Chapter 6: Before You Leap
Lose your compass, shred your map,
The path that’s straight can always swing,
And hold on tight before you leap,
‘Cos destiny’s a funny thing.
“Good. Just the man I wanted.”
Shen Li paused in the doorway, his hand half extended to knock. Fire bubbled warmly in the fireplace to the left, casting an unneeded glow across the study. Directly across from the door, a floor-length window let in the half-risen sun. And amidst it all, Prince Zuko sat in the lotus position, his face downturned towards the map on the floor. His unmarked eye lay soft and closed across his cheek, and to his side, the combination of dawn and flame lent the room an unearthly shine. To one entering in from the corridor, it was almost as if the heavens themselves were blessing the Fire Nation.
Shen Li sighed, and stepped over the threshold. If only things were that simple.
“What’s on your mind, Prince Zuko?” he asked, careful to keep his voice expressionless.
The Fire Prince’s eyes opened. “Too much,” he replied caustically, before rising to his feet. The guard captain barely had time to blink before a familiar-looking scroll was shoved into his hand. “What do you make of this?”
Shen Li thumbed the paper carefully, well aware of how intensely Prince Zuko’s golden eyes were boring into his skin. Although he already knew every detail of its contents, he took a second to stare. There was no harm in re-checking his memory, after all.
“It looks like the Weiji Coast and the tip of the Earth Kingdom Peninsula, your highness.”
The Fire Prince muttered something under his breath and turned away. “I thought so too,” he replied at last. “But what really bothers me are the soldiers.”
Zuko gestured towards his desk, and Shen Li’s eyes followed. Whatever one could say of the Prince. he had been making progress. “According to my reports, those soldiers don’t exist. Or more importantly, they shouldn’t be there. Either way, I’m not sure what to make of it.”
Shen Li gritted his teeth and bowed his head. But it’s so obvious, he felt like saying. Come on, don’t make me have to spell it out to you...
“Still,” the Prince faced the window, his hands clasped behind his back. “If the scroll is correct, something tells me that these ‘non-existent’ troops aren’t friendly. And with such a well-placed position, I think we have a very real reason to worry.”
Shen Li expelled a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. Ah, good. The Fire Prince wasn’t stupid. At the thought, he inhaled again and tried to calm himself. Why am I so jumpy? This will work out fine. I made the right choice. My nation will be okay.
His thoughts were cut off when his leader spoke again. “But that brings me to the question,” Prince Zuko turned abruptly. “Where did you get the scroll in the first place?”
The guard captain swallowed. “It came alongside General Iroh’s message, actually. Since the two messenger hawks both came from the Earth Kingdom, I... assumed they were both addressed to you, given the recent events.”
He watched as Prince Zuko’s lips thinned, and decided the boy would make an imposing monarch. Even now, draped in only a heavy robe that barely covered his sleeping clothes, the Prince cut a strong figure. Shen Li’s eyes travelled upwards. The scar helped. The scar definitely helped, and the surge of memories that accompanied the sight quelled any last worries in Shen Li’s mind. He’d made his choice four years ago, at the Agni Kai arena. And now that it was the Avatar and his friends who had won, the Prince included... he was glad that he’d made that choice.
Shen Li felt the ghost of a wind passing over his face, a remembered breath of a poisoned dart sailing high and reaching for the Prince’s chest. Yes. He hadn’t made the wrong decision. The boy in front of him... oh, who was he kidding? He was almost the same age, after all.
No. The young man in front of him would make a great Fire Lord.
“Shen Li?”
The guard captain slipped back into focus with a blink. Oh. Right. And just how had he missed the annoyed stare the Fire Prince had been directing his way for the last minute? He shook his head. Concentrate, you fool.
“I apologise, Prince Zuko. What did you say?”
The Prince in question huffed irritably through his teeth. “I said that I’m still not sure whether we can trust this scroll. We don’t know where it came from. That the hawk flew from the Earth Kingdom doesn’t exactly narrow it down. The Earth Kingdom does happen to be a fairly large place.”
Shen Li cleared his throat. “If you don’t mind, Prince Zuko, might I suggest something?”
The Prince chuckled dryly. “Shen Li, I’ve known you for two days now, and this has to be the first time you’ve asked to give me advice.”
He snorted inwardly. “I apologise, my Prince. Should I do it more often?”
His sardonicism was wasted. Prince Zuko wasn’t listening, or perhaps he was. Suddenly, Shen Li felt very uncomfortable. Piercing, searching stares he could take. But this sudden softness? What exactly was happening? He didn’t even realise he was backing away unconsciously, until the movement seemed to snap the Fire Prince back to his senses. Before his eyes, the almost open look in the other’s gaze clammed tightly shut, and then he shook his head. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I... it’s just that you reminded me so much of someone just then.”
