Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

the night passes with little enough trouble. two warships are sunk by waterbenders, emboldened as they are by the waxing moon, before zhao orders the fleet to retreat even further from agna qel’a’s shores. iroh sleeps fitfully, and he wakes before even the sun. his anxieties fester within him, and he takes several deep breaths to soothe them. he will find zuko today. he will end this siege before it can tear the water tribe apart completely. he will ensure that zhao’s plans—whatever they may be—do not come to fruition. 

but all of that, unfortunately, hinges on this ship reaching the city’s shores.

so iroh gives his advice and his commands, and the fleet surges forward the next morning with renewed vigor. the water tribe fights back viciously, with spears and ships and shards of ice. few soldiers are lost, but many are injured, and before long the ship’s infirmary is filled with suffering. iroh visits the soldiers when he can, speaking soothingly to them and thanking them for their courage. 

so many of them are young. so many of them are wild-eyed and frightened and confused. so many of them look like zuko.

his throat is thick with grief by the time the lung tien breeches the city’s walls. it’s late afternoon, now, and the soldiers will have to move quickly if they plan to take the palace before moonrise. in the hurried disembarking, it’s easy for iroh to slip off of the ship without zhao’s notice. once within the city, he does his best to avoid the scrabbling fights of water tribe warriors and fire nation soldiers. it’s a difficult thing to do, when every waterbender he passes seems keen to flatten him under a chunk of ice.

worse, still, iroh has no idea where to begin looking. if zuko has been brought here as a prisoner, then it would be sensible to check the prisons first—so that is where iroh heads. the cells are left unguarded. their guards, no doubt, have gone to fight at the wall. the prisoners in the cells look frightened, huddled against the far wall or clinging to their cell bars. iroh looks each of them in the face as he passes and finds heartache, but no nephew of his.

by the time he exits the prison, the moon is rising. 

soldiers scream in the streets, tearing at each other with vicious intent. blasts of fire and streams of water fill the air in equal measure, and more than once iroh has to stop and help a soldier or a warrior to safety. the soldiers cling to him, tears clumping their lashes and blood clotting grevious wounds. the warriors spit vitriol that he well deserves for what he’s brought upon their city, but they allow him to carry them out of the war’s way. several of them will not last the night. the thought fills him with unimaginable grief.

“zuko!” he shouts, at last, desperate. “prince zuko! where are you?”

predictably, there is no response—but above him, the moon turns red, and iroh realizes that he has made one very fatal mistake. he had brushed aside zhao’s comments from the previous night, assuming them to be more of the arrogance the admiral is so prone to. removing the moon simply isn’t possible. killing the moon simply isn’t possible.

but it seems, now that the moon bleeds above him, the impossible will be done this night.

katara, zuko, and yue sleep in shifts until dawn. aang meditates the entire night, and most of the next day, too, until even katara is getting worried about him. he’s never spent so long in the spirit world before. what if he’s lost? what if he’s hurt? still, she resists the urge to disturb him. the spirit world can be a dangerous place, and the last thing he needs is a distraction. they’ll just have to wait.

easier said than done, with a war raging outside.

it occurs to them, sometime in the afternoon, that sokka should have returned by now—and that someone should probably let him know what’s happening. “i’ll go,” katara says. he’s her brother, and she needs to know that he’s okay. “you two stay here and guard aang. i’ll be back soon.”

zuko pauses his pacing long enough to nod to her, and yue murmurs a soft affirmative. katara leaves them there, shutting the door to the oasis firmly behind her, and goes to find her brother. she checks the palace hall, first. the warriors who aren’t currently fighting reside here, eating and resting before they plunge back into the fray. a long table has been set up near the front of the room, and several of the chief’s advisors huddle over it. it’s littered with pages and pages of documents, many of which hold a fire nation crest in the top corner. she recognizes one of the men at the table and rushes to his side.

“hahn,” she says, and he turns to look at her. his cockiness seems to have wiped away by exhaustion, and he regards her wearily. “you were with sokka, weren’t you? on the secret mission?”

hahn’s eyes narrow, and then brighten with recognition. “you’re his sister, aren’t you? katara? the one who bullied master pakku into teaching you?”

“i am. where’s sokka? is he alright?”

“better than alright, i should say.” hahn gestures to the maps and papers on the table. “he brought us all of this. logs of weapons, soldier numbers, plans of attack—it’s incredible. we’ve been able to keep the navy from infiltrating the rest of the city using these. we’ll have them retreating by moonhigh.”

“that’s great,” katara says, and it is—but it’s certainly not her priority. “where’s my brother?”

“i don’t know. he should be around here somewhere.” hahn glances over her head, scanning the crowd of warriors behind her. “check around. he was under orders to rest before we move out this evening.”

katara whirls around, her eyes darting across the warriors’ faces—but none of them look familiar. she picks her way through the crowd, asking after sokka, but no one can tell her where he is. her stomach is beginning to churn with anxiety when someone touches her shoulder. she turns and comes face-to-face with an absolutely livid sokka.

“katara!” he says. “where have you been? i was worried sick! i thought you all—”

katara flings her arms around his shoulders and hugs him tightly enough to make him wheeze. he’s tense beneath her hands, muscle pulled rigid with stress and breath coming in nervous puffs by her ear. slowly, gingerly, he rests his hands on her back. he must feel the uneven hitch to her breath, because a few seconds later he’s folding himself around her and hugging back just as tightly. 

“katara,” he mumbles again. “katara. thank the spirits. i was so afraid. i didn’t know where any of you were. i couldn’t find you. nobody else knew where you’d gone, and the chief was freaking out because he couldn’t find yue, and—and so i thought maybe you all had—”

“we’re okay,” katara says, pressing her cheek to his. “sokka, we’re all okay.”

sokka exhales shakily before pulling back and gripping her shoulders. “where is everyone? are they somewhere safe? we’re holding the fire nation back, but i don’t know how long that’s going to last. the chief says if we can just make it until moonrise—”

“don’t worry about that. aang’s getting help.”

“help?”

“come on.” she grabs his hand, pulling him out of the great hall. “i’ve got something to show you.”

they pile their arms with food on the way out of the palace—jerky and salted fish and dried berries—and make their way back to the spirit oasis. as soon as sokka steps inside, he’s tackled: first by yue, then by zuko. he laughs, wrapping his arms around their shoulders and nuzzling them both close. yue loops an arm around his waist in return, and zuko sets his own arm protectively around sokka’s back. 

“how did it go?” yue asks, resting her other hand on sokka’s chest. “did everyone return safely?”

“there were a few injuries, and one group was captured,” sokka admits, “but overall, it was a success. we were able to bring chief arnook a lot of valuable information. he’s already got a plan of attack for tonight. so what’s happening here?”

