Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Zuko was raised among scripts and placed before stages. 

His mother had been an actress - the finest in Hira’a. She wore the same smile when greeting dignitaries that she wore when reading him plays by the pond. The same smile when stood by her husband’s side on the palace balcony, as when spectating in the royal box of the Ember Island playhouse. 

To any mere purveyor, Ursa was a happy woman. A doting mother and a loyal wife. A loyal servant of the throne and the proud Lady of her country. 

She was the finest actress in Hira’a before becoming the finest actress in the Fire Nation. Not that anyone knew of the latter, such was the majesty of her performance. The stage of her village square traded for the stage of the royal palace - the stage of life. 

A happy woman she was not. Zuko knew that now, and he thinks he might have known it then.

Love Amongst the Dragons had been her favourite; it had once been Zuko’s too. 

There comes a moment in the play where the Dragon Emperor professes his love for the Empress. The Empress does not respond in kind. She instead flees, and the Emperor lets her go. He pauses for a moment afterwards, then continues on living as if nothing had ever happened. The mask never drops. 

But something did happen, and Zuko remembers seeing it in the lines of the actor’s shoulders and the tilt of his head downwards. 

He makes sure to learn from the best. The Fire Lord keeps his spine straight and his shoulders back. His head never drops, and his smiles are soft and consistent. He wears the same one when walking the streets of the Fire Days festival as he does when addressing the people from atop the Caldera steps. The same one when rubbing shoulders with his counsel, a glass of sake in hand, as he does when kneeling on eye-level with the child offering him a lily. He speaks with eloquence - every word deliberate and composed. 

The mask never drops.

‘Uneasy lies the head,’ decreed the playwrights of old. Zuko thinks it less of an idiom than it is moreso a prophecy. 

————

He’s crowned at sixteen mere days after they depose his father. In all honesty, Zuko doesn’t quite know how he feels; standing there, surrounded by people swathed in colours that haven’t graced the courtyard for over a century. There’s the blues of the Water Tribes, the greens of the Earth Kingdom, the familiar reds and golds of his own nation, and a lone figure in yellow and orange. 

It should be a joyous occasion. A moment in time to mark the turning point in history, where people can look forward to the coming era of peace and not have to fear for their future. 

For most, that’s what it is. 

Katara and Sokka are together with their father and a few others from their tribe, laughing together as Sokka gesticulates wildly, no doubt in the middle of regaling them all with a ridiculous, but honest, tale. Suki and a few of her warriors stand with them, sharing in their joy, whilst Toph and Aang chime in between giggles. 

Zuko looks at them and can’t place the tight feeling in his chest. 

They’re smiling, yes, but they’re wounded. Sokka is still teetering on his crutches, Katara’s eyes are bloodshot and underscored by dark purple smudges. Suki’s face is painted, and while her clothes cover most of her body, they don’t hide how she’s holding herself stiffly. Toph, despite her tough demeanor, hasn’t unlooped her arm from around Aang’s all night, and it strikes Zuko suddenly, horrifically, that the pair of them are only twelve. Twelve, witness to the near end and saviours of the world. 

And Aang. He’s danced, grinned and laughed alongside all who share in his whirlwind of joy. That whirlwind settles periodically though, and when it does, Aang’s smile wavers. He glances between the people around him as he worries the wooden beads of his necklace between his fingers, looking, it appears, for those who now only exist in memory. 

Zuko isn’t happy. It would be inappropriate. So, incredibly inappropriate. Peace shouldn’t have to be celebrated, he thinks. It should just… be. And it had been - until Sozin, and Azulon after him, and Ozai after him, and…

He can’t allow himself to be happy when his friends - and oh, how having them is a terrifying concept - wear upon and within their skins the aftermath of his family’s legacy. It wouldn’t be right. 

Anyways. He’s not sure even if he did allow himself to feel that way he would know how to. And really, it wouldn’t be allowing it so much as it would be forcing it.

Especially not now with the golden flame in his hair, his sister in a facility and his mother… somewhere that isn’t here.

The celebrations continue into the following days. Then in the following weeks, his friends take their leave. Zuko knew it was inevitable, but it didn't make it any easier. 

Aang, Katara, Toph and Sokka all go together. 

“We’ll drop Toph off in Gaoling, then head South,” Sokka says as he throws a bag up into Appa’s saddle. “Dad’s had about a fortnight’s head start on us, but we’ll go down and join him and everyone else in the rebuilding efforts.”

Katara’s mouth twists at this, “I don’t trust that the Northerners aren’t going to take advantage and try to turn us into a mini Agna Quel’a.” 

“Yeah, and there’s that,” Sokka sighs before turning to look Zuko in the eye. “But… really I think we just need to be home. For a bit, at least.”

Zuko offers a sympathetic smile. “I understand. It’s been a long year.”

And his heart pangs when Sokka laughs, then wraps his arms around him in a tight embrace. “Tell me about it! A whole year without dried seal jerky bites - it’s been a nightmare.” 

It ends too soon, Sokka giving him one last thump on the back before he pulls away and Katara takes his place. 

“Take care of yourself, Zuko. I’ll know if you don’t,” she says vaguely threateningly into his ear. 

And suddenly Aang is there too, and Zuko staggers back a step from the momentum the kid throws himself into the hug at. 

“We’ll write to you loads, Sifu Hotman!” 

“Can you not call me th-”

“I’ll be starting off with Katara and Sokka in the South, but then I think I’ll head to the air temples. The hawks will find me wherever I am though, so don’t try to use that as an excuse not to write back,” Aang grins up at him and wiggles his finger back and forth as though daring Zuko to try and defy him. Oddly enough, Zuko thinks as he looks at Aang and realises how far he’s looking down to see him, it might work.  

They release him, then Toph is punching his arm, smirking, before earthbending them all a lift onto Appa’s back, “Later, Fire Lord. Don’t die while we’re gone!”

Zuko smiles again, rubbing his arm, “I’ll try my best.”

Because that’s what he does. Even when it’s not enough. 

And it rarely is enough.

There’s seven assassination attempts in the three months following his coronation. After the fourth, Zuko isn’t sure he’ll be making it past sixteen. Lu Ten was twenty-five when he died, and yeah, Zuko had been hoping to make it somewhere closer to that before following his cousin into Agni’s embrace. 

He’s not alone in facing them. Suki and her warriors, including Ty Lee, stay to help settle the waters in the wake of his ascension to the throne. Mai remains in the Caldera too, and Zuko doesn’t quite know where they stand with each other these days. 

Turns out there’s a lot he doesn’t know about anything - a scenario that isn’t ideal for a Fire Lord who lacks a counsel he can trust. 

A counsel that lacks the one person he thought he could rely upon at that.

“Sorry?” Zuko hears himself ask sometime after attempt five, his teacup gradually stinging the skin where he cradles it in his hands. 

Uncle smiles at him kindly, “I said, the time has come for you to flourish with room away from the whispers my hovering presence brings.”

Zuko blinks. Then blinks again. Inside his cup, tea stains a ring high around the porcelain walls, “I don’t understand, Uncle. What are you saying?”

“I am saying that it is time for me to leave. I am fearful that I have already stayed for too long a time that your reign will have been impacted.”

“Why does it matter what other people think?” Zuko asks, completely and utterly lost.

The truth of the matter is that he needs Uncle. He barely has a clue what he’s doing - it’s been years since his last etiquette class, and even longer since he was last introduced to people he really ought to know. Ministers, governors, nobles, guards, cleaners, healers: a long list of names he has barely begun to remember. And that’s just the fickle nuances of ruling, nevermind matters like where he should begin undoing over one hundred years of systemic damage. Zuko needs Uncle. And yet…

“My nephew, you know how vicious the royal court can be. Whispers carry weight and voices carry in the halls. If people believe you are a mere figurehead for the whims of a formerly disgraced old prince, what will they say of you and the changes you wish to enact?” Uncle says calmly around a delicate sip of Oolong. 

Zuko shakes his head, “What they think of me is irrelevant so long as I prove myself.”

Uncle sighs, then reaches to hold Zuko’s hand in his own, “There is still much for you to learn, Fire Lord Zuko. But this next journey takes you along a path you must traverse yourself. It is your time, your destiny. My own destiny lies behind me - as such, I am not who our nation, nor the world, needs to usher in this new era of peace. You must consider, what would the other nations think of a former general leading a nation who says they mean peace? I am not innocent, no matter how much I atone. But you, Zuko, are young enough to still be forgiven.”

Uncle’s thumb rubs a gentle line back and forth across the back of Zuko’s hand. He can’t stand it. The feeling of it, skin against skin, a kind gesture sullied by the action soon to succeed it. 

It’s all warring inside him. The anger, searing in his veins; the hurt, twisting his stomach in a vice-grip. He wants to beg, get on his knees and beg his Uncle to stay. There’s so much to do and Zuko is drowning in it all. The blood spilled by his ancestors chokes him in his every waking moment. And his Uncle is leaving him to fight to stay afloat. 

“It is you who they need. I cannot stand in your way, even inadvertently, whilst you fulfill your calling. Besides-” Iroh smiles around the lip of his cup, “I rather enjoyed my time as Mushi. It was a peaceful life we lived within those hallowed walls.”

Zuko wants to cry.

He smiles instead, feeling his lips curve in that slight, soft way he’s still unused to but is becoming better at every day. He smiles and he says, “I’ll miss you, Uncle. You’ve earned your peace.” 

He doesn’t know if he’s being sincere. 

Uncle leaves. Days meld together and become weeks and then suddenly months. 

Suki and the warriors leave after attempt nine during a lull in the lethality. 

Ty Lee flings her arms around his neck, forcing him to spin with the momentum. “Your aura keeps getting brighter! It’s so yellow!”

“Yellow? Is that good?” 

