Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The sky was not a friend. Wind was not friendly. Air itself was an enemy.

It caressed Zuko's skin with deceptive gentleness, but he had seen too many storms to be fooled by it. Invisible and silken, it lulled people into dismissing its presence. However, there was nothing deadlier than something unseen.

Breezes carried ash. Wind fanned flames. Dry air split into lightning and crash clouds into rolling thunder. The elements fed into an intoxicating dance, each one fueling the other until the distinction between each became blurred and pointless. All that he needed to remember was that no matter how benign something appeared, it always carried the potential for fire.

Today, the sky was blue and unmarred by clouds. The sea was no choppier than usual and Seagull-cats wheeled overhead as a ship coursed through the water in the distance, cutting through the swells like a knife. The crew shouted toward one another, joking about the prices they’d fetch once they got to port. They had no idea they were being watched.

Zuko observed it set anchor, eyes dissecting the crew from his vantage on a rooftop onshore. They were a rough bunch dressed in many colors too scattered to belong to one nation. He was familiar with their type; thieves, traders, slavers. He was an expert at spotting them these days. It didn't matter that this time they were only fencing stolen goods. No matter how pretty they cleaned up he could smell the blood on their hands.

This crew, manned by Captain Rao, would only stay at port for three days before vanishing into the ocean again. They were good enough at what they did that fencing goods was quick, easy, and efficient. Unless somebody know exactly who they were tracking they’d escape back into the water like rats.

Which was why he was here. On commission.

His hand tapped his bow, debating how messy he could be… but no, no killing. Not today. It would be easier, but dead meant less money and more attention, both things he wanted to avoid. Besides, ranged weaponry was too easy. There was nothing fun about an easy job.

(He was learning a lot of different definitions for the word "fun." It was something June tried to drill into his head the few times they'd worked together last year. Zuko liked to think he was a quick student.)

Since meeting June, Zuko had learned that the more challenging the job, the easier it was to distract himself from the hum of static in his heart. Focusing his entire being on practical skills meant he has less space for bending ones. By creating bigger problems, he could ignore the one burning a hole in his heart.

Pirates, murderers, thieves. People branded bad were now Zuko's to hunt, and these missions calmed the storm in his mind. They were silken breezes caressing his consciousness, convincing him he had control.

(Sometimes, when he plucked a wanted poster off the wall, he thought he heard Shinu ordering him into action and Gao whispering "well done.")

This job was like a dozen others. In, out, cut, slice, collect, repeat. He'd be done before sunset.

Zuko was about to get a closer look of the ship's layout when a commotion occurred. Some kids entered the vessel, baby-faced and naive. They stood out like a sore thumb, not even looking out for pickpockets. Zuko doubted they even knew the man haggling with them was a pirate. Easy marks, and everyone but them knew it.

But apparently, not as foolish as he'd first thought.

They ran out of the ship exactly three minutes later. The girl had a suspicious bulge in her tunic, the shape of a tube or scroll. Crewmates chased after them, screaming about theft.

Zuko narrowed his eyes. Stealing from pirates. How original.

…

The kids sped up his plan by gathering the pirates in one place, making it easy for Zuko to be there too.

The pirates had been so distracted looking for the kids that they were easy to hunt. Their numbers made it a challenge to beat them by himself though, which is why Zuko picked off the scouting party with his bow before confronting Captain Rao.

It had been a long two years on his own, wandering from place to place and searching for belonging. Some days he still felt disconnected and numb. On others, he burned from the inside and raged. Something in him was broken—perhaps it had always been? Maybe that’s why his parents hadn’t wanted him. They must have sensed it when he was born—this lack of control that ate away at him, a fire that had been banked too long. They hadn’t wanted to be too close, for risk that he’d explode.

Tonight his blood sang inside him like lightning in a storm cloud and he let it fill him as he approached the riverside. He kept a firm grip on the lid of his box though. His fire could burn as hot as it wanted, but it wasn’t allowed to leave his heart. Tragedies like the Tristeza were not to be repeated.

