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The first challenge comes a week after the Avatar leaves Caldera City.
Aang is the last to go. Katara had left first, by a Fire Nation ship bound for the North. The war may be over, but the lingering scars will take a long, long time to heal and they know it. The isolation of the Northern Water Tribe is both a blessing and a curse. They have no Fire Nation troops in the region to contact, and no risk of delayed news of the war’s end resulting in any unnecessary skirmishes. But at the same time, the Northern Tribe has not seen with their own eyes the way the wind has changed, and that makes them wary.
Katara volunteers with a steely determination to carry the news with the first Fire Nation envoy, as an ally and a friend. They say their goodbyes and Katara hugs him in the courtyard, warns him to take it easy while his lightning scars are still new, and then she goes.
Sokka and Toph leave next. They are bound for the Earth Kingdom, by way of Kyoshi Island. He’s almost startled by how jealous he is, watching Toph and Sokka and Suki leaving together, and being no more lonely for it. If they have any apprehensions about traveling by airship after everything that happened during Sozin's comet, none of them show it.
This... thing, this whatever it is that’s been building between him and Sokka for weeks feels fragile, difficult to describe. It hurts to see him packed and ready to move on to better things. Zuko pointedly keeps his hands to himself as they say goodbye, and blessedly Sokka does the same—or maybe not, he doesn’t know which he wants more, a proper goodbye or a clean break, and it makes him feel hot and cold and ugh. Sokka promises to write, and Zuko can hardly force the words past the lump in his throat when he tells him he’ll look forward to his letters. He thinks he doesn’t cover it well, but Sokka uncharacteristically doesn’t tease him for it.
When Aang goes it’s on Appa. A dull ache had settled into his chest the night before, and it’s back in full force as he watches Aang load up Appa’s saddle with supplies. Aang hugs him so tightly that he can feel his ribs creak. He knows they’re alone, but he can almost feel the eyes of the court on him, anyway. It’s strange for them to have Aang here, after so long spent telling themselves that the Avatar is the enemy. Zuko hugs him back fiercely, shaken by how sad he is to see the last of his friends go. He knows now that this isn’t a weakness, but he knows just as well that the rest of the officials, the generals, the court, may not see it that way. He’s become hyper aware of how he’s perceived in the weeks following his coronation.
He’s surrounded by people all the time, the war is done, and yet he’s never been more alone. Uncle has gone to Ba Sing Se, his friends have left one by one. He watches Aang go until he’s just a speck against the horizon, and when he turns to go back inside, he can almost see the shadow of the buzzard wasps circling.
The first challenge is due to a difference in opinion regarding their withdrawal from the Earth Kingdom. General Uzu, who has been organizing their campaign on the southern border for the last two and a half years, does not see any issues with the orders he’d sent to his men, and Zuko cannot explain to him that he can’t just give his men free reign to loot everything in their path on the way home in any fewer words without coming to blows.
So it does. Come to blows.
General Uzu challenges him to Agni Kai.
“I accept,” Zuko says, and it takes every ounce of his self control to keep his voice level. Behind him, the servants shift nervously, and Zuko can only feel vaguely surprised that they hadn’t seen this coming.
(Uzu had smirked at him from across the table, and told him his inexperience would show on the dueling grounds as much as it shows in his leadership.
But this is not Zuko’s first Agni Kai, or his second, or his third. If Uzu wants to assume that he’s inexperienced, that is a mistake he’ll only make once.)
Zuko does not have fond memories of this room. The torches on the wall seem too bright, the focus of the spectators too heavy. He casts off his robe and turns to face his opponent. The audience is more—subdued, this time.
Uzu moves as soon as the gong sounds, with a brutal pace that Zuko is sure is meant to rattle him. Zuko holds his ground, deflects the oncoming flames steadily, a sweep with the arms, the legs, dodging the smaller feints to block against the real blows that follow. Uzu has the advantage of height over him, alternating high and low strikes easily. It’s not like fighting Azula. There’s power behind his fire, but it's not the same mad energy, or reckless burning—next to Azula during Sozin’s comet, it is nothing.
Uzu slips up, his footing is off just barely, and Zuko presses his advantage. He aims a streak of flame for the off foot, unbalances him, and with the same motion sweeps up with his arms, scythes forward with a flame so hot the man staggers back, trips, falls. The crowd draws a collective breath.
Zuko stops.
Uzu stares, baffled.
Zuko stoops to pick up his discarded robe, shaking the dust from it and draping it over his shoulders like a shroud. A surprised murmur sweeps through the audience as Zuko turns his back and exits the stage. Their whispers stretch until the door closes between them. Then, the first even among all the stunned nobility to recover, a servant sweeps in to offer him a late dinner, composed as ever, as though he is simply returning from a long day in his office.
He thanks her, and means it. She’s flustered enough by his sincerity that for a moment she gives him the same look that Uzu had on the dueling ground. Baffled.
Hayoon is also, he finds, very reliable, something he comes to appreciate more and more as the challenges continue to roll in.
