her neck, and she felt dual dao pressing her throat, and then—

“Is he like this everytime?” Zuko asked softly, “everytime, after he…”

—Then, she remembered the boy who jumped in front of lightning.

“He is,” she replied resolutely. Zuko nodded.

+++

The Avatar was smaller than ever in Katara’s arms. He looked a lot like a little boy, removed from his power and bending and strangely wise words. Which, Zuko supposed, was exactly what he was.

Zuko attempted to focus on the insanity of flying miles above the land, on the back of a massive ox, instead of the insanity of the Avatar and his friends being here. He even attempted to focus on the cuffs rubbing his wrists raw, but he kept glimpsing the boy’s—the Avatar’s —pale skin.

It took far too long for the Avatar to wake properly.

When he did, he yawned, then cringed when he attempted to stretch out. A shaky smile came onto his face, out of instinct or practice Zuko wasn’t sure, and he offered,

“I wasn’t out for another hundred, was I?”

Katara let out a strangled kind of laugh, and squeezed him in tight embrace. The Earth Kingdom girl scrambled over to join. (Were these people just hugging constantly?) Sokka turned his head to them from where he was manning the reigns, saying,

“Aang! Good to have you back with us, buddy.”

“Yeah, next time you get all freaky-glowy, though, make sure I’m there to see it!” the little one exclaimed, punching him in the arm, which seemed inadvisable.

“Aw, thanks, guys,” said the Avatar, as if receiving a birthday gift, as opposed to having had a near-death experience. He looked around then, and finally processed Zuko’s presence.

“Zuko?” he asked, frowning, “But I thought you—“

Katara was shaking her head already. “He redirected Azula’s lightning when she shot at you,” she explained, as if—as if that had meant anything. But, but it hadn’t, it was just—he wasn’t thinking, and he just—he didn’t—

“No, I…” Zuko began, but it quickly became apparent the Avatar wasn’t focused on him. That part, apparently, he had accepted with ease. No, his face had fallen for entirely different reasons now,

“Azula shot lightning at me?” he asked quietly.

Katara grimaced, but didn’t soften her response in its solemnity, “Yes. While you were in the Avatar State.”

The Avatar’s shoulders slumped inward, and he pressed a hand to his forehead, as if holding back dismay threatening to burst out, “You mean, I would’ve… I would’ve been…”

“I, I had this spirit water,” Katara offered, pulling out a pretty little bottle which Zuko guessed was meant to be special, “I could’ve used that.”

“Would that have worked?”

Katara didn’t answer. She didn’t know, none of them did; there was no way to. Aang reached a hand behind himself, felt around his back, tried to reach a scar that wasn’t there.

+++

Aang’s silence was pretty unnerving. Or maybe it was the fact it left space to imagine him blasted full of electricity, heartbeat going crazy and then going gone, dead as the ground.

Anyway—it needed to be stopped, so Toph shoved his side lightly, and pointed out,

“Hey, buck up, Twinkletoes! Princey was there to save you, remember?”

That finally, finally, elicited the slightest laugh from him. He replied, nonsensically, “Like he’s never done that before.”

Toph couldn’t really puzzle that one out—as far as she’d been told, Zuko was some awful dangerous person, and then he maybe wasn’t, and then he was, and now he was an alleged good guy, according to Katara.

What Sokka decided to do with it, though, was take it as permission to start whinging, “Yeah, speaking of Zuko, I’d like to—“

“Shut up,” Toph groaned, which she was sure everyone appreciated except Sokka.

+++

Sokka would like to throw Zuko off of Appa. That’s what he was going to say.

Look—he got it. He got that Zuko saved Aang, and that that meant he was good deep-down or some bullshit, and most of all he got that Katara and Aang (and apparently even Toph?) had hearts the size of camelaphants and thought Zuko was their new best friend.

Personally, Sokka was focused on the part of the story where Zuko imprisoned his sister and chased Aang halfway around the world. Logically, he was focused on the fact they definitely couldn’t plan an invasion in front of the enemy prince. 

On top of all of this—Aang had been passed out for the better part of this ride, Katara had the imprint of a cuff on her ankle, Toph had revealed she had been kidnapped recently, and it was safe to say Sokka was close to having a heart attack on the spot.

The gaang had already made it clear they wouldn’t let Zuko die. That had been the case ever since the North Pole, and “we can’t just leave him here." And, that wasn't... bad, it wasn’t like Sokka wanted them to have blood on their hands, but they could at least let him carry some on his, on their behalf. But they’d see it all as the same thing—Sokka knew, he’d lost.

So, Sokka brought Appa down at the next clearing. He was the plan guy, and he had a plan.

+++

Zuko didn’t realize how much he kind of… loved traveling on the sky beast, until they touched down. Zuko petted the creature, nodded an acknowledgement of its work. The thing rumbled pleasantly.

“Not that I don’t appreciate your navigation, Sokka,” said the Avatar, “but why’d we land in the middle of nowhere?”

“Oh, this?” the nonbender smiled, far too smugly, “This is where we’re leaving Zuko.”

Ah. That—that actually made a lot more sense than whatever else the group had been doing with him so far.

“Nope, now this is where we’re setting camp for the night,” Katara refused incomprehensibly.

The brother’s face hardened, and Zuko thought he was maybe trying to look decisive or authoritative, and failing pretty miserably. There was some kind of underlying self-doubt in him, which shone through far too obviously, “Why not? Zuko will be fine out here, we’re far enough from his sister.”

“Sokka, we’re in some random forest,” Katara argued, “What’s he supposed to do?”

“Oh, I’m sure Zuko’s a big boy, he can survive the wild for a bit,” the brother’s eyes slid over to make direct contact with his, “can’t you, Zuko?”

“Of course I can!” Zuko spat back. His cheeks heated—he couldn’t have the enemy presuming him weak and defeated.

“You’re handcuffed,” the earthbender pointed out.

“You think that’s enough to stop me?” he growled, as intimidating as he could manage while struggling to straighten his posture into true, imperial pose, due to the… well, the handcuffs.

The little earthbender must have sensed his struggle, because she burst into laughter, and Zuko tried and failed not to feel stupid. “I think it is!” she wheezed.

“Well, it’s not!” he yelled back lamely.

The nonbender gestured happily at him, “See! He’s fine with it!”

Katara scoffed. “Sokka, stop being a jerk. Zuko, stop arguing against yourself. I’m going to cook dinner—you all set up camp.”

“We can’t just—!” the nonbender’s voice rose high with his urgency, then collapsed into a sigh when he accepted no one would listen, “Ugh, ok, fine! Tonight we’ll keep him around. But first thing tomorrow, we’re flying to a town, and dumping him there. He can be uncuffed, and everything!”

“Sure, Sokka! That sounds like a great idea!” Aang replied exaggeratedly, and when Katara tilted her head at him, he winked.

“I can also see you winking, Aang!”

“Huh? Me? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I saw you! Quit lying—Toph, tell him he’s lying!”

“Hm? I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Paranoia, he’s telling the truth.”

“I know you’re lying too! Toph, tell yourself you’re lying!”

Zuko wasn’t any closer to understanding this group. 

+++

What Zuko needed now was time. Time to reconcile the past day, the past week; eventually he might get around to his whole life. He needed time to mourn. Mourn the simplicity of the sea, of cutting straight through waves, a single pinpoint mission on mind. The Avatar, an enemy. The Avatar, an unreachable legend. The Avatar, an empty promise to cling to.

Small, warm hands appeared on Zuko’s sore, metal-twined wrists, and he startled roughly,

“What the fuck are you doing? ”

The Avatar, not legend nor promise nor even a reliable enemy, shushed him. “I need to concentrate. I’m trying to metalbend them off.”

The earthbender barked out a mean laugh from the stretch of dirt on which she was relaxing, “Hah! You’re not even an earth master, Twinkletoes, you’re not gonna be a metalbender.”

Though he was behind him, Zuko could picture the Avatar’s pout near-perfectly, and was unnerved by the acquaintance required for that.

“Why?! You can’t free me, then I’ll…” Zuko hesitated. Attack, was the word hanging on his tongue. He would’ve choked it out, too, except the nonbender appeared from the forest with the firewood. He took a few seconds to assess the three of them, and ordered,

“No freeing Zuko.”

Katara also reappeared then, holding a large pot, and argued, “It’s about to be dinner. He can’t eat like that.”

“Sure he can!” the brother shrugged, dismissive, “It’s soup; you can bend it into his mouth like you do for Appa.”

“Are you comparing me to the cow? ” Zuko demanded, as glad for someone to be angry at as he was angry.

“Sky bison,” the whole group corrected autonomously.

The Earth Kingdom girl and the Avatar started chatting about the ways Zuko was like or unlike the beast, but he tuned them out, still focused on the nonbender. He was stewing on a retort, something vicious to say, when he took note of the action of rock against blade. Sparks fizzled. The guy was trying to start the fire.

“I, I can do that,” Zuko offered unthinkingly. 

The nonbender threw him a wry look, “I’m good.”

Katara had told them all to set up camp. If Zuko didn’t comply, there would possibly be some punishment, and this was the first thing he could actually do in his current state. But he wasn't too worried about that—he doubted these simpletons knew about proper discipline—it was that the simple refusal was so demeaning. It made Zuko’s chest burn imputently, which... was actually pretty useful. He stepped close to the firewood, knelt down, conspicuously ignored the nonbender’s complaints,

and he breathed.

Gentle fire lapped onto Zuko’s tongue, a warmness dissipating against saliva, and then fanning into flames on wood.

The nonbender was gaping, eyes wide, cheeks flushed from hate. Zuko stared placidly back. Eventually, the other boy choked out, 

“Should—do we need to gag you?”

Zuko’s nose scrunched. “…I’m good.”

At that, the spell of disbelief was broken. “That,” the boy scoffed, “you certainly are not.”

+++

Dinner was a tense affair. Sokka would not stop sulking since they took Zuko’s cuffs off, and… Zuko himself had also vehemently warned them against it? Such that ever since Toph had popped them off regardless, he’d been staring at his own hands like he didn’t know whether to spoon soup or shoot fireballs.

Katara bent stew into each their bowls. The food was what finally eased them all a bit. Toph began trying to make small talk, something irrelevant about methods of earthbending, and Katara was grateful when that worked for a while. She wasn’t so grateful when Aang asked,

“Zuko, can you teach me to redirect lightning?” 

“What?” Zuko asked, startled out of impassive sulking, “Of course not, I—why would I do that!”

Aang tilted his head, “Because you’re on our side now?”

“No, I’m not! Why would you think—“

“You saved his life,” Katara responded before he could finish the question, heart suddenly in her throat. “You double-crossed Azula for us? Or, triple-crossed, right? You stopped her and her friend from—“ she blinked back a vision of blue flame as bright as terror, of food that appeared secretly in the night— “you stopped them. We hadn’t thought you could lie, but you pulled your plan over their heads perfectly!”

It was true, Katara hadn’t understood Zuko’s change of heart. She had briefly, arrogantly pondered whether her various lectures had at some point gotten through, (they took mine too,) but honestly she had just trusted he’d… learned.

You really are the Firelord’s son. Was he?

“I didn’t double-cross anyone! There’s always been the one goal, I—I just crossed!” Zuko babbled angrily, “You’re the enemy! My enemy, enemies of the Fire Nation!”

Sokka had shot straight up, gesturing meaningfully and self-satisfiedly and so annoyingly that he was completely ignorable. Especially since Katara was busy with her own confused distress, which she opened her mouth to express, but Aang got there first,

“You’re eating dinner with us,” he pointed out patiently.

Zuko’s whole face tinged pink, and he flustered, “I’m hungry!” And, oh, Katara really loved Aang.

Sokka came in and ruined it a second later. “He just admitted he’s against us! Which, sure, admirinable honesty, but I think we might appreciate it more if we tied him to a tree and flew several miles away.”

Zuko’s bowl clattered as he stood up viciously. “Try it, nonbender. I’m not chained anymore.”

Toph groaned heartily, swooped a hand up, and both Sokka and Zuko were encased neck-down in stone. Katara would’ve loved to chastise her for the method, but it was a little too effective to argue.

“Looks like this’ll need some special Avatar intervention,” Aang proclaimed. Katara and Toph gathered closer to him, tuning out a lot of teenage-boy-indignation, and listened to his idea. At the end of his explanation, Toph snorted,

“You think they’ll be dumb enough to go for that?”

“Only one way to find out!” Aang replied brightly.

“I don’t know, Aang,” Katara said, the shifting in her stomach still present, “do you really think Zuko… I mean, he just said he’s still our enemy. Why would you trust he’ll ever truly be good?”

To his credit, Aang didn’t say because he saved me. Instead, his reply was, “Because he has been good. He just needs to start being it on purpose.”

+++

“Zuko, you want to capture me, right?”

“Of course I—“

“That was rhetorical. You want to capture me, and bring me back to the Fire Nation. We’re headed to the Fire Nation, for reasons Sokka told me not to say. Wouldn’t it be easier for you to travel with us there, and then attack us and bring me in?”

“Well… yeah, but why the fuck would you let me—“

“Sokka, you don’t want Zuko travelling with us, right? But you do want to work against the Fire Nation. So, consider him our prisoner! The Fire Prince is a pretty useful captive, right? But since Zuko’ll be good until we’re at the palace, he doesn’t need to be cuffed or anything. Sound good?”

Sokka was not dumb enough to buy this. The fact they thought he was was honestly pretty insulting. However… he knew that they had already made their mind up about Zuko, because they were insane, and because they had no sense of safety. He knew that if he wanted to protect them from idiot princes, then they’d have to trust him enough not to cage him in earth.

“Okay,” Sokka agreed, because he had to.

+++

“Okay,” Zuko agreed, because the plan made enough sense to him.

+++

They didn’t have a bedroll for Zuko, which would have upset him several months ago, back when he “wasn’t meant to be a fugitive!” But now he was starting to think he maybe was meant to be a fugitive, and destiny was a lie, and muck on his clothes and twigs in his hair were the only prizes he’d earn in this life.

Not-sleeping was one of Zuko’s least favorite activities. He wished everything he’d done in the last day would kick in, adrenaline would quit, and he’d just sleep, but he’d rarely been lucky in anything. Not-sleeping meant thinking. Thinking meant—

Where was Uncle now? Surely Azula had taken him back to the Fire Nation, more traitorous than ever. Surely he was imprisoned. Surely he was, because if he wasn’t, that meant he’d been…

He couldn’t be. He couldn’t. Because he had to be alive for Zuko to apologize to him—not that he expected forgiveness. He’d left him. He’d left Uncle, the one person who’d never left Zuko no matter how much shit he was in, and he’d left him. He wasn’t sure anymore if he was a worse nephew or son.

Zuko tried looking at the stars, and only saw the glow of crystals forming a cage.

I am so proud of you.

Zuko rolled to his other side, right ear pressed against the ground in the way that made him twitchy. Right there, open and defenseless, lay the Avatar.

Remember what you're fighting for.

Zuko had assumed the boy would be peaceful in his sleep, hauntingly so, like he had been passed out. And he was, at first, but then—his brow furrowed; stormclouds gathered. Nightmares began. His lips moved, presumably a whimper, and Zuko was suddenly grateful for the dirt muffling his hearing side.

Eerily quick, the boy shot straight up, eyes wide with blank terror. There must have been noise to this, because the blanketed bundle that was Katara stirred. 

Like a routine, Katara placed a hand on the Avatar’s back, guided him to a spot of moonlight in the clearing. She rubbed circles into his back, until they both fell asleep, leaned against one another.

It was childish to seek comfort from night terrors. Zuko didn’t like the reminder they were children.

+++

“I always thought this thing would be faster,” Zuko remarked dully. He reached an absent-minded hand down to pet the fur of the creature, watching clouds pass below.

Katara elbowed him. “Don’t call Appa a thing! He’s a—“

“—Sky bison,” the whole group recited.

Zuko leaned his head against the side of the cow’s saddle. To be fair about the speed, he didn’t actually know where their final destination was. He knew that the nonbender had disappeared sometime last night, hopefully to plan something other than Zuko’s murder, and when he woke up the team was having some whispered meeting which ended the second he walked over. It made him twitchy, but this whole scenario did, and as long as they were headed to the Fire Nation like the Avatar claimed, as long as he remembered what he was fighting for, he was closer to completing his mission than ever. 

“—Can’t believe you called him a thing, I mean, really?! Do we have to add animal cruelty to the list of terrible things Zuko’s done?” Zuko tuned back in on the conversation in time with Katara’s offended scoff. 

When she had gotten over that tirade, she suddenly brightened. A mischievous, smug grin grew on her—a bad expression on little sisters, “Actually, Zuko, would you mind telling me our names?”

Zuko blinked. “You’re Katara.”

“Huh,” Katara let her surprise show for a moment, before correcting herself by fixing him with a harder look, “Well, that’s just cause I yelled at you about it. Tell me… her name.”

The little green thing waved, not at him, but presumably it was meant to be for him. (He was pretty sure they had once called her blind? Which—no, that couldn’t possibly be right.) At any rate, he knew—

“Uh, she’s. An earthbender,” Zuko explained, and was met with total silence, “she’s… it’s an Earth Kingdom name?”

Cackling broke out from the girl in question, until she was finally able to gasp out, “Oh, that’s too precious! They’ve all called me by it this morning, and every morning since Ba Sing Se! You don’t even know Twinkletoes’ name do you?”

“Which one is Twinkletoes?” Zuko asked seriously, which inexplicably started both girls and the Avatar laughing. The nonbender, who hadn’t lost his mind, turned his nose up with a noise of indignation.

“Ok, ok, do my brother next,” Katara requested eagerly.

Zuko thought for a longer time. “…It starts with an S?”

The brother blinked. “I don’t know how to feel about you being closer on mine, but. Okay.”

“Do you know mine?” the Avatar asked excitedly, “You have chased me around the world, it’d be polite.”

“Uhm,” Zuko began, “you’re the Avatar.”

The Avatar’s smile twitched, almost imperceptible, except that when it came back it had less force behind it. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

Zuko thought longer. Something stirred in his mind. He knew they had said it recently, Katara definitely had, but that wasn’t what was coming up, wasn't what his mind had catalogued—what he was remembering was a little girl at Pao's tea house, a game about hopping,

“Aangy?” Zuko guessed.

Even the nonbender laughed this time. Did Zuko really have to wait for the Fire Nation to attack these people?

“Yes, yes, it’s Aangy, please call him that,” the brother begged.

“Please do!” the Avatar echoed.

“Aang,” Zuko realized, retroactively horrified.

Aang giggled, “Nice to meet you.”

“I’m the Blind Bandit,” the earthbender introduced herself, confusing on multiple levels, and Zuko now definitely needed to find a way to ask about the blind thing, “but you can call me Toph.”

“Toph,” Zuko repeated back, not so much interested in knowing the names as he was in not getting laughed at again.

“And I’m Li,” said the nonbender, “from the tea shop.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I’m Wang Fire, Fire Nation scum—“

“No you’re not!”

“Sokka—“ Katara began to chide, then realized her mistake.

“Sokka!” Zuko exclaimed triumphantly. Sokka stuck his tongue out at him.

“Well, congratulations,” Katara concluded her own conversation over-sweetly, “you learned a lesson in basic human politeness, Zuko.”

“I doubt he did,” Sokka grumbled, and Zuko promptly turned his back on the whole lot of them.

