Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Lunae leaned her head back against the seat of the monorail train, the quiet rumble of the earthbenders sliding the train along the track almost soothing.

A month of traveling had brought her to where she was. Instead of an apprentice to the Firelord’s royal advisor, Lunae was pretending to be a refugee from a small Earth Kingdom village that had been destroyed by the Fire Nation. 

Long black hair that had once been neatly styled in regal updos was now allowed to flow free, and Lunae had traded out the red clothing she was used to for plain brown lantern pants, a dark green wrap top, and brown boots. Her round grey eyes fluttered closed as she took a moment to breathe, dark eyelashes brushing against tanned, round cheeks. Her body was fairly  lean, though that wasn’t to say she was skinny. She had muscles, they were just built for agility. In her lap sat a small bag of essentials; some money she had stolen from a wealthy group of travelers, an extra change of clothes, and a small sachet with dried fruits that had been given to her by a kind old couple who took her in for the night almost a week before.

As she listened to the rumbling of the train car, she thought about the pull she had been feeling. She had been ignoring it for months before she left the Fire Nation, but the feeling finally got so strong that she had to follow it. She had followed it all over the Earth Kingdom, only for it to change so many times and her to have to change directions again.

Where it was leading her, she was still unsure.

Lunae was pulled out of her thoughts as the train came to a stop.

“Outer ring!” One of the guards announced, looking at the few people in the car expectantly. 

Lunae let the older passengers disembark first, following a young mother and her child as she stepped off and into the processing center for refugees. The lines in front of the multiple windows were long, with children clinging to their parents and elders being held up by younger family members. 

It took almost thirty minutes to reach one of the windows, and by then Lunae was starting to feel dead on her feet. She pulled her ticket out and showed it to the lady at the window.

“Here’s your apartment address and papers,” the lady huffed.

Lunae looked down at the address card curiously.

“Where is… Yanshi Road?” She asked.

The guard next to the window smiled. 

“You’ll know it when you see it.” He said with a chuckle. “There’s a pretty good tea shop there.”

Lunae smiled softly. Tea had always been a comfort for her, though it was one she had been unable to indulge in as often when she left home. Maybe she could visit the tea place the next day, after she finally got a good night’s rest.

“I’ll swing by sometime.” Lunae said softly before she turned to leave the processing station.

 ✸✸✸

The smell of various types of tea wafted through Pao’s Family Tea House and the sound of chattering was able to be heard from yards away from the doors. 

Lunae had heard good things about the place from her apartment neighbors, especially about the kind older man who had recently taken over the tea making. Apparently it was the best tea in town, now.

Taking a seat at one of the small corner tables with a view of the door, Lunae picked up the menu and started scanning it slowly. 

“Can I get you anything?” An annoyed, raspy voice got Lunae’s attention.

The girl looked up from the tea menu, her eyes meeting the intense amber ones of the waiter.

He was young, probably around sixteen, which meant he was her age. His dark, fluffy hair was pretty short, like he had just gotten out of the awkward stage of letting it grow out. His clothes were simple, but everyone’s was in the outer ring of Ba Sing Se. The colors of the changpao under his apron were dark and drab, though they were still the normal green that the Earth Kingdom was known for. His facial features were sharp, though he looked… hallow. Like he had been surviving off of the land for a while.

And he had a large burn scar on the left side of his face…

Something about him was so familiar, but Lunae was struggling to place it.

“I wouldn’t mind some ginger tea.” Lunae said kindly, glancing one last time at the menu before setting it aside. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

The guy wrote down her order on a small notepad before turning to walk back to the worker’s station. 

Lunae watched him carefully, trying to place where she knew him from. Had they crossed paths before while she was traveling in the Earth Kingdom? 

“Here you go.” The waiter grumbled as he set a hot cup of tea in front of Lunae. “Ginger tea.”

Lunae wasn’t sure what his deal was, or why he seemed so sour, but she wouldn’t hold it against him. He could just be having a bad day, or maybe he had already been through so much. It was reasonable to assume he was probably a refugee, considering that the people of Ba Sing Se had been virtually untouched by the war and his scar didn’t come from nowhere. 

So, she just gave him a gentle smile. 

“Thank you…” She looked up at him curiously, wanting to know his name.

“It’s Lee.” The waiter, Lee, grumbled.

“Thank you, Lee.” Lunae mused before taking a sip of her tea. “It’s lovely.”

Chapter Text

Two days. 

It had been two days since Lunae’s first visit to the tea house, and she had been back every day after she had finished whatever odd jobs she could find for the day. 

She wasn’t sure why, but something kept drawing her there. It wasn’t the same pull that she had been following all over the Earth Kingdom. No, that was trying to pull her to the Upper Ring, where she couldn’t go because she didn’t have ‘the proper papers’.

Lunae had been served by the same waiter as the first day every time she had been back. She started to wonder if he was what was drawing her to that place. It was either him and her frustration at not being able to place his face or the delightful tea that seemed to help her clear her mind before going home and meditating for the night.  

“Surely I’d be able to place someone with such a prominent feature…” Lunae thought, thinking about that burn scar on Lee’s face.

“I see you’re back.” Lee’s voice cut through Lunae’s thoughts as she sat at what was starting to become her usual spot, the waiter was just as moody as the first day Lunae had come into the tea house.

Lunae smiled gently at Lee.

“I haven’t had good tea in a while.” She remarked. “It’s hard to make it while you’re running around the Earth Kingdom.”

A small, weak laugh escaped Lee’s mouth.

“You sound like my uncle.” He crossed his arms over his chest before looking down at the menu on the table. “Do you know what you want?”

“Ginger, please.” Lunae chirped. Lee gave a small hum and left for the workers station.

While she waited, the young woman closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall behind her. She took slow, deep breaths and took in the sensations of the tea shop. The smell of tea coming from cups sat on tables, the chatter of patrons who had come in to relax after a long day, the cool breeze coming in through the windows of the shop now that the sun had set. 

Lunae got quite the scare when the door slammed open and an older teenager came storming into the tea shop. Messy brown hair fell down in his face, and his tan skin was littered with scars that told the story of a boy who had lived a hard life. His clothes were baggy and a hodge-podge of different lower-class Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation soldier clothes, though people wearing scraps and thrown together pieces wasn’t uncommon in the outer ring.

“These two men are firebenders!” He yelled, pointing at Lee and an older man that Lunae hadn’t seen before. 

Lunae let out a small gasp when she saw the old man. His long grey hair and kind brown eyes were the same as she remembered, though he had lost some weight during his time on the road and his beard had grown out.

Iroh.

Which meant that Lee was really…

The guy who had burst into the shop drew two hooked swords and loudly proclaimed, "I know they're firebenders, I saw the old man heating his tea!”

“He works in a tea shop.” One customer at the front of the store said, sounding unimpressed with such accusations. 

“He's a firebender! I'm telling you!” The teen continued, trying to get anyone to listen. 

Lunae glanced at Iroh and Lee (who she now realized was the banished Fire Nation prince and her childhood best friend, Zuko), trying to decide how she wanted to proceed. Should she come to their defense? Do nothing? Ratting them out was not an option, because there was always the chance that they knew who she was, and that was dangerous in itself. 

She took a deep breath before deciding.

“Drop your swords.” Lunae stood from her chair, trying to ease the situation. “There’s probably just a misunderstanding.”

The teen looked past Lunae and scowled at Iroh and Zuko, pointing one of his swords to the black-haired prince-turned-waiter.

“You'll have to defend yourself,” he snarled, “then everyone will know. Go ahead, show them what you can do.”

Another patron stood up, ready to grab his swords. Before he could, Zuko took them and took a fighting stance. 

“You want a show? I'll give you a show!” He yelled before kicking the table in front of him towards the other teen. 

The teen with the hooked swords used his weapons to cut the table as it came at him, hopping over it and taking a swing at Zuko. Zuko deflected the attack with the broadswords he was using before jumping back onto another table. The other teen chopped the table in half, causing Zuko to balance on half of the table on one foot.

“He’s definitely gotten better with his balance since I last saw him.” Lunae thought.

Lunae watched as the two teen boys, debating whether or not she should use her bending to step in. What was one little gust of air to help Zuko dodge a swing? 

Though, as their fight started to spill out into the street, Lunae followed Iroh without hesitation.

“Please, son, you're confused! You don't know what you're doing!” Iroh pleaded with the teen in an attempt to stop the fighting.

Zuko and the teen with the hooked swords traded attacks, though the hooks on the end of the other boy’s swords made it easier for him to stop attacks. He hooked the end of his swords together and started swinging  them like nunchucks at Zuko. Zuko backed up with a small grunt 

“Bet you wish he'd help you out with a little fire blast right now!” The teen taunted Zuko as he swung at Zuko’s feet.

Zuko managed to stab his sword through the hilt of the sword that was swung at him, effectively pinning it. 

“You’re the one who needs help!” Zuko snapped.

While the two fought, Lunae looked on in a mix of horror and wonder. She was impressed at how much Zuko’s skills had grown over the past three years, but also worried he would get hurt by the boy attacking him.

Then, she got an idea. While Zuko had the attacking teen occupied, Lunae grabbed one of the wooden lantern poles that stuck up from the stone road, pulling herself quickly sideways so she could launch a kick into the attacking teen’s side. He fell to the ground, dropping both of his swords while Zuko looked at her with shock.

“Why did you-” He started before the attacking teen started to get up.

Lunae grabbed one of the hooked swords on the ground, stabbing it through the teen’s sleeve to pin him to the ground.

“Drop your weapons!” Two voices yelled. Lunae looked up to see that the voices had come from two Dai Li agents, who were approaching the fight cautiously.

Zuko lowered his weapons, while the other teen pointed at Iroh and Zuko.

“Arrest them,” he yelled, "they're firebenders!”

He turned to Lunae, scowling at her as he spat, “And you defended them!”

Lunae knew good and well what she was doing. She knew she had defended the prince and a retired general of the Fire Nation. They would do the same for her if they could recognize her…

…Probably…

“This poor boy is confused. We're just simple refugees.” Iroh explained.

Pao, the owner of the tea shop, pointed at the teen who had provoked Zuko. 

“This young man wrecked my tea shop, and assaulted my employees!” Pao barked.

“It's true, sir.” One of the patrons stepped forward. “We saw the whole thing. This crazy kid attacked the finest tea maker in the city.”

The praise made Iroh blush.

The Dai Li started to take the antagonistic teen into custody, using the rock gloves they wore around their hands as cuffs. The teen boy struggled in the grasp of the agents while he yelled about the Fire Nation and firebenders. His yelling was cut short when he was thrown into a prisoner transport wagon, the woods doors slamming closed before the wagon started to be pulled away by an ostrich-horse.

The crowd that had gathered to watch the fight started to dissipate, the patrons of the tea shop awkwardly handing payment to Pao before leaving to walk back home for the night. The man who Zuko had ‘borrowed’ the swords from took them back and left. Iroh, Zuko, and Lunae were alone as Pao lumbered back into the shop and grumbled about ‘damages’.

“You didn’t have to step in.” Zuko grumbled, looking at Lunae with a look of… was it anger? Disdain? Or was it a hint of respect that Lunae saw behind his eyes?

Lunae shrugged.

“Maybe I didn’t,” she said, “but it's not like it was that big of a deal.”

The prince rolled his eyes and stalked into the tea shop.

“He’s just not used to having help forced upon him.” Iroh put a hand on Lunae’s shoulder, giving her a thankful smile. “You’re quite kind for helping a virtual stranger.”

Lunae felt her stomach twist. They didn’t recognize her, huh? She wondered how long it would be before it clicked into place for them. Until they realized… she decided it might be better to pretend to be just a simple refugee.

Chapter Text

Lunae watched Zuko carefully as he went around the tea shop performing his duties. She had tried to be careful about being caught watching him over the past few days, but there may have been a couple times that Zuko’s amber eyes caught her grey ones, causing her to look back down at her tea with a familiar warmth on her face. 

She listened carefully as he walked back to the worker’s station, which was pretty close to her normal spot in the back corner.

“I think the girl who fought Jet is onto us,” Zuko whispered to Iroh, unaware that the girl he was speaking about could hear him. Lunae had always had great hearing, almost supernaturally so. Though, she sometimes struggled to listen to people as well over the hundred other noises she was hearing, unless she closed her eyes to focus like she was doing at the moment.

“She keeps coming in to watch me.”

Lunae felt her breath catch in her throat. Had she really been caught that easily?

Iroh’s gentle chuckle made her feel slightly better.

“You’re right, Zuko,” the older man said, “I have seen her here quite a lot since that fight. I think she might have quite the little crush on you.”

Lunae felt her face get hot, though her logical brain told her that she could use it to her advantage. Maybe if she pretended to have a crush on Zuko and asked him on a date, she could figure out what he was doing in Ba Sing Se and get closer to him.

Taking a deep breath to steel her nerves, Lunae put on her best fake smile and walked up to the counter.

“Thank you for the tea again, Lee.” Honey dripped into her words as she took the money out of her pocket to pay, making sure she had enough on her to give him a little bit of a tip. 

Zuko nearly dropped the kettle he was holding when he heard her voice. 

“Um… anytime,” he said awkwardly. 

“Y’know, I was wondering,” Lunae started, leaning against the counter as her kind smile turned coy. “Would you like to go out this evening?”

The prince looked at her in shock. Before he could reply, Iroh cut in.

“He would love to!” Iroh beamed.

“Great,” Lunae said, “We can meet outside the tea shop when the sun sets.”

✸✸✸

“This is probably the stupidest idea I’ve ever had.” Lunae thought as she messed with the sleeve of her dark green kimono. She figured if she was going to play the part of the lovestruck girl, she might as well dress up for her date. 

While she strolled down to the tea shop, the warmth of the sun was starting to fade. A cool breeze brushed against her cheeks and nipped at her fingertips. 

Zuko didn’t seem to be at the tea shop yet, so Lunae leaned against the wall, taking a deep breath. Her grandmother didn’t know much airbending, but one of the tricks she did know, she had taught to Lunae. It was one that Lunae used often, especially while she had been on the road.

Lunae breathed calmly and slowly, letting her body warm up to a comfortable temperature despite the spring night cold that was starting to set in.

“Are you really that nervous?” A low, rumbling voice broke her out of her concentration, though she was still able to feel the warmth coursing through her body.

She looked towards the voice and found that it was Zuko who had spoken. 

Spirits, Lunae nearly had to hold back a laugh as she saw him. He was wearing nicer clothes than he wore to work, and she could guess that Iroh had gotten ahold of his hair. It was parted down the middle and neatly slicked down. 

“I was just waiting on you,” Lunae said with a playful grin, ruffling his hair to get it out of the uptight style it was in. Zuko grumbled and pushed her hand away while a frown pulled at his thin lips.

“It took my uncle ten minutes to do my hair,” he complained.

Lunae pulled her hand away and giggled. She apologized before taking his hand and leading him down the street.

The Fire Nation prince followed behind her quietly. Lunae could tell he was upset about his uncle forcing him on the date, but she knew him well enough to know that he was nervous, too. The clenched jaw, the sweaty palms, the way his eyes avoided hers…

“Just like when we were kids.” Lunae thought as a warm feeling bloomed in her chest.

His voice pulled her out of that thought, gently saying, “I never got your name.”

The statement caught Lunae off guard. It still felt odd, to be pretending to be someone she wasn’t to someone who had once been her closest friend.

“Daiyu.” Lunae said after a moment of thinking. It was a name she had heard in a small Earth Kingdom town near the western coast. She had decided to go by it instead of her own when asked.

“That’s…” Zuko trailed off. “It’s pretty.”

Lunae smiled and thanked him as she pulled him into a small restaurant. It was a fairly inexpensive place that she had come across when asking around for jobs. The nice old couple who ran the place was willing to pay her to clean the store because the husband had hurt his back and needed to rest for the day while the wife went out to run errands. 

Finding a table near the exit, Lunae took a seat across from Zuko. A small candle sat in the center of the table, the warm light casting a beautiful glow on the prince’s features. Lunae felt her stomach do flips as she watched him awkwardly pick up the menu and bury his face in it.

“I heard the ramen is good.” Lunae said, looking at the menu and scanning the options. It was mostly noodles with various meats and vegetables, or dumplings stuffed with pork and cabbage.

Zuko just hummed in response.

“So… what do you like to do for fun?” The dark haired girl asked, trying to start a conversation. 

“Nothing,” was all she got in response. 

One of the waiters approached the table, his hands folded behind his back.

“Welcome to Anwei and Bai’s,” he greeted kindly, “what drinks may I get for you two?”

“Just a water,” Zuko said dryly.

Lunae gave the waiter an apologetic smile. She felt bad about her company’s bad attitude.

“I’ll have black tea, please.” 

As the waiter walked away, Lunae set her menu down. Zuko was tense, and his sharp eyes were more so staring through the menu than actually looking at it. 

“I’m sorry if I upset you by intervening during the fight.” She bid for connection, hoping he would take it. 

Amber eyes flicked up to meet her grey ones, frustration gathering like storm clouds behind his pupils.

“I had it handled,” he said firmly.

Lunae pursed her chapped lips.

“I never meant to imply you didn’t. I just saw the opportunity to end the fight before more damage could be done or some got seriously hurt, so I did.”

His gaze drifted back to the menu in front of him. 

“He’s always been so avoidant.”

As the thought crossed Lunae’s mind, Zuko spoke again.

“How did you learn to fight like that, anyway?” 

“It was just a kick.” Lunae shrugged off his question.

“You swung yourself around a pole to kick Jet,” Zuko said. Was that a hint of admiration in his tone, or was Lunae just hearing things?

“I guess I’ve always been naturally agile.” Lunae rubbed the back of her neck. “And I had to learn while traveling around the Earth Kingdom.”

He raised an eyebrow. Well, the one eyebrow he had.

“What were you doing while traveling?”

“I was trying to find something,” Lunae said, wanting to keep her exact reason a secret for now. At least until he knew who she really was.

He studied her face carefully. 

“Did you manage to find it?” 

Lunae looked down at the candle between them, her eyes watching as the flame danced.

“No, not yet,” she said, her voice soft, “it’s why I came to Ba Sing Se.”