Shen Li’s heart fell to the bottom of his chest, but he kept his face still. “Who?”
“Mai...” the Fire Prince murmured, and then his golden eyes shot open. “Mai! Of course! I can’t believe I almost forgot, again!”
“Forgot what, Prince Zuko?”
His robes swirling around him, Prince Zuko turned back towards his desk without answering. “Shen Li? I need you to look through the prisoner records and start releasing everyone who’s a war prisoner. Well, perhaps not everyone. Run the list by me before you authenticate it. But while you’re there, I have a slightly more important task for you to do.”
He exhaled, and then looked up at the guard captain again. “I need you to find Mai.”
Shen Li didn’t betray any emotion. “The Governor of Omashu’s daughter?”
A grim smile slipped across Prince Zuko’s face. “Yeah, that’s the one.”
What had GeneraL Iroh said? That he never thought things through? Shen Li paused and coughed. “Uh... I’m afraid that there’s a small problem with that plan.”
The Fire Prince halted, his hands halfway extended to gather a scroll. “Huh?”
Shen Li repressed a grin. “I’m just a simple guard captain, your Highness,” he explained. “I don’t have the power to request prisoner records, let alone go around freeing them.”
“Oh.”
Shen Li smiled ironically. “Oh indeed.”
Prince Zuko glanced briefly at the scroll in his hand and then looked up again. “Well, that’s a problem that can be easily fixed,” he said confidently. “In two days time, when I’m crowned Fire Lord, you’ll be promoted to Chief Bodyguard anyway. Just tell the servants that due to our extenuating circumstances, you’ve been given some of your powers already.”
He turned away, satisfied that that would fix it, and so he missed the first, real expression cross his guard captain’s face.
Shock.
Chief Bodyguard. Does he... Shen Li stared at his leader’s back. It was curved slightly underneath the robe, but he didn’t need to see skin to know the youth and the fighter underneath. Does he know what he’s asking? Know what he’s doing? So soon?
He cleared his throat, and couldn’t believe it when his voice cracked. “Your highness...”
The Fire Prince paused, his hands resting still on the papers he’d been shuffling just a moment ago. “We’re not in public now, Shen Li. Prince Zuko will do just fine.” He smiled wryly to himself as he turned. “In fact, ‘Zuko’ will do when we’re alone. You’ve earned...”
There was a thud.
Zuko stopped abruptly.
If Shen Li had been able to see his leader’s face now, he might have been surprised by the emotions that ran freely across it. The last few days had been enough to shake Zuko back into his upbringing, into a world of politics and paranoia and neutral expressions that couldn’t betray you. Even when he’d been young, Zuko had been exposed to that world. Of course, he’d never learnt completely to dampen his eyes when he was happy, or to lift the sullenness back to passivity when he was depressed. He’d been too young. Just a boy.
But the Fire Prince certainly wasn’t a boy any longer.
“Shen Li,” he said roughly. “Get up.”
From where he knelt, his face to the ground and his arms reached forwards, the guard captain trembled. But it wasn’t from fear. It was from a strange sense of awe, a rush that had seized his heart and burst outwards from there to grab his muscles and pull him down. “Your highness...”
“Zuko,” the Prince said. “And what’s wrong with you? I told you to get up.”
Shen Li wasn’t sure whether it was fear or annoyance, or perhaps a mix of both, that echoed in Prince Zuko’s voice. But it was enough to get his mind working again, and so the guard captain steeled his breath and sank lower to the floor, his eyes still resolutely on his leader’s feet.
What’s wrong with me? More things than I thought I knew. But this is enough. This is enough to make me never regret it...
“Your highness, I am just a lowly guard captain. What would make you trust me? And with Chief Bodyguard? I...” he took a deep breath, afraid that he was rambling. “You’ve known me for two days, your highness. And I know you don’t like me. Why...?
There was a silence, and Shen Li felt the heat of the fire crackling to his left increase. He caught his breath, but before he knew it the searing had died down again to a gentle warmth, and his mind registered the coolness of the floor seeping through his palms. The words were out, and he couldn’t take them back. He was surprised at how easily he could accept that, now that he was calm. In the end, it was up to Prince Zuko. It always had been.
“Get up.”
