Chapter Text
It took Zuko a week to make it to Earth Kingdom shores. He survived off of dubious-looking arctic berries, a snow squirrel-hare he’d managed to catch, and ice he melted using firebending. Not much, but barely enough. Shock and pure determination had kept him going. He would not have made it the first night without his firebending to keep him warm.
Something had changed within him—something other than the spirit of chaos bound to his soul— but Zuko was not someone who was used to a lot of self-reflection. He couldn’t put his finger on exactly what was different, only that it was.
The nearest small scrubby town seemed to be a mix of Earth Kingdom peasants and Water tribe outcasts. No one was impressed by his scruffy, half-starved kid. His recently shaved head made some suspect he had flea-lice, and the inn-keeper insisted he dunk in a cold pool before he stepped inside. Others assumed, from the scar, he had gotten on the wrong side of a firebender. Not one person offered charity. Instead, they offered work.
There was a fishing vessel set to go out to sea, and if Zuko wanted to eat, he was expected to earn his keep.
It galled him—he was a prince, he should be given food!—but he wasn’t stupid. And he did know how to swab decks.
His only regret was that he had to leave Uncle in the North. But surely, he was fine. He was never the one who had been banished. As a matter of fact, he had a high place of honor as Admiral Zhao’s advisor, and if the siege proved successful… well, Uncle would share Zhao’s glory. He could go home.
Glory, Vaatu scoffed deep in his heart. One more step in Ravva’s plan to bring all under a single voice.
This was the most disturbing change within him. Zuko was Fire Nation to the core. He loved his homeland and his people. They were the best in the world.
But one of the things which had changed—or maybe not changed, but strengthened—was the nagging feeling that perhaps the Fire Nation wasn’t right for everybody.
Zuko’s favorite food was spicy noodles, but it didn’t mean they were for everyone.
Spicy noodles. How poetic. My vessel is such a deep thinker, Vaatu thought, dry.
Zuko scowled and leaned his mop against the railing of the ship. He had as little to do with the fishermen as possible, and was currently hidden out of sight behind a bundle of fishing nets.
“If my father wins the war, and the whole world becomes Fire Nation,” he said, “Does that make the Fire Nation… less special?”
Now that, Vaatu replied, is a valid question.
****
Zuko took his meager payment at the first Earth Kingdom Port meant for evening shore leave, and walked off the ship the moment it docked. He didn’t look back.
He wandered through the town. No direction. No plan.
As a prince, he had always been set apart by birth, and even more so during his banishment. But he had never been alone like this.
He needed to find an Earthbending teacher. At sixteen, he was too old to be a novice, but the coins meant for shore leave was enough only to buy a few meager meals. Not earthbending classes.
But Zuko was not about to give up that easily.
Go East, Vaatu said. You will not find what you seek here.
“Why?” Zuko frowned and looked around. This was an Earth Kingdom port, full of people who were his enemy. People of the Earth were built larger and more solid. It made him feel small.
It also was annoying to see the common folk laughing working, talking and gossiping just as they had at the few colony ports he had been allowed to visit… before Ozai amended his banishment decree to include that he was not to set foot in the colonies, as well. Afterward, his ship was only allowed in ports neutral to the war, and even then he had to wear a hood. Of course, he often snuck ashore under a blue spirit mask. Anyway, it was strange to see people act the same in both nations. Shouldn’t they be… different?
“There has to be an earthbending master around here, somewhere. Maybe I can threaten someone into teaching me something,” Zuko continued, though lower. There were a few burly looking men nearby, and he did not want to be seen talking to himself.
Vessel, Vaatu said. What makes you think you are capable of earthbending?
“What do you mean, what do I mean?” he demanded. “Wasn't that the point of all this?”
The point was to break free of the interminable tree of time, the spirit said. But it is true: now that we have merged you have the potential of bending all four elements. But earth, water, and air have not been unlocked within you.