+++

If you asked Aang whether he understood destiny, he might say no. Conversely, he might brag that he knew all about it and about spirits and everything else he was meant to. But if you actually, really wanted to know, he’d say: from the instant he saw Zuko’s face, he knew it like the back of his hand. From the moment he was saved by a masked vigilante, he knew Zuko was something good, something gentle, just carved in shape of a blade. Whether that was an understanding of destiny or of people, Aang couldn’t tell you—maybe they were very similar things. What he could tell you was that he was right, as he watched Zuko remind Katara he was her sworn enemy while helping her put up a tarp.

They set up camp faster than ever with the extra and oddly-stubborn help. (He really would not let Sokka make a fire himself.)

Katara got to work on dinner, and Aang would usually sit and chat to her or help where he could, but Sokka and Toph were already keeping her company, and Zuko…

Zuko was slipping off into the woods. Aang was more interested in that.

He found the other boy… training? His motions were mechanical, processed, but the bending worked well enough, seeing as at the end of the kata, a sizeable plume of flame flew from his fist.

“Flameo, hotman!” Aang tried congratulating Zuko traditionally, which resulted not only in him startling greatly, but also him asking,

“What the fuck?!”

Aang smiled magnanimously, “Flameo! You know you can practice at camp, though, right? You’d have more room.”

“Oh,” said Zuko, “I thought Katara might be scared of fire.”

See, that was the thing about gentleness. It doesn’t matter so much, being a blade—a soft wood can always be re-carved.

“I think we all are,” Aang returned, full of empty temples and familiar bones, of wide-eyed pain and I’m never gonna firebend again, “a little. Maybe not Toph.”

Zuko cringed, probably without meaning to, and Aang wondered whether he had interpreted ‘all’ as their little group or as 3 nations worth of people. He looked at the scar, and wondered if he’d included himself.

“Yeah,” Zuko cleared his throat, “well—“

“You could just do the katas,” Aang suggested, “you know, without the actual bending.”

Zuko examined his surroundings, the crouched and crooked path he had to make through the trees. To be fair, it was probably good practice, but—

“I guess that could work,” Zuko agreed.

They walked back together. Around them, mild wind stirred fallen leaves, pushed them against their feet, rustled the bark; chimes of the forest. See, Aang didn’t mind silence. Being an Air Nomad, he realized there was no such thing. Zuko, on the other hand, always walked so stiffly, sticking out like a sore, uncomfortable thumb no matter his setting. It was Aang's goal to one day find a piece of small talk that'd turn him into a normal person. Which was perfect, because he had been meaning to ask—

“How’d you learn to redirect lightning?”

“My uncle,” Zuko replied easily, “he came up with it himself, or—he said something about waterbenders?” he shrugged.

“Waterbenders, really?” Aang asked excitedly. Firebending still seemed a little… aggressive to him. But if he ended up having to learn it, something closer to water would be a lot more comforting.

“Sure. Why?” Zuko asked.

Aang didn’t care to reply, because he had heard a ruffling in the bushes, and sure enough, he soon spied a bushy gray tail.

“Sugar glider!” he exclaimed, and chased after the creature gleefully.

+++

“Can you teach me to redirect lightning?”

They were flying again. Zuko had been trying to get some sleep, but this was the third time Aang had brought this up, so. 

“I’m not teaching you firebending,” Zuko replied, because it seemed like the right thing to reply to your arch nemesis.

“You said it’s more like waterbending,” Aang pointed out.

Katara’s head spun round to him, “Is it really?”

“I don’t know,” Zuko grumbled, “if it is, then why don’t you figure it out on your own?”

Zuko could’ve imagined Aang replying with something stupid and ridiculous, like because it’s better to learn with a friend, and then felt like the stupid and ridiculous one himself when he replied, “Huh. I guess so.”

From where he was manning the beast’s reigns—having traded with Aang a bit ago—Sokka groaned. “Looks like a storm’s coming in. We’ll have to camp an extra day.” He continued to mumble complaints about the inconvenience of this as he searched for an appropriate cave, and Zuko rolled onto his front. He leaned over to pat white fur, watched the layer of clouds approach as they were being brought down,

“They’re both fluffy,” Zuko commented absentmindedly.

“What are?” Katara asked incredulously.

“The cow and the clouds,” he replied, as if it wasn't perfectly obvious.

+++

Zuko made the observation, “They’re both fluffy,” and that was when Sokka was sure he’d gone insane.

In his total surprise, words came out of him despite the fact he had no jokes, no snarks, no thoughts to share. He garbled out a forceful, “Yeah, they are!”

When the rest of the group burst out laughing, Sokka was glad that there was one other person who was blushing just as harshly and indignantly as him.

+++

Zuko was going to steal Sokka’s stupid spark rocks if he tried to start the campfire one more time. It was the one thing Zuko was both sure he could do, having fumbled laundry and food and even their confusingly-built tents, as well as the one time he was sure the others were okay with fire. Plus, it was plain silly to light fires by hand when you had a firebender on your—

On your…

Travelling with you.

So, Zuko shoved himself beside Sokka, nudging him over such that he took his place. He cupped his hands around his mouth, just so that there wouldn’t be any dismay over stray sparks, and breathed. The flames lapped his palms, warming them, then caught to the pile of wood.

When he looked up, Aang was staring at him.

“What?” Zuko questioned, but Aang just shook his head, smiling.

+++

Sokka had been right. The storm hadn't taken long to roll over the cave they’d made shelter in and rumble around them, shake nearby trees dangerously, turn the rock at the cave’s mouth slick with rain.

Zuko felt the storms of Caldera, thunder harsh as a slap, hair smoothed in comfort after, plush beds and being tucked into them. He felt the Wani rocking viciously in all its poorly-built glory, a slippery hand falling through his, Lieutenant Jee making a save he couldn’t—a shoddy crew and a shoddy captain united under a common dislike for death. He felt his throat ragged from screaming, Uncle somewhere below dressed in bandages, a sky that suddenly refused to torment him the way it was meant to.

He waited until dead night to slip out. One step over the cavern boundary, and rain pressed his hair flat, drenched fabric then skin then something heart-deep. It didn’t feel like bathing; it didn’t feel like getting clean. It felt like a threat.

Lightning cracked white-hot through the darkness above.

See—there’s comfort in a storm; the way you might not make it out.

Zuko climbed wet, jagged rock to the top of the hill. He didn’t notice the feather-light feet following.

+++

Aang felt the storm like a coward’s letter and escape attempt, like ice thawing a hundred years after its formation, like losing Gyatso. He felt it like panic.

He felt it like grief.

The not-sleeping allowed him to notice Zuko leaving. So, he followed. So, when Zuko sat atop the highest rock on the hill, Aang sat beside him.

+++

Aang didn’t acknowledge that he startled Zuko so bad he near-jumped over the cliff edge. Aang didn’t acknowledge him at all, just appeared from nowhere then stared up at the raging clouds. Fear spiked in Zuko’s throat like familiarity.

“Fuck, you can’t practice redirecting lightning here!” he shouted, grabbing the kid by the shoulders as if that’d help, “You don’t even know how—wasn't almost dying to it once enough?”

Aang replied with wide-eyed alarm, “Are you insane? Of course I’m not going to redirect lightning! You’ll do that if there’s any—do you think there will be any?!”

“I—I don’t know, maybe?!” Zuko returned, still panic-stricken and now additionally confused, “But then—why did you come here?”

“We were talking about lightning, and a storm came in right after!” Aang explained, “I’m the Avatar! I thought it might be a spirit thing.”

“Oh,” Zuko breathed, “that… makes sense. Yeah, that’s—that’s smart.”

Aang was still looking at him disconcerted. “Why did you come up here?”

Zuko shrugged, mind in other places. Aang didn’t press it, also seeming to become preoccupied quickly. The boy removed himself from Zuko’s grip. He began pacing the premise, still looking to the sky, “If you won’t teach me lightningbending, maybe there’s a spirit that will,” Aang said, an edge of passive-aggressive snark to it. Zuko rolled his eyes, and laid back against hard stone,

“Sure,” he replied, “just let me know if you’re about to be fried alive.”

“Okay!”

At some point, Aang started calling out in various ways to the spirits—most of them ridiculous. Zuko let rain soak into his bones until there was brightness behind his eyelids and the drops calmed to patters on his skin. Because that was how this storm felt—nothing like he'd ever known before, contradictory in nature—

It felt calm.

Aang jostled him by the arm when morning came, like he had fallen asleep, which… maybe? He wasn’t sure how to feel about that if so.

“No spirits?” Zuko guessed from the clear sky and lack of lightning-wielding Avatar.

Aang shook his head, “Nah. But look,” he pointed upward, “a rainbow.”

Zuko looked. There was a rainbow; it was pretty. He nodded in acknowledgment of this.

They climbed down together. As Aang jumped from rock to rock, bending air to lengthen his bounds, Zuko could swear there was a clinking noise. But it was muddled with wind and dripping water and all the animal calls of nature, and he couldn’t be sure it was there at all.

At the bottom of the hill, water had pooled in several puddles, running off the still-wet stone. One was particularly large, and Zuko saw an inexplicably big splash ripple through it. There must have been some frog he missed.

Aang saw him watching it, and grinned maniacally, before jumping in at full force, bending a barrier of air beneath himself to force the splash wider—

“Ow!”

Aang rubbed at his foot, cringing, and Zuko stepped forward to examine the now-empty patch of mud. Or, almost empty. The aggressor against Aang’s toes appeared to be some kind of… pendant? Statue? He squinted at it, but failed to get a good look until Aang picked it up and held it out.

“Woah,” the pair said at the same time. 

It was a statue of some sort—an ornament or totem or something—carved out of what Zuko could only assume was white jade. It was simple enough in form, a basic C-shaped dragon, but details of gold pointed to a symbol of importance.

Aang blinked at it, “Maybe there was a spirit after all.”

He pocketed it, and they didn’t talk of it further, but Zuko was still in a bit of a daze by the time they got back to the camp. A spirit had visited. (Did this kind of thing happen to the Avatar a lot?)

They must not have been as early as all that, because Sokka, Toph, and Katara were packing up when they got to the cave. Katara took one look at their dripping forms, and put a hand over her mouth,

“You two are going to have such awful colds!”

Sokka was already bringing dry clothes to Aang, and a blanket which he wrapped around his shoulders tightly, brow furrowed; holding the same concern in silence.

“Sheesh, you already almost died once this week, Aang, maybe slow it down a little?” Toph suggested. There it was again—that same concern all folded up in snark and a punch on the arm.

Aang gave the blanket to Zuko after he had changed. Was this concern too?

(No. This was necessity. There was no point travelling with him if he was a feverish mess. Concern was shown for Zuko differently, with lessons and lessons and lessons that would be his teacher.)

Zuko shook his head, nausea churning his guts, “I don’t get sick easy.”

+++

They flew another day and landed at dusk. Sokka said that it'd be their last day camping; whatever came next would be the destination. Zuko still didn’t know what that was, but he saw the four others whisper at times, felt all the unease of his strange position relative to them.

At any rate, a last night camping meant a last night shoving Sokka away from fire starters. He sat in front of the tinder, breathed in, warmth sparking in his stomach—

“That’s an airbending technique, you know.”

Aang really needed to get worse at sneaking. Though, admittedly, Zuko needed to get better at not startling. He sighed lowly, “What?”

“The fire breath,” Aang reiterated, “I’ve only seen your uncle use breathing like that in firebending. It’s an airbending thing.”

Understanding others, the other elements, and the other nations, will help you become whole.

“Uncle said fire comes from the breath,” Zuko shrugged dismissively.

Aang nodded, “He’s right. You’re good at it.”

“Of course I’m good at it,” Zuko scowled, “it’s not real firebending. It’s some stupid trick.”

Sometimes Aang’s eyes got very old. Sometimes it felt like he was staring right into your soul. He was a pretty unnerving kid. Then, he smiled, and he was back to being some goofy boy who just happened to be a master of multiple elements,

“Well, let’s see it!” he requested.

Zuko threw him another sidelong glance, but complied. He breathed in, out, in, out, and soon enough the fire had caught.

Aang hummed. “Can you teach me?”

“I’m not going to teach—“

“You said it’s not real firebending," Aang cut in.

It wasn’t… an unfair point. Thinking of it, the Avatar sparking at the mouth wouldn’t exactly be formidable in a fight. Really, even if he was good at breathing flame, that’d be easier for Zuko to dispell than any airbending attack would be.

“Fine,” Zuko allowed. It took him another moment to realize that meant he had to teach. “Uhm,” he came up with.

Aang smiled at him expectantly.

“Ok, well it’s—fire comes from the breath. I already said that, but. Yeah. Uh, but you’ll feel it… you know about chi, right?”

Aang nodded happily, “Yeah! It’s our life-force. And it’s where bending comes from.”

“Right. Because you need energy to bend. Firebenders’ energy is in their stomach,” Zuko expanded, “you should be able to feel it. It’s like… it’s warm.”

The stomach is the source of energy in your body. It is called the sea of chi. Only, in my case, it is more like a vast ocean. (Those words had been said laughingly, but Zuko hadn’t laughed. When was the last time he’d laughed at one of Uncle’s jokes?)

“I think Jeong Jeong called it an inner flame,” Aang replied. Evidently they were both thinking of lost teachers.

“Yeah, think of it like that,” Zuko agreed, “So you can feel it?”

Aang screwed up his face in concentration, “Yeah, I can.”

“Okay, so breathe with it, until you’re in line with it.”

“You really are like Jeong Jeong,” Aang groaned. Zuko didn't know what that meant, so he ignored it. He gave him some time to meditate, caught snippets of Toph and Sokka chatting. When the flames of the campfire started rising and falling with Aang’s deep breaths, Zuko continued,

“Now, let it travel through your breath, not just with it.”

Aang was a smart kid. Things came easy to him the way they didn’t to Zuko, so he was much less surprised than the boy himself when a cloud of smoke and cinders poured from his mouth.

“Hah!” Aang exclaimed gleefully, “Did you see that?!”

“Yeah, I did,” said Zuko, “Good job. That was fast.”

Aang giggled, and tried again.

+++

Sokka knew plans.

He wouldn’t say he was good at them, because he didn’t think there was anything he was particularly extraordinary at; but he knew them. He understood his role. And he would try at it like it was all he had.

He’d spent countless nights disregarding the group's sleep schedule—the one he himself had designed—wandering off with candle and map and brush, planning an invasion. It was nail-biting work, all wild calculations, all factors being added and added and so many unknowable ones, or ones he could be forgetting, or…

He already had enough to figure out without Zuko in the mix. And, see—the problem wasn’t even an evil prince anymore; it wasn’t about firebending terrors. It was about Zuko. Sokka saw the group getting attached, and thought of easily-stabbed-backs. He couldn’t help it, the wanting him gone. He wondered if he was cruel, on some level, as he recalled Aang’s laughing face by Zuko’s side. 

But the first stage of the plan—it was still doable, savable, with one small adjustment. He may finally have a place the others would let him abandon Zuko to.

(He recalled Zuko’s unprompted “good job” to Aang, and had a strange doubt over whether Zuko would be as eager to leave as he was at the start of the week.)

+++

Ba Sing Se fell easier than the hawk to the hunter.

Azula drummed sharp nails boredly against the gold throne arm. She bit the inside of her cheek long and hard, then stopped just short of drawing blood. Meetings with the Dai Li were hideously dull.

“Everyone out,” she demanded levelly but forcefully once she’d heard enough drivel for a day.

“Wow, great job, Azula!” Ty Lee praised in all her starry-eyed simplicity, “They’re all so strong and motivated by you, but intimidated too, in a good way! They’ll be great at ruling in your Father’s name when we return to the Fire Nation.”

“Ugh, Ty Lee, would you try not to be so daft?” Azula reprimanded, but felt the slightest twinge of guilt at the girl’s confused pout—the same way one would feel sorry for a pup getting itself stuck in a rabbit trap, “We’re not going back to the Fire Nation yet.”

“Oh, sorry, Azula. Why not?”

“Well, for starters, the Avatar’s still alive,” Azula replied with a poised brow. It was a bothersome fact, one that revolved around Zuko’s betrayal, that play of the game she still didn't understand, though she would be loath to admit that. (Didn’t he love Father? Didn’t he fear her? Why choose the Avatar and his pathetic friends; it simply wasn’t rational.)

“What’s going to happen with Zuko?” Mai asked impassively.

“He’s a traitor, Mai,” Azula responded, and tried to keep the true malice out of her voice, tried to sound disappointed at most, tried to sound like she’d seen it coming a mile away, like she’d wanted it. 

Mai didn’t respond for a moment, then nodded and moved off. Azula didn’t think much of it.

+++

They were reaching their destination today. Zuko knew this. What he didn’t know was what that destination fucking was—what was waiting for them there, how long they were staying, what the group would do there, what he’d do there.

He tried not to wonder about it. Whatever happened, he’d figure something out; he was more prone to working on his toes anyway. He’d never had a head for planning.

Zuko petted the cow as they flew, tuning in and out of the conversation around him. As the reigns were pulled, as the creature started to slow, as they approached a landing, Zuko tried to make out the setting. He caught the blue and wood of a Water Tribe fleet, an encampment on a bay. Which. Made sense. But a funny feeling came over him, maybe apprehension, at the sight of it.

The next part made sense too. So, Zuko wasn’t sure why a shiver ran down his spine.

As soon as they landed, Katara and Sokka were running off, straight into the embracing arms of a man who carried himself tall—carried himself like a leader—

“Dad!”

Chapter Text

7 years old and half-wild on Ember Island, Zuko had delighted in a small cruelty. Ty Lee had made Azula cry—or so, Azula claimed, only later would he learn Azula always lies—and he had burnt a drawer full of the girl's best clothes in retaliation. The fire spread farther than he had intended and he was caught out, a harried maid beating the flames with a rug.

Father saw the enraged char-marks of Zuko’s handiwork. Drunk on umeshu and soft-sanded beaches, still a prince, he clapped a hand on his son’s shoulder and laughed raucously. He said something of girls and boys, but the memory was faded by time and Zuko’s own dizzy joy in the moment.

Zuko watched the Chief of the Southern Water Tribe lift both his children by the sheer momentum of his hug, and saw his teeth perhaps a bit sharper than they were.

+++

Being with Dad was the biggest relief in the world right now. It was naïve, this feeling—that nothing horrible could happen, or at least that someone else would deal with horrible things, as long as your father was there. But there was a modicum of truth to it, right? Dad knew more than Sokka—he was smart, a capable leader, had been doing this for years—and under his wing, Sokka could finally breathe. 

Except he kind of couldn’t. Except it was so nerve-wracking he might heave up his breakfast at any moment.

Sokka had already told Dad about the invasion plan, last time he was here. But making any actual progress had been curtailed by the whole Katara crisis. This was Sokka’s idea, Sokka’s plan, and if he didn’t pull it off, he’d spend the rest of his life feeling as a half-son, or worse. Less.

“You must be Chief Hakoda!” Aang greeted cheerfully, breaking Sokka of his thoughts and Dad of his embrace. He kept one arm half-wrapped around Katara though, extending the other to Aang. Aang switched out of his bow to accept the gesture.

“And you must be Avatar Aang; it's a pleasure to meet you,” Dad returned sincerely. Then he raised a teasing brow, and lightly ribbed, “I have you to blame for my children getting in so much trouble these days.”

Aang laughed nervously, but Katara scoffed, not taking the joke in stride, “Ugh, Dad, it’s not Aang’s fault there’s a war, or that we care about doing something.”

"Right, of course," Dad’s smile dropped momentarily, and he pulled himself straighter to more formally ask, “Who are your other companions? I assume one of you is the earthbending master my son told me about.”

“That’d be me,” Toph announced, her arms crossed casually, if a little coldly, “Name’s Toph, greatest earthbender you’ll ever meet.”