It was a command this time, and Shen Li instinctively scrambled to obey. He had only gotten a few inches, however, before a firm hand grasped the collar of his shirt and pulled him roughly to his feet. The guard captain kept his eyes to the floor, and so he missed the look that flashed across Prince Zuko’s face. Not that he would have understood it, of course, since he hadn’t been privy to the Fire Prince’s nightmare. Still, by the time he falteringly raised his head to meet the gaze of his leader, there were a few traces of starkness left, and he almost cringed away from them before catching himself. What the hell is wrong with me? I... calm down. I am Shen Li, of the Royal Fire Nation guard. I am an honourable man. There’s nothing wrong. Nothing.
His eyes slid to the side, to catch the dancing flames of the fireplace and avoid the piercing ones of the Prince. “I... apologise, your highness,” he said softly. “I don’t know what came over me.”
There was a silence as Zuko studied him, and then the Fire Prince released his grip. “I understand if you don’t feel like you can talk to me,” he said, his voice surprisingly gentle amidst the roughness of his tone. “You’re right. We’ve only known each other for a short amount of time, it’s understandable.”
He paused for a moment, as if searching for the right words to say next, and Shen Li found himself almost inexplicably holding his breath.
Golden eyes flashed down, and then flashed up again. “But you’re also wrong. It’s not that I don’t like you. It’s just that I didn’t trust you.”
Shen Li was glad that he was looking away, so that the Fire Prince couldn’t see the tightening of his features. “I understand,” he said emotionlessly, even though he didn’t. Because why then, was he doing this? From guard captain to Chief Bodyguard... it couldn’t even rightfully be called a promotion. It was far too much for that. And even though Shen Li had known this was coming, had expected it even after Iroh and everything else that had occurred, the fact that it was happening so quickly was still a shock.
“No, you don’t,” Prince Zuko said patiently, and then he stepped to the side so that the guard captain was forced to look at him. “I said that I didn’t trust you. That was before. But Uncle Iroh and your own actions have proved it enough for me.” A small smile curled ironically across the Prince’s face. “You saved my life. I don’t forget favours like that quickly.”
Shen Li shook his head in disbelief. “I was just doing my job.”
The look the Prince shot back at him told him that he wasn’t buying it for a moment. “Of course,” he said ironically. “Because ferrying messages is a guard captain’s job. Because giving strategic and political advice is a guard captain’s job. Because standing to my right, enduring those meetings with me, and then telling me which Minister you thought was lying when is a guard captain’s job.”
Shen Li shook his head again, but this time it was slower. Well, at least the new ruler was definitely not stupid. “I am the Minister for Security’s son,” he said.
The Prince waved a hand dismissively. “That makes you even more suited for the job I’m planning to give you.” A sudden realisation crossed his face. “Unless you have any objections?”
Shen Li sucked in a breath. “No, not at all, your highness. I was just... surprised.”
“Be sure that you aren’t from now on,” Prince Zuko said dryly. “It might make things a little uncomfortable, given your new position.”
The guard captain let a sardonic twist catch his mouth. “Of course,” he said, and then his eyes widened. “That reminds me. I came here to remind you that you’re expected in the War Chamber at ten for the Ministers’ gathering.”
“Ah,” the Prince glanced at the sky. gauging his time. Pale fingers found his robe, and he pulled it closer across his sleeping clothes as he headed towards the door. “So I’ve got around three hours for some Firebending practice, breakfast, and catching up with the Avatar.”
Shen Li nodded, both his face and his emotions under control again. “Very good, your highness.”
It was as if the words themselves had drawn him up short, but then again, Shen Li supposed they had. The Fire Prince swung around again. “Zuko,” he enunciated slowly. “In private, let it be Zuko.”
He had just enough time to nod and open his mouth, before thought crossed the other’s face and he was speaking again.
“Oh, and Shen Li? I’ve already decided what to do about the scroll,” Prince Zuko paused, as if thinking it over, before nodding sharply. “We’ll send a small dispatch of scouts out to the area. An army of that size should be difficult to hide, let alone feed and water.”
Shen Li felt his lips twitch. “Is that all, Pr... Zuko?”
He didn’t even pause. “Yes, that’s all,” he said, before he walked confidently from the room.
And behind him, Shen Li finally let a small, real, smile creep across his face, the first he’d worn since he’d laid eyes on Prince Zuko two days ago and found himself staring at a different person from the one who’d left.
Perhaps... perhaps optimism could be justified. Perhaps his long held hope would be given life. His eyes drifted to the back of the retreating Fire Prince.
Perhaps... perhaps it would even be in this lifetime that the Fire Nation regained its honour. It was a heady thought, and it kept Shen Li smiling all the way down the corridor...