For the first time since leaving the North Pole, Zuko felt cold. He thought again to his mother's old stories. The quaint fables with Avatar Wan. Now that he thought about it, the first Avatar had not come into his bending the moment he merged with Raava. In fact… had he needed Raava at all?
Yes and no, Vaatu said. A human spirit can only hold one element at a time. Merged as we are, I hold the other elements inside you.
“You could have told me before!” Zuko snapped, then looked away as a nearby family looked scandalized at him. He scowled and turned down the nearest alleyway. “Then what do I do?”
There are three ways to bend an element. The first is to be born with the potential. The second is to fully understand the nature of that element and to accept it within your own spirit. This can sometimes be accomplished by with a lifetime of meditation and contemplation. Even then, it is rare. The third, of course, is to visit an ancient Lion Turtle. They may grant you the capability to bend the element of their choosing.
Zuko frowned and pinched the bridge of his nose. Lion Turtles were the stuff of myths. “I don't suppose you know where any ten-thousand year old Lion Turtles happen to be hiding, do you?"
Go East, Vessel, Vaatu said.
Zuko picked up his pack and traveled east.
The roads were dusty, and it was tiring and slow to walk on foot, Zuko thought about stealing an ostrich horse or perhaps liberating a Komodo rhino from his father’s army, but Vaatu would allow neither. It was a shame. He had always heard that the Avatar had an animal companion, and he liked the image of himself riding around on a Komodo Rhinoceros. Yes, they were foul-tempered and stank like rotten ash, but he’d always wanted one as a kid.
He spent the small amount of coin he had been given for shore leave on hardtack food. It did not last long. He ran out in the middle a vast evergreen forest.
Vaatu did not seem to be concerned. We are nearly there, he said, Go East.
Go East, Zuko repeated mockingly and kicked a rock just to watch it sail away. It struck with satisfaction against the trunk of a large evergreen tree. Maybe soon he would know how to do that with earthbending. That thought took him out of his dark mood.
On cue, his stomach growled.
He continued to walk east. The next day, in the vee of two ridges, he came upon the opening entrance of a large cave.
Zuko paused, frowning. The mouth of the cave was large enough to hold an army, but it seemed to be entirely deserted.
Then again, the only drawings of ancient Lion Turtles had shown they’d been large enough to hold entire communities of hapless humans on their backs.
For a dizzying second, he looked at the vast mountain peaks and wondered if they were the bumps and ridges on the shell of an unimaginably large Lion Turtle. If so, what was his opening? An ear canal? A nostril?
“What is this?" he asked.
The way to unlock your earthbending, if you are strong enough.
Zuko frowned. “Of course I am.” Then, kindling fire in the palm of his hand, he strode in.
The cave was… cavelike. Not much to it. Full of loose rubble and slippery patches that caught him by surprise until he learned to watch for the reflection of wet rock on the ground.
He walked further and further in, noting no signs of other human beings. It was just a normal cave. He didn’t hear breathing or the pulse of a heartbeat as if he were entering a giant animal, or anything.
“Hello?” he called, and heard his voice echo over and over again down the long, long tunnel. With a shrug, he walked on.
Whenever he came to a fork in the tunnel, he chose a direction at random. Vaatu didn't offer an opinion. He seemed to be waiting with the patience of a being who had been stuck in a tree for ten thousand years.
Zuko walked on. He was already very hungry, and burning a constant flame did not help.
Soon his water skin was dry. He had been walking for hours. He was certain the sun must be down by now. And he stopped and realized… He could not feel the sun.
With a curse, Zuko quickly turned and headed back the way he came. But he had taken the right tunnel last time, hadn’t he? The cave floor was too stony to show footprints.
He made his best guess, turning down one tunnel and then turning again. Then once more, running now. Panicked. Each tunnel within the cave system looked the same, and yet was completely different. He ran until his breath came out ragged and he had to drop into a fast walk.
Eventually, hungry, thirsty, and the constant drag of effort to keep the flame lit was too much. His concentration slipped and the fire went out.