He found them quickly (pirates weren't subtle) and the girl was tied to a tree.

Zuko shot the man leering at her in the head before stepping out of the shadows.

He could lie to himself and say this was strictly business, but the truth was messier. He'd almost laughed when the children had robbed the pirates earlier (pirates being looted was irony at its finest) and he couldn't remember laughing in a very long time. So, when he'd heard the pirates were hunting them down he’d decided to follow.

“Who are you?” The girl asked. “Why are you—”

Another pirate ran at Zuko with their blades drawn. He drew, aimed, and fired an arrow into the man’s face. It ripped through his skull and embedded itself into the hull of the ship behind him.

Zuko already had his dao out when he turned his eyes back to the girl, muscles loose and ready to spring into motion.

She was young, wide-eyed, with irises so blue they shone in the moonlight. He knew what she was even without her dark skin and the thick, indigo winter clothes she wore; Water-tribe.

“Blue is worth more than sapphires these days, remember that kid.”

He stepped in front of her, weapons ready as the remnants of Rao's crew hissed and fumbled for their weapons.

“Don’t worry, I’ll rescue you from the pirates," he told her in a raspy, rusty voice.

He wasn’t letting anyone else be put in a brig and sold.

He turned to the rabble in front of him, blades ready, and dashed forward. In the dance that followed, red covered the earth and filled the water. Zuko moved with fluidity that was almost poetic, and although he was focused completely on fighting he couldn't help but wonder if it was wrong to only feel this alive during times like this. When he was simply a blade twirling in the dark. The dance, the clang of weaponry, the vibration of steel against bone… it was as electrifying as it was natural, yet each swipe of his swords promised pain.

Was this so different from what Azulon wanted him to do, killing these men? Hunting people down, no matter how twisted they were? Did it matter who a person was when they died, or did killing anyone carry the same weight?

None of his questions mattered, in the end. It had been his choice to take this job. Right or wrong, it was still his decision. His actions that put men to the ground. That was comfort and condemnation enough, and as he twirled and spun with calculated abandon, it was almost possible to ignore their screams.

He cut the girl free halfway through the fight. She stuttered thanks, but he saw her trembling.

"I mean it, thank—" she said.

Captain Rao chose that moment to strike. It was only Zuko's long training that helped him block the sword swung at his torso.

“Go!” he told the girl, and his voice sounded like swords and sharp edges.

Sand was kicked into his face, an iguana parrot screeched, and a peal of thunder rang out overhead.

His world honed back in on the fighting, and by the time he stood alone on the banks, surrounded by moaning bodies as blood dripped from his swords, the girl had long disappeared.

That was fine. He didn't know what would have happened if she'd stayed. His fingers jerked with excess static, and he felt pinned by the memory of her eyes piercing him.

Icy blue and so, so scared.

…

Far above, hidden in the clouds and rising a supposedly extinct bison, Katara argued with her brother about the validity of stealing from pirates.

The banter felt stiff on their tongues, the jokes forced.

Katara would never be more grateful to the stranger who'd saved her, buying her time to find the others and run. They'd been clad in shadows, the only thing visible under the waning moon were their dim, amber eyes and the dull shine of swords.

She'd call them an unsung hero, except that her hands still hadn't stopped shaking and none of their group had been brave enough to go back to the river when they'd seen what happened to the pirates' scouts deeper in the woods.

None of them were strangers to death, but the way those men had been cut down was haunting. Their expressions were empty, like they hadn’t even known the blade had struck them. There were stories of spirits that could do that—kill you so fast you didn’t know you were dead—and the stranger’s eyes stood out in her memory, along with the brightness of his blade.

She wanted to thank him. She also wanted to run.

Katara clutched her pilfered scroll tighter, wondering when she'd become such a coward.