“So I’ve been told,” Dad laughed, “and you?”

Zuko could compete with a sabertooth mooselion. He was nothing if not ready to charge, glaring with the fiercest anger Sokka had seen from him yet. He was quite possibly attempting to equal Hakoda’s stature with how high he was raising himself—and quite possibly succeeding in presence, if lacking in size,

“My name is—“

Bato walked up, commented, “That’s Prince Zuko.”

“Prince Zuko?” Dad asked, all too understandably confused, “As in Prince Zuko of—“

“Yes, I am the son of Ursa and Fire Lord Ozai. Prince of the Fire Nation and heir to the throne,” Zuko finished his introduction, which had apparently been important enough to him he refused to quit it upon interruption.

“Son,” Dad began, tight-jawed, “care to offer an explanation for this?”

Sokka really wished he had a good one. Or that they’d cuffed Zuko to make this next part more convincing. “...He’s our prisoner.”

Interestingly, Zuko didn’t dispute it.

Dad raised a brow, “That’s quite a valuable prisoner you have, to let stand free.”

Zuko’s uncuffed hands tightened into fists, mouth pursed in physical restraint of whatever ash he was thinking of spitting—verbal or physical, Sokka couldn’t tell you. Dad observed this, as well as the unconcern from the other kids, the way Toph had stepped closer to Zuko during all of this, how Aang’s grin had turned forceful at some point,

“Don’t worry, Chief, we’ll deal with him,” Aang dismissed sunnily.

Dad nodded, lips a thin line, and led them to camp.

+++

Chief Hakoda conspicuously did not explain Zuko’s presence to his fleet, but he whispered with his second-in-command at times, and Zuko’s skin prickled.

The soldiers threw him open, amicable looks, and Zuko glared back. Like any wretched creature, he yearned to bite at hands that offered greeting. But he held himself back—refused to speak a word and pretended it was dignity. Played the tame prisoner and pretended it was clever.

Once, in passing, a soldier bumped Zuko’s side. Barely able to clench back an instinctive, Watch your step, mud! , he bared his teeth in a snarl. Hakoda eyed this. Then he eyed Sokka, and prodded,

“You sure about this, son?”

Sokka said something, but Zuko didn’t catch it, didn’t catch anything beyond a father’s burning gaze. His mouth snapped shut. He turned his eyes to the ground.

The edges of his scar wouldn’t stop itching.

+++

When Katara hugged Dad, her hand brushed over a small scar on the back of his arm. She had no idea where it had come from. She knew generally, of course; it was a war wound, noble in the most twisted sense of the word—but still, this, this skin was unfamiliar to her. She wondered how unfamiliar hers was to him, and had her question halfway answered when on their way through camp, Dad asked Sokka how the tiny, white lines on his thumb had come about.

That wasn’t a war wound. That was two fishhooks. Hooks Dad could’ve taught Sokka to use, if he had been there; could’ve taught Katara too when she complained about inequity.

Katara wasn’t mad at her father. Really. That would be unfair.

She sat between Aang and Zuko at dinner. She took no seconds before retiring to bed.

+++

Aang avoided sea prunes at dinner. Zuko avoided food. Katara avoided eye contact with her father.

Aang was pretty sure his was the most innocuous.

When Katara left early, mouth pinched tight, Aang leaned over to whisper to Zuko and Toph, 

“I’m gonna go join Katara, you guys wanna come?”

“Spirits, yes, please,” Toph sighed, setting down her empty bowl, “I’ll fall asleep if I have to explain no, yes, I’m the earthbending master one more time.”

Zuko’s eyes shot around the campfire, eventually landing on the Chief, laughing with his son, “…Is that allowed?”

“You’re our prisoner, Princess,” Toph reminded, probably louder than she should’ve, but other chatter covered it up. Zuko scowled, though it was unclear whether it was at the volume or nickname or both. “And they don’t even know that, except for Hakoda and that other guy.”

Zuko nodded slowly, “Uhm. So, then, am I allowed to take food…?”

Toph punched him in the arm, “Duh! That’s why I couldn’t hear you chewing? You haven’t been eating? I thought my ears were broken!”

Yeah. Aang probably should’ve paid that more mind, but he had been caught up on Katara. She was meant to be in a good mood, seeing her dad and all.

Zuko grumbled and spooned himself some broth and moo-sow meat. As soon as he was done, Aang got up and quickly bowed to the warriors and Chief. He motioned Zuko and Toph to follow him to their tents, but then antsily used his bending to jog ahead of them.

Sure enough, Katara was setting up her tarp, fumbling a little with the strings in impatience. Aang doubted it was really the tent she was upset at.

“Hi, Katara,” Aang greeted, “Are you mad at your dad?” he asked simply.

“What? No! I just wasn’t hungry,” Katara replied defensively, the tarp tumbling down with her turning to look at him. She kicked the fabric to the side with a scowl, “Why would you think that?”

“Uhm—“

“Hey, Katara, you get enough to eat?” Toph asked, catching up in tow with Zuko.

“Yes, of course, I—“ Katara’s stomach rumbled halfway through the statement.

Zuko, standing there with a spoon of rice in his mouth, looking for all the world like an overgrown child caught sneaking a midnight snack, paused, then wordlessly stuck his half-finished bowl out towards her.

“Oh,” said Katara, her furrowed expression unfolding, touched. She reached out for the bowl, but hesitated, “Zuko, you should have this.”

“We can share,” Zuko shrugged, then blinked, seemingly as surprised as the rest of them at his own unthinking kindness.

“That’s a great idea!” Aang encouraged, “Toph, let’s go get our bowls as well—we can have our own little dinner over here! Zuko, you can make a fire!”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” said Zuko dryly. Which—Aang looked back at the warriors, not so far away—was fair.

“OK,” agreed Aang, “then I can.”

Soon enough, Toph brought more food back, as brazen about the rudeness of the action as Aang was sheepish about it. Aang let sparks come into his breath, lighting the small amount of tinder which Zuko had gathered. It didn’t take long for Sokka to come over, wearing a worried face, asking,

“Hey, what’re you guys doing over here? Katara, are you alright?”

“Why does everyone keep asking that?” Katara scoffed at her brother’s completely understandable question.

“Uh. Okay,” Sokka acknowledged, “Well, can I join you guys?”

“Nope,” said Toph, nudging his foot with hers harshly, a half-pantomime, half-real kick.

Sokka took a seat in the circle, “Sounds good.”

Aang couldn’t help smiling at his friends. To be honest, he had been nervous about coming to this encampment. Anything to do with the invasion plan made his stomach churn. He knew he’d at least have to learn some plans, if not help plan some. But being here, around their paltry fire, with their scrap food, he knew—he’d have people who cared for him no matter what.

(No matter if he failed. No matter if he didn't deserve it. No matter if Ba Sing Se was fallen, and it was all his fault—)

He blinked. Tried to breathe the thoughts away, gave a laugh to a joke he caught the tail-end of.

At some point in the evening, when they were all incoherent with laughter (all, minus Zuko, that is, though even he was cracking a grin,) Toph asked,

“Zuko! Who’s your favorite of us?”

“Of the gaang,” Sokka clarified, “Team Avatar. The Boomeraang Squad.”

“I don’t like any of you,” Zuko replied, moving his spoon so that Katara could grab a bite of meat from the bowl they were sharing, “you’re all enemies of the Fire Nation.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t have a favorite,” Sokka pointed out, surprisingly indulgent of this conversation, though he maybe just took joy in being pedantic, “There can be one of us you hate least.”

“Yeah, Zuko, who do you hate least?” Aang grinned.

Zuko’s lower lip pouted out, though it was more in thought than anger. His spoon bumped Katara’s and his eyes flicked to her,

“Katara’s nice, I guess.”

Sokka’s casual grin evaporated. He went from a leaned-back slouch to sitting straight up. He looked stricken. Aang was pretty sure it was less to do with not being chosen, and more to do with who he did choose. Aang got the feeling.

“Aw, really? Why me?” Katara asked happily, if a little smugly.

“You’re, y’know. Nice. Caring. Soft.”

Katara was certainly nice. Caring, too. He would argue that he was a lot more soft. Katara could be soft, extremely so, of course, but she could also be… not. (Then again, sometimes her softness was exactly what made her so formidable. Sometimes her kindness was as fearsome as anything in an unkind world. Aang liked to think they shared that. He was also sure Zuko hadn't meant it so complexly.) Sokka’s grin slowly started to rise again.

“…Why do you think I’m ‘soft’?”

“Well—“ began Zuko.

“Please,” breathed Sokka.

“You know—”

Sokka put his hands together, as if begging, “Tui and La.”

“—you’re a girl.”

Sokka raised both his hands like a sports champion would in triumph when Katara shoved Zuko off his perch on a tree stump with enthusiasm.

“Am I soft too, sunshine?” Toph eventually managed to ask between gasps of her own laughter.

“I—“ Zuko hesitated, “You’re not a girl girl. You’re some kind of… little monstrosity.” (Aang wondered if that was how he rationalized his sister, too.)

“Well, that one’s true,” Sokka put in, which earned both a punch and more laughter from Toph.

+++

Sokka didn’t throw up before the first meeting. So. There was an improvement from the last time he was here.

It helped that Aang and Katara would be there. It should help that Dad would be there, but really, that was what made it so bad to begin with. He didn’t feel like much of a warrior standing next to him and his easy strength. Didn’t feel very eloquent next to his easy words. Didn’t feel very smart fumbling with maps, needing his father to smooth them out. Didn’t feel like much of a son.

They came to part of the plan which Sokka hadn’t explained last time he was here, and all eyes turned to him.

“Uh,” he began, and hated himself, “Uh. We need to get into the Fire Nation. Obviously. You know that. So, uh—we can hide the fleet with waterbending. Fog. After we pick up the Foggy Swamp Benders, who—“ he was having a little trouble breathing— “I put them. On the list I gave Dad, I mean Hakoda! I gave Chief Hakoda the list of who to bring, and they’re on there—!”

“Because they’re waterbenders,” Katara put in, clarifying, “We met them in the Foggy Swamp. They’re really good, and a lot closer than the Northern benders, obviously.”

“Yup!” Sokka nodded enthusiastically, “Exactly right, lil sis!”

Katara’s nose schrunched, “Since when do you call me—?”

“So! That’s how the main fleet will get there, but. Dad and a few warriors and me and Katara and Aang and Toph and, uh... Li... need to get there first because reconnaissance and important and—“

“We’re capturing a Fire Navy ship!” Aang cut to the chase, either eager or impatient. Probably the latter.

“Yup,” agreed Sokka, “that is what we’re doing, lil… Avatar.”

Aang grinned brightly, “No problem, big Sokka!”

There was some light laughter at that, which Aang preened under while Sokka shrank.

“That’s quite an ambitious plan,” Dad noted, “Lucrative if achievable. How exactly is it achievable?”

“We’ve got enough man power here to take down one Fire Nation vessel, Chief,” said Nanurjuk, on the younger end of the warriors, “We’ve taken down more than that before.”

“It’s the speed of finding one alone I’m worried about,” Aqillutaq pointed out.

“We’ve heard word of a few patrols, with that and luck, it’s possible,” Dad supplied, “But even if we do get it, do we know enough about their upkeep and controls? I’ve seen those engines explode, I don’t want us doing that to ourselves. What about the etiquette? We’ll quite literally be in hot water if we’re going far off whatever course the Fire Nation expects of the ship.”

Sokka laughed at the hot water joke. No one else did. Bato quirked an eyebrow. You have your father’s wit.

“Oh, that’ll be easy, thanks to—“ Aang began, and Sokka slapped a hand over his mouth.

“Thanks to our quick thinking!” Sokka covered quickly with a nervous smile. The warriors gave him looks of confusion, and some suspicion, which was fair. Dad gave him an unreadable expression, which was somehow worse.

“I think that's enough planning for now. Everyone but my children and the Avatar are dismissed,” said Dad, which was very uncharacteristic and very scary. He liked to keep his meetings open to the whole community. If he needed to see someone in private, he did it, well... privately.

Sokka swallowed and tasted his own saliva.

The warriors shuffled out, a few throwing him warning or sympathetic gazes. Dad turned to him, and asked, plainly,

“Why is the Prince of the Fire Nation travelling with you?”

“He’s our—“

“Your prisoner. Yes. So, why do you think it’s okay to leave him free?” Dad pressed.

“He’s being guarded by Toph, right now, actually—“

“Chief Hakoda, I can give you an Avatar Promise that Zuko isn’t dangerous,” Aang offered earnestly, as though the statement wasn’t laughable. 

Dad took a deep, sharp breath in through his nose, “Explain this to me. All of it.”

Katara jumped on that one, “He saved Aang’s life, Dad. In Ba Sing Se—“ Sokka didn’t miss the way Aang flinched at the fallen city’s very name— “Princess Azula was going to shoot him with lightning, but Zuko redirected it. He’s a traitor to his nation. He’s on our side.”

Sokka desperately wanted to dispute the ‘on our side’ phrasing, but that’d be kinda counterproductive at the moment.

Dad sighed, “I know you kids have big hearts. But I doubt he saved you out of anything other than self-interest. I’ve heard enough tales of the banished prince and his boon of defeating the Avatar.”

Sokka, in all the group’s travels, had actually managed to avoid these tales. At least so plainly. Or, rather—he had guessed at and heard about the banishment, but only after traitorous behavior at the North Pole. Considering the ensuing refugeehood and wanted posters, it made enough sense. But the way Dad phrased it made it sound like he’d been banished the whole time he’d spent chasing Aang, but that left so many unanswered question, so many holes—

He chalked Dad's version up to rumors. It wasn’t important right now anyway.

“Right, maybe,” Sokka agreed, which meant probably, but I won’t say it in front of Katara, “Which is why I had this idea—“ he hesitated, but he knew he had to say this one in front of Katara. It’d be too unfair not to— “You guys could hold him prisoner. You’re a lot more equipped than us. And he can give you the needed intel.”

“You want them to what?” cried Katara, aghast.

Aang also started, “Sokka, I’m not sure that’s—“ 

“Hm,” said Hakoda, “Actually, if we were able to work out how to—“

“No,” Katara denied, outrage spelled on her face, (Sokka hated when she got like this,) “No.”

“Katara, just last night he was being sexist,” Sokka pointed out, thinking the angle might strike for her, “He’s generally, y’know, full of—“ Dad present— “crap.”

“Yeah, of course he’s a jerk. We all know that. But I trusted him in Ba Sing Se, and when I thought he had betrayed me? I would’ve said you were right. That we’d be better off imprisoning him, or worse. But he hadn’t betrayed us; he was there when we needed him. He proved himself. And even if he doesn’t acknowledge it, he trusts us.”

“How is this betraying his trust? We’re leaving him with our Dad,” Sokka tried, “We’re not dropping him the woods or even some random city. He’ll be in good hands, right, Dad?”

The man in question had been following this exchange with some bewilderment. He started, “Son—“ but Katara got in first,

“Right! Because we can trust everything to someone we haven’t seen for years!”

“Katara!” Sokka gaped. Once his immediate surprise faded, he realized there was an ache left in his chest. Someone we haven’t seen for years. See—it was awful, because it was just a fact.

Dad didn’t frown, exactly. The look on his face was the kind of thing you’d see on a stabbed man. 

Katara’s mouth morphed, shook, terribly, and angry tears sprouted in her eyes. She stormed out, but when Aang went to follow, Sokka put up a hand and chased her himself.

“Katara,” Sokka took her hand as quick as he could when he ran up. To his great surprise, she didn’t immediately pull away, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. But, c’mon. He’s Fire Nation royalty. Why do you even like him?”

“I don’t,” Katara said tearfully, “But I trust him. Here’s the thing—I like Dad plenty. I love him; of course I do. I just don’t trust him right now.”

Sokka’s chest ached and ached and ached.

Katara sniffled, then straightened out, “I’m going to tell Zuko.”

“No! No,” Sokka pleaded, all his plans on the verge of collapse like always, “You can’t. You know Zuko, once you tell him that, no matter what else you say it’ll be all he’s heard. He’ll run off. If we’re lucky, he’ll do it without burning everything to the ground first.”

Sokka was surprised by how sure he was of this. It wasn’t manipulation. It was worse—it was just a fact. (Zuko, it turned out, wasn’t a hard book to read.)

Katara was very still. Then, she pulled her hand out of his, and walked away.

+++

Katara stormed into Zuko’s meditation session in midafternoon, causing his inner flame to flicker out. A little too quickly for his liking, especially with the sun beating down on him, but there were other things to focus on. Such as the girl with her arms crossed, huffing and pouting and standing outside his and Toph’s tents instead of her and her brother’s.

“Meeting’s over, huh?” Toph asked, sitting up from her nap in the shade for the first time in several hours.

“You’d think they’d invite a girl to their meeting because they actually want to listen to her!” Katara scoffed, “How are men such idiots! ”

“I dunno, you’d have to ask Zuko,” Toph grinned wickedly.

“Hey!” Zuko said, then a minute later when he got it— “Hey! ”

The exchange didn’t quite lighten Katara’s mood, but she at least stopped pacing and sat down with them. Her rage radiated off of her passively. 

Zuko watched her and didn’t say a word. Usually he was embarrassingly bad at holding his tongue, but this was someone who had just had a conversation with their father. And had come out of it fuming. He knew better than to ask questions.

Eventually, she was the one who asked the question, possibly to distract herself, “What’s in your pocket?”

Oh. Right. Zuko didn’t really know why he had pocketed the posters from Azula—but he hadn’t known why she’d had them either. So. 

He tossed out the bits of paper uncaringly, “Read them yourself if you want to know.”

“Oh, thanks, I’ll just do that,” said Toph, which seemed like a normal enough statement, so Zuko didn’t know why her tone was like that. Then, Katara blushed, and started reading aloud, and—Ah. Right. He felt supremely stupid.

“It’s—oh, I’ve seen these before, it’s… Zuko’s wanted poster,” Katara frowned, “I never—why does it say ‘dead or alive’?”

“Because I’m a traitor,” Zuko replied, then quickly amended, “I mean, I’m not, obviously, but. You know.”

“Right, we know,” deadpanned Toph, an Earth Kingdom girl who he was in casual conversation with, “nothing traitorous about you, Princess.”

Zuko scowled. Katara kept at her annoying ventures, “Did your dad approve this? He’s okay with your… death?”

“Ordered it, probably,” shrugged Zuko. If he turned up avatarless anytime, he was sure execution was the go-to.

“But that’s—that’s horrible,” Katara said like it was obvious, like the world was made for rainbows and sugar and kind creatures

“Eh, don’t feel bad, my dad put out a bounty for me too,” said Toph, which was—interesting, “Not so violent, but, y’know. Parents suck.”

“My dad doesn’t suck!”

“Why do you want to go home?” Katara persisted, “Why do you love him—“

Zuko rolled his eyes. It was more than that he loved his father. That was nothing. It was much worse than that. It was that his father loved him.

“—if he doesn’t love you?”

Ozai’s love came like any forest fire—red hot and terrible, turning weak things to ash for the sake they might grow back stronger. Ozai’s love was declared in front of a stadium. Ozai’s love smelt of burning flesh and was named ‘mercy.’

Of course his father wanted him dead. That didn’t mean he didn’t love him.

He doesn’t love you. Who did, then?

“You don’t understand,” was the best Zuko could figure out to phrase it to a little sister and a prodigy and someone with the luxury for anger towards her father. 

“Maybe she doesn’t,” cut in Toph, “but there are people who do.”