“It must be… frustrating… to look for something for so long and still be unsuccessful.” An empathetic look crossed the prince’s face. Lunae knew where he was coming from. He had been sent on a wild goose chase to find the Avatar three years ago and had yet to succeed, to her knowledge. 

They sat in the silence for a moment before Lunae glanced back up at Zuko, tapping her thumb against her other fingers in a rhythmic pattern in order to soothe herself

“What about you and your uncle,” she asked, “where were you two living before you came here?”

“We also traveled a lot,” Zuko blurted after clearing his throat.

A sparkle graced Lunae’s eyes and a coy smirk pulled at her lips.

“Really?” She quirked an eyebrow. “Why were you traveling so much?”

“We were, uh…” Zuko trailed off for a moment. Lunae could almost see the gears turning in his head as he tried to come up with a cover story. “We were part of a traveling circus.”

Lunae let out a hearty laugh. 

“A circus,” she repeated in disbelief, “I find that hard to believe.”

He frowned, crossing his arms over his chest.

“And why’s that?”

“You just seem so…” She tried to think of the best way to get more information. “You seem like someone who was out at sea for a while.”

Zuko tensed up and opened his mouth to say something, though whatever he was going to say was stopped in its tracks when the waiter approached. He was holding a tray with their drinks.

“A water for you,” the waiter said as he sat Zuko’s water in front of him. “And a black tea for the lady.”

Lunae met the waiter in the middle, taking it from his hands with a small “thank you” and taking a sip. It was way too hot, but the tea wasn’t half bad. Definitely not as good as what Iroh made, but it would do.

“Are you ready to order, or do you still need a few minutes?” The waiter pulled out a small notepad.

Zuko met Lunae’s gaze. For a moment, they were kids again, able to communicate with nothing but their eyes. He asked her if she was ready without having to open his mouth, and she nodded. 

“I’ll have the pork and green onion ramen,” Zuko said, folding his menu up and setting it on the table in front of the waiter.

“I want the spicy ramen, please.” Lunae picked up Zuko’s menu as she spoke, putting it under her own and holding it out for the waiter.

The waiter took the menus and bowed, telling them that the food would be out as quickly as possible before he turned to take their order back to the kitchen.

Another moment of quiet passed over them before either one of them spoke.

“Why do you think I was on a ship for a while,” Zuko asked curiously, messing with his sleeve.

Lunae shrugged innocently.

“You just have a vibe about you,” She lied. She didn’t want to give away the fact that she was his old friend who he hadn’t seen in years. 

“What does… that even mean?” Zuko rubbed his temple. 

“It’s just a vibe I get from you.” Lunae smiled. “Did I hit the nail on the head or something?”

Zuko’s lips formed a small frown, and he looked away from her. He was quiet for a moment before his voice, soft and rumbling like thunder in the distance, cut through the silence.

“Maybe.” 

He sighed as he looked up to meet her gaze. 

“Y’know, you remind me of a friend I had once. You look similar to her, and she liked tea a lot, too.”

Lunae’s breath caught in her throat. He was so close to connecting the dots, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted him to just yet. She felt guilty, in a way. It felt like leading him on when she knew that eventually he would have to know.’

“This… friend of yours,” she started slowly, looking down at the table and fidgeting with her fingers. “Do you miss her?”

For the first time since she had seen him in Ba Sing Se, a genuine smile graced Zuko’s lips.

“A lot.” He laughed softly. “She was sweet and understanding. She kind of balanced out how temperamental I was.”

Lunae felt warmth blossom in her chest. She had missed Zuko so much, but to hear him speak of how much he missed her made her feel as if she was doing the wrong thing by keeping her identity secret.

“I bet she misses you a lot, too.” Lunae’s words were gentle.

Their conversation was once again interrupted by the waiter, who had returned to the table with their food. 

“Is everything correct?” He chirped after setting their food down in front of them. 

Lunae glanced over the bowls of ramen, a kind smile crossing her face as she saw that her spicy ramen and Zuko’s pork and green onion ramen were both there.

“Yep, everything’s good!” The grey eyed girl grinned. 

The waiter returned her smile and bowed respectfully before turning to attend to another table. 

Lunae picked up her chopsticks, her stomach rumbling in anticipation as she eyed her food greedily. She hadn’t had good spicy food since she left the Fire Nation, so her hopes were high. Maybe it could be her new comfort food in the unfamiliar city…

“Is it good?” Zuko asked after she took the first bite.

She shrugged.

“Not as… homey as I was hoping.” She said, feeling her previous excitement deflate like a week old balloon. Her eyes flicked up to him, watching as he picked up a slice of pork and bit off a bit. “Is yours good?”

Zuko nodded.

“It’s no spicy fire noodles.” He grumbled. “It’s pretty good, though.”

A smirk pulled at Lunae’s lips.

“I have yet to find a vendor in the Earth Kingdom who makes spicy fire noodles.” She put the thick end of her chopsticks against her chin in faux thoughtfulness, pretending not to notice as Zuko tensed up. “Nothing really comes close to the kick you can find back home.”

The prince’s eyes widened.

“Who-” he started before Lunae cut him off.

“You mean you don’t recognize me?” She pretended to be upset. “I’m hurt. You’d think growing up together would mean that three years apart wouldn’t mean that much when it comes to knowing each other, but…”

She shrugged.

“What can ya do?”

She watched as the pieces fell into place in Zuko’s head. Sure, maybe she was being a little hypocritical. It had taken seeing Iroh for her to recognize who he was, but she was giving herself a pass because she had never seen him with his scar. 

“Lunae?” Zuko asked, his shock seeping into his voice. “I… I thought you were back home.”

Lunae shifted awkwardly in her seat, taking another bite of her noodles in order to give herself time to think about what she wanted to say. Should she tell him the real reason she left? Would he laugh at her? He knew about her connection to the spirits. He had since they were nine.

“It’s… complicated,” she muttered.

Zuko raised an eyebrow as he asked, “How complicated?”

“At the beginning of winter, I started feeling this…” She paused mid sentence to consider how she wanted to explain the feeling she was experiencing. “It’s this pull . 

“I can’t explain it well. It’s like there’s a rope tied to my waist and it’s being tugged in a certain direction. It keeps moving around. After ignoring it for months, it’s like the spirits started screaming at me to follow it so… I just left. I snuck onto Azula’s ship and snuck off when it landed in the Earth Kingdom. I’ve gotten good at going unnoticed. Luckily the pull came to the Earth Kingdom, so I started chasing it around.”

Lunae sighed, stirring her noodles around in the broth.

“I have yet to figure out what it is that I’m even chasing.” She let out a soft, humorless laugh. “Maybe I’m crazy. But… I feel like I’m being led to my destiny, and that if I ever manage to find this thing that’s pulling me in, I can finally do something good.”

Her friend looked at her like she had just sprouted a komodo rhino horn. 

“So… you left home,” he started, speaking slowly as he processed what he was just told. “And ran away to the Earth Kingdom. And spent the past spring chasing around a feeling? ”

Lunae bit the inside of her cheek, shrugging her arms up with an awkward smile on her face.

“Yeah?” 

Her words came out more like a question. As if she was asking him to confirm what had happened to her in the last couple of months.

The laugh that tumbled from Zuko’s lips left Lunae feeling hot in the cheeks.

“Hey, don’t laugh at me!” She said defensively as she crossed her arms over her chest.

“I’m sorry,” Zuko wheezed, putting a hand on his chest. “It’s just so like you to run off for months to chase a random feeling the spirits gave you.”

A pout pulled at Lunae’s lips. 

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Just that you’ve always been really into that spiritual stuff.” Zuko smiled. To Lunae, it was a beautiful sight that almost made her forget she was supposed to be upset with him.

Almost.

“Just shut up and eat your noodles,” Lunae snapped, though there was very little bite behind her words.

Zuko just shook his head and kept his eyes on her as he slurped up a mouthful of noodles.

✸✸✸

The rest of their date had gone well. They finished their food and chatted about what they had been up to over the three years they had been apart. Zuko talked about his search for the Avatar and his recent travels through the Earth Kingdom, and Lunae shared her experience of her own travels and the airbending techniques she had taught herself along the way. She tried to avoid talking about what happened in the Fire Nation Capital before she left, since their conversation was fairly light.

As they walked down the dirty streets of the Outer Ring towards their apartments, which they had learned were in the same building, they had started talking about what they wanted to do now they were in the ‘Impenetrable City’.

“... I just need to find a way into the Upper Ring,” Lunae grumbled, a continuation of her explanation of how the supernatural pull she was feeling had drawn her to the city in the first place. 

“So… the feeling is pulling you to the richest place in the city, where most refugees can’t even imagine seeing, much less visit?” Zuko crossed his arms over his chest. “That sounds inconvenient.”

“It’s infuriating,” Lunae growled, running a hand through her black hair. “God, I’m so close, I can almost taste it.”

They reached their apartment building and Zuko pushed the door open for Lunae.

“Well, if I get the chance, I’ll get you to the Upper Ring,” he reassured her, “but, I had a good time tonight. We should… hang out again sometime.”

Lunae smiled at him.

“We should,” she agreed. For a moment, they just stood there on the first floor of their apartment building, looking at each other.

Then, Lunae pulled him in for a hug.

“I’ll see you tomorrow at the tea shop, Zuko.”

Zuko froze for a moment. He hadn’t been hugged in… quite awhile. But it didn’t take him long for him to return the affection by putting a hand on her back and burying his face in her hair.

“See you tomorrow, Lunae.”

Chapter Text

A yawn escaped Lunae as she walked into Pao’s Family Tea House. She had been having weird dreams throughout the night. Mostly about some big white creature with a brown arrow on its head that she hadn’t seen before. The poor thing was in a large stone prison, chained to the floor. It had been bellowing out sadly, but when she saw it in her dream, it was almost like it saw her, too. It had tried to come to her, but its feet were chained to the floor. 

“Morning, Daiyu,” Zuko greeted her as she approached the counter. 

“Morning, Lee,” Lunae returned in kind. They had agreed to use each other’s aliases if they needed to address each other in public, considering they were both wanted by the Fire Nation.

Zuko turned away from the tea he was making to meet Lunae’s gaze. Spirits, she could spend hours looking at his eyes and listening to him talk. 

“Do you want some ginger tea?” He had already started pouring a cup since he knew the answer.

Lunae smiled at him. He knew her so well, even after three years had passed. 

“I would love some,” She said, leaning against the counter. 

The prince let out a low chuckle and set the cup in front of her. Lunae thanked him and took a sip. She let the warmth of the tea spread through her body, letting out a relaxed sigh as she felt that familiar sense of comfort that tea always seemed to give her. 

“Just like uncle,” Zuko chuckled as he shook his head and turned to attend to the pot of tea.

“Your uncle has good taste in tea.” Lunae shrugged. “There’s no denying that.”

The two talked for a while about their day (which was mostly just Lunae listening to Zuko complain about customers). Zuko did have to pause for a moment to tend to tables every so often, though he was mostly helping by cleaning the cups so he could spend some time with Lunae.

Though, they paused their chatting when they heard a rather interesting conversation going on behind them. Iroh was conversing with a man that was wearing clothes much too nice for someone in the Outer Ring and the owner of the tea shop, Pao.

“Mushi, if you stay, I'll make you assistant manager,” Pao started to plead with Iroh, “Wait, senior assistant manager!”

Since Lunae and Zuko had missed the beginning of the conversation, it was hard to understand what was going on until the unfamiliar man said, “I'll provide you with a new apartment in the Upper Ring.”

Lunae and Zuko shared a glance.

“The tea shop is yours to do whatever you want,” the man continued, “complete creative freedom.”

“I even get to name the shop,” Iroh asked, the old man’s excitement seeping into his words.

The unfamiliar man smiled at Iroh.

“Of course!” 

Pao seemed to be panicking, so he offered to promote Iroh to “senior executive assistant manager”, to which Iroh gave Pao the tea pot he had been holding and accepted the unfamiliar man’s offer with a bow.

Then, Lunae started to feel the pull she had been feeling for so long get closer. It almost felt like it was flying overhead. She turned to Zuko, a slight look of befuddlement on her face.

“I’m going to slip outside real quick,” she told him softly, like she was telling him a secret. “I feel that… thing I was telling you about. It’s close.”

Zuko looked up from the dishes he was washing and studied her face carefully.

“I’ll come with you.”

As they tried to walk past the group of men, Iroh noticed them.

“Did you hear, nephew?” Iroh was beaming as he spoke. “This man wants to give us our own tea shop in the Upper Ring of the city!”

“That's right, young man, your life is about to change for the better,” the unfamiliar man said.

Zuko looked at Lunae. He knew how badly she wanted to get to the Upper Ring, and he had promised that if he could do anything to get her there, he would. He stayed silent, but he sent Iroh a glance that said “we’ll talk about it later” before he led Lunae outside.

They were greeted by a flurry of flyers falling from the sky as they walked out of the door of the tea shop. Zuko snatched one out of the air, and his whole body tensed when he realized that it was a missing poster for the Avatar’s sky bison. He felt Lunae looking over his shoulder at the paper, which really didn’t help the tension in his body.

“I’ve… I’ve seen that thing before,” she said as she took the paper from his hands. “This creature was in my dream last night.” 

Zuko raised an eyebrow.

“That creature belongs to the Avatar,” he snapped, “and if these flyers are falling from the sky, it means that he’s in Ba Sing Se looking for the thing.”

Amber eyes scanned the skies.

“We need a higher vantage point…”

Lunae smirked and cleared her throat.

“You know, I’ve had some time over the past couple of months to work on my bending…” She cracked her knuckles in an attempt to play cool. “I think I could pretty easily get us up to a roof or something.”

A laugh of disbelief escaped Zuko’s throat.

“Please tell me you aren’t about to try that flying trick you always tried to do as a kid.”

“It’s not flying,” Lunae grumbled, “and I’ll have you know that I’ve actually pretty much perfected it by now.”

“Then let’s see it.” 

Zuko’s words were a clear challenge, and one Lunae was willing to take him up on. She pulled him closer, not thinking much about how forward her actions must have been to the prince, and sank down until her butt was about even with her knees. Then, she jumped, using a large gust of air to launch her and Zuko up to the roof of the tea shop. 

Landing on her feet, she kept a firm hand on Zuko so he didn’t stumble. The prince stared at her, both shocked and impressed.

“I’m starting to regret not taking you with me when I left,” he said as he turned to scan the sky for any sign of the Avatar. Pieces of a puzzle started to fall into place in his head. “Where did you say that pull started from? When you first felt it at the beginning of winter?”

Lunae pursed her lips. She didn’t think she did mention where the pull had started from when they had talked about it in the ramen shop, but she was happy to tell him.

“It started in the South Pole,” she explained, putting her hand on her chin as she tried to recall where all the pull had bounced around to. “It’s kind of been all over the place, honestly, but I know it started in the South Pole.”

Zuko’s eyes widened, and he looked back down at the flyer in his hand.

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that you started feeling a pull to the South Pole around the time that the Avatar woke up, or that the pull was going all over the place when that seemed to be what he was doing while traveling north.” He looked at Lunae, studying her face. “And now, you felt the pull close while there were flyers about Aang’s bison falling from the sky.”

Lunae crossed her arms over her chest.

“What are you saying, Zuko?”

They shared a look. One of worry on Lunae’s end, and one of intense determination on Zuko’s.

“I’m saying… that I think you’re connected to the Avatar.” 

✸✸✸

Zuko’s whole demeanor seemed to be more intense as he led Lunae into his apartment. He was a whole different person than who she was used to. She had seen his temper plenty of times, sure, but this? It was different. Scarier.

Iroh smiled at the two as they walked in, setting aside the clothes that he had been packing.

“Hello, Lunae. It’s good to see you two attached at the hip again.” He turned back to his clothes as he continued to speak. “So, I was thinking about names for my new tea shop. How about the Jasmine Dragon? It's dramatic, poetic, has a nice ring to it.”

Before Lunae could greet Iroh in kind or compliment him on how nice of a name ‘Jasmine Dragon’ was, Zuko grabbed her arm and said, “Lunae can lead us to the Avatar.”

Iroh’s face fell when he heard those words.

“We have a chance for a new life here. If you start stirring up trouble, we could lose all the good things that are happening for us.”

Zuko stalked over to the window after letting go of Lunae and leaned his body against it. 

“Good things that are happening for you,” he grumbled. "Have you ever thought that I want more from life than a nice apartment and a job serving tea?”

Lunae joined him at the window, trying to put a comforting hand on his shoulder only for it to be shrugged off by her friend. It didn’t hurt her, though. She knew that touch could sometimes overwhelm him, even if other times it helped.

“Hey, Zuko, what’s this about?” Her tone was gentle as she spoke. “You and Iroh have a chance for a new life here.”

“I don’t want a new life,” Zuko snapped, “I want my destiny!”

“What that means is up to you,” Iroh advised, barely looking up from his clothes.

Zuko let out an annoyed grumble as he started to leave.

“I need some air.”

He slammed the door as he left.

✸✸✸

Lunae had ended up staying in Zuko’s room, waiting in his room almost until midnight for him to return. When she heard the door slide open, she perked up, only to deflate again when she saw it was only Iroh and not her friend.

“He’s been so obsessed with the Avatar for years,” Iroh remarked as he joined Lunae in sitting on the bed. 

“I’m not surprised.” Lunae picked at her cuticles. She had been doing so for hours, and they were starting to bleed. “He’s always wanted his father’s approval, as impossible as it might be.”

Iroh let out a sad laugh.

“You were the same when you were younger, were you not?”

The airbender frowned, thinking about all she had done to try to earn her father’s approval. She had agreed to his firebending ‘training’, only to be burned again and again. She had become his apprentice in hopes of connecting with him, only to become a glorified assistant. Almost everything she had tried had been at her own expense, and even if her father had loved her for a while, one wrong move and she was right back at square one. 

“I was like that until I left,” she admitted as she blew a stray strand of hair out of her face. “I finally realized that I would never truly please him. He would never be proud of me, no matter how much I tried.”

Lunae’s frown turned to a soft smile as a comforting thought came to mind. 