(In front of her, Sokka sat at the reins and stared grimly ahead, the smell of iron still thick in the air. Even if Katara had been willing, there wasn't a force on earth that would have gotten him to take her back there.)

Chapter Text

Blue eyes haunted him. Made him unstable. Gave the lightning a chink in his box to worm through and burn all his progess to the ground.

His hands shook daily, the burning begging for release. It remembered the Tristeza and wanted an encore. The ruins of his box were engulfed with hungry fire, and he couldn’t keep it contained.

Zuko’s dreams were full of the voices that agreed with the fire; talent like his should not be wasted. Not that it was talent. He was a work of art, all credit went to his sculptors. They deserved to have him back. What food was a tool if it didn’t serve a purpose?

He woke in smoke-filled inn rooms, choking on the smell of regret. The sheets would smolder under his fingers, moments away from igniting into a blaze.

Too dangerous to stay near wooden docks and rickety houses, he turned his eyes away from the ocean’s thunderous waves. He walked through plains and jungles, canyons and rivers. Further still from people and their wary eyes. Zuko ran so far that the memory of blue eyes faded.

The seasons changed. The wind grew drier, harsher. The sun burned the clouds into nothing, and Zuko let it guide him away from people. Eventually, forests gave way to dunes and an ocean of sand.

The desert was hot in a way he couldn’t escape. It boiled his blood until he covered himself in thick cloth, hiding from the cruel sun. There was no salt breeze to take away the sun’s power and the trees were only a mirage in the distance. The sand slid underneath him, shifting like a wave.

Zuko drank it in with a quiet resignation. He didn’t know if he loved it, just like he didn’t know if he loved most things. When his fire had woken up, it was because he’d burned with too many feelings for his skin to contain. To keep it inside, he had to stay numb, and that was a burden his shoulders were proving too weak to carry.

He spent months in the Si Wong desert, burning under angry sun. Jobs were plentiful, though the pay was poor. Zuko took what was available and threw himself into surviving. He’d been trained for missions in sandy environments, but only in theory. The practical adjustments were steep; What to eat, where to find water, when to sleep. Zuko had to master them if he wanted to stay alive, and he did so quickly.

Part of him wished he wasn’t so good at living. It was bitter work.

...

Several months into his life of sand and dust, Zuko arrived at the oasis.

It was high noon—objectively, the worst time to travel in the desert, but he'd known he'd reach the town before the heat made him collapse, and he wanted a meal that hadn’t been through three sandstorms at the bottom of his pack.

The locals avoided looking at him. A child made the sign of warding as he strode past. People stared and whispered, and never in a good way.

Zuko knew he was intimidating. There was an air about him that made hackles rise. Maybe it was the blankness of his face when it was uncovered, or the black bow strapped to his back. It could have been the knives on his chest, or the dao on his belt. Or maybe people just knew by looking that he was missing something humans were supposed to have.

Dirty wanted posters hung on the bar’s outside wall, peppered with odd jobs and local news. Zuko peeled off an extermination request and dropped it in front of the barkeep—along with a buzzard vulture’s severed head.

"Hive's dead," Zuko said, palm stretched out for his reward.

The man looked at his hand like it was still covered in blood (it wasn't, Zuko had washed it seven times in the sand today) but gave him his pay.

Zuko counted the coins slowly, caressing each one with steady fingers before he pocketed them. He nodded to the man and bought a drink.

Buzzard vultures were hard to kill, so almost nobody tried. It was easy money for Zuko. Aim, release, repeat until all of them were still shadows on the desert floor.

It wasn’t his favorite job. The animals were pests, harming them protected others. But all the same he would kneel beside fallen birds and pet their feathers, wondering if they could love, and if they would be missed.

Nobody spoke as he found a seat in the corner, far from the light. Zuko had given them a cursory glance, counted the weapons and appraised the threats. These were hard people, weathered by the sands like he had been weathered by Hui Lung, but they did not want to hurt them. They did not care enough to bother.