The darkness that swept over him was instant and all-consuming. Darker than the darkest night. There was not a hint of light, nothing in the suffocating darkness. He was too deep within the earth to feel the position of the sun.
In panic, he quickly lit the fire again and breathed a sigh of relief. But the flame in his palm was small and shaky, as fluttery as the rapid beat of his heart.
“Hello? Um, honored Lion Turtle?… Somebody… Can somebody hear me?”
His voice echoed down the long, endless tunnels and bounced back to him a hundred times, sounding distorted and scared.
“Vaatu, enough of this!” he snarled. “Where is Lion Turtle?”
Vessel, the spirit replied, sounding almost pitying. The Lion Turtles, with very few exceptions, have been gone from this world for millennia.
“I don't understand. What do you mean? Why did you bring me here?”
In order to bend the earth, one must you must learn to understand the earth better than you know yourself.
There were three ways to learn to bend: Being born with the ability, gaining the ability from a Lion Turtle, or…
Horror swept through him, instant and cold. “But you said it would take a lifetime.”
Perhaps, Vaatu replied. But those did not have the great spirit of chaos to aid them.
“No. No! I'm not doing this. I'm getting out of here.” Cupping the delicate flame in front of him, he started walking, then falling into a heavy jog once he fully got his breath back. If he were able to feel the sun, he would have a direction of where to go… but he was too deep, and even Agni’s rays lay out of reach.
The twisting tunnels went on and on and on. One after the other in an endless maze. No water. No food. No sound. Just the earth around him. Uncountable tons of it pressing down. He felt like he was drowning and there was no escape in sight. For all he knew, he was only heading deeper.
Eventually, Zuko had to stop. The fire flickered and died.
Absolute blackness pressed against his eyeballs like a force.
Here, in this system there are no bioluminescent creatures to guide your way, Vaatu said. You will only leave this cave system by earthbending your way out.
“I don't know how!” he snapped. He pressed one fist to the wall, but the stone was inert and unreachable to him. “What if I can’t?”
Then you will die, and you will try again in your next life.
“You’re crazy!” Zuko turned, started blindly forward, then staggered as the toe of his boot caught an imperfection in the stone. “This can't be happening. You’re a spirit—Do something! I have to get out of here. You have to get me out! Vaatu! Answer me! You son of a—“
Vaatu was silent, taking his abuse with stoicism.
Eventually, Zuko lost the energy even to scream at Vaatu. He felt his way to the nearest wall. And, hunching against it, brought his legs to his chest and rested.
He must've slept, because when he dreamed it was of the meadow Vaatu had once shown him to explain chaos and order.
He dreamed the spirit was intoning: The soil is alive, Vessel.
And this time Zuko saw beneath the meadow. Not only the soil, but bugs, worms, rodents, and other creatures within the ground. Most were too small for the eye, but Zuko saw and knew them anyway. An entire planet full of tiny creatures he had never conceived in his wildest imagination. With the sense of a born firebender, he recognized them as tiny motes, like flames in the darkness.
Vaatu took him deeper.
All that soil lay like a skin above miles and miles of stone. And that lay on top of the fire he knew so well within his own heart. There was a heartbeat in the center of the earth—both alien and familiar. The slow grinding pulse of magma. It was beautiful. It was terrible.
Forces erupted from this orange core in the center of the world. A force Zuko didn’t fully understand, even with the spirit-sight. It moved the rock, strong enough to crush it together and rip it apart… but had no effect on flesh.
He understood in the dream he would learn this force, too, if he ever hoped to earthbend.
Zuko woke to the same pitch blackness. Having no idea where the sun was made him feel dizzy and unmoored, like a ship drifting at sea.
He was so thirsty. It felt like his insides were dry. Too dry to risk firebending. But Zuko was not about to sit and let death take him.
Slowly, cautiously, he felt his way forward. Before he realized he was lost, he remembered seeing tunnels with trickles of limey water, but that had been a long time ago.
Running his fingers against the edge of the wall, he continued onward, stumbling when his shoes hit loose rocks. He walked and walked. And eventually had to sit and rest again.