“Of course! It’s the happiest colour. Just make sure it doesn’t turn purple.”

“Is purple bad?”

“No. It would clash with your robes is all!” she smiles, pinching his shoulder before skipping away to Mai’s side. 

He turns and meets Suki’s hard gaze. 

“I’m not stupid, you know?” she says in a paradoxical tone that’s both blunt and kind as she taps his chest with the tip of her fan. “The attempts have slowed but they won’t stop, and I know that when the next one comes, you plan to take it on the chin and pretend like nothing happened, am I right?”

Zuko’s chagrined expression must belie him. Suki raises a brow and rests her balled up fists on her hips. “We both know I’m right. The deal is that you keep in touch, okay? The warriors and I are needed back home, but if you need us - if you need me or Ty Lee or Sokka or Aang or anyone - you write. Yes? Agreed?”

Zuko smiles, “Agreed.”

Suki nods and yanks him into a hug, “Good to hear it.” 

She doesn’t sound convinced. 

Zuko stands at the boardwalk’s edge and waves as they leave, their boat sailing into calm seas, the only choppy waters to be seen are left in their wake. Mai stands beside him, hands tucked away in her sleeves, not waving, but watching. Her face is carefully schooled - she’s careful to never give anything away. Always has been; the result of growing up a nobleman’s daughter. They’re alike in that way. Which is why Zuko can see straight through her. 

There’s a spot in her jaw that keeps twitching, the tendons in her neck are more prominent than usual. She’s tense, working hard to exude the pretense of neutrality. 

He thinks of the way his own face hurts from the strain of using muscles he hasn’t had the wherewithal to use in years; and the way his words are carefully chosen, mimicking the speeches of the Lords from the plays of old - all articulate syntax without trace of his usual awkwardness. Maybe, if he keeps the mask up enough, one day it’ll come to him naturally. It’ll be real.

Today is not that day. Not for him, not for Mai either. 

He shuffles slightly to the right, bumping his shoulder against hers. 

“We’ll see them again soon,” he tries. 

“I know.”

She doesn’t sound convinced 

————

It’s just the two of them for a while. Him and Mai. Soon enough, five months have passed since the comet tore apart the sky. 

He doesn’t know who he is to her these days, nor who she is to him. She’s just… Mai. Not quite his friend, not quite his lover, but something in between. With her, Zuko is liminal. Together they can simply exist - live in a world away from duty, even if only for one evening a week. What they go on aren’t dates - surely they can’t be called that when they haven’t even kissed since that hazy day before his coronation. 

Their masks stay on. Hers all hard edges, his softened. Regardless, they can see past their own and beyond the other’s.

Zuko knows Mai is hurting as well as he knows he himself is burning.

There’s no time to dwell. There’s more important things.

Like how there isn’t a single person on his counsel who he trusts. 

They all served Ozai, and most served Azulon before him. Not only did they serve, but they were loyal.

Zuko isn’t sure if they’re loyal to the crown, the throne, or to their own self interests. It’s more than likely to be the latter, he guesses - they’re all embroiled within the industry of war in one way or another. Arms contracts, steel mining contracts, crop contracts for frontline rations; Zuko could go on. With the cessation of conflict, their funds will run dry. 

Hence why they’re trying to manipulate Zuko into continuing it. 

The joke is on them though. Zuko grew up with Azula - a posse of sour old men are nothing compared to her.

“My Lord, surely you will not be removing our soldiers from the colonies? Who will protect the Fire Nation citizens who have settled there?” Minister Bailal interjects during one of his counsels. 

They’re discussing Yu Dao. And the other colonies along the Earth Kingdom’s western shores. 

It’s a messy affair. Initially, Zuko was all for completely removing all of his citizens from the colonies. It’s easy enough to do in the newer ones - in fact, the withdrawal process is already underway. Yu Dao, however, is a different beast entirely. 

It’s been a colony for near enough one hundred years, and as one of his chattier assassins informed him during attempt six, the dichotomy between Fire and Earth there is not so neatly defined anymore. 

He had paid the town a visit a month after his friends left the Fire Nation. His eyes had been opened to how the world they lived in now was no longer black and white. Yu Dao was now one of the many shades of grey that existed. People of Fire and Earth heritage lived together, some mixing in blended families - and although there were structural imbalances and societal hierarchies that needed addressing - Zuko came to the realisation that the people who lived there were no longer strictly his citizens. 

As such, how could he tear people who had never stepped foot on the Fire Nation mainland away from their homes and families based solely upon their heritage? 

He couldn’t justify it. 

His friends struggled to see it initially. Aang had listened though - he’d heard Zuko out and brokered a deal even Kuei begrudgingly agreed with. Yu Dao was now democratically autonomous. An entirely new concept signalling the dawn of a new era.

But even now, his ministers are unhappy. 

Zuko addresses Bailal from where he sits across the map they’re gathered around, “Our soldiers have been deployed to the colonies to help assist with the return of our citizens to the mainland and to protect them from any undue harm they may be subjected to. That is all, and they have now fulfilled their purpose. It is time they returned home too.”

“And what of Yu Dao? Withdrawing our troops from that territory will place our people at risk, My Lord. With this, we’re all but inviting Kuei and the Earth bandits to launch an attack against our citizens and the Fire Nation at large!” Bailal’s face turns more and more red with every word. Zuko smothers his smirk.

“To further minister Bailal’s point, My Lord,” the Minister for Defence, Guanyu, pipes up much to Zuko’s chagrin. “Losing our factories to the colonies we are abandoning will hemorrhage our treasury. You would stake the honour of our nation to appease the whims of a child?”

Zuko wants nothing more than to ball up his fist and drive it into the man’s face. Sending a well placed kick to Bailal’s temple while he’s at it would be lovely too. 

Alas. 

He smiles, and the torches on the wall remain steady despite the churning frustration in his sternum, “Ministers, I value your contributions. Minister Bailal, removing our troops from Yu Dao will have no negative effect on the people who reside there. I would argue the contrary, actually. They have their own government and law enforcement, may I remind you we have no authority over the town nor its residents.”

Zuko’s lost count of the amount of times he’s said that very same thing in this very same room to that very same man. 

“Minister Guanyu, we are not abandoning the colonies. They were not ours to claim initially and they are not ours to retain past the war’s end. We are simply returning them to whom they rightfully belong. The factories in those regions, including your own- remind me what it was your business dabbled in again, minister?”

“Steel mining, your majesty.”

Zuko’s smile grows, “Fascinating. And your miners were all legally recruited and compensated for their work, yes?”

Guanyu answers through gritted teeth, “Yes.”

“Yes? Are you sure?” Zuko lets his suspicion hang before continuing. “As I was saying, the factories in those regions, including your own, were built without proper jurisdiction and upon stolen, occupied land. We must forfeit them - but know there will be stipends provided to impacted business owners and employees for a fixed term. Besides, there are more than enough mineral deposits and industrial factories here on the mainland to tide the treasury over as the reparation payments continue, am I correct, Minister Huanji?” He addresses his secretary of the treasury. 

“Yes, My Lord, you are correct.”

“Thank you, Huanji. Minister Guanyu, you would do well to remember your place. The matters of the nation’s finances do not concern you, nor are you in the position to question the Avatar’s integrity.” 

It’s the same routine in every session. The ministers balk at Zuko’s reforms, refuse to hear him out, argue incessantly against his proposals under the façade of looking out for the nation’s best interests, before cursing Zuko’s name as they leave the room. 

Today, he swears he hears Guanyu mutter something about Zuko being Kuei and Aang’s lapdog as he all but stomps away. Childish is but one word Zuko would use to describe him, the others he’d like to use would have even the crew of The Wani blushing. They’re all so tiresome. 

His cheeks hurt by the time his counsel disperse. They always do. It still doesn’t come naturally for him like it does for other people - Aang, for instance. His resting expression is the same one Zuko is fighting to keep up every day. It’s an effort, one Zuko isn’t accustomed to even after five months. Scowls and frowns are much more his subconscious forte. 

His nation relies on this grand performance though. The spectacle of politics - lights up on the court. It’s all very method. But Zuko is the son of an actress, raised with the ancient arts. He’s always had to struggle and fight and that’s made him strong. If the people need him to be stronger, that’s what he’ll dedicate himself to. He’ll force that Agni damned smile until it kills him, if that’s what they need. 

And it is.

Zuko is bad at being good. This is known. But he’s trying. Spirits, he’s trying. 

It’s hard.

————

Dear Zuko,

How are you? I’m asking this first and foremost because your last letter barely said a word unrelated to politics. I want to know how you’re doing - not how your counsel feels about tariffs. Does your chest still bother you? If it does, tell the palace physician; or, preferably, tell me you idiot. You saved my life, the least I can do is come back once in a while to help heal you. 

I’ll give you a break, but I’m holding you to an answer - I mean it, Zuko! 

I’m doing well. Aang and I are about to leave the Northern Air Temple. The Mechanist (I don’t know if you ever properly met him? He’s Teo’s dad) has been tinkering with some of Sokka’s blueprints and ideas for revamping the output of all the old military factories. It’s truly brilliant some of the things they’re planning! For instance - the production of war balloons. Well, Sokka pitched we tweak the designs just slightly and adapt them to become people-carriers! That way, people won’t have to sail across rough waters for weeks to reach new places - they’d be able to fly! It’s really amazing work they’re doing, especially Sokka. He’s still in the South working with my dad - doing that on top of revolutionising technology! I’m proud of him.

I miss all of you though. It’s nice being with Aang, Momo and Appa - but I think I might head home again soon. We went South straight after leaving the Fire Nation a few months back as you know, but after everything with Yu Dao and Kuei and with Aang wanting to explore more of the Air Temples, I didn’t spend as much time home as I thought I would. It’s home, you know? I think it would be nice to head back for a bit. Aang said he would come with me too - which I’d love. I know dad would love it too, he worries about us all. I get it though, I worry about Aang being on his own too. 