The only oddities were an Earth Kingdom man at the bar, and a group of children in the corner.

Zuko’s gaze flitted toward them. His eyes met the taller girl’s, and all the sound fell away.

Blue.

Like the ocean.

Pirates.

***

“Who’s that?” Katara asked, pointing to the corner.

The barman winced as he followed her gaze. Sokka turned and saw someone wrapped in gray cloth in the far corner, idly turning a coin over in their hand. It was a man (probably), dressed like a sandbender, but minus the goggles. He had about twenty weapons strapped to him that Sokka could see, and all the tables around him were eerily quiet.

“That’s the tracker, he don’t come here much.” The barman said, wiping sand off a rusty metal cup. “Best you stay away from him, those swords aren’t for show.”

“I can barely sense his heartbeat,” Toph muttered, scowling at nothing. “Dumb wood floors. But he’s calm. Like, weirdly calm.”

The tracker looked up and locked eyes with Katara. There was no change to his expression, not even a twitch, but the air somehow got thicker, more electric, and he stood and marched to the door. His footsteps didn’t make a sound as he went, even though Sokka knew the floorboards were creaky.

“Did I scare him?” Katara whispered to Aang, who shrugged.

“You don’t scare anyone, princess. What is his deal?” Toph said, crossing her arms. Her head was cocked to the side; those quiet footsteps had her attention.

“Yeah, I also want to know,” Sokka said. “We didn’t even say anything.”

The way he’d left, iy was like he was being chased by Koh.

“He’s a bounty hunter, I reckon,” the barman said, “does jobs nobody else will touch—the dangerous ones like buzzard vulture extermination. Don't know how he manages to kill so many all by himself, but we don’t ask questions we don’t want answers to. Aside from the sand benders, he’s the only one who knows this desert like the back of his hand.”

That was cool, seriously cool, in Sokka’s opinion. The twinkle in Katara’s eyes said she thought so too.

“We should talk to him,” Katara said, and Sokka wanted to groan.

Cool though that backstory may be, hunting down Mr. Mystery for a conversation was not an option.

“We’re not wasting our beautiful vacation on another one of your dumb crushes,” he told her, using his sternest Big Brother voice.

“I don’t have a crush!” Katara whisper-shouted.

“He’s a mysterious baddy with two swords,” Sokka countered. “I know your type.”

It would be just their luck if the tracker had a vendetta against the Fire Nation and a tragic backstory that made them do things like blow up dams and hold innocent Water Tribe warriors hostage. Sokka did not want another Jet incident. He’d been down that road once before and did not want to go through that again.

“You’re such an idiot,” Katara said with a scowl. “He just looked familiar, that’s all.”

“Pfft, right.” Sokka rolled his eyes. “Tell me, sister dearest, where could you have possibly seen him before?”

This was their first time in the desert. Sokka hadn’t been born yesterday.

Katara frowned, brow furrowing, and opened her mouth to say something that would have undoubtedly turned their conversation into an hour-long argument.

Luckily, Aang distracted them all by bumping into an anthropology professor from the Earth Kingdom, and less than an hour later they were scrambling up Appa to search for a lost library.

As they ascended into the sky, Sokka caught a glimpse of the mysterious tracker leaving town as well. The guy’s clothing was off-white in the daylight, and he blended into the desert like a ghost.

Only black of his low ponytail, inky dark and oddly silky even at a distance, gave him away. The tracker looked up at Appa as they passed, head turning only slightly. The rest of him was like a statue, so still it looked wrong.

Sokka rolled his eyes again and turned back to the reins. He was glad Katara hadn’t spotted the guy. She probably would have insisted he come with them.

Crisis averted.

Chapter Text

Silence was a beautiful thing. Zuko had time to appreciate it as he fled the oasis.