(After his third challenge, she stops asking, and simply has a meal ready for him in his rooms when he returns. By the fifth, she has somehow managed to time the tea to be perfectly steeped the moment he walks through the door, a feat of timing and reading your opponent which might have benefited his challenger for the day, if he could be bothered to learn from her.)
There are large swathes of burnt farmland stretching across the Earth Kingdom in the wake of Sozin’s comet. He knows they’re struggling, and he knows the colonies will struggle more once the Earth Kingdom begins to covetously decrease food exports in response. There is an unfortunately placed burn on his elbow, which is making it rather difficult to lean forward and bury his face in his hands out of exasperation. A councilwoman glares at him from across the table. She doesn’t know what to make of his suggestion, that Ozai’s policy on humanitarian aid (or rather, his lack of policy) is simply no longer feasible for a unified world. She doesn’t want to forfeit the Fire Nation’s surplus, which she is so used to rationing strictly for the war efforts, and certainly not at a loss for the sake of sending relief aid to the worst affected regions of this famine in the making.
Zuko thinks if she knew what it was like to be hungry, she’d understand.
He also thinks a Minister of Agriculture shouldn’t have such a strong right hook.
Actually, he thinks, maybe a little hysterically as he’s nursing a particularly bad burn on his ankle from a poorly timed leg sweep, maybe all of his ministers are unusually, concerningly deadly.
He’d read once that Avatar Kuruk’s firebending teacher, Hei-Ran, had been notorious for dominating her rivals in Agni Kai. She holds the record for the longest kill streak in challenges, he’s fairly certain.
Zuko thinks he might have surpassed it, if he wasn’t showing mercy every time. He knows it makes him look weak in their eyes. He knows that’s why they keep coming. But he also knows that if the Fire Nation ever wants to move past their bloody history, he has to show them that peace truly means peace.
But he’s being challenged at least twice a week now, and he can feel it beginning to take its toll.
He’s fought firebenders before and won, without breaks and against multiple opponents, but this is a new kind of strain on his body. The skin on his knuckles is cracked from the heat of blocking their strikes. His arms and legs are covered in little pink burns, and at this point they feel like a permanent fixture on his body, like his scarred face and his lightning burned chest, a hundred little proofs that he is a failure of a leader. He’s tired all the time, and he’s losing even more sleep getting up in the morning to conceal the worst of the marks in the less and less unlikely event he ends up shirtless on the dueling grounds again.
He’d sparred almost every day when he was still back on his ship, against any crewmember who was willing to put up with him. But those fights had been against common soldiers, and the difference in skill here is staggering. He’s not being challenged by the lower ranks anymore, and the sorts of people who become generals and military strategists in wartime are by necessity firebending masters. Ozai would tolerate nothing short of the best in his inner circle, and it’s that inner circle that has dug into his nation like long neglected wisteria roots, burrowing, spindling cracks, threatening its very foundations. If he is going to change the Fire Nation for the better, he needs to change them, too.
He is a better firebender now than he had been on his ship, but he knows that even he has his limits. He knows they’re searching for the cracks in his armor, and he is certain even if they are not actively conspiring with one another, that this gauntlet of challenges is meant to wear him down.
He’s settled in his office, reading what feels like the exact same busywork reports he read last week and the week before, when Hayoon quietly interrupts him with a message, a cautious smile pulling at her lips.
The airship dock sends him word only two hours ahead of the ship’s arrival, but he cancels his afternoon meetings, anyway. He spots Sokka deboarding before Sokka sees him, but when he finally catches his eye, Sokka grins and breaks into a run.
He slows down when they’re a few feet apart, drops his bag at his feet, and pulls Zuko into a quick hug.
“Sorry to drop in uninvited,” Sokka says.
“You’re always welcome,” Zuko says, maybe a little too quickly. “But...what are you doing here? I thought you were going to the Earth Kingdom.”
“I was. I did,” Sokka says. “I just… missed you.”
Zuko flushes, he can’t help it, but Sokka looks so pleased that he can’t even find it in himself to be embarrassed. He’d missed him, too. The letters Sokka had written to him are still stashed in his desk drawer, but there’s no substitute for the real thing, here with him now. Some of the tension bleeds out of Sokka’s shoulders, the nervousness of his surprise arrival going away. Zuko suddenly feels awkward, undeniably happy and unsure what to do about it. He stoops to grab Sokka’s bag for him before he can take it back himself and slings it up on his shoulder.
“Are you hungry?” he asks, and Sokka looks at him like he’s just offered him all the wealth and riches in the Fire Palace.
“Do you remember that noodle place we went to?” Sokka asks. “Because I have been dreaming about those noodles.”
The noodle place in question is on the outer edge of the Caldera downtown. They make quite a sight, a water tribe visitor trailing along after the Fire Lord, trying to pry his own luggage out of the Fire Lord’s hands. For once he finds he doesn’t mind being stared at so much, as they duck inside the tiny noodle shop. Sokka liberates his own luggage for the walk back. He has clearly kept up his training regiment, bare shoulders flexing under the weight of his bag. Zuko looks, says as much, and then very pointedly pretends there’s not much to see while Sokka elbows him and does that stupid thing with his eyebrows that he refuses to laugh at.
