Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“It's said I run like a stubborn tide; unstoppable, untamed and wild.
But a brave face isn't brave I've learned,
And as I searched for wisdom I remembered your words.

You told me, sing for the wind my love,
Fear not for tomorrow,
Because love's the journey of a lifetime, and where you finish isn't where you start.

So tomorrow doesn't worry me, and though the path be untraveled at least I'm free,
To be great, not just to be, that's what you wise old words told me.”

–“Sing for the Wind”, by Roo Panes.

風

Ursa pulled up her hood and made sure the cloak covered his son’s face.

The sway of the ship became gentle near the coast. She’d been worried about the tides when they parted. The boat was just a small fishing sailboat, not meant for transoceanic trips and nothing like the steam warships or the royal yachts they used to travel to Ember Island.

The Royal Yacht was currently being used by Iroh, actually. Ursa had asked for a favor without questions, and Iroh, always so understanding, had agreed to take the yacht to Ember Island to avoid suspicion.

So while Ozai thought his wife and his worthless non-bender son were in Ember Island with the Royal Yacht, Ursa and Zuko traveled to the colonies by sail.

Most peasants had never seen the faces of the royal family’s members, except for the Fire Lord, with his gigantic statues. Ursa paid the fisherman with gold to not ask questions and gave a fake name. It was easy.

As the boat docked on the pier, she inhaled sharply and swore to herself she wouldn’t cry.

“Mom?” Zuko mumbled. “Where are we?”

Ursa forced a smile.

“We’re on vacations, my love” She said to him. “We’re just visiting an old friend”

Ursa had no friends in the colonies.

Zuko was only seven, and he was so small, Ursa was scared she would lose him in the crowd, so she clutched his hand tight when they walked down the pier and into the town.

Ursa had been an actor when she was younger. She could do this. She was a simple Fire Nation woman who had recently inherited a small fortune and decided to spend it on her son’s safety.

In the town, she hired another ship, and on that same moonless night they traveled south, towards Earth Kingdom territory.

They would never find him there.

Some provinces were neutral ground—the power in the Earth Kingdom was very decentralized. She vaguely remembered mumbling about it out loud at some point earlier, half-asleep and dying of exhaustion. The power in the Earth Kingdom is very decentralized.

“Mom?” Zuko asked one more time from his hammock. They could afford real beds, but the money would seem suspicious. “Who is your friend?”

Ursa pressed her lips into a thin line. She was standing by the door of the storage area of the ship, careful to see if anyone walked by. It was very dark, and there was barely any space to sleep at all with all the wooden boxes and fabric bags full of things to trade. She thanked the darkness for hiding her fear from her son.

“They’re people that are going to help us” She said. “Zuko, my love, I need you to trust me”

How could she ask her son to trust her if she couldn’t trust herself?

Then Zuko did that thing, that thing that always made her blood go cold and caused every hair in her body to stand up. He softly leaped from the hammock, giving a gentle flip in the air and landing perfectly on the ground, as if the air itself was placing him down on the metal floor with motherly hands.

Ursa swallowed. He needed to stop doing that. If Ozai saw him—

She shook her head.

“Why didn’t Dad and Azula come with us?” He asked, approaching her.

“Your father and your sister are busy with something” Ursa replied.

“Oh” Zuko mumbled. “Is it firebending?”

Ursa nodded. She was making it up as she went. Soon, nothing would matter.

“That’s why we are so lucky” She faked a smirk. “Dad and Azula might be firebenders, but you and I get to go on vacations whenever we want”

“Mom” Zuko yawned. “I don’t think I like these vacations much”

Ursa’s smile faltered.

“We’re arriving soon” She said. She kneeled and pulled her little boy into a hug. It was strange, how the first time she’d discovered him doing that thing, she’d refused to touch him, as if he was some kind of animal that needed to be put down. The sentiment lasted seconds, before she realized that this was her son.

How could she have ever thought him anything but a smart, brave, compassionate, beautiful boy who deserved to live a long and happy life? How could she have learned so well the teachings of her country about the people of ancient times before the Comet (her son’s people?) and walked her entire life with the disgust and the hatred that now put her little son’s life in danger? How could she have hated her son for those short ten seconds of dread?

For ten seconds, she was repulsed by the thought of touching him. Now, she held onto him like her life depended on it. Maybe it did.

She hugged him tight, digging her nails into his clothes and holding him so close to her she could hide him with her cloak, keep him safe and hidden forever. Her little boy. No one needed to know.

“Mom” Zuko whimpered. “I don’t have air. I can’t breathe”

“Right, right” Ursa let him go so he could take in deep breaths of air that smelled like the ocean. She still held his shoulders tightly. “Go have some rest, my love. We’ll be arriving soon”

They traveled for one more whole day, and by the time they reached the next town, the sun was already setting. She made sure they were well hidden y cloaks and goods before leaving the ship and going into the village. It was smaller than the colony town, and in one short hour they had walked the entirety of the village and were reaching the farms and fields at its edge.

The edge of the village created that effect that the ocean often evoked, whenever Ursa stood in the beaches of Ember Island at night and stared at the sea. Behind her, the island was illuminated with lanterns and fire dancers and bonfires, but the light barely reached the sea, and just a few yards away, the world disappeared, swallowed by darkness and the murmur of the ocean. It was a comforting darkness. It was like standing on the edge of the world. Walk a few yards into the sea and you’d fall off reality.

Now, staring ahead with her son’s hand in hers, Ursa felt the same. The end of the world. She didn’t know what was past the lights of the farms. Fields? Mountains? A desert? She didn’t know and she felt her son would be safer if she didn’t.

She remembered the directions perfectly. When they finally reached the last farm, she hesitated.

She had to do this.

She kneeled to be at the same level as Zuko.

“Zuko, I love you” She said. “I love you more than anything in this world. Everything I do, I do it for you”

“I love you too, Mom” He said. He cocked his head. “Are you okay?”

A tear ran down Ursa’s cheek. She quickly wiped it away.

“Yes, yes, it’s okay” She said. “Zuko, I need you to be very brave and very strong from now on. Could you do that for me?”

“Mom, what’s going on?”

“I know this may be scary at first” She continued. “But this is for the best. I need you to believe me”

She stood up, still holding his hand, and faced the farm.

Zuko’s forefathers had created a world in which her son would never be whole. They had stripped him of a part of his heart and spirit with blood and fire. The Fire Nation was no place for an airbender boy.

But perhaps a small farm in the Earth Kingdom may be.

Ursa could pay as much money as the family needed. She had talked to them. They had experience with refugees and orphans and they knew how to take care of children. She hadn’t told them about their situation— it was too risky, but she planned on doing it that night.

They could give Zuko a chance. And then maybe… maybe he could be free. Perhaps not whole, but free.

She took a step forward, then another, and another.

And then she stopped.

She looked at her son. He was so beautiful, with his big golden eyes full of emotion that grew so worried whenever a turtleduck got hurt and his hair, pulled into a ponytail, that waved like a little flag when he jumped and ran and flew five feet into the air in a way that gave Ursa daily heart attacks. No matter how many times his sister taunted him for his inability to firebend, he still tried, practicing the katas over and over again and when he couldn’t do it, he invented one, her brave soldier boy.

He was her son.

She couldn’t do it.

She pulled him into a hug once more, and this time she didn’t let him go, even when he complained that he couldn’t breathe, that she was asphyxiating him— he was her son, and… and she could keep him safe. She could hide him forever. It didn’t matter how. She could keep him safe.

They returned to the ship and parted towards the Fire Nation before sunrise. They slept on the same hammock, even though Zuko complained that there was too little space and that the hammock could fall off. She just wanted to him close.

How could she give him away to an Earth Kingdom family? She couldn’t. She didn’t know if she was strong enough to take up the responsibility or way too weak to say goodbye.

As they got closer to the archipelago, she said to her son:

“From now on, there will be a couple of rules between you and I. Secret rules. Okay?”

火

When Katara saw Zuko, of all people, standing on their doorway, she thought she was dreaming.

He was unarmed and unaccompanied, or so it seemed.

She knew he was a stupid jerk, but she didn’t know he was this stupid.

“Uh… Hi” He stupidly said, like the stupid jerk he was. “I was wondering if I could… talk to Aang?”

“No!” She raised a wave of fire that he barely managed to avoid. “Leave!”

It had been a long day of taking care of a distressed Aang and insisting that Appa had to be okay and she did not have the energy to deal with Zuko on top of that.

“Is that Zuko?” Aang asked from inside the house with weak voice.

“What is the jerkbender doing here?” Sokka asked. He unsheathed his boomerang and pointed it at him. “Get out of here!”

They were playing Pai-Sho with Toph.

“Is he the ponytail guy you’re always talking about?” She asked Sokka.

“He doesn’t have a ponytail anymore” Sokka explained, without looking at her.

“I… huh…” Zuko stuttered pathetically. He locked eyes with Aang, who looked emotionless. Katara stood in the doorway, between them. “Aang, can I talk to you?”

Since when did he call him by his name?

“How stupid do you think we are?” Katara snarled. “You’re not welcome here. Go away. Now”

“Katara! Wait!” Aang exclaimed. It was the loudest he’d been in all day. He pushed her aside so he could see Zuko. “I want to hear what he has to say”

Zuko had talked about it very thoroughly with Uncle. Uncle had even written him a small script for Zuko to practice.

“You have to apologize” Uncle had told him.

“But they won’t believe me!”

“If your apology is sincere, then you’ll be a step closer to earning their forgiveness”

How sincere would an apology be, exactly, if he still low key planned to capture him when he got a chance?

Zuko had always been a bad liar.

He bowed to Aang and said:

“I wanted to apologize for… huh… chasing you all over the world?”

“And for invading both Water Tribes” Katara supplied bitterly. “Or stealing my mother’s necklace”

“Yeah… that too”

“And for burning down Suki’s village in Kyoshi Island” Sokka added.

“I’m sorry about that, too”

“What do you want, Zuko?” Katara demanded to know.

Zuko looked weirdly nervous. She had never seen him like that before.

“As you may know, I’m… I’m an airbender” He said. He looked at Aang. “And… I guess I need an airbending master if I’m going to face my sister”

火

These were great news!

Zuko had accepted Aang’s offer! He was going to train an airbender!

This was the best birthday gift ever! The day hadn’t been that bad after all!

His heart picked up. He would train the next generation of airbenders! They weren’t lost! There was still hope for the Air Nomads!

Air Nomads didn’t celebrate birthdays with gifts, but Toph had talked to him about it being a tradition in the Earth Kingdom. The monks always said they didn’t need to depend on material possessions, and they were right! Seeing Zuko had been a far better gift than anything you could buy with gold pieces.

And deep down, he was really happy and weirdly proud of Zuko for taking this step and looking for airbending training. He imagined it must have been really hard for him.

If earthbending had made him feel so out of his element (pun no intended), then he couldn’t imagine what being an airbender born in the Fire Nation must be like.

It sounded terrifying.

But Katara and Sokka didn’t seem too happy with having Prince Jerkbender at their doorstep, and they kicked him out. Aang rushed to tell him to come back tomorrow, because they would talk about it over dinner. Zuko somehow looked both hopeful and disappointment.

“I don’t know, Aang” Katara said. They were eating traditional Water Tribe cuisine that night. Which meant only Katara, Sokka and Toph were eating. “This looks suspicious”

“Maybe he changed his mind!” He argued. “Maybe he finally realized the Fire Nation is bad and he wants to join us!”

“Yeah… that’s probably not what happened” Sokka said. “It sounds like he just wants to master airbending with you so he can learn how to kick our butts better. Honestly, I wouldn’t give any more dangerous weapons to Prince Jerkbender”

“But I was the one to offer him to teach him airbending!”

“Well, just revoke the offer” Toph suggested. “Tell him it expired”

“But it didn’t expire! I really do want to teach him airbending!” He stood up. “We’re the only airbenders left! I need to do this!”

“I know this is important for you, Aang” Katara touched his arm. “But chances are he’s just trying to capture you. He was acting very strange”

“Maybe that’s just how he acts when he’s not angry”

“Come on! Have you seen that guy?” Sokka snickered. “He’s always angry!”

“He wasn’t angry today” Aang insisted. “Guys, this is something I have to do. I don’t want to be the last Air Nomad in the world!”

Didn’t they understand? Couldn’t they see he was alone? Couldn’t they see that Zuko could be the only bit to his nation he had left? The other last airbender? If they didn’t find Appa—

He didn’t want to think about not finding Appa. No. No way. Appa couldn’t be gone. They were going to find him.

Katara took his hand and pulled him to sit down next to her.

“Are you sure about this?”

Aang nodded.

“I’m sure, Katara”

They looked at each other for a moment. Then Katara sighed with resignation.

“Well, if you’re sure, then I support you”

Sokka’s jaw dropped.

“Are you serious now!? You want to teach the ponytail guy how to kill us with oxygen?”

“He’s not going to kill us” Aang argued. “Airbending is not a combat art. Back in the Temples, we used it to move around and to play games. I’m not going to teach him how to hurt people!”

Seriously, what did they think airbending was about?

火

“What was that about!?” Sokka demanded to know later that night, when Aang and Toph were already asleep. “Are you really on board with this?”

Katara was doing her daily breathing exercises, with a piece of parchment and a little fire.

“If it gets out of control, we’ll stop him” Katara argued. “I’ve beaten him before”

“Yeah, before he learned airbending! How do you plan to stop a master airbender with that?” He pointed at the burning parchment. “This is a terrible idea!”

Katara was silent for a moment.

“I’m not sure about this either” She confessed. “But I feel bad for Aang”

“I feel bad for Aang too! But I’m not going around teaching my enemies how to kill me!”

“Ever since Appa was stolen, he’s been feeling awful. He feels like he’s losing connection with his people” Katara insisted. “This is his first birthday without him. I just thought, how would you feel if you found the last Southern Waterbender?”

“I doubt a Southern Waterbender would work for the Fire Nation and chase us all over the world” Sokka said. After a moment, he added: “Wait, today is Aang’s birthday?”

Katara nodded.

“He told me he’d be turning thirteen today a few months ago, but he didn’t say anything today. I wasn’t sure if I should give him something”

“Do Air Nomads even give presents? You know, with their whole detachment and spiritual stuff”

“I think he said they didn’t do that” Katara explained. “I’m not worried about that. I was just thinking that this is the first time he spends a birthday without his people. I can’t imagine the pain he must be in”

Sokka didn’t see Aang being in a lot of pain, but having lived with his sister for fifteen years of his life had taught him that what happens inside a person’s brain is not always reflected in how they act. Katara was particularly good at purposely making you think she wasn’t angry only to explode in your face later.

He realized that it was impossible for Aang not to be sad. He’d lost more than anyone else.

How much pain was he escaping from?

Another thing he’d learned in the months he’d spent traveling with Aang was that having Appa around to save their butts always meant a quick escape. Now Appa was gone.

“Look, I think we can handle Zuko” Katara said. “I’m doing this for Aang. I’m not going to let him hurt him”

Sokka sighed.

“This better not get us killed” He warned her, before slipping into his bedroll and going to sleep.

風

Zuko came back the next day and Aang gave him the news.

“So you’re going to teach me?” He asked with a little smile. Aang had never seen him smile before. It made him look so different.