“we weren’t sure if chief arnook’s warriors could win this battle on their own,” katara explains, motioning sokka over to the oasis. he releases zuko and yue to follow her over, arching his eyebrows when he sees aang. “aang went to the spirit world to ask tui and la for help.”

“tui and la…” sokka murmurs, his gaze drawn downwards. he studies the koi circling in the pond, clearly mesmerized. “does he really think they’ll help?”

“well, it can’t hurt to ask,” katara says. she frowns. “do you think it would be disrespectful to eat in here? because i’m starving, and that food we brought back smells really great right now.”

“oh.” zuko already has a strip of jerky in his mouth, and he looks at her with wide-eyed guilt. “i didn’t even think about that. uh, oh great spirits forgive me?”

yue sits next to him, touching his elbow before reaching for a handful of berries. “i’m sure the spirits understand. we’ll need our strength if anyone comes for aang. eat up, all of you.”

they gather next to the pond and eat their rations. sokka tells them all of his mission with bright-eyed excitement (“yeah, i saw zhao the bastard himself! he was sitting in the captain’s cabin just goin’ over papers. he didn’t look so tough.”) and yue narrates for them the story of tui and la. it’s an old story, and one katara has heard many times, but it never fails to engage her. even zuko looks rapt, his eyes wide as yue tells of tui and la’s constant push and pull, their ebb and flow, their beautiful balance. 

when moonrise comes, aang’s eyes open. he interrupts their quiet conversation with seven simple words: “i know who tui and la are.”

“aang!” sokka cries out in delight, bounding over to hug him. aang blinks, momentarily disoriented, before smiling and hugging him back. “i missed you, buddy.”

“i was only gone for—” aang scratches his head. “how long has it been?”

“it’s been nearly an entire day,” katara says, sitting next to him and enfolding his hand within her own. 

aang’s eyes widen. “what? no way! it only felt like a few hours.”

“you had us all worried,” yue agrees, “but we’re glad you’re back. you said you found tui and la? did they agree to help our tribe?”

aang hops to his feet with a whirl of air, then points earnestly at the koi. “yes! these are them. these are tui and la.”

“the...fish?” zuko asks hesitantly.

“they gave up their immortal forms to be present on earth as the moon and sea,” aang explains, his words rapid-fire with excitement. “they’ve been this way for centuries. the black one is la—she’s the spirit of the ocean, the pull. the white one is tui—he’s the spirit of the moon, the push. they circle this way to keep balance in the world.”

“i owe the moon spirit my life,” yue says, watching tui reverently as he circles.

sokka arches an eyebrow, glancing curiously at her. “what do you mean?”

“when i was born i was very sick and very weak,” yue explains, her eyes never leaving the pond. “most babies cry when they're born, but i was born as if i was asleep, my eyes closed. our healers did everything they could. they told my mother and father i was going to die. my father pleaded with the spirits to save me. that night, beneath the full moon, he brought me to the oasis and placed me in the pond. my dark hair turned white. i opened my eyes and began to cry, and they knew i would live. that's why my mother named me yue—for the moon.”

“yue, that’s—” sokka swallows, and he looks, if possible, even more lovesick. “that’s incredible.”

yue reaches out, cupping sokka’s cheek gently, and that’s a development katara will need to grill him about as soon as they’re done fighting for their lives. zuko glances away, back at the pond, and katara follows his gaze.

“that really is amazing, yue. and the spirits are beautiful,” katara says, kneeling next to the pond. she had never expected, even in her wildest dreams, to meet the spirits of the moon and ocean!

“they’re beautiful,” sokka agrees, kneeling next to her, “and we just ate salted fish next to them for half an hour. do you think they’re offended?”

“sokka!” katara swats his arm, and he laughs.

“you’d better be careful,” he teases, waggling his fingers at her, “or they’ll take your bending away.”

“were you able to speak with them?” yue asks aang, and both sokka and katara turn back to her. “could you convince them to fight the fire nation?”

“no. i couldn’t speak to them in the spirit world, since they’re here in the mortal world. maybe we can just…?” aang splashes the water in the pond, much to katara’s horror. “hey, um, spirits? can we talk to you?”

the koi continue to circle, nonplussed.

“right.” aang clears his throat. “well, the thing is, your tribe is under attack. the fire nation has come to destroy your city, and your people, and your way of life. they might destroy you.”

there is no response. katara doesn’t think this is particularly surprising, given that they are talking to fish.

“i know you’re a waterbender, tui,” aang continues, a pleading note entering his voice. “there are lots of waterbenders here because of you, but if you don’t help us they could all be wiped out. there aren’t very many left in this world. if you let the water tribe vanish, the balance of our nations will be ruined even more than it already is. i don’t know if you’ve heard, but the air nation has already been destroyed. the world needs the water tribe.”

“plus, uh, la,” sokka adds, “the fire nation sucks. their boats dump oil into your water, and they fish too aggressively. if you let them kill the water tribe, things aren’t going to go well for you.”

“did you just threaten the ocean spirit?” katara hisses.

“no! i was just telling the truth, is all.”

“sokka’s right,” zuko agrees quietly. “the fire nation will destroy this place and leave it desolate. maybe they weren’t always this way—maybe, centuries ago, they were something good and noble. but they’re not anymore. they’ve changed. if they find you here, i don’t know that they’re going to let you live. please, fight for yourselves if you won’t fight for the tribesmen. you have to know that if you die the world is irreparably damaged.”

“you came here for a reason,” aang says, his voice firm. “you came here because you knew the moon and the sea would benefit the physical world. i’m sorry that you have to fight for balance when it should be the natural order of things. maybe that’s my fault. i’ve been gone, and the world has fallen into chaos. but i’m back now, and i’m going to make things right. i need you two to help me. so? what do you say?”

tui blows a bubble. it plops at the top of the water.

groaning, aang flops back into the grass. 

“oh, spirits, they’re fish.” sokka covers his face with his hands. “we’re negotiating with fish.”

“not very ef- fish- ient,” zuko says, and all of their eyes turn towards him with equal disbelief. he looks very pleased with himself. “that was a good joke, right? wasn’t it? a good—a good pun. guys? wasn’t it?”

“li.” katara reaches out to take his hands, fighting back a smile. very seriously, she says, “i love you, but we need to work on your comedic timing.”

sokka wraps his arms around himself and cackles. 

“i think that was of- fish- ially your best joke yet,” aang says, grinning widely. 

sokka wheezes.

“the way you’re all moon- ipulating words is very impressive,” yue says loftily, “but i think your jokes could stand to be a little more so- fish- ticated.”

sokka might actually be dying, now.