There’s a crowd by the time they leave, nearly wrapped around the block waiting to get inside. Sokka laughs himself sick at the face Zuko makes when Sokka points out how popular he must be with the locals, but secretly Zuko takes that throwaway comment and files it deep away, and wishes it was true.
(Ming scolds him when they get back to the palace, because she insists on trailing after him everywhere, even to his own shipyard to greet his own ships, and definitely when he leaves the palace grounds. They both know full well that he can defend himself, but still Zuko smiles placatingly and agrees while Sokka ribs him for his carelessness).
They don’t even give him a full day of peace after Sokka’s arrival.
He’s not even supposed to be working. He’d specifically told them to leave him alone, at least for a few hours, while Sokka gets settled into his room. But then the Minister of spirits-damned Education corners him in the hallway, actually grabs him by the elbow in a way that makes every single guard in the room flinch, and demands to know why Zuko is changing the entire standardized Fire Nation’s curriculum two weeks before the next round of lessons is set to begin, when there’s a perfectly good curriculum rich in Fire Nation history and culture from last year they can use.
“Because it’s full of lies,” Zuko says baldly, like that should be the end of it, because it should, and anyone with half a brain can see that it should.
“You can’t just rewrite our culture,” he says, and clearly does not see the irony in his protests.
“We’re not rewriting it. We’re fixing it,” Zuko says testily, “and if you don’t think you can handle that, you’re welcome to leave—”
(Ah, he thinks, as the man gathers himself up and glares and challenges him to yet another Agni Kai—he may have walked right into that one.)
Sokka looks—outraged. The guards in the room are still tense. Zuko holds up a staying hand and accepts his challenge, with such a calm tone that the man redoubles in his frustrated blustering.
He can feel Sokka’s gaze on him. He knows he’s looking for… something from him, but whatever it is, he can’t give it to him. He’s far beyond feeling anything other than weary resignation.
Sokka follows him into the waiting room, crossing his arms stubbornly even as Zuko ignores him to peel off his outer robe and tunic.
“What’s going on?” Sokka demands.
“An Agni Kai,” Zuko says, sliding the ceremonial armband up his bicep. Sokka gives him a very impatient look, so he adds, “It’ll be over quickly.”
Sokka makes a strangled noise, which Zuko doesn’t think is very fair. It’s not like he’s going to lose, not to a stupid Minister of Education when he’s already fought admirals and generals and more. But when he glances up, Sokka’s expression is… something else. Zuko can’t tell what he’s thinking. He shrinks defensively and snaps, “What?”
Sokka only stares, with that stupid unreadable expression on his face. It’s… concerningly calculating—like he thinks he can plan Zuko’s way out of this, and really, Zuko should… probably put a stop to that. After a moment Sokka shakes his head. He turns away.
“I guess I’ll… grab a seat,” he says, his voice faint and strained.
Zuko doesn’t know what to say, so he nods and turns back to changing. He waits for the curtain to swish and settle before he exhales again, all in one shaky rush. He forces himself to take a few more steadying breaths before he stands, hands pushing off his knees, to meet his opponent.
Minister Taisu aims for the face. It’s a stupid move and he should know it, because half the challengers who have come before him have already tried the same cheap shot. It’s lazy, low hanging fruit. He can see in his eyes when he gets the idea, before he even shifts his stance, the viciously cruel twist of his lips, like he thinks he’s about to catch Zuko off his guard. He’s sure Taisu was there, just from looking at him—the way he looks at his face and sees not just the scar but the memory attached.
Unfortunately for Taisu, it’s the one attack Zuko has truly prepared to counter, the one he’s run through his mind over and over and over for far longer than this gauntlet of Agni Kai challenges has gone on. Far longer than he’s been Fire Lord. Zuko steps in and blocks it as easily as breathing, twists around to sweep his leg and shove the man onto his back in the same motion.
Taisu stares at him, stunned, when Zuko scorches the mat next to his head, and a petty part of him can’t help the grim smirk that tugs at his mouth. The crowd is not so shy anymore. They erupt into cheers, seeing the finality of the strike. Zuko glances up and the smirk is gone again. Sokka is watching him with that same unreadable expression, but the look in his eyes makes Zuko’s stomach twist. He stalks out of the dueling arena before he is even fully declared victor, and he hopes that if anyone notices they take it to mean that the challenge is simply not worth any more of his time, and not what it is, which is fleeing like a coward.
The door bursts open, startling Hayoon so badly that it’s honestly amazing that she doesn’t spill any tea into his lap. She sets the teapot down on the tray with a heavy clink and spins toward the door. Zuko barely blinks.
“Fire Lord Zuko—” Ming says imploringly, her hand still on Sokka’s shoulder, her other hand faltering over the sword on her waist, unsure what to make of the Fire Lord’s very good friend storming into his rooms like a demon. Zuko waves her back.
“It’s all right Ming,” he says. “I was—expecting him.”
At that Hayoon looks truly alarmed, far more than she had when the door opened. She glances between the tray of food and tea for only one for a frazzled moment. Zuko touches a finger to her wrist to get her attention, and she stills, and looks at him with more chagrin than half his advisors have ever spared him, no matter how stupid or wrong they were. He smiles, and she deflates, a little.