... until he remembered the task Prince Zuko had assigned him.
8 8 8
Unsurprisingly, Zuko blitzed through Firebending practice, shocking the old teachers who had observed him for so long. It was like a different person had come back, they whispered amongst themselves. From a boy, into a man. Because how else could they explain his control? His precision? His... mastery? The boy had always been shown up by his sister, that was true. But even when he had returned briefly after the fall of Ba Sing Se, they remembered his characteristic lack of control. True, he had certainly improved. What was to be expected, when one battled the Avatar on an almost weekly basis? But then there had still been faults, flaws, and weaknesses...
But now, he truly looked the part of a Fire Lord. The teachers who had doubted him walked away whispering when he was finished, and Zuko let a small smile of victory lighten his face for a moment.
It felt good.
By the time he’d finished breakfast as well, and gone over a few more documents, he only had about half an hour left to find Aang. He wandered down the corridor, pausing when he found the right door. Reaching up, he knocked softly, and when there was no reply, he frowned and pulled the door open.
For a moment, he thought the room was empty. Zuko cast a sharp glance across his field of vision, his ears still ringing from his unanswered knocks. When his eyes finally settled on the small, hunched figure on the floor he exhaled in relief, irony tingeing his breath. What had he been worried about? He was good at looking for the Avatar.
Aang sat in the middle of the carpet, his arms linked loosely around his knees and his shoulders slumped in defeat. Gray eyes stared out the floor-length window, taking in the view of the Fire Palace’s gardens, and then the city beyond. It seemed peaceful enough, the greenery beautiful as always, but Zuko felt the inherent uneasiness as he stepped in and closed the door behind him. It was enough for the clamouring voices to cease in his blood, for the adrenaline to ebb away, and he almost forgot the missive clutched in his fist as he approached his... friend.
His friend, the Avatar.
“Aang?” he said hesitantly, uncertainty husking his voice. “Are you all right?”
The Avatar didn’t reply. Momo chittered nervously, swooping off from where he’d been perching on Aang’s slumped shoulders and hovering in the air before Zuko. The Fire Prince saw anxiety in the little lemur’s movements and walked forwards. The Avatar and his pet had seemed nearly inseparable lately, ever since they’d both vanished off together. He wondered why, but that thought was pushed off to the side as he moved closer, until the young Airbender was at his feet and they shared the same view.
Silence drenched them, and it stripped him of his words. Zuko opened his mouth and closed it, then without thinking, he slipped the scroll that had troubled him back into his robes. It could wait. Something was up, and as he remembered yesterday and the events leading up to Shen Li bursting in with news of the uprising, he realised with a sinking heart that he had a very good idea of what it was.
Slowly, the Fire Prince settled himself down next to the Avatar, his posture slightly more relaxed. Pulling his legs into a cross, Zuko leant his elbows onto his knees and stared out past the grass to his people. Something told him that Aang would talk when he was ready, and until then, he could wait.
With a patience born from finding his path, from having it all finally end, and from forgetting the fact that he had a meeting in half an hour with a nest of vipers who hated the very air he breathed, Zuko waited. His eyes never left his city, but he was ever aware of the faint crease on Aang’s brow, the line that marred his young skin. A few years more of that and Aang would look older than he should.
Then again, he was no ordinary twelve year old.
“Zuko, what exactly happened here two days ago?”
Zuko started, and his eyes moved to his friend. Aang hadn’t shifted, his eyes still focused somewhere far away, past the Fire Nation gardens, the city, and off to the thin rim of blue that circled the horizon. If it hadn’t been for Momo’s silent swoop back to Aang’s shoulders, Zuko wouldn’t have been sure whether he’d said anything at all.
“What did Katara tell you?” he asked, hesitance colouring his voice.
With the mention of her name, the Avatar moved. His childlike, innocent eyes hardened and a sharp burst of wind lifted him up to stand on his feet. “Nothing. Nothing more than what you all saw yesterday.”
Zuko winced, and remembered the scene, remembered Aang’s accusing eyes, Katara’s intervention, and then the fight. That last memory irked him somewhat. They’d had a good day, one of relief and friendship and the simple exultation in the feeling that they were all alive and had won. For it to have ended like it had...
Not that he’d blamed either of them... although to be honest, though, he’d been a little irate at Aang. If only he could have been there. If only he could have seen the anguish in her eyes and heard the crackling of lightning and fire searing the air. If only he could have been there in the aftermath, when they’d come to carry his sister away and then Katara had broken down and collapsed, weeping. Zuko’s chest tightened at the memory, at the image of one of the strongest people he knew like that. But still, it hadn’t weakened her in the slightest. It had been twice now that she’d cried in front of him. And both times, his opinion of her had never fallen.