Vaatu offered no advice. He seemed to be waiting.
“I can't die like this,” Zuko said, and got up and forced himself to walk again.
Eventually, his legs would not hold him anymore. He fell into a stupor, moving forward. He knew he must've hit other twists in the tunnels— sometimes he even hit dead ends and had to retrace his steps. It all became a blur, like he was asleep and his body was carrying him forward by habit alone.
Then, suddenly, his boots hit something soft and weirdly yielding. He tripped, falling half upon it.
He didn't understand what was, except it was soft and furry and cold… And very very still.
Carefully, he reached. It was a body. Not human, but nearly as big as one. Soft and very very cold. A carcass of some sort of animal?
Abruptly there was a vibration to his right. A low vibrating rumble.
Hot, moist air huffed over his face.
Zuko jerked back with a shocked sound. Although he could not see, he had the impression something was very large and very big was right next to him.
The air—the breath—huffed over him again. He slapped wildly at the air and his hands hit nothing.
It was huge, dwarfing Zuko in size. It was a very large animal sniffing at him. The breath that fell over him smelled sweet, like flowers.
There was a second rumble. Another breath washed over him. Less sweet, but accompanied by a deep rumble he felt in his breastbone.
“What… What?” he tried to rise, but dizziness made it hard and he tripped over his own feet and fell down again. Next to the corpse. Quickly, he scrambled away—only to hit his head on a low outcropping of rock.
Calm yourself, Vessel, Vaatu said, speaking for the first time in hours. These are giant badgermoles.
Zuko's head spun. Although he could picture the creatures—they were featured in an Earth Kingdom story scroll he loved as a child—He could not remember if they were carnivores or herbivores.
Then he remembered what he had tripped over.
The last puzzle piece clicked into place. These were two giant badgermoles, and he had tripped over a much smaller one. Their offspring perhaps. Their very cold, very still, offspring.
He really did have the worst luck in the world.
Zuko froze. “I didn't kill it," he said, voice harsh, and wondering why he was speaking to animals. But he couldn't run even if he had the energy.
He highly doubted the animals would understand or care. Their baby was dead, and he had been found next to it.
The badgermoles snuffed and rumbled at one another, sounding like monsters in the dark. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to brace himself to death, hoping he would be quick and also that Vaatu blamed himself for eternity forgetting his first vessel killed.
Then suddenly something brushed against his shoulder. He swatted away, and his fingers encountered some kind of rough vegetation; cool and wet.
He did not think, his dry tongue and dehydrated body made the decision for him. In a second, he tore it away, and stuffed it in his mouth.
He bit down and explosion of water hit his tongue. Watercress-moss. It was a delicacy in the Fire Nation—a plant made mostly of water meant for tiny, delicate salads or palate cleansers between courses. He never realized it had been imported from the Earth Kingdom.
More watercress-moss brushed against his cheek, along with large warm whuffing breath that smelled like flowers.
He took more, and his fingers encountered a furred whiskered snout. One of the badgermoles was offering him food.
Zuko did not understand, but took it and shoved it in his mouth.
Slowly, Vessel. You will make yourself sick.
“You don't have a body. What would you know?" he snapped back, but slowed down enough to suck the juice from the watercress before chewing.
Abruptly, something soft whumphed against him, knocking him over. A warm furry body settled so close it touched.
Zuko froze.
There was a deep rumbling, the sound of rolling rocks, and a second badgermole settled on his other side. He was encased between two walls of bristly yet warm fur. The badgermoles did not seem to be angry at him, or blame him for the death of their offspring. They were… Protecting him? Cuddling him?
“I don’t understand,” he hissed under his breath. “They aren’t angry?”
No, Vessel, Vaatu said as if Zuko were being very dumb. This mated pair recently lost their young one. Now a mewling, helpless, creature stumbled into them.
He blinked. Not that it made any difference in the absolute dark, but… “I am not their child.
Would you rather be their enemy?
Considering each one of these things were as big as an Earth Kingdom house? No.