“It’s fine. Thank you, Hayoon,” he says. She nods and bows quickly, hesitates briefly over the half-poured tea and then leaves it all there. Ming stares at him a moment longer after Hayoon has gone, and then pulls the door shut behind them both with a bow.
Sokka hardly waits for the latch to click.
“How long has this been going on?” Sokka demands.
“Weeks,” Zuko says, after a reluctant pause. “Basically since you left for the Earth Kingdom.”
Sokka stares at him wide-eyed, his face trying on several different emotions before outrage wins out.
“What the fuck, Zuko!” Sokka shouts, turning a little red from the effort. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I have it handled,” Zuko says, and feels that maybe that’s not entirely true. “I didn’t want you to worry,” he tries instead, and feels a bit more confident in that one. Sokka scoffs at him.
“Well, I’m worried now!” he says. Sokka paces up and down the length of the room, turns, comes back and practically throws himself into the seat in front of Zuko. Zuko pours tea into the one cup Hayoon had brought, and slides it across the table. Sokka looks at it like it’s personally offended him.
“You’re the Fire Lord,” Sokka snaps. He’s absently clenching and unclenching his fist around where his sword would be, were it appropriate for him to wear it within the palace. “They’re clearly trying to undermine you. Why don’t you stop them?”
Because he’s walking a knife’s edge here as it is, and he knows it. If he banishes the dissenters, after they’ve so clearly been challenging his strength, they’ll see him as a coward who fears a fair contest. If he wants to put a stop to them, he’ll need to show he’s not simply the cowardly son of Ozai that he’s sure they’re all imagining him to be.
He’ll have to make an example of them, and that’s one line he’s not willing to cross.
“That’s not how this works,” he says instead. “It’s their right to challenge me, and my right to accept their challenge.”
“So don’t accept,” Sokka says. “Tell them to fuck off.”
He doesn’t have the heart to tell him that it’s only gotten worse in the last few weeks leading up to Sokka’s return. He’s facing a new opponent almost every other day now. He’s starting to wonder if there will be anyone left by the time one of them kills him.
“I have to do this,” Zuko says instead. He knows Sokka doesn’t understand.
“Does your uncle—”
“Don’t,” Zuko says. Uncle would come back to the palace in a heartbeat if he asks, and abandon the tea shop he loves so much and all the peace and stability he’s already sacrificed for Zuko for years. Zuko won’t ask. “He doesn’t need to know.”
“I don’t get it, man. Why are you doing this?” Sokka asks. “Can’t they just disagree with you without trying to kill you? Set up a council meeting and talk it out?”
“The whole point of an Agni Kai is to settle those disagreements. That victory doesn’t depend on the court of public opinion,” Zuko says. “I know you don’t understand, but I have to do this. It’s a matter of honor.”
Sokka is silent for a long moment. He glares at the untouched tea, sighs, and stands.
“You’re right. I don’t understand,” he says.
Zuko leaves the tea and the food untouched after he leaves, his appetite suddenly gone.
Hayoon says nothing as she whisks the still-full tray away in the morning, stepping delicately around him. Carefully neutral, with the barest hint of sympathy on her face, she eyes the lounge he’s chosen to mope in and informs him that his guest is waiting for him in the atrium, if he cares to join him for breakfast.
They don’t talk about it.
Zuko ignores the pointed questions from his advisors, asking after his health, asking after his friend with pleasant tones that do nothing to hide that they are clearly probing for weakness. The challenges keep coming. Sokka continues to disapprove, continues to give him that strangely unreadable look.
Hayoon continues on as always, but soon enough there is dinner and tea for two waiting for them, instead.
Zuko sighs, rubs his temples, and nods along as his military council continues to wind each other up. He has been putting this conversation off for days, because he knows exactly how it will be received. The Fire Nation suffered huge losses during the attack on the North Pole, and immediately following it, Ozai had severely overcompensated in the construction of new ships to replace them, in anticipation of another attack on the Northern Water Tribe after the fall of the Earth Kingdom.
There’s no justifiable reason to keep a Navy of this size during peacetime, and Zuko tells them as much. It’s not like he’s suggesting scrapping the whole thing—just decommissioning all the old ships and working toward scaling back funding appropriately for the rest of the operating vessels.
(Oh, they’d been mad about the ships, but when he’d mentioned the budget, several of the older admirals looked as though they were going to faint).
“The Fire Navy has been a vital component of the Fire Nation’s defenses for a century,” Commander Jaoku snaps. He’s leaning up over the table, his knuckles flat against the report in front of him. The man is fairly young, though not nearly as young as Zuko is, of course, because he’s always the youngest by at least a decade when it comes to military council.
“I can respect that, Commander,” Zuko says, “but the fleet as it is now was designed for war. The Fire Nation has no need for such an excessive number of ships during peacetime.”
He can almost feel bad for him. Zuko had been furious when Zhao commandeered his ship and crew on his way to the North Pole. Jaoku is young enough that this ship is likely his first command, but unfortunately, his youth means he was relegated to one of the older ships, and those ships have to go.
