Archive of Our Own

Zuko should have known. The moment the spirit appeared to him, he should have run the other way. But after so long on his own, walking through the Earth Kingdom trying to find himself, he had been desperate for just a bit of conversation.

The moment he had met the spirit’s eyes though, it had been like he was watching his own recent memories play before his eyes. Being turned on by the town—begging for money—stealing Song’s ostrich horse—

One second, Zuko was watching his memories. The next, he was on the ground, writhing in pain as his skin crawled and his bones broke, the spirit’s angry voice in his ear.

“You mock kindness? Then kindness you shall rely on!”

Zuko screamed as a thousand needles started pushing through his skin—and then everything faded to black.

And now here Zuko was, an ostrich horse, walking towards Ba Sing Se because if anyone was going to know how to break the spirit’s curse, it would be Uncle.

Zuko just prayed Iroh had actually finished journeying to the city.

Sokka trudged along, head down and boots scraping across the dirt. He was exhausted from being chased on little sleep, and on top of that, his plan to be the decoy to lead their pursuers away from Aang had been a complete fail. Instead, Sokka had to admit that the man with the map and the plan had gotten himself entirely lost.

He sighed. Appa’s shedding fur might have gotten Sokka into this mess in the first place, but what he wouldn’t give to have the animal now. Just for a bit. Just so Sokka could rest.

Sokka trudged to a stop, tilted his head to the side, and squinted at the tracks he’d almost walked past. They certainly didn’t belong to a sky bison—but looking into the distance and seeing a figure steadily moving away from him, he knew his luck had turned.

An ostrich horse was no Appa, but it was certainly better than nothing!

Stalking forward, making sure to keep his footsteps quiet, Sokka reached into his pack and pulled out a length of rope. A few quick twists, and he had an adjustable loop in his hands, all set and ready to toss over the ostrich horse’s neck. He didn’t have a saddle, but he could work for one in the next town they came across.

Once he was close enough to make out the individual feathers on the ostrich horse’s back, Sokka tossed the loop—and it landed perfectly around its neck, immediately tugging the animal to a stop.

Snorting, the animal looked over its shoulder at Sokka, its unusual golden eyes narrowed in anger. Other than those eyes, its orange beak, and the reddened scar tissue around one eye, the animal was pure black, from its feathers to its mane and tail.

“You’re just a thing of beauty,” he whispered, raising his hand up. The ostrich horse watched him carefully—and when his hand came close to landing on its forehead, the animal snorted and backed away as far as the rope let it.

Sokka let his hand fall. “It’s ok,” he reassured it. “You don’t have to let me pet you. I just need to ride you.”

If Sokka didn’t know better, he would say the animal was giving him the stink eye. As it was, he led the beast towards a boulder sticking out of the sand, stood on the boulder, leaned his weight onto the ostrich horse—and the animal promptly moved to the side, sending Sokka face first into the ground.

Spitting out sand, Sokka looked up and gave the ostrich horse his own stink eye. The animal just stared back.

The Avatar’s friend tried to ride Zuko half a dozen times, and each time, Zuko gave him a pointed “no.” He thought Uncle would actually be rather proud of him; Zuko refrained from stomping the boy to death with his talons. In fact, Zuko refrained from doing much at all. After all, it didn’t matter how long it took Zuko to get anywhere. All this time spent trying to ride him was time the Avatar was spending without his chief strategist—

Zuko paused. Right. That didn’t matter to him anymore, because Zuko was no longer hunting the Avatar.

So it didn’t matter that the Avatar’s friend had just taken his rope off of Zuko’s neck, and was starting to walk away. It didn’t matter that Zuko could just follow him back to the Avatar. It didn’t matter that he was going towards Ba Sing Se. It—

Zuko’s head whipped around to stare at the Avatar’s friend. The Avatar was in Ba Sing Se?!

That was… that was…

Zuko shook his feathers out. Uncle and the Avatar, in the same place? That had to be a coincidence. But if it wasn’t… if it wasn’t, then Zuko would be there to take advantage of it.

Yes, that was his plan. Follow the Avatar’s friend to Ba Sing Se, find Uncle, and if he still wanted to, find the Avatar.

Nodding to himself, Zuko ran after the Avatar’s friend and, coming up behind him, nipped at the tail of his hair.