+++

The men kept treating Zuko weird. He was, of course, expecting them to treat him weird, because of his blatant dislike of them and because of his molten-gold eyes and because he had thought someone would tell them who he was. None of these predictions were accurate. Which he didn’t properly understand until he crossed paths with a young soldier who had light brown skin and honey-yellow eyes. Then. Uh. He got one part of it.

So, no, despite Zuko’s best efforts, they wouldn’t stop being nice to him. They invited him to spar (no,) to eat with them (avoided as much as he could,) and even, as a last stretch, tried to guilt him into doing chores (unfortunately effective. What, were they serious in implying he didn't know how to feed an ostrich-horse?)

This was how Zuko ended up cleaning some, uh, unfortunate residue off of the heel of his boot, while two soldiers sat beside him and laughed. It was quite possibly one of the worst moments of his life, he dramatized to himself, entirely untruly. 

"Can't believe Pecky actually liked you; she's gone soft!" The younger of the pair, (Nanurjuk?), was laughing, "I'm telling you, she's the worst-tempered bird in the world. Once toppled Ikiaq here right over!"

Zuko, glancing sideways at the broad-shouldered man in question, had a hard time believing this. But Ikiaq just cracked a grin, "She's fiesty, alright. That's why she gets along with this one—" he nudged Zuko, surprisingly lightly, like he might shatter, and— Oh. They were treating him weird because of the scar— "they understand each other."

Nanurjuk laughed joyously and openly, like it was the best joke he'd heard, which was generally how he reacted to every joke, "They were made for each other!"

"Maybe she'd be nicer to you if you didn't name her Pecky," Zuko grumbled, "What would you do if someone decided your name was... was... 'Mean'?!"

"Act like you, maybe," smirked Ikiaq. Zuko huffed, opened his mouth, and promptly realized what he wanted to say would prove the point entirely.

"What would you name her, Li?" Nanurjuk asked good-naturedly.

Zuko was hesitating to answer when his mind caught on the last word of the sentence, " Li'? "

Ikiaq snorted, "Well, that's very self-centered."

It was then that Chief Hakoda rounded the bend. Zuko's mouth snapped shut on an explanation. Hakoda stopped at the sight of the trio, brows lifting a little. Then, his face settled into an easy seriousness, "Ikiaq, Nanurjuk, I thought you were on laundry duty?"

"What?!" Nanurjuk gaped, "No way, that's Kallik and—"

"Well, consider yourself on it," Hakoda ordered, some sort of warning in his voice. Nanurjuk's brow scrunched,  and he exchanged a look with Ikiaq, then with Zuko. Zuko ignored this, instead choosing to engage in an ill-advised and angry staring contest with Hakoda. This must have tipped the others off, in the vaguest sense, to what was going on.

Nanurjuk got up and went as ordered, giving a hesitant wave goodbye. Ikiaq hesitated to move for an odd second, and if Zuko didn't know better, he'd say the man gave his leader the same kind of stare Zuko was practicing. But he got up all the same.

Zuko was pretty sure Nanurjuk had liked him because he liked everybody. (The guy could probably see a grown wolfbat and want to make friends.) He didn't understand what Ikiaq saw in him, except that since the beginning he'd seemed intrigued and almost endeared by Zuko's bad temper.

He doubted either of them would be allowed to see anything in him again. Which. Made sense. Which—was fine. Which was what Zuko had wanted anyway, right?

+++

All the Dai Li agents were nameless to Azula. They were exquisite playing chips, but playing chips all the same. So, yes, they were all nameless—there were a few who weren’t faceless.

Those who emerged first (that is to say, only second to her,) from the rubble after the Avatar’s outburst, she noted. Those who had sent stone hands flying for necks, not hands. Boredly, she observed that they tended to clench their jaws a little tighter than their counterparts.

It was this group she gathered after the day’s general meetings. Mai and Ty Lee stood behind her as she liaised with the most senior of their members.

“And how has the team tracking the Avatar been fairing?” she asked.

“Their last message stated the Avatar seemed to be on course to Chameleon Bay, presumably for the Southern Water Tribe fleet. The nonbending boy visited his father there beforehand,” the agent informed.

Hm. Either Sokka was relying on Daddy to save the day, or they were going to plan their invasion. “We’ll need a reconnaissance mission. I want ears on their meetings.”

The agent nodded. “What of Ba Sing Se’s people, Princess? Are we to spread word of the Avatar’s leaving? We could make it sound as though he had abandoned the Earth Kingdom.”

“No,” Azula said firmly, “The word you’ll spread is of the Avatar’s death. And make sure to send a few messages across the Western Sea. Address them to New Gaipan, but deliver them along routes interceptable by Fire Nation vessels. Use a breakable cypher to send urgent news of the Avatar’s demise at the hands of Princess Azula.”

She bit the inside of her cheek at her inability to credit the murder to Zuko. He had been integral to her plan—that’d been no lie. In the face of failure, she was supposed to point to his involvement. Now, he was just an additional traitor she was meant to have already dealt with.

“Ty Lee, have you sent my own letter to my dearest father yet?” she asked the girl to her right. The letter in question being the one saying: Sorry for the delay, still need to imprison Zuzu—decided to kill the Avatar and conquer Ba Sing Se while I was out.

“Yup!” said Ty Lee, popping the p, “We’re good as gold, Azula.”

Nothing was as good as gold, in all its impersonal extravagance. Except maybe fake gold—if it was good enough at disguise. Or lightning. Still, Ty Lee was charming.

+++

It was embarrassing, to say the least.

Sokka had just finished another short meeting with his Dad, regarding plans and prisoners and all those serious things. He still had some nervous, productive energy, and he noticed the other warriors sparring. Of course he wanted to prove he could fight with the older boys he half-remembered from his childhood; it was natural. There was something nice about that—the simplicity, the boyishness—of the urge.

There was something nice about it until Kallik was giving him a sprained ankle.

That was maybe an unfair way to phrase it—it was a tragedy of errors, really, including a rock and falling the wrong way and—it wasn’t his ankle that was hurt so much as his pride. He limped through camp to the tune of lighthearted teasing, blushing obstinately as he insisted he’d splint the wound himself, which only brought on more laughter.

Zuko and Aang were doing some weird meditation thing by their tents when Sokka came to clean up. He spotted Toph and Katara over by the shore, practicing their bending with the sand and sea respectively. 

He was grumbling absentmindedly to himself as he not-as-gingerly-as-he-should’ve scrambled his muddy pants off, dunked them in the wash basin, and began scrubbing his leg with whale soap. He dried himself, then braced his teeth to bandage his foot.

Quickly, Aang noticed, “Sokka! Are you okay? What happened?”

“Stupid mistake. Don’t worry,” Sokka shook his head, not wanting to relive the experience. Aang frowned worriedly anyway, because he was a kid so sweet it hurt, but Sokka waved off the concern a second, then third time. Glancing, Sokka met Zuko’s eyes for a second. His gaze was intense, (and when wasn’t it?), but there was something… unnerving about this time.

Sokka looked away quickly.

His eyes landed on some paper strewn on the ground. Before he could even make a snark on littering, his eyes squinted on the picture and text. Oh. It was one of those wanted posters, the ones which he always assumed Katara and Aang never bothered to read. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of that, but he didn’t dare glance at Zuko again.

+++

“You don’t trust Hakoda, do you?” 

They were alone when Toph asked. Everyone else was still at dinner, having enough manners to make up for their first night, but she and Zuko had somewhat-individually, somewhat-as-a-team snuck off to the beach. Zuko had been looking at the stars, thinking they were pretty, then deciding that was stupid and that they were just stars. This was the first bit of conversation they’d tried.

“Of course I don’t!”  Zuko’s brow scrunched, “He’s the Chief of the Southern Water Tribe.”

“No, dumdum—“ and if that didn’t make Zuko choke on his own saliva— “as a father, I mean.”

“It’s not like I know about fatherhood,” Zuko tried to shrug the question off, “it’s not my place to judge.”

Toph was silent for a single beat.

“I just think it’s unfair!” Zuko filled in the empty air, unable to stop himself; everything that had been squirming in his guts this whole time spilling out, “Sokka’s a nonbender, I get it. But it’s not his fault. He’s a great leader, and planner, and insanely smart! Sure, Katara’s a bending prodigy, but it’s not like he doesn’t contribute in his own ways." He has this stupid idea he has to prove himself. That's what Katara had said, a long time ago, about Sokka and his father. Zuko didn't think it was stupid, was the thing. "He—he doesn’t deserve this.”

“‘This’ being…?” Toph prompted.

“He came by with a sprained ankle.”

“Oh,” Toph grimaced, “Yeah. That’s bad.”

Zuko chewed at the inside of his lip. What was bad was that he couldn’t tell what Sokka had done to earn his father’s ire. He had seemed smart enough to join in on the meetings, but then again, he hadn’t seemed too practiced at holding his tongue. So. That must have landed him in his trouble.

“I thought he and Katara were upset because Hakoda was holding them back, controlling them, y’know? I guess I was just thinking about my own parents, though,” Toph said, casually but levelly—these words were chosen with care, “But. If you’re right, then he must be more like your dad.”

“Uhm. I guess,” Zuko shrugged, a little uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure exactly where this was going.

They both sat in that. Both mulled over their various pasts and lives and current concerns. Zuko settled into the melancholy remembrance enough that when Toph clapped her hands together, he startled.

“Right! You’re half-blind, aren’t you?” she asked callously.

“How could you know that?!” Zuko replied, stricken. Had someone told her about his scar, and she’d assumed? Had he been wrong, after all, to assume she was blind?

“Easy,” Toph dismissed, “When people approach you on your left, you startle. And, I dunno how depth perception works for seeing folk, but I know for you, it doesn't. At least, I'm assuming that's why you always spill at first when you pour soup. And why a good few of your close-range attacks don't land. Oh, and I’m guessing you’re half-deaf too.”

“Uh. OK,” said Zuko, who didn't know how he felt about her knowing that, but at least had the consolation that he felt he could finally, appropriately ask, “And you, you’re… blind blind?”

“How could you assume that?” she gasped in offense, and Zuko was about to scramble to defend himself, but she gave herself away by laughing too soon, “Yes, duh, of course I am.”

“Then, how can you…?”

“My bending. I use my earth sense to feel where things are, what they are. I’ve been trying to get better at sand, actually,” she explained, wiggling her toes in the grainy beach, “but it’s still harder for me. Things are fuzzier. This beach sand is better than dessert sand, though—more rocky.”

“Ah,” said Zuko, a little dumbfounded. Maybe bending prodigies weren’t as rare as he thought. Maybe he was exceptionally dim.

“Aang’s been telling me about this inner fire shabang,” Toph continued, “So, can you feel other people’s ‘inner flame’?”

“No?” he replied, thrown by the question, “It’s. It doesn’t work like that. You can only feel your own."

“Why not?” she asked, “Have you ever tried? It’d help you, y’know. Know when someone’s there, even if you can’t see them. Know how far someone is, if it’s hard to tell.”

It would be useful. Astoundingly so. But it just wasn't done. “That’s not like any firebending move,” Zuko sniffed, “And certainly not one of imperial caliber. For anyone else, it’d be a dumb trick.”

Toph punched him, and Zuko wasn’t sure if it was the sand messing with her senses, or if she was just aiming for his stomach's side instead of his arm.

“Ow!”

“It’s not for anyone else, it’s for you! And it’d be a useful trick for any firebender.”

Zuko scowled, “Whatever, it’ll only work on other firebenders anyway, if it would work at all. Only firebenders have an inner flame. That’s why it’s the superior element.”

“Urgh, you are impossible to talk to,” Toph groaned, “You want to fight me, and see how superior your little element is?”

Zuko stood up abruptly, hands balling, “Fine, you’ll regret—“

“Yeah, yeah, chill out, sunshine,” Toph waved him off exasperatedly, “We’ll have plenty of time for fighting later, believe me. Right now I wanna even the odds.”

She grinned, and Zuko snarled back. Which. She couldn’t see, but might’ve assumed anyway.

“If anyone has an inner flame, I’m sure everyone has an inner flame,” she said, “My earth sense feels everyone, and all benders, all nonbenders, pretty much feel the same. Work the same. Limbs and heartbeats. To me, your fancy flame sounds a lot like energy and drive. Everyone has those.”

“I—I guess everyone has chi,” Zuko agreed reluctantly. Uncle had said that was what the inner flame really was. (She had gotten along well with Uncle in Ba Sing Se, hadn’t she?)

“You better believe it! And I got a lot of it. So try to find mine,” Toph offered.

“Uh. Ok,” said Zuko, who had no idea how to do that.

“Close your eyes,” Toph prompted.

Zuko did. He started by just meditating. Found his own chi, the way it only burned louder as he fought to relax, but eventually evened into a hum. He tried next to feel anything else. And—

He couldn’t and couldn’t and couldn’t, his own flame soon guttering and sputtering with frustration. All he could do to calm himself down was pretend this was a normal meditation where he wasn’t failing to learn anything. 

When he calmed down, something about his surroundings had changed. Something barely perceptible. Something that sang through him, through his senses, as if it had always been there. A second breath.

He said, like it was obvious, because suddenly it was, “You moved.”

Toph clapped him on his back, and his eyes shot open. She was, indeed, now behind instead of in front of him.

“Could you tell where I went?” Toph asked eagerly. Maybe she was as surprised as him, at any success at all.

“No,” Zuko admitted, “Just that—something was different.”

“Something’s different, alright,” Toph nodded sagely, “you’re learning something.”

“Hey!” —a pause— “Hey!”

+++

They might have talked too much about parents.

Zuko watched Toph fall asleep on the sand by accident, worn from whatever kind of day she’d had. He didn’t move her for fear of waking her, but brought a blanket from his tent out and laid it on her. She was tougher than a little girl should be, (a little monstrosity, he had called her, hadn’t he?) but he was guessing she’d still catch cold.

She whimpered in her sleep. Zuko felt a flame stutter.

After a little while, he realized she was saying words. A little after that, he realized a good handful of the words were, “Father,” “Mother.”

He had never liked mirrors.

+++

Toph really didn’t like this place. 

First, it was full of sand. Which was useful for practice, but also annoying. (Annoying was maybe an understatement. But she wasn’t about to admit to ‘unnerving,’ let alone ‘scary.’ The desert had been scary. This was not the desert. This was not the desert.)  

Second, Chief Hakoda. That was it. That was the whole second point. An expansion might be: she had, indeed, been feeling Sokka limping.

Third, Sokka and Katara weren’t speaking to each other right now. Or rather, when they were, all they could seem to do was upset each other more. She didn’t even know why they were fighting, but as long as no one was telling her, she’d blame it on Chameleon Bay.

Fourth, Aang was training a lot more than he should. His heartrate was rising whenever someone mentioned Ba Sing Se, and it was only getting worse. Because at Chameleon Bay, he was seeming to start to blame everything wrong with the world on himself. Which, as the Avatar, was as understandable as it was complete bullmoosecrap.

The only good thing she was getting out of this was her little experiment with the Prince. She wasn’t particularly adapt at sneaking; she liked that her footsteps fell heavy, it made bigger vibrations, provided better sense. But sneaking up on Zuko was easier than most, knowing his weaknesses. 

The first couple of times she launched a surprise attack—one where she just jumped him from behind, tackling him; another where she earthbent a ball of sand together then sent it flying down the back of his shirt—he’d been as useless as he’d always been at noticing anything in advance. But, after a bit, he would sometimes pause. At least notice something was up, but not be attuned enough to his new sense to understand what he was noticing.

The most recent time, he turned around just in time to see the dirt being thrown at his face. He did not turn in time to do anything about it.

+++

“I don’t like lying to my men,” Dad said, catching Sokka after a meeting one day, “If we really are taking the Fire Prince, I’d like to tell them now. I’d at least like them to know who he is.”

Sokka bit his cheek against the reply, I don’t like lying to my sister. Instead, he apologetically offered, “Sorry. First I need to talk to Katara again.”

This spoke to a greater truth the two of them weren’t really talking about. The only times he and his sister spoke, they fought. Which sucked, but probably not as much as it did for Dad. Because the only times Dad talked to Katara were never. It was all very… not how Sokka had pictured their family reunion.

Dad’s jaw tightened, and Sokka’s chest ached, “Of course. Let me know about that.”

With that, he walked off, more business ahead. Sokka sighed and smoothed his hair back, more business ahead. The date they needed the Fire Nation ship secured by was drawing nearer and nearer, and there was only one sure-fire (hah) way to get information on that.

“Hi, Zuko,” Sokka greeted awkwardly, coming up to where the other was meditating outside his tent. Zuko cracked one eye open, and imperiously asked,

“What?”

Sokka was tempted to complain about the tone, but decided it wouldn’t make this conversation any easier. So, instead, he said as cooly but authoritatively as he could, “What do you know about the Fire Navy?”

“Why?” Zuko demanded, continuing his one-word question chain, suspicious and already a little upset. He was really hard to talk to.

“Because we’re going to steal one of your ships,” Sokka came right out and said it. Zuko stood up, opening his mouth, presumably with many curses on his tongue, and Sokka held up a hand, “Which will be helpful for getting all of us into the Fire Nation, including you, traitor.” He raised a challenging brow, and Zuko’s scowl could have shattered glass. Still, the traitor in question eventually traitorously replied,

“…I know how they operate, basically. I mean—in theory I’ve seen how everything works firsthand, but I haven’t really done it myself. ...But I’m not going to help you steal one.”

“Never asked you to,” said Sokka, raising his hands placatingly, “Just that if you, say, end up on one, you’ll have some self-preservation and help out.”

Zuko snarled. He said outright, because thankfully lying never ever occurred to him, “I should try to stop you. I should fight with the vessel when you try to capture it.”

“You know, we can always just make you an actual prisoner,” Sokka threatened casually, “I’d be perfectly happy with that.”

Zuko actually looked like he was considering it for a moment. Like that'd be the best thing to do. Something in Sokka squirmed at that—not guilt precisely, but something about as uncomfortable. 

“Look,” Sokka quickly amended, “If you get into the Fire Nation with us, you’re all the closer to being able to capture Aang and bring him in right away. That’s the plan, right? Overall, you're helping your stupid nation."

Evidently, the broken logic didn’t work everytime. Zuko shook his head, and asked, lowly, “...Are you going to kill the crew?”

That was exactly what Sokka was thinking they would do. Rather, that’s what he and the warriors would do, while Aang and Katara probably didn’t. He wasn’t actually 100% on where Toph stood. Either way, what he said was,

“Uh. If we catch the vessel when the crew's on leave, maybe we’ll… only have to incapacitate a few guards?” 

Zuko’s eyes narrowed, “Define ‘incapacitate.’”

Sokka sighed, ever-suffering, “Look, wasn’t your ship stolen once? Clearly, it isn’t that hard or that fatal.”

“The situation with my ship was—!” Zuko cut off his own rant uncharacteristically. He turned on his heel, expression suddenly blank. Sokka almost had a heart attack then-and-there when the prince dove to the ground. How could he not notice an attacker? Who could—?

A healthy handful of mud found its way to Sokka’s face. He sputtered, coughing and cringing in disgust. He wiped his face and eyes off messily with his hand, blinking the dirt out of his eyes, only to find that Zuko and Toph were tussling on the ground, like a pair of baby boar-q-pines.

It was, of course, at this point that Dad popped back around, beginning to ask, “Sokka, one more thing—“ before noticing the Fire Prince currently had their Earthbender tackled.

“Uh,” said Sokka.

Dad raised a very slow brow at him. He fought the childhood urge to look down at his feet, blushing, caught in a lie at worst and incompetence at best.