Through the day and night he walked, the world an endless void shrouded in an absence of sound. Even the wind could not penetrate it, no matter how loudly it howled. It was friend and foe, protection and a curse. It was everything in his world, and as long as it defined him he could not make a sound. Even his footsteps were quiet, controlled.

He did not think of pirates or cargo, or little girls with blue-black eyes that screamed at him in brigs. He'd saved her and she was gone. He was gone, and the Si Wong desert would make sure he stayed that way.

A wisp of smoke curled up from his fingertips, as if it could sense the chinks in his armor. Zuko knelt down and buried his hands in the sand until it stopped, thinking no thoughts and counting only his breath.

The wind blue gently around him. The sun was too hot. He should be resting, but he had to move further from the oasis. He was still too close.

Going to town in the first place had been a mistake. Zuko had never been taught fire bending. All he knew about bending came from lessons on how to subdue fire benders (“aim for the lungs and throat, wait until they’re in the air. Outlast them and get in close. They don’t burn easily, but they know better than to light themselves on fire”).

He didn’t know how to turn his fire off. No matter how focused he was, or for how long he maintained the nothing required to keep lightning trapped in his heart, sooner or later the box would open and the lightning would come out.

His knees burned where he was knelt in the sand. Air scattered debris in the wind, fire consumed whatever it touched, water swallowed what sunk into its waves, but earth buried everything in its embrace the same way silence did.

Why had that girl been there? He must’ve misremembered, gotten someone’s face confused with hers—except Zuko did not forget faces. He knew better than that.

Zuko didn't have his own voice. Didn't know if he could ever find it. But in the absence of his sense of self, the echoes of his mistakes were a crescendo. All he could do was stand and keep walking, uncaring what direction he went so long as it was away.

But no matter how fast and far he fled, he could never escape what he was running from. The girl was a reminder, soaking his hands with memory’s phantom blood. Actions could not be undone. Zuko could never forget what he was.

The burning in his chest was either from bending or emotion. Zuko did not know how to distinguish between the two. Didn’t need to, really. Both were bad, because they made him lose control in equal measure.

He was stranded in the Si Wong desert, brittle and help together with straps and knives, and he couldn’t keep doing this. The pattern was repeating; seeing things, letting emotion overpower his rationale, palms hot as he lost his focus. He was losing control, and beneath the burning was a colder fire.

The fire, Zuko feared, but the electricity that danced in his heart had a voice that crooned to him during every thunderstorm, begging him to unlock its cage and release a lifetime of scalding light into the sky. The thunder in his blood was made of all the words he couldn’t say, and Zuko’s heart stuttered at the thought of it escaping.

A buzzard vulture screeched in the distance, barely visible on the horizon. Zuko marched toward it. The sun soaked into his clothes, warm and inviting and false. He rubbed his face, the pads of his fingers rough and calloused. His fingers were laced with soft, spider-web scars, courtesy of Hui Lung.

The instructors who’d turned Zuko into this—they’d never lost control. Never struggled with the beating hearts in their chest of the burning that wanted to ignite on every blade of grass. Their hearts had already been pulled out of them. What bliss, an existence without care would be.

Zuko paused to put another pair of gloves on (not red, never red), and focused on the desolate cry of the birds rather than the buzz in his veins. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep his inner flame contained, but it wouldn't for much longer. Not if he became so rattled by Water Tribe girls that his fingertips spewed smoke. Fire was always hungry, and he was running out of fuel to give it.

Whenever this happened, he’d go somewhere new, praying novelty would help bury the sting of his soul trying to escape, but Zuko was running out of sanctuaries. The sea had helped before now, but the confines of a wooden ship were too risky, and too many of his jobs had left him soaked in blood. The forest had been a disaster. Too much burnable underbrush, too many Earth Kingdom scouts hidden in the trees. It was only in the inhospitable wastes of the Si Wong Desert that he could breathe again. Fires out here had nothing to feed on.

