Chapter Text
With the coronation to firelord and everyone celebrating relatively complete, Zuko wandered the quiet palace in search of a certain earthbender. When he found her, he walked up quietly, trying not to be awkward about the gesture he was about to give her.
“Toph, I wanna apologise for earlier.”
Toph stopped running her hand along a plaque's engravings that she couldn't actually decipher, and turned towards the new firelord’s voice.
“Why?” She asked.
Zuko responded with an Uncle-like proverb, though it wasn't like Uncle at all. It was far more direct and simple, and far more bluntly presented.
“I shut you down.” He said, referring to the time where Aang had gone missing and Toph had persisted that they go as a pair to search for him, claiming something about ‘everyone else got life changing trips with Zuko’ and dumping her past on him like he was a… Well, dumping ground. “You needed to express yourself and I didn't listen.”
Toph chuckled slightly, letting her softer side come to the forefront now that all the guests had disappeared, and the war had been terminated. “It's okay. I probably should have thought about dumping my stuff on someone who had Loserlord Ozai as his dad before complaining about anything.”
Zuko quietly chucked in response. But it was a sad chuckle, one that forced its way through held back tears.
That was when Aang came running in the room, suddenly back as a little kid again now that the weight of the world was off his shoulders. with the two water tribe siblings following after him.
“Zuko! Toph! This place is so cool!” Began the twelve-year-old Avatar.
Sokka, putting his boomerang back in its holster where it belonged, added onto Aang's comment with “Yeah! We just checked out the Agni Kai chamber. I never expected it to be so majestic.
Katara took a step forward to the now rather quiet Firelord. “Have you ever seen it?”
“Of course I have.” Zuko grumbled, not making eye contact. “It's my palace.”
Even the blind girl's eyes lit up in excitement. “Is an Agni Kai like the firebender version of Earth Rumble?”
Zuko had never even heard of Earth Rumble before, but answered bluntly, as if the answer couldn't be any more obvious.
“No.”
While Katara furrowed her brow, wondering the path of this conversation (and whether she should take ahold of it), Aang, who was perhaps the most oblivious about Zuko's suddenly sour mood, kept talking with his big smile.
“The architecture is exquisite! I never knew the fire nation could build something so beautiful—”
Zuko began speaking just as Aang finished. “The only thing about the chamber that matters is what happened in there.
By this time Zuko had his hand on the top of his left cheek.
Now it was Katara’s turn to be nosy, as she asked “What happened?” The waterbender tried to do so out of care, remembering the fight Zuko and herself had with his sister, and noticing the firelord's small gesture, but her word must have come off with a harsher tone, because Toph put her own two copper pieces in.
“Yeah princy-poo!” The metal-bender added while crossing her arms. “What happened?”
Back in the voice of a Zuko who wanted to capture the avatar rather than be best friends with him, Zuko responded with a simple “*Nothing* happened.”
“Nothing?” Aang pondered, still sharing half a brain with Sokka and not knowing that this was actually a serious conversation.
“It's an Agni Kai chamber. People got burned.” Were Zuko's last words before he left the room.
Katara took a step back to think. “People got burned” Zuko had said. And she quietly echoed. He's said it directly, stating the information as undeniable fact, and all while faintly holding onto the left side of his face.
She realised just how little they knew Zuko. They knew Ozai had been his father, and they knew he had been hurt before, but they had never really known how. No one had asked, and Zuko had never said.
But perhaps it was time to learn the Firelord’s story.