Zuko’s head shot up at Hakoda’s voice. He looked between Sokka and his dad. And somewhere in those few seconds, he must have lost his entire mind and personality. Because what he did next was stop fighting immediately (not Zuko), stand up and bow individually to everyone present (not Zuko), and kneel in front of Sokka, head downturned (definitely not Zuko.)

What the fuck, Sokka didn’t say.

“I am sorry for my disrespect and disobedience. I am ready to accept my punishment when you are willing to deliver it.” Sokka wished Zuko would at least say it in his grit-teeth anger. But he said it easier than he’d said anything. Said it like he meant it. A thought stabbed at Sokka—Zuko was really shit at lying.

“Oh,” said Sokka meekly, then followed it up with, “Alright?”

He glanced at his dad. Dad didn’t look impressed, nor was Sokka expecting him to; he looked… mildly horrified. The glance he exchanged with Sokka was unreadable, and he just said, “We’ll… discuss this later. It appears you’ve got enough on your hands already.”

Dad walked off again. A drip of mud slithered down Sokka’s cheek to his chin. Toph’s jaw was set tightly. Zuko was still on his knees.

“You… you can get up?” Sokka offered. Zuko did, not without his usual scowl reassuringly back in place. He left without giving Sokka a second glance.

The mud was slowly drying to dirt on Sokka’s skin.

+++

Sokka heard but didn’t register Dad’s and Bato’s jokes at dinner that night. He looked across the fire at where Katara was sitting and couldn’t understand a word said around him. She wouldn’t look in his direction. But she spoke with Zuko several times.

Sokka had cleaned the dirt off himself that afternoon, but he could still feel bits of it clinging beneath his nails.

He glanced at his father. Someone we haven’t seen in years.

He glanced at Zuko. I am sorry for my disrespect and disobedience. He found he couldn’t tear his eyes away. I am ready to accept my punishment when you are willing to deliver it.

Sokka was sorry too. But he was pretty sure the word meant different things to them.

+++

“The reconnaissance unit you requested has sent their report, Princess.”

Azula took the piece of paper between her sharpened nails. She read impassively, and only raised a brow to ask, “Say, do you happen to know any pirates?”

+++

The day had been spent moving camp. If all went to plan, tonight was the night they would capture the Fire Navy ship. A promising vessel had been spotted by a couple of their scouts, everyone had gathered to the given position, and there was to be a meeting that very evening on the specific strategy for taking the ship down. A meeting which Katara was hesitant to attend. Very hesitant. She consoled herself with the fact Aang would be there, but.

Still.

When it came time, the strategy itself wasn’t objectionable. No, that part had been worked out as well as she could imagine. It was the part that came after, the part where she went to leave, the part where Dad asked her to wait back a second. She didn’t deny him though, ashamed enough of what she’d said last time. Just because she had meant it didn’t mean she thought he deserved it.

Dad asked Sokka to stay back too, and it was Sokka who spoke first, his words coming out with nervous energy,

“I don’t think—“

Dad held up a hand, cutting him off. Katara was almost annoyed with him for that, still defensive over her brother, even while she was thoroughly upset with him. But then what Dad said was, “I won’t keep the Prince prisoner,” and her frustrated words dissipated on her tongue.

“Oh!” said Sokka, “That’s what I was gonna say.”

“You were?” asked Katara vaguely, and maybe a little disbelievingly. She’d spent the last week concentrating her anger into this one point, and to have it broken was to either let it go or admit this was all about something else. Something bigger.

“It seems to me that either you’re a lot… better… at keeping a prisoner than I assumed you were,” at that, Dad shot Sokka a look, to which Sokka lightly shook his head, looking sick at the very suggestion, and Katara had no idea what that meant— “or else, Katara was right. He does trust you.”

Katara still didn’t know what he was referencing. But she felt herself soften at the statement. A little. Not enough, though, because there was still the matter of—

“And I’m sorry I didn’t trust you,” Dad continued, and— Ah. There it was. “You two are my entire world. I love you more than anything, and I should have trusted both your views from the start. I know I’ve... missed a lot, during the past three years.”

There was a lump in Katara’s throat that she was having trouble getting past, one that wouldn’t let her say, Dad, I’m sorry, I know what I said was unfair, I didn’t mean it.

“I thought about you every day when I was gone,” her own father admitted, and Katara was leaning forward, was being pulled into an embrace. Sokka stood awkwardly to the side, watching as if the contact wasn’t for him. Katara pulled him over like the idiot he was, wrapping him in the hug as well. Dad's words weren't soft, not exactly, but they were gentle like nothing else, “And every night when I went to sleep, I would miss you so much, I would ache.”

This was, of course, essentially the problem—Katara ached too. She ached then, and she ached now, in his arms. That was the thing about war; it didn't particularly care about leaving you whole. Still, the words were worth something. The hug something, too. The being here with him, well. Her tears soaking into his coat weren’t angry, anymore. They weren’t sad, or happy. They were the memorial to time lost, the wish for it to be saved in the future.

“And, I know—“ Dad began, voice scratchy and raw— only to be cut off by someone hastily flinging open the tent flap, no warning given.

It was Bato. “Hakoda, the vessel has taken port.”

The way Dad straightened was as impressive as it was unnerving, was like watching armor being placed on his shoulders. But maybe Katara looked the same, the way her hands went to her water pouch at the sound of the tent opening at all. Then again, maybe she looked more like Sokka—fingers closed around his boomerang, eyes too young for the panic in them.

+++

Sokka had been right. Securing the ship was not very hard, nor very fatal. It wasn’t like Zuko had helped or anything, obviously—what he’d done was: get dragged along all day to a different shore, see the soldiers all gather for a meeting, see his own nation’s vessel land by the beach, let horror build and build in his gut. What he’d done was: watch the Water Tribe, the Avatar, and the Avatar’s friends launch a planned attack against his own people, and feel his limbs turn to lead. What he’d done was: arrive too late to do anything to help the vessel, then find out that was irrelevant, because there was nothing to do to help, because the ship was bone-bare.

Raised spears lowered, fingers around clubs loosened, focus held on water, earth, fire, air weakened—more and more, with each room found empty and echoing. The metal creaked under Zuko’s feet. He found himself, inadvertently, having gravitated into a group with Sokka, Katara, Toph, and Aang. He wasn’t sure how that had happened. Two things he was sure of, though: 1) something very, very bad was happening, because 2) ships don’t land themselves.

Toph stamped her foot down, hard, such that Zuko was sure the whole place shivered and shook. Her expression tensed, and she simply and ominously announced, “This way.”

Sure enough, travelling down the iron-cold hall, he soon felt it too—flickering numbly, rising and falling, smooth and steady and upsettingly soulless. This wasn’t the inner flame of sleep; this was unconsciousness. This wasn’t an inner flame, even, this was too large, this was many, this was—

It was clear enough when they came to the room. The smell of sweat and the shallow sounds of breath. The door opened to a pile of them; the bodies. The soldiers. The crew. Zuko spied someone whose armored face-plate had slipped down, a bruise reddening on his pale cheek.

In Zuko's mind, a gear of familiarity was clicking to place, sickeningly slow.

Somewhere far above, an iguana parrot squawked, loud and shrill.

“Toph,” Zuko demanded, “Get us out of here!”

She didn’t need encouragement. Or, indeed, didn’t need any reason to trust him. She just did. The metal of the ground shot out from under the group, screeched and jolted and formed a jetting slide into the night. The bending propelled them roughly, dropped them onto the harsh ground, sand scraping right through Zuko's pants to his knees. He stumbled up as quickly as he could, tugged at Aang’s hand when he stumbled, shoved Katara on when she paused. He ran and ran with all of them, and refused to turn, even as the booming roar of explosion shook his skull. Refused to see the bright bursts of flame and pure volatility—the way they make your vision go white.

Refused to check whether what floated out to sea was scrap metal or limbs.

Chapter Text

Katara sometimes wondered if she’d be a different person if she hadn’t seen the body.

If she hadn’t seen her mother’s eyes too fresh, not yet glossed over, too familiar, compared to the gore spilling from her throat. The way the red turned pink in the snow; how the color was so gentle for a scene so brutal.

All she could smell, for days, was blood.

+++

Katara didn’t question it when Zuko made them leave—the empty boat and pile of unconscious bodies seemed good enough reason. Toph bent them out of the vessel and they hit the ground, the shock of the fall jolting the gears of Katara’s mind, finding something that didn’t click. But when she paused, Zuko hurried her forward. 

And what else would she do? She trusted him. 

That was, until the roar of incendiaries boomed behind her, and she turned in time to see a burning ship. 

Her breath left her body. Her feet were moving faster than her mind told them to, running toward the wreck. Nearby, she heard but didn’t process Sokka shout exactly what was pounding through her head,

“Dad!”

Above her, the flash of orange that was Aang’s glider sliced through the air. He was fast. Which was not the same thing as fast enough.

Dai Li agents poured forth from little nowheres; from boulders; from crags; from sand-swept ledges and shore-side trees. The beach shook by their force, a crack along the wet sand spreading with what could have been bending or sheer, horrible will.

But they weren’t the only ones with bending. And they weren’t the only ones with will.

Katara breathed deep, reached in, her spirit and body guiding themselves with practice and fury into position, and the tide pulled back. The ocean rose on her command. And crashed on it too. 

There were agents who threw fists of rock, making the group dodge. And there were ones who just fell.

+++

Aang couldn’t lose this fight. He’d failed the world at Ba Sing Se, and here he might not only fail the world, but much worse: he could fail Katara and Sokka. He could live the rest of his life with their father’s blood on his hands—not even, Bato’s too, and a fair handful more of skilled, important, good Water Tribe warriors. People who they grew up with. More people gone on the Avatar’s watch. Like all of the waterbenders already stolen from the South, like the countless razed Earth Kingdom villages, like— (Like temples that used to be filled with laughter and teachings and bison and ceremonies and air scooters. Like temples that echoed from both emptiness and sorrow.)

He bent the wind around himself faster, the charred ship closer and closer and so near to reach—

His entire weight dove downward, tilted odd, disoriented. He belatedly understood the cracking sound that had been a stone hand tearing through his glider’s wing.

He tried to soften his landing in the wet sand, but there was only so much anyone could do when plummeting through the sky.

Aang didn’t have time to dwell on the horror that was the rips of orange he was grasping at; that was the broken wood of his glider. He didn’t have time, because even when the ocean swelled with a new, angry power and left a good few chunk of agents scrambling—even then, more just kept coming. Azula really hadn’t been taking any chances.

There was only one way they were winning this fight. There was only one person who could ensure it. Just like there always had been, ever since that iceberg cracked open, ever since the beginning of time.

The Avatar shut his eyes tight. He crossed his legs, sat in a meditative pose. Focused on the points of power along his body, on the spot along his spine that seemed to ache with something next to pain, an echo of hurt. 

The sand around him began to whip and whirl, curling into the air. His body began to lift, levitate ever-so-slightly. But he was too aware of it; this all felt so… so—

Himself, encircled by a desert sandstorm, unleashing a natural disaster upon horrified victims. Himself, hundreds of feet in the air, a cavern collapsing around him. Himself, glowing and terrible. Himself, shot through with lightning, brighter than ever, before all his light went out. Permanently.

Aang’s eyes shot open. He fell down, abrupt and sharp. His breathing picked up, but he tried to calm down, tried to get back into pose—

Himself, in the very air temple he grew up in, winds flying around him fast enough to displace stone.

He was brought back to reality again, eyes stinging, a choking feeling filling his throat. And there was no power in his hands. And there were Dai Li agents overrunning everything he needed to protect.

+++

Dai Li meant Azula. And Azula meant Zuko was going to fight until all that was left in his lungs was dead air.

He swept a leg high in an arch of fire, scalding away his current attacker. They came back for more, but he was already rushing out of range, toward the greater action.

Nearby, Katara came into view, whipping water in long tendrils, snaring an impressive deal of agents. Behind her, he caught view of an agent bending up a sharp line of shale from beneath the sands. Without thinking, Zuko punched a fireball forward, then followed up with a further barrage, distracting him from his original target.

Katara continued fighting, unbothered. Because of him. Because he’d had her back. Because his pure instinct was—was… one of help apparently, and not destruction, and that wasn’t right. That wasn’t something he could be, or should be, and—

An edge of rock scraped his cheek, only missing his head thanks to his belated dodge. He didn’t have time to think about this right now.

(If the next fireball he threw didn’t glow quite as bright, it had to be a fluke.) 

+++

Toph had been getting better with sand. She had. She had. So it had to be the adrenaline, or some distraction, or something that had kept her from noticing the Dai Li until it was too late. (Except she knew that it wasn't—it was exactly because she hadn’t been good enough, hadn’t been strong enough, had been too weak to sense them, and now this was all her fault.)

Attackers and allies raged fuzzily around her, the ground slipping between her feet as she tried to hone in on the clear forces of earthen hands flying through the sky, as she redirected some of them and turned others to dirt.

But it wasn’t enough. And it wasn’t going to be. Katara was fighting with more raw strength than Toph had yet seen from her, Sokka too—she could tell that even with her limited sense—but they weren’t fighting smart. They were the farthest from level-headed they’d ever be, and the Dai Li were calculating machines; this wasn’t going to work. Not ever.

Toph focused up. She chose to do the smart thing. The awful thing.

She twisted her feet, smoothed the sand gathered around them into a stable sediment, then used her upper body to continue the motion, building it until she had a surface large enough to sense most of her surroundings. Until she was able to pick apart, for sure, her friends from her enemies.

And she pulled in.

Their yells were familiar and uncomprehending as she brought Katara, Sokka, Aang, and Zuko right up to her. As she set her feet strong, her movements steady, and raised a dirt-and-sandstone wall high in front of them.

“What are you doing?!” Katara shouted.

“What we need to!” Toph yelled back, jaw set.

What they needed to do—and it was obvious, it was so obvious—was retreat.

The Dai Li ripped down her makeshift wall fast enough, but she assumed from the burst of heat she felt that Zuko covered them with a sweep of fire. In the meantime, she was bending the entire surface they were on upward, and then pushing the whole chunk of land backward. Which took a fair amount of concentration, and was not helped by Katara’s shouting,

“Toph, what’s wrong with you?! We need to get to the ship!”

“We’re gonna lose! Look—this just wasn’t our day; Azula went all out on us!” Toph argued back, as though it would get through to her right now.

“That doesn’t mean we just give up,” growled Zuko, who was an idiot. She wasn’t gonna find help there, clearly.

What she needed was Aang’s agreement, but the boy just let out a little, noncommittal noise. She groaned. He was always going to do what Katara wanted. Unless… he would do whatever he thought was best for Katara.

“We need to get out of here, because otherwise we’re dead meat,” Toph put it bluntly, “All of us.”

She was pretty sure he flinched, “I—“

“Aang,” Sokka entered into the conversation belatedly, his voice off, “go into Avatar State.”

Aang’s heartbeat jumped, “I—I tried—“

“Right. Well then, let’s—“ Toph attempted to cut in, unsuccessfully.

“Try again,” Sokka demanded, voice hard. Aang made some kind of helpless gesture.

“Look,” Toph pressed—(she felt more blasts of heat; Zuko shielding them from the attacks closing in)— “I don’t know if Hakoda is alive. But if he is, we’re not going to help him by getting killed or captured. Sokka, Katara, I’m sorry, but escaping now and regrouping later is our only chance of his survival as well as ours.”

No one spoke. But their heartbeats were hammering in a cacophony of patterns, all different yet so similar, all speaking loud enough.

There was the soft-pitched, breathy note of the bison whistle, barely audible over the destructive crashes of earthbending all around. 

“Aang,” Katara let out softly, betrayed.

He said nothing. She moved targets,

“Sokka.”

Nothing.

“Sokka—”

Appa was there, a rumbling roar and a swoosh of air marking his arrival. Toph grabbed Zuko to board, while Sokka did the same for Katara, with much more struggle. With clawing at his chest. With,

“Sokka! We have to—“

“We can’t,” Sokka answered, his voice next to steady, yet still so far off. Still with a heaviness too great to bear, still with the last syllable strangled.

They flew, and Katara screamed.

+++

In her angrier, messier moments, Katara had always thought that if she hadn’t seen the body—she’d be more like Sokka. 

Sokka didn’t talk about it. He listened to her, most of the time, but it was maybe only once or twice he even brought up a memory of Mom. He started following Dad around more and more, while Katara helped around the village more and more, practiced her waterbending more and more, (which Sokka chastised her for, with seemingly no reason other than being the worst.)

Katara remembered all the time. Sometimes it felt like it was all she did. It came so heavy, and so often, the feeling that she was the only one who remembered.

In her angrier, messier moments, Katara had always thought Sokka didn’t care as much.

+++

When Katara stepped off of Appa, when she laid her feet in the cool grass... the ground greyed. Where she walked, things withered. And she didn’t even seem to notice. But Zuko did. He noticed the young, plump flowers that wilted to husks; noticed the dewey beads of water that gathered round Katara’s clenched fists.

He wondered, finally, fully just how bad things were going to get.

He glanced around at the others, tried to meet eyes as horrified as his, find solidarity in them. But he wasn’t good at reading people, and he couldn’t place the line between horror and sorrow.

+++

When La raged, she raged.

Look—it’s not like Katara was the kind of thing that dragged sailors to their doom. It was that she could be. It was that, maybe, she should be.

“Katara,” Aang’s voice began, somewhere that sounded faraway, somewhere she didn’t want to hear from, “I’m so—“

“I don’t want to talk to you right now,” Katara said, over-generously, to this boy who had betrayed her.

To his credit, Aang took the warning for a moment. “Tomorrow, we can go back—“

A wave crested dangerously, somewhere deep in her. “Tomorrow is too late! Now is too late!” she screamed, but didn’t turn. Didn’t look him in his face or meet his eyes, because the poison she could spit then would only be worse, “You know when wouldn’t have been too late? When it happened, that would have been perfect, a great time for, oh, I don't know—the Avatar State! For the Avatar to do his job.”

She couldn’t tell if the footfall she heard was Aang stepping closer or further away. When he spoke, it was small—no, not even—it was soft. What he said was, “That’s okay. You need to feel this by yourself for now. That’s okay—but I’ll be here.”

Katara wanted to be the kind of thing that drowned sailors. She wanted to throw ice back at him, to freeze his mouth shut. What she did instead was walk, and keep walking, and keep walking, until she found a riverbank. She sat on the wet stone, dipped her feet into the cold water, and thought distantly of bodies beneath the waves. Freezing in the snow.

Yue shone high above, near-full and bright and tragic.

+++

Sokka brought Katara a late dinner. He hesitated to sit by her, and she herself didn’t want him there one bit, but the idea he wouldn’t stay somehow angered her even more.

Of course, in the end, he did sit. And, of course, in the end, she spoke:

“What are we meant to do?”

“We regroup,” Sokka replied, terribly calm. Terribly literal. “We’ll go back tomorrow to… see what we can find…“ Bodies. See if there were bodies. “…and we’ll prepare in case of—“

“No,” Katara emphasized, her fingers attempting to claw into the surface below, but finding no purchase against the smooth rock, “What are we meant to do if he’s dead? What if the last time we spoke to him was… was when he was apologizing to us.”

She looked to her brother, then, imploringly. Tried to meet his eye. She was looking for something that she didn't have the name for, or maybe it was nameless. Shared grief, perhaps. Or just understanding.

What she got was a tight jaw. A thin frown that opened around several replies, before finally vocalizing, “We’ll look tomorrow.”