Zuko sighed and glanced again at Aang’s frustrated face and stubbornly set mouth. He wished the Avatar could have been there after. Then again, perhaps not. It had been enough... it had been amazing, actually, that he’d managed to pull her to a place where they wouldn’t be disturbed, where they’d waited for the world around them to become less crazy. Where she’d let the tears flow, where they’d let silence bring their sanity back, piece by piece. And then they had talked, haltingly at first, and...
Zuko shook his head and got back on track. The last he remembered of her was seeing the devastation behind the rage as she and the Avatar had fought, and then Shen Li had run in. But after that, after all of that, they’d all gone to bed. And between then and now, when the sun was climbing ever higher, Zuko was surprised that nothing more had happened.
“So you haven’t seen her since...?” he asked.
“She wasn’t in her room this morning,” Aang sat down again abruptly, and then the hardness was gone from him. He loosened and fell inwards instead, a strange despondency settling over him. “I looked everywhere for her. And she wasn’t at breakfast either. And Toph wouldn’t say a thing!” the indignation that suddenly flared in his voice almost made Zuko chuckle, but he swallowed it with a firm mouth. He was fairly certain that for once, that Avatar didn’t need laughter, and so he settled himself down. This was going to take a while.
“You don’t need to worry about her safety, if that’s what you’re concerned about,” he said. “She’s probably down at the infirmary,” a shadow passed his own face at that, and he sat up straighter. “Before you came back, she barely left the place. I think she’s trying to make it better.” Whether or not that will. He paused and cocked his head, studying his friend. “Do you want me to take you to her?”
At that, every last bit of tension drained out of the Avatar’s body and he collapsed onto the floor, stretching out until his head rested on his folded arms. “I don’t know. Maybe I need more time to think. What am I thinking? I’m such an idiot.”
The Fire Prince folded his arms and looked directly at his friend. He had a very good idea what the problem was, and going around in circles certainly wasn’t solving it. “Aang, what exactly is wrong?”
The Avatar waited for a while before he answered. “It’s not just... it’s not just that she killed Azula,” he said haltingly, as if saying the words themselves pained him. “I... I think the fight was building up before that anyway, back at Ember Island when all of your were just... arrgh...”
Zuko kept his face implacable. “Well, we didn’t know about spirit-bending then, did we?” And I still have mixed feelings about you letting him live... no! I can’t say that, he’s my father.
Even if he never really acted like it...
Zuko took a breath, shaken, and was glad when Aang didn’t seem to notice. The Avatar merely scowled. “Well, it still didn’t help, whatever you were trying to do.”
The Fire Prince opened his mouth to bite off a sharp retort, but then with a supreme effort he quieted, unwilling to let the emotions inside him speak now. He had a feeling that if he did open the floodgates and allow the bitterness and the resentment still trapped inside him to surface, it would sound far too much like hatred for his liking.
“Well, what’s done is done,” he finally sighed, running his hand through his hair. He’d have to put that up later for the meeting. “We can’t go back and change it, no matter how much we might like to.” And I’m not just talking about Azula.
Aang sobered and let his eyes travel out through the window again, to the very real, harsh beauty of the Fire Nation. “I know that. I know that. And yet, I’m still angry at her. Because I was so happy that I managed to do it, you know?”
The Avatar turned to the Fire Prince, and Zuko saw the moment that the veil dropped away and his friend let the truth shine out.
“Fighting your father was the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life,” Aang said soberly, his honesty both searing and soothing to Zuko’s ears. “I spent the entire time holding back until the end, when it finally made sense. And I was so happy. I was free. I was myself, both Avatar and Aang, because I managed to stop it without more death. Without not being myself.”
He paused, and his gray eyes hardened infinitesimally. “And then I find out it was all for nothing, because Katara killed Azula.”
Zuko sighed and covered his eyes. Why him? “Aang, you didn’t see her at the end,” he tried to keep his voice as reasonable as possible. “Azula... she went insane, I think. And I don’t mean insane like she normally was, I mean properly insane. As she was... if she’d lived... I think we would have had to chain her up for the rest of her life, just to keep her from hurting herself or anyone else. And I don’t know about you, but I think that Azula would have almost preferred this...”
It was the truth, but the suddenly livid look on Aang’s face didn’t mean he couldn’t regret it. “WHAT?!” Aang erupted, turning around so fast Zuko had to slide back to avoid being hit. “How can you say that, Zuko?! She was your sister!”