And here he’d been having such a good morning. He’d actually slept until dawn, the Earth Kingdom had tentatively accepted their offer of aid in dealing with their food shortages, and he’d even made it through the first three hours of meetings without so much as a single raised voice. They’re meant to host a banquet tonight, and Sokka had seemed excited, even despite Zuko’s reluctance to go to anything even remotely resembling a party.
For the briefest moment, Jaoku’s clenched fist begins to smoke. Zuko sighs and thinks it was nice while it lasted.
The thing about Commander Jaoku being young, besides being fiercely covetous of his first command, is that he clearly hasn’t been in many real fights.
It makes sense. The Navy doesn’t exactly emphasize hand-to-hand combat, considering there’s not much opportunity for it when the closest a ship ever gets to the enemy is within the three hundred meter range of a trebuchet. He has his firebending training, which is not bad by any means. He’s fast, and his strikes are powerful and well-timed.
But his form is just that—formal, the same firebending katas that every expert has learned. Powerful, certainly, but uncreative.
His anger is very real, and it’s something Zuko understands. His hot-headedness means he keeps him close, like he’s afraid the fire will die if he lets Zuko back off too far. It’s almost like sparring with Sokka, trading punches and kicks and deflecting the heat of his flames in the same moment with raging energy. Jaoku gets a few close strikes, on his ankle, barely missing his knee, trying to destabilize him, trying to hurt. Zuko sidesteps a sweeping strike to his chest and feels the heat of it sear along his flank, much too close, but Jaoku is greedy, and he leans into it and twists too far, opens his stance up too much—
Zuko cuffs him clean on the collar, flames searingly hot and then snuffed in the last instant, and he uses Jaoku’s own weight to flip out his ankle, so that he spins and falls flat on his stomach at Zuko’s feet. Jaoku is stunned, but only for an instant. He slams his fists against the mat in anger and tries to rise, but Zuko is tired and the night is still young, and he hasn’t even begun to prepare for the night’s event. He plants his foot on the man’s back and shoves him down again.
“That’s enough,” he says, quietly, for Jaoku more than the crowd. His knuckles are milk-white against the mat, his face flushed red. Zuko steps back to let him rise, and even if Jaoku wanted to continue, the reaction of the crowd signals the end of the match as well as anything.
He looks to the stands and… Sokka isn’t there. Zuko nods almost to himself, because… because of course he’s getting tired of watching this. He turns to go, before Jaoku can say anything else.
They’re meant to be in the ballroom in less than an hour. It’s really a testament to the Fire Nation’s priorities, how unperturbed the audience is, to be sitting in their high-society fineries to watch their Lord fight yet another Agni Kai with one breath, and filing out for wine and revelry with the next.
Zuko appreciates their distraction, at least, because for once the constant scrutiny feels a little thinner as he makes a hasty exit to dress and greet his guests.
Zuko takes a glass of honey wine at the door so that he has something to occupy his hands. He doesn’t really want it, just takes a couple tentative sips whenever he needs to buy himself time to think.
He hates these functions. He hates the sort of politicking that masquerades as a party, where everyone wants something from him, and he feels like he’s constantly being watched. Zuko glances around the room and wonders at how any of them could possibly be enjoying themselves, but somehow they are with their smiles and reserved laughs.
At least he doesn’t have to worry about being challenged again, certainly not until tomorrow, when he’s had a chance to rest—none of them want to be seen as going for an easy win by challenging him twice in one day. Agni Kai are traditionally fought at sunset, and the dusk has already come and gone with their duel. He’s almost grateful that Jaoku had gotten it out of the way, so that he can drift to an isolated corner of the room and brood in peace.
The burn on his flank stings where it scrapes against the embroidery of his robes. It’s not even that bad, and probably won’t even blister, but it’s just uncomfortable enough to put him in a bad mood.
He sees Sokka across the room, and it takes immense effort to ignore him. He is frustratingly handsome in his formal Water Tribe attire, but with his hair done up in the Fire Nation style. He’s too far away for Zuko to hear him, but he’s smiling and talking animatedly with one of the servants as she tries to hand him a glass from her tray. Zuko can tell that Sokka is looking for him in the crowd from the way his gaze flicks around, but he’s meant to be the host here, and that means at least making an effort to talk to… literally anyone else.
Except, of course, that he doesn’t actually want to talk to most of these people, and certainly not in the two-faced way that they want to talk to him.
It’s why he’s a little relieved when a light touch on his elbow alerts him that Sokka has finally picked him out of the crowd. The advisor pauses in bending his ear and glances at Sokka. Zuko can see on her face that she knows she’s about to be cut short. She wraps her thought quickly, much more straightforward in her meaning than she’d seemed capable of during her very long preamble.
Has he spent long enough talking to everyone else to justify running off with Sokka and ignoring them all? Probably not, but Zuko really can’t bring himself to care. They skirt the crowd and move to one of the corners where great bay doors open up onto the balconies. He stops where the breeze from the open doors can reach them, and then turns back toward the crowd. The Fire Nation is not exactly known for their dancing, but the music and the din of conversation makes for a pleasant atmosphere, anyway.