The waves building in her stomach roared just as her heart stopped. She gaped slightly with a pure, unbelieving shock. Her mouth shook around her next words, but she persisted through them, offering him another chance, a last try, “Do you remember when we lost Mom? Do you remember the day before, do you remember what we talked about? What the last thing she told you was?”

Sokka shifted, frown twisting in on itself. There was hurt there, certainly, but he didn’t reply. He refused to share that pain, whatever it was, as if it was shameful. As if the memory of their mother was one he didn’t care to discuss, as if the possible death of their father was dismissible.

“You know,” said Katara, ocean-full, “I guess I was wrong—I had thought you at least loved Dad like I do.”

“Katara!” Sokka’s eyes flashed, finally meeting hers. But it was too late—the tide had crashed down. Stormy seas were smoothing into ice. She stood, and she left, and she wondered whether she was frozen right through.

+++

Katara knew, soon after that—there was only one person who hadn’t betrayed her that night. There was only one person who understood, only one brother who talked openly of stolen parents.

They took mine too.

+++

Zuko wasn’t sleeping anyway, but he was still caught off guard when Katara found him. She had seemed to need… time alone. At the very least, time with anyone except a Prince of Fire.

“What do you know about the Fire Nation naval movements?” she requested, simple and plain.

“What do you need?” asked Zuko, which didn’t mean I’ll tell you, but sounded a lot more like it than he had been intending.

Katara’s eyes blanked for a second, faraway. She replied near-nonsensically, “It was hard to see. I wasn’t close. I think there were sea ravens, though. On the flags.”

It took Zuko a moment. “Oh, the Southern Raiders,” he said, and then—because he got everything a second too late— “Oh."

Katara nodded, affirming his suspicion. “Do you know how we could track their leader down?”

Zuko bit the inside of his cheek. Helping her with this would undoubtedly be treason against his nation. Even the act of not-stopping-her would be.

You killed my mother, she had told him once. Of course, she hadn't really meant him, she meant someone else. Someone still out there.

“Katara,” he said, voice anything but gentle, even though he had been vaguely trying for it, “How did it happen?”

+++

It happened with ash falling through the air like snow. It happened with Sokka running for battle, and her running for her mother. It happened with a strange man and his ink-dark eyes. It happened with a sweetie, with a soft smile around softer words. It happened while she was gone, run away, finding her dad uselessly, when she could’ve spent at least a second more with Mom. A second would’ve been worth it; anything would’ve been. It happened without ceremony. It happened with both fire and blade.

+++

A woman in her home, far from battle. A woman who was not fighting. A woman speaking to her daughter mere moments before her death. 

It was not an honorable thing the Southern Raiders had done—no, it had to have been the act of one small, cruel, cowardly man. It could not have been something his nation stood for, (except it was, except that was exactly what it was.)

Still.

It wasn’t something he could stand for.

Aang was waiting for them, because he would be. The kid had learned from mistakes, clearly, and was perceptive enough about people who were going to steal his bison. He was also kind enough not to stop them.

What he said was,

“This is a journey you need to take. But when you do, please don’t choose revenge—let your anger out. And then let it go.”

Zuko made some scoffed remark at that, and they were gone before he could begin to think what the words meant.

+++

It was easy enough to get Yon Rha’s name and location, thanks to Zuko’s knowledge of Fire Nation outposts and Katara’s utter drive. His retirement caused them some confusion, (and cost one commander some armor plates, sides pierced by icicles,) but luckily his village was on an island close enough to their Earth Kingdom camp that the travel time wasn’t too much for the magic cow.

The village was tiny—barely a blip on an already small island, made up of hills and hard soil. It was well past daybreak, but the moon still hung in the sky, dredging up the sun's light. Even at midday, this was not exactly a busy place, and Zuko and Katara stuck out all the more sorely in their black cloaks. Zuko really wished he still had Fire Nation attire.

All the same—no matter how small, a town would always have travellers. And an unbusy market square would always be grateful for a sucker who didn’t know how to haggle like the locals.

“Tomato-carrots,” Zuko requested from the first stall he saw, perhaps with unnecessary force behind his tone, but the middle-aged vendor probably would have eyed him with suspicion no matter what he said.

“2 silver,” the man replied, ungenerously. But Zuko slapped the coin down regardless, and was handed the produce in return.

Zuko felt like that was enough of a show of good will (i.e. bribery,) so he cut to the chase, “Do you know a Yon Rha?”

The man raised a slow brow, “Who’s asking?”

This was the point where Zuko usually went into threatening, since lying was simply never going to work out for him. Unfortunately, the plan was to play it cool until they had their target in sights—no need to cause such a ruckus that Yon Rha left town. 

“Zuko and Li,” replied Katara, curt. Zuko frowned at her name for him, but it was a fairly popular Fire Nation name. Well. Especially popular around the time of his birth, and especially unpopular as of 3 years ago.

“Well, that doesn’t tell me much about who you are,” the man pointed out cryptically, and Zuko really, really missed threatening.

A young but unkempt woman from the next stall over cackled, “How were they supposed to answer ‘cept by name, Jiro! Go on—just break ‘em the news.”

The man eyed the woman, frowning, but turned back to them with an answer regardless, “Yon Rha’s dead.”

Katara’s inhale was sharp, but subtle enough. 

“What?! How did it happen?” Zuko demanded, less subtly. 

“The way you want it to,” the vendor shrugged, “in his sleep. Sick and boring.”

“Does he have any family?” Katara requested cooly. Zuko glanced at her, confused as to what she could get out of that, and found ice in her eyes.

The man’s lips tightened yet more, eyes narrow, “What was it you two wanted with him again?”

“He did something for me when I was a child,” answered Katara, “I’ve yet to repay him.”

The man's eyes softened at the words, sympathetic, maybe even moved. He was able to tell she was being truthful.

+++

Yon Rha’s mother’s house was a shabby thing at the top of a shabby hill. The hinges of the door shook when Zuko knocked. He got an odd sense as he did so, which he realized soon was his newest skill, the one Toph had taught him. He could feel the inner flame of someone approaching the door, but... a second flame too, perhaps? Leaving around the back? But it was too vague and faraway to be a certainty.

“What? Who’s there?” boomed a scratchy voice, immediately angry enough to compete with Zuko. The old woman opened the door with a thud so great that he was surprised it didn’t fall right off. “Who’re you?!”

“We want to talk to you,” said Katara, “about your son.”

“That piece of work?” the woman scoffed, “What’s there to say? I just sent him to market—he never listens when I tell him his vegetables are too hard for my gums. So, if you want to talk to him you’ll have to wait.”

Zuko tried to hide any outward surprise, while Katara’s jaw simply tightened. So, she had already suspected the vendor was lying—fair enough. It was interesting, though, that some townsperson was more careful of strangers asking after Yon Rha than his own mother. 

Zuko turned to leave, but Katara hung back a second. He tried to find what she was looking at, when a drop of rain fell on his nose. Soon the water was falling right through the holes on the house’s roof.

+++

A death, in any capacity, tied you to someone. It just happened that one of those capacities was murder. 

Katara watched her mother’s murderer shoot flame at an empty tree, lighting bark and leaves up like they were nothing. Heard him shout—

“Nobody sneaks up on me without getting burnt!”

—which she didn’t doubt he wanted to be true.

Zuko proved the statement wrong instantly, stepping out from their actual hiding spot once Yon Rha had tripped their hastily-constructed tripwire. Now it was his turn to punch flame forward—(dark orange flame, flickering; had his fire been getting weaker or was it the rain?)—scorching the ground mere inches away from the monster’s body.

“We weren’t behind the tree,” Zuko spelled it out for him, “And I wouldn’t try firebending again.”

“Whoever you are, take my money,” Yon Rha switched from violence to begging just like that, the second his opponent proved the smallest threat. That was the thing about begging for mercy—it didn’t hold as much weight when the begger was merciless. “Take whatever you want. I’ll cooperate.”

Here, Katara stepped forward, letting her footsteps fall heavy on the muddy ground, holding herself as tall as she wasn’t when they last met. Holding herself higher than him.

“Do you know who am?” she asked.

“No, I’m not sure,” he dared to say, the child whose life he’d ruined stored in some distant, unimportant part of his skull.

“Oh, you better remember me like your life depends on it!” Katara warned, meaning it more than he knew, “Why don’t you take a closer look?”

She looked him right in his eyes, those ink-dark eyes, those things that were all she could remember from behind a metal-black helmet. She watched the moment he realized, “Yes. Yes, I remember you now—you’re the little Water Tribe girl.”

Little Water Tribe girl. It wasn’t the first time Katara had been called such, and surely not the last. And that’s the thing—she was a girl, and she was Water Tribe, and she would always be proud of that. She would always love that, even in a world that hated her.

“Your mother was the waterbender,” said Yon Rha, and the sky thundered. And Katara’s heart stopped.

She knew it. She had known it for so long. She had been told—they both had, her and Sokka—why it had happened. But hearing him say it was something else entirely.

Why else would Mom’s death be the impetus for the fleet leaving? Why else would these horrible people have sought out one, specific death? Your mother was the waterbender. She could almost picture the way Mom would have said it, could hear her lips forming the words—“It’s me. Take me.” What an unfair, brutal, tender act of sacrifice. Of protection. Katara knew: there couldn’t have been a second of hesitation in her. Not a flicker of doubt. She sacrificed herself for her daughter, and no one could have changed her mind; she would have done it a million times over; and every time it would have been the cruellest thing in the world. And every time it would have been love.

No one should be forced to love anyone else to such a degree. But they did, every day.

Your mother. The waterbender.

“She lied to you,” Katara said as tears mixed with rain on her cheeks, as all the ice in her broke into shards, “She was protecting the last waterbender.”

“What? Who?”

+++

Katara remembered Mom’s reassuring smile, that sad and worried and loving smile that should have been able to stop anything bad from happening, and didn’t. She remembered her singing voice, her lullabies. She remembered, maybe a few weeks after that raid, her hair being braided by Gran-Gran. She remembered how she started crying because Gran-Gran wasn’t Mom, and how they somehow wound up talking about the first time Mom tried to teach Katara how to sew. Together, they remembered how Katara had asked why Sokka couldn’t fix up his clothes himself, and how when Sokka gave a snippy “‘Cuz you’re a girl,” Mom’s instructions stopped and she let Katara figure out how she wanted to sew the holes together herself; Sokka’s loud bemoaning of his socks stitched into his pants; all their loud laughter. How that night, Sokka had very quietly asked if he could learn to sew too, and how Mom had bundled him up, and replied: “Of course.” Katara and Gran-Gran had laughed again that day, and in that moment, Kya of the Southern Water Tribe was alive again.

+++

Katara took a haggard breath, let the answer forth from her stomach to her lips, in all it’s vicious truth,

“Me.”

The clouds were covering the sun, but there was a gap in them right where the moon still hung in the sky. Katara could feel every drop of rain as it fell from the atmosphere to the ground, could feel the way La hummed through the whole world, from the flowers to the mud to the man in front of her. She held an arm out, and raindrops stopped mid-air. She clenched her hands into fists and water from the dirt drew to her. She got into the stance she had had to learn all by herself, the last waterbender, and at her wish, her mother’s murderer kneeled before her. 

“What’s happening? What are you doing?” he gasped in pure horror, his whole being under her command. His whole fate. The truth is, she didn't know what she was doing, she just knew how it felt. It felt like she wasn't the scared, little girl he remembered. She jerked a hand, and his head rose as demanded, looking up to her. She held him there, and the rain standing static around them turned to shards of ice.

She threw the shards, deadly and directly, at a target that couldn’t move—

—and she let them turn to water above his head, drenching him no more than the storm.

The Fire Nation took everything from her, once. Then yesterday, they did it again. Surely, they would keep taking. Surely, they would keep hurting. But Katara—Katara would never stop rising up in return. She would never stop being stronger, and kinder, and braver than every last man like the one before her. Yon Rha deserved to be killed, just like he deserved to live out a miserable life, with an uncaring mother and an unhappy village. Just like Katara deserved to never become the kind of thing that drowned sailors. This monster deserved absolutely nothing from her, including a scar upon her ideals.

“I did a bad thing, I know I did, and you deserve revenge! So, why don’t you take my mother? That would be fair!” Yon Rha pleaded, and Katara released her hold on him. His body fell limp to the ground, as if drained of all power.

“I always wondered what kind of a person would do such a thing, but now that I see you, I think I understand,” she told him, while all the ice in her slowly melted to rain. Unfrozen and just as terrifying for it, “There’s just nothing inside you. Nothing at all. You’re pathetic and sad and empty. But as much as I hate you..."

Let your anger out, and then let it go.

"...I won't do it."

Yon Rha let out some final whimper, but she had turned already. She left him quaking and alone in the mud, and Katara of the Southern Water Tribe was alive again.

+++

Zuko watched Katara bend a man’s body, his blood, to her will. Zuko watched her wield a power so horrifying he couldn’t have dreamt it. He watched her hold every last drop of might, and then he watched her let the man from her nightmares go. 

It may have been the strongest thing he had ever seen. He had spent so long thinking that her kindness made her weak; that every tear she let fall openly, every word she spoke softly, was proof that she was but a little girl. And she was a girl and this was her kindness, and... and she brandished it like a blade. She could cut with it. It was the most dangerous thing she could possibly carry in an unkind world.

Zuko felt, for a moment, as if something… shifted in him. As if some fundamental source, some lifelong understanding, was displaced.

But there was no proof of this; none at all. (If he tried to summon his fire as it grew darker, and only a lick of flame flickered in his palm, it was simply that he was tired.)

The sun was setting while they left town, trudging through the market as if nothing had happened, as if there wasn't a man snivelling along the path to his home. The 3 little market-stalls were closing up, but the unkempt woman pointed when she saw them.

"Ahaha, the strangers would stay for a reading, wouldn't they?"

Zuko eyed her stand—it was set up for fish, not fortune-telling, though he chose not to respond rather than point this out. He didn't care for fortunes; his had never been very good. Katara mumbled the reply, "I'm not really in the mood."

The woman laughed shrilly, "Of course you are! Never a bad time for Kau Chim, eh?" She pulled out the bucket of fortune sticks, rattling it around a couple times, as if to entice them. Zuko exchanged a frown with Katara, and they kept walking.

"It's free for scarred boys," she added to her offer, with an unseemly grin. Zuko glanced back at her, uncomfortable, before looking straight forward again with purpose. This must have been the reason why he didn't see the object that made him trip—the object which was... which was somehow the Chim bucket, suddenly below his foot instead of in the fishlady's stall.

The bucket had toppled over, but only one stick had fully skidded out onto the ground. It stared up at him. It read: Do not fight.

The woman's cackling echoed through the whole square, seemed to follow them the whole walk back to Appa.

+++

They were all beat—Appa, Katara, and Zuko—by the time they got back to camp. Zuko tried to head straight to his tent, but Katara caught him quicker, pulling him into a tight hug. He almost didn’t respond, standing very still as if he didn’t understand what was happening, before tentatively raising one arm in what must have been a reciprocating gesture.

Zuko explained to Aang what had happened, as Katara still couldn’t quite bring herself to meet his eyes, even as he praised her for her "forgiveness." She almost spoke up then, just to correct him that what had occured had been anything but forgiveness. Though, she finally did to ask,

“Is Sokka asleep yet?”

“Oh,” Aang’s face fell, and Katara’s brow furrowed, “Yeah, about that—“

He pulled a piece of paper out, the dashes of messy ink a clear hallmark to Sokka’s writing—

     Need meat. Gone Fishing. Back in a few days.

Chapter Text

Exactly 20 years before Sokka was born, the last bender of the Southern Water Tribe was taken.

Sokka wasn’t necessarily a fast learner, but he did learn to listen fast. He learned to worry fast. By the time he was old enough to hear the stories—some scary, some somber, all sad—about the Fire Nation raids, his biggest fear in the world was that his baby sister would be a waterbender.

Sokka’s thoughts came disjointed. Came in the wrong order. There were stories about Tui, who gave waterbenders their strength, and Sokka’s first thought was: because Katara was born under a full moon. His second thought was: That’s bad. There was a story that mentioned, offhandedly, how winter was the season for water, and Sokka’s first thought was: because Katara was born in winter. His second thought was: That’s bad. 

When Katara, 4 years old, toppled Sokka’s snowman onto him without touching it, Sokka felt his heart stop. Actually stop. He proceeded to have what he vaguely remembered as some kind of temper tantrum. At first everyone thought he was upset about his snowman, and then maybe that he was jealous; (he remembered words of beration, however gentle, from his father.) He couldn’t remember when he started crying, but from what he’d been told, it was around then. Quiet tears, he'd been told. Tears too old for him. It was also then that he allegedly whispered—not screamed, not shouted, not sobbed—whispered, “They’ll take her. They’re going to take her.”

The Fire Nation did not take his sister. They did, however, take his mother.

This was where Sokka liked to stop thinking about it.

+++

“Failed,” Azula repeated.

“The targets were not apprehended, but we have reason to believe—“ the Dai Li agent began to state again, but Azula cut in with the smoothness of a knife. The kind of smoothness you get by holding metal to stone and pushing.

“It’s okay,” she promised, “you can say that you failed.”

The agent gulped. Azula leaned forward ever-so-slightly,

“Say it.”

“The mission failed, Princess,” he finally admitted. To his credit, his voice remained steady. That was the thing about earthbenders, wasn’t it? Steely exteriors. Yet even rock could shatter into salt.

“So you’re telling me that you—sorry, your mission—sorry, ‘the’ mission—failed. The mission including a battalion of your best men. The mission backed by high-grade volatiles. The mission to capture a few kids,” Azula summed up, rising from her throne as she spoke, prowling a few paces forward. She faked a sigh of sympathy, “Did he go into Avatar state?”

“No,” replied the agent. Which was stupid on his part. People ought to know when to lie.

“Then, how did you manage such incompetence?!” Azula yelled, her silvery anger bubbling into something more molten, something burning, “I will tell you now, neither incompetence nor treason will be tolerated under my command.”

“Princess—!“ the man tried to cut in, startled. Rock shattering into salt. He still had his head lowered in his bow, but Azula suddenly doubted it was in deference; no, this was betrayal. He didn’t want to look at her, didn’t think she was good enough to meet eyes with.

“Don’t worry, I have some mercy,” she lied, holding out her hand. He took it with all the hesitance in the world. Not good enough to touch his skin. “I shall let you die by my very own hand. Of course, your men will be killed by their Dai Li compatriots.”

She glanced around the room, at the Dai Li surrounding; at their failed friends kneeling in the center of the place. “If anyone refuses to act as an executor, then I completely understand. And I shall simply have to have Mai and Ty Lee deal with you as well. Those of you who do your job; you will be rewarded.”

It was a bluff. She couldn’t afford to lose that many men. But they didn’t have to know that quite yet.

“But Princess, there was no treason; we were overpowered by—“ The man was cut off quick by a knife through his throat. Delivered, surprisingly, by the agent kneeling behind him.

The agent in question wiped his blade off slowly, then stood. He met her eyes. He said, “You’re right, Princess. Agent Huizhong has defected to the Avatar’s cause; he forced us to sabotage your mission. I managed only to convince him to keep the Water Tribe soldiers we captured.”

Here was someone who knew when to lie. Azula quirked a brow. “Water Tribe soldiers?”

“Yes. Including their Chief.”

Slowly—as slowly as the gore was seeping from Huizhong's throat onto the pristine floor—a smile formed across Azula’s lips. “Tell me, Agent, what was your name again?"

+++

“ ‘Gone fishing?’ ” Katara read off, dumbfounded, “Is he stupid?”