Zuko’s ire increased. “You mean to tell me,” he ground out, “that these two badgermoles adopted me?”
So it would seem.
“But I’m not their baby!”
Perhaps, do not tell them that.
He groaned and the badgermole with the sweet breath turned to nuzzle him. Irritated, Zuko pushed her snout away. “I have the spirit’s damned worst luck.”
No. You are the container of the spirit of chaos. You have more capability of change and odd once-in-a-lifetime circumstance than most carry in their little finger. A pause. You may think of it as chaotic luck.
“That’s ridiculous,” he muttered sullenly under his breath, but not loud. Judging by the deep, regular breathing, the two badgermoles on either side of him was asleep.
He knew he should escape, but he was exhausted. His thirst and hunger had only been somewhat sated, but even that small relief increased his exhaustion.
As much as he hated to admit it, he was comfortable. He felt himself relaxing almost against his will. Soon, he was asleep.
When he dreamed, it was of the earth and soil under the meadow.
He woke the next morning by something flower scented licking his cheek.
“Ugh!” He tried to push the giant muzzle away, but it—she, whatever—was much too strong for him.
Zuko had to no choice but to submit to a couple more licks before the badgermole was satisfied. The flower scented breath animal gave him more watercress-moss to chew—where was it getting the moss from?
Reluctantly, Zuko took it anyway.
So began his first day as an adopted badgermole.
Zuko quickly found that speaking out loud upset them. Perhaps they didn’t like human voices, or maybe it sounded like distressed badgermole babies. Either way, he tried to remain quiet. Nor did he dare kindle fire. badgermoles were supposedly blind, but they were also as big as a house and equally strong. The last thing he wanted to do was startle them. Especially since they seemed to be his meal ticket.
In his mind, he labeled what the flower scented breath, Flower, and the second one Rumbles because it always seemed to be rumbling something in a deep vibrating tone. Flower was the one who offered him the watercress-moss on a regular basis. Because it seemed more maternally inclined, he suspected it might be the female of the pair, though he wasn't sure.
The badgermoles like to travel through the tunnels. For lack of any other idea, he followed them—shuffling along as they walked the passages and rumbled back and forth to one another.
Hopefully, they would go travel up to the surface to feed every once in a while.
It wasn’t much, but it was the only plan he had. Even with Flower’s, hopeful offerings of watercress-moss and some kind of hard root that took a while to chew through, Zuko was weakening.
He wasn’t a baby badgermole. His body could not survive indefinitely off ruffage.
The badgermoles didn't exactly move quickly, but after a few days, he found it hard to keep up with them. They also made no move to travel to the service.
“I have to get out of here,” he whispered weakly, slumping against a tunnel wall. He pressed the flat hands against cold, alien stone and pushed. Nothing happened.
You must unlock your connection to the Earth, Vaatu said.
Zuko bared his teeth. “How?”
His voice echoed again and again through the tunnels. Rumbles rumbled back in concern.
The spirit did not answer. Zuko thought that he probably didn’t know.
Again, he dreamed.
Two days later, he knew he was in deep trouble. He was dizzy all the time and could barely follow the two badgermoles on their slow, plodding pace. He stopped, leaning against the side of the cave, feeling the inky dark world swim around him.
He missed the sun.
Rumbles came up to him, nuzzling him so hard that it knocked Zuko over.
“What?” Zuko rasped.
The badgermole nudged something into his hands.
The thing was hard and dry and wiggled against his fingers. Zuko dropped it out of startled reflex, but then just as quickly scooped it back up. It was too dry and large to be a worm. Some kind of insect. A grub perhaps
No, I can't, he thought in was panic. Then, involuntarily, he flashed to a childhood memory of a Fire Festival where spiced crickets were served to one and all. A wave of homesickness rolled up within him, along with the certain knowledge that he would die if he didn’t do this. His body needed protein.