“okay, okay,” katara says, patting her brother’s heaving chest. “breathe. guys, you’re gonna kill him.”

zuko’s grinning, now, a look of wonder on his face as he listens to sokka giggle. katara pats him on the shoulder, and he turns his grin to her, instead. it’s brilliant. she’s never seen him smile so easily before, and she wants to see it more. if all goes well here, today, she thinks she’ll get to.

“alright, so,” katara says, once sokka has wiped the tears from his eyes and stopped snickering to himself every ten seconds. “fish communication is not going well. any other ideas?”

“hm.” aang taps his chin as he thinks, his tongue poking out. “well, maybe we could—”

the door to the oasis bursts open before he can finish, and all of them flinch wildly. there, silhouetted in the backlight, stands a sickeningly familiar man.

“well, well, what do we have here?” zhao asks, an oily grin on his face and a burlap sack in one hand as he strides into the spirit oasis. “we meet again, avatar.”

aang scrambles to stand in front of the koi pond, flanked by katara and yue. both of them glower fiercely at zhao, their hands curled into fists as he approaches, and aang is amazed that zhao can continue to look so arrogant. if the girls leveled aang with that glare, he’d be on his knees and pleading for forgiveness in seconds.

“back off, zhao,” aang warns, gripping his glider tightly in his hands. his palms feel damp with sweat, and his heart pounds viciously against his ribs. the last time he’d fought zhao, it hadn’t ended well—not for him and especially not for zuko. he can’t let something like that happen again. “we’re not going to fight here. this is a sacred place.”

“oh, i know.” zhao sneers, and he doesn’t slow his approach at all. “in fact, i—”

“he said back off,” zuko snarls, placing himself in front of aang, and zhao—zhao actually falters. “we can’t fight here or we’ll endanger the spirits.”

zhao’s eyes narrow, roaming slowly over zuko’s face. the warpaint does a good job of masking his facial features, but the sound of his voice and the gold of his eyes must be enough for zhao to recognize him by, because a split second later the commander’s malicious grin has returned twofold. “why, it must be my lucky day. i hoped i’d find you here with the avatar, but i didn’t think it would be this easy.”

“what’s he talking about?” yue’s brow furrows, and she looks towards zuko. “li, aang, you know this man?”

“you mean you didn’t tell her?” zhao asks, sickeningly sweet. “my, my, where are your manners? this is the princess of the northern water tribe, isn’t it? a pleasure to meet you, my lady.”

yue draws herself up, lifting her chin. when she speaks, her voice is icy and smooth. “i can’t say the same. who are you?”

“admiral zhao, but soon—” zhao’s grin widens, his eyes flashing wickedly in the soft light of the oasis. “soon they will call me zhao the conqueror, zhao the moon slayer, zhao the invincible!”

...moon slayer? aang takes a step closer to the oasis, a shudder running through him. zhao can’t possibly mean to kill tui? no one could be that foolish. 

“and i suppose,” zhao continues, stepping closer to zuko, “i should introduce my acquaintance, since he hasn’t seen fit to do so himself.”

“zhao,” zuko says, warning. a muscle clenches in his jaw. “don’t.”

“and why not? because you’ve lied to her? because you’ve tricked her? how dishonorable of you.” zhao straightens up and whirls on heel, facing yue and gesturing grandly to zuko. “princess, may i introduce prince zuko of the fire nation!”

for a moment, the oasis falls entirely silent. aang hears the hitch in zuko’s breath and the stutter in yue’s, and his own breath tightens in his chest. he forces himself to breathe deeply again. he has to keep them united—if zhao drives this wedge between them, he’ll have the advantage, and that’s the last thing he needs. 

“we can explain,” aang says. “yue—”

at the same time, zuko says quickly, desperately: “he’s lying. he’s—my name is li! i have nothing to do with the fire nation, yue, please, you have to believe me. i’m your friend.” 

“friend? don’t play coy, zuko.” zhao leers. “you wouldn’t have led me here if you were her friend.”

“i didn’t mean—we never planned for this to—!”

“you knew i would follow the avatar,” zhao accuses, whirling to glare at zuko again. “you knew i would follow you. you led me here to destroy the northern water tribe.”

“ i never wanted this! why couldn’t you have just—?”

“zuko?”

zuko whirls around to face yue, his eyes wide and frantic. “i swear we had nothing to do with this. we didn’t know it would be like this. we thought if he followed us it would just be the one ship, not the whole fleet, not—”

but yue’s lower lip is already quivering, and zuko draws up short as he realizes his mistake—as he realizes he’d answered to zuko . 

“he’s telling the truth,” yue whispers, “isn’t he?”

“no! not, not—not about all of it, please, yue, just—”

“then tell me the truth now!” yue says, her voice sharpening as she steps towards him. 

aang inches forward to place himself between them, but sokka grabs his arm. “they can work this out,” sokka murmurs. “you need to keep your eyes on zhao. he’s trying to distract us.”

zhao does look delighted by this turn of events. his eyes dart from zuko to the oasis, glittering madly, and the soldiers behind him stand at perfect attention. they’re waiting—although for what, aang doesn’t know, and doesn’t want to find out. he tightens his grip on his glider and focuses on his breath, on the currents of air around him, on the ripples of water behind him. 

aang doesn’t want to fight here—but he has to be prepared to, because he’s not going to let anyone get hurt because of his hesitancy. he won’t run away again. the people here are his friends, and he’s going to make sure they get through this together.

“yue, i—i wasn’t trying to trick you,” zuko says, pleading, huddling into himself to appease her as she strides towards him. she stops when they’re inches away from each other, her jaw set and her eyes blazing. “we knew zhao was following us before we left for the north pole, but we never thought he would bring such a large fleet here. we thought it would be one ship, and we knew the northern water tribe would be strong enough to stand up to him. if we had know he was planning this sort of attack, we never would have come.”

“then why did you lie to me?” yue demands. “to all of us? why didn’t you just tell me that you were prince zuko?”

“because i don’t want to be prince zuko anymore!” zuko exclaims. then he takes a deep, gulping breath, and when he speaks again his voice is quieter—but no less distressed. “i wanted to be li. i wanted to be your friend. i wanted to be someone good.”

“well, isn’t that just touching?” zhao smirks. “you’re a liar and a traitor to the end, zuko. your father knew what he was doing when he sent you away.”

“shut up!” zuko snarls, turning to face him—but his attention is quickly snapped back around when yue touches his shoulder. “i’m sorry! yue, i’m sorry i lied, but if you had known who i really was—if your father had known—you never would have let me stay here. you would have thought i meant to harm you.”

“and did you?”

zuko squeezes his eyes shut. 