“Yes! We can start now!” Aang gave a little jump. “But, uh… We need to find somewhere to practice. Sokka says we shouldn’t attract attention”

“There are a few abandoned buildings in the Lower Ring” Zuko said. “Maybe we could practice there”

When Aang told his friends he was going to the Lower Ring with Zuko, Katara was quick to react.

“No way we’re leaving you alone with that jerk” And then she added: “I’m going with you”

Aang smiled. Sokka and Toph decided they may as well come. Just in case it was a trap, they said.

That made Aang feel a little bit safer. He had his friends and Zuko wasn’t even trying to kidnap him. There was nothing to worry about!

He just wished Katara wasn’t as suspicious.

They made their way to the Lower Ring and Aang was struck by all the poverty he saw there. Hundreds of refugees, unhealthy thin and with cheap clothes walking down the streets.

Ba Sing Se was so different from the Air Temples. This wasn’t what they’d taught him.

After some searching, they found an abandoned barn among the tall buildings. It was easy to get inside, and Aang was delighted to see how spacious it was. It looked even bigger from the inside than from the outside. There were posts to climb and a scrappy wooden inner balcony that ran across the tall walls, like a rectangular ring. It was big enough to jump and fly. There was a hole in the ceiling which they could cross to get on top of the roof.

“This place is perfect!” Aang exclaimed. The others didn’t look as excited, but it was okay. He was just happy to have them here.

He was happy Zuko had decided to learn airbending. He felt happier than he had in weeks.

They saw cross-legged on the wooden planks of the balcony while Katara, Sokka and Toph played Pai-Sho below.

“My uncle has been trying to teach me the basics” Zuko explained. “I’ve been doing breathing exercises and I’ve been practicing moving things around”

“Well, the monks used to say that the first step to learn airbending was to let go of fear” Aang explained. His heart was beating so hard. He was teaching him airbending! “Once there’s nothing that scares you, you can do anything”

“I’m not scared” Zuko said.

“The monks also said that everyone is scared of something” Aang continued. “They said that never being afraid was impossible”

He never quite understood that teaching. If you had to be unafraid in order to master airbending, but you could never be truly unafraid, there how come you could ever master airbending at all? He realized that was a bad place to start, and he decided to try something else.

He stood up.

“Airbending is about finding the path of least resistance” He continued. He started to move around, drawing a circle. “When you meet resistance, you simply avoid it and find a different way”

Zuko stood up and bowed respectfully and with certain awkwardness.

It was… such a different situation from what he was used to. No chasing, no running, no fighting. Zuko was just trying to learn.

“I’m ready to try”

Aang looked around. Back at the Air Temple, they had spinning airbending gates to practice it, but in the barn, there wasn’t much to use.

“It’s not fair! You’re cheating!” Sokka accused from below.

“There’s nothing against it in the rules” Toph argued.

“Let’s do this” Aang said. He descended gracefully on the ground, and Zuko was jealous of how easy it was for him. He was tempted to try to replicate the movement, but he knew he would just fall and smash his face on the floor.

Aang told Toph about his idea and Toph agreed immediately with a grin that made Zuko scared.

“This may be your best idea so far, Twinkle Toes” She snickered.

Next thing he knew, the small earthbending girl was raising smooth, rectangular stone pillars from the earth, completely wrecking what was left of the wooden floor of the barn. And for some reason, Zuko was supposed to run into them.

“You have to avoid them and come out from the other side!” Aang shouted. “Like this!”

He gave a quick demonstration, and Zuko was suddenly aware of how good he was at this. He jumped and leaped between the pillars as they raised and moved and went back to the earth. When one showed up right on his face, he quickly propelled himself away with his hands or his feet against the surface. He flew to the top of a pillar before this one receded back into the ground and he simple jumped to the next one.  He did it all effortlessly, like he was just letting the air move his body around like a leaf.

He finally landed a few seconds later. Katara clapped at him somewhere behind them.

“See? Now’s your turn”

Zuko stared at the pillars for a moment. They had stopped moving, as if mockingly waiting for him to smash him to pieces.

Oh, he was going to show them!

He gave a battle cry and charged into the pillars, only to immediately crash head first into the one in front of him. He dropped to the ground.

“This is embarrassing to watch” Toph said. “And I can’t even see you!”

Katara wouldn’t say it was embarrassing. But funny? Satisfying? Oh, definitely. Watching Zuko get his butt handed wasn’t how she was planning to spend the day but she wouldn’t rather be anywhere else. When he directed his anger at a piece of rock and not at them, it was easy to laugh at him. Aang tried to explain to him over and over again that he was supposed to evade the rocks, not fight them, but he didn’t seem to listen to him. He kept crashing into the pillars and Sokka, Katara and Toph kept laughing. Poor Aang was starting to grow desperate.

“Now you know what it feels like” Toph said to him.

“Come on guys” Aang lamented after the second hour of Zuko embarrassing himself in front of everyone. “A little help here?”

“You’re the airbender” Sokka shrugged. “You know what you’re doing”

Aang groaned in frustration. Katara got up to talk to him.

“Maybe you should start by something else” She suggested. Zuko was lying down on the ground, trying to recover from his humiliation.

“He says he’s already been meditating. This is supposed to be the next step!”

“Well, maybe he should try listening to you” She side-eyed Zuko, who sat up immediately.

“I’m trying, okay!?” He protested. “My sister is trying to kill me! I’m not being lazy”

“I never said you were being lazy” Katara argued. She crossed her arms. “I just said you’re not listening to Aang, that’s all”

“I’ve been doing everything he says for the last two hours” Zuko said. “And it just keeps hitting me on the face”

“You’re getting hit on the face because you… you want to hit those rocks!” Katara said. “Aang here has been trying to tell you to just avoid them. If you only stopped just… running into them—!”

“What would you know?”

“Well, at least I listen to him!” Katara countered. “And I’m not the one trying to learn airbending here”

She stormed off then, to continue playing Pai-Sho with Sokka and Toph.

“Who knew you had a mean side, Sugar Queen?”

Aang and Zuko exchanged a look. He thought he understood why it was so difficult for Zuko to complete the exercise.

“Air Nomad culture revolves around avoiding conflict” He explained. “Like I said, the monks always said we had to follow the path of least resistance. I think… I think you should try to stop trying to fight all the time”

“I can’t give up” Zuko said with husky voice.

“It’s not giving up. It’s just… Well… Not attacking”

“Running away?”

“No!”

“Then what?” Zuko stood up. “Am I supposed to just escape all my problems? Will I be able to master airbending that way?”

Aang didn’t know what to say. He was suddenly overcome by guilt.

If only he hadn’t ran away a hundred years before…

He brought his knees to his chest.

“I don’t know” He confessed. “The monks always knew how to explain it”

He didn’t know what else to say.

“I didn’t think it would be this hard” Zuko confessed, sitting back down.

Aang turned to face him.

“Why did it take you so long?” He asked. “I’ve been offering to teach you for months”

“I didn’t need it until now” Zuko explained. “My sister, she’s crazy! She’s been trying to kill me!”

“Because you’re an airbender?” He asked.

Zuko nodded. It evoked a deep sense of sympathy and pity from Aang. Zuko hadn’t chosen this, but he’d been born in the most dangerous Nation and in the worst possible family, and that meant he deserved to die.

No one… no one should go like anything like that. No one should have your family want to kill you. He tried to imagine Sokka or Katara wanting to hurt him, but he just couldn’t. They would never do that to him. They loved him, unconditionally.

“I’m sorry” He said. Zuko looked taken aback. “I can’t imagine what it must be like for you”

“I’ve always had to struggle” Zuko mumbled.

“But you shouldn’t have to” Aang argued. “It’s not fair that you have to go through this. There’s nothing wrong with being an airbender! Why does the Fire Nation hate us so much?!”

“Because we’re enemies of the Nation”

“But the Air Nomads never did anything to the Fire Nation!” Aang insisted. He knew why they hated them and wanted them dead. It was his fault. It was his fault. He was the Avatar and they’d been looking for him.

Aang glanced at Zuko and saw his scar.

“What about that?” He asked. “Did they do it because you were an airbender?”

Zuko looked away. Seen from his left side, where you could only see his burned, disfigured eye, it was impossible to tell what he was thinking. His eye always looked angry.

“No” He said. “My father didn’t know I was an airbender until a couple of months ago”

Aang’s stomach dropped.

“…Your father did that to you?”

“It doesn’t matter. I deserved it”

Aang stood up suddenly.

“No, you didn’t! Whatever you did, it couldn’t have been that bad!”

“I disrespected him. I spoke out of turn”

“Is that why he did that?” No. It wasn’t possible. Aang had always assumed Zuko had gotten his scar in a fight. It couldn’t be. Aang didn’t know much of fathers, but he knew they were supposed to love their children above all else. They— they couldn’t hurt their children! And… And just for speaking out of turn? How could anyone do that? “H—How old were you?”

Zuko shifted uncomfortable.

“Thirteen” He replied, and the word sent shivers down Aang’s spine. Three years ago. He’d been exactly his age. “He challenged me to an Agni Kai. I refused to fight him, so… he did this”

Suddenly, everything made sense.

Last time Zuko had backed away from a fight, he’d been mutilated by his own father.

The horror dawned to Aang like a sack of rocks in his stomach. He swallowed.

“I’m sorry” He repeated. He stood up slowly, as if not wanting to scare Zuko. “We don’t have to keep training. We can continue tomorrow if you want”

He knew Zuko probably wanted to keep trying, to keep pushing himself beyond his limits, but Aang knew that what he actually needed what a rest. He didn’t need to push himself through the pain. He definitely wasn’t going to force him through it.

He saw Katara talk to Zuko while he helped Toph pick up the Pai-Sho game. When she returned with them, Aang waved Zuko goodbye and left the barn with his friends.

“What did you tell him?” Aang asked curiously.

“Oh, it was nothing” Katara replied. “I just gave him a little advice”

火

Katara saw Aang and Zuko talking about something. She didn’t get to hear what they were saying exactly, but she could tell by Aang’s expression that Zuko was winning his sympathy.

It was time she put a stop to it.

So while Aang and Toph picked up the Pai-Sho board, she went over to have a word with him.

“I know what you’re trying to do” She accused. “You’re trying to earn Aang’s trust”

“What?” He asked.

“You may have bought him, but I know you’re still trying to capture him”

“Right now, I’m just trying to learn airbending”

He got up to his feet, but Katara stood in front of him and didn’t make a motion to move aside.

“I swear, if you ever give me a reason to think you may hurt him…” She clenched her fist. “I’ll make sure you’ll regret it”

Zuko swallowed nervously, clearly intimidated. Katara considered it a mission accomplished.

風

“So? How did it go?” Uncle asked as soon as Zuko walked into the apartment. “Did you find the Avatar?”

“I did” Zuko nodded. “He acceded to train me. We’ve already started”

“Those are great news!” Uncle smiled. “I must make some tea to celebrate!”

Once the tea was ready, Zuko continued to tell him about it.

“It was harder than I expected” he confessed. “He kept talking about avoiding resistance and stopping fighting”

Uncle hummed.

“I was afraid that would be an obstacle for you” He said. “You have a tendency to put up a fight even when it’s not necessary”

“‘Never give up without a fight’” He said. “That’s what the knife you gave says, doesn’t it?”

“It does say so, indeed” Uncle nodded. “But does everything have to be a fight? I think your training would go a lot more smoothly if you thought of it more as a journey instead of something to conquer” He sipped his tea. “After all, you can’t conquer air”

“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong” Zuko said.

“Well, airbending is all about freedom, isn’t it? It’s a very defensive bending art. Firebending, on the other hand…”

Firebending was the most offensive bending art. It was pure attack and no defense. Exactly what Zuko was supposed to do.

Except it wasn’t working for him anymore.

Had it ever worked?

“I suggested you trained with the Avatar because I trust him to know much more about airbending than me” Uncle said. “If you have doubts, why don’t you ask him instead?”

Later, as Zuko lay on his sleeping mat and tried to sleep, he thought about the Avatar and his friends. In just a couple of minutes Aang had managed to make him tell him about the Agni Kai. He still didn’t know why he told him that. He didn’t need to know. Now he must surely think he was weak.

Except he didn’t call him weak or acted disappointed or angry or frustrated that his enemy was just some weak and scared little boy. He had been horrified, and he had told him he didn’t deserve it.

Was that how normal people thought?

And then there was the banter with his friends. They joked. They played games. They said stupid things. They were… Well… Kids. They weren’t soldiers or generals or sailors. They were just kids, playing Pai-Sho, teasing each other and practicing bending like it was a game.

He guessed it kind of was a game for them.

He also realized he wasn’t much older than them. Did that make him a kid, too? He hadn’t thought of himself as a kid in a long time.

Chasing them all over the world and fighting them whenever he encountered them, he had imagined them as hardened warriors that every Fire Nation general dreaded to fight. But they were just kids. Incredibly powerful kids, yes, but they didn’t even look particularly dangerous. Except maybe for Katara.

And Katara… She had threatened Zuko. The girl who had been grossed out and terrified by her own firebending was willing to hurt someone with it if it meant protecting Aang.

They… really cared about each other.

Zuko wondered if anyone would ever want to protect him like that.

風

He tried airbending again the next day. This time, he tried to take in everything that Aang said.

“Don’t be scared of the obstacles” He instructed. “And don’t get angry with them. Just look for the path of least resistance”

The path of least resistance. Okay. He could do that.

(Was that the only sentence Aang knew? Was that all the wisdom his precious monks had passed down to him?)

This time, he was working with Toph on the pillars. He was probably just practicing his earthbending, but two earthbenders working by separate doubled the unpredictability. As soon as he saw an obstacle show up, he had to change direction to avoid being hit by it. Quick as the wind.

Don’t fight it. Not everything has to be a fight.

He had a hard time believing it, but if it would help him learn airbending, he could pretend.

Sokka and Katara seemed to be enjoying the show from the scrappy balcony, leaning on the railing with cocky smirks. Zuko didn’t know why that made him nervous.

He moved towards the rocks, but didn’t charge into them. He tried to move as slowly as possible.

When a pillar rose in front of him, he quickly took a step back to avoid it. Another one showed up right behind him and he had to perform a circular motion so he wouldn’t get hit. A boulder suddenly rose from the earth and started to rapidly roll in his direction. He jumped just in time, but then a new stalagmite surged and he propelled himself away from with a kick in mid air.  He wasn’t paying enough attention and he collided against one of the pillars.

Above him, Sokka broke into laughter.

“Look at that guy!” He exclaimed. Zuko growled and sent a gust of air in his direction. He was knocked down from the balcony.

Toph clicked her tongue and shook her head in disappointment.

“Let’s try again” She turned to Aang. “Twinkle Toes?”

He nodded, and they started again. Zuko managed to jump away from the first pillar, and instead of landing on the ground, he held onto the closest one. When it receded back into the earth, he leaped onto the ground, only to be hit by a rolling boulder.

Okay. Let’s try again.

He charged into the pillars this time, but he cowered away before they could touch him. He walked with his feet barely touching the ground, jumping and propelling himself away from the rocks with his hands and feet. He arched back when a stalagmite bent into horizontal position and almost ran over him, and when the boulder rolled in his direction, he jumped onto the same horizontal sheet of stone, jumping to the ground in the moment he felt it disintegrate. A rock rose right before him but he jumped into the air without even making contact. A new boulder appeared and he rolled away. Then another, and he leaped on top of one of the pillars still standing. It quickly fell back to the ground, and it would have dragged him with it if he hadn’t jumped at last second, landing softly on the ground.