“My mom told me she was proud of me. That she would be proud no matter what.”

She felt a gentle hand be placed on her shoulder, and she looked up. She was met with Iroh’s kind smile.

“Zuko needs someone like that. He’s still stuck trying to please his father, just like you were.”

“What about you?” Lunae pursed her lips. “He loves you. Could you not be that person for him?”

Iroh’s face fell slightly.

“I’ve tried. I have given him the guidance that I can, but he doesn’t take it,” the old man said solemnly. “I think that he needs a peer to be that person for him.”

Lunae understood what Iroh was trying to imply. It made her feel a lot of things at once. She cared for Zuko, probably more than she had ever cared for anyone ever, but she had come to Ba Sing Se to find her own destiny. To find whatever the spirits had been leading her to, which she now knew was the Avatar. If Zuko thought that his destiny was to capture the Avatar, and she was so sure that she was supposed to help him… was she really to be expected to compromise her destiny for Zukos?

“Iroh…” Lunae started, unsure how to voice her concerns in a coherent way.

Lucky for her, Iroh was good at reading people.

“I understand your hesitation,” he reassured her. “I am not asking you to give up your values to coddle Zuko.”

The old man sighed.

“I think he might be more willing to listen if you talk to him. That’s all I ask of you, Lunae.”

“Just a talk…” She thought, considering her options. Then, she nodded to Iroh. 

“I’ll talk to him.”

“Good.” Iroh stood from the bed, his knees popping as he did so. “Come with me. I’m afraid you might have very little time to convince him.”

✸✸✸

It didn’t take Iroh and Lunae long to find Zuko. It was like the retired general had his own spiritual connection, only his was to his nephew and not the Avatar like Lunae’s was. Although, it was probably that he just had so much experience chasing the prince around that he knew his habits by heart.

When they found him, he was holding a Dai Li agent at blade-point, wearing an all black ensemble, his face covered by a strange blue mask that looked like a snarling demon. It seemed the agent was leading him towards a lake outside of the city

Strangely, Lunae recognized it. It was a mask that she had seen before when she had gone on vacation with Zuko and his family to Ember Island. Fire Lady Ursa loved theater, and so she often took Zuko, Lunae, and Azula to see ‘Love Amongst the Dragons’ when she could. The mask was the one worn by the Dark Water Spirit, who Zuko had always been forced to play as when Azula wanted to re-enact the fight scenes.

“So, Zuko’s been the Blue Spirit,” Iroh remarked.

Lunae let out a soft huff in disbelief. 

“He’s always been so… theatrical.”

They followed Zuko and the agent to the water, keeping their distance so they weren’t caught. The agent slammed his foot on the ground and brought an entrance out from under the water. All Lunae could hear was Zuko whispering something to the agent before he pushed him to the ground and watched as the agent scurried away.

Iroh and Lunae shared a worried glance as they waited until Zuko was far enough down the entrance that it would be safe for them to follow.

The corridors of the underwater base were dark, only lit by torches that flickered with a strange green fire that gave the grey stone an odd, almost sickly quality. It made Lunae uneasy as she and Iroh tried to avoid being seen. They followed Zuko through the winding corridors, past closed doors and rooms of similar looking women being brainwashed to be drones. 

Zuko reached a door at the end of one of the many long hallways. Lunae and Iroh watched as the disguised prince checked his surroundings before slipping into the room. 

When Iroh and Lunae followed Zuko through the door, the prince took a fighting stance against them before he realized who they were. 

Behind him was a large, white beast with a brown arrow on its forehead, the body of the arrow continuing down his back. Lunae felt her body tense as she recognized the creature as not only the one from the flyer, but the one from her dream the previous night.

“Uncle?” His voice was filled with confusion. “Lunae?”

“So, the Blue Spirit,” Iroh said, rubbing his chin as he pretended to think. “I wonder who could be behind that mask…”

Zuko let out a soft sigh and slipped the mask off.

“What are you two doing here?”

“We could ask you the same thing.” Lunae said, approaching Zuko and the creature cautiously. Zuko had said it was a sky bison, right? 

The sky bison bellowed at her, the same way it had in her dream. It seemed to sense that she was safe, because it lowered its head for her to pet. She was happy to do so.

“What do you plan to do now that you've found the Avatar's bison?” Iroh scoffed. “Keep him locked in our new apartment? Should I go put on a pot of tea for him?”

“First I have to get it out of here,” Zuko said as he turned to the sky bison. He watched with a curious expression as Lunae pet the beast. 

“And then what,” Iroh shouted in frustration. “You never think these things through! This is exactly what happened when you captured the Avatar at the North Pole. You had him, and then you had nowhere to go!”

“I would have figured something out,” Zuko shouted in turn.

Lunae felt herself trying to shrink into herself as the two continued their yelling. She heard her heartbeat in her ears and she felt her palms start to get clammy. When Zuko shouted that he knew his destiny, Lunae covered her ears.

“Stop yelling.” 

Her plea was soft. It almost went unheard by the other two, but the sky bison bellowed to get their attention.

Iroh looked at Lunae with apologetic expressions on his face, though Zuko still looked angry.

Taking a deep breath to collect herself, Lunae gazed at Zuko with an eerily unfamiliar intensity in her grey eyes.

“I’m not letting you take the bison hostage,” she said firmly. When Zuko opened his mouth to argue, she put her hand up to stop him. “I don’t care what your father has made you think your destiny is. I don’t care what you think you have to do to get your father to ‘love’ you again.”

She took another deep breath and took a fighting stance, ready for Zuko to try… well, anything, really.

“You will let the bison go, or I will. This is a part of my destiny.”

Zuko let out a grunt of frustration.

“Why are you getting in my way,” he growled. “You’re supposed to be my friend!”

“Because you’re being used,” Lunae said, her voice almost eerily calm. “I know you can’t see that, but the love you will get from your father if you do manage to bring him the Avatar will be only temporary. What next little mistake will have him at your throat again?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Lunae let out a humorless laugh, dropping her fighting stance to put a hand on her hip.

“I don’t know what I’m talking about? Our fathers are one in the same, Zuko. The only difference is that I can see that my father is a horrible piece of shit.”

“My father loves me,” he spat. “He just… he has a hard time showing it.”

“He challenged you to an Agni Kai for telling a general that he shouldn’t be sending soldiers on a suicide mission. He burned you, a thirteen year old, for not wanting to fight your own father, and sent you on a wild goose chase that to everyone's knowledge was impossible just so he could toy with you further.”

Zuko was starting to try to shrink into himself. He didn’t want to confront the realities of the life his father had put him in.

“He- He just wanted to teach me not to speak out of turn,” Zuko said. He was trying to convince himself as much as Lunae.

“He was being cruel,” Lunae’s voice was firm. “You were a fucking child. A thirteen year old. Do you think he won’t do it again?”

The prince fell to his knees and held his head in his hands. 

“I don’t know!”

Lunae froze as she watched Zuko collapse. She had just needed him to understand, she hadn’t meant to cause him so much distress. Though, she supposed she should have been able to guess it would happen when Zuko had started to shrink away from her words. She sighed as she kneeled beside him.

“I’m sorry." She gently put a hand on his shoulder. Zuko leaned into her, laying his head against her arm. 

“I just… I just wanted you to see what I see.”

Zuko took in a shaky breath.

“You don’t think my dad would really… burn me again, would he?”

Lunae looked down at the old scars on her arms. A sore reminder that sometimes, even those who were supposed to protect you could fail miserably. Even intentionally so.

“I think your father is a coward,” she told him honestly. “He burned and banished a child for speaking out about an immoral plan. He’s never once led a battle, or even seen the war he’s leading. He just sits in his comfy palace and gives orders from afar.

“I think that if you showed any sign of disobedience again… he would banish you just like he did before.” 

Zuko let out a sad sigh.

“I don’t want you to be right, Lunae.”

“But you know I am.”

Iroh and Lunae watched as Zuko stood and picked up the swords that had dropped at his sides when he had collapsed. He took a deep breath and approached the bison, an expression of determination on his face. 

He brought his swords down on the chains.

“Go,” he shouted at the beast. “You’re free now!”

The bison gave him a thankful lick before letting out a big bellow and flying up to bust through the roof.

Lunae smiled and joined Zuko at his side.

“You did the right thing.” She reassured him.

The prince let out a soft sigh. Then, he pulled Lunae into a hug and buried his face in her hair. Lunae was happy to return the hug. 

Over Zuko’s shoulder, she could see Iroh giving her an appreciative smile.

Chapter Text

The walk back to the apartment building was a quiet one. Lunae and Iroh were hesitant to speak to Zuko, who seemed to be caught up in his own thoughts. His jaw was set harshly and he kept his eyes on the ground. He had started to stumble slightly as they entered Ba Sing Se, and a sickly flush was dusting his cheeks. Occasionally, he would mumble to himself, but when Lunae would ask him about it, he would just shrug her off. 

When the three of them entered Iroh and Zuko’s apartment, Iroh finally broke the silence.

“You did the right thing,” he told his nephew, closing the door behind him as he was the last one into the apartment. “Letting the Avatar's bison go free.”

Zuko rubbed his temple, letting out a weak groan and bracing himself on the wall.

“I don’t feel right,” the prince grumbled before he started to collapse.

“Zuko,” Iroh and Lunae called in unison. The retired general rushed to his nephew’s side, while Lunae threw her hands out, using her bending to cushion Zuko’s head so it didn’t hit the floor.

Iroh’s jaw dropped to the floor. Lunae had half expected that Zuko had told his uncle about her bending, but from the look on the old man’s face… he clearly hadn’t.

“You,” Iroh started before his expression turned grateful. “Thank you, Lunae.”

With an awkward smile and a small “it’s no problem”, Lunae knelt down and let Zuko’s head fall against her lap, putting her hand to the prince’s forehead. His skin was so hot, she tore her hand away in surprise. 

“He’s on fire.”

She adjusted Zuko so she could scoop him up. Even as a sixteen-year-old girl on the shorter side, Lunae was still pretty capable of heavy-lifting. And Zuko was pretty thin, considering how long he had been on the run without consistent access to food. 

“Take him to his room,” Iroh said gently. “I’ll make some soup and tea.”

Lunae turned and used a gust of wind to open the door of Zuko’s room. She carried him over to his sleeping mat, which was in the center of the room, and set him down as carefully as she could. He was radiating heat like a furnace. 

She pulled the blanket at the foot of the mat over him, her lips setting in a frown as the prince shuttered in his sleep. Was he dreaming? If so, what was he dreaming about? It didn’t seem to be pleasant, considering the way his dark brows were furrowed and his lips were pressed in a frown.

“I made some ginger tea.” Iroh’s voice tore Lunae out of her worry, even if just for a moment. “Zuko has mentioned that you always order it at the shop.”

The old man sat down on the other side of Zuko, letting out a small grunt as his joints creaked. He was carrying a tea pot and three cups in one hand, with a bucket of clean water in the other.

“He talks about me,” Lunae asked curiously.

“He talks about you all the time!” Iroh laughed. “Even when we first left, he couldn’t stop talking about you.”

Lunae felt her cheeks heat up as the old man continued to talk.

“Though, he never mentioned your bending.”

The grey-eyed girl looked away. She felt a strange feeling of guilt bubble in her gut, even if she knew her request of her bending being kept secret was a matter of self preservation and not personal preference. 

“I asked him to keep it a secret, when he found out,” she said softly. “You know what the Fire Nation did to the Air Nomads. The only reason my great grandma got out is because she was away from the temple at the time of the raids. Granny said that she was told that Mama Namdol was gathering fruits for dinner and managed to hide in a cave until the soldiers left. She found a small village near the coast of the Fire Nation. She was still a few techniques away from earning her arrows when the raids happened, so she could at least blend in once her hair grew out.”

With a solemn expression on his face, Iroh poured them both a cup of tea as he considered the words that Lunae had said.

“I’m afraid that keeping that secret was the right choice,” the old man said sadly. “Even if it would have been improbable, if my brother or father had found out about surviving airbenders, they would have assumed that the Avatar was among them.”

Lunae took the cup from Iroh’s hand as one was passed to her. She was about to say something when Zuko stirred between them. His amber eyes fluttered open and he let out a small, weak moan.

"You're burning up.” Iroh dipped a cloth into the bucket of water before placing it on Zuko’s forehead. “You have an intense fever. This will help cool you down.”

“So… thirsty,” Zuko grumbled as he tried to sit up. Lunae put a hand on his shoulder to guide him back down.

“Take it easy,” the airbender warned, grabbing the spoon that was in the bucket and scooping out some of the water. “Let us help.”

She held the spoon up to Zuko’s lips, which were drier than the Si Wong Desert. He drank the water before letting out an annoyed grunt. He pushed her hand that was holding the spoon away and sat up, grabbing the bucket and drinking all of its contents before tossing it to the side and shifting so he could have his head in Lunae’s lap. 

A gentle smile crossed the airbender’s face. The prince had done the same thing pretty much their whole childhood. If he ever felt upset or sick, he wanted to be close to Lunae, especially after his mother had died.

Iroh poured Zuko his own cup of tea as he said, “You should know that this is not a natural sickness, but that shouldn't stop you from enjoying tea.” The old man helped Zuko slowly drink the contents of the cup.

“What’s happening,” Zuko asked, his voice raspy.

“Your critical decision,” Iroh began to explain. “What you did beneath that lake. It was in such conflict with your image of yourself that you are now at war within your own mind and body. I’m sure that having to confront the truth about your father and your banishment isn’t helping much, either.”

Lunae pursed her lips for what felt like the millionth time that day. It was so like Zuko to do the right thing and then have an immune system response. She also felt guilty, since she had been the one to bring up his father. She wondered if she had inadvertently caused or contributed to her friend’s current state.

“What's that mean?”

Zuko immediately got into a coughing fit after asking. Iroh frowned as he leaned in to wipe Zuko’s forehead with a clean rag. 

“You are going through a metamorphosis, my nephew. It will not be a pleasant experience, but when you come out of it, you will be the beautiful prince you were always meant to be.”

Chapter Text

Strange dreams had plagued Lunae since she was a child. They were rare, but they always seemed to come to fruition, no matter how much she tried to prevent them.

In the one she was having at the moment, she was looking up at a young bald boy. He was floating in what seemed to be a large underground room, crystals jutting out from crumbling stone walls. He had arrow tattoos on his forehead and arms, which were glowing with his eyes. He was angry, though Lunae didn’t know about what. 

A large flash of familiar blue lightning being shot at him made Lunae wake up with a shout. She reached for the dagger she usually kept next to her bed out of reflex, though it was sobering when she realized it wasn’t there because she had slept in Zuko’s room so Iroh didn’t have to worry about getting up if his nephew needed something. She looked over to the sleeping mat to check on her friend. Her heart dropped when she saw that he wasn’t there.

“Zuko,” she called, opening the door to his room. Her anxiety was quelled when she saw Zuko and Iroh sitting at the table eating bowls of soup.

The prince gave her a bright smile. 

“You’re awake,” he said cheerfully. It was a little odd how bright he seemed, though Lunae supposed that this could be the ‘metamorphosis’ Iroh had mentioned. 

Letting out a soft yawn, Lunae stretched her aching joint. The small adrenaline rush she had when she realized Zuko wasn’t on his mat had worn off, so she was starting to feel the awkward position she had slept in the night before. She had spent most of the night awake, listening for Zuko’s breathing and making sure he didn’t wake up needing anything.

“There’s food on the stove.” Iroh gestured to the small pot of soup with his spoon. “Help yourself.”

Lunae mumbled a soft “thank you” as she grabbed a bowl and got herself a modest serving. 

“You know,” Zuko started, watching Lunae sit beside him at the table, “Uncle and I are moving today.”

“You are,” Lunae asked before taking a bite of her food.

“Yeah… We’re moving to the Upper Ring.” The prince looked at Lunae knowingly “I wonder if we could find an extra pair of hands for the shop.”

Iroh chuckled. 

“It would have to be someone we trust, wouldn’t it?” The old man smiled as he spoke.

“And possibly someone who feels like she needs to get to the Upper Ring to find her destiny.”

Lunae’s face fell. She had realized late at night that the pull she had been feeling, the whole reason she came to Ba Sing Se… it had left the city. If it really was the Avatar she was feeling pulled to, he was being a very frustrating person to find. Why couldn’t he just sit still and wait, spirits damnit?

“The pull moved last night,” she admitted, before looking up at Zuko with a gentle smile. “But you know, I found something better than a mysterious spirit thing. I can start my search back up later. For now… I feel like I should stay with you and Iroh.”

✸✸✸

The move to the Upper Ring was actually a surprisingly quick endeavor. Most of their things could be left behind in the Outer Ring (not that Lunae had much to bring with her, anyway), because everyone got new clothes and their apartment was fully furnished. Though they were firmly warned to not talk about the war or anything similar.

They got lucky, since the new tea shop Iroh was opening had a three bedroom apartment upstairs. While the businessman who offered Iroh the deal had originally intended it for it to be a guest room, he was more than happy to let Lunae use the room when Iroh threatened to pull out if she wasn’t allowed to go with them.

It had been a day since their initial move and Iroh, Zuko, and Lunae stood at the back of the new tea shop, which Iroh had decided to name the Jasmine Dragon, all observing as a few customers came in.

“Who thought when we came to this city as refugees, that I'd end up owning my own tea shop?” Iroh chuckled as he looked at Zuko and Lunae. “Follow your passion, children, and life will reward you.”

Zuko congratulated his uncle with a bright smile.

“I am very thankful.” The old man returned his nephew’s smile.

“You deserve it. The Jasmine Dragon will be the best tea shop in the city,” Zuko said.

Iroh let out a small chuckle and shook his head.

“No. I'm thankful because you decided to share this special day with me,” Iroh corrected. “It means more than you know.”

Zuko pulled his uncle into a hug. Lunae felt a bittersweet feeling as she watched them. It was so amazing to see Zuko accepting love, but Iroh reminded her a lot of her mom. She felt a hole in her heart that was left when she ran away from the Fire Nation. Her mom was one of the things she missed about her home, and was the reason that Lunae hadn’t fought as hard as she felt she should have to leave with Zuko when he was banished.