Maybe you could send him another letter? One a bit more personal? I think he’d appreciate it. 

I hope you’re doing well, Zuko.

With love, 

Katara

————

When he sleeps, he dreams in shades of blue.

Azula’s fire swirls around him, her manic laughter playing in his ear. He feels no fear in his dreams; he didn’t feel fear in reality either. Instead he feels sorrow crawl inside the hollow of his ribcage where it lies down and dies. She’s around him somewhere. Just out of reach. 

When he opens his mouth to call out her name, La emerges from her fire. The spirit looms large and holds out his palm, beckoning. Zuko clambers on and La raises him up towards the sky. Tui is nowhere to be seen in the ocean-blue sky. Beneath his feet, La’s hand suddenly dissolves into water. 

Falling feels freeing. He’s weightless in a way he can never be again during his waking hours. The weightlessness prevails even after Shaw catches him on his back. Ran is not by his side - Shaw flies alone into the endless horizon. 

Zuko wonders if he is real. If this is real. If anything will feel real again. If anything ever was. It only exists in his memories. 

Shaw dives downwards and leaves Zuko stranded on a shining blue glacier. There’s a cave ahead, and with nowhere else to go, Zuko marches onwards. 

Fractals of ice surround him like gallery walls. Each glacial sheet frames inside of it a person. Within one is Aang. He waves cheerily - twelve and rosy cheeked. The kid still has his baby teeth, and in his dream, Zuko watches as they fall from his mouth one by one. The arrows tattooed on his skin extend off the ends of his hands, twirling like ribbons in the air. It’s beautiful and it’s horrific. In his dream, the arrows dance towards Aang’s neck and wrap around and around and around until the light leaves his eyes. 

Aang doesn’t stop waving even after he’s dead. 

In the next fractal, Katara is struck by lightning. It arcs towards her in slow motion and Zuko wills himself to move. He doesn’t. It’s as though he’s as frozen as the walls around him. The lightning arcs towards her from the end of his sister’s pointed fingers, but it is only her arm he can see, detached from her body. Where the rest of her is, Zuko doesn’t know. 

Katara is struck in the chest, her blue tunic smoldering black. Her blue eyes empty of the love and sorrow and fury and happiness that illuminates them in life. 

Throughout his dream, Zuko watches and he smiles. His face is stuck. He smiles as he feels his scar searing and growing - the edges alight and emanating across his face and neck and body. 

“Wake up,” he hears. Zuko would run to where Sokka’s voice calls through the end of the world.

In his dream, Sokka’s eyes stare at him through another fractal. They’re blue like the apatite earrings his mother hid inside her drawer. Within the black screen of his pupil, Zuko watches Toph slip from Sokka’s hand as though it is his own. Down she falls, scorched earth beneath her.

“Wake up,” Sokka commands flatly, and Zuko does. 

When he wakes, he wakes quietly to darkness. He opens his eyes and it’s the same shade of black as when they’re closed. 

His face hurts. There’s pressure building in his throat. 

Closing his eyes brings no relief. It’s like he never fell asleep at all. 

————

The problem is the education system; so embroiled within propaganda that the curriculum poses fact as synonymous with fiction. Children become adults who are none the wiser. And so the war machine keeps churning.

The problem is also the economic system; so embroiled within the military industrial complex that ending the war threatens the nation with bankruptcy. It is on a precipice they hang - they avoid falling by the skin of their teeth. 

The problem is furthermore the justice system; so embroiled within corrupt notions of honour  that the innocent are tried as guilty and the guilty face no trial within which to be found innocent at all. They walk the streets free men whilst the truly honourable rot behind bars. Or in the ground. To be slain by the state in the name of honour is to be disgraced in death - buried in the element of the enemy instead of cremation at Agni’s will. 

Zuko’s working to fix it.

And those problems are just the beginning. 

Policies need investigating and improving. Policies regarding the environment, culture and the arts, equality measures, farming, disaster relief, business development, trade - both domestic and international. It’s never ending. 

It’s a lonely endeavour. His counsel are useless at best and actively treasonous at worst. 

But things might slowly be looking up. 

“The Royal Fire Academy for Girls made me into who I am,” Mai confides in him one evening by the pond.

“Is that a bad thing?” 

“They also helped make your sister into who she is.”

Zuko closes his eyes and acknowledges, “There’s that.”

“Yeah.”

“You’ve come far despite them though.”

“No, I’ve come so far in spite of them. They don’t get to claim any credit for where I’ve made it, nor does my father for that matter,” Mai stares into the water as she speaks. “I’ve had to work so hard to forget everything they taught me. When they said be pliant, I picked up my knives. When they said my duty is to my nation, I took it upon myself to change what that means. They made me into who I am, but I won’t let them put any other little girls into the position they put me. They shouldn’t have to war with themselves over what’s right.”

Zuko’s heart warms with pride as it breaks in shame. 

Then it hits him: “Is this you asking to join my counsel?” 

“It is if you’re offering me a position.”

Minister Taduko for education is replaced by Minister Mai the next day. 

The man does not go quietly. 

“It’s corruption, is what it is!” he hollers red-faced in the morning’s counsel congregation.

“It is hardly corruption to dismiss a man so adverse to embracing change that he would doom the nation’s following generations to abuse and brainwashing and claim it’s at the behest of the state,” Zuko fires back. The other ministers watch with varying expressions of outrage and worry. Job security used to be a sure thing, after all.

“It is unspeakable! What would your forefathers say of this dishonour, boy? Azulon and Sozin’s spirits must surely be shamed by your radicalism!”

Zuko smiles, “Taduko, you are more than welcome to challenge me to an Agni Kai should you feel so inclined. I understand you feel dishonoured, and as a man of tradition, you know as well as I do how such matters are usually handled.”

The man is ancient, his skin a mosaic of age spots and wrinkles. He heaves for breath after his outburst. Both he and Zuko aren’t stupid - it’s obvious who would win between them. 

It’s something everyone else in the room knows too.

“I believe you’re in my seat, former minister?” Mai prompts. She’s prim and proper and vicious in her delivery. 

And with that, there appears a shred of light at the end of the long, long tunnel. A flicker, like a candle in the breeze, but light nonetheless. 

Zuko should know by now that all candles burn themselves out eventually.

————

Flameo Hotman!

How’s ruling the Fire Nation? I hope the Ministers are easing off after we sorted everything out in Yu Dao. If they haven’t, just say your good friend the Avatar endorses both you, and their swift departure from their positions! 

Kuzon’s mother was one of Sozin’s Minister’s aides. It’s how we met! She travelled to Omashu with the Minister for Trade Relations and had to take Kuzon with her, and I was there at the same time with Gyatso visiting Bumi! I remember Kuzon explaining to us how everything worked in the Fire Nation court because Bumi and I had never met a Minister’s aide before. I don’t know if it’s still the same now, but if it is, I can’t imagine it’s been easy for you. Hopefully now though with the changes you’re making, they’ll see you mean business!

Katara’s still with me (she says hi and that she's still waiting to hear back from you after her last letter - I’d maybe get onto that, she has her scary face on!) and we just moved on from seeing Suki, Ty Lee and the other Kyoshi warriors. We were all helping with a situation near the Qinchao and Chin villages. Remember when you hired pirates to capture us? The same group of them were robbing people in the area trying to return home - a mix of recalled soldiers and refugees mainly. But don't worry! We dealt with them! Katara and Suki gave them a talking to - needless to say they’ll be looking for careers away from piracy now. 

Next stop is visiting Toph at her academy! 

Hopefully see you soon, Sifu Hotman! Remember to respond to Katara - and to me too! Sorry if I used too many exclamation points! I just really miss you is all.

Love,

Aang (The Avatar, your loyal student)

————

Ghosts haunt Zuko wherever he goes. Some are of the dead, some are of the living, and some he doesn’t know. 

Lu Ten taunts him when he thinks of his own mortality. Zuko had considered his cousin untouchable - a man so full of life couldn’t just die. Stupidly optimistic, Zuko used to be. Lu Ten didn’t just die, he had been pulled apart slowly whilst strung up against the outer wall of Ba Sing Sei. Zuko sees his decapitated head in place of the marble busts conveying Fire Lord’s past. His cousin lurks in every corridor. 

Iroh’s ghost puppets Zuko’s body and speaks using his mouth. He embodies his Uncle in that calm and suave way that commands respect. Zuko fears Uncle’s ghost will abandon him eventually in spirit like he did in person. 

His father’s ghost stands on his left, his hand always ablaze. It’s how Zuko knows he isn’t real. Regardless, his voice cyclically overlaps in his mind. He tells Zuko what he’s already heard: that he was lucky to be born, that he’s a coward. Rise and fight, Prince Zuko. 

It’s Azula who chimes in in that sing-song way of hers. Dad’s going to kill you!

Really. He is. 

His sister haunts him by demanding his attention in every thought. As he fights his assassins, he thinks of how she’s bound in a facility, how even then she’s probably better equipped to handle the situation. In meetings, he thinks of how she and him used to hide behind the curtain on the near-side wall. In his room come dusk, he thinks about how he should have tried harder to help her. How he still can but isn’t sure he wants to. 

His mother haunts him in ways he doesn’t yet fully understand. Thinking of dying leads him back to her and the all-consuming grief of not knowing. He embodies Iroh’s demeanour, but it’s Ursa who gave him the tools to make of himself what he wishes. He acts as she acted. Performs as she performed. Her ghost lends him the script and reads the stage directions he follows with every passing day. She stands on his right, her hand soft and cool against his cheek. That’s who you are, Zuko. She whispers to him. Someone who doesn’t give up even when it’s hard. His mother is who he thinks of right alongside Azula when he wonders what more he could have done. What more he can do.