He expected another rock, but when he looked up, he saw he had left them behind. They quickly disappeared into the earth. The poor wooden floor was completely destroyed, leaving a visible patch of dirt instead.

“You made it!” Aang exclaimed. Toph cheered and Sokka booed him. Mom chirped with mild approval.

Zuko cranked his neck to look at the tortured floor.

“Was that it?”

“Well, it’s never bad to practice that more, if you want” Aang said. “…But I think you’re ready for something else”

風

They had climbed on top of the roof. Aang drew a wide circle on the ground with a piece of charcoal.

“This is an Airbending Circle” He explained.

“It is a circle” Zuko pointed out.

“The Air Nomads used it to practice airbending footwork” Aang continued. He stepped on the circumference and started moving along the line. Zuko immediately recognized the movements. He had seen them a million times while fighting him. “Airbenders are always moving in circles to avoid strikes” He started to take long strides around the circle, never once taking his eyes off of Zuko.

“It doesn’t seem hard” Zuko said.

“It’s pretty easy, actually” Aang moved to the side so Zuko could practice. He performed the movements, but Aang soon saw the problem. He was rigid and his muscles were tense. He was supposed to be relaxed and move in a fluid motion. He tried to correct him a few times, but Zuko kept doing it wrong, and he was forced to step in.

“I’m going to walk with you” Aang said. Zuko looked pretty annoyed, but Aang didn’t let that bother him. He extended an arm in front of him, with the elbow flexed forming an almost 90° degree angle. His palms were open and facing the sky.

“What are you doing?” Zuko asked.

“You have to move like I do” Aang said. “Put your arm like mine”

It was a traditional Air Nomad dance that was commonly used for airbending practice. If Zuko was going to master airbending, he should also learn about his lost culture, too.

Zuko resigned himself to obey and imitated Aang’s position. Their wrists were pressed together.

“See?” Aang asked as he started to move in one direction, forcing Zuko to move in the opposite one. “You need to have some fun”

“I don’t need fun”

“You can’t master airbending without fun!”

Aang suddenly changed direction, lowering his arm and raising the other one. Zuko quickly imitated him and blocked what could have been a strike or a very quick dance move.

He smirked. He was finally learning something.

They continued for some time, moving in circles with Aang correcting him every two minutes and changing directions at random. Zuko realized it looked a lot like a Fire Nation Festival dance. Firebenders would hold flames in their open palms and juggle with it as they danced, exchanging them with the other dancers at the rhythm of the music, but the movements were also almost unrecognizable. They were far quicker and far less rigid or sudden.

He was vaguely aware of a whistle around them, the wind blowing on his hair and clothes. They were moving in circles and so was the air around them, like a quiet tornado.

Suddenly, Aang charged in his direction, and Zuko followed the movement of his own feet, moving to the side and letting him stride past him without touching him.

Aang smiled widely. They had now exchanged sides in the circle.

He took a long step forward and Zuko lifted his leg to avoid him. He quickly turned around in spiral to face Aang, with his hands in the dancing position of earlier, ready to block the next attack.

Then Aang did something different, and arched his arms in a big, quick circle before extending his open palms towards Zuko. He only had a second to smack them away from him, and the gust of wind whistled right past his face without blowing a single hair of his head.

Aang ran a leg across the floor— that was a Firebending move— and Zuko gave an impossible jump to avoid the imaginary flames, twisting in the air and landing at the other side of the circle.

Aang was smiling at him, and Zuko didn’t know why. He hadn’t even realized he had jumped six feet into the air.

火

Katara wasn’t sure about Aang’s little arrangement with Zuko.

Yes, she understood it was important for him. Yes, she understood they were the two last airbenders and yes, she knew that, if push came to shove, Aang was still a far better airbender than Zuko and the Prince wouldn’t stand a chance against him.

But in the end, it was all a favor for Aang. He had lost Appa and, with him, his last connection to the Air Nomads. Appa was the only thing from the past that Aang had brought with him.

Zuko, on the other hand, was a hope for the future. Katara soon realized that Aang was not just teaching airbending to the Prince, but Air Nomad culture as well. He wanted him to become an Air Nomad.

She knew it was wishful thinking from Aang’s part. Zuko was Fire Nation to the bone. But she couldn’t bring herself to tell him that.

Aang hoped to bring the Air Nomads back starting with Zuko, and the rest of them went along with it because they wanted Aang to feel better. It was a favor. A simple favor.

Katara worried this favor would kill them all.

火

“I think I’m ready to fight” Zuko said one day.

Katara was observing them from the scrappy balcony of the barn. Sokka had grown sick of playing Pai-Sho every day for the last month while Aang and Zuko messed around with oxygen and had brought a blank scroll to practice his skills with Haiku writing.

He read:

“The water flows quick

As the sight of her fighting

Under the full moon”

“Wow! That’s the worst haiku I’ve ever heard!” Toph exclaimed. “Is it about your girlfriend?”

Sokka blushed furiously.

“It doesn’t have to be about Suki!”

“So you admit Suki’s your girlfriend?” Katara teased.

Sokka opened his mouth to refute, but then Toph gestured at him to shut up. She was trying to listen to Aang and Zuko’s conversation.

“O… Okay, if you’re sure”

“I’m sure”

Katara directed her attention to them again. Zuko had adopted a firebending fighting stance (as if he hadn’t been paying attention at all that last month— totally a Zuko thing to do), but they were walking in circles around each other.

Suddenly, Aang raised his arms and a water whip hit Zuko dead on the head.

“You didn’t tell me you were going to use waterbending!” Zuko protested.

“Sorry!” Aang exclaimed. “It’s just… Airbending is not an offensive art. I wouldn’t know how to start an attack”

“What? Are you serious!?”

Oh, so he was yelling at him now? Despite Aang acceding to teach him?

So he really was just a brat and a jerk, after all.

“Don’t worry about it, Aang” She said, descending from the balcony. “If he wants to fight, I’ll do it”

Zuko’s good eye widened in surprise. Katara couldn’t hold back her smirk.

She was finally going to kick this jerk’s butt.         

Sokka raised his eyes from his haikus.

“Katara, are you sure?” He asked. “I mean, not to be dramatic, but have you seen where we are right now?” He stood up and gestured at the entire barn. It was made of wood. “You could kill us all!”

Oh. Right.

“I’ll be careful” She replied, more for herself than for her brother. “Besides, Aang can waterbend to put out the fire, right, Aang?”

She turned to her friend. He scratched the back of his neck.

“I guess so” He agreed.

“Good” Katara locked eyes with Zuko. “Let’s do this”

He picked up his swords. Katara didn’t give him time to adopt a fighting position. She just created a teardrop of fire and directed it on his direction.

Zuko instinctively raised his swords to block the fire, but it wasn’t moving in the familiar straight line. Katara moved her arms and the fire twisted around Zuko, flying towards him again.

This time, he jumped higher than Katara had ever seen him, landing on the balcony. Katara turned the teardrop into a whip and tried to hit him, but he brandished his swords and cut the useless whip in half before it could strike anything.

He descended towards her and she raised her arms to create a shield of fire. In a fraction of a second, he stabbed a wooden post with his swords to stop his fall and propel himself back into the air.

When he landed, he twisted his arm around his head and extended his closed fist towards Katara. A brutal gust of wind hit her straight on and almost knocked her down. As revenge, she raised a wave of fire, but Zuko rejected it with airbending and a quick movement of his swords, dissipating the flames in the air.

She tried to move fire again, but he simply turned the flames into nothing with his swords.

He charged towards her this time, and she tried to create another shield, but a swipe of his swords made it disappear. He punched forward and the air moved with him, this time throwing her to the ground.

No, no!

She moved her hand in a horizontal direction, throwing fire at Zuko, but the flames were weak and he dismissed them with his swords. She rolled to the side and moved her arms to raise another wave, but it didn’t take form right and it exploded pathetically on her face.

Zuko pointed a sword at her and, for a fraction of a second, she really thought she was going to die.

“You’re dead” He said. “You lost”

Wait, what?

No, it couldn’t be. She couldn’t have lost to Zuko!

Was that all it took? A month of training and he could already beat her?

It was humiliating.

She stood up blushing from embarrassment.

“That was just sad” Toph commented.

“It wasn’t that bad!” Aang argued. He turned to Katara. “I think you fought very well!”

“…Yeah!” Sokka agreed awkwardly. “Maybe you just need a little more training”

“About that” Zuko intervened suddenly. Katara’s head perked up. She glared at him. “I have an idea”

火

“No way”

They were back in their house. Zuko had stayed in the Lower Ring.

“Katara, please” Aang insisted. “Just give it a chance. You may end up liking it!”

“Oh, and why would you think I’d like to train with the Dragon of the West!?” She exclaimed, throwing her hands into the air. “Listen, Aang, I know you want to train Zuko, but even I have limits”

“Katara’s right” Sokka supplied. “This smells like a trap”

“Well, if it’s worth anything” Toph said, lying on the sleeping mat. “He wasn’t lying”

All eyes turned to Toph.

“How can you know?” Sokka asked.

Toph explained how she could feel it when someone lied. There was a physical reaction when that happened, and with time she had learned to feel it and recognize it with her incredible sense of touch.

“All I’m saying” She said. “It sounds like he actually wants you to learn firebending. If I were you, I would take it more as an insult than a threat”

“Gee, thanks” Katara scoffed.

“Honestly? I think you should give it a try” Toph continued. “Who knows? You may actually become a decent firebender after all”

Katara gritted her teeth so she wouldn’t scream at her.

Oh, screw it!

“I’ve been training for months and that’s all you have to say!?”

“Listen up, Sugar Queen!” Toph sat up and pointed at Aang and Sokka. “Those two crybabies didn’t want to tell you so it wouldn’t hurt your delicate feelings, but you suck. Even Twinkletoes here has been making more progress than you! It’s like you don’t even want to learn!”

“That is not true!” Katara snarled. “All this time you’ve been training with Aang I’ve been training firebending with Sokka!”

“Oh! Yeah, that makes everything so much better!” Toph scoffed. “Train firebending with the Water Tribe non-bender! At this pace you’re going to master firebending by the time the next Avatar is born!”

“Hey!” Aang protested.

“This isn’t about you, Twinkletoes!” Toph silenced him. She faced Katara. “I heard what you were doing. You’re training firebending with waterbending scrolls. Unless you’re using them as fuel for the campfires, then you’re not really learning firebending. That’s why Sparky back there kicked your butt. You need to stop circling around it and face it head on”

Flames escaped from Katara’s clenched fists.

How dare she?!

“All this time since we left the South Pole I’ve been doing everything I could to come to terms with this” She took a step forward. “Do you have an idea what this is like for me? After what the Fire Nation has done to us?”

“See? This is why you can’t learn firebending!”

“Gee, no kidding. Thanks, Toph”

“No, really!” Toph insisted. “You think firebending as a whole is bad because some bad firebenders wrecked your village. But have you seen Sparky? Does he look like the kind of person who manages to wreck a village?”

“Actually” Sokka intervened. “He was the one wrecking our village last time”

“And he wrecked Sokka’s girlfriend’s village” Aang added.

“Well, my point still stands” Toph lay back down on the sleeping mat. “You need to stop being so scared of firebending and train with a real master. This may be your only chance!”

“Actually, Toph, I have trained with a real firebending master before” Katara argued.

“Did I really miss so much?”

“Yeah, kind of” Sokka replied. “But to be fair, Jeong Jeong pretty much hated his firebending. He kept talking about pain and destruction and he made Aang breathe for like five hours straight”

“I think I’d be a little more concerned if Twinkletoes wasn’t breathing for five hours straight”

“On what side are you on?” Katara looked at her brother and crossed her arms. He raised his hands in surrender.

“I’m just saying”

“Toph is right, Katara” Aang said. “Remember when I couldn’t earthbend because I wasn’t thinking like an earthbender? Well, maybe you just need to think like a firebender”

“I don’t want to think like a firebender, Aang. That’s the thing” Katara insisted. “I’m not going to… go and burn down every village I see!”

“Firebending can’t have always been like that” Toph said. “Maybe you just need to learn an older form of firebending, probably from before the war. I never studied real earthbending with a master. I learned from the original earthbenders. You know, the badgermoles”

“The giant music-loving things from the Lover’s cave?” Sokka asked.

“I wasn’t there”

“Oh, right”

Katara wasn’t immediately convinced after their discussion, but Toph’s ‘tough love’, while a little cruel, wasn’t as useless as Katara had originally thought.

Maybe she was a disaster. Maybe she had been avoiding true firebending. Maybe she was still scared of it, despite everything.

Jeong Jeong said fire could consume a person, and Katara often found herself feeling angry and violent, and she felt like she was walking a tightrope between good and evil.

If she let herself go and got too caught up in firebending, she became a monster. And Toph hadn’t been entirely wrong: her amalgam between firebending and waterbending was a just her being scared of real firebending, but it was weak and pathetic and she could never beat Azula with it if it ever came down to it.

That night, Katara stared at the ceiling and thought about her options.

She sighed.

Maybe Toph was right.

風

Zuko didn’t know if he was surprised or not when his Uncle said yes.

“It sounds like your friend needs help” Uncle had said.

“She’s not my friend”

“Help is given where it is needed the most, not only where you want to see it”

He communicated with the group and they agreed to meet in the tea shop during the busiest hours, where there would be too many witnesses for anyone to try anything.

He would train Katara in the art of firebending, but he refused to teach Aang until he mastered earthbending. Aang remembered how difficult and tedious it had been back with Jeong Jeong, and reluctantly accepted to wait. Katara could teach him on the road anyways, and who knew? He could master earthbending while they were in Ba Sing Se. The wait didn’t have to be long.

Of course, Katara and Sokka were suspicious. Aang and Toph not so much. It could be a trap, the two Water Tribe children said. They could be leading us straight into the wolf’s mouth, they said. Toph disregarded their fears completely and insisted she could tell Zuko was telling the truth. They didn’t believe Zuko, but they believed Toph, and for Katara and Sokka that was enough. For the moment. 

Sokka still brought his boomerang with him, though.

When they arrived, Katara realized that the tea shop was very crowded. All tables were full and there were people drinking while standing and even outside the building, leaning against the wall and by the door. They had to push themselves through the sea of people to get in.

Definitely enough witnesses. Perhaps too many. Zuko had said they’d just talk for now, no actual firebending, but would they be able to do even that with so many people there?

They made their way to the counter. Sokka had his hand on his boomerang.

“He said he worked here, right?” He asked. “Why would these people pay so much to see this jerk? Does the tea have something?”

Iroh showed up a few minutes later, coming out of the kitchen holding a wooden tray with several cups on it. To Katara’s surprise, he smiled when he saw them.

From so close, he looked a lot less intimidating than what the legends told.

Before he could say anything, Toph exclaimed:

“Wait, that’s the man I met in the forest!”

“It’s nice to see you too” Uncle said as he bowed.

“You two knew each other?” Sokka asked.

“Yeah. He makes really good tea”

Katara looked around the shop.

“I can see that”

“Lucky you”

Katara wasn’t as pleased as Toph to meet Iroh again. She didn’t trust him. Maybe he hadn’t been as bad as Zuko and, yes, he had tried to protect the Moon Spirit, but he had still chased them all over the world. And he was the Fire Nation general that had tormented Ba Sing Se for years.