The Fire Prince’s eyes flashed. “I’m well aware of that, Aang! And because of that, I know that for one, I would have rather died than be chained up for the rest of my life! Died with honour! She got that, all right? You weren’t there, you couldn’t see...”
Zuko buried his face in his hands. She was my sister, and before it turned out this way we played with each other on the beach. “I would have stopped it if I could,” he said quietly.
“Then why didn’t you?” Aang asked accusingly.
It was Zuko’s turn to swing on his friend angrily. “Well, there was the minor issue of me having a hole burnt in my chest from Azula’s lightning, but since you’re the Avatar, I guess something little like that wouldn’t have concerned you!”
Aang’s eyes widened. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” Zuko snapped. “Oh.”
Aang softened, and then his face creased a little, the corners of his eyes wrinkling in frustration. “I know... I’m sorry, Zuko. I guess... I just can’t help it. I’m still angry, but this isn’t between you and me. I’ll have to clear it up with Katara.”
Zuko nodded slowly, pushing the anger away. As it ebbed from his mind, thought replaced it, and he suddenly remembered something. “Wait, you said you weren’t angry just because of Azula. What else is wrong?”
As soon as he said the words, he wished that his curiosity could have been muffled briefly for once by good sense. He didn’t really want to get involved with whatever was happening... he had enough on his plate, after all.
Still, he remembered Katara’s eyes when she’d told him, in those hours after the fight. And so he steeled himself. Whether or not he wanted it, after all he’d done... he could at least try to help.
“It’s... nothing much, really,” Aang muttered, and the sound drew Zuko’s attention back to the present. A faint blush stained the Avatar’s rounded cheeks as he stared off into the distance. “I... it’s just...”
He took a deep breath. “I’minlovewithKatarabutshesaidshewasconfused.”
Zuko raised his eyebrow and mimed a rush of air going over his head. “What?”
Aang’s blush deepened, and suddenly he wasn’t the all-powerful Avatar in control of himself and all four elements, he was just a little boy again. “I’m in love with Katara but she said she was confused...” he repeated in a mumble, before his eyes went thoughtful. “Then again, she said she was only confused because it wasn’t a good time, like, we were in the middle of a war... perhaps now it’s over it’ll be all right?”
Zuko didn’t dare say anything. Aang continued, oblivious, his bald head furrowing. “But then again, I don’t understand. How can this stuff be confusing?”
Again, Zuko said nothing, but the reprieve was short-lived. Aang suddenly turned to him, hopeful. “Zuko! I remember Sokka saying you had a girlfriend. So you’ve been in love. Tell me, how can you ever be confused?”
Zuko swallowed, trapped. “Well... uh... that’s a little complicated.”
Aang huffed in frustration. “That can’t be right! Love isn’t complicated! You either love or you don’t. There’s no in-between!”
Zuko looked away from his friend’s eager face. Despite being the Avatar, it was amazing how naive he still could be. Then again, he reflected wryly, it wasn’t as if he himself could talk.
“It’s... complicated,” he repeated slowly. “But I do care for her.”
Aang looked at him, puzzled. “How can she be your girlfriend if you don’t love her?”
Zuko shook his head and didn’t answer. It wasn’t the time for a long-winded explanation about Ba Sing Se, and what had happened afterwards... just how Mai and he had gotten together. He didn’t even want to think about it, because he couldn’t. Not without feeling a guilt that tightened his throat and clawed painfully at his conscience. Because even if he wasn’t sure, was too... afraid of the word love, he knew that he definitely didn’t hate her. He knew that he cared.
“It’s a long story,” he said when the words came to him. “And somehow, I don’t really think I’m the best person to be asking.” What with my family history and all. Love? What love? “I mean, I did break up with her.”
Aang wasn’t having any of it. “Still, I’m sure you’ve felt it. You must have! I mean, love to me just doesn’t seem like an uncertain thing. It feels... warm, and, and beautiful, and... safe...”
Safe... an image of an elegant, graceful woman rose into his mind and Zuko suddenly felt an aching yearning rise in his heart, so strong that he thought for a moment he might suffocate. Mother. He swallowed and looked down at the floor. Yes, he thought through the pain. This is love. A different kind, but love nonetheless...
When he could finally speak again, his voice came out with a rasp. “You’re right,” he said with conviction. ““When you love somebody, you know it.”
It was as if the words had confirmed something in Aang’s mind, and he wasn’t sure whether it was good or bad. A mixed look twisted the Avatar’s face for a moment, but then determination suddenly blazed from his eyes. “Well maybe she does,” he muttered to himself. “She danced with me, after all. And she healed me. And, and... it’s Katara,” his voice softened. “She’s always been there for me. Always.”
