Chapter Text
After the night Zuko flew with the sky bison, the Fire Sages began to treat him with much more reverence than they had when they had thought he'd been simply a prince.
Now he was an Avatar. Fully revealed. One who had displayed an aspect of all four elements.
It was... a little embarrassing.
Zuko had been seeking this reverence, this respect, since before his Agni Kai. He'd wanted the same obedience he'd seen nobles and palace officials automatically granted to Ozai and Azula.
Now, looking back on those memories with new eyes... he realized what he'd mistaken as obedience had been fear.
After the Agni Kai, he'd only received grudging deference from the crew of the warship. They had been surly and resentful of being ordered around by a thirteen-year-old boy. Zuko's attitude had not helped. He saw that now, with distance.
So he wasn't used to receiving automatic esteem and courtesy. When he'd herded the last of the bison back in their paddock and landed, the Fire Sages went into full kowtow bows to him.
Thankfully – or not, depending on the time of the day – his bending masters felt no need to treat him differently than before.
"Get your legs up high!" Toph snapped as she sparred with Zuko on the steep slopes of the volcano.
She had quickly grown used to the strange crackle and slide of the glassy earth substrate. Now, she was determined to show Zuko how a real earthbender could use her element.
Somehow, she'd managed to sharpen the little bits of obsidian into glass while they flew through the air. He was bleeding from a dozen shallow cuts and knew he'd have to water heal himself later.
"Center your stance, deepen your root! Just because you're an airbender now doesn't mean you can pick up bad airbender habits!"
A cut had formed above his good eye, and Zuko palmed away blood. If he continued to falter, she'd insist he'd train blindfolded again.
"You mean, like your last student?" he snarled.
He and Toph never had that conversation – the revelation that she'd taught Raava's Avatar had come on the heel of too many emergencies. And neither one was good at broaching uncomfortable topics.
"You got it!" Toph said, unshaken. "He didn't take earthbending seriously and I'm not going to let you do the same."
"How am I not taking–"
He had to stop to throw up a hastily made obsidian shield wall to avoid being pounded to dust.
"Concentrate!" Toph yelled and proceeded to keep Zuko so engaged in fending off her attacks there was no way he could continue talking.
After Toph seemed satisfied that her student's ego had been ground to dust, she sat him down and showed him the trick of sharpening obsidian through bending. Of course, he had to be blindfolded again through the lesson to "make it fair". The tips of his fingers were ragged and bloodied by the time he was released to train with Yugoda.
But Toph’s words stayed within his mind.
The other Avatar had gotten himself and his friends trapped. Had it been because he hadn't been taking his training seriously?
Zuko couldn't say that he knew Avatar Aang well, but from his few encounters with him... he wouldn't be surprised.
I'm meant to be his opposite, he reminded himself as he trudged down the volcanic slopes. It was so steep and the footing so treacherous that he was forced to earthbender a path downward... which had no doubt been Toph's intention. Everything was a lesson with her.
Now that he wasn't sparring, exhaustion dragged at his mind. He had very little sleep over the last few days and none the night before while he'd flown with the bison. He ignored it, determined to take his training seriously.
First, he had to clean up.
Yugoda was granted access to several of the temple's bathing pools for her healing. These were fed by mountain spring water and heated by the geothermic fires of the earth, making a dip in them pleasant.
Zuko stripped to his loincloth and got in, waterbending the cuts and scrapes clean and whole.
He didn't realize he was tipping forward and in danger of face-planting into the water until Yogoda gripped his shoulder and hauled him back upright.
"You aren't well," she said.
"I'm fine." He made to sit up, but she pushed him back down into the water.
"You even didn't hear me come in. Sit," she said in a tone that brooked no argument.
Zuko seethed but he knew better than to challenge his master. He sat as the water around him glowed with Yugoda's healing energy.
"You're exhausted. Find a bed and rest," she said at last.
He shook his head. "I can't."
"I'm certain one of those sages will feed Dragon her evening bottle of milk," Yogoda said. "They have been tripping over themselves to help their new Avatar."
She was much too kindly of a woman to roll her eyes, though she looked like she very much wanted to.
Zuko usually appreciated her gentle sense of the ridiculous, but he shook his head wearily.