He almost, almost, lets himself relax, but then he catches the look on Sokka’s face. Suddenly, he isn’t taking a break from the party, in a private conversation with a friend. Suddenly, this is an ambush.
“I think you should write to your uncle,” Sokka says.
“No,” Zuko says, immediately, with no room for argument. They’ve already talked about this. He can’t get any clearer without—ha—dueling over it.
“Zuko, come on,” Sokka says. “This is seriously getting out of hand. I just think—”
“I never asked you,” he says.
Sokka’s expression flickers, for just a moment, as all the frustration of weeks of duels rears up again. He clamps down on it just as quickly, but Zuko still hears the anger, when Sokka scoffs and throws up his hands.
“That’s the problem!” Sokka says. Zuko thinks he would be shouting, if not for the party behind them, and a hundred potentially curious eyes. “You’re so damn stubborn. You could have asked for help weeks ago. I’m sure your uncle or Aang—”
“They will never respect me if I ask Uncle or the Avatar to solve all of my problems,” Zuko says. “I would be a puppet king, at best. Unfit to rule, at worst. I’m the Fire Lord, not them.”
He will not be the Earth King, a fool with no power over his own nation. He won’t be his father, either. These people have seen a hundred years of power enforced through fear.
Zuko knows that he doesn’t have to earn their respect. He could take it.
But he won’t. He won’t be the monster his father was, and he won’t be the powerless child his father tried to make him be.
“I know what kind of Fire Lord I want—need to be. If it takes a hundred Agni Kai to make them understand, then I’ll fight them gladly,” Zuko says.
“I can’t watch you kill yourself for your stupid honor,” Sokka says. He reaches out to grab Zuko’s sleeve, and Zuko bats his hand away. He is so damn tired of fights from every side.
“You don’t have to watch. It’s not your nation,” Zuko says. “If you hate it so much, then leave.”
He regrets saying it almost immediately. He hadn’t meant it, not really, and Sokka… Sokka doesn’t even look angry anymore. Just tired.
He takes a quick, sharp breath. Zuko braces himself, for the argument, for the scorn.
“Fine,” Sokka says, and Zuko, coward that he is, doesn’t even try to stop him when he goes.
Zuko bumps shoulders with someone when he passes into the outer hall. He can’t escape the ballroom fast enough. It’s quieter out here, without the energetic din of conversation in the main room. He glances distractedly at the person, and with a jolt recognizes General Uzu. He half turns toward him, and Zuko sees that the man he’s speaking to is Jaoku. There’s a small bandage peeking out around the man’s neck, where Zuko had cuffed him on the collar. His expression sours considerably when he sees Zuko.
Uzu mumbles an apology, and then drops into an uncomfortable silence. Zuko is suddenly very aware that he shouldn’t be sneaking out of his own party, not when he’s supposed to be hosting. He has the irrational urge to make excuses for himself, and he forces that impulse down.
He’s not really sure what to make of Uzu. Reports on the withdrawal of his men showed, at least, that he had honored his loss. Zuko knows he’s not the man’s favorite person, and Zuko, frankly, thinks he’s a bastard, but he hasn’t challenged him since their Agni Kai, so maybe they can call a truce.
The look Jaoku gives him is… stunningly disrespectful. His temper flares again, and he almost stops. He’s tired, he’s so sick of being stared at, and the shame of snapping at Sokka is still rolling uncomfortably in his gut. Instead Zuko pretends he doesn’t notice, nods apologetically at Uzu, and makes his escape.
He retreats to his quarters and throws himself half onto the bed, face buried in the covers, hair slipping slightly from the tight topknot he’d been wrestled into this morning.
Zuko lies there wallowing for much too long before he finally sits up. He’s been slacking on his work for the better part of the last few days, so he sighs and settles at his writing desk to get his mind off things. He’s sure the partygoers will get drunk soon enough, and forget that the Fire Lord is supposed to be there to entertain them.
He’s half-way through his stack of scrolls, and the candle on the table is dribbling wax down its holder when someone hesitantly knocks on the door. At first he turns, expecting Hayoon, but no, she has a very distinctive knock that he’s come to recognize easily, and that wasn’t it. It must be… Sokka, then? Maybe, unsure where they stand after Zuko went and made an ass of himself. A little flicker of hope jumps in his chest as he pushes up from the desk.
“You don’t have to knock like we’re strangers—” he says as he pulls the door open.
Zuko sees the flash of silver in the too-dim hallway out of the corner of his eye, and he almost doesn’t recognize it, but his body moves before he can think—
He only barely brings his arm up in time, so that the blade slashes his forearm instead of his neck. Behind his mask, the assassin’s eyes widen, caught off guard by how quickly he reacts. Zuko’s skill with a sword isn’t well known beyond his friends and the tight confines of the palace training grounds, and while daggers aren’t his preference, he’s trained long enough to move on instinct. He twists the man’s wrist, and in their struggle for it neither of them can keep their grip on the knife. It clatters away into the dark. The man’s fist thumps against Zuko’s burned side, and he grunts and flinches away.