How many people had he murdered? He’d been a prince. Had he sat down in the Royal Palace while the Water Tribe was being raided?

Katara wasn’t sure she wanted receive training from the Dragon of the West. She desperately wanted to have another option.

As soon as one of the tables was emptied, the four children rushed to sit there. They looked at Iroh with suspicion as he handed them delicate cups and poured tea for them. Zuko stood by the counter. Katara locked eyes with him, and she could almost swear he looked away nervously.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Katara of the Southern Water Tribe” Iroh said. “My nephew has told me quite some things about you”

“Did he?” She side-eyed Zuko with suspicion.

“He told me you needed some help with your bending” He said. “I imagine there aren’t many masters that could help you in the South Pole”

Katara bit her lip. Of course there weren’t masters in the South Pole. There weren’t benders of any element in the South Pole. She knew he was talking about firebending masters, but…

“Let’s cut down to business” Sokka intervened. “Can you teach her?”

Iroh placed the teapot on the table. To think just a couple months before he’d been chasing them all over the world, and now he was serving them tea.

“A teacher can open the door, but the student must enter by herself” he said. He looked at Katara. “I can teach you to control your bending, if that’s what you want”

Katara nodded.

“I’m ready”

He asked Katara to help him in the kitchen behind the counter, because it was a little more private and it would give them more freedom to talk without customers hearing them. Aang and Toph were helping Sokka with his haikus back in the table and Zuko was serving tea, still not talking to them.

“When my nephew asked me to come here to help you, I must admit I expected more resistance” Iroh confessed. He handed Katara a bag of leaves.

“I wasn’t sure about this at first” Katara explained. “But after talking about it with my friends, I realized I didn’t have much choice”

“There is always a choice” Iroh corrected cheerfully. “We only stop deciding after we’re dead. Some think not even then” He knocked two spark rocks together to start a fire and heat the water. “Now, what do you need help with?”

“I thought I was learning… bending, but I was wrong” Katara said in low voice, painfully aware of the customers still in the shop. “I had just… found a way to use and avoid it at the same time, and when I tried to fight that way, I couldn’t hold it”

“I see” Iroh said. “It sounds like you have a deep fear of your own bending”

Katara bit her lip. She was getting vulnerable. She didn’t want to get vulnerable. She just wanted to learn.

“I mean, I was supposed to be a waterbender” she reasoned. Iroh handed her a wooden mortar to crush the leaves.

“I’m not surprised you have this reaction, after everything my Nation has done to the Water Tribes” He drank from his tea. “Were you using waterbending forms to firebend?”

Katara nodded.

“I thought that… maybe that way it wouldn’t feel so wrong. I thought I had it, but then...”

“Then you realized that you didn’t understand the element itself” Iroh concluded. He looked at the mortar. “Try grounding them in the opposite direction. It will be easier that way”

Katara tried it, and she realized he was right. Her hand moved in a more comfortable motion.

“It was very wise of you to apply concepts from waterbending to a different kind of bending” Iroh continued. “It’s something that takes most benders from my country many years to accept as a possibility. But you can’t just force fire to act like water. In order to work with the element, you have to understand it before you mold it into something different”

He took the mortar from her hands and put the leaves inside the teapot. There was a small fabric mesh inside to separate the leaves from the water.

“I think I understand” Katara said. “Toph said she learned earthbending from the original earthbenders”

“I see what you mean, and I’m afraid that can’t be possible” Iroh said. And in very low voice, he added: “The original firebenders were the dragons, and they’ve been extinct for decades”

Katara’s shoulders dropped.

Of course she was never going to learn firebending. All that was left of the original firebending was the war-warped abomination the Fire Nation had created.

“But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn bending” Iroh said.

“You don’t understand” Katara said. She lowered her voice and glanced at the customers. “While we were traveling, we met this man, Jeong Jeong. He was a deserter”

“I know” Iroh nodded. “We used to be great friends”

“Then you must know how he feels about… your country’s bending”

Iroh nodded.

“Jeong Jeong was plagued by a guilt and a self-loathing that I could never help him with, and he only spread it to other people who didn’t deserve it” Iroh said. “I don’t deny his good intentions, but I have never agreed with his point of view”

“He said his bending was a curse” Katara recalled. “And that benders were constantly walking the line between humanity and savagery”

Iroh’s eyes widened.

“He said that to you?” He asked.

Katara nodded.

“That’s such a harmful thing to say to a young bender” Iroh continued. “It tells her that she’s doomed to be a monster without even giving her the option to choose who she will become by her own merits”

“But he wasn’t wrong” Katara argued. “I mean, firebending is very dangerous. If you let it get out of control…”

“Aren’t all the other elements dangerous too?” Iroh questioned. “I don’t think any bending art is inherently good or bad. It’s what you do with it what counts” He extinguished the fire heating the water with a movement of his hand. “A waterbender can drown you at sea. An airbender could take all the air out of your lungs. An earthbender could break all your bones. Even your brother’s boomerang can be dangerous if so he wishes”

Sokka’s head perked up.

“Hey!”

“You may have noticed by my nephew’s behavior” Iroh continued. “But honor in the Fire Nation is of great importance”

“Yeah” Katara glanced at Zuko. “I heard a thing or two about it”

Iroh laughed, not ever offended by her sarcasm.

“Back in Avatar Roku’s time, we were expected to behave honorably, and not use our firebending for selfish reasons or to hurt innocents. Firebending was a great responsibility”

“But it’s not like that anymore”

“Indeed, it’s not” He agreed. “The war has caused the Fire Nation to lose itself. Everything about our culture now revolves around the war. Firebending is not exception”

They just dropped avoiding saying the word ‘firebending’. You couldn’t learn firebending by avoiding firebending.

It had never occurred to Katara that the Fire Nation could be a victim of the war, too. She thought about the men of her tribe who had left to fight, and she wondered if soldiers missed their homes too.

She shook her head. It was stupid to have sympathy for Fire Nations soldiers. They had killed her mother. They took all their waterbenders. They made her into one of them.

And what hurt her the worst was that, without all that pain, she wouldn’t even exist.

“What else did Jeong Jeong teach you?” Iroh asked.

“Just control exercises” She replied. “Lots of breathing and meditating”

Iroh nodded.

“Those are good to start” he said. “But I have the feeling you want a little more than that”

“I mean, if we’re running from Azula, I need to know how to fight”

Iroh chuckled.

“You sound just like my nephew”

火

Finding a place to practice firebending was hard.

It was far more risky and far more visible than airbending, and a wooden barn probably wasn’t the best option. They checked the earthbending training grounds, but they were, well, earthbending training grounds, with a lot of earthbenders, and most of them were out in the open. Everyone would see them. They needed a closed space where they could practice by day, because at night, the light would spill through the cracks and slits of doors and windows and give them away.

In the end, they decided to use the tea shop. The owner was almost never around, and Iroh could close it for a few hours at least one day a week to teach Katara.

So for the following two months, the entire gang went once or twice a week to the tea shop so Katara could learn.

The first time she’d been so nervous she lashed out at Sokka and immediately apologized when he asked if she wanted any water. She was learning firebending. Real firebending. From a Fire Nation general. From the Dragon of the West, of all generals! Was this a betrayal to her tribe? Was this giving in to the part of her heritage that she hated the most? Would he teach her to be like them?

She had to be extra alert for anything he wanted to teach her that may make her like them.

Once she arrived, they pushed the tables against the walls so they wouldn’t occupy space and put away anything that could be burned. Sokka brought a barrel of water and told Aang to waterbend in the moment things got out of control.

“Firebending comes from the breath” Iroh explained to Katara. “The breath in your body becomes energy, and the energy becomes fire”

He opened a palm and a little flame appeared there. Katara tried breathing like he told her (it felt natural after doing Jeong Jeong’s homework for so many months) and made a little fire of her own. The color was less intense and the light was dimmer. It wasn’t as hot as Iroh’s fire.

“Good, good” He nodded. “What do you know about firebending katas?”

“Not much” Katara confessed. “I found some old firebending scrolls, but I never got around to read them”

That was a lie. She studied the scrolls and then completely disregarded them. She liked her water-fire-bending better.

“Scrolls can be a good source of knowledge” Iroh said. “But they are no substitute for a master”

He proceeded to show her different movements, mostly simple punches and kicks without actual firebending. Katara replicated them with the unique fluidity and grace of a waterbender, and Iroh corrected her every time, demanding more assertiveness.

“You must learn the rules before you break them” He told her.

It was very frustrating. Whenever Katara tried a movement that was more natural to her Iroh insisted she did it the Fire Nation way. She didn’t like it. They spent three whole hours like this, punching and kicking the air uselessly.

“Come back tomorrow” Iroh told to her as the sun began to set. “We can continue later”

He was frustrated with her too, it seemed.

Katara pressed her lips into a thin line.

As they walked back to their house in the Upper Ring, Aang told her about the tricks he taught Zuko. He picked two marbles and made them spin around each other between his hands.

“He thought it was dumb” he said. “But I’ll change his mind”

Katara hadn’t even realized he had been teaching Zuko while she was busy with Iroh.

As the days progressed, she got a little better. She could replicate Iroh’s movements well enough, and she started practicing with fire. It was bright yellow and it still moved like a liquid, a sea of sun. Iroh admired her creativity but insisted that she learned traditional firebending as well.

“You lack assertiveness” He told her one day.

“I do not!” Katara protested.

“Hmm, you’re right. Perhaps assertiveness in not the right word” He agreed, scratching his chin. “You’re still thinking like a waterbender. You have to think like a firebender”

“And how do firebenders think, exactly?” She asked, crossing her arms.

Iroh punched the air in her general direction, creating a small puff of fire. The movement was dry, precise and direct.

“Fire is the element of power” He said. “The people of the Fire Nation have desire and will and the energy and drive to achieve anything”

“Like conquering the world?”

“Like stopping a war, for example” He walked up to the counter and poured himself some tea. “What do you desire the most, Katara?”

Katara bit her lip and realized she didn’t know how to answer that question. She wanted her mother back, but she couldn’t have that. So she opted for the other option:

“I just want this war to be over”

He handed her a cup and she drank the hot beverage.

“From what I’ve heard of you, I think you have a strong sense of justice” he said.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you left your home just to help the Avatar. And I’ve heard about the earthbending prison incident. You have a lot of courage” He took a step towards her. “And let me tell you something: fire is the element of courage, too”

Courage?

Courage, will, energy, drive. She remembered leading the earthbenders to freedom when she tried to save Haru, and she recalled her demands to the Northern Water Tribe to let women waterbend. Strangely, she thought about her fight with Azula. She had no chance at beating the Princess, but when she saw Aang in danger, none of that mattered. Whenever she saw Aang or Sokka or even Toph in danger… well, she would never let anyone take her family away from her. Ever.

Courage. She the sound of the word.

Katara looked at her tea, then at her friends. Zuko had been forcefully pulled into a Pai-Sho game by Toph and he was losing embarrassingly while giving Sokka killer glares. Aang looked just happy to play, and he was telling Zuko stories about the Air Nomads. At this rate, they’d end up becoming world champions at Pai-Sho.

“My nephew had the same problem” Iroh said. “He was so scared of his own airbending, he was unable to learn”

“How did he do it, then?” She asked. “Surely he must have learned something with you. I’ve seen him airbend before”

“He still has a long way to go” He said. “Why don’t you ask them? I’m sure you two would understand each other well”

Katara wasn’t so sure, but if he could help her learn firebending, then it was worth a shot.

Was she really taking firebending training from the Dragon of the West and the Fire Prince now? When had her life turned into this?

She crossed her arms.

“Why did you accede to teach me?” She asked.

“Because…” Iroh said. “Because I recognized in you the same pain I saw in my nephew”

“I’m not your niece”

“You are not, indeed” He chuckled. “My niece is a lot… harsher than you”

The tea shop was completely empty apart from them. The walls and the lighting were Earth Kingdom green. Zuko and Iroh’s beige clothes had Earth Kingdom designs on the seams and hems.

She was training with the Dragon of the West.

“You lead a siege on Ba Sing Se some years ago” Katara stated.

Iroh nodded slowly.

“It is one of my greatest regrets”

Katara turned to face him. She didn’t believe that.

“Attacking Ba Sing Se?”

“Partially, yes” He said. “I now understand that this war is pointless. But what caused me the most pain was the loss of my son, Lu Ten” Katara didn’t miss his glance at Zuko. “He was part of the siege. Had I not committed such a crime, he may still be alive today” The crime of taking his son to such point. He drank his tea. “His birthday was a few days ago”

Katara felt like a hand was clutching her heart. Iroh’s voice was charged with so much pain and grief, and it was a grief she recognized well.

“I’m sorry”

“I’m sorry too” He said. “I dropped the siege after that. I didn’t want to be part of this war anymore”

“So you’re not with the Fire Nation?” Katara asked. He and his nephew had been trying to capture Aang for months!

“The Fire Nation has labeled us as traitors and put a price to our heads” He left his empty cup on the counter. “But even before that, I could see my country was not what I thought”

“Then why did you and Zuko try to capture Aang?”

Iroh looked at her thoughtfully for a moment.

“My nephew’s mission was not based on loyalty for Fire Nation ideals”

Katara remembered the Northern Tribe’s prison, Zuko, and the yelling. He couldn’t go home without the Avatar.

“He wants to go home, doesn’t he?”

Iroh sighed.

“I don’t think I’m the one you should be discussing this with” He glanced at Zuko.

He made some more tea and offered Katara a cup. She politely accepted it.

“What the Fire Nation has become is a curse and a poison for the world” Iroh said. “The reason why I’m helping you is because I am glad to have met a firebender such as you. The world needs firebenders with an honorable heart” He looked at Zuko. “Just like the Fire Nation needs citizens that will challenge it when it’s going the wrong way”

Katara looked at Zuko and saw his scar. Zuko? A challenger? Sure. But challenging the Fire Nation? Was that why he’d been banished?

Well, she guessed his whole existence was a challenge to the Fire Nation. An Airbending banished prince who was now a refugee in Ba Sing Se. Suddenly, his crazy goose chase for the missing Avatar almost made sense. He wanted to prove himself to his country, didn’t he?

“You two are not so different” Iroh said. “I think you could learn a lot from each other”

Katara thought about it for a moment. Later, she sat next to Aang and opposite to Zuko.

“Mind if I join?”

“Don’t you have fire sparky practice?” Sokka asked.

Iroh seemed to have heard him.

“Don’t underestimate the power of Pai-Sho as a learning tool” He said. “You would be surprised”

“It’s just a dumb tiles game” Sokka complained.

“You’re just bitter because you can’t win!” Toph snickered. “You all owe me money now”

They left once they finished the game, with Toph winning one more time. Katara took the chance to talk with Zuko.

“Zuko” She sighed with resignation. “I wanted to ask you something”

“What is it?” He asked. His voice had no emotion.

Katara glanced at Aang.

“How did you do it?” She asked. “How do you master an element that’s not your own?”

“Oh”

He looked down, as if trying to come up with an answer.

“I wouldn’t say I’ve mastered it” He said.

“No, no, I know” Katara half-teased him, not missing his glare. “Your uncle thought it would be a good idea if I asked you about it”

“He’s usually right” Zuko confessed. “Even if I don’t always like what he says”

They were standing behind the counter of the shop. His hair had grown a little during the last seven weeks of practice.

“I think…” He started. “When I first started, I had this block and I couldn’t do anything. Everything I did kept backfiring. But… then I tried to focus on something from when I was little”

“What was it?”

