Chapter Text
When you were eight years old, your father locked you in a storage closet, where extra armor for the guards and servants’ brooms or buckets were stored, and left you there for hours.
The first five minutes, you pounded on the door, scared and apologizing and begging to be let out, because it was dark and cramped and you were young and didn’t like being closed in spaces where you couldn’t get out and see the sun. You quickly realized that wasn’t going to work, and ended up in the far corner, curled with your knees to your chest and your arms around your knees, trying hard to keep yourself calm and in control because you felt like you couldn’t breathe, like you were suffocating in the darkness and you would never be let out.
You stayed that way for hours, probably, eyes shut tight and breath stuttering, until Father eventually came back and unlocked the door.
You remember light spilling in, and Father peering down at you, and you remember being so sickeningly relieved and in awe you scrambled out faster than you think you’d ever moved before. You weren’t even mad at him, didn’t blame him one bit—he brought the light back to you, and all you could be was grateful; you’d messed up bad, somehow, and this was necessary for you to learn.
He’d raised a stern eyebrow at your frantic hurry, and let you off with a short don’t do it again, and you had nodded and bowed and tried not to run away when he dismissed you.
When you were nine, you lost a practice match to your sister and he backhanded you so hard you fell over.
Get up, Zuko, he had snarled, and you remember the look in his eyes when you stumbled to your feet, like you were worth less than dirt on the bottom of his shoe, and you remember feeling worth less than dirt, you remember feeling like you never wanted to be looked at like that again, you remember deciding that you would do everything you could to never ever be looked at like that again.
When you were ten, your mother came to your room in the middle of the night, gathered you in her arms and whispered to you and told you never to forget, never to forget who you are, told you that she loved you and that all of this was for you, and then she let go and pulled the cloak over her head and disappeared from your life like she had never been there in the first place.
In your lowest moments, you remember wondering why she didn’t take you with her, why she left in the first place—why did she leave, if she loved you so much why did she leave you behind? She loved you, you knew that, but still. But still. She left you alone with your sister and your father and a too-empty palace.
When you were thirteen, your father challenged you to a fight you could never possibly win, and he loomed over you, high and mighty and terrible, reached out and dug a hand into your hair and yanked your head back and burned and burned and burned until your voice cracked and died in your throat.
Uncle never burned you. Uncle never locked you in closets or twisted your arm too far or hit you so hard you fell over. Uncle never wrapped you up and then walked away. Uncle never left you alone when you needed him, even though you needed him too much, even when you probably annoyed him half to death and pushed him so far he probably wanted to hit you so hard you’d be feeling it for days.
Uncle never sent you away or left you behind or hurt you to teach you a lesson. (He refused to talk to you once, twice, three times, back turned in his cell, but you deserved that, you know. That was something you had to learn, that was something he had to do.)
You sit by the fire, surrounded by half-strangers you’ve hunted and fought, and you wonder why you forgave the man who hurt you so much again and again, and never stopped to thank the man who never tried to. You wonder why you were so stupid, you wonder why your father and your mother hurt you and your uncle never did, you wonder why you always wanted the wrong things when the best things were right in front of you.
Never forget who you are, your mother said.
Mostly, you wonder what she would think of you now, and what your uncle thought of you right before he burned.
The morning after you and Aang get back from the dragons (you wish you could say you were surprised to find that your fire was all but extinguished, nothing more than puffs of hot air and smoky knuckles, but then you thought about Mai and about Azula and about Uncle and about flames and knew that whatever was driving you forward now, keeping you going, it wasn’t the anger that was there before—and this is impossible, you had thought in disbelief when you saw them, because the last dragon is dead; the Dragon of the West was the last one, and he is gone) you finish breakfast quickly and excuse yourself quietly.
You don’t know how to act around these people, the ones who look at you with something you don’t quite understand (suspicion, apprehension, understanding—pity) and don’t think you want to understand. You don’t quite know how to speak to them; you think they probably don’t know how to speak to you either. You think they’re as uncomfortable around you as you are around them, and perfectly fine letting you do whatever the hell you want to as long as you keep your promise and teach Aang all he needs.
You try to ignore that the reason they do this is because they know you have nothing else to go back to.
It’s fine, either way; you’re glad for the space you’re given as you make your way through the upside-down halls and into one of the far back rooms.
Hidden underneath the center of the stone floor, Uncle stored some of his best tea, back when you first visited. This is the beginning of a great journey, he had said, sitting across from you and ignoring the way your young hands shook around your cup, and when our journey is complete, we will come back and have another to cup to mark the end, how does that sound?
It sounds like a waste of time, you had grumbled, when what you meant to say was that sounds nice, that sounds like you think we can do this, I need you to think we can do this.
Uncle, it seemed, had understood anyways, like he always did. You wish you had told him, though, you wish you had told him how much that meant. You think he probably knew, but you still wish you had told him.
Toph, the earhtbender girl, comes once you have the pot heating up, walks in and sits down next to you and dangles her feet over the edge of the temple floor.
“Do all firebenders like tea this much,” she asks, “or is it just your family?”
You look at her for a very long moment, and say “I think it was just him. I never had a very strong taste for it myself,”
“So why the sudden interest?” she doesn’t sound accusing, just curious, a respectful kind of curious that seems too soft for her.