Zuko squirmed uneasily. This was private stuff, and he felt like he shouldn’t be here. “Perhaps,” he said uncomfortably, looking for an escape. Amazingly, he found one, and his eyes widened as he realised just how good it was.
“Agni! I just remembered We have to get to the War Chamber for the Ministerial Meeting!” Zuko leapt to his feet and tugged the fastenings of his armour a little tighter. “Come on, we’d better hurry or else...”
He paused suddenly, when he realised that his friend wasn’t listening to him anymore. “Aang?”
“You go ahead,” the Avatar straightened, a purposeful glint in his eyes. “I’ll catch up later.”
After I find Katara. The words hung in there between them, and Zuko bit his lip. Despite how much he knew that Aang needed to be there, needed to see the reality of the world they were dealing with even after the war had ended... he couldn’t begrudge his friend this either.
“Don’t be too long,” he finally said, before turning on his heel and walking towards the Chamber that had once led to his scar.
8 8 8
Mai flicked an eye open and wished there was a window. Then again, since the cells were not particularly designed for prisoner comfort, she wished that there was far more than that. Still, she would have liked a window. Even if she wasn’t able to open it, she could have at least imagined a breeze on her cheek, or the sun on her face.
Mai opened her eyes completely and took in the stone and dirt of the place. Then she sighed, looked away, and closed them again.
Sometimes, it was impossible to imagine, impossible to forget... there was nothing left but the waiting. Because Mai knew that this couldn’t be forever. If she’d given in to that nightmare, she would have tried to run a long, long time ago.
With the thought of freedom, it did not take long before another memory began creeping in. The girl abruptly turned to her side and curled her fingers slightly, her body following suit.
Freedom. Along with it came the memory of what had landed her here in the first place, and she greeted it with mixed feelings. Despite the ambiguity that settled in her chest when she regarded it, however, she sometimes felt as if she liked this memory the best of all. Yes, it was painful, but painful like pins and needles in their heralding of life flowing back into a deadened limb. She had felt so alive fighting at the gondola tower. The corner of her mouth quirked up in the minutiae of a smile. For all his faults, for all the hurt... she could at least honestly credit Zuko for that moment. For giving her something real to fight for. Something that had made her blood race through her veins, had made her a little bit highstrung, a little bit crazy. And that rush of feeling had tasted so, so sweet.
Mai closed her eyes and felt her lashes sweep against her skin. If she tried, she could recapture a little of that fire now. She’d begun to train herself to do it, a little at a time, beckoning it forth for a moment and then sending it back, letting it work its magic against the tedium that snapped at her heels.
How it felt to fight.
How it felt to fight for something.
How it felt to fight for something real,
It wasn’t as if Mai had never fought before; oh no... she’d fought Azula’s battles too many times to count. But it had been different, then. Under Azula’s command, Mai had never fought for her own sake, she’d fought because it was expected, because Azula was her friend.
Up at the gondola tower, it had been different.
I love Zuko more than I fear you. The words rebounded in her head and she smiled at the rush they gave her. It was funny how truth and lies could blend so seamlessly into a single sentence. Fear was not something that Mai thought about often. But she knew that it had been there, under her skin and waiting in her bloodstream. Mai did not doubt that Azula could extend the little cruel manipulations she had dealt in when she was younger, but at the Boiling Rock that had ceased to matter. Fear had always been about the consequences of failure and staying with Azula. The path she had taken had led to such a clean break that the consequences had rappelled up to life and death, and at that moment, Mai had been more than willing to accept those terms.
Not without adding a few more of her own, though, using her words to sever the ties as neatly as her knives had pinned her enemies.
“You miscalculated...”
Mai’s memories halted at that, her normally impassive face suddenly struck. Azula had miscalculated, true. But then, so had she.
Because Ty Lee had done something that she’d never been able to do before.
Surprise her.
Then again, surprise was too light a word for exactly what had happened. Mai had been prepared to fight her childhood friend at the moment to the death, most likely her own, and she’d simply trusted Ty Lee to stay out of it.
So much for that.