He took in a deep breath.

“Back when my mother was still around” he said. “We… huh… My dad thought I was a non-bender, so he never really paid much attention to me. My mom tended to take me out of the Palace to go to this place, Ember Island. It was always only the two of us, and we would start this big bonfire on the beach every night” the ghost of a smile crossed his expression. “She was the only one who knew about my airbending, so once we were alone, I would play with it. It was a lot of fun. It was a lot easier to airbend back then, too. I think it was because… because I felt very happy and free. Uncle said Air was the element of freedom, and… I think I wasn’t scared of it yet”

Air is the element of freedom. Fire was the element of power.

(And courage, too).

Weren’t freedom and courage kind of the same thing?

“Yet?”

“Yeah…” He scratched the back of his neck. “One day when I was like six or seven, my mom took me on a ship to this place, I don’t know where, and when we came back, she started to teach me rules to keep my airbending a secret”

Oh.

“I think… That was when I realized it was a bad thing” He said. “And I started to deny it. Whenever I have problems airbending, I try to remember being with my mom in Ember Island”

Katara stared at him.

That was… a lot of information she didn’t expect.

He was so different when he wasn’t angry.

She thanked him and, after she left, she spent the whole night awake thinking about it.

Zuko’s voice had been low instead of the usual barks and snarls. He’d been vulnerable to her.

His mother…

Was she dead? He said she wasn’t around anymore. He also said she’d been the only one to know his secret, and that she was trying to protect him.

Did his mother die to protect him?

Seeing Zuko opening up and being hurt by the absence of his mother… well… it made him seem a lot more human to Katara’s eyes. He’d told her all of that just to help her with her firebending, even if his advice had been useless in the end. She had no happy memories of firebending.

風

Zuko wasn’t sure why he had opened up to Katara so quickly, but telling her felt strangely liberating. She had lost her mother too, hadn’t she?

Playing Pai-Sho those last days with the Avatar and his friends was weird. Both parties had raised white flags and played games during a truce. Training with the Avatar was fun and they were… they were really nice to him when they weren’t fighting. They had quickly realized he wasn’t going to attack them anytime soon and allowed themselves to relax around him. Toph and Sokka teased him mercilessly and Aang tried to make a history class out of every interaction. He never missed the opportunity to tell him something about Air Nomad culture, or about airbending, or about the Nomad’s philosophy. He told him about how they were always traveling, and how the Flying Bisons were such an important part of their culture. How they didn’t eat meat because they valued all life so much, how the men shaved their heads to feel the wind better, what the tattoos meant, what different gestures meant, how peace and love and kindness were the most important things in the world, and how important it was to preserve these teachings.

He remembered Sela’s husband’s words. “The world needs the airbenders”.

Zuko didn’t understand. He’d been taught the Air Nomads were planning on attacking the Fire Nation. He was told they had a giant army, that they enjoyed pulling the oxygen out of the lungs of their enemies, that they didn’t care about their children and that parents abandoned them to be raised by cruel nuns and monks.

Aang didn’t have parents, but Zuko did, and it wasn’t a mystery which one had the happiest childhood.

Everything they told him about the Air Nomads was a lie.

Was this the people that his forefathers destroyed? Were the people they killed like Aang?

How could they do that?

He wondered with a shiver of horror, what would they do to Aang once they captured him?

Zuko felt like they had just pulled the rug from under his feet. His plan consisted on learning airbending and, as soon as he got good enough, capture the Avatar and bring him home. He wanted to go home. He was closer than ever.

His home, which had murdered so many people and conquered half the world. The people who had taken his mother and which now wanted to kidnap the last Air Nomad boy and do to him what they did to his people.

Would they kill him? He didn’t want Aang to die. He was sweet and cheerful and innocent and infinitely hopeful and he just wanted peace between the nations. The thought of Aang dying made his heart stop.

He didn’t know what he wanted anymore

火

The routine continued for another full month: twice a week, they would meet up at the tea house for a couple hours, and the rest of the days Zuko trained with Aang in the barn. He was getting very good at it, and Katara wondered if this was his way of keeping his mother’s memory with him. Meanwhile, Katara repeated the katas Iroh taught her and even learned new ones, maybe not thinking of happy memories firebending, because she barely had any, but she recalled what Zuko told her about feeling free and happy and not scared, and she thought about all the times she had felt courageous before: Freeing Haru, stopping Jet, protecting Yue and Aang, standing up against the Council at the North, pushing through her fears for Aang back in the Cave of the Two lovers to light the path, fighting Azula…

She then started to think less about the past and more about the future: beating Azula, ending the war, seeing Aang become a fully realized Avatar, making her father proud, proving her village she was still the same person she’d always been, saving the world. Less about memory and more about ambition.

And now, learning firebending from the Dragon of the West. It was scary, yes, especially in Ba Sing Se, where the slightest accident could set the Dai Li after her. It was terrifying, even. And she’d done plenty of terrifying things before. This was something she had to do.

She invoked that sense of ambition, the desire for justice, that rightful anger— “The strongest firebending is always powered by anger”— because perhaps anger was not an evil emotion, and channeled it into her fire.

She could do it. She could do it.

Quick as lighting she drew arches of fire above her head, kicking and punching and jumping as flames surged from her hands. Iroh attacked her, and she quickly dispersed the fire coming towards her, responding by kicking close to the ground and raising a sharp wall of fire. Iroh was forced to take a step back.

Katara smirked. She was getting good at it.

Iroh clapped.

“Very well” He said. “You’ve made great progress these last months”

“I had a good teacher” she bowed.

Aang and Sokka cheered from their seats.

And Zuko was doing really well, for a prince. Back in the barn, Zuko and Aang chased each other through the posts that held the roof above their heads, the balcony and onto the roof through the hole in the ceiling. It was incredibly fun to be able to freely leap from one side of the balcony to the other, flying ten yards across the air and up onto the ceiling.

And once he was up there, under the sunlight and with the wind blowing on his face, he felt free. He felt like he could just… jump and fly and go anywhere he wanted. He could fly back home.

That day, Aang had something special for him.

They sat cross-legged on the roof, facing each other. Aang held his staff for Zuko to see.

“The monks used to give us this once we mastered enough airbending forms” He explained. “It’s a glider. You can use it to fly”

Zuko realized Aang was offering it to him, and he hesitantly took it from his hands.

“This may not be the last glider there is” He said. “I’m sure there must be others still hidden in the temples. We can get you one someday”

He stood up and extended a hand for Zuko to hand him the glider. He showed him a quick movement and a button to press it order to open it, and soon two wide orange wings surged from the wood. They vaguely resembled a flying fish’s fins. Aang showed him how to hold onto the glider and how to move with it.

“I think you’re ready to try it” he said.

“Really?”

Zuko gently held the glider. It was an ancient relic, and he was scared of breaking it.

“Just jump like I showed you!” Aang said. “And airbend with it”

Zuko took it with hesitance and held it above him the way Aang had shown him. All it would take would be one leap, and he could fly. His heart beat furiously. This Air Nomad relic would let him soar the skies.

“And the third rule, my love…”

He remembered the Royal Palace, the marble floors and the high, dark ceiling. All the light came from the fire and nothing came through the windows. He thought about his mother, and how tightly she held him, so tight it hurt, to the point he couldn’t breathe. He thought about topknots and red robes and golden jewelry, about spicy food and songs about war and how his mother had in such a quiet voice taught him for the first time the rules that would keep him hidden and safe.

He couldn’t do it.

He handed the glider back to Aang.

“I don’t think I’m ready” He confessed, embarrassed.

“Oh” Aang mumbled. “It’s okay. Whenever you’re ready” He snapped it back into a staff. “You know, the monks used to say it’s never too late to learn. It doesn’t matter if you were raised in the Fire Nation”

Zuko didn’t know how to reply.

They sat back down on the roof.

“We need to visit the temples someday” Aang said. “I may have mastered airbending, but I still have a lot to learn”

“I went to the temples, looking for you” Zuko said, and cursed himself for making it sound awkwardly intimate. “I mean… when I was looking for the Avatar, I thought it would be smart to search the Air Temples”

“What did you find?”

“Just old stuff. I didn’t touch anything, if that’s what you’re worried about”

“And did you…” Aang looked for the right words. “Did you feel some sort of connection to them?”

Zuko grimaced.

“I… I don’t know” he confessed. “I mean, my mom always told me not to associate myself with the Air Nomads. She told me it wasn’t part of me, so I guess I pushed everything away”

Aang’s expression was shocked and sad.

“You know it is part of you, right?”

Zuko bit down his lip.

“Zuko, we’re the last Air Nomads left” Aang said. “You’re the last of my p—”

“I’m not an Air Nomad” Zuko cut him off, suddenly giving him a killer glare. “I’m Fire Nation. I’m the Prince”

Aang swallowed.

“But you’re an airbender!” He insisted. “We’re the only ones left! We need to bring the Air Nomads back”

“We?”

Aang looked heartbroken, almost on the verge of tears.

“If we don’t save the Air Nomads, then our people will be gone forever! Zuko, we have to do this!”

“I’m not an Air Nomad! They’re your people, not mine!” He stood up suddenly. “Once this is over, I’m going back home, to the Fire Nation”

Aang swallowed, realization dawning on him.

“You still want to capture me, don’t you?” He quickly got to his feet.

Zuko was left without words. He did. He didn’t. He didn’t know. The idea both excited him and terrified him. He wanted to go home, except he didn’t. He didn’t. He really didn’t know.

“I don’t know” He confessed.

“Why do you want to capture me so much?” Aang demanded. “I’m just trying to end the war! Don’t you want the war to be over?”

“Of course I do!”

“Then why, Zuko?”

Zuko inhaled sharply.

“Because I was banished” He said. “After the Agni Kai. You know this. I can’t go home or regain my honor until I bring the Avatar with me. Only then, my father will love me”

Accept him. He meant to say that only then his father would accept him. The word ‘love’ escaped his lips before he realized he was saying it.

Aang took a step back, and Zuko realized he had never shared the details of his banishment with him.

He was suddenly painfully aware of how selfish he sounded. Aang could stop the war and save the world, and Zuko just wanted to go home.

He ran a hand through his hair.

He didn’t know. He didn’t know. Someone please help him.

Aang licked his lips nervously.

“The Air Nomads…” he started. “We had this saying… ‘Home in on the bison’s back’. The Temples were just where kids were raised, but we were always moving and… We just built a home wherever we were. We didn’t need a single place”

“I’m not an Air Nomad, Aang”

Aang went silent for a moment.

“Do you miss your palace?” He asked.

Did Zuko miss the palace? The hard walls and the silent halls and feeling always alone and always observed?

“I don’t know”

“Do you miss your family?”

Zuko knew what he was thinking about. Aang was thinking about the father who had burned his son for speaking out of turn and the sister who tried to kill him for being an airbender.

“I don’t know! I…” Zuko shook his head. “I’m… I’m scared of them”                     

I don’t want them to hurt me.

He sat back down. He wasn’t going to cry. He was not going to cry.

But still, a single tear fell down his left eye, running down his cheek. He was going to wipe it away when he felt Aang’s thumb run across his cheek, barely brushing against his scar and drying the tear from his face.

The single tender gesture only made him want to cry harder.

And he did cry. He cried harder than he ever had. He couldn’t even breathe between sobs.

His father and sister wanted him dead. His mother was gone. His uncle was still with him.

“Dad’s going to kill you!”

A pair of arms wrapped around him.

Azula’s mocking voice as she imitated their grandfather:

“You must know the pain of losing a firstborn son by sacrificing your own!”

That same night, their grandfather had died and his mother had disappeared.

(What had she done?)

His grandfather had really ordered his death.

His father was actually going to kill him.

He was—he had always wanted him dead. He had always hated him, airbender or not, with or without honor… And Azula’s laughter at the idea of them killing him, laughing as she watched him be burned.

Burned, burned, it hurt so much…

He was a worthless sack of bones to them. His life was as expendable as a copper piece. It had always been and it would always be.

Aang held him as he cried, and Zuko let himself bury his face on his shoulder.

Why did he hold him? He was worthless. Couldn’t he see? He should be dead. A waste of air.

But Aang didn’t seem to think he was worthless. Aang trusted he could still bring the Air Nomads back. He saw worth in him.

After a few minutes, Zuko stopped crying, and he wiped his tears away. He refused to look at Aang in the eye. He had been weak by crying in front of him, but Aang didn’t look angry or disappointed, just worried.

“Are you okay?” He asked.

Zuko glanced at the staff, lying on the ground.

火

On their free moments, when they weren’t training, they looked for Appa.

Aang talked to almost anyone they saw, asking if they had seen a flying bison. They hung posters on walls and consulted with the police every now and then. Aang flew from roof to roof with his glider, a restless orange blur. He spent whole days walking and flying through the city, but when the night came, he walked into the house with tired shoulders and bags under his eyes. Looking hopeless and defeated. Katara hugged him, and then Sokka and Toph and Momo joined them.

The routine was repeated the next day.

Aang parted early in the morning to soar above the Agrarian Zone and talk to the farmers, check the barns with or without permission and walk the edge of the Outer Wall to observe the desert that expanded below his feet past the horizon. He blew on his bison whistle and pushed the wind as far away as possible, hoping to bring the sound to Appa’s ears, wherever he was.

Night fell, and he dragged his feet to Iroh’s teashop, where Katara was practicing firebending. He didn’t play Pai-Sho with Sokka and Toph or tell Zuko about the teachings of the monks that day.

The routine was repeated the next day.

He talked to the cops, to the chief of police of Ba Sing Se, to the Dai Li he found in the street, to people who had connection to the police or the Dai Li. He talked to Long Feng. He was growing desperate. Long Feng said nothing. Aang then demanded to talk to the Earth King. Appa had been lost so that they could talk to the Earth King. His loss couldn’t be in vain and the Black Sun was closer with every passing day. He’d spent four months in Ba Sing Se already. Four months without Appa. Four months alone.

Long Feng said nothing, again, and told him to go home. It was getting late.

Aang walked back home. He didn’t use his glider. As soon as he walked in he collapsed into Katara’s arms.

Sometimes, Aang cried in his sleep. Not everyone always noticed, but he could remember being comforted at least twice by each of his friends, woken up by his little cries. Toph had been there for him the most, since she was the one with the lightest sleep. But Toph didn’t know how to comfort people, so Aang often went to sleep sad anyways. Eve when Katara was the one to hold him until he fell asleep, it didn’t make him feel much better. He cried and cried until he couldn’t breathe because he just missed Appa so much. They were supposed to be together forever. Appa was the only other one from the past, the only one who remembered the world before. The only one from Aang’s old world. And now he was gone, and so was his world, and so were the Air Nomads. Gone, forever.

And Aang was utterly alone.

He woke up feeling hopeless and defeated the next day.

The routine was repeated the next day.

火

With time, Iroh got his own tea shop in the Upper Ring, and Katara was more excited than she would ever admit.

One of the reasons why she couldn’t fight a lot was because the old tea shop was way too small and exposed, but with Iroh being the owner of his own shop, he could close and open whenever he wanted, have all the security (or lack of thereof) he wanted, and all the space two firebenders training will need to train.

The new shop in the Upper Ring was beautiful. The soft green walls and the lighting made it very welcoming, and a green rug with a dragon in gold on it covered the ground.

The Jasmine Dragon.