“Now let's make these people some tea,” Zuko cheered when he and Iroh pulled apart.

Lunae chuckled and followed the prince as he walked to the back waiter’s area.

✸✸✸

“Daiyu!” One of the hostesses called out to Lunae as she passed. It took her a moment to remember that Eun-Ji was talking to her, since she still wasn’t used to going by the new name.

When Lunae did realize, she looked up from the table she was serving and gave Eun-Ji an apologetic smile. 

“Sorry, I was distracted,” she lied. “How can I help?”

“I sat someone in your section.”

Lunae let out a soft groan. As much as she loved being able to help Iroh with his dream, the whole day it had been so busy. 

So, she walked over to the table that had been empty only a moment earlier. The girl at the table was alone, which Lunae thought was odd, since she looked maybe a couple years younger than Lunae. She was also definitely Water Tribe, with the long blue kimono-like tunic and brown hair loops that were common for girls from the icy poles. She had medium brown skin, brown hair of a similar but slightly darker color, and big blue eyes that seemed to go well with the color of her tunic. On her shoulder sat a white flying lemur that Lunae had only seen in the pictures her great-grandmother had painted and passed down to her daughter, Lunae’s grandmother.

Lunae’s eyes widened when she saw the creature, a look of wonder crossing her face. 

“Wow, I never thought I’d get to see a flying lemur in person,” Lunae blurted before she could even think about her words.

The girl laughed. 

“I think he’s the last of his kind,” she said, rubbing the lemur’s head. 

 Lunae knew she should be careful. She should really just take the girl’s order, say her flying lemur was cute, and then go about her day. But the lemur was almost like a relic of her ancestors. It was like she couldn’t stop herself from asking out of pure, genuine curiosity. 

“How did you even get to a temple to find him?”

The girl rubbed her neck awkwardly. Lunae could tell she was contemplating something, though what it was, the airbender wasn’t sure.

“I found him while traveling with my brother and friend,” the girl admitted.

“You must have some pretty amazing friends if you could make it to one of the temples.” Lunae held her hand out for the lemur to smell as she spoke. The small creature climbed down from the Water Tribe girl’s shoulder and onto the table and sniffed before letting out a small chitter and licking Lunae’s hand.

Lunae giggled, petting the lemur’s head gently. She caught Zuko out of the corner of her eye, and thought that he would be interested in seeing the lemur, too, since she had shown him her great-grandmother’s paintings before. 

“Lee, come check this out,” she called out. 

She noticed a shift in both Zuko and the girl’s demeanor as they saw each other. Before she could ask what was up, Zuko looked at the lemur and pursed his lips.

“Uh… yeah,” he said awkwardly, avoiding the intense stare being sent his way by the Water Tribe girl.

The lemur seemed unhappy with his presence, too, and scrambled back over to hide behind the girl.

Lunae took in the whole interaction, a look of curiosity and surprise on her face.

“Do you two… know each other?” Her words came out before she could think about them. Obviously they knew each other, and there was some bad blood between them. 

The Water Tribe girl pursed her lips before she started to get up from the table.

“This has been nice, but I’m afraid I misjudged the amount of time I had to take a break,” she explained. She was clearly lying, but Lunae didn’t push it. She could get the information she wanted from Zuko later. “I need to be going.”

Before either Lunae or Zuko could protest, the girl was racing out of the shop. The airbender took Zuko’s wrist and pulled him to the back of the shop, where Iroh was busy making tea.

“Who was that,” Lunae asked, putting her hands on her hips.

“That’s one of the Avatar’s friends.” Zuko was rubbing the back of his neck with a guilty look on his face as he spoke. “I… may have caused her some trouble in the past.”

Lunae raised an eyebrow. She had heard about the people traveling with the Avatar, but she had always gotten the impression that they stayed together. If she was really feeling a pull to the Avatar, then she could tell that the girl who just came in was not currently traveling with him.

“The Avatar isn’t with her, I don’t think.” 

“That’s… unusual,” Zuko muttered.

There was another feeling starting to bubble in Lunae’s gut. It wasn’t like the feeling she had been getting since winter. That one was more… spiritual. She was being guided somewhere by an outside force. This new one felt like instinct. 

She was starting to feel like something was incredibly wrong.

Chapter Text

When Zuko had told Lunae about the invitation to the palace to serve the Earth King, she had warned him that the timing was a little odd, considering that the girl who recognized him had been in the shop just the day before. She couldn’t help the feeling of unease that came over her again as they were led to the King’s ‘tea drinking room’ by a pair of kind servants.

“The king should be with you in a few minutes.” One of the servants said, leaving them alone in the small room.

Iroh thanked them, and started to set up his tea pot and heater. 

Lunae inspected the room. She had been on guard since the encounter with the Water Tribe girl at the tea shop. Zuko had mentioned her name was Katara? Either way, the fact that he had been recognized and then they were invited to the palace the same day seemed a little… shady, at least to the paranoid airbender.

Maybe paranoid wasn’t the right word for what Lunae was. It’s how people had always described her, sure, so she had internalized that and used it to describe herself. But her paranoid behavior had saved her ass plenty of times for it to be considered rational. Maybe even instinctual.

Minutes flew by, and the Earth King still didn’t show up. There was a gnawing feeling of wrong that seemed to be spreading from Lunae’s gut and crawling its way up her throat.

“He should have been here by now,” Lunae muttered, eyeing the Dai Li agent to her left. 

“Maybe he just overslept,” Iroh offered, wanting to quell Lunae’s worries, even if he was beginning to have some of his own.

The Dai Li agents started to march into the room. They encircled Iroh, Zuko, and Lunae, keeping their heads low so their hats cast dark shadows over their faces.

“Something’s wrong…” Zuko whispered, to which Lunae frowned.

“I told you the timing was odd this morning, but no, I was just being paranoid.”

A person emerged in front of the table. All three of them tensed up when they saw her face.

“It’s tea time.” Azula’s voice sent Lunae’s brain into fight or flight. Despite the princess being two years younger than her, Azula had subjected her to years of torment when they were younger. After Zuko had left, Azula had just gotten crueler.

Zuko stood in what felt like the blink of an eye, snarling out his sister's name in a way that made it sound like some sort of curse.

“Have you met the Dai Li,” Azula said, ignoring her brother’s disdain. “They're earthbenders, but they have a killer instinct that's so firebender. I just love it.”

Lunae stood up beside Zuko, though she couldn’t help but notice that Iroh just held a cup of tea in his hand and was sitting oh so calmly.

“Did I ever tell you how I got the nickname ‘The Dragon of the West’,” Iroh asked, his voice controlled and even. 

Azula rolled her eyes and picked at her nails.

“I'm not interested in a lengthy anecdote, Uncle.”

“It’s more of a demonstration, really.” Iroh laughed and took a sip of his tea.

Before Lunae could process what was about to happen, Zuko wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close to him so he could easily guide her to duck behind Iroh as the old man began to spit fire from his mouth. The Dai Li agents got out of the way, and Lunae pulled Zuko towards one of the walls while Iroh kept using his fire to keep the agents back.

“Why are we going to a wall?” Zuko asked.

Lunae put her hand against the stone wall, feeling the tiniest air pockets within it. She could work with that. 

Holding her hands out, she focused on making those air pockets collapse. It didn’t completely make the wall fall, but one good kick…

Zuko’s eyes got wide as he watched his friend kick the wall down.

“How the hell-”

“I can explain later!”

Lunae took his wrist and led him down the hall, with Iroh in tow. Rock gloves whizzed past them and they came to another dead end wall. Iroh warned them to duck before he shot lightning and blasted a hole in the stone. The old man jumped through the hole in the wall and into some bushes below, though Lunae did have enough time to soften his fall with an air cushion. She looked at Zuko, who seemed to be waiting for something.

“Go, I can’t maintain this forever,” she said firmly.

Zuko clenched his hand into a fist and turned away from the DIY exit.

“I'm tired of running.” His words were full of conviction that Lunae hadn’t seen in him since they were under the lake. Which was, like, a few days ago, but considering how that went in terms of Zuko’s mental health, she didn’t like where this might be going. “It's time I faced Azula!”

With a sigh, she stopped making the cushion of air below them. She gave Iroh an apologetic smile and put her hand on Zuko’s shoulder. The prince gave her an appreciative look.

Azula’s voice pulled them out of their moment.

“You're so dramatic.” She rolled her eyes “What? Are you going to challenge me to an Agni Kai?”

“Yes,” Zuko said, much to Lunae’s chagrin. “I challenge you!”

Azula yawned and rolled her eyes again before saying a quick “no thanks”.

Zuko shot fire from his hand, but one of the agents erected a wall in front of Azula to shield her. Lunae hopped into action, flipping herself over the wall and dropping down on Azula. Another one of the agents seemed prepared for her, though, and quickly grabbed her before she could get her hands on the Fire Nation princess. Lunae struggled against the agent’s grasp, but since he had quickly bound her hands, there wasn’t much she could do. But she took a deep breath and blew out as hard as she could. 

The force created a gust of wind so powerful that it threw Azula into the wall and pushed Lunae and the agent behind her back. The agent crumbled to the ground, and Lunae rushed to Zuko’s side. He was being held to the ground by the stone gloves. Lunae grabbed a piece of the stone wall that Iroh had blasted through and raised it up to try to strike through the stone. 

Before she could bring it down, she heard Zuko shout her name. Then, her vision went dark.

✸✸✸

Zuko caught Lunae’s fall as the Dai Li agent threw the unconscious airbender down into the cave with him. It made his blood boil, to see his friend that had done so much for him in the state she was now. There was blood dripping from the gash in her head that Azula had made when she had hit Lunae over the head with a stone, and her breathing was shallow and uneven. He was about ready to kill his sister when he saw the look in her eye as she said that Lunae was too much of a risk to be left awake.

“Zuko!” 

That voice was uncomfortably familiar. He turned over his shoulder to see Katara scowling at him, though he could really care less at the moment. Whatever she was going to ridicule him about could be forgotten, his friend needed him. 

“Why did they throw you in here?” Zuko didn’t respond to Katara’s question as he pressed his fingers to Lunae’s wrist. Her pulse was steady, at least.

When she didn’t get any response, Katara continued, “Oh, wait, let me guess. It's a trap. So that when Aang shows up to help me, you can finally have him in your little Fire Nation clutches!”

Zuko sent her a look over his shoulder. 

Instead of taking the hint, Katara kept going.

“You're a terrible person! You know that? Always following us! Hunting the Avatar! Trying to capture the world's last hope for peace! But what do you care? You're the Fire Lord's son. Spreading war and violence and hatred is in your blood!”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Zuko yelled. He currently felt so helpless, and being verbally attacked about his past by Katara was not helping

“I don't? How dare you! You have no idea what this war has put me through! Me personally!”

He heard her start to choke up.

“The Fire Nation took my mother away from me.”

Zuko couldn’t help but think of his own mother, Ursa. She had been taken from him by her own nation. He never knew what had happened to her. Everyone had said she had been killed. After that, all he really had was Iroh and Lunae, one of which was currently unconscious in his arms with blood dripping down her face.

“I’m sorry,” Zuko said genuinely as he tore the bottom of his tunic to make a makeshift bandage for Lunae’s head. “That's something we have in common.”

He felt movement against him, and Lunae let out a small groan and a cough. 

“Zu… ko?” She asked, his name coming out broken. 

He cradled her closer to him, pressing the torn piece of fabric against her head to try to stop the bleeding. He knew it was probably worse than it seemed. At least, that’s what he told himself. 

“Hey, it’s ok.” His voice was gentle, almost as if he was soothing a fussing baby. “I’m right here.”

Lunae let out another groan and put her hand over his. 

“I’m going to bend the air out of your sister’s lungs the next time I see her,” the airbender grumbled, though Zuko wasn’t taking her words too seriously. Surely she couldn’t actually do that.

“Yeah, you can do that.” Zuko let out a soft laugh that was mostly out of relief. “Just take it easy, ok.”

“What happened,” Katara asked, coming over to kneel beside Lunae and Zuko.

“Azula hit her over the head with a rock,” Zuko explained.

“She was mad at me for throwing her into the wall, I think.” Lunae let out a weak laugh.

Katara raised an eyebrow. 

“You threw Azula into a wall? How did you manage that?”

“Airbending shit.” Lunae waved her hand like she always did when she didn’t feel like explaining something. “No big deal.”

With eyes as wide as saucers, Katara let out a scoff of disbelief.

“That’s impossible, there’s no way you’re an airbender,” she argued. “They were all killed by the Fire Nation.”

Lunae was clearly still a little delirious, so she just shrugged. 

“My great-grandma escaped in a cave and married a Fire Nation farmer. Then my grandma married another farmer and my mom married a noble jackass admiral who was stationed in her village and thought she was pretty, so he took her to the capital after they got hitched, and he was promoted to Royal Advisor after his dad died.”

The airbender sighed. 

“Can I add my dad to the knock out list,” she asked, looking up at Zuko. “It’s your sister and my dad so far. And your dad, probably.”

Zuko looked over to Katara with a bit of worry on his face.

“Is there, um, anything you could do about her head?” His voice was gentle as he spoke. “I know you don’t like me, and I understand that. But I’ve heard about the healing abilities of water benders, and my friend needs some help.”

Katara pursed her lips and glanced around them. Luckily, the stalagmites jutting up from the ground of the cave were glistening with water. The waterbender let out a sigh and held out her hands, pulling some of the water to her. 

When she saw the worried look Zuko was giving the water, she rolled her eyes. 

“It’s clean,” she reassured him before moving to sit with Lunae’s head in her lap. She manipulated the water so it was surrounding her hands, and placed her hands over the gash. Zuko watched in wonder as a glow started to emit from the water and the wound started to close. 

“That feels… a lot better,” Lunae said after a minute.

“I think you should be ok, now.” Katara pulled her hands away and let the water fall in a puddle on the ground. 

Zuko looked at Katara, hoping that he was able to convey just how thankful he was for her help through his expression. He was still having trouble communicating things like that verbally.

Katara pursed her lips and glanced between Zuko and Lunae, who had made no move to escape Zuko’s arms despite being healed.

“You two… care about each other a lot, don’t you,” the waterbender asked solemnly.

Zuko tore his eyes away from Katara’s, and Lunae’s response didn’t help the odd fluttering feeling he was feeling in his gut. 

“If anything happened to Zuko, I think I would have to commit violence to whoever hurt him,” Lunae said, as if it was a casual thing to say about a friend.

Katara’s eyes widened.

“That’s… extreme.” She laughed awkwardly. “But I get it. I would do the same for my friends. Even if Toph is a headache sometimes…”

Lunae heard voices approaching, though Zuko and Katara didn’t seem to react to them. Her grandmother had told her that she had very sensitive hearing that was common among airbenders, due to how air was related to sound. She also noticed the pull she had been feeling for months was finally seeming to come towards her, instead of away like it always did.

“There’s people coming,” She said, using a gust of air to help her to her feet quickly. The other two looked at each other before taking defensive stances.

Those stances were almost immediately dropped when the group came into view. Lunae recognized Iroh, and the young boy with him as the boy she had seen in her dreams a few nights ago.

He was bald, with blue arrow tattoos coming to a point on his forehead and hands. He seemed fairly young, maybe around twelve or thirteen. And it felt like the pull was coming from him. 

“Aang!”

Katara ran to greet the boy with a hug.

“Uncle, what are you doing with the Avatar,” Zuko grumbled. 

Lunae was almost in shock. This young boy, who might have not even started puberty yet, was the Avatar? The one she had been chasing for months?

“Saving you, that’s what,” the Avatar, Aang, Lunae guessed was his name, spat.

Then, Aang made eye contact with Lunae and his jaw seemed to drop.

“No way, you’re real,” he asked, as if he had seen someone he thought only existed in books or something. 

Lunae put her hands on her hips. She didn’t like it that the kid was implying that she might not be real, even if she had no idea why he was saying that.

“Yeah, I’m real. Why wouldn’t I be?”

The kid laughed awkwardly.

“Sorry, I’ve just been seeing you in my dreams for a while. I thought maybe you were a figment of my imagination or something.”

A pit formed in Lunae’s stomach. The Avatar had been having dreams about her, and she about him? That was at the very least odd.

“That’s strange, I had a dream about you the other night.” Lunae’s words seemed to make Zuko tense up, though she didn’t put much thought into why.

She looked around, realizing that the cave they were in was kind of similar to the setting of her dream. And the fact that she had seen lightning, now she knew that Azula was in the city…

“What was I doing?”

The kid’s question broke her out of her thoughts.

“You were glowing and floating,” Lunae started to explain. “We were in a place similar to this, but it was a huge room. But there was a bright flash of blue lightning and then I woke up.”

Zuko seemed to get antsy about Lunae’s words and started to take a step towards Aang. Only, Iroh stopped him.

“Zuko, it’s time we talked,” the old man said before turning to Katara and Aang. “Go help your other friends. We'll catch up with you.”

Lunae stayed at Zuko’s side. She knew the talk was going to be unpleasant for him, she could tell by the look on Iroh's face.

"You're not the man you used to be, Zuko.” Iroh had a proud smile on his face as he spoke. “You are stronger and wiser and freer than you have ever been. And now you have come to the crossroads of your destiny.

“It's time for you to choose. It's time for you to choose good.”

Lunae put a gentle hand on Zuko’s shoulder, and the prince turned his attention to her. There was so much turmoil behind those amber eyes of his, it made Lunae’s heart ache.

“It's your choice, at the end of the day,” she reassured him. “But I know the boy that once spoke out against the injustice the Fire Nation perpetuated is still somewhere inside you.”

She looked at him sadly. The thought of him possibly losing that part of himself made Lunae’s heart ache.

“Even if you’ve tried to push it down.”

There was a noise coming down the cave. Heavy footsteps, possibly military boots. The Dai Li, probably. She didn’t have time to react before she and Iroh were trapped in crystals. Zuko let out a shout in shock as he watched both of the people he cared about most be trapped.