Zuko wonders, sometimes, if he might not be a ghost alongside them all. 

————

Sparky,

Will you grant me refuge in the Fire Nation when I ultimately murder these lily livers I call students? I’ve got Team Beifong training up the newest batch of recruits, but Oma and Shu, they’re testing my patience even more than Katara when she wakes up on the wrong side of her bedroll. They’re too proper about it. Their styles aren’t at all like how the badgermoles taught me and how I taught them. It’s like I have to do everything myself - my greatness is of such vastness that I must be the only competent teacher in the entire Earth Kingdom. I can’t even delegate the simplest of tasks.

You must get that, what with your incompetent Ministers? Yeah, I heard all about it from Aang who heard it from Suki from when she was still hanging out as your guard. Learn how to ask for help, dipshit. (Ho Tun here: I’m so sorry, Fire Lord Zuko. I didn’t want to write that you’re a dipshit, but Sifu Toph made me put it in. Please let the record show I don’t think you’re a dipshit.)

I’m joking slightly. They’re annoying and awful at teaching the new recruits, but they’ve gotten better with time. The only way is up - even if it looks like it’ll be eighty more years until they’re as good a sifu as I am. 

The academy is growing every day - it’s why I’ve had to delegate. I’m really happy with how it’s going. We actually met a guy called Sun not too long ago - and get this - the guy’s a lavabender! From Yu Dao, actually. Apparently his mother is a firebender and his father an earthbender; he said he read about how Avatar Kyoshi split her island from the mainland using a form of heated earthbending and decided to give it a try. Pretty cool stuff. I offered him and his friends spots in the academy. They aren’t metalbenders, but they have wicked earthbending potential generally. 

You should come visit us here sometime, Sparky. It would do you some good to get out of that palace. 

Until next time,

Master Toph Beifong, The Greatest Earthbender in the World, Founder of Metalbending. 

————

Mai and Zuko often sit together by the turtleduck pond. Their backs up against the blossom tree trunk, bark pressing into their skin through the dark fabric of their robes.

They don’t talk much. Silence speaks for itself most days. 

Zuko doesn’t know what to say to her anyways. Doesn’t know what to say to anyone, really. At this point he just opens his mouth and prays.

There’s something she isn’t telling him, just as there’s something he’s not telling her. Many somethings at that. 

But he loves her. That, at least, he knows. And who cares what form that love takes? He loves letting time pass with her. So if silence is what she wants - what they need - to let whatever it is they share last a bit longer, then… well. Zuko doesn’t mind. 

He worries though. Worries as he lies half-asleep in his bed that something he’s doing isn’t quite right. That maybe the way he loves her isn’t the way she needs him to. Worries that maybe she doesn’t love him back in the way he needs of her. 

It’s silly. Trivial, really. And he can’t waste a precious moment. Not when there’s more important things to worry about. 

Like the blade that lands where his head had been a second ago.

He moves before he’s fully conscious, his body recognising the swish of metal against air before his mind catches up. Habitual is his nature to fall asleep on his left; it’s been ingrained in him since he was thirteen and agonised, terrified of being deaf to the world. It’s a habit that’s saved him now. This is the first time in all twelve attempts that they’ve come for him in his sleep. 

He drops to the ground and sweeps his leg, flames trailing from his heel. His attacker is fast, jumping just in time to avoid being floored, but not fast enough to recover without stumbling. The opportunity is a golden one. 

Zuko springs up and punches them solidly in the face. It’s a reliable move - most assume the Fire Lord to be dependent on bending alone, so much so that they never expect the right hook he lands against their nose. Bone cracks beneath his fingers. The assassin reels to the side and wildly stabs their sword towards his abdomen, and Zuko dodges, moving forwards fluidly and disarming them in one childishly easy manoeuvre. Grip the arm, twist, push your opponent around yourself and force a contrary momentum - Piando’s teachings are hardwired into his being. 

His would-be killer is slight. Tall and slender - obviously experienced, but it’s experience incomparable against Zuko’s. He kicks their knees from behind and roughly shoves them against the stone wall of his quarters. 

Then he breathes a heavy sigh. 

It’s funny, in a way. How the most alive he’s felt in months comes when he’s dancing with death. 

The doors fly open at this point, the palace guards having heard the commotion. The head guard, a woman called Ishiki, calls out orders. Two of her men prise the black-clad figure from Zuko’s grip and march them out of sight. 

His heart is pounding. Beating a war drum against his ribs. He stares at the wall for what can only be a few seconds and lets it hurt.

It feels like a lifetime. Most things do now. 

“-ord Zuko? Are you alright?” Captain Ishiki asks. Her tone is hard, but, and maybe it’s only wishful thinking, Zuko thinks he can hear something akin to worry seeping into her words. 

She balances on the cusp between middle-aged and old. Her hair is grey, not white, and deep lines have been carved into face after decades of service. Never would he say it aloud, but the Captain reminds him of an elephant-buffalo. Wise and dependable. Sturdy and just. Under her watch, his grandmother and mother were protected from outside threats. Inside threats, Ishiki couldn’t do much about. But Zuko trusts her. She’s one of the few he does, and he knows his mother did too - it’s why he promoted her to Captain the day following his coronation. 

He closes his eyes. Lets the smile gently tick his face into an expression that gets as close to reassuring as it can with half of it permanently forced into a twisted glare. He’s had practice though, it comes easily now after eight months. He opens his eyes and spins to see the Captain’s studious gaze surveying him. 

“I’m fine, Captain,” he says. His voice is steady. 

She narrows her brow, scanning him for injuries he doesn’t possess, “Are you sure? Do I need to call the healer?”

Zuko shakes his head, “That won’t be necessary. Thank you for your help, Captain.”

He says it kindly, but she can hear the dismissal for what it is. 

When he’s alone again, he thinks about writing. 

In theory, it’s a simple thing to do. Pick up the quill, unroll and pinch the parchment, ready the quill with ink and then put words to page. In practice, Zuko finds himself unable to move from where he stands in the middle of the floor, the rug’s woollen fibres itchy against his bare feet. 

His friends had made him promise. Uncle, too. They meant well, but so did Zuko. From the letters they’ve sent to him, he gathers that they’re all doing well, living life without fear of ash raining down upon their peace. He can’t ruin that for them. He won’t. At his word, they’d come running back to his side without hesitation. They’re good people like that. Too good. 

His chest hurts.

Night passes in a blink. It’s morning suddenly, and he hasn’t moved an inch. Where the sun shines through the window, Zuko feels cold. 

He’ll write later. 

The day is spent with Ishiki as she gives him a briefing. Apparently there had been reports of a disturbance in the courtyard at midnight’s turn. When Ishiki and some of her team went to check, his assassin scaled the western wall and slipped through the thinned out halls. A distraction. A tactic tried and true. The guards posted by his quarters are dead, Ishiki tells him ruefully, and Zuko feels sick with the realization that he hadn’t thought to ask before now. 

The staff were quick to scrub the bloodstains from the floor. Decades of practice, Zuko reasons. 

His assassin is being held in the keep. 

“She’s not very talkative.” Ishiki grits out as they walk in step down the palace’s winding staircases. 

“They never are. At least this one didn’t chew the hemlock leaf.” Zuko reasons.

“Small mercies.”

His assassin stands in the middle of her cell, arms crossed with her stance squared. The picture of defiance. Or rather pride. She sneers at Zuko in his crimson regalia as though he is a joke. With her mask off, Zuko can see the blood crusting her chin and the purple of her cheek.

Ishiki stands behind him when he approaches the bars. 

“Are you hungry?” Zuko asks calmly. 

The woman blinks, obviously taken aback, “What?”

“Are you hungry? It must be at least a day since you’ve eaten anything.”

She blinks again, then scoffs, “You think I’ll trust anything you and your groupies give me? No doubt it’ll be laced with something.”

“If I wanted you dead I would have killed you before now,” Zuko says matter of factly before he shrugs. “Luckily for you, that’s not how things work around here anymore. The offer stands should you change your mind.”

“I knew you’d turned the nation soft, but letting your attempted murderer live? You really are a fool.”

“Are you so desperate to die that you’d advocate for your own demise?” 

“No. I’m just pointing out idiocy where I see it,” the retort is fessed proudly. 

Zuko hums and turns to Ishiki, “Seems to me she’s plenty talkative.” 

Ishiki smirks, “I warmed her up for you.” 

The woman in the cell clenches her fists. 

“Do you have a name?” he asks.

“Mengi,” she backs flatly. 

“Is that your real name?”

“Does it matter?”

Zuko shrugs, “I suppose not.”

The torches in the keep flicker a steady orange. They shed light through the cell bars, shrouding Mengi half in shadow and swathing her other half in warmth. In the light, Zuko can see her eyes aren’t black like he’d first assumed, but rather a rich, deep brown. The colour of the tree bark in Pohuai. A sign of an unyielding soul, the poets of old used to say.

“Were you sent by someone or are you here on your own accord?” 

“I don’t need to be ‘sent’ by anyone to do what’s right.”

“And killing me is what’s right?” his words are light, carefully detached from the simmering in his veins.

Her mouth twists into something fierce and she steps closer towards the bars, “You’re a child playing dress up. Every day that passes with you on the throne, wearing that crown-” She jerks her head, glancing up to where the golden flame sits nestled in his hair, “is a day closer to you dragging the nation down to the point where we’ll never recover.”

She heaves a breath and continues, “We used to be great. Your forefathers promised us greatness. My brother fought and died for it. And you ruined it! You ruined everything,” her voice breaks, but she isn’t upset. No. She’s furious.