Katara noticed the lack of wood in the place, except for the furniture, which could easily be pushed away.

And there were so many people! It was as if the entire city had been waiting for this day. The rich men and women who had been dying to try the tea but didn’t want to be seen in poor neighborhoods were the majority, while the poor families who visited in the Lower Ring weren’t there anymore.

It was kind of sad.

The shop was closed after a full day of drinking tea, playing Pai-Sho and messing around the place. They had decided to pay Iroh (and Zuko) a visit, and now Aang was talking to a very attentive Zuko by the counter. They both looked worried. When Katara got the chance, she walked up to Zuko asked him what was going on.

“Aang was telling me about Appa” he said. “He’s worried about him”

Appa. Right.

Zuko’s airbending training could only serve as a distraction so much. The pain of Appa’s loss never left Aang.

“We haven’t seen him in months” Katara told him. Truth be told, she was worried sick about Appa too. Without him, they couldn’t travel. “We still need to talk to the Earth King” she added, for some reason.

Zuko raised his good eyebrow.

“For what? Did something happen?”

Katara froze.

Right. They hadn’t told him about the plan.

“Oh, just… Avatar stuff” She said. It wasn’t exactly a lie.

Zuko gave her a suspicious look, but didn’t question further.

“This is a great day” He said after a moment. Katara cocked her head. Did she listen correctly?

“What?”

Zuko smiled.

“My Uncle has wanted to have his own teashop for ages” He said. “I’m happy for him”

Katara hadn’t known Zuko to be happy for… well, anything.

“Are you feeling okay?” She asked.

“I never felt better”

There wasn’t a trace of sarcasm in his voice.

Was this the same boy that had yelled at her in the ice cells?

She needed to talk to Sokka and Toph. Putting strange herbs on someone’s tea wasn’t nice.

Once all clients were gone, they pushed the tables aside and rolled up the carpet so it wouldn’t get burned.

Katara was itching for a good fight.

And a good fight it was.

With so much space, she moved like a tornado, raising walls of fire and dispersing anything that Iroh had to give her. She created a perfect shield like he’d taught her, and her punches were quick and decisive. When he sent a fireball in her direction, she simply twisted her arms around herself and redirected it towards him.

“Very smart” Iroh complimented. “That was a waterbending move, wasn’t it?”

“It just came natural” Katara excused herself.

“It was very resourceful” Iroh nodded with respect. “In fact, I think you’re ready for a challenge”

Before Katara got the chance to ask about it, she saw Zuko walking up to them. He was holding Aang’s staff.

Oh, great!

She would get her revenge.

“I was thinking…” Zuko started. “If I’m going to fight my sister, I need to learn how to fight against a firebender”

Katara smirked.

“I’ll be happy to beat you this time”

They adopted a fighting stance. Katara struck first, and Zuko quickly spun around, evading the fire. But he wasn’t as evasive as Aang, and he quickly responded by brandishing the staff and dispersing Katara’s fire. Before she could recover, he gave an impossible jump forward and with the palms open, he directed a blast of air in her direction. It almost knocked her off her feet, but she refused to lose to Zuko, and she replicated that move he always did, on the ground and kicking the air, raising brutal spirals of fire he barely managed to avoid. He moved in a way that looked a lot like a firebending kata and the air blew all the fire back towards Katara. She dispersed it with her hands.

She was not losing against Zuko again!

She raised her hands like a wave, invoking her teardrop of sun, and the fire moved like a hurricane towards Zuko. His air blasts couldn’t disperse it this time, and the impact of trying to block it threw him to the ground.

She won!

She walked up to Zuko with a cocky grin.

“That was for chasing us all over the world”

He smirked back as he stood up.

“I thought it was because of the time I beat you in the barn”

“But I won this time”

She won! She won a sparring match with firebending!

She offered him a hand and he surprisingly took it. She helped him to his feet.

It was getting late and it wasn’t safe to firebend at night— someone could see the light coming from the shop—, so Iroh taught her a final exercise, one that she had to practice without creating light.

“My niece has mastered what it’s called Lightning Bending” He told her. “It’s an extremely advanced form of firebending that only a few very powerful masters can learn”

“I don’t think I’m ready” Katara said, looking down.

“I would never push you so far” Iroh reassured her. “You’re a very good firebender, but you’re not a master yet. But what I’m about to teach you should interest you. After all, I learned it studying waterbenders”

Katara’s head perked up. Anything to do with waterbenders must be good.

Lightning redirection. Iroh was walking about redirecting lightning. The energy must flow through her arm and to her stomach, to leave through the other arm without passing through the heart. That way, not only she could survive a lightning strike, but she could have a lightning of her own.

Iroh refused to teach her with any real lightning. Instead, he showed her the katas, the movements, the breathing, how she had to move the chi through her body in order to perform the move harmlessly. Night had already fallen an hour ago when he considered it was enough practice for the day.

“One last thing” He said, placing a hand on her shoulder. She turned around to face him. “If I’m ever not around and Azula finds you and your friends, you will be the only one standing between the Avatar and her lightning”

Katara understood. She nodded and bowed to Iroh goodbye.

She would protect Aang with her life.

She and her friends left shortly after.

Zuko watched them leave with a tinge of disappointment. It was nice having them around. Whenever they left, he secretly wished they’d stay for five more minutes.

This time, though, he had something else to think about.

He held his mask with one hand and the missing person poster for Appa on the other.

風

Finding Appa had been easier than Zuko expected.

He followed the Dai Li to Lake Laogai, and made his way down the dark hallways and into the gigantic cell.

He had never seen Appa from so close. He was bigger than Zuko remembered, a huge white flurry beast with six legs. He looked thinner and dirtier, too.

When Appa saw him, he growled. When Zuko showed his face, he whimpered and tried to crawl away from him, but the steel cuffs around each of his legs kept him in place. The animal shrieked in sheer terror at the sight of Zuko’s swords, so he quickly sheathed them, putting them out of sight.

He remembered what Aang told him about Air Nomads and flying bisons. They were so important to them, and he could see why.

This animal was caged in a way too small cell, away from the sky, where he belonged. He longed for freedom, just like the Air Nomads did. This wasn’t right. To hold him like this was almost unnatural.

Zuko thought about the Fire Palace, about his father and about his mother’s rules.

(Had he been born one hundred years earlier, he would have a flying bison just like Appa. He would feel the connection Aang felt to his own flying bison. And maybe then, he could be free).

“It’s okay…” He tried to calm Appa down, but in the moment he tried to touch him, he only growled louder and twitched away from Zuko’s touch. He was smarter than he looked. “Shhh! Be quiet! I’m going to get you out!”

The swords were too big, but his knife was perfect for picking up locks as big as the ones on Appa’s cuffs. It took about an hour, because Appa wouldn’t stop moving, but as he realized Zuko was just trying to help, he started to calm down.

“Aang is going to be so happy to see you” He said, hoping that Appa understood as well as he seemed to understand. “He’s been so worried about you”

Appa growled tiredly.

“You know, I’m an airbender, just like him! You and I could be friends!”

Why was he saying the kinds of things Aang would say?

Appa shifted, but didn’t growl.

His fur was greasy and dirty from lack of care, and he was definitely way too thin. He had wounds all over. Wherever he’d been, he had been abused brutally. Zuko felt a wave of sympathy towards the poor animal who just wanted to be free.

Once he finished with the cuffs, he expected Appa to fly away in the moment, but the animal stood there.

“You can go now” Zuko said. “Go find Aang”

Appa growled again, and moved his huge head in a strange way, as if trying to tell Zuko something.

Zuko thought he understood, and using airbending, he jumped on top of Appa, like he’d seen Aang do a million times before.

And then Appa busted out of the cell.

火

Toph sat up suddenly.

“There’s someone coming” She said.

Just seconds later, there was a knock on the door.

“Told you”

Aang stood up tiredly and opened the door without checking through the window first.

Zuko was standing there, waiting for him.

“I have something to show you”

火

Katara couldn’t believe it.

Aang probably could believe it, knowing him. Part of him had always believed in Zuko, even since before he had any reasons to. But Katara? Katara didn’t believe it even when it was pushed right in front of her face.

“Appa!”

Appa. In the barn. Zuko had found Appa and brought him to the barn.

Aang immediately jumped to hug the bison.

“I missed you so much, buddy!” He exclaimed. “Where have you been?”

“He was being kept in the dungeons under Lake Laogai by the Dai Li” Zuko explained. That left Katara with more questions than answers, so Zuko had to explain further: “The Dai Li kidnapped him. They knew where he was all along”

“Wait, Long Feng knew where Appa was?” Aang asked, incredulous. “Why would they hide him?”

“I don’t know” Zuko confessed.

Katara feared for the worst.

風

Aang slept in the barn that night. They couldn’t take Appa to their house in the Upper Ring, so they had to keep him hidden there. Aang was just happy to cuddle up on Appa’s side.

And because they didn’t want to leave Aang alone, his friends decided to sleep in the barn for the night, too.

“Okay, but just tonight” Sokka declared.

They’d come around.

Zuko was there, too. He wasn’t sleeping in the barn, but he wanted to check on Appa, it seemed. Aang looked at him from his place on Appa’s back.

“Why did you free him?” He asked.

Zuko looked up at him.

“I couldn’t let him trapped there” He said. “It wasn’t right”

Aang stroked Appa’s fur tenderly. He was so happy to have him back!

There was something Aang wanted to say, but he wasn’t sure how. Zuko could have let him locked there or used him as a trap. By bringing Appa back to Aang, he only gave them a way to leave Ba Sing Se and make it harder for him to capture them.

Did he not want to capture them anymore?

“Zuko?”

“Yeah?”

He looked so different from the boy he met months before. More at peace. Happier.

“Nothing” Aang couldn’t find the words.

Zuko left shortly after. Aang wished he’d stayed the night.

火

“I think Zuko should come with us”

Katara looked up from her bowl of food to stare at Aang with wide eyes.

“What?”

“What!?” Sokka exclaimed.

“Guys, he’s changed” Aang argued. “I don’t think he wants to capture us anymore”

They were all gathered around a little campfire Katara had started near the corner of the barn. Aang was leaning against Appa.

“Huh, have you forgotten that..?” Sokka made a cross gesture with his arms. “Fire Nation. Bad”

“Come on, guys. I’ve been training him for months, and I don’t think he support the Fire Nation anymore”

“Aang, I know you like him” Katara said, and Aang blushed at the possible implications. “But he can’t change loyalties that fast”

“Well, he was sincere when he brought Appa” Toph supplied. “If he had any ulterior motives, my feet would know”

“And why would he bring Appa back if he still wanted to capture us?” Aang insisted. “He told me the only reason why he wanted to capture me was so that he could go back home”

“Home. To the Fire Nation” Sokka repeated.

Aang didn’t want to tell them Zuko had cried. He felt like it was a way too personal thing. But he did tell them:

“I think he realized that… well…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “His dad is pretty bad”

“No kidding” Katara said.

“I think he’s realizing we’re the good guys and that he should help us. Why would he bring Appa if he didn’t?”

“For all we know, he was the one who had Appa all along” Sokka said. “This could be a trap”

Katara touched his arm.

“I’m sorry, Aang”

Aang pulled his knees to his chest.

“It’s okay”

風

The sight of Azula nearly gave him a heart attack.

He couldn’t move or breathe, just stare as his sister as the Dai Li agents surrounded them.

“Have you met the Dai Li?” She asked with a cruel smirk. “They’re earthbenders, but they have a killer instinct that’s so firebender. I just love it”

Even the Dai Li were more firebender (more human) to Azula than Zuko.

Zuko exchanged a knowing look with Uncle. He gave a tiny smirk before ducking down.

Fire surged from Uncle’s mouth, like a dragon, hitting the Dai Li before they had the chance to avoid it. It gave them the opening to run for the door.

“Don’t let them get out!” Azula commanded. “Or you’ll be the ones to suffer their destiny”

Uncle invoked lighting and hit the wall just in time to jump. He hit the ground with a painful thud while Zuko leaped perfectly across the air.

“I see my half-breed brother has learned a new trick” Azula sneered. “Don’t worry. I have something under my sleeve too”

She pointed two fingers at him and a white lighting snapped in his direction. Zuko just barely managed to jump to avoid it.

“Get the airbender!” She barked. “Do not let him escape”

“Zuko, go!” Uncle yelled. “Go warn your friends!”

Zuko didn’t have time to argue that they weren’t his friends. That didn’t matter. He just nodded and leaped on top of a building, racing towards the Avatar’s house.

火

Katara was the one to open the door.

“Zuko?” She frowned. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s Azula” He said, breathing heavily from running. “She’s here, in Ba Sing Se. The Dai Li respond to her now”

“What?” Aang showed up from behind Katara. “What’s Azula doing here?”

“It looks like she wants to take Ba Sing Se from the inside”

“A coup” Katara deduced. Zuko nodded.

“She’s coming after Aang”

Aang locked eyes with Katara.

“We can’t leave” He said. “Not now. Ba Sing Se is in danger”

“What about the Kyoshi Warriors?” She asked. “Suki’s at the palace, right?”

“We need to warn them”

“We need to talk to the Earth King” Katara reminded him. “We still haven’t told him about—”

She stopped and glanced at Zuko.

“You go warn the Earth King” Zuko said. “He’ll listen to you. And I’ll go after Azula”

“Zuko, no” Aang said. “We can’t let you go alone”

She’s going to kill you, he wanted to say, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“We can split up” Katara suggested. “I’ll go with Zuko. You find Sokka and Toph and talk to the Earth King. They must all be at the palace, so we’ll meet there”

No. Aang didn’t want to split up. He didn’t want to put Katara in danger.

But Katara was strong, and she was proving herself an excellent firebender. She looked at him with such assertiveness and determination, she reminded him of vaguely of the Kyoshi Warriors. When she set herself to achieve something, she became invincible.

“Okay” He agreed after a moment. “I trust you”

They shared a quick hug before Aang picked his glider and flew towards the palace. Katara and Zuko left to find Azula.

“She sent the Dai Li after me” He told her, and with the tiniest smirk, he added: “How do you see yourself fighting earthbenders?”

Katara returned the smirk. This was going to be fun. Getting her revenge for getting beat by Azula months before would be the highlight of her day.

While Aang flew to the King’s chambers, Katara and Zuko planned to go to the Throne Room, but the palace was surrounded by Dai Li agents. It was impossible to get in or get out. She wondered if Suki and the Kyoshi Warriors were okay.

“We can’t take them out on our own” Zuko whispered. They were observing from the palace’s garden, hidden behind a bush.

“We need a distraction”

Where was Sokka when you needed him?

Zuko closed his eyes.

“They’re after me” He said. “I’ll distract them. You get inside and put Azula in her place for me”

They exchanged a quick smirk.

“It will be a pleasure”

But Katara soon realized the implications of his plan. Her smirk disappeared.

“What if they catch you?”

“They won’t” Zuko reassured her. “Airbender, remember? I’ll just fly away from them. I won’t let my sister kill me”

Katara’s stomach dropped.

Zuko wasn’t a master airbender, and he didn’t have a glider. They would catch him. He was going to be killed.

By his own sister.

“What do you mean?” Katara asked. “Your sister…?”

“She has orders to kill me” Zuko explained. “Having an airbender prince is a disgrace for the Royal Family”

He said it as if it was the most normal, natural thing in the world. Her stomach dropped.

“I’ll meet with you soon. You go”

His sister was the Princess. The only person who could order the Princess around would be the Fire Lord.