Mai rolled over again and pressed her face into the pillow. When that didn’t help, she sat up abruptly. That turned out to be a mistake as dizziness pressed in on her scalp and left the world whirling across her vision in disorienting spots. The thin girl scowled as she placed her hand on her forehead and leaned against its coolness. She didn’t like to acknowledge it, but every time she saw Ty Lee in the exercise yard, something painful caught in her chest. Imprisonment was not agreeing with her friend. The bubble and spark that had so characterised her personality had dimmed somewhat. It didn’t seem so on the outside; Ty Lee still laughed, still giggled, still walked on her hands and curved bridges on the ground, but Mai had known her for so long it would have been impossible for her to miss the signs. The slightest deflation of the acrobat’s shoulders. The gradual dissolving of the cheery twinkle in her eyes.
It was funny, how she could read Ty Lee so well...
... and how she couldn’t read Zuko at all.
The thought was painful, and Mai was almost grateful when the sharp clanging of the bell rang through the prison and shook her from her thoughts. Slowly she rose to her feet and waited for the guards open the doors. Her scowl deepened as the bell kept ringing. She’d been in here long enough now to distinguish the messages, and to be honest, she couldn’t care less if there was an emergency requiring them all to meet in the yard. It couldn’t be anything interesting, after all.
At least she’d get to see Ty Lee.
When she followed the stream of prisoners into the courtyard, Mai was quashed down the slight flicker of curiosity that arose. Guards were centred around the walls, as was to be expected when you gathered everyone into one place. But it was the way that they were fidgeting, playing with their helmets and straightening their armour, that convinced her that something truly unusual was occurring. Her thin lips pulled into a frown as she scanned the crowd. Normally she would have looked for pink, but that was impossible now with their shapeless, matching clothes. So she looked for a braid instead, and for the lightness and grace that only her friend could possess. And of course, with her luck, it was just when she’d spotted her friend that her Uncle shouted and the prisoners automatically stilled.
Mai cursed silently. Perhaps she could surreptitiously move while still listening. But her eyes travelled up automatically to look at the figure standing on the balcony, even as she began to pick her way around the people.
Her uncle had gotten thinner, more haggard. His enemies had always thought that he’d crumble and fall after the escape that had cost him his honour so dearly, but despite it all he still stood strong as he addressed the crowd. Mai let a small smile escape her mouth as she stared up at him. Out of everyone in their family, he was the most like her. They were both strong. And despite what everyone else thought, it would take a lot for them to be broken.
“Now listen, you lot, and listen well! Some important news has come from the mainland, some very important news...” he paused and cleared his throat, before continuing. His harsh voice rung across the stone. “Two days ago, by decree of Fire Prince Zuko, the War was officially announced over!”
For a moment, there was a stunned silence. After a century, after all of their lifetimes... it was over just like that? Through mere words?
And then there was a roar.
It grew solidly, from the bottom of Fire Nation lungs, fire comes from the breath, and Mai felt herself get swept up in it even as she stayed voiceless, shrunken into herself. Prisoners chanted, prisoners screamed, the sound stemming from both good and ill feelings at the news, but the sound was mere background to the name that she heard. The words rang across her skull, imprinted deep into her memory, and it stayed there even as the roar crescendoed. Fire Prince Zuko. Prince Zuko. Zuko.
The words and their implications were still echoing in her mind when she found her way to Ty Lee. Two days ago. Two days. Two days ago, something had happened that had brought Zuko back into his position. Two days. Two whole days, forty-eight hours...
Mai shook her head angrily, feeling hated emotion claw at her chest. He should have gotten them out by now. She knew Zuko... or perhaps she didn’t. But one thing she did know about the angry, confused, roiling boy that she’d dated for those brief months between the fall of Ba Sing Se and the Eclipse was that when he wanted to, he acted and acted fast.
Her heart, which she’d thought had sustained so much pain it couldn’t be crushed anymore, squeezed a little tighter...
... and then a hand was on her shoulder, and Ty Lee was there. And with a start, Mai realised that it wasn’t the husk of a girl who had been play-acting herself recently. It was Ty Lee again, bright, bouncy Ty Lee at the thought of freedom, and... “Mai! Mai! The war’s over! The war’s over! And if the war’s over, then we’ll be free soon! I know we will!”
Perhaps it was the conviction with which she said it. But most likely, it was the way in which her gray eyes, dull and listless for so long beneath a fake glamour, shone so brightly with hope.
In the end, with Mai’s still raw and newly opened feelings, it was impossible not to at least partially believe her. And that was why, even when she was taken away from her friend and escorted back to her cell, Lady Mai allowed herself a miniscule smile. One that stayed with her long after she laid her head back on her pillow and closed her eyes.
Still, if she’d known that freedom would only be hours away, her smile might have been wider.
Then again, if she’d known what was to come after that for her, for her country, and for the man she thought she loved... she probably wouldn’t have smiled at all.