The man staggers back, and a searing tongue of flame flashes between them. Zuko peels away, plants his feet. He’s tired, his heart is hammering in his chest, anxiety claws at him as the flames lick slightly too close to his face. He forces the fear down. He breathes, heavy and deep, and before the man can twist, before he can hit him with the leg sweep he’s telegraphing with his whole body, Zuko thrusts forward with an explosive burst of flame. The room, the hall, is alight with it. The man screams, raw and ragged, and just as quickly Zuko stops, pulls back. The man teeters for a moment, breath shuddering in his chest. He blinks at Zuko and has the audacity to look surprised. He falls at his feet.
Zuko’s shoulder is smouldering. He swipes the fire out with a weary gesture, but the smell of burnt silk clings to him. He’s fine, he thinks. He’s not even burned. The doorway is scorched black. The man is… the man is worse. He’s definitely unconscious. With a burn like that, it’s shocking how long he’d kept his feet.
Zuko looks at his work and feels vaguely sick. He pats the threads of the man’s cloak, suffocating the smouldering embers as gently as he can. He tips the man’s head back to check his pulse, relieved to find it feels strong. There’s a bandage peeking out of his shirt at the base of the man’s neck. Zuko pulls his mask off, tosses it at the ground at his feet. He’s surprised, and he isn’t, to see Jaoku’s slack face tilted back at him. He rises unsteadily to his feet.
Where are the guards?
Still in the ballroom, probably, because he’d been so eager to escape after his argument with Sokka that he’d slipped away without telling anyone. Ming is going to kill him. His heart is trying to escape through his ribcage, and he presses one shaking hand to his chest.
Stupid, he’s so stupid.
He’d gotten so used to his advisors trying to hurt him, it hadn’t even occurred to him that one of them might come back to finish the job—
He glances back at where Jaoku is slumped in the doorway to his chambers. The smell makes his stomach roll. Zuko stumbles into the hall, and for a moment he sways on his feet. He puts his hand out to the wall to steady himself. He feels strangely clumsy. He should have skipped the wine, he thinks. The wine has gone to his head.
...No, that’s not right. He’d barely had a glass. He takes a step forward and his fingers slide along the wall too easily. He flips his wrist around to stare, and oh. That’s a lot more blood than he’d thought, his sleeve is soaked with it, leaving bloody streaks on the wall, that’s…
His heart beats feathery and quick, the blood roaring too loud in his ears. Half-dazed, Zuko twists the tattered flaps of his sleeve around his wrist to staunch the blood, but the wound is so deep the fabric already feels warm, staining darkly under his hand. He blinks and he’s at the end of the hallway, somehow. His feet had started moving without him, so he keeps going. Jaoku’s knife is still on the floor in his doorway. What if there are more of them? He should have taken the knife with him, for all the good it would do him. He tries to flex his fingers and thinks he might not even be able to grip the handle, and then... spirits, how is he going to fight the next Agni Kai with one arm?
He reaches the end of the hallway. Once, when they were children, Azula had chased him down this same hallway, spitting little fireballs at him, demonstrating her newest firebending technique. The walls had been pock marked with little scorched burns, then. There are dark streaks on the wall where he’s leaned on his hand, a strange facsimile of the memory.
He’s been going the wrong direction, the medical wing is the other way, the ballroom is the other way—
(The ballroom is where Jaoku had been, and he pictures Uzu standing outside the doors waiting for him. He has no idea if the man is in on it, too, he doesn’t know who he can trust...)
But there’s a light at the other end of the hallway, and his vision is getting a little narrow, and he thinks—this feels so familiar, and he feels a laugh threatening to claw up his throat, because he’d followed all their rules and they’d tried to stab him anyway. He can’t win.
He sees a shadow of movement swish around the corner, and Zuko feels his heartbeat ratcheting dangerously. Enemy or friend? Heat pools into his one good fist, and he wonders only distantly what will fail first, them or his fire or his stuttering heart. He’s sure the distance over those last few steps is longer even than his trek across the Earth Kingdom, but somehow he makes it, with his forearm dragging sluggish along the wall, and the heat pressing into his palm.
Hayoon stares at him, wide-eyed, as though he is already a ghost. And he thinks he sees her composure crack, just barely, as she dives to catch him before he falls.
He wakes, and his arm is on fire.
He’s not sure if he makes a sound, but when he somehow builds up the willpower to open his eyes despite the searing pain radiating up his forearm, the first thing he sees is Sokka, leaning over him with a tightly worried expression on his face. His arms come around Zuko’s shoulders, helping him to sit up, which is... probably the most exhausting thing that Zuko has ever done, moving from horizontal to leaning up against Sokka’s shoulder long enough for Sokka to hand him a cup of something dark and foul smelling from the nightstand. He grimaces and knocks it back without asking what it is, and then lies back breathless and shaky while the medicine does its work.
He closes his eyes for a few minutes. When he opens them again the pain in his arm has receded to a dull ache, and Sokka is watching him with so much anxious concern that he has to close his eyes again, just for a moment, to get himself under control. He blinks, and then casts his eyes around the room, realizing for the first time that he’s not in the medical wing like he’d expected.
“Where?” Zuko asks, barely, voice dry and cracking.