Their father.

Zuko was going to be killed by his own father.

The sheer horror that invaded Katara paralyzed her for a moment. She couldn’t wrap her head around a father killing his son. It was unnatural.

But Zuko was already jumping and flying on top of the roofs, leaning above the Dai Li’s before striking. He attacked them from above, and they shot their earth gloves towards him, without hitting him in any moment. He then ran, and jumped, and flew right above them, and they had no option but to chase after him, leaving the gates unprotected.

Katara let out a quivering sight.

She had to face Azula.

火

Aang glided towards the Earth King’s chambers only to find them empty. Bosco the bear was there, sleeping. But Aang looked closer, and he realized the bear wasn’t breathing. It was lying on a puddle of red. His heart stopped with horror at the realization.

He needed to find Toph and Sokka.

火

Sneaking into the palace hadn’t been that hard. She had to be quick and silent and move decisively. If she hesitated and stayed hidden behind the same pillar or under the same table for long enough, the Dai Li agents racing around the place would find her. She needed to get to the Throne Room and not stop until she found it.

She made no noise as she walked, tip-toeing towards the big doors.

Fear gripped her heart. She was going to face Azula, the Fire Princess. She has been learning firebending for only three months, while the Princess had been training for her whole life. She couldn’t do it. She was going to die.

But she couldn’t afford to be scared. There was no time or space for fear and no time to let herself be so scared she would bow to the Fire Princess. This was something she had to do, whether she could or not. Or else, the Fire Nation would take Ba Sing Se and win the war.

She had to be brave.

So she gathered her courage and walked into the room.

Azula was sitting on the throne, as if she was the Earth Queen, wearing green and with one leg crossed over the other. She merely raised an eyebrow when she saw Katara arrive.

“Another half-breed?” She snarled, like a hyena-jackal. “My day couldn’t get more fun”

“Where’s the Earth King?” Katara demanded to know.

“He’ll be fine” Azula said. “Well, for as long as he’s useful. Then he will join your little southern waterbenders in the mass graves”

Katara gritted her teeth. Azula’s smile sent shivers down her spine. She was enjoying this. She enjoyed watching Katara suffer. A cat playing with a mouse. This was fun for her.

“You won’t take Ba Sing Se” Katara took a step forward.

Azula made no intention to attack. She shrugged.

“I already did” She said. “I see, you came here thinking you could stop me” She smirked. “Well, it’s a shame, really. You’d be so much fun to play with”

Katara realized she didn’t know what to say or what to do. Azula didn’t want to fight and there was no reasoning with her. Should she attack her first?

In that moment, two girls in Kyoshi Warrior uniform showed up, and for a second Katara thought they would take down Azula. But as they got closer, she recognized them, and her blood went cold. The girl with the knives and the one who could take bending away.

Realization dawned to her. The Kyoshi Warriors were never in Ba Sing Se. It was Azula all along.

“If I were you, I would bow down and swear loyalty to the Fire Nation in this moment” Azula said, lazily inspecting her nails. “I’m being generous! You’re a firebender, even if you’re a half-breed. I could reduce you to ashes right now, but I’m giving you a chance to show loyalty to your Nation”

“I’m not Fire Nation” Katara said. She clenched her fists. She’d rather die. “I’m not bowing to you”

“Well, what are you going to do, then?” Azula asked. “You’re not doing anything to stop me right now. But, I mean, I understand. I wouldn’t want to get incinerated either. I’ve seen it before, and it’s not pretty” She smirked. “Well, not for the one getting burned, at least. But watching my father give my brother what he deserved must have been the best day in my life. Do you want to know what it looks like?” She stood up and started descending the steps that led to the throne. Katara felt nauseous. His father…? “The skin all around his eye was sticky and melting, that’s why he’s half blind now” Katara didn’t want to listen anymore. As Azula approached, she felt her palms burning. Azula raised an eyebrow. “Don’t look at me like that! We both know how good it feels to watch someone you hate get what they deserve”

“I’m not like you” Katara stated. “I wouldn’t wish that to my worst enemy”

“Of course you wouldn’t” Azula mocked. “You want to burn me right now! You think I’m a horrible person, don’t you? You may even think you’re better than me” She stood face to face with Katara. They were the same height. Katara took a step back. “But you don’t admit that to yourself. You’re so scared of everyone seeing what a fraud you are. You’re so disgusted by your own firebending you think you’re a monster and your family is scared of you, so you try so hard to be better than us” That cruel smirk was back. “But we both know deep down how much you want to burn me right now”

Katara did. Yes, she wanted to burn Azula for doing this to her, for bringing all her fears to the surface when she was trying to be brave. Her hands hurt from the heat and the itch to just set her on fire for everything she was doing. For taking over Ba Sing Se, for chasing them all over the world, for laughing at Zuko’s pain and trying to kill him, for trying to take Aang from her.

Azula was disgusting.

Maybe she deserved to get burned.

A punch of fire towards Azula that was easily avoided by the Princes moving aside, and then a brutal arch of blue knocked Katara to the ground in one movement.

“Come on, you’re just proving me right” Azula sneered. “You’re not as good and pure as you think you are”

Katara quickly rose to her feet. The two girls in Kyoshi Warrior costumes took a step forward, but Azula stopped them with a sign of her hand.

“I’ve been itching for a good fight all day” She said.

Blue fire raced towards Katara, and she quickly dispersed it with her own yellowish orange fire. She responded with a kick near the ground that made Azula jump back before striking with a sharp flame that Katara nearly didn’t evade. The sudden movement made her trip down back on the floor.

“You’re making this too easy” Azula complained. “I know you can get angrier”

Katara kicked from the ground and sent an arch of fire towards Azula, but she dismissed it with only one hand. She was just getting up when Azula blew a cold-blooded blaze, and instead of knocking it, Katara took hold of it and twisted it behind her to redirect it back towards the Princess, now a bright orange.

This seemed to surprise her, and despite dispersing it, the impact made her take a step back. Katara didn’t wait for her to recover and instead opted for an actual firebending move, a strong fireball towards Azula.

This was for trying to take Aang from her! How dare she try to take him!?

Azula tried to create a shield of fire, but Katara raised a wave of fire that drowned the blue flame and nearly swallowed the Princess. She couldn’t disperse this attack— the fire moved like a liquid, not like a flame— and she ended up in the ground.

She stood up suddenly. The two other girls made a movement to try to help, but Azula dismissed them again.

“You’re going to pay for this, peasant”

The next attack was brutal, a wall of scorching blue. Katara fell to the ground. Azula’s fire lashed through the air. She didn’t get the chance to stand up. She desperately tried to disperse the fire before it touched her.

She tried to spin, like she’d seen Zuko do so many times, but her fire barely reached Azula. A violent kick of fire rendered all her efforts useless.

She couldn’t lose. She couldn’t lose to Azula, she couldn’t—!

“Go say hello to your mother!”

A wall of fire rose above her and her heart stopped. This was where she died. This was the end, at the hands of a firebender just like her mother.

She tried to redirect it or disperse it, but it was too much and all her efforts were useless. She was going to die.

And then the wall descended on her.

A sudden wind roared through the Throne Room and blew the fire away. The blinding light spilled away. Katara blinked.

“It’s me who you’re after, Azula” Zuko’s voice echoed in the throne room. “Leave her out of this”

“Well, look who just decided to show up” Azula scoffed. “I’ve been worried about you”

Katara got to her feet with some difficulty. Zuko was glaring at Azula, holding his broadswords.

“You’ve never cared about me”

“Believe it or not, I do” Azula continued. “You’ve been away for so long. It gets lonely”

“You tried to kill me!” He aimed his left sword towards Azula.

“And I was wrong” Azula said. She now looked genuinely apologetic, and that sent all the alarms flaring in Katara’s head. It was a trap. “I understand now. You may be a half-breed airbender, but you’re still the prince. If I wanted you have you killed, I wouldn’t have wasted time coming all the way to Ba Sing Se” she took a step closer. Katara stood next to Zuko. “I came here to take you home. This time for real. Things are complicated in the Fire Nation right now and Father wants you by his side”

Zuko lowered his sword.

“You’re lying”

“I’m not!” Azula reassured him. “You know the Earth Kingdom better than anyone else in the Royal Family. You’re invaluable right now”

“Zuko, you know she’s lying” Katara said. “Ever since she showed up, she’s been trying to kill you”

“Why don’t you let him think on his own” Azula scolded her, as if she was a little girl. “What have you done for him? What does he owe you?” She turned to her brother. “I need you, Zuko. If you help me now, we will accomplish what no other general or Fire Lord has ever done before. We can put an end to this war today”

Azula didn’t want to end the war. She wanted to win it.

“And by the time we go back, we will be welcomed as heroes” she said. “You will have everything you ever wanted. Your honor, Father’s love… even as an airbender. Everything will be forgiven”

Zuko’s shoulders shook, almost imperceptivity, and Katara felt her stomach drop.

No.

He didn’t believe her, did he?

The worst part was that even Katara herself believed Azula. They would take Ba Sing Se and win the war. They would become heroes in the Fire Nation.

Her offer was real.

“Zuko…”

He looked at her startled like a deer-hare, and the pain in his eyes filled Katara with fear.

He opened his mouth to say something.

And in that moment the palace shook, shards of glass and stone crumbing down from the ceiling. Everyone took a step back just in time before it collapsed under the weight of Appa.

With the help of Toph’s earthbending, of course.

Aang immediately descended with his glider. Azula sent lighting in his direction, but it was weak with emotion and he could avoid it easily.

“Katara!” He shouted once he reached her. “Are you okay? Your clothes are smoking!”

She raised her sleeve to see the smoke scrolls coming from the blackened fabric. She was going to need new clothes.

“I’m okay” She looked at Azula. “We’re too late”

When she looked for Zuko, she couldn’t see him anywhere.

No, no…

The two girls dressed in Kyoshi costumes were free from Azula’s order to stay aside now, and didn’t hesitate to attack. A dagger flew towards them. Aang kicked the ground and a small pillar rose to block it.

“What do we do now?” He asked.

“We have to find the Earth King”

“Katara, I…”

Tongues of blue flames traveled towards them. Aang pushed them away with his staff.

Azula had her eyes set on them.

Her kicks and punches were quick as lightning, sending blazes of sharp fire. Katara dispersed them and blocked them with her own fire. Aang brandished his staff and tried to blow Azula away.

But then three plates of rock rose from the ground to encase him. He quickly broke free with earthbending, but the sight of the Dai Li approaching them made Katara’s blood go cold.

The earth gloves flew towards them. Aang could hit one of them, but the other was racing quickly towards Katara.

A flash of metal and the rock crumbled to pieces. Sokka’s boomerang gave a turn in the air and flew straight back to his hand.

“Katara!” He called. “We have to go!”

More Dai Li showed up, as if appearing from thin air. They were surrounding them. Sokka and Toph were fighting off the two girls in Kyoshi costumes. One of them could take bending away. If they… if they got too close…

“We have to find the Earth King!” Katara shouted.

Blue fire was blown directly on her face. She flinched and instinctively raised her arms. A wall of red fire swallowed it.

“You’re not escaping me this time!” Azula roared. She was different. Angrier. Offended. Emotional.

Ruthless kicks and ruthless fire that rose with every heavy breath. Katara countered the attacks with her own punches. Shields of red and pillars of blue. Her muscles ached. Her skin was covered in blisters.

She took a heavy breath and Azula took this opening to strike. Katara jumped back just in time. She didn’t know for how long she could keep this going.

She still couldn’t see Zuko.

Her stomach dropped when she saw what Azula was doing.

She moved her hands forming an arch, with a blue spark following her index and middle finger. She could barely control it, but she smiled hysterically at Katara anyways.

She then looked at Aang.

No.

No!

She couldn’t let her hurt Aang. Not again!

She raised her arms. She was too far away. Her fire was weak.

She couldn’t do it.

It was over.

Azula aimed to fingers at Aang. White lighting cut an arch through the Throne Room.

No!

An orange flash. Something flew in front of her. Her heart gave a violent leap.

Aang was knocked away from the lightning. He dropped to the floor unwounded.

Zuko dropped the glider to help him to his feet.

“Are you okay?” Katara heard him ask.

She couldn’t help but smile.

“I knew Uncle was a traitor” Azula sneered. “But you, brother? I expected more from you”

“Leave them alone, Azula” Zuko demanded. “This is madness”

“I knew you’d be too weak for this” She said. “I don’t know why I bother. Well, have it your way”

She made a gesture and the Dai Li moved. Katara turned just in time to avoid the earth gloves. Aang and Zuko jumped to avoid them.

“Katara!” Sokka shouted. He was on top of Appa now. “We have to go now!”

“Not without the Earth King!”

“Katara, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!” Aang said. He smacked away an earth glove flying in his direction. “The Earth King is dead”

Her heart sank, but Katara didn’t have the time to feel bad.

“We can’t let them take Ba Sing Se!” She insisted.

“We’re outnumbered” Zuko argued. “We can’t beat them right now”

Katara couldn’t believe he was saying that. He was learning from Aang. Perhaps way too much.

Another lightning. They didn’t even have to move away. Azula missed then completely.

The Dai Li were multiplying. Rock rose from the ground and wrecked the Throne Room’s floor. The girl who could block Chi seemed to have left Toph out of combat. She was clinging to Sokka’s arm on Appa’s saddle.

They couldn’t leave. They couldn’t give up.

But there was nothing else they could do.

She closed her eyes tight. She should have been able to do something.

But she followed Aang. They ran across the room dodging rock and fire and daggers.

Zuko wasn’t moving. He stood there observing Appa. He looked at his sister.

“Zuko!” Katara called him. “What are you doing!?”

He couldn’t betray them. He was doing so good. He couldn’t join her now!

She would kill him!

He looked at Katara.

“I…”

“Don’t leave me now, Zuko!” Azula demanded. “This is a glorious day in Fire Nation history! Just think about what Father would say when he sees you!”

Zuko swallowed. Katara couldn’t stop staring at him.

“Zuko, come with us” She almost begged.

He looked down.

His father wanted him dead.

He glared at Azula.

And then he took Katara’s hand.

She gripped his wrist tightly, almost scared that he would change his mind and leave, but they ran together towards Appa decisively and in a straight line. He jumped on top of the bison and helped Katara up with his airbending.

Azula bellowed like an animal and send a third merciless lightning in their way.

Out of frantic terror, Katara raised her arms. A monstrous wave of fire rose from the ground. She pushed it forward and it ran over Azula and her Dai Li, a scorching heat drying the stone and leaking into the cracks like lava.

Appa cried out in fear. Fear of fire. He didn’t wait to be told he could go. He jumped and flew out of the hole in the ceiling, shattering it further and quickly leaving the palace behind.

One last lightning was shot towards the sky. Appa soared into the night above Ba Sing Se.

Katara leaned on the edge of the new saddle and looked down at the city. The Dai Li were breaking into houses and dragging out functionaries and noblemen from King Kuei’s government. Someone dropped a brown animal on the steps of the palace. The bear left a trail of red behind it.

She quickly looked away.

“We have to go back for my uncle!” Zuko exclaimed. “We can’t leave him here!”

Without any arguing, Aang steered Appa to give a heavy turn and fly down towards the Upper Ring.

That’s when Katara saw it.

Nor far from the palace, angry red tongues of fire devoured a building like a hungry animal.