You shrug, before you remember that she can’t see you, and say, “This was the first temple me and Uncle stopped at, after I was exiled. He, uh—he stored some of his favorite tea here, and said that once our—our journey was finished, we would come back and have another cup,” you dig your nails into your opposite arm to steady yourself, “I figured this is the best I’m gonna get. We started our journey here, and now I’m going to end it,”
Toph is quiet for a long moment; you don’t look over at her because you don’t really want to see her expression right now, just fiddle with the pot and check to see if the tea is done.
“I had tea with him once,” she says quietly, “And he gave me some me some really good advice,”
Despite everything, and how much it hurts, that makes you smile, “He always did have a thing for drinking tea with strangers,”
She pauses for a long time before she says, “He was worried about you, you know. He cared about you a lot,”
You swallow hard and close your eyes and say, “I know,”
“I think he would be proud of you,”
This one is more difficult to answer, almost, because you knew he loved you, it may have taken years to get it through your head but you knew Uncle loved you, but proud of you? You don’t think anyone could ever be proud of you again, not after—not after.
“I know,” you say anyway, because you know it’s true, but you also know you don’t deserve it, “I know,”
You dream about it. Sometimes, in the dreams, Uncle turns and looks at you, and his eyes are cold with betrayal hurt disappointment hatred, and he says look what you’ve done without opening his mouth. Other times, he bleeds forgiveness. You don’t know which is worse.
You always wake up in a cold sweat either way, panic and shame and terror all twisted up and stuck in your throat. You dig a hand into you hair and pull to keep yourself from falling to pieces. You don’t ever fall back asleep.
Toph hears you holding back yells at night, and she understands.
You never think these things through, Uncle says in the back of your mind, and you insist on going with Sokka to break his father out of the most heavily fortified prison in the whole damn Fire Nation, because you know what can happen when you jump headfirst into situations you can’t control with no one to back you up.
“I think your uncle would be proud,” he says on the flight there, an older echo of Toph that has you wanting to jump out of the balloon because you don’t deserve whatever pride he would or wouldn’t give and what’s the point of thinking about that anyway—it’s not like you’ll ever be able to ask him, “Leaving your home to come help us? That’s hard,”
You think about lightening and you think about you father and you say, “It wasn’t that hard,”
(You do end up finding his father. You feel something sharp and bitter whenever you see them talk or laugh or elbow each other in the ribs, and have to look away.)
“When I lost my mom,” Katara says on the ride back to camp (the man who killed her mother is a coward, and you hope he remembers this day for the rest of his life), “I was angry. I was sad, but I was angry, too. I would’ve done anything to get back at the man who took her away,” she holds Appa’s reins tight in her gloved hands, “I stopped, because I won’t stoop down to his level. I’m not sure if that means I’m too weak to kill him, or if I’m strong enough not to,” she pauses, and looks over at him, blue eyes softer than he’s seen since Ba Sing Se, “Why did you stop?”
The question digs deeper than you would have expected, and you have to look away.
“It wasn’t my destiny,” you answer eventually, “Defeating the Fire Lord is the Avatar’s destiny; it’s the only way the world can be put back into balance. If I had done, I would’ve just made it worse,”
Katana looks at you for a long moment, and nods, “I think Aang does need to be the one to defeat him. He’s a powerful man, and he’s terrible, but…he’s also your father, isn’t he?” she says slowly, “I don’t think I could kill my father, no matter what he did,”
“He is not my father,” you defend feebly, “I don’t know if he ever was my father, not really,” you make yourself look up at her, at this girl who you think has maybe on the way to forgiving you, who bared her soul before you and then let that awful man go, “I wanted to kill him, Katara, I wanted to so bad, but,” you shake your head, “I couldn’t. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t. I have two family members left, and they’re both horrible people, I know that, and they’ve both hurt the world so much—and I know we have to defeat both of them if we want this war to stop, but. They’re all that’s left. And I just couldn’t,”
You flinch hard in surprise when, hesitantly and giving you plenty of time to scoot away, she pulls you into a light hug.
“I know,” she says, “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive the man who killed my mother,” she pulls back, big compassionate eyes, “But I think I’m ready to forgive you,”
The play makes you want to curl up and die, but at least—thank the goddamn sprits—Uncle didn’t burn. You did, but you think that’s the way it should have been. You think that’s the way it might be, soon.
The way these people look at you makes you want to curl up and die, too, like they were silently expecting Iroh to burn, too, and are morbidly relieved that he didn’t. You don’t know what they would have done, if he had—you don’t know what you would have done, other than probably cry, and wouldn’t that have been a sight.
‘Love Amongst The Dragons’ all over again, you think, and can faintly imagine Uncle laughing at his fake-bearded counterpart.
You place five tiny, flickering balls of fire along Aang’s shoulders (Katara, Sokka, Toph, Suki, Uncle—not one for yourself) as he sits, meditating in the early morning sunlight. You leave one final, tiny flame to rest on top of his head, right on the tip of the arrowhead, and think: and this one is for you.
You sit next to him and feel him breathe, concentrating on keeping the fire just off of his skin, and you think: this boy is twelve, and young, and going to die, and—of course, of course, always, just like before—there is nothing I can do to stop it.