In a way, Zuko understands where she’s coming from. His people were fed lies and told to die in the name of them - to give their lives to uphold the grand illusion honour. The Fire Nation were poised to be the benefactors of the world, generous enough to share in their prosperity, but violently refused by the other nations. It’s a well-crafted tale, a century in the making. Mengi’s brother died for a story no more real than the plays Zuko grew up reading. 

She’s angry with him, not without foundation. Many people are, undoubtedly. Zuko is the one to have ended their nation's so-called greatness whilst telling his people their loved ones died for nothing. 

It’s so unfair. He doesn’t know if he wants to cry or scream or tear his hair out or maybe do all of them in succession.

Zuko affixes the mask. 

“I’m sorry for your loss. No- I truly am,” he insists as she moves to protest. “Your brother sounds like an honorable man. I have respect for him and for all our soldiers who fought for the honour of their nation. But I must make it clear to you, Mengi - they were sent by my forefathers with dishonest intentions.” 

Her chin wobbles as Zuko takes a step closer to the bars on his side, “My family never sought to share prosperity with the other nations. All they sought was power and acclaim, and with every life lost and every battle won, it’s something they were granted. They didn’t care for your brother or for you. They cared only for themselves.”

It’s interesting watching as someone is presented with the truth and tries to swallow it. Mengi chews on it, her jaw working as she fights against the lump in her throat. Her eyes well, but no tears fall. Zuko honestly thinks he might have her convinced, as her expression balances on the precipice between despair and rage. But Mengi is right - he is a fool. 

The truth is evidently too bitter to take and Mengi rejects it outright, spitting on him suddenly as she hisses, “Praise be upon the King.” 

Zuko’s heart falls into his stomach. 

Ishiki grips him by the elbow and leads him away, an action that Ozai would have her skinned for and Azulon outright beheaded. He lets her, pliant, even as they re-enter his quarters and she dabs his robes with her handkerchief. 

“Is my f- Is Ozai secure in his cell?” He wrestles to keep the mask from slipping. The strain tears at him.

She nods, confident, assured. It puts him at ease just slightly, “There’s been no word to suggest otherwise. I’ll increase the guard at the prison, up the number of patrols too. With the diversion in place, it suggests this was a coordinated attempt. We should expect more to come.”

“Do you think the others were related too?” Honestly, he doesn’t know why he’s asking. He already knows that at least a few of the other eleven must share in Mengi’s agenda.

“It’s possible.”

Mai all but confirms it later. She corners him after his meeting with the Ministers for farming and health. He turns the corner into the tapestry hall and nearly smacks straight into her. 

She speaks before he can even think to open his mouth, “Why did I hear about you nearly dying again from the sous chef and not from the sow-horse's mouth?” 

Oh. 

Shit.

He holds up his hands, “Mai, I’m sorry. I was going to tell you, but we quest-” 

“-I’ll stop you there,” she interjects emphatically, and Zuko knows already that he’s misstepped so far he’s fallen off the cliff. “That apology didn’t need a ‘but,’ it shouldn’t have one at all! You should have told me and you should have told me first.”

“Mai, I-”

“Do you think I don’t care about you? Is that why you tell me nothing and hide behind a front?”

Zuko grimaces, “Of course I don’t think that.”

Mai balls her hands into fists, attempting to hide them in her sleeves before Zuko sees. She’s a second too slow, a sign of how truly angry she is. 

“Then why won’t you talk to me?”

At that, Zuko feels his own finely tuned control slipping. 

“It’s not like you talk to me about your shit!”

She scoffs, shaking her head, “Because you’re always busy! If you aren’t holed away in your office, you’re in a meeting, or you’re doing paperwork. Even when we’re together I can tell you aren’t really there.”

“That’s not true.”

It is true.

“Yes it is, Zuko! That smile you keep putting on like everything is fine? You know I don’t buy it.”

He does know that. Just like he knows he is so, so pissed off. There is no grace for the Fire Lord’s mistakes, which sucks because he can’t seem to stop making them. It’s all too much though. One thing after the other. 

Assassination attempt, meeting, eat, meeting, feel sick, meeting, try to sleep, assassination attempt, meeting - rinse and repeat. 

And Agni, he’s so far beyond sad about it all that he recognises himself slipping back to feeling what he knows best. White, hot anger.

He feels it all the time. Gets pissed off about the smallest of things. Like last week, when his hair wouldn't sit right in its top knot and when he blinked his curtains were on fire. Or when minister Sajong wouldn’t stop tapping his quill against his ink blotter and Zuko bit his tongue so hard he tasted metal.

Sometimes his anger will only serve to make him more angry. His anger infuriates him, because he can’t help it and it’s so, so tiring to push down, and soon he ends up caught in a vicious cycle of self-loathing.

And now Mai is calling him out on his bullshit, which he knew she already knew about, but he had thought they’d silently agreed not to mention it. Not mention the fact that they’re both putting on a show for the other’s benefit. 

Zuko can’t do this with her. Not right now. Not when the portraits of the men who put him in this state stare down at him imposingly. 

He stares back at his father’s and swallows thickly.

But he can’t be angry. At least certainly not with Mai. Not with anyone save for himself and a select few others. 

He's been quiet for too long. 

Zuko sighs. “I’m sorry. There’s just… a lot on my mind.”

Mai follows his gaze, looking towards Ozai’s finely woven form. The artist embroidered his eyes with a shimmering gold thread, the same thread that’s been flecked amongst the flames rising from his hands. She looks back at Zuko, her eyes stony, her voice resolute. 

“You’re not your father.”

“I know,” he says quietly. “That’s the problem.”

She frowns, “What do you mean?”

Some people look at Zuko and can only see Ozai. Others look at him and hate him for not being Ozai. Some want him to strike a balance - but Zuko cannot, will not, find a middle ground with a tyrant. He tells Mai this. 

Her mask slips.

She bites her lip and asks, “Is that what this assassin wanted from you? Compromise?”

“No,” he shakes his head. “She wanted me dead and Ozai back on the throne. ‘Praise be upon the King,’ she said.” 

Mai’s face is grim. “I’ve heard whispers. Some talk. I didn’t think much of it - there’s always been people who prefer the way things used to be and there always will be. But… there’s definitely something there worth looking into, especially after what they tried last night.” 

She looks from Zuko to his father above them and steals herself. Zuko sees her mask slide back on. 

“Leave it with me.”

He does.

————

Here’s the thing: they gave a boy a crown and told him he had to solve the world’s problems. 

They had told a child to bring home a myth, too, and. Well. He had. In a way.

Zuko is nothing if not stubborn. Stubborn and strong-willed and desperate to prove that he can reach those impossible limits set before him. Because he can. He will. 

He remembers Uncle telling him, once, that pride was not shame’s opposite. Instead it was its source. ‘True humility is the only antidote to shame,’ he hears echoing in his ears on the daily. 

Uncle, for all his wisdom, is not Zuko. Is not the Fire Lord. 

Zuko knows that he is the Fire Lord, favoured by Agni, and that those things don’t make him better than any one of his people. Pride is something he no longer holds tight to his chest. Arrogance no longer colours his worldview. 

He performs his humility with those forsaken soft smiles. With his even tones and open palms. No torches flare alongside his temper, nor is there a wall of fire distinguishing him above his counsel. 

Despite it all. The shame persists. 

Zuko is humble, but it isn’t true. It’s not honest, and in that he regards himself more alike to his sister than strictly comfortable. His humility is placebo - he doesn’t deserve the antidote when it is his own actions he has shame for.

When he goes to bed, his head falls heavily. Yet the weight never leaves his shoulders. 

There is no grace for the Fire Lord’s mistakes. Not even from himself. The humility is false, because of course it is. He is no better than anyone else because the truth is, he’s worse. 

It’s a sure thing. As the grass is green and the wind prevails east. 

The salt in the wound is how he’s aware of it all. Blissful ignorance can be afforded only to fools. Zuko knows what he feels and why he feels it, but he doesn’t know what he can do to help it. A darker part of him wonders if he even wants to help it. This feeling - this hollowness - has been his normal for years. Shame is his status quo. Any other state of being would surely feel wrong.

Besides - it’s deserved. Zuko’s past is defined by his mistakes. His awfulness. Actions so pervasive in their horror that there are many who will forever see his face when they think of his nation’s evil. Repentance can only assuage so much harm. 

This crown is his penance. This feeling is his purgatory. 

To bask in it is his duty.

————

After ten months, he visits Azula. 

His friends had argued with him after the comet came and went; when she was bound in a straitjacket and taken by physicians away to an institution on one of the Eastern islands. 

“This feels wrong. Like she’s a problem I’m casting aside and not my sister.” 

“You have no reason to feel bad for her. What in Tui’s name are you on about? Remember that life-threatening wound on your chest that I’ve been healing for a week straight? Do you remember who put it there?” Katara had fumed.

“She’s right, Zuko. You’re making sure she gets the help she needs. You don’t have to do anything more than that,” Aang had tried, ever the peace broker.

“She’s crazy and she hurt you. You don’t owe her anything,” Toph had put it bluntly.

“She’s my sister,” Zuko recalls saying quietly in answer. Because it really was that simple.

He remembers Sokka’s silence most clearly. 

Now, Zuko stands on the front steps of the facility, his foot hovering on the threshold. Time has run away from him. He honestly, truly didn’t mean to go so long without seeing her. 

But he’s been so busy. He’s exhausted. And Azula is exhausting. 

She can’t be having an easy time of it either though. And when all is said and done, she’s his little sister. 

Even when he thinks he might loathe her more than he loves her. 

He comes to see her now because he could die tomorrow. His most recent brush with death has woken him up to the fact that it’s looking more and more probable. Zuko doesn’t want to die with the last memory of his sister being her falling victim to her mind and their father who poisoned it.

He centers himself and pushes through the doors. Ishiki and another guard, Ta Fun, accompany him a step behind. He wants to do this, Zuko reminds himself with every step through the sterile, colourless halls. He owes it to her, no matter how much his friends argue the contrary. 