The boy yelped and glared at him. “Oh, so you’re following me now? Well, shoo! If you’re not going to let me ride you, then I’ll eat you!”

The boy brandished his boomerang. Zuko stared at it, then at the boy, and honked. Zuko grew up with his father and Azula—that was the least threatening threat he had ever heard.

“Ok, I won’t,” the boy admitted. “There’s too much of you for just me. But I could have!”

Zuko snorted.

“Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up, Zuko.”

Zuko froze.

“You don’t mind if I call you Zuko, do you? Makes sense, if you’re following me, and I need something shorter to call you than ‘ostrich horse.’”

Oh. Zuko relaxed. That did make a disturbing amount of sense, considering how long Zuko had been tracking them.

Zuko wasn’t sure if he was offended by that or not.

Even if Sokka wasn’t riding Zuko, Sokka had to admit that the ostrich horse was decent company. He listened, at least, which was more than Sokka expected, and Sokka couldn’t help but chatter away with such decent ears always swiveled over to him.

Though part of that was because Zuko also had the habit of eating Sokka’s hair. Sokka wasn’t sure if that was an ostrich horse thing or a Zuko thing, though he suspected the latter.

By far, though, the best part about Zuko was that he made a great pillow. The part of the Earth Kingdom they were walking through currently was mostly grass and dirt, with very few trees to break the cold wind at night. Sokka was worried that Zuko would have a fear of fire, both instinctually as an ostrich horse and as a result of his scar, but Zuko settled right down by the fire Sokka built, back to the wind and body sheltering the flames.

It didn’t take long after that for Sokka to want to shelter from the wind, too, and the perfect place was between Zuko and the fire.

Moving cautiously, remembering all the times before he’d tried to put his weight on Zuko and been tossed off, Sokka lay his head on Zuko’s stomach.

The ostrich horse stayed quiet. He didn’t move to cuddle Sokka closer—but he also didn’t move away.

Taking it as a success, Sokka started to talk again.

Zuko stared down at the Avatar’s friend—at Sokka. In the middle of his ramblings throughout the day, the name had slipped out, along with the names of all the others: Aang, the Avatar; Katara, the necklace girl; Momo, the flying lemur; Appa, the flying bison; and Toph, the earth bending master Aang had apparently picked up since Zuko last saw them.

Zuko had spent weeks tracking them all over the world, trying to capture the Avatar and rarely getting close, that it was weird to know their names. Weird, and yet—settling.

They were people too, their names said.

Zuko was glad his current plan included the possibility of settling down in Ba Sing Se, because at the moment, he didn’t know if he could capture the Avatar—capture Aang.

“—and then there’s Zuko,” Sokka said suddenly, and Zuko looked at him in interest. “I should probably tell you about your namesake, huh? Well, first of all, his name is also Prince Jerkbender and Prince Ponytail.”

Zuko snorted angrily. If he wasn’t so interested in what the Avatar’s gang all had to say about him, he would have dumped Sokka in the dirt. As it was, he stayed put—and as Sokka went on, confiding in him all the ways that Zuko the person annoyed him—all the ways that Zuko had harassed him and his friends, and bullied the people they love, and burned down villages, and, and, and, the list went on until finally, Sokka slid into sleep with a snore.

But not Zuko.

Zuko had a lot to think about. How was he supposed to regain his honor, if he seemed doomed to lose it more with the route his father offered?

What did that mean about Zuko?

What did that mean about his father?

And when Zuko had already pretty much given up—what did that say about it all?

Zuko wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He was also sure he had to.

The next morning started off fine: Sokka ate jerky from his pack while Zuko grazed, and then they headed off together, a man and his ostrich horse, Sokka in front and Zuko slightly behind. They walked like this through the entire morning and into the afternoon, not another soul in sight.

But of course that couldn’t last.

Sometime around evening, when the sun was just starting to descend, Sokka felt a hard nip at his hair. Zuko had done this throughout the day, but it was usually just a nibble, and so this time, Sokka swung around to walk backwards and glare at Zuko at the same time.

“Softer, buddy!” he scolded. “I know my hair is delicious to you, but that doesn’t mean you can just yank on it like that.”

Zuko honked.

“Yeah, no, I’m not listening to arguments here. Hair hurts when it’s pulled like that, ok?”