“I expected this kind of treachery from Uncle and Lunae.” Azula’s voice echoed through the cavern as she entered, flanked by two Dai Li agents. “But Zuko, Prince Zuko, you're a lot of things, but you're not a traitor, are you?”

“Release them immediately,” Zuko shouted.

“It's not too late for you, Zuko. You can still redeem yourself.” 

Iroh scowled at the princess’s words.

“The kind of redemption she offers is not for you,” Iroh reminded his nephew.

Azula rolled her eyes. 

“Why don't you let him decide, Uncle?” She turned her attention to her brother. “I need you, Zuko. I've plotted every move of this day, this glorious day in Fire Nation history, and the only way we win is together. At the end of this day, you will have your honor back. You will have Father's love. You will have everything you want.”

“Zuko, I am begging you,” Iroh cried. “Look into your heart and see what it is that you truly want.”

Zuko looked between his uncle and his sister. He looked so torn.

“You are free to choose.”

With her last words of “ressurance”, Azula motioned for the agents to follow her as she turned to go down the passage that Aang and Katara had gone through.

Lunae focused on pushing a large, strong bubble of wind away from her body to break the trap she was in. Zuko covered his face as shards of broken crystals whizzed past.

“You need to be careful doing that,” He warned harshly, watching as Lunae ran to Iroh and started trying to pull the crystals away from him.

“It was the fastest method I could think of, sorry,” she grunted, pulling at the crystals as hard as she could before falling back on her butt. 

Iroh frowned. 

“You two go after Azula,” the old man said. “I’ll be ok!”

Lunae and Zuko looked at each other, a silent look of agreement passing between them before they looked back to Iroh. They nodded in unison before they ran down the passage that Azula had gone down.

Ahead, they heard fighting, which came into view as they turned a corner. The fight was happening in what looked to be a huge sunken room with a huge pool in the center.

They watched as Azula jumped from a large pillar of stone as Aang used earthbending to make it crumble, the Fire Nation landed between Aang and Katara and pointed her fingers at both of them, preparing to attack. 

Zuko shot a blast of fire into the middle of the fight, and Azula, Katara, and Aang turned their attention to him. Everyone had a look of hesitance on their face, though Zuko noticed Azula was glaring at him, almost trying to tell him with her eyes that he had better choose to help her. But then he glanced at Lunae, standing beside him. The airbender gave him a nod. Without her having to speak a word, he knew that she would be behind him if he chose to go against his sister. Though, he could already imagine the look of betrayal on her face if he helped Azula.

Did he want to help Azula? After what his sister had done to Lunae, it made his stomach churn to think about stabbing his friend in the back to be on his sister’s side. But there was a chance that his father would accept him back…

“You’re being used…”

Lunae’s words from under the lake filled his mind. She was right, and he hated that he knew that. If he did take Azula’s offer, there’s no telling what would set his father off again. 

He thrust his fist out, sending a wave of fire towards his sister. Azula let out a surprised gasp and rolled out of the way just in time for the fire to just singe the end of her tunic. 

“You’ve made the wrong choice, brother,” she growled, before pointing at Zuko and Lunae. “Get them! The Avatar is mine.”

Two Dai Li agents made their way towards the duo as Azula started to attack Aang and Katara. Lunae took a fighting stance next to Zuko and sent a gust of air towards the agents, knocking them onto their backs.

“If you can get me close to Azula, I can knock her out,” Lunae said as she took Zuko’s hand and pulled him towards where the other three were fighting.

They were stopped by another agent, who made a stone wall in front of them. Lunae launched herself up over the wall, though Zuko just blasted through it with a strong fireball. They managed to catch up with Katara, who was fighting with a group of Dai Li.

“Please tell me one of you has a plan,” she grunted, using a water whip to keep the agents away from her. 

Lunae swirled her hands around each other and started to create a vortex of air that sucked the agents in. Then, she swiped her hands to the side to send the vortex flying into the wall, Dai Li agents included.

“I have a technique that I can use to knock Azula out,” she explained. “I just need her distracted long enough for me to focus on it.”

Katara’s expression was a mix of shock and amaze as the agents were flung into the wall. 

“Zuko, could you help me distract Azula so your friend can focus on what she needs to,” she asked once she had finally taken in what had to be done.

Zuko looked at Lunae and then nodded. He wasn’t sure what technique she was talking about, since he was still pretty in the dark about just how powerful her bending had gotten over the past three years. He thought the vortex she made was pretty big, but was there something stronger than that ?

✸✸✸

“Azula!”

Katara wrapped a rope of water around the princess’s leg and pulled her towards them. Lunae watched from her spot behind a rock as the waterbender and Zuko started to enact their plan of distracting Azula. 

Taking a deep breath, Lunae focused her attention on searching for what she needed. It always took her a moment, at first, when she was using this particular technique. Finding the air in someone’s lungs was a very precise thing to do, and the first time that Lunae had used the technique, she had accidentally removed the air too quickly and caused her attacker’s lungs to collapse. 

She really didn’t want Zuko to have to watch his sister go through that.

So, Lunae focused on finding Azula’s breath. When she had it,she closed her eyes and closed her hand into a fist. Placing the fist on her diaphragm, Lunae slowly started to move it from the base of her diaphragm up. 

She started to hear Azula struggling to breathe. Choked, weak gasps that were a futile attempt to regain the breath being stolen from her. A sick part of Lunae, probably the part that was her father’s daughter, felt a strange satisfaction at the struggle of the girl who had terrorized her for years. 

When she heard Azula slump forward, she stopped. She didn’t want to go overboard and kill Azula, though she had learned that it took a few minutes to kill someone like that when their lungs didn’t collapse from the sudden vacuum.

She stepped out from behind the rock she was hiding behind to the horrified stares of Katara and Zuko.

“Is she…” Zuko started, staring at Azula’s unconscious body.

“No,” Lunae protested, holding her hands up in fear. The last thing she wanted was for Zuko to think she was a monster or something. “I just did it long enough to knock her out! She should be breathing now.”

She pressed her fingers to Azula’s neck and let out a relieved sigh.

“Yeah, she’s breathing.”

Katara let out a shaky breath.

“I’ve… never seen Aang do something like that,” she said solemnly. “Where did you even learn that?”

Before she could answer, a rock glove whizzed past Lunae’s face. She turned her head to look at the gathering crowd of Dai Li agents. Katara pulled water from the pool to make octopus-like tentacles around her to defend herself. Zuko started trying to fight the first ones that came at him with a mix of fire and martial arts. Lunae was sending large gusts of wind towards the agents coming at her.

“There’s too many of them!” Aang’s warning rang through the cave.

Lunae knew he was right. She turned her head for a brief moment and saw as the young Avatar encased himself in a tent of crystals. 

“We need to make sure they can’t get to the Avatar,” she asserted.

So, the three of them tried to hold the Dai Li off. Lunae made another vortex and shouted at Zuko to light it up. She launched the flaming whirlwind towards some of the agents, who managed to block it with a stone wall.

There was a glowing that Lunae caught out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head, and saw that it was coming from Aang’s crystal tent. She felt the air start to move around her as the top of the shelter burst open, and Aang emerged with glowing eyes and tattoos, being carried up by a large vortex.

A sinking feeling of dread hit Lunae like a truck. It was her dream, she knew where it was going. It’s like the world shifted into slow motion as she looked over to where Azula had been laying, only to see that the princess was now awake and starting to shoot lightning from her fingertips.

Lunae couldn’t get out a warning before the lightning struck the Avatar.

She saw as a large wave was sent towards Aang’s falling body and felt Katara rush past her. Luckily the wave took out most of the Dai Li agents. 

Zuko and Lunae followed Katara, kneeling beside the waterbender as she looked down at Aang and sobbed. There were no signs of life, and the pull Lunae had been feeling had… stopped. 

Lunae heard the crackle of electricity, and she turned to face Azula. Only, a large fireball was sent the princess’s way before she had the chance. 

“You've got to get out of here! I'll hold them off as long as I can!” Iroh’s voice boomed.

The old man started to fight off Azula as Zuko scooped Aang up and Katara led them over to a waterfall that ran under an opening in the cavern. She used her waterbending to push them up to the surface.

✸✸✸

Riding on the back of Appa, Aang’s sky bison that Lunae had convinced Zuko to save, left the airbender with a strange feeling. On one hand, she felt at peace with what was the last of the original airbenders. But on the other, Aang was still showing no signs of life as they flew through the rain. 

Lunae watched with worry as Katara unplugged a small vial that rested around her neck. She started to try to heal the lightning wound on Aang’s back. Everyone on the back of Appa; the Earth King, Katara’s brother Sokka, Aang’s earthbending teacher Toph, the Earth King’s bear, along with Zuko and Lunae, all looked on in anticipation.

As the glowing from the water stopped, it seemed as if nothing happened. Katara let out a sob. 

But a soft groan came from Aang, and his tattoos flickered with his Avatar glow for a moment. He gave Katara a weak smile, who held him closer as Appa flew over the walls of Ba Sing Se. 

The Earth King looked over the city he had ruled for years in horror.

“The Earth Kingdom ... has fallen.”

Chapter Text

A loud BOOM woke Lunae from her slumber. She launched herself into a standing position, grabbing the machete that had been given to her by Hakoda, the Southern Water Tribe’s chief, a few days after they had arrived at the camp at Chameleon Bay. He had seen something in her (something that his son, Sokka, had protested), and had trusted her to join in the night shifts to watch over the camp. Though, she was always accompanied by Bato, Hakoda’s close friend. It had only been about an hour since her shift had ended, what could have changed in that short amount of time?

She ran out of her tent, taking note that Katara and Toph weren’t in their animal pelt cots. As she stepped out onto the beach, someone crashed into her. 

“Lunae!” Toph helped her to her feet. “There’s Fire Nation ships in the bay, and they’re attacking camp.”

The airbender looked out onto the water. The darkness made it hard to see. 

The moonlight caught against the familiar dark metal of multiple ship hulls. Lunae could count… maybe four or five? 

“Where’s everyone else,” she asked. She noticed how Toph seemed to be clinging onto her, like she did when they were flying from Ba Sing Se. 

“They’re in Hakoda’s tent,” the young girl said. “They sent me to find you.”

Lunae noticed how uncomfortable Toph looked. She remembered that the earthbender had mentioned having a hard time “seeing” on the sand, since she used her earthbending to accommodate for her blindness and Lunae guessed that since sand was looser than normal earth, it was harder for Toph to sense vibrations going through it.

“Is anyone else missing?” Lunae took Toph’s hand and started to quickly walk towards Hakoda’s tent. 

“I don’t think so.” Toph was clinging to Lunae as she spoke. “Katara and Zuko have been keeping the fireballs away from the chief’s tent.”

Ahead, a fireball nearly crashed into Hakoda’s tent, but it was stopped by a large wave. Another one was intercepted by a large burst of fire.

An unfamiliar feeling bubbled up in Lunae’s chest. It felt… strange and scary, especially since Lunae had been taught since she was young that her emotions were dangerous and should be hidden (though her mother had tried to counteract those teachings). Was she feeling jealous? She couldn’t be, it would be ridiculous to be jealous over her new friend helping her childhood friend defend people. 

But what was that feeling?

She shook it off, looking away. 

“Good.” Lunae’s tone held a coldness that was strange even to her. “That’s nice of them.”

Toph’s eyes widened, and a wide grin spread on her face.

“Ooh, are you jealous,” the earthbender teased as they stopped outside of Hakoda’s tent. 

Lunae frowned.

“Why would I be jealous?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Zuko’s my friend, I don’t need to be jealous.”

A cackle erupted from Toph’s chest.

“You’re so jealous!”

“Look, can we not?” Lunae rolled her eyes. “I think we have more important things going on right now.”

Toph agreed to keep the jealousy talk on the backburner for the moment, which made Lunae exhale a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. The airbender pulled the flap of Hakoda’s tent aside and ducked into the animal skin structure. Sokka and Hakoda looked up at her and Toph. Hakoda looked stressed, but his face softened when he saw that it was Lunae and Toph. Sokka, however, was staring Lunae down as if she was the reason for the attack.

Knowing how he felt about her and Zuko, she wouldn’t be surprised if he thought that.

“Lunae, I would like your advice on the best course of action, considering your past with the Fire Nation,” Hadoka said, patting the spot beside him. The other men in the tent watched as Lunae sat beside their chief. Most of them knew that she was from the Fire Nation, her close relationship with Zuko seemed to be confirmation enough, but she had only confided in Hakoda and Bato about where she was from in the Fire Nation.

“What were you thinking of doing,” Lunae asked, trying to ignore the scowl on Sokka’s face. 

“Well, considering our boats have been mostly destroyed, it would be hard to implement our usual tactics.”

Lunae pursed her lips and ran through about a hundred different options in her head. She had studied battle plans and war tactics since she was able to read. While most children were read bedtime stories and told folk tales when it was time for sleep, Lunae’s father had practically forced bundles of old scrolls into her arms and told her to occupy herself until she was tired (though her mother would always come in with an actual children’s story after her father had left).

An idea struck her. One that was often looked down on by Fire Nation generals and tacticians for being too “cowardly”, though it might just save their skins in this moment.

“Stealing a ship wouldn’t be too hard,” Lunae began to explain. “They’re far enough apart that a struggle wouldn’t be heard… and if someone above deck tries to sound an alarm horn, I’ve taught myself how to make spaces where sound can not escape.”

She looked around at the men gathered in the tent.

“And we have about the amount of people the ship would need to run off a smaller crew. If everyone wore uniforms, we could use the ship as a cover even after we escape!”

Sokka rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to protest the idea, but his father seemed to consider it. 

“It would be difficult to reach one of the boats, now that ours are damaged,” Hakoda remarked.

“They’re going to come to the beach to check to make sure the job is done.” Lunae said. “Usually, it will just be one ship. We can attack them then, capture the ship, and then travel west like you and Sokka have been planning to.”

Hakoda and Sokka shared a look. 

“How long will we have to wait them out,” Hakoda asked.

“They won’t stop until all of the tents are burning.” Lunae glanced around, pursuing her lips again. “We would need somewhere to hide until the ship comes to shore.”

“I think I can help with that.” Toph punched her fist into her open palm with a grin.

✸✸✸

“It’s so dark in here,” one of the Water Tribe men grumbled, his voice echoing through the makeshift cave that Toph had carved out for everyone in the cliffside near the beach. 

Lunae gently shushed him and pressed her ear against the stone, listening as closely as she could for the creaking as the gangway of the Fire Nation ship lowered. When she heard it, she tapped Toph’s arm to alert the earthbender to open the makeshift cave. As the side of the cliff opened, Hakoda led the group towards the ship. 

“Over there!”

A group of Fire Nation soldiers charged at them, and both Lunae and Katara stepped out to handle the group. Lunae created a sound void around them, focusing on blending any warning they were trying to send to their  crewmates on the ship with the wind. Katara commanded the sea to climb further up the beach to where the group of soldiers were, the water wrapping around their ankles and dragging them under in the blink of an eye.

“I'll take out anyone in the bridge,” Lunae whispered to Hakoda. “I’ll send a sign. Zuko will know it, so listen to him. When he says it’s all clear, we should be free to take the ship completely.”

Hakoda nodded and looked over at Zuko. 

“I’m putting a lot of faith in you two.” His voice was firm, but not in a scary way. It was almost… fatherly, or at least what Lunae imagined a fatherly voice would sound like. 

“You won’t regret it,” Lunae reassured him before running towards the ship, making her way up the gangway and finding the vent system that would lead her to the bridge.

She was starting to thank her guiding spirits that she had such an obsession with ship blueprints as a child, even if Zuko had teased her about it for years.

It’s almost like she could see a map of the ship’s ventilation system in her mind. She knew all the right turns to take to find her desired destination, which was confirmed when she heard voices coming from below her.

“Why haven’t they sent a signal yet?” A gruff man’s voice rang through the bridge and up into the air vents. 

“Do you think we need to sound the alarm,” another gruff voice asked, though this one was more feminine

Lunae’s eyes widened as she looked down through the grate to see a man in a general’s uniform and a woman in a captain’s uniform.

When the general gave the go ahead to sound the alarm, Lunae dropped down from the vent, landing on the command console with one leg bent and one leg out. 

“Who-” The general started, only for Lunae to interrupt him by sending him, the captain, and three other soldiers who were trained in navigating the ship flying into the metal wall of the bridge. 

The captain hit her head hard enough to be knocked out, as did the three soldiers despite their helmets. The general was smart and quick enough to guard his head with his hands, though.

“The Avatar?” The general clambered to his feet as he spoke, taking a defensive stance against Lunae.

Lunae flipped off the command console and landed in front of the middle console, where the alarm button was located. 

“No, but you do know me.” Lunae pulled her machete from its sheath on her back. “I’m sure my father has sent out plenty of wanted posters to every ship with my face plastered on them.”

A look of recognition passed over the general’s face.

“Lady Lunae,” he said. “Your father has been looking for you. He has offered money for anyone who could bring you back to the capital alive.”

Lunae let out a small huff. Of course her father had a bounty out for her, what else would she expect from that man?

“Well, unfortunately for you, you won’t be able to collect that reward,” Lunae said, closing her eyes to focus on his breath.

✸✸✸

A soft whistle rang through the air in a familiar rhythm. Phwee-phwee phweeeee phwee-phwee

The song was an old Fire Nation lullaby, one of the few left since Firelord Sozin tried to stomp out all usage of music and dancing as art forms and self expression. The only reason it remained was due to the knowledge of Princess Ursa, who taught it to her children before her disappearance.

Zuko knew the moment he heard the first note that it was the signal. He and Lunae had been using it for years as their way of finding each other in a crowd. He had taught it to her when they were young and Lunae was sad, though he couldn’t quite remember why she had been sad. He just sang the song to her, since it was what his mother did to help him feel better.

“That’s our signal,” he turned to Hadoka. “Lunae says it’s safe.”

Hakoda showed hesitance, though it was quickly set aside as he turned to his men and said, “Move forward!”

Zuko followed the Water Tribe warriors onto the ship, falling behind to stand beside Toph. The groups split up, with some of the warriors going down to the boiler room, cargo bay, and soldier’s quarters, while Katara, Sokka, Toph, and Zuko joined Hakoda and some of the other soldiers in going above to the deck.

