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you ask zuko for the location of this prison, and you think he's gullible enough. he won’t notice you’re trying to run away to your redemption. and if he does notice, he of all people should understand. this is a matter of honor, a matter of sonhood, a matter of atonement. of sonhood.
what a son you are, you think to yourself. look at what you’ve done. look at katara, alone and angry and grieving again. look at what you’ve done, let the invasion slip through your fingers and let it be caught by azula of all the people on this earth. look at what you’ve done, you, free, and your father in chains.
surely, zuko understands, as you lie to him to his face. “just knowing makes me feel better,” you say. zuko lets it go. you get the feeling he wants to say something else. something reassuring. he says nothing.
that night, you and appa leave.
your dad said to you once, a day or two before leaving for war, “a real man must provide for his family.”
you leave a note behind, t here are fish down the river under the cliff. take my spear.
this is the very least you can do.
soon after leaving you realize bringing a ten tonnes magical monster to what was meant to be a master prison break was not your brightest move. the thought hits you like a truck. the only thing you were good at were mildly decent strategies. you foolishly believed you still had that thing even after that massive failure of an invasion you orchestrated, so really, the joke’s on you.
you land at night. you tell appa to leave. he fights you off a little bit, but he leaves at last, and you’ve got no way out now.
you’ve got no way out.
but it’s done. you are through with plans that get you nowhere, plans that get an army in prison, your father in chains. you are through with your useless strategies, doomed from the start where they bloom in your mind. all they do outside of it is wilt.
now you act. you just do, not plan. and you hope that when you crash, you’ll be remembered kindly