The Jasmine Dragon was burning.

“He can’t be inside” Zuko said. “They must have taken him prisoner” He seemed to remember something. He looked at Aang. “Take us to that lake, in the Agrarian Zone”

風

Toph and Aang managed to bend all the earth and water necessary to break into the dungeons under Lake Laogai. They climbed down the ladder and walked down the dark hallways. The only light there was came from the glowing crystals, a dim green color.

“I’m Joo Dee” A man’s voice came from one of the cells. “Welcome to Ba Sing Se”

“I’m Joo Dee” A chorus of women replied. “Welcome to Ba Sing Se”

Zuko felt shivers down his spine.

“This is where I found Appa” He explained. “This is where they must be keeping Uncle”

But Uncle wasn’t there. They looked everywhere, checked every cell and every hall. Zuko was starting to grow desperate. If he wasn’t there, then where was he? What did they do to him?

Fear clutched his heart. Uncle was the only family he had left. He couldn’t lose him. The idea brought tears to his eyes.

In the last cell, they didn’t find Uncle, but they found someone else.

Long Feng, the leader of the Dai Li, had been locked up by his own people.

Long Feng used to rule Ba Sing Se, pulling the strings behind an ignorant King. Now Azula occupied his place.

Zuko retreated before Long Feng saw him through the window of his cell door. There was no use in talking to him.

Uncle wasn’t there.

But they saw the Dai Li agents walking down halls, passing through doors and leaving cells, and it was only a matter of time before they saw them.

The now five children climbed on top of Appa’s new saddle and parted into the sky, with hands and hearts empty and feeling more lost than ever.

The Earth Kingdom had fallen, and they had taken the last of Zuko’s family with it.

風

“So, you’re joining us?” Sokka’s question sounded more like a statement.

Zuko shrugged. They were sitting around a little campfire, Aang and Toph leaning against Appa while Katara tended to the fire and Sokka counted their belongings. They didn’t get to bring much with them, but the most important things had been stored in Appa’s new saddle since they found him, out of habit. He couldn’t bring any money from the Jasmine Dragon, but they still had at least two dozen gold pieces.

Really, all he brought with him were his swords, his knife and his clothes.

“I guess so” he replied after a moment. I don’t have anywhere else to go”

“I don’t think anyone has anywhere left to go” Toph said. “We’re fugitives, now that Ba Sing Se has fallen”

Once a prince. Now all he had were two swords and a scar.

Katara and Aang looked particularly defeated. They weren’t talking at all.

Sokka finished counting all they had: two dozen gold pieces with some silver and copper pieces, food for five people that should last for about three days, Zuko’s swords, Aang’s staff, his boomerang, Katara’s necklace (very important), half a dozen teabags, four bedrolls (they needed to get one for Zuko), two changes of clothes each (except for Zuko), Appa’s new saddle, an empty waterskin, some parchment and charcoal (no ink) and a good quality rope that was too short to be useful.

“I’m starting the shopping list” He announced, taking a piece of charcoal and some parchment. “Does anyone want anything?”

No one spoke. Zuko looked at Katara through the fire. Her hair was down. He had never seen her with her hair down before. Aang was next to her, staring at the ground.

“Okay. One bedroll for Zuko and some new clothes. We need some vegetarian food for Aang and some real food for the rest of us. Do you guys think we can afford two tents?”

“Getting a teapot would be nice” Zuko mumbled.

Sokka looked at him for a moment.

“A teapot it is, then” he added it to the list.

“Oh! Can we get a portable Pai-Sho board?” Toph asked.

“I’ll see how the budget goes”

Aang and Katara still didn’t say anything. It was stupid to ask if they were okay, because they clearly weren’t.

She sat back and observed the flames.

“What are we going to do now?” She asked. “The Earth Kingdom has fallen. We won’t be able to organize the invasion on our own”

“Invasion?” Zuko asked.

Everyone froze and stared at him. It was clear he wasn’t supposed to know that.

So, they were planning an invasion on the Fire Nation.

“I think we can tell him guys” Aang said. It was the first time he spoke since leaving Ba Sing Se. “He did come with us, after all”

Sokka didn’t look so sure, but he sighed with resignation and explained the Day of Black Sun plan. No sun, no firebenders. They could put an end to everything in just three short months from that moment.

All they wanted was to end the war.

Zuko couldn’t say he opposed them.

“We needed the Earth King’s support to do that” He finished. “But seeing as he’s out of the picture now…”

“I see” Zuko said. “Isn’t there anyone else? What about the Water Tribes?”

“We have no idea where our father is” Katara explained. “And I don’t think the Northern Water Tribe likes us much. Besides they’ve stayed out of the war for over a century. Why would they change their minds now?”

Zuko blinked.

“Your father?”

“He’s the chief” Sokka said. “He left about three years ago to fight and we haven’t seen him ever since”

Oh.

Sometimes it was easy to forget, well, everything that had happened to them.

“Just because Ba Sing Se has fallen, it doesn’t mean the Earth Kingdom has fallen” Toph supplied. “Since when has the Earth Kingdom responded to Ba Sing Se? I mean, Omashu had a whole king of its own”

“She’s right” Zuko agreed. “The power is not very centralized. There’s no reason why we wouldn’t find people to fight”

No one seemed very encouraged, except for maybe Sokka, who stood up with a map made of sealskin parchment in his hands and said:

“We need a plan”

Crickets.

“We can’t go back to Ba Sing Se, but we still need to strike in three months from now” He turned to Toph. “Toph, you lived all your life in the Earth Kingdom. Do you know what cities have big militias? Or where would they offer the most resistance to the Fire Nation?”

Toph shrugged.

“Why are you asking me? I never went outside my family’s estate until I met you guys”

“What about the Kyoshi Warriors?” Katara suggested. “Do you think they could still be at Full Moon’s bay?”

“It’s worth a shot” Sokka said. “If only we could find dad…”

They didn’t have much food so they went to sleep hungry that night. Since they didn’t have a bedroll for Zuko, they decided they would take turns to keep watch. Four bedrolls would be enough.

Zuko offered to keep watch first, but Sokka, perhaps out of mistrust, told him to go sleep. He could keep watch.

Aang bent water on the fire to extinguish it and four of the kids went to sleep.

Zuko was too hungry, too cold and too scared for his Uncle to sleep at all. A few hours later, Sokka kicked him in the ribs and told him it was his turn. He now stayed awake sitting on top of Appa instead of lying down in the bedroll.

They had set camp in a clearing in the forest at southeast of Ba Sing Se. They had thought it’d be safer with the trees hiding them.

Zuko couldn’t believe it.

In only one day, he had nearly been killed, had lost Uncle, had been offered in a silver plate everything he ever wanted and he refused it all just to go with the Avatar. And the strangest part was that he didn’t regret a thing, other than leaving Uncle behind.

He felt freer than he had ever been, actually.

He understood now. He didn’t need to capture the Avatar. He didn’t need to do anything. He didn’t even need to go home. He needed to do what was right. Helping him end the war came first.

It was like something unlocking in his chest. A burden being lifted from his shoulders.

He didn’t need to hide. He was an airbender. He even had an airbending teacher! And he… he cared about him, right? It did feel like he did.

Aang had left his staff on Appa’s saddle. He took it carefully in his hands. The artifact was beautiful. He wondered how he had ever been scared of it.

He was an airbender. He had used the glider to save Aang. That’s who he was. Not the Fire Prince, not a firebender. He was an airbender and Aang thought he could bring the Air Nomads back. And if that was what Aang needed from him… Then he could do it. He’d be happy to do it.

He didn’t know if he was happy. Ba Sing Se had fallen. Azula had won. Uncle was missing.

He glanced at his new friends. Friends? He had friends.

But this was… well, it was really nice. He just wished Uncle was with him.

Katara woke up a few hours later on her own. She climbed on top of Appa. Zuko offered her a hand, and she accepted it.

“Can’t sleep?” He asked.

She shook her head.

“After everything that’s happened…” her shoulder dropped.

“It’s okay. I couldn’t sleep either”

They both sat cross legged on the big saddle. The sky was moonless and starless that night.

Katara held the tiniest flame in her palm, just a little candlelight. It wasn’t angry or aggressive or violent like all the other firebender he saw around him. It was calm and comforting and warm. It illuminated her face in the darkness.

Zuko thought her little fire was adorable.

“Why did you do it?” She asked after a heartbeat.

He didn’t need to ask what she meant. He knew.

“Azula always lies” He told her. “You were right. She just wanted to capture me so that she could kill me”

Katara observed him.

“She offered you everything you ever wanted”

“I’m not sure I want it anymore” He said. “I don’t know if it’s worth everything that I’ve done”

“Are you sorry?”

He swallowed. Her blue eyes were staring into his very spirit.

He nodded.

“I am” He said. “I’m sorry I chased you guys all over the world. I thought I had no other choice”

“Because you couldn’t go home?” She asked.

He nodded reluctantly.

“Capturing the Avatar was the only way my father would restore my honor” He explained. “When I was thirteen, my father banished me for speaking out of turn. He gave me this” He gestured at his scar. “He told me I would only be allowed to go back if I brought the Avatar with me”

The fire fluttered. Katara’s eyes were full of horror.

“Your father did that to you?”

He nodded.

“I used to think I deserved it” He said. “Now I understand it was wrong”

She placed her free hand on his forearm and squeezed.

“I’m glad you do” She said. “I can’t believe he—!” She shook her head. “How could someone be so cruel to his own son?”

Zuko didn’t know how to reply. He didn’t know. He really didn’t know. He was still trying to understand why that’d happened to him.

He was just glad he didn’t break down crying this time.

“I…” He licked his lips. “I know my destiny now. I’m going to help you end the war”

“I’m really happy to hear that” Katara confessed. “When Aang first suggested that you joined us, I was against it. But now that I see you’ve changed…”

Zuko could hold back the little smile.

“He wanted me to join you?”

“He did. I think… he sees you as the last of his people, so…” She shrugged. “Whenever we visit an Air Temple, I can tell he’s in so much pain. He lost more than anyone else”

Zuko couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt. He wasn’t even alive when it happened, but the crimes of his forefathers still haunted the world a hundred years after.

It wasn’t just his destiny to stop it, but his duty.

“I think… he wants you to become an Air Nomad” She told him.

Zuko swallowed.

“I’ll do everything I can to help him restore balance” He simply said.

Katara gave him a strange look, pity mixed with sadness and something that looked like disapproval.

“I could never stop being Water Tribe” She said. “I don’t care what element I bend”

“It’s easy for you” Zuko said. “The Water Tribes didn’t start a war”

Katara pressed her lips into a thin smile.

“I guess you’re right”

They both glanced at Aang. He was cuddling Momo in his bedroll, clutching one of the few remnants of his people close to his heart.

His heart broke at the sight. Aang almost always looked happy and cheerful, but now that he was asleep, he just looked sad.

“I’m glad you decided to join us” Katara confessed. “You’re not as much of a jerk as I thought”

“Well, thank you” Zuko replied sarcastically.

“You’re only kind of a jerk” Katara gave him a teasing smile. Her fire fluttered. “But seriously, before you and your Uncle, I used to think the Fire Nation was all bad. I’m glad I was wrong”

“You’re not wrong for being angry” he said. “The Fire Nation hurt you”

I hurt you, he wanted to add, but he didn’t.

Katara nodded.

“They took my mother from me” She said.

“I’m sorry” Zuko muttered. “They took my mother, too”

Katara blinked. Zuko realized with a shiver just how much about his past he was revealing to this girl in just one day.

“I think she left to protect me” Zuko explained. “I don’t know where she went”

“I’m sorry” it was Katara’s turn to show sympathy. “My mother… She was killed during a raid to our village when I was eight. They came for the last waterbender, and my parents always thought I was a bender, even before I bent any element. So my mother…”

Her voice cracked, and the sound made Zuko’s heart jump.

“She died for me” She finished. “Even though I ended up a… a firebender”

She said it as if it was a bad word. Zuko had grown up hearing words like ‘Waterbender’ or ‘Airbender’ being thrown around as disgusting insults. He guessed Katara had been raised in a similar way, hating the Fire Nation.

Except that she was right for doing so.

They were looking for a waterbender, and her mother died for a firebender.

Zuko thought he understood what she meant. Her mother had died for nothing. Except she didn’t.

“I’m glad you’re here today” He said without thinking much, and upon realizing what he’d just said, he rushed to add: “I’m not glad your mother…! You know— never mind”

Katara didn’t say anything for a moment. Zuko cursed himself mentally for being so stupid.

“I just… I didn’t want her death to be in vain” She muttered.

Zuko really didn’t want to make her feel bad. He desperately tried to think of something to say to comfort her.

He wasn’t good at comforting with words.

“It wasn’t in vain” Zuko found himself saying, convinced it wasn’t the right thing to say but unable to think of anything else. “I’m sorry my people did that to you. Your mother sounds like a great woman”

A single tear ran down her cheek, reflecting the warm light of the fire. It dawned to Zuko that he had never seen a firebender cry. He didn’t know what tears looked like at the light of fire. It was a scary thought.

“She was” Katara whispered. She quickly wiped the tear away. “I was supposed to be a waterbender. Everyone said I was the last hope for Southern Waterbenders. And now…” She shook her head. “I couldn’t be what my people needed”

“That’s not your fault” Zuko said.

Katara looked down.

“It only got harder after my mother’s death” she said. “I had never bent before. I was starting to think I was a non-bender, so when she sacrificed herself because of… of an assumption…” She swallowed. “And then my father left to fight, and I was left to take care of everyone”

“What about your brother?”

Katara scoffed.

“Sokka was the one I took care of the most” She said. “He can’t cook or sew clothes to save his life”

Zuko thought it was pretty unfair. Katara had a lot of weight on her shoulders.

“That doesn’t sound right”

“Tell me about it” Katara sighed. “Thank you”

Zuko blinked.

“For what?”

“For listening. I never really talked about this with anyone” She confessed. “I was always so busy making sure everyone was okay that…”

“That no one tried to be there for you”

She wiped a tear away.

“I wouldn’t say no one is ever there for me. Sokka and Aang have helped me a lot deal with my firebending”

But Zuko could tell she needed a little more. He could tell she was tired.

He decided he’d make sure to never be the one to make her tired. He’d even try to take some of the weight off her shoulders when he could.

Zuko glanced at the other three members of their group, sleeping on the ground.

“You never talked about all of this with your brother?”

“I never told him everything” She said. “Not about how I’ve felt about my mother ever since I discovered I’m a firebender”

What could he say? Your mother would be proud of you? He didn’t know. For all he knew, Katara could turn around and say that her mother saw firebenders the way his father saw airbenders. So he opted for something a little bit safer.

“It sounds like she loved you a lot”

The fire grew smaller and redder.

“I wonder if she would love me the same if she knew what I was”

Zuko didn’t know her mother, and he had agreed not to say what he wanted to say just a minute before, but he said it anyways:

“I’m sure she would”

The fire grew smaller and smaller. Above their heads, a patch of universe could be seen through the clouds. Millions of baby fires observing them from the sky.

火

They continued getting further away from Ba Sing Se the next morning.

No one had a set destination yet, it seemed, except for Appa, who kept flying southeast without listening to Aang’s questions.

“What is it, buddy?” He asked. “Where are you taking us?”

He turned to Sokka, who showed him the sealskin map. Katara looked over his shoulder to see where he was pointing to.

The Eastern Air temple.