“zuko! did you mean to harm us?”

“i thought about it,” zuko whispers, his hands curling into trembling fists at his sides. “i thought about studying your defenses, your city’s layout, your warriors’ training, and i thought about bringing that information back to my father.”

yue starts to draw back, rage sparking in her eyes, before zuko rushes to continue.

“but i won’t! i know who my father is now. i know what he does. he would tear this place apart, and i don’t want that. you don’t deserve that. your people don’t deserve that. they’re good people. they’re kind, and creative, and they’re happy here the way things are. you and your father are far better rulers than anyone from the fire nation could hope to be, and i want to see you rule for decades to come. i want to help you protect this place.”

yue studies him carefully. aang can feel the lapse in sokka’s breath as he holds it, his eyes riveted on yue and zuko. aang worries his lower lip with his teeth, anxiety bubbling in his chest. what will they do if yue decides she can’t trust zuko—and, by extension, them? what can they do? zhao looks equally intrigued by that question, his gaze darting between zuko and aang and the oasis. 

“i understand if you can’t trust me,” zuko says, bowing his head, “but please, let me help you until we can drive the fire nation away. i don’t want to see the northern water tribe destroyed because of our foolish mistake. after that, i’ll—i’ll accept whatever punishment you see fit.”

“no.” katara steps forward, resting her hand on zuko’s back. “if there’s to be a punishment, then it will be a punishment for all of us. we all lied to you, yue. we all kept zuko’s identity a secret. we were trying to keep him safe. what do you think your father would have done if he’d known he had a fire nation prince so close?”

“he really didn’t have any dastardly plans to bring the fire nation navy here,” sokka adds, although he has yet to take his eyes off of zhao. “he’s been traveling with us for months. he didn’t even want to come here.”

“we basically kidnapped him,” aang chirps brightly, which garners him an odd look from yue.

“if what you say is true, then...” yue takes a deep breath and straightens her back, folding her arms in front of her chest. “we’re on the same side right now. if you want to save my people, zuko, than i would be a fool to stop you. but if you do anything to sabotage this effort…”

“understood.” zuko nods. “i’m here for whatever you need.”

“good. in that case—” yue slants her gaze sharply towards zhao. “get out of my spirit oasis, commander zhao. now.”

zhao’s eyes blaze, enraged. “what?! you can’t do that! you can’t trust him! he’s a traitor through and through, and if you give him the chance he’ll—”

it’s sokka who lunges forward first, his fist colliding with zhao’s jaw. the blow knocks zhao back several steps, and sokka whistles as he shakes his hand back out. 

“man,” he says, “i have been wanting to do that for a while.” 

zhao roars in outrage, and then he shoves a crackling wave of fire towards sokka. sokka smirks and steps back, allowing zuko to lunge in front of him and part the flames. heat roils around them, shimmering in the air, and both aang and katara fall into defensive stances before the oasis as the fire nation soldiers surge in. 

aang thinks it’s probably bad form to waterbend with the special oasis spirity water, so he limits himself to airbending while katara uses the water from her flask. the two of them work together to drive the soldiers away from the oasis, moving in a sync they didn’t have before coming here. training with master pakku has done them both well, and aang’s delighted to discover the advantages of his work. even his airbending seems easier as he incorporates the flow of waterbending into his movements, and the fire nation soldiers don’t stand a chance.

the first firebender comes at aang’s side, their fist enshrouded with flame. aang ducks low, sweeping their feet out from under them with a deft strike of his glider, and they fall face-first into the oasis. they come up sputtering and coughing, and aang sends them flying across the room with a gust of air. 

the second firebender is close on the first firebender’s heels, however, and a wave of fresh fire blazes towards aang’s face. he slams his glider down and severs the flames before they can reach him, then darts out of the way as the firebender charges. their path takes them towards katara, and aang shouts a warning to her. she whirls around, eyes blazing, and flicks a handful of water towards their ankles. she crusts it into ice, and they trip and topple with a cry of alarm. 

“nice!” aang trades a grin with her before turning back to his next contender. he slaps his glider against his palm, emboldened by his victories. “who’s up next?”

aang does his best to keep the soldiers as far from the oasis as he can, and as he fights he catches glimpses of his friends doing the same. sokka stays as close to yue as he can, one hand wrapped around his knife and the other clutching his boomerang. zuko is at his side, breathing hard and tearing through any attack the firebenders send their way. he doesn’t have time to attack much himself—it looks like zhao’s soldiers are targeting him heavily. 

that just won’t do, in aang’s opinion. zuko has suffered enough because of zhao.

“hey, zuko!” aang shouts, waving at him. “gimme a fireball!”

zuko complies without hesitation, launching a fireball in aang’s direction. aang hauls his glider back, then whips it towards the fireball with a burst of air. the fireball whistles as it soars through the air and smashes into a cluster of soldiers, sending them all flying backwards before colliding with the back wall of the room. the walls shudder. oops. 

sokka whoops in delight, his fist punching the air. “again, do it again!”

“i don’t think the walls could handle an again, dear,” yue says. then her eyes brighten, and she looks to zuko. “unless you can make your fireballs smaller?”

zuko’s brow furrows, and he lifts his hands again. the fireballs he sends flying at aang are tiny, this time, a smattering of dense sparks. aang pelts them forward with whiplash speed, and the soldiers scatter from the projectiles with yelps of alarm. the pressure of their attacks on zuko seem to ease, although even aang isn’t optimistic enough to think that will last long—but it will be enough, he hopes, to give zuko a breather.

in the space between attacks, sokka steps forward, resting a hand on zuko’s shoulder and muttering something into his ear. zuko hesitates, then nods and falls back to yue’s side. that’s all aang has time to see—the soldiers are back up and moving forward again, eyes and hands blazing. smoke clouds the room, chokingly thick, and it’s getting harder to breathe. they have to take this fight outside soon—or, better yet, finish it. 

“aang, watch out!” 

katara’s voice reaches him a split second before a fire nation soldier does, and aang yelps and tries to scramble backwards—but his heel hits the edge of the oasis, and his arms pinwheel to catch his balance before he topples into the pond entirely. the soldier doesn’t waste their chance. they slam the hilt of their sword forward, into aang’s jaw, and the world bursts into white light. aang doesn’t remember falling, but when he opens his eyes again he’s drenched and sitting in the spirit oasis. tui and la, unable to circle, writhe angrily around him. his mouth tastes like blood. 

“get away from him!” katara snarls, and the water in the oasis rises and slams into the chest of the approaching soldier. they tip backwards over the edge of the oasis, and katara seals them there with ice. the rest of the water she returns to the oasis before bolting to aang’s side. “aang! are you okay?”