When they made their way up the stairs, there was… quite a lot going on. Soldiers were charging towards the bottom of the conning tower, but something was keeping them away. 

Or someone…

Lunae was using the machete that Hakoda had given her in a similar way to how Zuko had seen Aang using his staff. When she swung the blade, it seemed like she was using it to guide the air around her. It was like watching a master at work, even if she was self taught. Though, Zuko couldn’t help but notice that the weapon wasn’t exactly clean of blood.

“Lunae!” Zuko called, sprinting towards her. He had to dodge a couple of soldiers, but it didn’t take her long to be by her side. 

She gave him a small smile, using her bending to launch the soldiers that tried to attack him overboard.

“You got my signal,” she said, pulling him into a quick hug.

“It’s hard not to notice it.” He hugged her back, the smile on his lips just barely noticeable.

“I think I’ve taken down about twenty guards so far,” she explained as she pulled away, making a slicing motion in the air with her blade and in doing so making a blade-shaped dent in one of the approaching soldier’s armour, which made them stumble back and fall. She swiped her sword to the side and sent another five soldiers overboard. “Make that twenty-five.”

Zuko looked at her with a mix of horror and awe in his eyes. 

“You… know most of them probably can’t swim, right?”

“That sounds like a them problem,” Lunae shrugged, resting the blunt side of her blade on her shoulder. 

Something about her casual attitude and the way she was handling the blade made something in Zuko awaken. Lunae looked so… rugged, her black hair a mess of tangles and her right cheek splattered with a little bit of blood. And Zuko wasn’t sure why but it felt like his chest was on fire and a bunch of flutter-bats into his stomach.

“Uh, whose blood is that,” he asked.

Lunae reached up to touch her cheek and then checked her fingers. The blood was already starting to dry, so it came away slightly sticky.

“Oh.” She let out an awkward laugh. “It’s not mine.”

Zuko nodded slowly. He had been expecting that answer, but it still shocked him. 

“I think that’s all of them,” Hakoda called as he joined the two of them at the base of the tower. He looked over Lunae, taking in the blood on her cheek, despite no open wound, and the blood on her machete. “I’m going to take it that you took it upon yourself to clear the tower on your way down from the bridge?”

Lunae nodded.

“Yeah, I did. It was pretty easy.”

Hakoda returned her nod, though he seemed hesitant.

“Thank you, both of you.” He put one hand on each of their shoulders. “You both did good today.”

Chapter Text

“Lunae?”

The soft, rumbling voice calling her name drew Lunae’s attention away from her meditation. She opened an eye to see Zuko standing in the doorway of her room, his arms crossed over his chest. Lunae quirked an eyebrow as she looked over him. It was an almost unsettling feeling, to see him in the soldier’s uniform of their homeland when they were both wanted by the Fire Nation, though it was better than risking a passing ship recognizing his face and realizing that their ship was captured.

“I thought I said that I was coming up here to meditate.” Lunae let out a soft sigh after she spoke, letting that sigh guide a gust of air that extended to the low-lying desk at the end of her sleeping mat to put out the candles atop the wooden surface.

Zuko watched as a trail of smoke rose from the candle wicks with a mystified expression on his face.

“I just, um…”

Lunae took note of the way Zuko’s eyes wandered. 

It made her feel strange, in a way. She knew they had been friends for years (it was almost as if three years hadn’t passed at all since he left the Fire Nation and she found him in Ba Sing Se), but at the same time there had also been a point when their affection for each other had gone beyond that of normal friendship. She was thinking it was around his thirteenth birthday, when he had kissed her cheek beside the pond in the garden. The action that in the past had been a small sign of their close friendship felt like it held a deeper meaning, for some odd reason.

Though it wasn’t like either of them had much time to examine those feelings before Zuko left.

"Hakoda wanted me to tell you that dinner is ready,” Zuko mumbled, giving her an awkward smile.

Lunae returned his smile with one that was full of warmth. Though, when Zuko turned to leave, she started to protest.

“Wait.”

He turned to face her with a raised brow.

“Can we…” Lunae continued, rubbing her arm awkwardly. “Can we talk for a minute? Since you’re here, and all.”

The prince nodded and sat on the sleeping mat beside her, asking, “What do you want to talk about?”

“There’s been something that’s been on my mind,” Lunae lamented. “It has to do with us.”

She watched as a worried expression crossed Zuko’s face. 

“Did I do something wrong?”

The question made her heart ache. Zuko had always been a little self-conscious, and constantly second guessed himself when it came to making the right choices. Of course it had gotten worse after what had happened with his father.

“No, you did nothing wrong.” Lunae’s voice was gentle as she spoke. She tried to think about her words before she said them instead of letting them tumble out like water from a broken dam. “I was just… thinking about that time we were at the turtle duck pond.”

“Which time,” Zuko inquired, as his look of worry switched to one of confusion.

“It was your birthday, I believe.”

A blush creeped up Zuko’s neck and invaded his pale cheeks. Lunae thought the sight was cute, but she tried to ignore such thoughts for the moment. 

“Yeah, I remember that,” Zuko muttered. “Why were you thinking about it?”

Lunae considered the question. Why had she been thinking about their encounter by the pond, since that had been what felt like a lifetime ago and there were other, more important things she could be thinking about.

“You… seemed like you were looking at me weird after I blew the candles out.” She sighed. “I don’t know why, but it made me feel similar to when you kissed my cheek back then.”

She chewed on her bottom lip anxiously.

“There’s been a few times that I’ve felt that feeling since we found each other again.”

“What does it feel like,” the prince asked curiously. He seemed almost unsure of himself.

Taking a moment to think about it, Lunae settled on the best explanation for the feeling she had been experiencing.

“It feels like my whole chest is warm and my stomach is fluttering,” she explained. “And I feel a little dizzy, sometimes, but not, like, sick dizzy, but dizzy in the way you get when you’re just so happy you start to feel like you’re floating on air-”

She paused her rambling to give him an awkward smile. 

“Does that make sense?”

Zuko nodded slowly. Their smiles had seemed to have switched, now that Lunae was the one with the awkward one and Zuko returned it with one full of warmth.

“Yeah,” he said as he gently took Lunae’s hand into his own. “I understand exactly what you mean.”

The feeling was back, and Lunae glanced down at Zuko’s hand that was holding hers with a tenderness she hadn’t felt in months. Not since she left her mother behind in the Fire Nation.

“Could I… Would it be okay if,” Zuko sighed, seeming to deflate as he stumbled over his words before he took a deep breath in order to continue. “Would it be okay if I kissed your cheek?”

Zuko’s awkwardness when he asked for her permission didn’t help the way Lunae’s heart was practically beating out of her chest. Zuko was always better with impulsivity (probably as a way to overcome the anxiety he carried), so the fact that he was able to stumble over his words yet still gather himself to ask if she would be okay with a kiss instead of just going in for it made her feel safe.

“I would like that,” Lunae said, her awkward smile turning warm once again.

The hand that wasn’t holding her own came up to cup her cheek and gently pulled her face closer to his. Zuko pressed a soft kiss to the tanned skin of her cheek. His lips were chapped, sure, but Lunae didn’t mind one bit, not when they were also warm and loving.

A soft giggle slipped past Lunae’s lips when Zuko pulled away.

“That was… nice,” she sighed.

Zuko’s hand stayed on Lunae’s cheek and caressed her skin. 

“Yeah,” he mumbled before glancing at the door. “We should… get down to dinner pretty soon.”

Lunae let out a grumpy groan, though she was mostly just being playful. Going to dinner was fine by her, but she was eager to tease her friend a little.

“Aw, but we were bonding,” she said with an exaggerated, sarcastic whine coming into her voice. She even draped her arms around his shoulders for added effect. “Stay here and keep kissing me!”

The laugh that escaped Zuko would have gone unnoticed if Lunae wasn’t so close to him.

“C’mon, Lunae, I’m hungry.” He unwrapped himself from her hold as he continued, “You’re being clingy.”

Lunae pouted.

“I have every right to be clingy, you left for three years!”

Zuko just rolled his eyes in annoyance, though the small smirk that pulled on his lips told a different story. 

“Fine, touche.” He stood from the mat and opened the door to her room. “You can be clingy after dinner.”

✸✸✸

Lunae and Zuko got themselves a helping from the big pot of soup in the cargo hold of the ship, which had been refashioned into a communal area for everyone onboard. Ships of this size very rarely had a communal area big enough for everyone on board, since community was something the Fire Nation was not often interested in fostering, especially when it came to low-level soldiers. 

That was something that shocked Lunae about the warrior of the Southern Water Tribe. They were all comfortable with each other, and even saw their fellow warriors as kin instead of just as someone to go into battle with. 

Lunae and Zuko shared a glance when they saw that almost everyone was sitting in a large circle on the floor. Hakoda sat at the head, with Sokka and Katara on either side. Toph sat beside Sokka, and was eagerly slurping up her soup. They seemed to be sharing stories, sincere everyone was listening to the chief talk at the moment.

“Hey you two,” Katara called, waving Lunae and Zuko over to sit beside her. They both obliged, with Lunae sitting directly beside Katara and Zuko sitting beside Lunae. 

“Hey Katara,” Lunae said, giving the waterbender a gentle smile. She could tell that Katara wasn’t feeling great. Even if Lunae didn’t know her super well, she did know general signs of someone who was going through it, mentally. The dark circles, the shaky hands, the shallow breaths. 

“Are you feeling ok?”

Lunae’s question was met with a casual huff, and Katara waving her hand as if she was trying to fan away addressing the issue.

“I’m fine, I just didn’t sleep well,” the waterbender lied.

Lunae had a feeling she knew what it was about. Katara had been spending most of her days with Aang, doing what seemed to be intense healing sessions in an effort to wake him up. The only reason they knew he was alive was because Lunae’s pull was still present, even if it was faint. Though, it had gotten much better over the past couple of days, and Lunae knew that Katara’s healing had something to do with it.

“He’s going to be ok, Katara,” Lunae whispered reassuringly. “I can feel that he’s alive. You’re doing good, I can feel his spirit getting stronger every time you heal him.”

Katara gave her a small smile. Then, Hakoda continued the story he was telling when he came in.

“... I was thrown off the boat and into the cold water. A large tiger-shark was swimming towards me, and I didn’t have a weapon on me except for my jaw blade.” The man let out a laugh. “So, I tried my best to fend off the beast. It managed to give me a chomp on the leg before Bato pulled me out of the water.”

He pulled up the leg of his pants, showing off the scar that remained of the encounter. 

Lunae leaned over to Katara, a curious expression on her face. 

“What is happening right now, exactly?”

“They’re sharing scar stories,” Katara whispered.

“Is this… common for you?”

“Is it not for you?”

The two girls looked at each other in confusion for a moment, before Lunae said, “Most people in the Fire Nation do not show off scars unless they are ones earned honorably from battle.”

Her eyes wandered to Zuko, and the scar on his face. A frown crossed her lips as she thought about what had been done to him.

“Though, some of us don’t have a choice to hide them.”

Katara noticed the way Lunae’s demeanor fell when she looked at Zuko’s scar.

“You know what happened to him?”

As she bit her lip, Lunae looked back at Katara with a sad smile. 

“I do. But it’s not my story to tell.”

“You two could share your stories to the group, if you’d like,” Katara offered. “It might help you process what happened.”

“I think,” Lunae started, letting out a soft sigh. “I think we would only kill the mood.”

She heard Zuko scoot a little closer to her, and felt his arm brush against hers as he leaned over to her. 

“What would kill the mood,” the prince asked curiously.

Lunae and Katara both jumped when they heard him. 

“I, um…” Lunae said nervously. “Katara thinks it would be a good idea for us to share our scar stories.”

She watched as Zuko’s face fell. 

“That’s… probably going to kill the mood.”

An ironic laugh escaped Lunae.

“Right?”

Hakoda seemed to have overheard their conversation, and decided to step in. 

“You can’t kill the mood with your stories,” he reassured them. “Trust me, all of us have seen some awful stuff. We share these stories to help each other heal, because it helps to have people to talk to.”

Zuko and Lunae shared a look. They were having a conversation without speaking, just a glance that Zuko sent asking “do you want to do this” and Lunae returning his look with “only if you go first.” 

Zuko took a deep breath and started his story, moving his gaze from Lunae and down to the metal floor of the cargo hold. 

“I was thirteen,” he began, trying to ignore the interested stares from the men of the Southern Water Tribe, Sokka, Katara, and Toph. “I wanted to attend a war meeting. My uncle allowed me in, as long as I kept quiet and just let the generals do their talking with my father.

“One of the generals was talking about a plan for attacking a strong Earth Kingdom battalion. He suggested sending a division of entirely new recruits to attack from the front and distract the troops, while a more experienced division snuck in and attacked them from behind.”

Lunae saw how Zuko tensed up as he spoke about the war meeting. She remembered it, since she had been there with her father. 

She took Zuko’s hand into her own and gave it a soft squeeze to remind him that he was safe. Zuko gave her a sad smile before he continued.

“I… spoke out against the plan. My father was angry with me, and told me that only an Agni Kai could fix the situation. I accepted, thinking I was going to have to duel the general because it was his plan I had spoken out against.

“It turned out I was going to have to duel my father.” Zuko let out a sigh. “So… I forfeited. I was thirteen, I didn’t want to hurt my dad. He saw that as dishonorable…

“... and I suppose that he thought an appropriate course of action was to burn the left side of my face for that.”

Everyone in the circle, besides Lunae, looked at Zuko with a look of horror. It made Zuko feel self-conscious, so he deflected with a dry, humorless laugh.

“But, hey, at least my dad didn’t burn me multiple times, right Lunae?”

Lunae bit her lip. Now, the attention was on her, and everyone was expecting her to explain what the hell he meant by that.

“Yeah, but I still think our dads are pretty even on the shit list.” 

She sighed, setting her untouched bowl of soup aside and pulling her knees up to her chest. 

“What… happened to you,” Toph asked, her usually big and sassy voice now soft and concerned. 

Lunae let out another sigh. 

“My dad wanted me to be a firebender,” she started to explain. “He wanted to be able to show off that his little girl was ‘just like him’, in terms of smarts, strength, and firebending prowess.

“But my mother discovered that I was an airbender like her when I sneezed and launched myself through the ceiling at three. My father had no idea about her bending, and she made sure that he didn’t find out about mine, either. It made my father angry, that I was a ‘nonbender like my mother’, but it was better than being killed because of our bending. But my father thought that ‘proper training’ might eventually bring out the ‘firebender in me’. So, every week, we would ‘train’.”

Lunae felt Zuko squeeze her hand reassuringly. She looked at him, only to be met with sad amber eyes. 

“He threw fire at me and told me that I could stop when I bent it like he knew I could. I’m pretty agile, my grandma said it comes with the airbending, so I dodged… mostly.”

She pulled her arm away from Zuko’s to roll up the sleeve of her soldier’s uniform, the old scars making her skin wrinkled in an almost prune-like way. Even the warriors in the circle recoiled at the sight, and she knew that it wasn’t the scar itself that they were recoiling from.

“It started when I was eight,” Lunae confessed. “It didn’t stop until I was twelve.”

Something warm rolled down her cheek. Lunae hadn’t even realized that she was starting to cry until it was happening, and Zuko pulled her into a hug.

“ Both of your fathers hurt you two,” Hakoda asked, a mix of sadness and anger on his face.

When both Zuko and Lunae nodded slowly, Sokka let out a humorless laugh. 

“What, does having a bad father come free with your Fire Nation citizenship,” he joked. It lightened the mood, just a little. Then, Zuko spoke.

“Lu Ten had a good dad.”

Zuko’s words made Lunae look up. She could see the pain in his eyes at the thought of his cousin and uncle. She had remembered how much he had looked up to Lu Ten, and how much his death had crushed Zuko. 

“Iroh is pretty amazing,” Lunae said with a smile, leaning back into Zuko’s chest.

Hakoda observed the two teens with a frown on his face.

“You two are very strong,” he said. “Even when you should have never had to be. I’ll tell you what, when we win the war, you are both welcome in the Southern Water Tribe. Whenever you need a place to stay, I’m sure there will be a couple of igloos you could stay in, as long as you don’t mind the cold.”

Lunae smiled, and she felt Zuko hold her just a little tighter. 

“We would be glad to, Chief Hakoda.”

Chapter Text

The next few days on the ship felt… odd. It was a good odd; Lunae and Zuko were starting to feel like a part of the group, and it seemed like everyone respected them a little more.

Well, almost everyone.

“Well, what do you think we should do instead, Miss Know-It-All,” Sokka barked, crossing his arms over his chest. 

He, his father, and Lunae had been trying to work on an invasion plan for the upcoming eclipse, and almost every piece of input Lunae had offered had been put down by Sokka. The reason he was mad at her at the moment was because she pointed out that any attempts at attacking by sea would be met with resistance from the Fire Nation Navy, which had a large concentrated force near the capital. 

“I’m not saying an attack by sea is impossible.” Lunae rubbed her temple as she spoke. “It’s just going to be very difficult, and we only have a very small window for the full eclipse. We’re going to have to invade before the eclipse starts in order to be in the capital in time, which means that the navy will have their full power.”

Sokka leaned back against the doorway of the bridge, letting out an annoyed grunt.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he conceded.

Hakoda looked between the two teens before his eyes settled on Lunae, his tone firm yet gentle as he asked, “What would you recommend?”

The airbender hummed as she thought, weighing multiple options in her head. A land invasion would take too long, considering the rough terrain. 

“We need a way under the sea wall,” she said slowly. “That’s one of the bigger issues. It keeps any ships out… but the water under the netting is almost completely open.”

Sokka’s face lit up. 

“What if we make something that could keep us under the water so we can avoid the sea wall and the navy?”

“That could work!” Lunae smiled. “Once we hit the ground and the Plaza, I’m less worried. It’s pretty heavily defended, but if we get enough people together and take out the towers-”

“We’ve got the invasion in the bag!” Sokka’s cheer pretty much finished Lunae’s sentence with a little more gusto than she was going to use. 

Lunae cracked a small smile as she leaned back against the control panel of the bridge. 