Zuko honked again, louder and longer this time, and Sokka frowned. For a normally quiet ostrich horse, that was outside the norm for Zuko. What was he trying to say?

Sokka looked around—and right at that moment, he felt a knife at his throat.

“You should pay less attention to the beast,” a nasally voice said in his ear, “and more attention to your surroundings. Lest you want to end up like this.”

“Nope,” Sokka squeaked, hands hovering carefully over his belt and Boomerang. “Nope, I absolutely do not want to be like this. I don’t suppose you’d let me go?”

“We will,” a different voice laughed, this one more booming, and befitting the thickset man who walked into Sokka’s line of sight.

Sokka swallowed. This second man was twice the size of Sokka, at least.

“We’ll just relieve you of your burden, first,” a third voice said, though Sokka couldn’t see this man anymore than he could the first voice. “Let go of your pack.”

“You know, I think I’m good,” Sokka said. “It’s just some food and water, no money or anything, so don’t you think you can let us go?”

The second man laughed again. “Food and water cost money, don’t they?” And then, growing serious, “Drop the bag. Or your beast gets it.”

Up until that moment, Zuko had been standing fairly calmly in the midst of all this. He’d shied away from the second man, but he hadn’t tried to stay close to Sokka, or to run away, or to do much of anything, really.

But at that threat—or, realistically, the way the voice dropped an octave and hissed at them, Sokka thought—Zuko’s ears went back.

And then Zuko moved.

And Zuko in motion was a thing of beauty—right up until his beak snapped at the neck of the second man, and the man’s booming voice turned to shrieks in the evening air as he scrambled at Zuko’s beak, trying to get free as his blood sprayed through the air from the scrapes Zuko made along his neck.

“Oma and Shu,” the first man gasped, his knife digging into Sokka’s neck for a moment—and then it released as Sokka shoved against the man’s arm, taking advantage of the man’s surprise to swing his arm and knife out and away.

From training in Caldera City to his years of banishment, chasing the Avatar to his bouts with Zhao, Zuko had been in a lot of fights over the years.

This—Zuko wasn’t sure this even qualified as a fight, it was over so quickly. He held the one man still by the neck, ignoring the feeling of a knife stabbing into his leg, while Sokka sent the other two running. Only when their odds were two to one did Zuko release the man, dropping him to the dirt now thick and muddied with the man’s blood.

Turning to Sokka and hiding a wince as it pulled the skin of his stab wound, Zuko honked questioningly at him. What did he want to do with the man?

In the end, Sokka just gestured at Zuko to follow him away from the bloody scene.

“Come on,” Sokka muttered. “We can’t risk them coming back with more people and finding us still there.”

Strategic, Zuko thought. But Sokka didn’t look like he was happy.

Was it—Zuko hesitated. Was it because of Zuko? He would admit, biting and holding as an ostrich horse was more gruesome than the cleanliness of his swords or the quickness of fire. But Sokka was a fellow warrior. Surely he was used to the blood of war?

Or maybe it was because Zuko had waited so long. He wasn’t proud of it, but he had hesitated to attack at first. He had thought about what to do over and over again, debating the pros and cons of stepping in and saving the Avatar’s strategist—of saving Aang’s friend, and of saving Sokka. Because even with all the thinking he had done the night before, he still wanted to go home. And Aang was his way home.

In the end, it had been the bandit’s threat to Zuko himself that got him to choose a side.

Zuko was even less happy about that than he was in how long the decision had taken him. Where was the honor in that?

Sokka and Zuko walked for a decent amount of time after leaving the dead man, until the dirt underfoot had turned to the soft sand of a riverbank and they walked through a forest. It was here that Sokka managed to coax Zuko into stepping into the water, and then to sit so that Sokka could easily wash the blood away.

It wasn’t an easy task. It was a reminder of what had just happened, which Sokka didn’t care for in the slightest. He had killed in Aang’s defense. He knew that. But this—this was different, somehow. Maybe it was because of the amount of blood spilt, and the way it was spilt. Maybe it was because it was in defense of Sokka and Zuko alone. Whatever it was, it made Sokka sick to his stomach, and it made him wish that Katara was there so she could magic the blood away.

And then all the dead man’s blood was gone, but there was still blood oozing out of Zuko’s thigh, because he’d been stabbed while the bandit tried to get free.