The mask is on.

The receptionist balks at the sight of him before swiftly recovering. There’s a small spindly cactus on her desk that’s a shade of brown it shouldn’t be. 

“Fire Lord Zuko! How can I help you today?” She asks kindly, trying her best to control the waver in her voice. 

Zuko smiles, “I was wondering if it would be possible to visit my sister?”

Her brow jumps seemingly without control, going by the way she flushes a deep red afterwards, “Of course. Allow me to fetch the physician.”

She all but runs from her post.

The physician greets him with a similar hesitancy, albeit better disguised behind her veil of professionalism. 

“Your Majesty, I am healer Pingti, we are honoured by your presence. Sinsu tells me you wish to visit the princess?” 

“Please, if it’s possible.” Zuko smiles, suppressing the urge to plead - though whether his desire is to flee, or to stay and commit, he doesn’t know. 

“Yes, I believe it will be possible. The princess has been stable for a little while. Not as much fire being thrown now as there was this time last month. I think seeing you might do her some good.” 

The increasingly familiar wave of guilt sweeps over him at Pingti’s words; the force so powerful that his limbs feel numb in the aftermath. Agni knows Zuko isn’t winning any awards for World’s Best Brother anytime soon. 

The staff lead him down some more bleak hallways to a steel door. He eyes it, slightly bewildered.

Turning to Pingti, he asks, “Is this a mental help institution or a prison?” 

“This is our high security ward, My Lord. Forgive us for the plain exterior; here we prioritise the safety of our patients, even if that’s from themselves and not outside forces,” the physician ducks her head. 

Zuko doesn’t know if he believes her. 

He places his hand on the cold silver handle, and pauses, “Captain, Lieutenant, would you please stay out here?” 

Ishiki and Ta Fun share a glance, communicating without words in a way that never fails to make Zuko feel like a child about to be scolded, “Are you sure, Your Majesty? The princess is not to be underestimated.”

Zuko knows that. He probably knows that better than anyone. But he needs to do this alone. This is a family affair. 

“I’m sure.”

His hand turns and the door swings open, it closes quickly behind him with a solid thud.

As is typical, she beats him to the punch, “So you finally deign to grace me with your presence. To what do I owe the pleasure, Zuzu?”

The first thing that strikes him is her hair. It’s shorter than it’s ever been, sitting evenly at her shoulders - a far cry from how it looked last he saw her. It’s glossy - shiny, not from lack of care, but rather the opposite.

The second thing is her demeanour, she sits on the bed that’s inside the room, her back against the wall. Her legs are crossed and she examines her nails as she speaks. There’s no tension coiling in her muscles though. No outward signs of turmoil. 

Not that that’s anything to go by. Zuko would be a hypocrite to assume so.

There’s a window with bars on it that lets the sunlight stream in. The view outside is beautiful - the sea rolls against sand, the dunes roll into lush forest, the trees roll up and over the hills on the horizon. Azula sits in the sunspot, nonplussed and examining her nails, now trimmed and rounded, reminding Zuko strangely of the pest-control cat that used to live in the palace when they were children. They’d find her stretched out in the sunny areas, moving around the halls as the sun moved around the sky. 

Her clothes are a rich shade of maroon - issued by the facility but comfortable enough. The material is light and flowy, perfect for the oppressive heat of the isle. 

She’s decorated her room too. Just slightly, but it’s a change from the bleak corridors beyond the heavy steel door. There’s a rug covering the stone floor, swirled with ornate red and yellow patterns. A plant sits on her bedside table - one Zuko wouldn’t be able to name with a dagger to his throat - a jug of water sits next to it. It’s a flourishing thing - a healthy green. 

He looks back at his sister and tries to find the words for what he wishes to say, “You look good.”

She scoffs, “I always look good. Can’t say the same for you, almighty Fire Lord. You look terrible.” 

Yeah. Can’t say he wasn’t expecting that. Azula always had a knack for seeing right through his pretenses. 

He sighs and scrubs a tired hand over his face. The mask falls, there’s no need for it with her, “I know.”

“Sit down before you fall down, idiot,” she says flatly, gesturing blithely to the space next to her on the bed. 

He sits on the far side from her, a few feet between them. She’s on his right, her gaze locked onto him as his is on her.

“How are you?” he asks.

“Better than you it seems.”

“Azula, please.”

“What?” she huffs, dropping her hands, her nails suddenly of no interest. He can see her heckles rising. “What do you want me to say? That I’m just swell trapped in this place? That I’m having a great time? What do you need me to say to make you feel less guilty, Zuko?”

He feels his face fall, hears her snort, “Honestly, you’re pitiful. You’re the Fire Lord, dumb dumb. How do you expect to rule with such a weak will? You put me here, so own it. It was your choice. The Fire Lord’s choices aren’t up for question.” 

“They should be,” he says, his voice raw.

“Should they?” she raises a pristine brow. “Do you regret sending me here?”

He levels her with a flat look, “That depends on how you answer my question. How are you?”

Azula stares at him like he’s a puzzle - like she’s trying to figure him out. Severe paranoia, he remembers the physician’s report saying. Complete nervous and mental breakdown. Auditory and visual hallucinations. She looks at him silently as she thinks, and Zuko finds that he would truly do anything to see inside her head the way she can see inside his.

When she’s not plotting a foreign coup or attempting to kill him, his sister actually looks her age. Then it hits him with the force of her lightning that she’s fifteen now and he missed her birthday.  

He feels the scar on his chest ache. 

Something must give eventually, as Azula finally answers, “I’m fine.”

She says it pithily, as though she’s daring him to challenge her. To tell her she’s wrong. There’s nothing to suggest the contrary. Compared to the last time he saw her, she looks like she’s been blessed by the spirits. She seems calmer now, more settled. 

And yes, Azula always lies, but Zuko thinks that, for once, she might be telling the truth. 

Zuko nods, “I’m glad.”

She nods back and asks with pointed clarity, “So do you regret it?”

It gives Zuko pause. In all honesty, he doesn’t quite know. Azula seems better - she’s obviously improved in the span of seven months. The facility seems alright - not too overcrowded nor too draconian - although the hallways could do with a pop of colour. He’d vetted it thoroughly before sending her here, but it’s reassuring to see it in practice. The staff are nice enough too. 

But she’s been alone all the while.

“No, I don’t. You needed help that I couldn’t provide. But-” Zuko sighs, closing his eyes for a moment before facing his sister’s blank face again. “I do regret not visiting before now. I shouldn’t have left you here alone. For that I’m sorry, ‘Zula.”

Her gaze sharpens and Zuko feels his stomach drop, “It’s not the first time,” she says darkly. 

“Not the first time, what?” 

“It’s not the first time you’ve left me. Remember?” 

Zuko’s lost. 

“Agni you’re so-” Azula laughs a bitter, horrible thing. “You’re so wrapped up in yourself! Everything always has to be about you, revolve around you. You really are the perfect little Fire Lord, huh?”

He lets the latter insult slide off him, and thinks. Thinks hard. He’s been working on it - thinking through his words and actions and how they impact the people around him. He’s not perfect, and Agni knows he was worse before; especially when he was on that damned boat, searching for any trace that could lead him to-

“Is this about me being banished?” he asks, baffled. “Azula, I didn’t have a choice. Father would have-”

“I’m not an idiot like you. I know you didn’t have a choice then - Agni, you weren’t even conscious when father put you on that ship. You getting yourself banished isn’t what I’m talking about,” her fury is boiling over, and Zuko is so, so lost. 

“Then what-?”

“You left!” she screams, her hands gesticulating, her eyes wide and wild, and Zuko feels as his heart stops beating. “I brought you home a hero! I lied to father for you! I told him he could trust you, that you’d regained your own honour, and then you left me!”

Tears make her eyes sparkle like pools of liquid fire, “Not only did you leave, you left after telling father the truth. Did it make you feel good? Did it? He was so angry,” her words trail off into a harried whisper. 

“I was on eggshells- no, I was on glass shards around him. It was my honour you wagered when you left, not yours. He wanted you dead - you brought that on yourself. But I needed to be perfect, or else he’d want me dead too.” 

“Azula, I-”

“Did she tell you to do it? I bet she did. She always did love you more.”

He feels disconnected from himself, but Zuko can feel his head shaking back and forth hopelessly, “Who-? What are you-?”

“And then you wrote a goodbye to Mai. Where was mine? Did I not deserve to know of your treachery too?” her tone is sharp and cuts like daggers. 

And. Well. 

Zuko doesn’t know what to say. 

There’s nothing, no assortment of words he can try to string together that will possibly make any of this okay. Assuage his own shame or Azula’s hurt. Because the fact of the matter is that he hurt her. Not consciously - but therein lies the problem. 

He tries to justify it: he didn’t have a choice. He couldn’t let his - their - father burn the world to ashes. He had to do what was right. Which he did, only with Azula as collateral. 

Zuko had left her behind. But it’s not like he could’ve taken her with him. He couldn’t have left a note because she would’ve run straight to father with it. Azula had been in too deep. It wasn’t her fault. But… 

But it wasn’t Zuko’s either.

He remembers the years before his banishment. Her hands on his back pushing him off the rocks at Ember Island. Her cruel words always cutting him down. The careless fire always thrown towards him. To keep him on his toes, she’d say. 

Azula had terrorised him. She was a product of her environment and the corrupt love shown to her, but she had hurt him. It didn’t negate how he had hurt her, but she wasn’t blameless. She has just as much reason for shame as he does; not that she likely feels any. 

Awareness returns in a rush. He’d been numb as she spoke, blood stagnant in his body as his heart seized. The rush of blood around his body now is almost overwhelming.