“See? You don’t hate all of my ideas,” she teased.

Sokka frowned and crossed his arms over his chest as he stuttered, “I- You- Well…” He let out a frustrated grumble.

“You have okay ideas for someone from the Fire Nation,” he said, “and I guess it’s a good thing that you’re on our side. So the Fire Nation doesn’t get those ideas.”

Lunae let a small amused scoff escape her. 

“Yeah, sure,” she said sarcastically. “As long as my ‘okay’ ideas can help end the war.”

Hakoda, who had been quiet for most of the conversation, chuckled.

“You both have great ideas.” The chief placed a hand on one of each teen’s shoulders as he spoke. “And you make quite the team when you work together.”

Sokka frowned and looked at the ground, his expression going sour at the notion of he and Lunae being a team .

“Yeah, yeah, I just want the war to be over,” he grumbled.

Lunae felt her stomach churn. Some of her family had played a huge part in continuing the war, her father and paternal grandfather especially.

On the other hand, her great-grandmother was a victim of that war, as was her grandmother and mother, in a way. Her great-grandmother had lost her people and was driven from her home and forced to integrate into the home of those who had destroyed her culture. She never got to complete her training to become an airbender, to earn her arrows. It was almost a cruel joke that her daughter was an airbender. Her daughter would be forced to hide what should have been celebrated, what should have been curated.

Instead, Lunae’s grandmother lived her life as a nonbender, as did Lunae’s mother who was also an airbender.

Thinking about the opposing sides of her family made Lunae feel uneasy. But she was righting the wrongs of her paternal lineage and ending the cycle of her maternal one, right?

Lunae really hoped that was the case.

The door opened, causing Sokka to stumble as he was pushed. Hakoda and Lunae glanced up and smiled when they saw it was Katara.

“Lunae, I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” the waterbender exclaimed. “I could really use your help with Aang. His breathing is really unsteady and I had an idea for how we could keep it normal while I heal him.”

Lunae quirked a brow, curiosity setting in as she started to approach Katara. 

“What’s your idea,” she asked.

“I’ll tell you on the way.”

Before the girls turned to leave, Hakoda’s voice cut through the air as the chief asked, “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Katara seemed to tense up for a moment, and she didn’t even look at her father.

“We’re fine, Dad,” she said coldly as she grabbed Lunae’s wrist and started to lead the airbender down to where Aang was staying.

Lunae allowed herself to be led by Katara for a minute or two. She wanted to get far enough away from the bridge so that Hakoda and Sokka couldn’t hear when she asked Katara why she had snapped at her dad.

While she had expected defensiveness, maybe honesty if she was lucky, Lunae was a little surprised when Katara just gave her a look of bewilderment.

“I didn’t snap at my dad,” Katara said, tilting her head to the side.

“What would you call that, then?”

“Call what?”

Lunae sighed and rubbed her temple. For a moment, she felt uneasy. Maybe she had just incorrectly interpreted Katara’s tone, and Katara always spoke to her dad like that? It’s not like Lunae had known Katara long enough to pick up on her habits, and most of the interactions she had witnessed between seemed tense, but perhaps it wasn’t.

“Maybe I’m just projecting,” Lunae grumbled as she started to follow Katara again.

“Projecting what, exactly,” Katara asked.

“Nevermind.” Lunae took a deep breath and let out another sigh. “Anyway, what was your idea?”

The confused expression that had previously masked Katara’s face disappeared, and instead it shifted to one of hesitancy.

“Well, you know how when we were in the caves below Ba Sing Se, you…” She trailed off for a moment as she searched for the right words. “You could control Azula’s breath and stole it long enough to make her pass out.”

It was Lunae’s turn to wear the perplexed look, now. Just where was Katara going with this?

“Uh huh,” Lunae said slowly.

“And you know how Aang’s breathing has been really shallow, and even stops sometimes when I’m trying to do a healing session for him?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, maybe you could control his breathing and keep it steady while I heal him? Like, help him take even, deep breaths?”

Lunae’s eyes widened, her palms getting clammy as she thought of all the ways that could go wrong.

“I-I don’t know, Katara, I’ve never used that ability to do something like that,” she said, a look of guilt written on her face. “I’ve only ever pulled the breath out, I’ve never really tried to guide someone to breathe.”

“Surely it’s the same principle, though.” Katara put a hand on Lunae’s shoulder. “You know, instead of completely pulling the breath out, you guide it in and out of the lungs.”

As she pursed her lips, Lunae weighed her options. She knew that it was dangerous for Aang’s breathing to be so shallow and to stop completely at times, he wouldn’t be getting enough oxygen to his brain and could wind up either dead or with damage. 

“I’ll try it.”

Katara beamed.

“Thank you so much! I think we can actually start making progress if we can keep his breathing steady while I heal him.”

Lunae returned Katara’s smile, and she felt herself starting to become hopeful that Aang would recover soon.

✸✸✸

“Okay, Lunae, I’m about to start,” Katara warned, sitting at Aang’s side near the middle of his torso while Lunae sat across from her. Aang was rolled over on his stomach so Katara could access the lightning mark on his back.

Lunae nodded and crossed her feet over each other. As she closed her eyes, she heard Katara guide the water where she needed it. 

It took Lunae a moment to find Aang’s breath. It was small, and as Katara started the process of trying to heal him, it seemed to get smaller. Taking a deep breath, Lunae tried what Katara suggested. Instead of pulling Aang’s breath out like she had done in time past, she slowly guided fresh air to fill his lungs. After a pause, she allowed Aang to naturally exhale the air before she filled his lungs.

Strangely, the action seemed so easy to Lunae. Maybe because she had taught herself to breathbend before she had even properly learned the basics (mostly out of necessity and not choice), or maybe because she was using her own deep breathing to lead Aang’s. 

The next few minutes passed before Lunae knew it, and she heard Katara stand.

“I think that should do it,” the waterbender said, causing Lunae to release Aang’s breath from her hold and open her eyes. 

“He feels stronger.” Lunae leaned closer to Aang’s face and studied it, looking for any outer sign of improvement.

As if on cue, the boy let out a soft groan. Katara ran to Lunae’s side and they watched as his eyes fluttered open.

“K… Katara?” He asked weakly as he looked at his friend before his eyes shifted to Lunae. “Kuzon?”

The two girls looked at each other before glancing back at Aang. 

“Who-” Lunae started to ask, but Aang was already asleep again.

Chapter Text

Looking out at the sea had always been calming to Lunae. As the breeze carried the salt from the waves and brushed against her skin, the airbender let out a soft sigh and let her eyes flutter closed.

 She felt two people lean against the railing next to her, though she could tell who one of them was from the faint smell of dirt, without having to open her eyes.

“Hey Toph,” Lunae greeted kindly before taking a guess as to who was with the earthbender. “Hey Katara.”

The two girls laughed.

“How did you know it was us?” Katara asked. “You didn’t even look!”

“Toph smells like dirt, and you were a lucky guess.”

Another small fit of giggles erupted from the duo, to which Lunae was happy to join in. 

“I like to call it a healthy coating of earth.” Toph grinned. “You and Katara wouldn’t understand.

“Hey, I like having a healthy amount of air around me at all times,” Lunae quipped, a coy smile pulling at her lips. “I don’t think I could live without it.”

Katara shook her head at the other girls’ banter. She still looked exhausted, but Aang had been showing signs of improvement over the past few days, so she had been sleeping a little bit better. The bags under her eyes were going back to normal, and her smiles weren’t as weak and sad. 

“I don’t know if I would want to be constantly damp,” the waterbender contended.

Lunae hummed and thought about how unpleasant that would be. She already disliked being damp for a short amount of time, she always used her airbending to blast water off of her after she was done bathing, so the idea of the sensation being constant would be her own personal hell.

“I think you’d start turning into human soup after a while,” Lunae remarked, making Katara cringe in disgust and Toph light up with interest.

“No thank you.” Katara stuck her tongue out and tried to shake off the image. 

“What, you don’t want to be a soup?” Toph teased, poking at her friend’s side.

“No!”

The trio shared another laugh before Lunae felt like she was being hit in the gut. She stumbled slightly, and tried to figure out what had happened as Toph and Katara rushed to her side. 

The pull that had been faint for almost five weeks while Aang was in the coma, even completely disappearing at times, was back. And the way it hit her, after she had grown accustomed to it being so faint, felt like being in the middle of a komodo-rhino stampede

“Lunae?” Katara put a hand on the airbender’s shoulder to steady her. “What’s wrong?”

“Aang’s awake,” Lunae said, looking towards the stairs that led down to the hull as she felt the pull getting closer.

Aang, whose brown hair had grown out in his coma, tripped as he was coming up the stairs. His staff slid across the deck, stopping at Hakoda and Bato’s feet, where the chief was leaned over petting Momo.

“Momo?” Aang questioned.

The young airbender rubbed his eyes in disbelief as his lemur friend bounded over to him and licked his face affectionately.

Katara followed Lunae’s gaze, and Toph turned her head towards the noise. Both of them beamed when they realized who had fallen, and left Lunae’s side to run to Aang’s. Toph excitedly exclaimed, “Twinkle Toes”, and Katara helped Aang up as she remarked that she was relieved to have him finally awake.

“I feel like I’m still dreaming…” Aang mumbled as Sokka and Zuko approached the scene, wearing their Fire Nation soldier uniforms, helmet included.

“You're not dreaming.” Katara pulled the young Avatar into a hug. “You're finally awake!”

When Katara pulled away, Sokka took the opportunity to embrace Aang as well. He remarked, “Aang, good to see you back with the living, buddy!”

Aang looked at Sokka with a woozy expression. His face was paler than normal, and his lips had a slightly grey tint to them.

“Sokka?” he asked, starting to stumble back.

Lunae’s eyes widened. She heard Toph yell that someone needed to catch him, and luckily Katara was way ahead of them. The waterbender caught Aang before his head hit the deck. 

Unlike the last couple of times that Aang had woken up for a little while before slipping back into the coma, Lunae didn’t feel the pull fade. She knelt by Katara’s side and put a hand on her shoulder. She could see the tension in Katara’s shoulders, and the worry in her eyes.

“He’s ok.” Lunae said reassuringly, earning a small smile from Katara. “I think he just overexerted himself. I’ll go get a cold cloth and some water for him.”

Katara nodded, mumbling a soft “thank you” before she looked back down to Aang.

As Lunae got up and walked down the stairs into the hull of the ship, Zuko followed her.

“I’ll come to help!” he said, his voice carrying an uncharacteristic amount of excitement. “So, um… you don’t have to carry everything yourself.”

Lunae raised a brow at her somewhat-boyfriend’s offer. Even though they had yet to officially settle on a label for their relationship, they basically treated each other like boyfriend and girlfriend. They knew about their shared feelings for each other, and occasionally they would hold hands or kiss each other on the cheek. 

“I’m only getting a cloth and a bucket of water…” she protested as they walked below deck.

“I know.” Zuko took off his helmet, rested it on his hip. Lunae could finally see the small smile on his face.

A small laugh escaped the airbender, and she stopped walking for a moment to lean in and kiss Zuko’s cheek. She felt the skin under her lips warm and noticed the slight flush on the prince’s face when she pulled away. It was so charming when Zuko got flustered.

“You just want time with me, don’t you?” Lunae asked incredulously.

“Maybe,” Zuko hummed.

The two of them laughed together, Lunae’s was bright and warm while Zuko’s was soft and could easily go unnoticed by most. She felt him slip his hand into hers, intertwining their fingers and giving her hand a loving squeeze.

They hurried down to the closest storage room. Zuko filled a bucket with fresh water, which came in from the sea and was filtered down in the boiler room before it was fit for consumption. Lunae grabbed a clean cloth and wet it in the sink with cold water, ringing out the excess.

“You… um…” Zuko started, though he found himself having a hard time gathering his thoughts when Lunae looked up at him. “It’s kind of like when you and Uncle took care of me back in Ba Sing Se, huh?”

Lunae nodded. She noticed how Zuko’s face fell when he thought about Iroh. 

“It is, kind of,” she agreed before looking at him with a sad expression. “You miss him… don’t you?”

“I just feel so… guilty.” They started to walk back up the stairs as Zuko continued, “And I’m angry at myself. I should have stayed with him. Or we should have brought him with us.”

Lunae frowned and put a hand on Zuko’s shoulder.

“Hey, don’t do that,” she fretted. “We would have been locked in a prison if we hadn’t fled when we did, and Azula would have chased us if Iroh didn’t stay. Iroh… he’s going to be ok. He’s a strong man. We’ll bust him out when we invade during the eclipse, if he hasn’t gotten himself out by then, ok?”

Her words did little to comfort Zuko. A frown pulled at his lips and his brow muscles were furrowed in thought. He muttered a soft “ok” and looked down at the ground.

When they returned to the rest of the group on the deck, Lunae was quick to help Katara care for Aang. The airbender took off her cloak and wrapped it around Aang to help warm him, earning a small thankful smile from Katara. 

Aang took a deep breath and his eyes fluttered open. 

“Hey, there you are,” Katara said gently, helping Aang sit up on his own.

The Avatar rubbed his temple and scooted so he was facing both the girls, starting to ask a lot of questions that were on his mind. 

“Why are we on a Fire Nation ship? Why is everyone dressed this way? And why am I the only one who's completely out of it?”

Everyone besides Katara, Aang, and Lunae dispersed as Lunae said, “One question at a time, Aang,” which caused Aang to take a deep breath and try to gather his thoughts.

“What are we doing on a Fire Nation ship?”

Lunae and Katara shared a glance.

“We needed a place to lay low while you healed,” Lunae explained slowly. “Capturing a ship to blend in was our easiest bet.”

“How did you guys manage that?” Aang ran a hand over his head as he spoke, before his eyes got wide and he rubbed his short hair. “Since when do I have hair? How long was I out?!”

The two girls tried to hold back their giggles at his revelation. It had been just over a month, and everyone besides Katara, Sokka, and Toph were shocked when his hair had started to grow while he was in his coma. Katara had explained that Aang had told her that the Air Nomads shaved their heads to help them feel the air currents around them. Zuko had given Lunae a funny look at the time, like he expected her to go cutting off her hair, even if it went against their nation’s beliefs.

She hoped she wouldn’t be expected to cut her hair in order to master airbending.

“It was a few weeks,” Katara answered Aang, interrupting Lunae’s thoughts.

Footsteps approached, and the three of them looked up to see Hakoda, who asked if everything was okay.

“We’re fine, Dad,” Katara asserted, her tone cold as she looked away from her father. 

The waterbender had been having a semi-rocky relationship with her father since they had reunited. Lunae wasn’t sure what Katara’s problem was, from her perspective, Hakoda seemed like the perfect father. He was kind and caring, and he listened to his kids instead of dismissing them…

Lunae would do anything for a father like that.

“I’m Hakoda,” the chief said as he brushed off his daughter’s attitude. He held out a hand for Aang to shake. “Katara and Sokka's father.”

Aang started to move to shake Hakoda’s hand, but Katara placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him as she sent her father a sideways glance. 

“He knows who you are. I just called you ‘Dad’, didn't I?”

Hakoda’s face fell as he replied, “I guess you're right.”

Aang didn’t let the odd tension between the father and daughter phase him. He gently took Katara’s hand off his shoulder and reached out to meet Hakoda’s outstretched hand.

“Nice to officially meet you, Chief Hakoda,” he said with a warm smile.

“It’s an honor to meet you.” Hakoda returned Aang’s smile before Katara budged in again.

“Great, great, so now you guys have finally met,” she grumbled. “So would you mind giving us a little privacy?”

Hakoda looked between the three teens, nodding slowly and responding, “of course,” before walking away.

Aang looked at Lunae for an explanation, but the older airbender just shrugged. 

“Are you mad at your dad or something,” Aang asked, his expression one of confusion.

Katara looked at him as if he had asked if the sky was purple, and brushed off his question with a befuddled, “Not at all. Why would you say that?” When Aang tried to shrug it off, not wanting to cause any trouble, he let out a small groan of pain, doubled over, and grabbed his side.

“Maybe we should go upstairs,” Katara said as she and Lunae helped Aang up. “You need a healing session.”

As she and Katara helped Aang to his room, Aang studied Lunae with a curious expression. 

“You’re the one who was airbending in the catacombs in Ba Sing Se, right?”

Lunae nodded slowly as she answered with a quick “I am”.

“I thought I was the last one,” Aang admitted with a bittersweet expression. “How do you…”

When he trailed off, Lunae was able to infer what he was trying to ask.

“My great grandmother was a nun at the Western Air Temple,” she started to explain. “When the raids first started, she was away from the temple gathering food. She saw what was happening at her home before the Fire Nation soldiers saw her and was able to hide until after the raids. After that she escaped to a small Fire Nation village near the coast. She didn’t have her arrows yet, so she could blend in, you know?”

Aang’s face fell.

“Yeah…”

Katara glared at Lunae for a moment, though the airbender wasn’t exactly sure why. Sure, the raids of the Air Temples were a heavy topic, but Aang had asked, hadn’t he?

The three of them reached Aang’s room and Katara helped Aang sit on the sleeping mat. Lunae took what had become her usual spot on a pillow next to the door so she could monitor Aang's breathing and be close in case she was needed.

“Tell me where the pain feels most intense.” Katara moved her hands, surrounded by water, to the scar on Aang’s back where the lightning had exited him. Aang let out a small hum and asked her to move a little higher. Then, his eyes went wide and he let out a small “ugh!” 

“Wow, you're definitely in the right area there.”

“I can feel a lot of energy twisted up around there,” Katara noted “Let me just see if I can-”

Her words were interrupted by Aang jerking backwards. Lunae quickly shot up and moved to his side. He had been awake for much longer than he had in the past, surely he wasn’t about to slip back into a coma. 

Luckily, he stayed awake.

“I went down! I didn't just get hurt, did I? It was worse than that.” Aang rubbed his head as he spoke. “I was gone… but you brought me back.”

“I just used the spirit water from the North Pole,” Katara admitted. “I don't know what I did exactly.”

“You saved me,” Aang said with a smile, turning to look at the waterbender with a smile.