Aang worried at his lip, “There’s uh— there’s a list on the back. With what we should do to prepare for the invasion in the meantime?”

“Prepare for the invasion! Like we’re going through with that? After—after—“ Katara let the sentence dissolve into a noise of frustration, in lieu of naming the act.

“Invasion?” Zuko asked instinctively. It had been concealed from him verbally so far, though it had been assumable enough for him to kind of get it at a certain point.

“Uh,” said Aang.

Katara just rolled her eyes. “So Zuko knows now! It doesn’t matter—we can’t go through with it! And if Sokka thinks I’m going to do follow some dumb list of his while he’s off fishing—“

Zuko was vaguely aware that she continued ranting, but his eyes had drifted over to the nearby trees—surely there was wildlife to hunt there. Surely there was some life in the river, even if it was small.

Despite his younger sister’s claims, Sokka wasn’t stupid. And he wasn’t ‘gone fishing.’

+++

Sokka recognized the pain in his own body. Of course he did. That’s how nerves work—they tell you when something’s wrong. But, honestly, what was wrong right now wasn’t the stitch in his stomach or the tightness in his lungs or the memory of where a Dai Li agent had landed a hit on his shoulder; it wasn't even his feet, Spirits, his aching feet. All of that (most of that, at least) was the natural cost of a long journey. (A long journey with no Appa.) No, what was wrong right now was… everything.

Or, shit, no—that was an overgeneralization. That was too kind. That abstracted the problem into a strange force, a large and inexplicable phenomenon. But the problem was small. Which wasn’t to say that it didn’t spell crushing doom—it was to say that the problem was Sokka. Him. His plan. His stupid plan, and his stupid head that had thought it. He was the one who caused his tribe, his father, his father to— to be…

To be where they were now.

He was the one who…

I had thought you at least loved Dad as much as I do.

“Fuck!“ Sokka let out, with some but not enough satisfaction, as his shoe hit against an unforeseen rock. He almost paused, then didn’t, taking his map out once again just to check that the universe hadn’t suddenly granted him a path with less hills.

He hated walking. Hated the space it gave him to think. Hated that what he kept coming back to was how Katara was somewhere—worse than alone, with Zuko—tracking down their mother’s murderer. The man who killed waterbenders. All he could think was she was out there and there was no world in which he had any power to help. Because nothing he did helped anyone. And, moreover, more painfully—because she didn’t want him to.

No, who she wanted was the Prince of the Fire Nation. Or—fuck—that was an abstraction. Or, a distraction, really—it distracted from the point. Zuko was… her friend. He was the one who she trusted right now. He was the one who she wanted.

Sokka shook his head, as if that could clear it. He squinted up at the sun. The day was still young, but Tui, La, and Yue, it was cold. He’d need to put his parka on soon.

Not that it was cold like the South Pole. Not that anything was like the South Pole. Some places you find everywhere; others, you can lose forever.

+++

The wreck was a loathsome creature to behold. Twisted metal, char-black, splayed from the water like hands reaching from the grave. Zuko wondered how similar the Wani had looked after Zhao’s assassination attempt. Zuko wondered what it had looked like to Uncle—whether it was closer to a tomb or a natural disaster.

It had been Katara’s rightful demand to come back here. Though it must have been twice-hard, both father and brother gone.

Aang and her went together, entering the beastly thing with appropriate amounts of dread. Zuko trailed them, glancing back for a moment only to locate Toph. She was kicking a pebble back and forth on the rocky shoals that came just before the sand lining the shore. He frowned, but continued, not giving it much thought.

Katara was bending the water pooled throughout the wreck into ice, a treacherous floor but a floor nonetheless. Truth be told, the smooth, cold terrain seemed a good match for the shadows cast around them. A ghostly cave. A place that deserved prayer not for the sake of holiness, but for fear.

They discovered the remains of many rooms, of an engine half-burst, coal spilling out in a dark landslide. But not a single bone. Not a single body.

Zuko remembered Azula holding blue flame on a single finger. He remembered how nonchalantly she made the threat to Katara. And he wondered whether this wasn't the worst result after all.

Finally, they found where it had all begun. The very section which had once housed a pile of bodies; the unconscious heap of Fire Nation soldiers. That, too, was disappeared—instead, hanging upon a jagged iron edge, was a helmet. But not a Fire Nation one. The carefully-carved, cloud-grey, Water Tribe wolf stared at the three of them.

“I’m going to be sick,” announced Katara. 

Aang led her out, but Zuko lingered. It wasn’t right to leave this armor here—if it had been one of his nation’s men, he would take it, make a shrine. And that was exactly what should be done. He lifted the helmet from its precarious position, holding it with both hands, when a paper slipped out of it. He shifted the helmet beneath one arm and picked the note up hastily, before the ice could melt the ink beyond legibility.

Zuko stood stock-still as he read. After he had finished, he stood stiller.

+++

Days were bright and nights were cold. Days were too bright; nights were too cold. Either that was a fact or Sokka was going loopy without sleep. Just like either the forest was casting too many shadows, or Sokka was somewhere in-between sleep and the kind of wide-eyed insomnia where sleep is an ocean away.

Redemption. That was the word that’d been at the tip of his tongue all day. It came to him only now, with the trees seeming to stretch miles above him, bark-black towers. That was what he was attempting here, really. That was what he needed. 

The leaves rustled around him as he walked. He hated walking. Had he pondered that already? He wasn’t sure anymore if it was the wind rattling the branches, or if there was something else going on. If there was wind, he wouldn’t be able to feel it—couldn’t feel it, couldn’t feel anything. Which wasn’t how it was supposed to work, with the nerve endings and all. There was a word for this, but it was escaping him right now.

And then, he tripped. No, that wasn’t right—this wasn’t tripping, this was falling. No, this was a push—no, a hit. He came to this conclusion just as the ground met his body.

He pushed himself up with much effort and without much enthusiasm. His hand explored the earth behind him, and scraped against the rock that had hit him. Now, rocks didn’t just throw themselves, that much he knew. He looked forward, and the Dai Li agent blurred into his vision, and, ah.

It’s a trap, Sokka thought, and then, Well, that’s alright. That’s what we expected, right? That’s what we planned on, wasn’t it?

He made an aborted kind of move to roll out of the way. A hard-shale bullet missed his chest. It did, however, rip somewhere through his arm. Where, exactly, he wasn’t sure—that part wasn’t reaching him yet. Nerve endings not working again. Whatever the word for it was.

The agent was approaching fast now. Fair enough, Sokka was pretty reasonably no longer a threat. There was another world in which he would reach for his club, or boomerang, or, or, or. But he wasn’t in that world. 

He wouldn’t know how to explain the world he was in except to say it was made of salt-water. He wouldn’t know what he wanted when he said redemption except something sharp stabbed through his stomach til it came out the other side.

His arm was beginning to hurt. He looked down at it, and found the surrounding layers of cloth drenched in red-black ooze. That’s what we expected, right?

The agent’s hands were covered in earth. They were so close now, so close to his neck—

—and then everything was light. The world sharpened horrifically with the brightness. Which was wrong. The day was bright, not the night. Unless this was death. That's what we planned on, wasn't it? Except then it’d just be mean that his arm was really fucking hurting now. Except he could still see the forest. Except—except he was suddenly coughing up smoke.

There was a yell, an odd and startling sound in this isolated wilderness, and then more brightness. And then tree branches were burning. 

Fuck. Fuck. This was fire.

“Sokka! Your arm—!” The voice was familiar. It was also stupid loud. Which, once you put two and two together—

With his one remaining good arm, Sokka punched Zuko square in the chest as soon as he crouched down in front of him. He punched him as hard as he could. Which wasn’t very hard at the moment, “Why the fuck are you here!”

Zuko stared at him, dumbfounded, or maybe just dumb. Ha. He mumbled, “OK, I guess we’re skipping ‘thanks.’”

Sokka let out a little groan of pure anger, except somewhere along the line it turned into one of pain. “You know what, whatever, I don’t—I don’t even care, I just have to—“

He attempted to stand up, obstacle out of the way, ready to continue his journey. There was no reason to give a shit about anything that had just happened, or really? Anything that ever happened to him. It didn’t matter.

But when he tried to step forward, the landscape didn’t agree. It tilted around him, and suddenly things were fading black. Which was how the night was supposed to be. Not warm and bright—it was meant to be like this. This was alright. That's what we expected.

Just before lucidity slipped his grasp, Sokka found the word he had been looking for: numb. 

+++

His arm is on fire, was what Sokka first thought when he woke up. And then, as memories slid into place, Oh, Spirits, Zuko’s set his arm on fire.

Blearily, he forced his eyes to blink open. He tried to bring his arm into his field of vision, then very quickly decided to bring his field of vision to his arm instead.

Despite the sensation, his arm was not on fire. However, it certainly had been on fire.

“I, uh. I had to cauterize it,” Zuko explained, beside a camp-fire that was way too open, and obvious, and so blessedly warm.

“You burned me,” Sokka summed up, tracing across the line of red flesh, pulled in an odd pattern, like stretched taffy, or the guts of some horrible creature.

Zuko looked a little panicked, which was interesting, since Sokka had been expecting anger. “It’s not like that, I—“

“Yeah, no, I get it,” Sokka dismissed. He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, wanting to sleep more of the pain away. Then his eyes shot right back open, “What happened to Katara?”

“What?” Zuko had the nerve to be genuinely confused, “Nothing. She’s fine. I mean—she’s not. She’s upset. She misses you.”

A wave of relief like nothing else washed over him, tinged around the edges with sea-deep guilt. “Did—did she… you know, did you guys find… him?”

Zuko nodded, “She didn’t kill him, though. She did something, but…” his gaze went faraway for a moment, disturbed, then he shook his head, “she got some closure, I think.”

Closure. Sokka allowed himself a second to wonder what that felt like. Then he tried to forget the feeling; it wasn’t important. What was important was Katara.

“You should be with her,” Sokka said, “I mean, you shouldn’t, I hate that, but—if you’re gonna be with anyone. If you’re going to go around… cauterizing wounds and fighting off Dai Li. She’s the priority.”

“She can handle herself! She’s a… a strong person!” Zuko burst out unexpectedly. Defensively. As if Sokka was the one who had recently called girls ‘nice and soft’.

“Yeah, I know that—what, are you trying to lecture me right now? It’s not about—“ Sokka cut off the end of the sentence with a hiss of pain. Note to self: do not lean on that arm.

Zuko came into action with neither grace nor decorum. He grabbed his arm—ow, ow, ow—and began dressing the wound with bandages, in what might have been the least tender procedure Sokka had ever witnessed.

“Shit, I’m glad I was asleep for most of this,” he griped, teeth grit.

Zuko barely gave him a second glance, “Keep it dry for two days. Then we use burn salve.” He nodded over to his bag, presumably where this salve was.

Sokka managed to stop himself before snarking, What, you just carry that around?, because, well. Duh. Instead, what he said was, “Look. I’m serious. I know what I’m doing, man, you can go back to camp. And, no offense, the last person I want to speak to is you.”

“What, you’d rather I leave you here to die?!” Zuko spat.

Sokka bit back the answer he wanted to give, as well as a grimace. Zuko stared at him, perhaps because he didn’t understand what had just happened. Or, worse, because he did.

“…You’re the priority right now,” he said at length. “You’re my priority, at least.”

“Whatever,” Sokka scoffed, turning away. “How’d you even find me, anyway?”

+++

“Where do you think you’re going, fireball?”

Zuko sighed, but stopped in his tracks nonetheless, the rucksack over his back moving with the fall of his shoulders. “Have I really gotten that bad at sneaking out?“ he wondered aloud.

“Nah. I like your feathery footsteps,” Toph complimented, “It’s like Aang. Your problem is you’re not actually an airbender, and are still connected to the ground.” She stomped once, as if to prove her point.

“Wait—do you know when Sokka left, then?” he asked.

Toph frowned. “No, unfortunately he’s smarter than you. He left while I was asleep.”

“Oh. Well,” Zuko shifted in place uncomfortably, “Are you going to stop me?”

“That all depends on where you’re going,” Toph replied, raising a challenging brow. When he failed to respond for a good minute, she instead nodded toward thehand that was clutching the letter from the boat. “What’s the paper?”

“It’s… a copy. Of the letter Sokka left us.”

Toph punched him squarely in the arm, with much more force than usual, “Don’t lie! I hate it when people lie!”

Zuko couldn’t help the image of Azula which flashed through his mind. “Yeah… yeah, I get that.”

“Well?! What’s the paper?”

     To Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe—

     Chief Hakoda is currently being held at Da Po Stronghold of Mount Himsen. We will be happy to arrange a deal there to trade him for Avatar Aang. We are also holding men who have given their names as Bato, Nanurjuk, and Ikiaq. Should you refuse this kind offer, feel free to write back with whoever you think is best to die first.

     Signed,

     The Court of Fire Princess Azula

Zuko clenched his fist harder around the crumpled parchment, “Is it okay to say I’d rather not tell you?”

“That’s not okay; that’s really, really annoying,” Toph answered bitingly. It hung in the air, until she softened unexpectedly. And to his utter incredulity, she pulled him into a hug. 

“Bring him back, Zuko,” she said, muffled into his top, “Promise me you’ll bring him back.”

There was an edge of wetness around her words. Tentative, Zuko put a hand around her back,

“I promise.”

+++

“They sent multiple letters,” Sokka groaned, making a motion to facepalm, then thinking better of it with a wince. “That still doesn’t explain why you’re here, though. I mean—what’s your plan? Grab me and then get back to the Avatar-capturing thing? That’s over-complicated.”

It was probably not smart to point out the flaws in your enemy’s ideas. But it was so flawed; he couldn’t not.

“Well,” shrugged Zuko, “you might agree to bring Aang to Azula. I definitely don’t want him with her.”

“You think I would do that?” Sokka breathed, furious.

Zuko’s brow furrowed. “No,” he admitted.

Sokka’s sudden anger melted into sudden confusion. Then all at once he understood, a harsh laugh bubbling out of him, “You really are trying to be a part of the gaang, huh? A team player? Until right at the end, you wanna stab us in the back. Not even—stab us in the front! You’re open about all of it!”

He knew he should be more diplomatic about this. And he would’ve been, if he’d had a clearer mind. Zuko was useful like this. He was close, so close, to being something great. An unstable, weirdly loyal, idealistic teen who was also a Prince. That was a bargaining chip and a free spy and—more than anything—a firebending master for the Avatar. Sokka could manipulate this into a perfect scenario. But his arm felt like it would be forever broken, and his dad was imprisoned because of him, and he simply couldn’t give a fuck currently.

He would regret this later. But for now? It felt amazing. (That was a lie. It felt miserable, and he knew it.)

“Look, maybe you should just be grateful to the person who saved you!” Zuko fumed back.

Sokka gave him a long, withering look. But when Zuko only looked right back, as if this was some most-stubborn-wins staring contest, he gave up on the endeavor. After all, he was far from the most stubborn between them. Instead, he started testing out limbs that didn’t currently have healing puncture wounds. From the bruises of their previous battle, to the new aches of the most recent, it was safe to say he felt like a complete piece of shit.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?” Zuko asked, watching.

“Nope,” Sokka replied, attempting to pop the p and finding his mouth too dry. To provide evidence for the lie, he pushed himself up using his good arm, and only fell twice before clambering into a stand, “Well. If you’re actually refusing to leave me alone, then we’re going. Don’t exactly have Appa-speed on our hands, y'know.”

Zuko gave him an incredulous kind of look, “It’s the middle of the night. You just lost the use of one arm in a surprise attack. And the most sleep you’ve had is maybe a couple of hours passed-out. Your plan is to keep going?” 

Sokka mentally ran through the ways he could play this that would require the least time and annoyance. Eventually, he settled on the response, “…Wouldn’t you?”

Zuko’s nose scrunched, but it seemed to be in thought rather than resentment. Although it was a little hard to tell with him. Finally, he got up, brushed himself off, extinguished the fire via stomping on it harshly, then relit a feebler lick of flame in his palm. When he met Sokka’s eyes, his gaze blazed harsher than any of it, “Fine. Let’s go.”

+++

To his own surprise, Sokka was the first to attempt conversation.

It’s not that he was in the mood for a pleasant chat. But the moon had fallen and the sun had risen and there was only so long you could avoid awkward eye contact with a prince. He was trying and failing to come up with questions to ask other than: Remember when you burned down Kyoshi Island? or Remember when you threatened my grandmother’s life plus our whole tribe?  or Remember when you left my sister in prison for several days?, when he looked over to find Zuko with his arms wrapped tensely around himself, shivering in all of his light-fabric glory. And what came out of his mouth was,

“Are you cold?” 

Zuko side-eyed him dangerously, “No.”

“Did you not bring anything warm?” Sokka persisted, glancing at his bag which seemed pretty ideal for survival gear. Like, y’know, a coat.

“No, because I don’t need it,” Zuko reiterated. He seemed easily as angry as he would’ve been if Sokka had asked about his past evil ventures, so maybe there was never a right solution.

Still, Sokka considered the statement. “Yeah, actually, why don’t you just bend yourself some warmth? Can you do that, or—“

This time, the glare Zuko threw him was so burning-hot, Sokka wasn’t sure he wasn’t bending. So, fine. Guess that was the end of that conversation.

At least, it was, until Zuko said unprompted, “I think I’m losing my bending.” He said it softly, said it looking at the ground, which was… something.

“Say what now?”

“You heard me!” Zuko yelled back petulantly, but then repeated himself, maybe in case Sokka actually hadn’t heard, “My bending. It’s been getting weaker. Well, it was fine last night, when I fought that agent, but. It’s weird. Everything’s been weird since I started travelling with you all. So, I need to… conserve my strength.” The words strangled out of him, as if they pained him. Which they probably did.

So. That took firebending master off of the list of good uses for Zuko. It also was not a smart thing to tell your enemy, though, so Sokka took it as a show of good faith. Or maybe a show of being an oversharer. Either way, he needed to reply, “Uh— that’s. Well, that’s… that’s rough, buddy?”

Instead of calling him on the ridiculous reply, Zuko nodded like it was perfectly appropriate. “Yeah,” he agreed.

Regardless, Sokka cleared his throat in order to dispel any other absurd statements from coming out, “What else has been ‘weird’? I mean, everything, sure, I agree, but… what specifically has been weird about us, to you?”

He was genuinely interested in the reply. He was hoping for something along the lines of: Wow, I've realized I'm a total idiot compared to you guys, and that's weird. Because then Sokka could say: Seems pretty normal to me. However, Zuko didn’t respond. But his gaze had turned faraway, not mean. Like he was searching for the answer—or maybe like he knew the answer, but couldn’t vocalize it without admitting something he hadn't yet admitted to himself.

For the second time, Sokka was sure the conversation was over. Until Zuko finally allowed himself to say one of the things passing through his mind,

“You guys hug. A lot.”

Sokka wasn’t entirely sure how to take that. He wasn’t sure whether the Prince of the Fire Nation thought hugs were gross and hated them passionately, or whether he didn’t, and that was… an objectively kind of sad answer. He chose to believe the first option.

“Well, how about this,” Sokka proposed, because it would be an easy-to-follow proposal, “I promise not to hug you.”

+++

It was midday. Agni’s rays were pouring down, sacred and golden, awaiting the use and worship they deserved. It was midday; the warmest thing they would get. It was midday, and Zuko was still cold as balls.

Worse, Sokka was glancing back at him with increasing frequency, which meant that Zuko had to get out of his huddled pose and into a proud, upright stance with increasing frequency.

“You know that myth about how firebenders have a higher body temperature?” Sokka asked, out-of-the-blue.