Zuko fights to keep his voice steady, “I know I haven’t been a good brother. I’m sorry. I am. But you’ve been a bad sister too, you know?” 

Azula’s face twists defensively. Arms crossed, fingers pressing white spots onto her arms. She looks like a child. She is one. 

“You have been. Since we were little. There were good times, yeah, but those were fleeting amongst the bad,” Zuko continues, absently twisting the golden bracelet cuffs that circle his wrists as he speaks. He isn’t shouting, and neither is she anymore. “I won’t insult your intelligence. You know what you did.”

“It was to help make you strong.” 

“No, it wasn’t. It was to help make you feel stronger.” 

She looks away.

Silence sits thickly between them. Reticent, not oppressive. They sit three feet apart on a bedspread, the echoes of their upbringing filling the space between them, and Zuko grieves. 

They had never stood a chance. 

Maybe they have one now.

The sun has begun to move away from Azula’s spot. She is half cast in shadow, half bathed in Agni’s light. 

He looks at her and finds himself thinking of Katara. Of Sokka. Zuko thinks of them and realises that he so desperately wants what they have. He wonders if Azula might too.

Birds sing outside of her window. 

“I’ve heard the rumours,” she says finally, quietly, something both hopeful and terrified undercutting her words. “About what the Avatar did to father,” she swallows hard. “Is it true?” 

He nods simply, he doesn’t have to ask what the rumours say, “Yeah. It’s true.”

She hums, frowning, “I didn’t know that was possible. I thought he’d kill him.”

“I hoped so too,” he whispers, and something akin to hope flares when she doesn’t contest his assumption.

“I’m surprised you didn’t have him do the same to me.”

“I wouldn’t let him if he tried.”

“Strong sentiment from someone who never managed to defeat the twelve-year-old monk.” 

Zuko laughs, surprised to find that it comes easily, readily. Whatever tension lingered between them dissolves into nothing with it. He glances at her through lidded eyes and sees her smiling softly. It’s tiny, but it’s earnest.

He shrugs, “I wouldn’t have had to anyway. Aang’s a sweet kid, he’s a pacifist too. He wouldn’t do that to you - he knows what the difference is between you and father.”

“And what’s that?” She asks, her smile fleeting, replaced by the tight press of her lips together. A muscle in her jaw twitches. 

“You’re fifteen. Father’s a grown man. He put you in a position he never should have. I hope you understand that one day.”

She looks at him, her gaze lingering on the left side of his face, and nods.

Zuko leaves not long after that. He tells Azula he’ll see her soon and finds that he means it. She backs that he should bring them tea next time. Before he leaves, he stands in the entryway and smiles. This time, it feels real. 

If he were to die at the hands of an assassin tomorrow, he would die more at ease than he would yesterday. 

————

Zuko,

How are you? We miss you! 

I hope you’re okay, it’s been a while since your last letter. I know Sokka is particularly concerned - he wrote and asked me if I’d heard from you at all. Ty Lee told me that Mai told her in one of her letters that you’re exhausting yourself. She also said that you’re doing a great job. I already knew that though - I saw for myself how you dedicated yourself to change. Word has made it to us about your reforms too. Zuko, you’re doing amazing things. The Fire Nation and the world will be better for it!

But please, Zuko, keep us in the loop. Let us know if you need any help - we’re your friends, we want to be there for you. I know what state your counsel was in when I left and how hard it is to find replacements - I can’t imagine it’s gotten any better in the months that have passed? Emphasis on months - because it’s been several of them since any of us last heard from you. 

We’ve been busy across the Earth Kingdom helping with the post-war challenges that have been popping up. I think Aang said he’d write to you about the pirates we fought? Yeah - there’s been lots of that happening across the kingdom. Things are definitely starting to calm slightly more now though. It’s all looking up! 

The warriors and I are a hawk away. I mean it, Zuko. Please write back.

Your friend,

Suki 

(Leader of The Kyoshi Warriors)

————

The West Side Primary is one of the first schools to fully adopt the education reforms. It being on the palace’s doorstep helps - the staff quite literally have Zuko and Mai breathing down their necks - but the fact that the headteacher is surprisingly adaptable in her politics helps even more.

She’s very young to be in the position she is - if Zuko had to guess, he’d say she was in her mid twenties, but the severe bun she slicks her hair back in ages her by a few years. Most of Zuko and Mai’s trouble has come from the older teachers who look at the reforms and scoff, thinking they know better. It’s becoming a theme - change is hard to make happen when the people embroiled in the old system take issue with a young upstart waltzing in and claiming to know better. 

Zuko gets it in a way. No one likes to be told they’re wrong.

But this headteacher - Mistress Shujing - has been open to listening. 

“You know, it’s funny,” she said the day Mai and Zuko knocked on her office door. “The old headteacher put me in charge after she retired to ‘let some young blood carry on our old ways’ - as if I’d ever let kids continue to be slapped when they get a question wrong. Agni knows that made me dread going to school back in my day. Oh, if only she could see me now, the old bat!”

Zuko likes her. He thinks Mai does too. She reminds him a bit of Ty Lee - a breath of fresh air in a nation full of Bailal’s.

Shujing read through the new curriculum and agreed to it with vague comments about how she had always thought the story surrounding the genocide of the Air Nomads suspicious, and how, “The kids will have so much fun learning about exotic people and their cultures!” 

And. Yeah. It’s not great but it’s a start. 

He’s here today to see if Shujing is true to her word. 

Kids have a way of being honest no adult can ever come close to. Hence why he and Mai are in their classes talking to them without their teachers. 

They answer their questions bluntly. 

“What has Master Jaizhou told you about the one hundred year war? Why did it start?” Mai asks one of the middle-school classes, to which they back: “Fire Lord Sozin wanted more power and hurt the other nations to get it.”

Then they turn to Zuko and add, “Your shoes are silly.” 

And… okay. That’s alright. 

“Did Mistress Nunoi explain what happened to the Air Nomads and Southern Waterbenders?” Zuko asks one of the upper classes, to which they solemnly respond: “Fire Lords Sozin and Azulon killed them.”

“Did she say why?”

“Because the Avatar was an airbender, and then when he went missing, he was expected to come back in one of the Water Tribes.”

It’s all sounding promising. 

The final class of the day is a younger group.

Thirty or so six year olds all sit cross legged in front of Mai and Zuko inside their warmly decorated classroom, and it hits Zuko suddenly how small these kids really are.

“Has your teacher told you about the other nations? About how they live compared to how we live?” Zuko asks with an inquisitive smile.

They all nod, some shouting out affirmatives. 

“What do you think about it?” He prompts.

One girl raises her hand, “I think it’s cool that they can build houses from ice in the Water Tribes! It would melt here.”

Mai nods, “It would, you’re right. And they couldn’t build houses like ours in the Water Tribe because they don’t have the same materials available nor the same weather. What does that tell you?”

The girl frowns, clearly thinking, before she lights up, “That people live differently in different places because different places are different so can’t always be the same.” 

Close enough. 

“Yes, exactly. Good job,” Zuko says to her kindly.

“My daddy says that the other nations are un- unsibildised,” another kid, a young boy with vivid freckles volunteers. The fact that this sentiment hasn’t been raised before now is the only thing surprising about it; because it’s all well and good that the teachers are following the curriculum, but the parents are another matter entirely. 

“Do you mean ‘uncivilised?’” Zuko asks, hoping that maybe he has the chops to turn this into a teaching moment. 

He taught the Avatar, after all. What’s a group of six-year-olds in comparison? 

The kid tilts his head like a seal-dog puzzling out a new trick, “Maybe? I don’t know, it’s just what he said.”

“Okay,” Zuko says slowly, fighting the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. “We don’t say that. It’s not kind and it’s not right.”

“But my daddy is always right.”

“Nobody is always right.”

“Well my daddy is so that’s not true.”

“No he’s not, and yes, it is.”

“No it’s not.”

“It is.”

“No, it’s not!”

“Yes it-!”

Mai clears her throat, and Zuko catches himself before the anger tickling in his throat erupts. Agni, this was a bad idea. He should’ve just let Mai come herself - children require patience that Zuko is running fresh out of. 

And as if to solidify the thought, freckles hammers the nail into the coffin.

“No, it’s not!” he strops, floundering like he’s looking for something else to solidify his argument. Then it seems he’s found it, as he smugly declares, looking Zuko in his blind eye, “Your face is ugly!”

Giggles erupt from the peanut gallery. 

It’s nothing new. Honestly, he should be used to it by now, and he is in a way. The comments are expected, as is the way his unscarred cheek burns - not from the fire that claimed the other, but from the embarrassment that eats away at him, gnawing at the cords that hold his heart in his chest, sending it plummeting down into his stomach. 

Before, he’d scowl, maybe lash out, maybe throw a punch of flame dangerously close to the person’s own face just to see how they’d like it. And sure, that was all well and good - perfectly expected behaviour from the Fire Nation’s banished Prince. 

Now though? Crowned as the Fire Lord? 

In meetings and in public; when told he’s too young for court, too inexperienced to rule, too radical, dishonourable and dishonoured. Also, apparently, when he’s told his face looks ugly by a stubborn child. His anger is left to fester, magma in his blood just waiting for the chance to erupt. Wearing his emotions on his sleeve is no longer an option, not that he chose to do so before - he just… couldn’t help it. Still can’t always. 

The role necessitates the mask. Even the best actors slip sometimes.

Like now, where weirdly, there’s a stinging in his eyes. Usually that comes later, in the solitude of his room, behind closed doors. But. There’s thirty children all looking- no, staring at him; all laughing and murmuring, some pointing, some craning their necks, clamouring to get a better view. 

Zuko is good at pretending. He’s well versed in the art - his entire life devoted to its practice. So he pretends to be calm, collected and composed. Pretends that the anger that never stops boiling inside of him has long since settled, and pretends that he feels nothing in its wake. 

