Chapter Text
The first thought that Zuko has when the ice-filled air hits his lungs is that he is going to die. He is going to die because the ice is going to swallow him whole. He can feel it everywhere, on his back, on the soles of his feet, under his bald head. The ice burns his lungs and freezes his hands as he scrabbles for anything else, anything other than ice. For a moment, he thinks the ice has frozen his left eye shut, and then he remembers.
He remembers a huge pale hand - his father’s hand - coming to rest on his face, and the feeling of his flesh melting off his face to pool on his neck, burning the skin there too. He remembers screams that must have been his own as the world cut off.
He remembers something else, too. He remembers waking up once before this, he remembers thin, lackey fingers running up his thigh, and he remembers feeling something inside him, violating him. He hadn’t been his father because he remembers gray hair and slimy, almost black eyes with hate. Zhao. Zhao had-.
Zuko wants to die. He wants the snow to eat him up and bury him so that he will never be found. He doesn’t want to live as creepy hands, and the smell of melting skin fills his mind. He stops trying to open his right eye, stops trying to find anything other than snow.
He opens his right eye one last time to see a tan hand reaching out to touch his shoulder.
Zuko isn’t going to die.
He wishes he were.