“Spirits,” Sokka muttered, poking the wound, and then wincing when Zuko honked at him angrily. “Sorry! Sorry. Let me just—“ Sokka reached for his pack on the riverbank. “I have bandages here, ok? Just let me—“

Zuko shivered, and Sokka pet a hand down the ostrich horse’s flank.

“It’s ok,” he soothed. “It’ll all be ok. Sokka’s here.”

And when it was all said and done, and Zuko nibbled at Sokka’s hair, Sokka almost felt like it was a gesture of thanks.

Zuko dreamt of fire in his sleep. Fire in his leg. Fire in his soul.

Fire on his father’s hand. Fire on his face. Fire burning, always burning, never stopping, consuming everything and anything.

The ashes left behind. Zuko, struggling to rise, Zuko, pleading with his father, but nothing but honking coming out.

Honk. Honk. HONK.

Zuko stumbled upright, fighting to get his legs under him. These stupid, stupid ostrich horse legs; it was so hard to stand on just two of them. But that was what wings were for. Zuko flared them and flapped, hard, until he was finally standing on his own two feet, legs braced and steady.

“Zuko?” A voice asked, and Zuko honked as he turned to look at Sokka—then winced.

Oops. Judging by the black eye forming on the other boy’s face, Zuko had hit him at some point.

“Zuko?” Sokka repeated, and reached with hands widespread towards Zuko’s face. “It’s ok. Nothing’s here but me. You’re safe.”

Zuko snorted and tossed his head. Safe? Didn’t yesterday prove they were anything but?

But then Sokka’s hand landed on Zuko’s good side, and Zuko stilled. Even through all the fur and feathers—Sokka’s hand was warm.

“There’s a good boy,” Sokka murmured, and smoothed his hand down Zuko’s side. His fingers slid between Zuko’s feathers, scratching into the fur underneath.

Life wasn’t safe. But maybe, for now, Zuko could trust in Sokka.

And so for the first time, when morning came, Zuko walked beside Sokka, instead of behind him. He listened to the other boy prattle on, let it wash over him like one of Uncle’s calming teas, and just breathed.

It was in this manner that they spotted a small town off in the distance, and Sokka immediately perked up.

“Would you look at that!” he said, and threw his hands up in a wide, grandiose gesture. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Zuko leant over and snapped at Sokka’s hair. How could he know what Sokka was thinking when he hadn’t said it?

But Sokka just laughed as he dodged Zuko’s beak. “Yeah! Food! I bet they have meat for sale…”

Zuko groaned at the thought. What he wouldn’t give for some meat right now. Unfortunately, he happened to currently be a vegetarian.

Zuko glared at his talons and purposefully kicked up some dirt, then trotted alongside Sokka towards the town. The closer they got, though, the more apparent it became that this wasn’t the small town Zuko had thought it was from a distance. It sprawled out over a few square miles, with a main street branching off into different districts.

The first thing Sokka did was, in fact, buy some jerky for the road. It was the second thing he did that caught Zuko’s attention, though: He asked if there was a stable.

And the answer was yes.

Shifting uncomfortably, Zuko started to hang back a bit again as he followed Sokka. Why did he want to go to a stable? Did he—did he want to trade Zuko for an ostrich horse who would actually let the boy ride him?

Of course that was it. Why would Sokka want an animal he couldn’t ride? It wasn’t like he knew Zuko was really human. What did Zuko have to offer him? He just took up supplies and gave into the weird animal instinct to bite Sokka’s hair.

“I’ll take one bag please!” Sokka chirped, and Zuko jolted and looked up. They had reached the stable. But Sokka wasn’t looking at the stalls or paddock. He was—looking at the supplies?

“You want a bridle and saddle, too?” the owner asked, nodding at Zuko. “I’ll even throw an extra bag of feed in for free, if you do. Mean-looking beast like that, I’ll bet he’s hard to control—“

“Just the food,” Sokka interrupted, glaring at the owner. “And I’ll have you know he is a perfectly well-behaved ostrich horse. But even if he wasn’t, I still wouldn’t buy more than I had to from someone like you.”

Sokka slapped coins into the man’s hand, took the food bag, and walked away. Dumbstruck, Zuko trotted after him.