If he were stronger, he could stay here forever, putting foot in front of foot as he traversed the endless dunes away from anything he could hurt.

But he was tired. So, so tired.

Another buzzard cawed. Zuko stared at the sun, then looked away. He tapped his fingers against the edge of his dao and simplified the problem to its barest essentials.

No control.

No respite.

Only a matter of time before he lost control again.

A stray thought kissed his ear, whispering of a way this could all be solved. It was one Zuko had been having ever since he left the Yuyan: if he couldn’t fix it, his tutors could.

Hui Lung and Gao hadn’t finished molding him, which was why Zuko’s fire had found its way out. But if he finished becoming what Azulon wanted, it stood to reason that the fire would go away. He would not be a person anymore, just a knife. The ache that’d plagued him since he was a child would finally leave.

It would hurt, to give it up, but also a relief. To care was a burden. To live, a hardship. To be someone else’s object—Zuko knew how to do that. It was all he knew how to do.

It wouldn’t be too bad. He would be useful. Needed. Punished for deserting, of course, but not killed. Azulon had spent too long training him to waste such an excellent tool. Court still needed to be cleaned. Zuko could taste the blood on the air from here. Caldera was drenched in it.

It was a bad idea, a stray thought he should have batted away like he had every day for the past two years . . . but Zuko didn't know what else to do. Something had to give, and serving the Fire Lord was why he had been created. If he hadn’t run from that destiny in the first place, maybe he wouldn’t feel so hollow.

What right did he have, anyway, for selfishly thinking he was capable of having a life of his own? When Zuko had left, he’d burned with hope that thinks could be different—that he could be different—but all the last two years had taught him was that he was a monster inside and out. He’d hurt so many people, all under his own volition, for only a handful of coins.

Zuko’s freedom wasn’t a gift. Just more proof he didn’t deserve it.

The buzzard vultures continued to crow. They did not have beautiful cries. They were diving at the ground a quarter mile off, some unfortunate on the ground. It could have been anything from an iguana snake to travelers.

Zuko shifted his bow off his back as he tracked the bird’s positions. Dots of black against endless blue, almost untouchable, but not as high up as stars. They could still be hurt.

He shot them from a thousand feet away. He didn’t wear red gloves anymore, but he’d earned them. Felling the animals was as easy as blinking. Once three were downed, the survivors fled with panicked cries.

Zuko waited until they were specks of nothing, then walked toward the fallen targets to collect his arrows.

It was… wasteful to squander his talents on buzzards. If he went to Caldera it would be returning home (to a place he’d never been before). He could meet his family and sister, serve his cousin like he was meant to. They could quell the riot in his soul and fashion him back intoo the blade he was meant to be. No more doubts, no more salt water tears. Hui Lung and the Yuyan had had their hearts ripped out; it was Zuko’s turn to become a masterpiece.

Once he was perfect, things would be better. They had to be.

Zuko nodded to himself, decided. He’d leave the desert and get to a port, take a ship back to the Fire Nation, kneel at Azulon’s feet, take whatever punishment was due and let this paper-thin excuse for a self he’d made crumbled back into nothing. He’d have a purpose again, a reason to keep existing. When he was a child, his caretakers had told him his calling, and it was better not to run from that.

The sun burned his hands, greedy and hot. His skin didn’t even get pink from it, blessed with fire as he was. He finished clearing the last dune to the buzzard corpses. The birds’s prey came into view as well, blobs of color on the sand; Zuko notched another arrow and squinted.

Wrong shape, not buzzards. Moving slow. A small group. People. Bright colors. No sand gliders, so not locals. Visitors.

They spotted him moments after he saw them. They waved immediately, arms stretched as high as they could go, as if he’d have trouble spotting them from the top of the dune he was on. One of them shouted, but the words distorted across the sand. Zuko wondered if he should go over.