With a wretched cry, Zuko bit into the still wriggling grub. The little body exploded in his mouth, the outside tasting like dust, and in the inside gooey and delicious. He swallowed every last bit, and then put his head in his hands and wept while the two badgermoles snuffed in concern over him.
He had never in his life felt so low. Not even after the Agni Kai, because he still had some hope of finding the Avatar and regaining his armor.
Now, it felt that part of him who had been Prince of the Fire Nation had died in the tunnels. He didn’t know the person who had been reborn in his place.
The badgermoles continued to fuss over him, and eventually Zuko got himself back under control.
“I’m fine. I’m fine,” he whispered gruffly, rubbing each nose in return.
Within a few minutes, Rumbles peeled off and returned with another fat grub. Zuko ate it along with some watercress-moss. Soon, he felt much better.
His entire world narrowed down to the lightless tunnels. He followed the two badgermoles around, unsure what direction they were traveling, or if there was any at all.
He became used to listening for water sources, and using his sense of smell to guide him to the target. He would drink long and deep from tiny rivulets of water that seeped through tunnel walls, or one time, a vast underground lake who’s edges he could not see. When he gingerly submerged to wash, he could not feel a bottom.
His sense of hearing—damaged by the Agni Kai— sharpened. One day, he realized he could identify each badgermole not from who what offered him what kind of food, but just from the sounds and that they made. The subtle gait of their movement and breathing.
badgermoles were clean, fastidious creatures. Always on the move. Sometimes they following along existing cave tunnels, sometimes creating their own.
It startled Zuko badly the first time. Rumbles turned in place and started gouging into the raw stone to create an entirely new tunnel. It took Zuko two days after that to realize Rumbles wasn't actually digging at all: He was bending the earth.
Animals could be benders? But of course they could. Dragons could breathe fire. Air bison could fly. Why couldn't badgermoles bend earth?
And suddenly he knew why the cave tunnels were so incredibly twisty and nonsensical.
He should've been angry. Instead, he found he was amazed and a little chagrinned. This wasn’t a natural cave system at all. It was a badgermole colony. And if only one pair could do all this… no wonder he had not been able to find his way out.
Zuko came to know the tunnels—or at least aspects of them. Different types of rock felt different against his seeking fingers. Some were almost soft to lay on. Some mineral-rich and sharp. He had no names for the different types, but he learned their feel and scent like he had once known the different degrees of flame. Fire may look the same—unless they were spectacular blue like Azula’s, but—firebenders knew the difference.
Eventually, too, he learned from careful observation, listening sharp while Flower gathered food, that watercress-moss grew up high in the tunnels. Almost to the curve of the ceiling.
There were divots and slight imperfections gouged out of the tunnel walls. They had been invisible to him back when he used sight, but were easily felt… and sometimes, it seemed, heard. By using these, he could climb and gather the watercress-moss himself.
He didn't think it was his imagination. Flower seemed to be thrilled the first time he did this. The moment he jumped down to land in a spot he knew—though he was yet aware how—would be clear of rocks and debris, she snuffled over him, knocking him over in happiness.
The grubs lived among the thickest patches of watercress, and he learned to hunt for them, too.
Gradually, the sounds expanded in quality around him. He realized he could usually tell the size and depth of a tunnel just by the rumbles of the badgermoles—the feel of the vibrations against the wall.
When they came to a junction of two tunnels, he knew which direction they turned. Slowly but surely, his dark world came into focus. He did not see it with his eyes, or hear it—although his hearing helped. There was another sense unfurling so slowly within him, he was only half aware all.
Still, every night, he dreamed of the earth in a way no human was meant to see.
Slowly, Zuko began to understand the slow movement of the earth. The grind of great plates of rock above magma, the worldwide forces that brought stone together and pushed it apart, the great crystal matrix of stone itself.
And then the day came when he was climbing the side of a tunnel in search of food, his palms pressed flat to the rock, and he felt/saw/sensed/knew a scratch-scratch of a grub not far away. He is hand darted out and he snatched it up, exactly where he knew it would be.