Sokka liked him? Thought he was well-behaved, even? After not letting Sokka ride him, and biting his hair, and killing a man in front of him?

Sokka glanced back at him, then slowed his pace and reached out to Zuko with one hand, petting it down Zuko’s flank.

“You’re a good boy,” he cooed. “Yes you are. We don’t listen to haters like that.”

Zuko rubbed his head against Sokka’s shoulder. Just once. Just in thanks. And if he felt warm all over, there was no one he could tell, anyway.

Sokka felt cold all over. Which was strange, considering he was in the Earth Kingdom—but then he looked down, and he was in snow. And looking around, this was clearly the Southern Water Tribe—except it was different than he remembered. There were sails on the horizon, and his dad was there, his broad shoulders turning away from Sokka—

“Dad!” he called, but nothing came out. “Dad!” he called again, and again, over and over, pushing through the snow but going nowhere, until finally he tripped and fell facedown in the snow. It soaked into him, even though his clothes should have protected him, and he shivered and curled into a ball and—

And he felt warmth. Not everywhere, just his stomach. Like when Katara was little and had nightmares and still believed her big brother could protect her from the world, and she would climb onto Sokka and bury herself into him.

Sokka woke the next morning to find Zuko had curled his head around and rested it on Sokka. Smiling, he hugged the animal, then eased out from under him and began his morning ritual. They had a big day ahead! Sokka had used the opportunity of an actual town to get his bearings, and it turned out that Ba Sing Se was less than a week’s walk away. Well—two days by ostrich horse, but that would require Zuko letting Sokka ride him. Last time Sokka had tried that, he’d had bruises on bruises.

Zuko woke up with the determination to let Sokka ride him. The boy had been nothing but kind to Zuko, and it would get them to Ba Sing Se faster, which would hopefully have Zuko human again sooner rather than later.

Heaving himself to his feet, Zuko walked towards Sokka and honked for his attention.

“Oh, are you hungry boy?” Sokka asked, looking up from his own lunch. “Here you go.” Sokka dug out a handful of oats from the feed bag and put it in front of Zuko.

Zuko scarfed it up—no need to waste food, and it was much better than the grass he’d been grazing on—then honked again.

Sokka frowned and patted his head. “Sorry, Zuko, but we’ve got to ration that. I don’t—“

Zuko honked right in Sokka’s face, as long and loud as his ostrich horse lungs would let him. Then he positioned his back right next to Sokka, and honked again.

Sokka gaped. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying? Wait. You’re an ostrich horse. You don’t talk. Well, you honk, a lot, but—“

Zuko honked again. He didn’t mind Sokka’s rambling, but couldn’t he do it on Zuko?

“Right,” Sokka laughed. “What am I thinking? You’re an ostrich horse. You’re not saying anything.”

Even so, Sokka eyed Zuko nervously, and Zuko pointedly looked away. He didn’t want to find out what Sokka would do if he realized his ostrich horse was actually the boy who had chased him all over the world.

“Ok,” Sokka muttered, putting his pack on his back and standing on Zuko’s good side. “This is just like riding Appa, or one of the polar bear dogs back home.”

No it was not! Zuko sidestepped away from Sokka, glaring at him. You had to be careful with ostrich horses! Their legs had strong muscles, but brittle bones, and they didn’t heal easily, so you had to be careful. And Zuko’s stab wound had only just scabbed over—

Sokka leant his full weight on Zuko, and Zuko froze. He barely dared to breathe as Sokka carefully swung his leg over Zuko’s back, then sat up and grabbed a hold of the mane at the base of Zuko’s neck.

“There’s a good boy,” Sokka whispered, giving him a pat. “Just like that. Do you think you can walk now?”

Walk? Zuko scoffed. He could do better than that. He broke out into a run—and promptly felt the loss of Sokka’s weight. Slowing and turning around, he found Sokka staring back at him from the ground.

Oops.

Well, maybe if they went slow?

And so it went. Zuko walked for long miles at a time, stepping carefully and aware of Sokka’s precarious balance on his back. Then, when he thought Sokka felt comfortable enough—and, really, when Sokka’s hold was reassuring enough—Zuko would start trotting, and then galloping, with Sokka hanging on tight. Each time, Sokka hung on a bit longer. And yet, inevitably, each time would end with Zuko circling back around to a fallen Sokka.