"I mean... I can't, Yogoda. I can't sleep. Every time I do, I'm... transported somewhere else."
She stared at him for a hard moment before she nodded. "There were stories of Avatars who were plagued by spirits when they came across unbalanced places. Are the spirits in this volcanic island... upset?"
He sensed the question behind her words: Is it the spirits of the long-dead airbenders?
Again he shook his head. Then he lowered his voice just in case any Fire Sages were around to listen.
"It's... the other Avatar. I believe he's trapped in a spiritual plane."
"He must be desperate if he's calling out to you," she said.
"He's being hunted–" Zuko stopped, her words catching up to him. "But I never talk to the Avatar. It's always one of his friends. The Water Tribe Boy."
"The Southern Chief's son," she said. "I know of him, though I never met him."
Her eyes crinkled and Zuko suspected there was something she wasn't saying... but Zuko let it go. Likely, she was worried about her people and their plot to take over the Southern Water Tribe.
"I'm not sure what to do," Zuko said.
"Why, you do the right thing, of course," she said. "But only you can determine what that means. Here." She swirled her hands in the water and before Zuko could object the healing blue brightened his remaining wounds were healed.
Yugoda looked at him. "I suppose you go off and figure out what that is. Only then, will I suspect you get the sleep you so desperately need."
Zuko wanted to growl at her, but it was the truth. So he nodded and rose from the tub, water streaming off his clothing. He had been so exhausted and worn out that he'd simply submerged himself, fully clothed, in the tub.
Firebending himself dry was a trick his uncle had taught him long ago. It didn't take much effort.
He walked down the hallways of the temple, steam slowly rising off his clothing. Fire Sages saw him coming and bowed out of his way – averting their eyes until he passed.
Zuko sighed again. There was such a thing as too much obedience.
It bothered him to see men and women so subservient. The laws and customs of the Fire Nation were strict to enforce the discipline needed to contain fire. Yet... would it not make more sense for people of fire to blaze up? Act out? Be creative?
But those who did not conform were long ago snuffed out as the islands consolidated into one governmental system.
That had been a previous Avatar's doing, he remembered. Raava's doing.
Zuko sighed again and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. He was getting a headache.
Yogoda told him to sleep, but his restless nature made him want to walk. He chose a meandering path that took him around the perimeter of the island.
Here, he could feel the influence of the four elements. Wind blew off the sea, water crashed upon the earth ... and of course, fire lay ready to erupt within the bowels of the volcano.
He cleared his mind and focused on those elements, falling into a walking meditation.
He was not at peace but felt his mind was clear when he felt Vaatu stir in his soul.
"Well?" Zuko demanded.
He got the impression of a shrug. There are pros and cons to both decisions. If Raava's vessel dies or is locked within the spirit world for decades, it will make your life easier.
"And if that giant owl eats him?" Zuko asked.
You know that answer. It will be at least a decade and a half until you have to worry about the next reincarnation.
"That would be my father's reasoning," he grumbled.
Some solutions are universal, even if they are reached for different reasons.
Zuko sensed that the spirit wanted to say more. "But?"
This time, he felt the impression of a sly smile. But would it not be fun to confront Raava again? To rescue her vessel and let her know face-to-face that her days of subjugation and order above growth and progress are over?
Zuko felt his lips twitching up in the corners.
Doing what you want does not make it the wrong thing, vessel , Vaatu said, almost kindly... for him.
"That's not my experience. Whatever I wanted to do always turned out to be wrong."
But this... he wanted to save the other Avatar for several reasons. Partially to get a good night's sleep again. Partially because he wanted to rub Avatar Aang's nose in the fact that he was not the only Avatar. And partially... yes, because it was the right thing to do.
He turned to the Fire Temple again – the high peak of the roof just visible from where he stood at the bottom of a high cliff.
With a circular, sweeping gesture, Zuko raised the wind around him and made a single bounding leap that took him partway up the steepest part of the path.
When he landed, he was grinning.
Yet another lesson he had learned from the wind. Bending for joy did not mean it was wrong, either.
Tonight, when he fell asleep, he was getting the details from the Avatar's oaf of a friend.
Then, they would have a reunion.