When Rumbles dug, Zuko felt/saw the stones fall away—the crumble and cleave as the badgermole moved tons of earth as if it was nothing. Rumbles was not using his strength alone. There were cheats and shortcuts—manipulating the forces of magnetism, as he had learned in his nightly visions. But not all earth was magnetic. For the inert compounds, the badgermoles used their will which was equal to the hardest rock.
They were certainly not official earthbending moves, but it got the job done. The badgermoles were experts in shoving literal tons of debris away in a single sweep, of sinking stalagmites and stalactites back into the walls before someone could brush painfully against it.
The watercress-moss did not grow in areas untended.
They were cleaning the tunnels as much as they were digging new ones. Keeping them tidy and free of large debris that would that might harm another badgermole. Or a very lost human.
The next day, Zuko took off his boots and socks, and tied the shoelaces together so he could string them over his neck and went barefoot.
The vibrations of his own footsteps and the constant rumbles of the badgermoles told him everything he needed to know of this tunnel—as well as other, unseen tunnels running parallel and across nearby.
He felt the different types of stone, like shades of color, through the tunnel. Absently, he moved past a stalagmite that he would have tripped over weeks ago.
He studied with crafted patience he had never used before, as Flower and Rumbles dug; Cleaving with the grain of the stone for some tunnels, against it for others.
Zuko walked forward to stand beside him. Pressing his hands, set his stance—set his will—and shoved hard, concentrating on the rocks and bits of magnetic force he could feel running through the stone.
He shoved and it moved.
Instantly, both badgermoles turned, he had to duck to avoid enthusiastic snuffling.
Was this what it felt like to feel a parent's approval?
He stroked their snouts and pushed back in the rough, affectionate way they responded to the best.
Then, with a snort, Rumbles pushed Zuko back to stand beside him and “watch” as he widened the tunnel with a few easy sweeps of his giant paws.
Zuko watched the purpose and will to Rumbles movement and tried to copy it the best he could. As he became more confident, he learned how to shove more and more stone aside, with greater precision. He learned to pull the earth to him as well, using the magnetism and force of will. Different types of rock required different methods—some brute force, but some delicate precision to avoid shattering the inner matrix.
Once, a long time ago, when he was a different person, he thought earthbending was all about kicking rocks around.
He had been so blind.
Then, came the day Flower and Rumbles hit a dead end in the tunnel system. The two adults snuffled around a little, rumbled back and forth in that odd way that made it sound like they were having a conversation.
Flower turned to breathe over Zuko, then pushed him forward with her snout against his back.
They wanted him to lead the way.
Well, what are you waiting for? Vaatu asked.
Zuko grinned and pushed in the rock, moving it forward and away with targeted kicks and shoves. He spread his hands, shoving mentally and physically, clearing with the cleave of stone. Once he had a good start, he widened the cave into a tunnel of his own— being sure to recrystallize the walls thick enough to take the weight of the earth around them.
Again, he was set on by two snuffling badgermoles in rough celebration. But this time they didn’t practically knock him over. They were almost respectful.
They spent the day as a family widening the tunnel, though Flower and Rumbles kept stepping back to let him lead. Then, with one last effort, he connected his tunnel with an older one that intersected diagonally.
That night, for the first time, the two badgermoles did not sleep on either side with him in the middle. They spent that night nuzzling him as if to say he had done a good job.
For the first time since entering the tunnels, Zuko did not dream.
When he woke the next morning, Flower and Rumbles were gone.
He was confused and even hurt. They weren't his parents, but he had become to know them as friends. Now, they had abandoned him.
You are an adult in their eyes, Vaatu said. You can now feed yourself and create your own tunnels. You were their strange child grown to take on adult duties. That means caving your own tunnels through the mountain.
“But… but I'm not a badgermole,” he said, using his voice for the first time in… he wasn't sure how long.
No, you are not a badgermole. You are the Avatar of Chaos. One, who has condensed a lifetime of contemplation of the earth into six weeks. Now it's time to leave this place. Rise, earthbender, and rejoin the human world.