“Of course,” replied Zuko, “because it’s the superior element.”

Sokka’s nose crinkled in displeasure. “Uh-huh,” he drawled—then, against everything sacred in the world, he pressed a hand to Zuko’s forehead, “I don’t think it’s true.”

“What the fuck,” said Zuko, which was not the same as get the fuck off me, but Sokka removed his hand anyway.

“I think it’s the opposite, actually. You need more heat to survive, or at least to be healthy. Comfortable. I think the Water Tribe needs less,” Sokka continued, “Not inherently. I mean—I think it’s just about where you grew up; what you’re adjusted to.”

It made sense. “Shut up,” said Zuko.

+++

Once the evening had edged in—pink tinging into purple alongside the setting sun, landscape bathed in violent blue—it was Zuko’s turn to ask a question,

“How many more surprise attacks are you expecting?”

Sokka quickly wished it had been any other question. Still, he was gracious enough to respond, “There weren’t any until last night’s. So. Either we should expect them to be that spaced out, or we should expect them to occur increasingly.”

Zuko mulled this over. Then, he said, “You know it’s all going to be traps, right? Everything up to and when we get there. There’s no good deal—even the letter’s deal was never in the cards.”

“Yes,” replied Sokka.

“I mean,” Zuko continued, urgent, as if this was news Sokka urgently needed and not exactly what he already understood, “It’s gonna be hard to come up with a plan where we survive, let alone win.”

“Oh,” said Sokka, the moon rising overhead, but not yet reaching high enough to shed light upon what was below, “believe me, I know the odds.”

It wasn’t confusion, the way Zuko looked at him. It might have been something horrible, actually—it might have been sadness. Or, possibly, understanding.

Or maybe the dark was just messing with Sokka’s eyes.

+++

Zuko insisted they sleep this time. It was a losing fight on Sokka’s part, partly because, well... he was tired. So, so tired. His feet had forgotten was laying down felt like, and his arm had continually progressed along the spectrum of: ‘raging fire’ to ‘consumed by a pack of lava-ants.’ But mostly it was because Zuko was the most stubborn person to ever live.

Now ordinarily, Sokka would be suspicious that the Fire Nation royalty keeping watch over his slumbering body was planning to turn him to ash in his sleep. But ordinarily, Sokka would also not lay his sleeping pack across a pile of rocks by accident, and still find it to be the comfiest thing he’d ever experienced.

And, really, it came down to this: Zuko could have murdered him where he lay plenty of times. Zuko could have left him to die, and maybe he’d even have liked him better for it. But drenched in the pale light of the moon, of the stars, shadowed only by the green-gray of leaves and branches—Zuko was the teen boy who had been chatting with him all day. Who had been travelling with him. Who, last night when he was bloody and beat, had called him his priority.

Fuck, he was sleep-deprived, wasn’t he? That was a stupid to thing to think. He had learned, long ago: Yue’s light made everything more beautiful than it deserved.

+++

Sokka had his nightmares quiet.

Zuko would never have even known the other boy had them if he hadn’t taken first watch. If he hadn’t turned at just the right moment, to see a leg twitch, to see a grimace on a face. Sokka opened his eyes and said precisely nothing, did precisely nothing. He didn’t know Zuko was watching him. He was pretending to still be asleep.

Zuko didn’t know what to do. Sokka did it for him. He waited maybe 5 minutes and staged yawning, got up, and said,

“I can take over.”

Zuko might have been able to fool himself into believing Sokka’s tone was off somehow, but it was so chillingly normal, casual, believable. So Sokka. In fact, he almost let him get away with it, but as he took his place in the sleeping bag, he couldn’t stop himself from asking,

“Did you have any dreams?”

Sokka’s eyes widened, almost imperceptibly, like he’d been caught. But then he returned to normal, answered simply, “Something about my dad.”

That, at least, made sense to Zuko.

+++

Dreams can cling to you, even once you’ve forgotten them. Like the morning mist clung to Sokka’s skin, or the bandages to his wound. So maybe there was a faceless figure dying somewhere in him, or a father towering above, when he asked,

“Zuko, do you remember when my dad caught you and Toph fighting?” Zuko’s head whipped straight up immediately, intense stare quick to follow, but Sokka was too far in to back down now, “Remember the whole kneel-y dealy you did? Why did you think that was… necessary?”

Zuko’s mouth twisted in an ugly way, not so much a frown as just something tense around the edges. “I was meant to be an obedient little prisoner, right? That’s what I’d do. If I was.”

“You seemed pretty good at it,” Sokka mumbled, not sure if he wanted the thought heard, but it was regardless.

“No. I’m not. And I never will be,” Zuko promised. The line of his lips had formed into a snarl now—that was the word for it, for this thing that wasn’t a frown but was still made of sharp teeth. But that wasn’t what Sokka was looking at. He was looking at the scar.

“How about an obedient son?” he asked. He was quiet enough this time to go uncaught.

+++

It was Zuko who stopped them for lunch. It was also Zuko who was so horrifically incompetent at fishing that Sokka had to step in.

“This is how you catch a fish,” Sokka announced, high-handed; cast his line; and proceeded to not catch anything for an hour. So, the river was thin, that wasn’t his fault.

Nevertheless, soon they were gathered around a campfire, blessedly warm, stomachs becoming fuller—and Sokka could not deny he was just a little grateful for Zuko’s reminder to eat. For his presence. (Clearly, he was falling susceptible to a cunning Fire Nation scheme. Or he would be, if Zuko wasn’t an idiot.)

They ate in silence, and then—just as Sokka was feeling the content of a finished meal—Zuko grabbed his arm. His bandaged arm. And started removing bandages.

“Ow,” said Sokka.

“Sh,” replied Zuko, which must have been his version of bedside manner, “You need salve.”

“You said to leave it dry for 2 days,” Sokka pointed out just to be a smartass, “It’s only been like. A day and a half.”

“You keep itching,” Zuko said, accurately.

“It’s itchy!“

“Sure,” allowed Zuko, “but you must be hurting yourself, too.” He met Sokka’s eyes with those words, as if they meant something more. Sokka tried to pretend he didn’t understand.

Bandages off, Zuko took the fabled salve from his bag, and used his index and pointer fingers to gather a small amount off the top. And while his treatment of his patient sucked in general, at this he gentled. He applied the clear substance over the rough, red skin with a certain care. A tender touch upon a warzone.

How long have you been here, Sokka could not stop himself from thinking, could not stop himself from looking at the scar again, at the old flesh of it, at the scattering of smaller burns along Zuko’s arms—a kind of stretching mirror of the wounds Sokka had gathered himself, How long have you been planting kisses on raw blood?

+++

Zuko shivering constantly was, as it turned out, starting to get on Sokka’s nerves.

“Just use the blanket. Wrap it around yourself,” he offered, pointing to his own bag for emphasis.

“I’m not cold,” said Zuko. Half an hour later, he was bundled in fur.

+++

“What’s wrong with your shoulder?”

Sokka looked up from his map for a moment, just to throw him a wry glance, “I wouldn’t call it my shoulder, so much as my forearm. You see, there was this guy who was cauterizing my wound—“

“Not that arm,” Zuko clarified with an eye-roll, “The other one. The shoulder you’ve been rolling for the past two days.”

“Oh, that,” Sokka rolled the shoulder again, as if to remind himself, “That’s old. It’s just kinda bruised from the—the battle. The one after the Navy ship, well… you know.”

Zuko did the math; it didn’t add up; he pointed this out, “Katara could have healed it.”

Some kind of laugh came out of Sokka, or… some kind of sound at least. If Zuko wasn’t focused on it, it could’ve passed for a sob. Beyond that, he gave no reply.

+++

“We’re stopping at a town tomorrow,” Sokka said, while the horned rabbit he’d caught roasted over Zuko’s fire, the smoke travelling up until it blended into the night sky, “It’s the last stop between here and the stronghold. I mean, it’s the only stop.”

“So, there’ll be Dai Li agents stationed there. To capture us,” Zuko supplied.

“Well, yeah.”

Zuko tried to hold Sokka’s gaze, like the entomologist tries to hold the butterfly down to see its wings. Or to pin it. He tried to make out the true shape of his pupils from behind sparking embers and shifting flame. But Sokka had always been too smart. He looked away.

Zuko didn’t know how to say what he wanted to. Or rather, he didn’t want to say it at all. He didn’t want to admit the reason he was here, not to Sokka, and certainly not to himself.

You might agree to bring Aang to Azula. That was the official reasoning for his being here. That was the reason he’d given. Except all he kept thinking about was an agent aiming for a fatal blow while Sokka sat still. All he kept remembering was Sokka, weeks ago, limping around camp. Sokka, now, rolling his shoulder. Sokka—a son on a mission for a father.

There was an alternate reason Zuko had given, of course. A reason which shouldn’t have been true. A reason which shouldn’t have been a reason at all. You’re my priority.  

The campfire was burning out, but when he tried to breathe life into it; it didn’t grow.

They finished their meal by dying light. Zuko ate more of it than Sokka.

Sokka was still looking away. Zuko reached out without giving warning—why would he need to?; this was self-explanatory—and grabbed his arm. He salved the burn he himself had administered. Which shouldn’t have been how it worked. But sometimes it just was.

He wasn’t sure whether his touch soothed or hurt. Sokka didn’t let it show either way. He assumed the latter.

By the time he’d finished, Sokka wasn’t looking at the ground anymore. But he wasn’t looking at Zuko either.

+++

Sokka looked at the moon, and thought about the shining white of a fish beneath pond-water. He thought about scales pulled from skin. He thought, a little, about death. He thought, mostly, about failure.

+++

They did indeed reach a village the next day. It was comprised of a good handful of buildings, but a handful nonetheless; all gathered around a dusty well. A young boy and girl kicked a ball back-and-forth in the street. When Zuko and Sokka walked by, they stopped.

Judging by the way they all stared, the rest of the townspeople concurred with the kids’ judgement. Which was fair enough—this wasn’t exactly a major port. Though, it must get some passing soldiers, refugees, now and then—judging by the way the stores they passed were quickly putting out their finest wares. Sokka’s eye caught on a display of swords. Meanwhile, Zuko stopped when one woman pushed forth a theatre mask. Which was very funny, and Sokka would have to tease him about it later, but for now there were canteens in need of filling. He pulled him on toward the well.

It was Zuko who got the bucket, filled their bottles. Shit, he even took his top off and gave it a wash, without an ounce of hesitation. The guy had clearly never heard of good, old-fashioned self-consciousness. Sokka, for example, had decided on pretending to check the map, in order to avoid any chance of eye contact. Despite these great efforts, though, they were soon called out.

“You boys don’t happen to like hotteok, do you?” an older woman asked, from behind a storefront connected to what seemed to be her house.

“Oh—we don’t have any coin,” Sokka replied. At least, he hadn’t brought any; Spirits knew what Zuko kept in his bag.

The woman’s eyes were soft. Kind. She smiled, but there was something sad to it, “Don’t worry about that.” 

“We couldn’t,” Sokka choked out.

“Well then,” she said, nodded to an empty bucket, “Perhaps you could help an old woman and her old bones out. Carry me some fresh water; we’ll call it even.”

Zuko reached for the bucket, but Sokka nodded first. He took it, and filled it, and carried it with one good arm, at the expense of only one bad shoulder. Zuko watched him wearily the whole time, until Sokka whispered a quick, “Piss off.”

They brought the promised water and the woman brought the promised treats. Sokka couldn’t help the hum of utter satisfaction that came out of him as peanuts and brown sugar exploded in his mouth. Luckily, neither could Zuko.

The woman smiled properly this time. “What brings you two here?”

“We’re refugees,” Sokka lied through a mouthful of honey. 

Her eyes travelled first to Zuko’s scar, which, Sokka realized, must be quite a useful feature in these situations. Garners sympathy and supports the story. Or, at least, he thought that until the woman’s eyes traced over his new wound pityingly, and he had to shift his feet uncomfortably. 

“Do you get a lot of visitors?” Sokka asked, since Zuko was just not speaking.

“Not many, no, but this is what’s strange,” she said, “Just a few days before you, a man came into town.”

An, “Oh?” squeaked out of Sokka at the same time Zuko put a hand on his wrist.

Without turning, Zuko jerked his head in a direction diagonal of them. Sokka glanced and found who he was talking about. He was dressed down, to be sure, but the braid down his back and the way he held himself were near-giveaways. The actual giveaway was: he was still wearing his uniform shoes. You’d think Dai Li would be clever enough not to do that.

In spite of their attempted subtlety, the agent had spotted them looking. He took a step forward, hand reaching for something on his belt, and Sokka and Zuko exchanged a look.

The woman’s gaze darted between the agent and the two of them. She clapped her hands together, and loudly announced, “Two strong boys like you must stay to help a lady with her chores! There’ll be a dinner for you at the end of it.”

As she said the words, she made intense eye contact with the man running the stall across from hers, then nodded. He gave her a nod in return, and she led Zuko and Sokka round to the entrance to her place.

Sokka took in the small room: the hand-made blanket over the chair, the tattered Earth Kingdom flag hung on the wall. Zuko meanwhile asked,

“What chores did you need help with?”

“Oh, please. Don’t mind that, dear,” said the woman, ushering them to sit, “Now. You didn’t tell me you were deserters.”

“No, we’re not—“ Zuko began, but she was quicker,

“It’s okay,” she assured, “There’s nothing wrong with it. I'd've liked my son to have deserted instead of died.” 

“I’m sorry,” said Sokka, because what else were you meant to say? (Except he knew, he knew what else to say. He knew he should say, I lost my mother in a raid. He should say, Thank you for your kindness. I understand. He should say anything else.) “I’m sorry,” he repeated.

“Well, the point is: stay here as long as you’d like,” the woman offered, and took a pot down from her wall, “I’ll make us some tea.”

“I don’t drink tea,” Zuko said abruptly, which Sokka elbowed him for. He tried to cover up the rudeness with a question of his own,

“Sorry, what was your name again?”

“Kyung,” she answered.

“Ky—sorry?”

“Kyung, dear.”

“Right, of course,” Sokka blinked. Hard. Tried to forget what he’d just misheard, “Sorry, sorry. Of course.”

Zuko shot him a confused frown. Kyung echoed the expression, though much more gently, “There’s nothing to be sorry for?”

Except there was. There always was.

Kyung ladled water from the bucket into the pot, “I’d ask your names, but I’d guess you’d rather not give them. That’s okay. It’s okay, too, if you lie.”

Sokka, indeed, opened his mouth, lie on his tongue, but Zuko cut in first—

“I’d rather not say,” his gaze slid to Sokka with purpose, “I’ve been told I’m a pretty shit liar.”

+++

They took the tea (Zuko had a sip, then put it down—it was nothing like Uncle’s), but they both refused dinner.

As they exited the woman's house, Zuko scanned the area for the agent. He doubted they were going to avoid him forever, and regardless of whatever ideas Sokka had in his head, he was going to fight. Although... he didn’t have the same energy running through him as he’d had his previous encounter, when Sokka had been bleeding on the ground. It was hard to tell whether his fire would be any good. If only he still had his—

“C’mon now, no need for that—that stranger’s moved on,” called the man from the other store, upon seeing the way they were inspecting their surroundings. He was the one to whom the woman had nodded before.

Zuko eyed the stall properly now. This was one of the people who had put out their wares upon seeing them walk into town. The wares in question including the swords which Sokka had been staring after. Which meant, possibly…

“Sokka,” Zuko said, “You go ahead. I’ll be there soon.”

+++

Sokka hadn’t gotten too far along the path when Zuko rejoined him. Correction: when Zuko and a new pair of dual swords rejoined them.

“…Where’d you get those?” Sokka asked, quite reasonably.

“That man.”

“You had money? We could’ve—“

“No,” Zuko interrupted.

“He gave them to you for free?”

Zuko side-eyed him impassively, “No.”

Without meaning to, Sokka stopped in his tracks. He only realized he wasn’t moving when Zuko had passed him by a good stretch and looked backwards at him, confused.

“You… you… what?” Sokka said.

Zuko replied, “C’mon.”

But Sokka couldn’t. Look: he knew, he knew that Zuko could be useful. That Zuko could become useful. That he had it in him, as long as Sokka took this easy, as long as he played his cards right. So maybe it was Zuko’s casual show of superiority, or maybe it was his wound itching and hurting in the evening air, but Sokka couldn’t care about any of that when he asked,

“You remember what Kyung said about her son?”

Zuko’s brow furrowed, whether in confusion or upset he couldn’t tell, “Yeah. I know. This war is... terrible. My Uncle lost his son too—my cousin. Lu Ten.”

“Right.” Sokka didn’t say sorry, not because he wasn’t sorry—he wasn’t some blindly prejudiced idiot, there were Fire Nation soldiers who were young and confused and didn’t deserve to die, just like the countless innocents of the other countries—this war is terrible was true enough, except Zuko definitely didn’t understand that. Or rather, he definitely did—but not in the way Sokka did, “And we lost our mother. You know, you supported Katara on her mission.”

“I know. I’m sorry. This war is terrible,” Zuko repeated. It was such a nebulous way to phrase it—‘this war’—not his nation, not his family, not what they did.

Here was the thing about Zuko: he came in two parts. There were these moments where he was… (The feel of salve over scarring skin, the gentle touch of it, a mouth that breathed campfires and promised, “You’re my priority,”) …bearable. There was this teen with his weirdly strict morals, with his denouncements of murder and war and his bodily aversion to lies. And then there was this person, with fists larger than his hands, who stole from those who were kind to him, who burned villages for the sake of capturing a child.

“I think Azula’s got the right idea. For your side, that is,” Sokka kept his voice from shaking, kept from letting emotion slide into this, “For the Fire Nation to win.“

“What?”

“Yeah,” Sokka shrugged, nonchalant, “Kill the Avatar. Conquer Ba Sing Se. Those are the right moves, strategically.” 

“But she—she…” Zuko’s lips formed that snarl of his, that ugly thing, “She does it wrong. I mean—it’s wrong what she does!”

“Really? But it’s smart, right? For your country. For what the Fire Nation does,” Sokka continued.

“No!” Zuko yelled, took a stormy step closer to where Sokka was stopped, “No, it’s not! The Fire Nation isn’t like her—it’s sharing its wealth and prosperity with the world! If some places don’t accept that kindness, then… they have to be shown its greatness. If you all just accepted it to begin with, then the war could—!"

“So, for example: the raids. The Southern raids. Everyone was just being shown your nation’s greatness,” Sokka summed up, taking a step to meet Zuko’s.

Zuko softened slightly, which was somehow even more infuriating, “What happened to your mother was wrong. What that man did was wrong. I meant it: I’m sorry.”

“Why? Why was it wrong? Just because he got it wrong, because he killed the wrong person? It would’ve been right, if he’d succeeded at his mission?” Here, shamefully, stupidly, Sokka’s voice did shake, “It would’ve been right, if he’d killed Katara?”

Here was the thing about Zuko: he could become useful. But Sokka’s plan didn’t include that. It didn’t need to. Sokka’s plan wasn't going to be around for that long. And he needed to stick to the plan.

Zuko never replied. Sokka started walking.

+++

The campfire dyed down to embers in the night wind. Zuko reached for Sokka’s arm. Sokka grabbed the salve first, 

“I can do that myself.”

+++

The night had passed with the moon behind clouds. The pair walked by sunlight alone. The cold kind of sun. The sharp brightness; the one that reflects light in the way that blades do. It sang clarity, too much clarity, into what they were approaching.

“Oh,” Zuko let out when the stronghold came into view.

Sokka stayed silent.