“i’m fine,” aang says, although his tongue feels heavy and swollen and sore. he must have bitten it. he should have seen that coming—should have been able to dart out of the way—but he’s getting slower as the fight wears on. yet another reason to finish this fast. katara’s eyes are wide, and she reaches up to touch the corner of his jaw. “really, katara, i’m—ow!”

“sorry,” she says, snatching her hand back. blood stains her fingertips. “you’ve got a cut here. i’ll heal it later. can you stand?”

he takes her hand, allowing her to haul him to his feet. the world sways eerily around him, and he blinks black spots out of his vision. he can see zuko darting fretful looks at them over his shoulder, so aang offers him a shaky thumbs-up. 

“let’s get you out of here,” katara says. “maybe i can—”

a blast of fire interrupts her, and she drags up another wave of water to shield them from it. when it drops, they see zhao prowling towards them. zuko breaks from yue’s side to intercept him, but another soldier slams into his side. they both hit the ground, grappling at each other with flaming fingertips and incandescently-enraged eyes. aang sees sokka run to help, and then—

then he sees nothing but fire, because zhao is bearing down on them. 

aang twirls his glider, dispelling most of the flames before they can strike, but his vision is obscured for a moment—and a moment, it seems, was all that zhao was looking for. when the fire dissolves, and aang lowers his glider, zhao has stopped moving. he stands at the edge of the oasis, water lapping around his knees, and holds his burlap sack out before him. 

the sack writhes.

aang’s stomach drops. he knows what’s in that sack. he knows and the knowing aches somewhere deep in his chest—conqueror, invincible, moonslayer—but he still looks down, desperate and hoping, hoping, hoping.

he sees la there, darting around his feet—helpless, directionless, and very, very alone.

“no!” aang lurches forward, but zhao holds a flame threateningly beneath the burlap sack, and he grinds to a halt. “zhao, let him go!”

“it's my destiny to destroy the moon and the water tribe,” zhao says, looking hungrily at the sack that holds the power of waterbending, holds the push, holds the moon itself. 

“destroying the moon won't hurt just the water tribe,” aang says, trying his best to keep his voice steady in spite of the way his hands shake. around them, the battle has stopped. the world waits with frozen, baited breath. “it will hurt everyone, including you. without the moon, everything would fall out of balance. you have no idea what kind of chaos that would unleash on the world.”

“all the nations benefit from the moon’s power,” yue adds, and zhao’s eyes flick to her. “admiral, please. you must understand. without the moon, there are no tides. without the tides, the creatures of the sea will suffer. there will be no fish to feed your people. there will be no currents to move your ships.”

“if you hurt that spirit,” zuko says, his voice grating with anger as he picks himself up off of the ground, “i’ll kill you, zhao. let him go! now!”

zhao hesitates, and then—

then he lets tui go. he sets the sack back into the water and opens it, allowing tui to squirm free and rush towards la. the two of them glide along each other, scales rippling in the light, before beginning to circle. aang exhales, his eyes closing with relief. thank the spirits. thank the—

a crackle of flame is his only warning.

when aang opens his eyes again, zhao has already struck. tui’s side blackens and blisters, and he thrashes wildly for a moment before falling deathly still. la circles his body frantically, nudging him with her nose, and he does not respond. around aang, his friends erupt into chaos. all of it feels strangely distant. all of it feels strangely numb. he has eyes only for la, and heart only for her grief and her confusion and her rage.

he feels the echo of it inside his own chest, and then

la

looks

at

him

yue sees zuko lunge at zhao with a roar of fury and sparks on his breath. she sees sokka spring after him, dragging him back as zhao and his soldiers begin to retreat. she sees katara wrapping her arms around aang’s shoulders and drawing him close, whispering something in his ear. she sees la watching aang with eerie stillness, the water rippling black around her. 

she sees tui. 

she sees the smooth white of his scales marred by a grotesque, bubbling patch of charred flesh. she sees the dull lifelessness of his eyes. she sees all her people’s hope laying before her, limp and dead and unmoving, and she goes to kneel beside it in the water. she slides her palms beneath tui’s body and lifts it, holding it close to her chest. he feels heavy, and cold, and so painfully mortal. 

“there’s no hope now,” she whispers, and tears blur her vision. her people. her world. “it’s over.”

“no,” aang says, in a voice that belongs to a hundred different people. when she looks up, his eyes and arrows are glowing—and slowly, slowly, la begins to circle again. she circles him. “it’s not over.”

liquid blue light streaks through the oasis, pooling around aang and la. the water shimmers, and then it rises—up and up and up from the bottomless oasis, enfolding aang within itself as it expands to fill the room. yue scrambles backwards, and she feels sokka grab her hand and squeeze so tightly it hurts. she squeezes back just as hard.

the water takes form before them, dark shoulders sloping from a sturdy neck and incandescent eyes opening. its face is that of the ocean spirit’s—and it looks every bit as enraged as she. the tendrils around its muzzle lash wildly, and the streaks of rippling light throughout its form flicker in jagged and unpredictable patterns. the crest of fins along the back of its neck flare sharply, and when it straightens up its head breaks the dome that had sheltered the oasis for hundreds of years.

there, a pulsing heart in its chest, is aang. 

there is no recognition in aang’s face when he looks down at them, and yue realizes, with a jolt, that she is not terrified of him but for him.

in katara’s eyes she sees that same fear. “aang!” katara shouts, waving to get his attention. “aang, it’s okay, please—!”

the spirit ignores her. its eyes shift from her to the world outside. above, the sky is darker than yue has ever seen it. not even a new moon midnight could compare. the spirit stares for a moment, steam billowing from its nostrils, and she swears she sees it tremble. then it opens its mouth and it roars: the sound of a hundred waves crashing against each other, wild and angry. in one deft movement, it lowers its head and plunges into the nearest canal. their view is obscured by the remnants of the oasis walls, after that, and they stand in stunned silence for several seconds.

“well,” sokka says. “shit.”

yue thinks that’s a very appropriate summary of the situation. 

“we have to stop him,” katara says, whirling to face them. 

“are you kidding? that thing’s heading straight for the fire nation fleet,” sokka says, gesturing wildly towards the oasis doors. “it’s exactly what we need to win!”

“that thing is aang!”

“no.” yue shakes her head, and she feels all three of their eyes on her. “that’s not aang anymore—not really. it’s la. she’s using him to enact her revenge.”

“then by all means, let her,” sokka says. 

“we can’t do that,” katara insists. “even if this is la’s fault, aang will blame himself. if he thinks he’s responsible for killing the entire fire nation fleet, i don’t know what he’ll do.”