If that had been their day, Zuko would have been happy. But of course that couldn’t be it. No—instead, during one of the times Zuko was walking, he and Sokka crested a rise to find a metal behemoth before them.

Even before a door opened, Zuko already knew who was inside.

Just like he knew he wasn’t ready. Not now. Not like this.

Which would he choose: His honor, or his sister?

Sokka stared at the familiar machine before him and Zuko. It was huge, and a masterpiece of engineering, and yet—it was also the ugliest thing he had ever seen. And Sokka had seen the ship human Zuko sailed on.

And then a door clanked open, and Sokka’s attention immediately focused on the three girls climbing out. Dressed in Fire Nation clothes, one of them seemed to have an entire armory of knives on her. The other two were weaponless—but having lived with Katara and Aang, Sokka was well aware that didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous.

“Well, well,” the lead girl said, switching between studying her nails and staring at Sokka. “I haven’t seen clothes like that since I fought the Avatar’s water bending master. I’ll bet you’re the missing boy they were talking about.”

Part of Sokka wanted to protest being called a boy. He was very much a man, thank you very much. But that part was tiny compared to the part that focused on the first part of the girl’s speech, and cried, “You’ve fought my sister?”

Now the lead girl’s eyes focused entirely on him. “Oh?” she smirked. “Sister? Mai, Ty Lee, I think we should reunite them.”

That was all the warning Sokka got before the girl threw blue flames at him and Zuko, and for a moment, Sokka stayed still, expecting Zuko to move—but the ostrich horse stayed still, just staring at the flames, and so Sokka cursed and threw himself off the animal, and the flames followed him as he whirled around and threw Boomerang at the girl—

Just as the girl with bright pink clothes leapt at him, fingers dancing to certain points on his body as he dodged away. He did not want to find out what those hits would do to him. Unfortunately, dodging her attack put him right in the path of the girl with knives, and then the lead girl again, and Sokka could only dodge and block so many times.

But he wasn’t getting the chance to hit back. It was three on one, and despite all three girls being younger than him, they were clearly skilled—especially if they had fought Katara and lived to tell the tale.

Panting, Sokka dodged a roundhouse kick from the pink-wearing girl, and ended up right back where he had started: Next to Zuko, the ostrich horse’s bad eye staring blankly at him. And then blue flame leapt at them, and Sokka dodged—

And Zuko reared back, flame painting his scar in blue light as he let out a loud, protesting honk.

Sokka let himself have one, single second to reassess the fight, now that Zuko appeared back in it—and then he leapt on Zuko and dug his heels into the ostrich horse’s side.

“Run!” he gasped, and Zuko ran. Zuko ran, and ran, and didn’t stop even when they’d left the girls far behind. Not even when Sokka screamed in his ear and pulled on his mane, begging for Zuko to stop with every breath left in his aching, hurting body.

Zuko ran. And Sokka held on the best he could.

Zuko had chosen. He’d chosen, even if nobody else knew he had, and he’d chosen Sokka, he’d chosen the Avatar, he’d chosen his own honor.

He had abandoned his sister. He had run from her, her and her fire that arced towards his eye until all he had seen was his father—

But at least that had snapped him out of his frozen state. Had made him choose.

And now, he realized as his panic finally started to fade, his body was making him choose to stop. Slowing to a walk, and then to a halt, Zuko hung his head and panted as he felt Sokka stumble down. His entire body was a wash of pain, from a sharp throbbing in his right leg to the burning ache of his lungs.

“You poor thing,” Sokka whispered. Zuko lifted his eyes as he felt a hand under his beak, then leaned into Sokka’s hand as the boy stroked it down Zuko’s brow. “You want to lay down for me sweetheart?”

Lying down sounded perfect right now, actually, though Zuko’s attempt at it turned out more like him falling to the ground, with Sokka scrambling around him trying to break his fall.

They settled in like that, just the two of them: Sokka with his legs criss-cross, and Zuko half on him, half off him.

Sokka leaned down and, lips a hair’s breadth away from Zuko’s head, whispered, “Thank you for saving me.” And then he pressed a kiss to Zuko’s forehead—and Zuko’s body began to shift.

His bones broke and feathers receded under his skin, and when it was all said and done, Zuko lay, fully human once more—thankfully fully clothed—in Sokka’s lap.