The dead buzzards were littered around the distant people, full of his arrows. Well, he’d needed to collect them anyway, and there were only three people.

He loped down the dunes and approached them. He kept his bow ready, just in case. They looked harmless, but a lot of dangerous people did. Camouflage was the best disguise. He'd know.

When he got close, he halted his steps and stared.

It wasn’t a caravan or traveling merchant—not even a lone mercenary. Stranded among the bodies of dead birds were three children. Two water tribe, one tiny Earth Kingdom girl with foggy eyes. They looked wilted and half-dead. An empty waterskin hung from the brown-haried girl’s waist, and all of them were caked in sand.

Zuko knew them. He never forgot a face.

“Spirits, you’re that tracker,” the girl with bright blue eyes said, hair thick and wild. “The one from the oasis.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” the Earth Kingdom girl scowled. “Same stupid, quiet steps and everything. What are you doing out here?”

Zuko said nothing. His palm stung from how hard he gripped his bow.

Out of all the people on the planet, it’d had to be them.

Zuko did not allow himself to feel things often. Emotions were the precursor to forest fires. But he wanted to light a blaze right now. He’d walked for over a day away from these people, yet here they were, in front of him. He should’ve picked a different direction.

“Thank you for helping us,” the girl continued. “We didn’t even know you were there. Those birds—”

“The birds are an illusion!” the Water Tribe boy said suddenly, stumbling forward. “Spells made by the mushroom cloud!”

“Shut up Sokka! Sorry about him,” the tall girl said, grabbing the boy’s collar so he wouldn’t lung at Zuko. “He had some weird cactus juice and now he’s off his rocker. We don’t know what to do about it.”

“It will devour . . . the world!” Sokka said, half strangled by his shirt collar.

“Wait a few hours. It’ll burn out,” Zuko said, forcing words through his teeth. His voice was rusty and cracked. The last time he’d spoken, it was when he’d ordered tea at the oasis. “Mirmum root is also a cure. It grows at the edge of the desert.”

He had some in his pocket, but he wasn’t going to share it with strangers.

“Cool, that’s useless. We’re lost,” the earth kingdom girl said, stomping a foot into the sand. “No clue where we’re going since our ride up and left. Fat lot of good directions like ‘the edge’ are, spooky.”

Spooky?

“Shut up, Toph,” the Water Tribe girl said.

“Make me, Katara,” the Earth Kindgom girl said, and blew a raspberry.

The Water Tribe Girl, Katara, rolled her eyes and turned back to Zuko. “Hey, the man at the tavern said you could find anything. Our sky-bison was kidnapped by sand benders and our friend is missing—we have to find them as quickly as possible. We’ll find some way to pay you back, I promise.”

He said nothing, just looked at them.

They were gritty and tired, covered in sand and sweat. They looked miserable, but this wasn’t his problem. It would be better to walk away. But there was something about the three of them that made his heart funny. The girl held her brother’s collar gently, even in her exasperation. The little earth kingdom girl—Toph—was turned toward the boy in concern, stubbornly keeping note of his condition.

They cared for each other.

Zuko ached with a dim recollection. A mother. A market. Kindness, simple and sweet and without expectation. He’d . . . forgotten that. But these strangers made the memory sharper.

“Sand benders?” he said, trying to bury the golden glow of his one happy memory far, far down where no light could touch it.

“Aang’s gone after them alone—he’s our friend,” Katara said. “We’ve been trying to follow him, but he was too fast. We’re worried he’ll get hurt.”

Zuko recalled that there had been four children in the tavern. Well, the cactus-juice addict wasn’t a child, not really, but the others were younger than Zuko. The missing one had been the second shortest. He’d had odd blue tattoos.

Sand benders liked odd things. They knew lots of places to sell them.

Zuko squeezed his bow harder. Blue eyes and blue tattoos were both rare; rare meant valuable. And that boy had been so small.

“Alright, I’ll help you,” he said. “Which way did they go?”