Azula always lies, but at least, Zuko thinks, she’s honest about it. 

Where Zuko lies, he fools himself foremost. He learned from the best. 

There’s an audience awaiting his encore. Spotlight on him, streaming in from the intricate set of windows, their eyes wide and eager and growing giddier with his silence. 

He blinks away the sting. A quiet, steadying breath, and the mask is back on like it never dropped at all.

Zuko frowns in mock seriousness and points at his face, “This, kids, is what happens when you don’t eat your greens. Or wear your sun hats.”

Beside him, Mai shifts.

“But I don’t like eating greens - they taste like grass!” Freckles cries through a horrified gasp.

Zuko crossing his arms, “How do you know what grass tastes like?”

“I ate some once, so I know that greens taste like grass.”

“Well that’s no good,” Zuko tuts, stuck on why the fuck a child would want to eat grass. “Try eating them with some chilli flakes.”

“My sun hat falls off when I play skip tag, does that mean my face will melt too?” A girl asks, wringing her hands together with such anxious force that her bangles clatter. 

“Ask your parents to get a strap for it, it’ll stay on better.”

Another girl with egregiously long pigtails crawls forwards to tap his arm, her voice a whisper, audible only to Zuko over the clamour of her classmates, “Does it hurt? Will it hurt if I forget my sun hat and get one too?”

Zuko smiles, “No, it doesn’t hurt. And you don’t have to worry; I won’t let it happen to you - any of you. I swear it on my honour.” 

She smiles back.

The audience is taken. Roses might as well be thrown following the curtains. They bow and take their leave and listen as the cries for more, for their return to the stage, fade with every passing step.

Mai’s hand slips into Zuko’s without a word. 

The review goes as such: Shujing’s implementation of the curriculum is going smoothly. The national roll out will be overseen by the leading lady. And when the leading man gets back to his room that evening, he lies atop his bed, stares at the ceiling, and swallows down the lump in his throat. Nettles settle in his eyes once again. 

Scene.

————

Zuko,

How goes it? Ha! I still can’t believe that’s how you would’ve spoken to a random guard in the Fire Nation’s highest security prison. How you lasted as long as you did in there before getting busted, I’ll never know. Miracles do happen!

Things here are going steady. The tension between some of us Southerners and the Northerners who came down to help has settled, even if just slightly. They’ve given up on their oil extraction plans and now are solely focusing on city and industrial development. I’ve been helping draw up blueprints - the waterbenders are good at getting the ice into place, but without instructions they’d all surely collapse on themselves! The cream of the crop the North did indeed not send. Spirits, one of the guys didn’t know what a truss was - and it’s this lot who are reconstructing Wolf Cove and the other tribes. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not live in a house built by a guy with no knowledge of structural design.

It’s weird though. Wolf Cove will always be home but it’s so… different. You should come down and see it - you’d be able to appreciate how much isn’t the same considering how you’re one of the few who saw it before. Remember how I nailed you on the head with boomerang? Good times. 

Dad is here though. Gran Gran too. Katara is still away with Aang. They’ve come back every now and then, but never for long. I think after the whole Yu Dao situation they’ve been so focused on helping put out fires across the Earth Kingdom where they spring up - pardon the pun. Or don’t. But yeah. That’s weird too, being away from her. This is the longest I’ve ever gone without seeing her and it’s only been a month. I miss her. And Aang, Toph and Suki. Spirits, maybe even Ty Lee and your scary girlfriend. 

And you, of course. 

We get missives sent to us down here. Everyone is raving about you - you’re doing a great job. I can’t imagine it’s been smooth sailing to get there.

Your last letter didn’t say much. You know you can tell me anything, right? You’re my friend, Zuko, I want to know what’s going on with you - even if it’s just what you had for breakfast. 

Anyways, I’ll write again soon. And so will you - I’m holding you to it. 

Yours, 

Sokka

————

One week later, Zuko stands alone in his room, his only witness the moon above him, and wonders why he didn’t let any one of his assassins get a lick in good enough to knock him out for a week. 

Sleeping means dreaming. Zuko doesn’t want to dream. 

The solution is simple.

“Did you sleep at all last night?” Mai asks him over breakfast. 

Zuko pours himself a cup of green tea, his hands steadier than they should be, all things considered, “Yes, I did.”

“For how long? Twenty minutes?” 

“More like five,” Captain Ishiki cuts in. The traitor.

Zuko grimaces as Mai rounds on him, “That’s not healthy, Zuko. You need to sleep.”

“I know.”

“I don’t think you do.”

“I do! It’s just… there’s lots to get done, might as well make use of every hour in the day,” he says, ever the pragmatist, spreading a layer of jam atop a plaited pastry. 

Mai pours herself a cup of oolong, “You’re not stupid. Don’t try that whole routine with me.”

He sighs. This is his warmup act, the main performance is to follow; and by then, the routine must be perfected. A counsel meeting will be the stage - one discussing the implementation of a new financial system. It’s one of the most important throughout his reign so far. 

“Just… it's just dreams keeping me awake. Nothing important.” 

“It is important.”

He ignores this, “How are you? Ready for today?”

Mai narrows her eyes, like she knows he’s deflecting, but then shrugs around a sip of tea. “I have my pitch for how much allocation the schools need. Warning you now: it’s a lot. But it’s necessary. Your grandfather fairly slashed the education budget and your father never thought to raise it again. Or if he did think about it, he immediately disregarded it and put the money towards the front instead.”

“You feel ready?”

“Yeah. That bunch of white haired, stubborn old bats have nothing on me,” she grins wickedly, and he smiles back. It sits naturally on his face. 

The pastry is sprinkled with rosemary - a fragrant, warming herb. It sticks in his teeth as he chews. He swirls his mouthful of tea around his mouth subtlety before swallowing. It scratches his throat on the way down.

He pulls a face, “It’s oversteeped.”

Mai snorts, “A couple of months in a tea shop has done wonders for your palate.”

“Funny,” he says, chasing the taste down with lemon water. 

Mai sets her cup down and glances around the room. It’s just them in the conservatory where they tend to have their breakfast, them and Ishiki over by the doors. On the other side of the glass, the rose bushes sway softly in the wind. 

“I’ve done some digging, talked to some people,” she says lowly. 

“Oh?” Zuko sets his glass down too, clearing his throat slightly where the bitter taste lingers.  “Did you have any luck?” 

“Yes and no. I have a name for the organisation: The New Ozai Society.” 

Zuko blinks, “A bit on the nose is it not?”

“We’ll tell the next assassin to workshop it,” she smirks, and Zuko laughs. It’s inappropriate, really - Katara and Aang would skin him if they found him giggling over his upcoming murder. But he and Mai have always had this rapport, this ability to find solace in disquiet. He loves her for it. 

“Their agenda is essentially what Mengi laid out - they want you gone and Ozai back on the throne. A return to the traditional world order.”

“Traditional world order? So they want the war to continue?” Agni, his head hurts at the thought.

Mai sighs as though it’s all a matter of fact, which he supposes it is, “And everything that comes with it. The colonies resettled, industry refocused on military output, redistribution of propaganda - which is funny because that propaganda is the reason their little club exists in the first place.”

He frowns and rubs a hand against his chest. It burns slightly, “Is it localised? How many members are we talking about?”

“It seems to be gaining traction nationwide. I don’t know for sure about numbers, but it’s got to be at least one hundred. That’s a generous minimum too.”

“How-” Zuko coughs into his arm, “How did you find all this out?”

“I have my ways,” she says, and he trusts her implicitly. 

Mai isn’t finished though. Nor is he finished coughing. Fuck, he wants to fire whoever brewed this batch. A cold sweat breaks out across his skin, and the breeze wafting in through the shutters settles it in with a chill. 

“There’s more,” her voice is dark, heavy with the weight of her next words. “This doesn’t seem to be a grassroots effort - I think there’s a high likelihood that someone is funding it. Maybe several someone’s. I don’t know who exactly yet, but I’ll- Zuko, are you okay?”

He can’t stop coughing. The scratch in his throat has scorched deep into flesh, searing him in fire from the inside. Except it doesn’t feel like fire, Zuko would know. It feels like molten lava. Or acid, like the sulphur infested springs found by a volcano. 

Silver and ceramic clatter and smash into pieces on the floor. Zuko thinks he falls down with them. He’s on his knees, one hand atop the shards, he barely feels it cut, barely feels anything save for crushing desperation as the coughing thickens into strained gasps. His lungs are shrivelled, empty, and he’s too weak to force them to comply. 

Too weak. It’s always been the case. But shit, Zuko doesn’t want to die with his father’s voice in his ears. Doesn’t want to prove the man right. 

“-ko. Zuko! What the fu-”

“-sician’s on the way. Hold on-”

There are hands on him. They’re smaller than the ones he’s used to pinning him down, more calloused. He wants them off. He wants them to stay. But he can’t speak, can’t breathe. Can’t think. He chokes on nothing, clawing desperately at his neck. 

Zuko isn’t a stranger to pain. Nor agony. They’re closely acquainted. Friends, even. He likes to think he knows his friends well. He tries, at least. 

What he feels now isn’t pain, nor is it agony. It’s something else entirely. Something horrible and wretched. It flays him, tears off his skin and turns him inside out. He wants to scream, to beg for someone to please, Agni, make it stop. He wants it to end. He wants his mother. It’s horrendous and dreadful and the product of his worst nightmares-

Until it isn’t. 

His eye itches from the tears that have gathered. After that he feels nothing. It’s all very fast.

Voices fade into silence. The horridness subsides. The bitter taste of oversteeped leaves melts into something that tastes sweet.

The weight of his head pulls him down into darkness. 

Zuko feels something that might be peace, and with it he knows he must be dead.