For a moment, they stared at one another in shock. Then Sokka jumped away and dumped Zuko to the ground. Zuko scrambled away from him in turn, sure he was about to be killed or abandoned. Why wouldn’t Sokka choose either of those? For all he knew, Zuko had tricked him, pretending to be an animal to get close to Sokka.

And—well—if Zuko had been the boy he was a few months ago, he probably would have done exactly that.

But he wasn’t that Zuko anymore. And, he realized as he looked at Sokka, the boy he had come to know would never kill him. It wasn’t who Sokka was.

“Please just let me explain,” Zuko rasped, moving onto his knees in the seiza position. His right leg ached at it—he’d definitely injured it during his wild run—but for now, he ignored it and looked up at Sokka.

For a long time, Sokka didn’t look back. He paced, and waved his hands around, and muttered to himself. At one point, he stopped to gawk at the ostrich horse feed bag for a solid ten seconds. But he never looked at Zuko until, finally, he dropped to the ground across from Zuko, leaned forward, and said seriously, “You have five minutes. Spill.”

Sokka didn’t know what he wanted out of Zuko’s explanation, but whatever it was, he didn’t get it. There was no “aha” moment where he decided to ditch Zuko and run, or a moment where Sokka understood everything. Zuko’s story was a jumbled mess of angry spirits, half-thought out decisions, and emotional undertakings. It left Sokka with a confusing mix of wanting to punch Zuko for unintentionally tricking him, and to hug Zuko for saving him. Twice!

Zuko had saved Sokka from both bandits and the Fire Nation, and it was that, more than anything else, that had pushed Sokka to listen to Zuko in the first place. But now… what did Sokka do now? The two Zuko’s Sokka had known were very different—one had chased and fought him, the other had cuddled with and saved him, Tui and La, he had cuddled with Prince Jerkbender—and yet, they were the same person. A person who had apparently grown and changed, if Zuko was telling the truth.

Scarily enough, Sokka thought he was. But what did Sokka do about that?

“You saved me,” Sokka said. “So you can travel with me. It would be stupid for us to separate so close to Ba Sing Se, anyway. But when we reach the ferry, you’re gone. Got it?”

Zuko nodded.

And with that, they settled in for the night. Sokka even let Zuko bend to light a fire—but when Zuko lay on one side of it, Sokka lay on the other. Even though the ground was cold with all his sleeping gear on Appa, and no ostrich horse to lean against.

And not one part of Sokka wished that he could still cuddle with Zuko. Not one.

It was different, walking with Sokka when Zuko was human again. They still walked side by side, but Zuko made sure there was a decent amount of space between them. He figured Sokka wouldn’t want them accidentally bumping arms or anything.

Perhaps the biggest difference, though, was how much Sokka talked. Before, Zuko had gotten used to listening to Sokka prattle on. He’d learned a lot of things that way, from Sokka’s favorite food—lion seal jerky—to how to skin said lion seal. But now, Sokka was near silent.

There was one instance, though, a few hours into the journey, when Sokka joked, “It was easier when you were an ostrich horse. I could just ride you.”

“I preferred that time, too,” Zuko said. Even if his shape had been a lie, Zuko thought he had been the most honest with himself as an ostrich horse, because no one could judge him for it. No one but Sokka, anyway, who had thought Zuko was just an animal, and cared for him because of it. Zuko… if he was being honest with himself now, Zuko had come to care for Sokka in turn.

He missed the relationship they had had.

Apparently, Sokka disagreed. He said nothing in response to Zuko, and so they lapsed back into silence.

And that silence followed them all the way to Ba Sing Se’s ferry.

“Here we are,” Sokka announced, false cheer to his voice as he waved at the ferry. What else was he supposed to do, though? Cry because his loyal ostrich horse was leaving him? He’d never had a loyal ostrich horse, it had been Zuko the entire time.

Zuko, looking lost now as he stared around the port. Zuko, who had done so much for Sokka. Zuko, who had done so much to Sokka before.

And yet, Sokka’s legs felt numb as he tried to walk away. What was it Aang was always preaching? Forgiveness?

Aang did need a firebending teacher…

Sighing, Sokka turned back to Zuko. “Come on,” he said, gesturing at the ferry. “Let’s go.”

And Zuko followed.