Lunae cleared her throat as Aang and Katara stared at each other a little too long. 

“Why don’t you rest for a little while?” the airbender offered with an awkward smile. She really didn’t like feeling like the third wheel.

✸✸✸

After Aang had rested, everyone gathered on the deck for Sokka to give Aang the run down on the events of the past few weeks and the plans for the future. Sokka was sitting on a crate with another crate in front of him set up like a table, a map laid out on top.

“After what happened at Ba Sing Se, we had to get you to safety,” he started. “We flew back to Chameleon Bay where we found my father and the other Water Tribe men. The Earth King decided he wanted to travel the world in disguise, so he set off alone. Well, not completely alone.

“Soon, the bay was overrun by Fire Nation ships. Rather than fight them all, we captured a single ship and made it our disguise. Since then we've been traveling west. We crossed through the Serpent's Pass a few days ago. We've seen a few Fire Nation ships, but none have bothered us.”

Aang, who had listened intently, looked at Sokka with a curious expression.

“So… what now?”

“We've been working on a modified version of the invasion plan,” Hakoda said, standing behind his son.

Katara all but glared at her father as she crossed her arms over her chest.

“I think you mean Sokka and Lunae’s invasion plan.”

As Hakoda’s face fell, Lunae looked to Sokka as if to ask “what’s her deal”. Sokka just shrugged. Lunae was starting to think that maybe she wasn’t just projecting her own relationship with her father onto Katara’s interactions with Hakoda.

“Yes, Sokka and Lunae's plan,” Hakoda said before he seemed to steel himself and continued, “We won't be able to mount a massive invasion without the Earth King's armies, but the solar eclipse will still leave the Fire Nation vulnerable.”

“So we're planning a smaller invasion,” Sokka added. “Just a ragtag team of our friends and allies from around the Earth Kingdom. We already ran into Pipsqueak and The Duke.”

The two kids (that Lunae had barely interacted with since the group had ran into them while docked at a small Earth Kingdom town for supplies) smiled at Aang. The Duke was sitting on Pipsqueak’s broad shoulders while Pipsqueak slurped up some noodles.

“Good to see you again, Aang!” Pipsqueak’s deep voice and general giant stature was quite the juxtaposition considering his name. Lunae had thought that he was The Duke at first, and The Duke was Pipsqueak.

Aang gave the two a small smile and wave as Sokka continued. 

“And the best part is, the eclipse isn't even our biggest advantage!” The Water Tribe boy leaned in close to Aang and whispered, “We have a secret…”

He looked around like he was checking if anyone was listening in. As if everyone around him couldn’t already hear him and didn’t already know what the big ‘secret’ was.

“You.”

Aang’s expression morphed into one of confusion, and he repeated Sokka’s statement with a befuddled “me”. 

“Yep, the whole world thinks you're dead! Isn't that great?” Sokka pumped his fist in the air triumphantly, to which Aang stood from his spot on the deck and moped over to the side of the ship. He leaned against the railing. 

“The world thinks I'm dead,” he asked, distress slipping into his voice. “How is that good news? That's terrible!”

As he stood from his crate to follow Aang, Sokka waved his hands in the air defensively. 

“No, it's great! It means the Fire Nation won't be hunting us anymore. And even better, they won't be expecting you on the Day of Black Sun!”

“No, no, no, no, no.” Aang cradled his head in his hands and shook it, trying to grapple with the fact that he was now, to the general populace's knowledge, dead. “You have no idea. This is so messed up.”

A horn sounded in the distance. Everyone looked up to see that another Fire Nation ship was approaching. Lunae was up before she had time to register that Zuko had his hand out to help her, so she just shot him an apologetic smile as she ran to move Appa to his spot, which was an opening in the deck for cargo deep enough to hide most of the beast.

“Everyone stay calm,” she heard Hakoda command. “Bato and I will handle this.”

As The Duke and Pipsqueak covered Appa with a tarp, Lunae, Zuko, Aang, Toph, Sokka, and Katara hid in a cargo hold.

The interaction between Hakoda, Bato, and the crew from the other ship seemed to be going well as Lunae listened in. Hakoda managed to convince the captain that they were heading west because they were from the Eastern Fleet instead of the Western Fleet. The captain seemed perturbed that Admiral Chan hadn’t let them know about the ship coming their way, to which Bato apologized and said they would send two hawks so the news would surely reach them.

Lunae resisted the urge to smack her hand to her face. Of course they would lie about being in Admiral Chan’s fleet! It’s not like Hakoda and Bato knew it, but the admiral was on vacation. The reason Lunae knew that was because her father oversaw military affairs, and Lunae sometimes helped him with the paperwork when she had been living in the Fire Nation Capital… including approving time off requests.

The men of the other ship, however, seemed satisfied with the encounter and didn’t call them on the lie, since they started back across the metal ramp. But Lunae could hear their whispers. One of the soldiers informed the captain about Admiral Chan’s ongoing vacation, to which the captain concluded that the ship was captured and they should sink it once they were over the ramp.

Luckily, Toph had also heard the whispers between the men and was quick to jump up from the cargo hold, shouting “they know” before slamming her hand on the deck and bending the metal to her will. The material creaked and groaned as it crumpled until it got to the ramp, the metal sheet folding in on itself sending the men plummeting into the water below.

Lunae sent herself flying into the air as Katara hopped into action. The waterbender started to make huge waves to separate the ships as Lunae grabbed her machete off her back and used it to help her send large, slicing gusts of wind towards the catapults. The soldiers who were around the weapons rolled out of the way as they crumbled into piles of metal and wood.

Hakoda motioned for the men in the bridge to basically give it the gas. Lunae luckily noticed in time to not get smacked by the tower, letting herself drop down back to the deck and land on a little air cushion.

They sped away from the other ship as fast as they could, though they ran into a problem when the other ship started to shoot fire balls at them.

“Incoming!” Sokka shouted the warning as the first fire ball started to fly towards their ship.

Lunae let out an annoyed groan. How had they gotten the backup catapults out of the hull so quickly? She was hoping that destroying the ones on the deck would at least give their group enough time to flee before they were bombarded with fire balls.

Using her machete as a guide again, Lunae sent an air current that knocked the fire ball off course and into the sea, but more fireballs kept coming. Toph was sending pieces of a boulder towards the other ship (with the help of Pipsqueak and The Duke), and Lunae was swiping the incoming attacks off course while Zuko sent large columns of fire towards any she missed.

The other ship launched a large harpoon-like weapon towards them, piecing a hole in the hull. Katara was able to pull the harpoon out with her waterbending and plug the hole with ice.

“I'm gonna give us some cover!” the waterbender shouted, raising her arms and creating a fog screen.

A fire ball managed to get through her screen, however, and crashed into the boulder that Toph had been taking chunks off of.

“Now we can’t see what’s coming at us!” Lunae rubbed her temple before launching herself above the smoke screen, only to be nearly hit by a fireball. She sent a large, powerful bubble of air out from her body, making the fire ball explode. 

She dropped back down onto the deck in the same manner she had earlier.

“Okay, that was a bad idea,” she muttered, patting off the embers that had landed on her clothes.

Two more fireballs came through the fog. They landed on the deck with a Boom!, and started fires where they had landed. Lunae rushed over to one of the fires, reaching her hand out and finding the air around the fire before quickly pulling the air in on itself to snuff the fire out. There was a small pop as the air rushed to refill the vacuum, but there was no fire to feed.

She turned to do the same to the other fire, but was relieved to find that Katara had already put it out with her waterbending.

“How are we doing?” Toph yelled.

“Things couldn’t get much worse,” Sokka replied.

As if on cue, a large green serpent arose from the water, letting out an ear-piercing screech as the fog screen disappeared.

“The universe just loves proving me wrong, doesn't it?”

“You make it too easy,” Toph said with the slightest hint of amusement in her tone, despite the situation.

Lunae got ready to attack the sea serpent, but just as the beast got into position to strike, one of the fireballs from the other ship struck it… which really pissed it off.

Lucky for them, the serpent decided to wrap itself around the other ship and attack it, as opposed to them.

Sokka shouted out a thanks to the universe, while Lunae breathed a soft sigh of relief.

✸✸✸

After an eventful day of almost getting killed, Lunae let out a small sigh of relief as she waited with Zuko for the other teens. They were planning to go into the Earth Kingdom town they had docked at to get some food, but the others had gone to Aang’s room to invite him.

Lunae was sitting at the bottom of their ship’s ramp, looking up at the stars, while Zuko stood on the dock looking out at the town.

“The stars look gorgeous tonight,” Lunae remarked, more so to herself than Zuko. 

The prince hummed and glanced up at the night sky above. 

“They’re pretty,” he muttered, “but they aren’t as pretty as you.”

A bright grin pulled at Lunae’s lips, and she let out a small chortle.

“That was so cheesy, Zuko.”

“Yeah…” Zuko rubbed the back of his neck, the faintest hint of a blush dusting his cheeks. “Was it bad?”

Lunae leaned back against the ramp and put her hands behind her head.

“No, it was cute.”

Zuko let out a small, amused huff, which caused Lunae to chuckle with him. They looked at each other and shared a smile. It felt comfortable. Warm. Lunae had never really understood the phrase ‘home is where the heart is’, but laying on the ramp, laughing with Zuko… she finally got it.

She heard footsteps clanking against the metal ramp, and looked back to see Sokka and Toph coming their way.

“Hey guys!” Lunae called, standing and dusting herself off. “Where’s Katara and Aang?”

“Aang’s being stubborn,” Sokka grumbled, “He doesn’t realize that being dead is a good thing!”

Lunae pursed her lips.

“Well, if you keep saying it like that, he’ll probably never come around to the idea of pretending to be dead until the invasion.”

“What’s wrong with the way I say it?”

“You told him he was dead to the world like it was as normal as the sky being blue! What did you think was going to happen?”

“I thought he would see how amazing of an opportunity this is. How would you have gone about it, Little Miss Perfect?”

“Probably by not dropping that bomb on him when he was fresh out of a coma” —she rubbed her temples— “he’d only been awake for a few hours, what if you had stressed him out too much and he dropped like he had when he first came up on deck?”

“Katara asked me to fill him in on our plans going forward, I was just telling him that he was our secret weapon.”

“You didn’t stop to think that telling a kid that he’s a secret weapon, because everyone thinks he’s dead, was a bad idea? That it might cause him to freak out?”

“What would cause who to freak out?” 

Katara’s voice cut through Lunae and Sokka’s argument like a knife. The two sent each other frustrated glares before Lunae looked at Katara.

“Nothing,” she grumbled, before noticing that Aang wasn’t with the waterbender, and her tone turned slightly worried. “Where’s Aang?”

“He’s…” Katara paused for a moment, “he’s resting. I’ll grab some food for him.”

Lunae could sense that there was more to Aang’s absence, but she decided not to pry. Instead, she gave Katara a soft nod. Then, she turned to the others. 

“What do you guys want?” she asked, leading the group towards the market at the end of the dock. 

Everyone chimed in with different foods (while Lunae couldn’t help but notice that Sokka pushed his way to the front of the group, which she decided to ignore), but Lunae’s eyes caught sight of a dumpling stall.

“What about soup dumplings?” She pointed towards the stall. “The sign says you can get four for three copper pieces.”

“That sounds good,” and “yeah, sure," were some of the statements made by the others, so Lunae ran past Sokka with a bright grin.

“I’m getting there first! I haven’t eaten all day,” she yelled.

When she got to the stall, Lunae fished some copper pieces out of her pockets and handed enough for her food over to the vendor. She politely asked for a bowl before turning to watch as her friends caught up with her.

“Why have you not eaten today?” Zuko asked, worry written all over his face.

Lunae shrugged as she leaned back against the stall.

“I don’t know, I just forgot.”

“You forgot to eat?” Katara raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, I didn’t feel hungry until now, so I kinda forgot to eat—” Lunae sighed “—and now I’m starving.”

“I don’t think I could ever forget to eat,” Sokka said, rubbing his stomach and staring off with a glossy look in his eyes.

“You’ve forgotten to eat because you were so busy looking over maps and working on the invasion plan that you didn’t realize you were hungry until you were hangry,” Katara countered.

Lunae’s eyes widened.

“Is that why he was so short with me the whole time we were trying to plan?” she guessed as the pieces fell into place in her head. Maybe Sokka didn’t hate her and her ideas, maybe he was just hungry!

“Sure, if that’s what makes you feel better,” Sokka said dryly, which made Lunae frown.

Her guess was wrong, then. She wanted to confront him, to get in his face and ask why he hated her so much… but just as she opened her mouth to say something the stall’s vendor interrupted her train of thought.

“Here you go, miss,” the old man said, “Enjoy.”

Lunae smiled and accepted the bowl from the vendor, thanking him and grabbing a pair of chopsticks before moving out of the way so her friends (and Sokka) could get food.

It didn’t take long for everyone’s food to be done, especially since time flew as they chatted amongst themselves. Lunae tried to avoid Sokka, he made her blood pressure spike, so she talked with Zuko and occasionally Toph. Once the food was served, the teens decided to move to a table beside the water. By that time, Lunae had pretty much finished her meal, so she laid her head on Zuko’s shoulder as he ate.

Then… she started to feel the pull moving. And not just a little bit, like it had when Aang was walking around the ship earlier that day, but significantly. Like it was getting distant. She lifted her head from Zuko’s shoulder, checking to make sure that the ship wasn’t leaving them behind. Lunae thanked the stars that it hadn’t, but that made the fact that the pull was moving so much, and so quickly, strange. 

“What is Aang doing?” she thought, her eyes looking towards where the pull was coming from. In the distance, far off, she could see a small orange dot in the sky, and it was only getting smaller by the second before it disappeared completely. 

Lunae had a feeling she knew what, or rather who, that was.

“Katara, did Aang say anything about leaving?” she asked, glancing at the waterbender. She didn’t want to immediately assume the worst, but she had a feeling that something was wrong.

Katara raised an eyebrow.

“No, he just seemed upset. He didn’t like the invasion plan and he didn’t seem to want us helping him defeat the Fire Lord,” she explained, “Why do you ask?”

“Because I think I just saw Aang flying towards the Fire Nation.” Lunae’s face shifted to one of worry.

Everyone at the table stopped eating and just… stared. 

“What are you talking about?” Sokka asked.

“Well, you know how I can kind of feel where Aang goes, because we have this weird soul tie or whatever?” she started, rubbing the back of her neck awkwardly. “Well, I felt him getting distant. Not faint like it was when he was in the coma, but distant, like when I was following you guys around before Ba Sing Se. So I looked up to check to see, and I may have seen, like, the faintest hint of his glider. It looked like he’s heading for the Fire Nation…”

Katara turned and looked off in the distance, her face falling.

“We have to go after him! What if he’s going to try to fight the Fire Lord now? He’ll get himself killed, for real this time!”

Lunae came around the table and put her hands on Katara’s shoulder’s, her grey eyes meeting Katara’s frantic blue ones.

“Hey, we’ll find him,” Lunae reassured her friend, “I can lead us to him. Let’s get back to the ship and tell your dad, maybe get some supplies, and then we can take Appa and follow him, okay?”

Katara nodded as she took a deep breath.

“Okay, we need to be fast.”

✸✸✸

The group had been traveling through the night, flying on Appa and following Lunae’s directions to find Aang. They had crossed into Fire Nation waters hours ago, and were now heading towards the Fire Sage’s island… well, what had been the Fire Sage’s island before the temple collapsed. Katara was sitting at Appa’s neck to guide him, while Sokka, Toph, Zuko, and Lunae all sat on the saddle.

Lunae looked down at the sea below, feeling the pull get closer and closer. Momo was perched on her shoulder, like he was on Katara’s shoulder when Lunae had first met her. 

Then, as they got closer to the Crescent Island, Lunae saw Aang. He was on the rocky shore, laying down as if he was sleeping.

“Down there!” she called, putting a hand on Katara’s shoulder and pointing.

Momo hopped off of Lunae’s shoulder and flew down to wake his friend, while the rest of them had to fly down on Appa.

When they landed, Momo was licking Aang awake. Katara was the first off, rushing to wrap Aang in a hug.

“You’re okay!” she cried in relief as the others climbed off of Appa and ran to her and Aang’s side. 

Sokka, Toph, and even Momo joined the hug, while Lunae and Zuko watched the five of them from a few feet away.

“I have so much to do,” Aang said weakly, leaning his head on Katara’s shoulder.

Katara smiled softly and rubbed his back.

“I know, but you'll have our help,” she reassured him.

“You didn't think you could get out of training just by coming to the Fire Nation, did you?” Toph joked as she set her chin on Katara’s other shoulder.

Aang lifted his head, a worried look in his grey eyes. 

“What about the invasion?”

“We'll join up with my dad and the invasion force the day of the eclipse,” Sokka said.

Out of the corner of her eye, Lunae noticed what at first glance could have been a piece of drift wood with orange fabric.

“What’s-” she started, before she got a better look and realized what it was, “You’re glider.”

She picked it up. It was in bad shape, probably too bad to be fixed. She looked up at Aang apologetically.

“It's okay,” Aang sighed as he stood from the group hug and took the glider from Lunae’s hands. “If someone saw it, it would give away my identity. It's better for now that no one knows I'm alive.”

He lifted himself up with a gust of wind, landing near where a small lava river split in two and staking the broken glider into the ground. Everyone watched solemnly as the lava caused the glider to ignite, the crackle of the flames and the crashing of the waves the only sounds that could be heard.

“C’mon,” Katara said, taking Aang’s hand and leading him towards Appa.

As the group of teenagers climbed up on the saddle of the sky bison, Lunae couldn’t help but glance back at the burning glider, pausing for a moment before Zuko’s voice got her attention. 

“Let me help you up,” the prince offered, reaching out a hand.

Lunae smiled gently and took his hand. She didn’t really need his help, she was perfectly capable of climbing up on Appa by herself. But she knew that Zuko knew that, and he just wanted an excuse to hold her hand.

Zuko anchored her as she pulled herself up, and then pulled her close when she was up on the saddle. Her head fell on his shoulder, and his arm wrapped around hers. 

She felt at peace as Appa flew towards the mainland.