“so what? we stop them? we let the fire nation win just to preserve aang’s conscience?” sokka’s brow furrows in frustration. “look, i love aang too, but this is bigger than his feelings. the entire water tribe is at stake here.”

“the entire world is at stake,” zuko says, his voice a low rasp. it’s the first time he’s spoken since the fight, and they all swing their gazes to him. “you heard what aang said. without tui, the world falls into chaos. i don’t think la is going to stop at destroying one fire nation fleet. i think she’ll destroy everything if we let her.”

“she isn’t evil, zuko! how could you say that?” katara demands. 

“not evil, angry—and that’s dangerous enough. it’s worse without tui. they can’t exist without each other. isn’t that how these spirits work? tui and la, push and pull, dark and light. now that she’s lost tui, she’ll overtake everything. it’s her nature.”

“so what do we do?” sokka asks. he releases yue’s hand and begins to pace, bringing a hand up to his chin. “defeating the literal ocean isn’t going to be easy.”

“we don’t have to defeat her,” katara says, her eyes swinging towards the oasis, “if we can rebalance her.”

sokka’s eyes widen. “katara! can you—?”

“i can try.” katara kneels next to the oasis and draws tui’s body out, settling her hands over his wound. yue kneels beside her, heart pulsing rapidly as she watches katara try to draw the moon back to life. nothing happens, but the glow of the oasis water does bring an old, familiar story to mind, and yue—

yue has an idea.

“it’s too late,” katara says, swallowing hard. “he’s dead.”

 “wait.” yue reaches out to touch katara’s wrist. fear sits in her chest, heavy and cold, but the path before her has never been clearer—and her love is so much greater than her fear could ever be. for love of her people, what couldn’t she do? “the moon spirit gave me life. maybe i can give it back.”

“no!” sokka lurches forward the way she knew he would, dropping to his knees at her side. “you don’t have to do that. we’ll find another way, we’ll figure something else out, we’ll—”

“it's my duty, sokka.” yue’s eyes sting, but she blinks the tears away before she looks at him. he needs her to be strong, right now. her people need her to be strong. the world needs her to be strong. 

“i won’t let you,” sokka says, folding her hands tightly between his.

“i have to do this,” yue whispers. she sees their future together—she sees an intricate betrothal necklace and a warm hut built from the ground up, fishing trips beneath the northern lights and late night laughter, a child with ocean eyes—and she crumbles it between her fingers. of course he’s important to her. she dares to think she might even love him. that’s exactly why she has to do this.

without the moon spirit, the world topples. without the moon spirit, there are no more betrothal necklaces and huts and fishing trips. there is no more laughter. there are no more children. not only for her people, but for the entire world. to turn her back on her duty now would be selfish. besides, for once? 

for once, love and duty seem to go hand in hand. 

she squeezes sokka’s hand one last time—then pull away from his grip and reaches for tui.

“yue!” sokka’s voice cracks, already crumbling at the edges. “stop it! you’re being crazy—guys, tell her she’s being crazy. there has to be another way. come on, we figure stupid shit like this out all the time. just give me a minute to think.”

zuko crouches beside sokka, his brow knitted. “yue, are you sure?”

“if there is another way, it would take too long to find,” yue says, running her fingers over tui’s cold, still flank. “la is on a rampage. once she destroys the fire nation fleet, she’ll turn on my people, and i can’t allow that to happen. i love them too much. i would do anything for them.”

“even this?” zuko asks.

“even this.” she lifts her eyes to his. “you understand, don’t you?”

“if i am ever even half the leader that you are to your people—” zuko bows his head, but not before she sees the glisten of tears in his eyes. “—i will consider my reign a success.”

she reaches out, setting one hand on top of his head and swallowing around the tears that rise in her throat. she wishes she had gotten to be more of a leader. she wishes she could see her people win this war and thrive in peace. she wishes she could live here, amongst them, with them, but—

but she can love them from afar, too, and that is where they need her most.

“you’re going to do just fine,” she murmurs, “prince zuko.”

“oh, yue.” katara crushes her in a tight hug. yue buries her face against katara’s hair, trying to calm the shakiness of her nerves, and katara’s hands clutch her back. “i’m so sorry.”

“it’s okay. i’ll be okay. really, i’m—” she pulls back, offering katara a wobbly smile. “i can do this. for our people.”

katara squeezes her hands.“for our people. i’ll tell them what you did here. they’ll never forget. every time they see they moon they’ll think of you.”

“stop it!” sokka shouts, jumping to his feet. “why are you talking like that? we’re not saying goodbye because we aren’t doing this!”

“sokka…” zuko reaches for him, but sokka shoves his hand away.

“this is bullshit,” sokka hisses. “duty! i’m so sick and tired of hearing about duty. you don’t have to throw away your life for your people, yue. you don’t owe them anything!”

“what would you have me do?” yue asks, her own voice cracking. “sit and watch the world end with you because i was too frightened and selfish to do what needed to be done? i love my people, sokka. i want to do this for them. i’m going to do this for them, so please—please just let me go.”

“yue, i—” sokka squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head. tears clump his lashes. “i thought we would—i thought you—yue, please. please, no. i can’t.”

yue’s heart has never hurt so much before, but she doesn’t reach out to him. she can’t, or she’ll never let go again. instead, she looks to katara and zuko and finds them both watching sokka intently. katara reaches out, wrapping her hand around sokka’s. zuko sets a hand on his back, and sokka allows it, this time. that’s enough for yue.

“you’ll be okay,” she says, tearing her gaze away from sokka’s for the final time. she presses her palm to tui’s back and closes her eyes. “everything’s going to be okay, sokka.”

she dies, there on the edge of the oasis, and becomes something wholly new and different and strange. the moon pulses back to life in the midnight sky and the ocean spirit pauses, lifting her head. the waves settle. sokka howls in pain and lurches forward to catch her body. moonlight kisses the wet gleam of tears on his cheeks, and she lingers with the sight for a second longer than she knows she should. when she can finally bear to do it, she turns away from him—from her friends, from her home, from her own body—and looks out over the ocean. 

la, she thinks, and feels an echo of hope in response. it’s enough to make her smile. i’m here.

zuko has never seen sokka cry before.

he’s not sure what he expected. theatrics? bawling and clinging? screaming and striking and tearing things apart? sokka is loud, and bold, and his grief should be the same. 

it isn’t. 

he cries silently, his face buried against yue’s hair as he rocks her—back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. he doesn’t respond to any of katara’s platitudes, nor does he move when zuko wraps an arm around his back. the moon shines high above them, and the sound of the rushing ocean has faded. even so, zuko knows that they’re not out of danger yet. they don’t know whether or not the fire nation is truly retreating, and they don’t know where aang is, either, or the state of their own troops. they have to go.

katara tries to tell sokka as much. “sokka, i’m so sorry,” she whispers, rubbing wide circles between his shaking shoulders. “i’m so, so sorry, but we have to go now. we have to go find aang. okay? can we do that? can you get up?”

sokka doesn’t say yes, or no, or anything at all. 

