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The palace isn’t what she expects.
It’s enormous and lavish, of course. Gilded trims and flourishes adorn almost every surface, and the cavernous rooms seem to stretch on forever. The empty darkness, the copious ornamentation in red and gold, all of that suits her idea of his family perfectly.
But Zuko’s room, despite the opulence, is almost bare. After Katara helps him to his bed, she sets to work digging for something, anything, that she can use to bandage the wound in the middle of his chest. Still, though she opens one drawer after another and pokes her head into every cabinet she can find, there is nothing but more empty wooden shelves.
“Isn’t there anything I can use for bandages in this place?” she calls back to him. Even a clean tunic will do, but aside from the blankets on his bed and the curtains catching the gentle evening breeze, there doesn’t appear to be any usable fabric anywhere in his whole extravagant bedroom.
His face is pale and his breathing faint and reedy, but there is a strange sort of steadiness in his eyes when he looks her way. “Towels, maybe? In there.” With one arm still wrapped tight around his middle, he gestures vaguely in the direction of a second, slightly less ornate door.
A small, dim washroom greets her on the other side of the door, and though she is relieved to find that the gilded taps still produce twin streams of clear water, every shelf in the room is bare. Katara lets out a sharp breath. They’ve seen burned-out husks of houses less barren than this.
“Nothing,” she says, returning to his side just in time to steady him when he sways. He probably shouldn’t be sitting upright in his condition, but a not-inconsiderable part of her worries that if Zuko lies down before she can bandage his chest, he might not be able to sit up again.
“Hmm. Guess Father burned everything I left behind.” Though the words are somewhat indistinct, his tone still carries an unusual calm. Like this is normal. Like it’s expected for a father to burn all his son’s possessions in a fit of rage.
Katara squeezes his shoulder softly. “If you left anything important, I’m sure we can find it. He couldn’t have burned everything.”
“He could. But—” Zuko’s forehead creases, and it takes a few moments for him to resume. “I don’t think I left anything that matters.”
She hopes not. After all that they’ve been through, losing an important keepsake is the last thing she wants to think about.
“I’ll find something,” she says, half to reassure herself. “As soon as I get you bandaged up, you can get some rest.”
With unsteady hands, she tips out the contents of their packs and sifts through the jumble of clothes, washed and unwashed, until at last she comes across a fresh towel folded up at the bottom of his pack. Finally. There is a soft clattering sound when she shakes the creases out of the fabric, and although Zuko seems interested by the sound, she can’t bring herself to care. Until he is bandaged and comfortable enough to rest, nothing else matters.
Zuko, however, is either much more or much less focused than she is. As she sets to work tearing the cloth into strips and winding them snugly around his chest, he strains from one side to the other. “I heard something. Katara, what was that noise?”
“Something fell out of your pack. Hold still, would you? I don’t need you hurting yourself by squirming around.”
If he hears that, he pretends not to. “I need to see what it is.”
“Hey.” She flicks his forehead to get his attention. “I’ll find out what it was in a minute. Just let me finish this, would you?”
It takes some time, but eventually Katara finishes binding his wound and gets him settled back against his pillows. His cheeks are pale, his forehead glistening with sweat, and yet he grabs hold of her hand and squeezes with a surprising amount of force.
“Is it still there?” He cranes his head to the side as though he might be able to see his possessions spilled across the floor from the bed. “Katara, I need to see—”
With an exasperated sigh, she pushes him back again. “You’re impossible. Have I told you that before?” Then, before he can try to squirm past her and out of bed, she crouches to make a quick search of the floor.
It’s probably nothing, she tells herself. A hard sliver of soap, or a wooden spoon packed into the wrong bag. Zuko is probably just disoriented by pain and fever and too confused to realize that they’re alone here, that the Fire Sages are guarding the palace, and at least for now, they’re as safe as they can hope to be.
But when she searches the floor, nothing stands out to her at first. There are clothes spilled absolutely everywhere, but at first glance, there’s nothing hard enough to explain the clattering sound. Nothing, that is, until a strange distortion in the shadows catches her eye, and her fingers close around a translucent piece of stone roughly the size of her thumb.
Brows creased in bemusement, she perches back on the side of the bed and holds the stone up for him to see. “Have you been carrying rocks around in your pack for fun, or is Toph sneaking them in there?”
To her surprise, Zuko seems relieved, and he reaches weakly in its direction. “I thought I lost that.”
“You didn’t.” She presses the stone into his hand before smoothing a few strands of hair away from his eyes. “So—why have you been carrying a rock around?”
He is quiet for a few seconds, but when he speaks again, his words feel more considered, more deliberate than before. “Remember the crystal catacombs?”
Katara nods. Of course she does. She tries not to think about it too often, but forgetting would be all but impossible.
“I kept a crystal,” he rasps. “It still glows a little when it’s dark outside.”
In the fading evening light, it’s difficult to tell, but she thinks she can almost see it. Despite its milky translucence, the crystal casts almost no shadow at all, and where the shadow should be, there is a faint, blue-green cast instead.
“When I decided to leave, I had to take it with me. The crystal was there the first time we talked. I had to have it with me or I would never find you again.” He falls silent for a few moments, then frowns and shakes his head. “Maybe I’m delirious. That sounds silly now.”
Slowly, Katara shakes her head. “You might be delirious, but it isn’t that silly.”
Zuko rolls his head just far enough to the side to give her a skeptical look.
“I mean it. We’re both still here.” She closes both her hands softly around his. “And as long as you stay here with me, I don’t care if it’s because of the crystal or not. I can believe anything as long as you get better.”