“sokka, please.” tears stand in katara’s eyes, and she swipes at them before they can fall. her voice is thick. “we can’t stay here. we’ll come back for her later, but right now it’s not safe.”

“i’ve got him,” zuko murmurs. he stands, and katara takes his hand and pulls herself up after him. he reaches for sokka, next, hooking his hands underneath sokka’s arms and hauling up. that gets a response—sokka turns sharply, teeth bared and elbow angled at zuko’s ribs. zuko dodges, narrowly, and swiftly traps sokka’s hands between his own before he can do anymore damage. “sokka! it’s alright, it’s—”

“it’s not alright!” sokka shouts, yanking his hands away and shoving zuko back. tears spill down his cheeks and drip from the edges of his jaw. “it’s never going to be alright again! yue’s dead because of us, don’t you get that? if we had never come here—if we had just— fuck—! ”

katara embraces sokka from behind, her arms tightening around his waist. he folds forward, drawing his hands back to his chest as he crumples in on himself and sobs. zuko steps forward and, when sokka doesn’t lunge or push him away again, joins their hug. he winds his arms around the both of them, and sokka stiffens. then, as zuko starts to draw back again, he reaches up and curls his fingers into the front of zuko’s parka.

zuko stays.

sokka presses his face to zuko’s shoulder, trembling in his grasp. he’s quiet again, gasping wetly around his grief. katara presses one hand over his heart, as though she could heal the wounds there like any other injury. 

“sokka,” she whispers, her own voice shaky. “i’m sorry. spirits, i’m sorry.”

there is no comfort she or zuko can offer, not right now—but they can hold each other, and that, somehow, is enough. sokka’s tears slow, after several minutes, and he draws back to scrub his face. the grief in his eyes is replaced with something older and colder and angrier. 

“if the fire nation is still around after that,” he spits, “i’m going to fucking end them.”

katara leads the way back out of the oasis, one hand still firmly grasping sokka’s. the spirit monster has vanished, and there’s no sight of aang. they pick their way through the city: it’s ruined. shards of shattered ice litter the land, and several canals have split and leaked water across the streets. most of the water tribe warriors mill in clumps, tending to their wounded, while a select few of them dart from place to place with frantic messages. 

they find zhao’s body on a broken bridge, blood trickling from between bloated blue lips.

zuko will throw up later, thinking about that sight, but right now he feels numb and exhausted and not much else. 

sokka, meanwhile, looks downright vindictive. “serves him right,” he says grimly. “bastard. i hope he suffered.”

neither of them rebuke him for the sentiment. katara’s lower lip wobbles as she looks up at her big brother—at the black hate in his eyes—but she doesn’t let go of his hand. she won’t let go, not until they find aang. his small body is slumped on the outer wall, and zuko’s heart threatens to leap out of his chest when he sees it. aang can’t be dead. he can’t, not after all this, he can’t be dead—

“he’s okay,” katara gasps, kneeling beside aang and pulling him into her arms. his head lolls onto her shoulder, and she presses her cheek to his. “oh, spirits, he’s okay. we need to get him somewhere warm.”

“we can take him back to the hut,” zuko says. he crouches beside them, watching the foggy in-and-out of aang’s breath. with each gust he reminds himself that they are safe, and they are here, and they are alive. “the healing huts will be overcrowded—and he’s got you, anyway.”

sokka stands over them, his eyes scanning the horizon. the fire nation fleet is a speck in the distance. zuko wonders how many of them were left. “the stables are closer,” sokka says. “i’ll go get appa and he can fly us to the hut.”

“we can walk. i can carry him,” says katara.

“no. i want appa with us. once the chief finds out about zuko, and about yue…” sokka cuts his eyes away. “we need to be prepared to make a quick exit.”

“i’ll go with you,” zuko offers, standing.

sokka shakes his head. “no. stay with aang and katara.”

“sokka—”

“i need you to protect them.” sokka looks back, and there’s something desperate in his eyes now. “i need you all to stay safe.”

“what about you?”

“i’ll be okay. it’s barely a half-mile away, and it looks like most of the fire nation soldiers are gone.”

zuko hates it—hates letting sokka leave him in the middle of a spirits-damned battlefield— but he knows that if sokka loses another friend today, he won’t survive it. his body might, maybe, but there are parts of him that would be lost forever. so zuko nods, and he stands guard over aang and katara as sokka walks away from them. 

katara heals the cut on aang’s jaw, and the bruises on his chin, before turning to zuko. she runs her hands over his bruised nose, his scraped shoulders, his aching ribs, and she draws his pain out and away. he wishes he could do the same for her. her eyes are hollowed with misery, her arms bruised and her knuckles scabbed. he cups snow in his hand and melts it, then washes the blood from her hands with warm water. she curls into his side once he’s finished, holding aang close, and they look out over the endless ocean together. 

they grieve, there in the cold and the quiet, and it is a grief unlike any zuko has known before.

it feels like the whole world is ending.

around sokka, buildings slump and warp. water tribe warriors line the streets in various states of disarray: some stand, talking loudly and gesturing towards the sea; others sit in tangled clumps, bound with bandages and cradling their heads in their hands; still others lay flat on the ground, ice matting their parkas and blood smearing the streets around them. their chests do not rise. sokka does not look at them for very long once he notices that. 

as he stumbles through the snow, ash stains his boots. he trips, once, and cannot bring himself to rise again. he wraps his arms around himself and curls in, curls down, until his forehead touches the snow. no tears come, but the ache in his chest is a choking, physical thing. he gags around it, and then he retches, and then he blinks numbly at the snow and wonders how the world is going to carry on after this.

it’s only the thought of his family—of katara, of aang, of zuko—that brings him to his feet again. he feels leaden and heavy, his joints stiff with the cold, and the warmth of the stables is a welcome reprieve. he plasters himself against appa’s side, and momo winds around his shoulders. 

“yue’s dead,” he tells them, the words forcing themselves past the lump in his throat. he breathes shakily, smells wet fur and musk and sweet hay. 

perhaps dead isn’t entirely right, but it’s near enough. yue will never grow up. she’ll never sit and talk and laugh with her family again. she’ll never become the incredible, intelligent chief she should have been. she’s gone. she’s somewhere—some thing —else and everything is worse because of it. 

it’s all their fault, too, isn’t it? they knew zhao was following them. they knew—they talked about it!—and they decided to lead him right to yue’s doorstep in spite of the risk. if they hadn’t come here, she would still be alive. if they hadn’t come here, the northern water tribe wouldn’t be in ruins. if they hadn’t come here, sokka’s heart wouldn’t be falling apart between his ribs. 

but they did come here, and they ruined everything.

guilt balls, thick and black, in the pit of sokka’s stomach. he’s tempted to retch again, but he gulps the feeling down and licks the sour taste from his teeth until his mouth stops watering. then he peels himself away from appa and looks dully at him. 

“we have to go now,” he says—the same words katara had murmured into his hair while she held him. “come on.”

he leads appa outside, and the smell of hot smoke curls thickly around them again. appa shakes his head and rumbles in agitation. there’s no comfort to be offered. sokka can only grab his reins and pull, urging him forward in spite of his fear. he follows slowly, warily, but trusting in sokka more than anyone rightfully should. 

when he finally balks, tossing his horns and refusing to take another step, sokka looks wearily at him. 

“appa, we have to go. aang’s waiting.”

appa snorts, then paws the packed snow beneath himself. momo’s fingers tighten on sokka’s shoulders, and he catches a glimpse of bared yellow fangs in his peripheral. both sets of brown eyes are focused forward, focused towards—

towards a fire nation soldier standing in the middle of the street.

it’s fear—shameful fear—that grips sokka first, sends him flinching back into appa’s broad shoulder. appa lowers his horns, grinding the flats of his teeth next to sokka’s ear and growling a warning to the soldier. a low, panicked buzz fills sokka’s head, and he reaches for his knife with fumbling fingers. then his eyes catch the soldier’s, and he falters. those eyes are familiar. those eyes are so familiar it fucking hurts. 

“general iroh,” sokka rasps, the rage that bubbles up in his throat quickly replacing his fear. this man—this bastard of a man!—is just as responsible as zhao for the devastation around them. he’s responsible for the shattered walls and broken buildings. he’s responsible for the torn-apart families and the corpses littering the streets. he’s responsible for yue. 

“you,” iroh breathes, and he has the nerve to look relieved. “you’re one of the avatar’s friends, aren’t you? i’ve seen you before.”

sokka bares his teeth and draws his knife from its sheathe. that, at least, seems to be enough to erase the hope in iroh’s expression. there are no words to waste—not on a man like this. sokka knows who he really is, now. zuko can talk sweetly about him all he likes, but it’s all meaningless. he said the same things about the firelord, and iroh?

iroh’s even fucking worse.

“please.” iroh holds his hands up, palms out. “i mean you no harm. i only want to talk.”

there’s nothing to talk about. sokka’s already made his decision. 

so he lunges, knife out, and—

and iroh grips his wrist and turns, using his own momentum to shove him into the snow before twisting his arm behind him. he plucks the knife from sokka’s fingertips, and sokka howls in rage. he thrashes, but iroh is heavy and strong and unyielding, and sokka’s never felt so fucking helpless. furious tears sting his eyes. 

is this how he goes? stabbed in the back by his own knife? maybe it’s what he deserves for bringing the fire nation to the north pole—but spirits, he’s not just going to lay down and accept it. so what if he’s weak? so what if he’s stupid? so what if he’s a brokenhearted fifteen-year-old thousands of miles from home? the general is a monster, and sokka’s not going to stop fighting until one of them is dead.

but sokka knows, too, that he can’t overpower this man. there’s only one advantage he has.

he rests his chin in the snow, panting, and lets himself go limp. iroh’s grip on him loosens, some, and he hears a sigh of relief behind him.

“that’s it,” iroh says. “we don’t need to fight. i promise i don’t want to hurt you. i only want to ask you about—”

sokka twists violently, breaking iroh’s weakened hold and bringing his legs up to kick. he slams his boots into iroh’s gut, and iroh stumbles backwards with a cry of alarm. he’s still holding sokka’s knife. it glitters in the moonlight and for a moment, that feels like a blessing. it’s all the encouragement sokka needs. he lunges forward and lowers his shoulder, ramming himself into iroh’s side to keep him off balance. then he grabs the blade, heedless of the way it slices his palm, and yanks it back. 

he’s there, at iroh’s throat, the second the general hits the ground.

“oh,” iroh says, and he has the nerve to sound genuinely surprised. sokka keeps the blade tight against the weathered skin of iroh’s throat, teeth bared. his own blood trickles around the hilt and splatters against iroh’s breastplate in gaudy droplets. the pain hasn’t registered yet. then something quiet and resigned creeps through iroh’s eyes, and he lets his head fall back against the street. “for what it’s worth, i understand why you’re angry.”

“i’ll kill you,” sokka says. his hands shake. his teeth chatter. from cold? from fear? from anger? he doesn’t know, and he finds he doesn’t particularly care. all that matters is the genocidal bastard below him and the knife between them. “i’m going to kill you.”

“this attack wasn’t my idea. it was zhao’s. i only traveled with him so i could find zuko.”

that really doesn’t help his case at all, and molten rage pools in sokka’s chest. 

“i know he’s been traveling with you,” iroh says. he swallows, and the movement bobs his throat against sokka’s blade. “i only wish to see him, to speak with him. i’ve been so worried.”

“worried?” sokka laughs. the sound is cracked and uneven. when he speaks again, his voice is shrill. “worried?” 

iroh looks at him with nothing short of concern, which is a little enraging coming from someone on the wrong end of a knife. 

“if i were you,” sokka spits, and his hands won’t stop shaking, “i wouldn’t make my last words a fucking lie.”

fire sparks in iroh’s eyes. “it isn’t a lie. prince zuko means the world to me. where is he?”

sokka tightens his grip on the knife hilt. all it will take is one deft push, one deft slice, and he’ll rid the world of another deranged firebender. he'll keep his friends safe. he'll keep zuko safe. he can do this. he’s brave enough, he’s strong enough, he’s—

he’s crying again, tears dropping from his face to iroh’s. 

iroh’s gaze gentles, and sokka fucking hates it. he hates feeling like this. he hates everything.

“if i ever see you again,” sokka says, his voice wobbling, “i’ll kill you. i’m serious.”

“i know,” iroh says solemnly. “take me to zuko and you’ll be rid of us.”

sokka can’t kill him. 

sokka can do one better.

“i can’t,” he says, and it’s no trouble to make himself sound choked. “i can’t.”

there’s something in iroh’s eyes, now, something small and scared. “and why not?”

“because.” sokka draws the knife away from iroh’s throat and stands, swiping his arm over his face to rub away the tears. he takes a deep, shaky breath. “zuko’s dead.”

he thinks, as he watches the dragon of the west’s heart shatter, that slitting his throat might have been more merciful.