“My room,” Sokka says. “Your room is, uh. Crispy? And bloody. And I wasn’t going to let them put you in the medical wing because that’s where that bastard—“
“Jaoku?” Zuko interrupts, before Sokka can build into a true rant. He huffs.
“Alive. Not happy about it,” Sokka confirms. Zuko sucks in a breath between his teeth, but Sokka only squeezes his shoulder gently. “He tried to kill the Fire Lord. He’s lucky to get off with a few burns.”
That does not make Zuko feel better.
“How long was I asleep?” he asks.
Sokka mouths the word asleep like he’s just said something ridiculous, which... okay, asleep, unconscious, whatever.
“Just a little over day,” Sokka says, like a day off doesn’t put Zuko even more horribly behind on work as it is.
He tries to push himself up into a better sitting position, which Sokka allows him to do with a steadying hand on his arm, but when he tries to sling his legs over the side of the bed, Sokka stops him.
“Take it easy. It’s the middle of the night,” Sokka says. “You’ve got nowhere to be.”
Zuko blows out a breath and settles back again. Sokka smiles at him, thin and strained. He looks terrible, rumpled, eyes bloodshot like he hasn’t slept, and Zuko knows that’s his fault. He feels the urge to apologize, but something in the way Sokka’s looking at him makes him decide against it, sure that isn’t the right thing to say.
“What, uh,” he clears his throat and starts again. “What did I miss?”
Sokka frowns at him for a moment, like that wasn’t the right thing to say, either. He sighs.
“Jaoku has admitted that he acted alone,” Sokka says. “It was, as he put it, an impulse decision to teach the brat a lesson, after someone slipped out of the party alone without alerting the guards.” He pauses, adds, “I think you shaved ten years off Ming’s life.”
At that, Zuko winces. He’s pretty sure she’ll have...words for him, when she’s deemed him recovered enough to hear it.
“Jaoku’s in the medical wing now. Under heavy guard,” Sokka says, plainly, with the very clear question of what Zuko means to do with him hanging between them.
He thinks about it and decides that, oddly, he’s not really angry with Jaoku. The man had been desperate to keep his position, overly so for someone so young, as though something has convinced him that he needs to prove himself even against something so out of his control.
He can think of one such thing that might push a man to that sort of desperation, off the top of his head, and the thought makes him pity Jaoku more than anything.
Zuko sighs.
“I think I should write to Uncle after all,” Zuko says. He pauses, remembers his arm. “Or, ah… could you—write for me?”
“Really?” Sokka leans forward in his seat, his face brightening into a smile. It lasts for half a second, before suspicion creeps in. “Why?”
Zuko swallows. “Because the next time someone challenges me, I’m going to lose,” he says. Uncle needs to come home, because if he loses, or worse, someone needs to be here to keep everything from falling apart. Sokka only stares, so he adds quickly, with each excuse clawed uncomfortably from his throat. “I mean—I can’t fight with one arm. And... I lost a lot of blood, I—”
Sokka curls his fingers around Zuko’s good hand and squeezes, gently. Zuko stops, mid-sentence, and swallows again, but Sokka doesn’t take his hand away.
“You idiot,” Sokka says. “There isn’t going to be a next time.” He says it with such finality that Zuko can’t help but take his turn to be suspicious.
“Of course there will,” Zuko says, slowly. “Why wouldn’t there be?”
Sokka props his hand on his chin, leaning his weight forward so that the mattress dips slightly, and that same weird look from before is back on his face, only this time it is undeniably scheming—and smug.
“Because challenging the Fire Lord to an honorable Agni Kai is one thing,” Sokka says. “But being accomplice to a treasonous assassination attempt against the Fire Lord is another matter entirely.”
“You said Jaoku acted alone,” Zuko said.
“I did,” Sokka said, looking very pleased with himself. “But that’s not the story Hayoon has spent the last day and a half spreading among the servants. I’m sure they’re bending their Lords’ and Ladies’ ears as we speak.”
Zuko stares at him. “Why would she do that?” he asks.
“Because I asked her to,” Sokka says. “Your staff loves you, Zuko. You do know that, right?” he asks.
Zuko is pretty sure that love is too strong of a word, but when he says as much Sokka only shakes his head helplessly at him.
“Anyway, by now everyone who’s ever challenged you is desperate to prove that they’re honorable and loyal servants to the Fire Lord,” Sokka says. “They don’t mind looking like bastards, but traitorous bastards is one step too far. They may not like the changes you’re making, but they do like the Fire Nation, and they like their status quo. No one will risk it.”
“That’s—cheap,” Zuko says, and Sokka’s laugh is startlingly loud in the quiet room.
“So is challenging a teenager to a death match,” Sokka says. “I know you said that the outcome of an Agni Kai wasn’t swayed by the court of public opinion, but that doesn’t mean the people can’t be swayed. Public opinion kind of felt like what we needed right now.”
“Oh,” he says faintly. He should—thank him, and… and tell him he was right, but what comes out is: “I’m sorry.”
“Save it for Ming,” Sokka says. “She’s gonna be so mad—”
“No. I’m sorry for what I said,” Zuko says. “At the party. You were right, and...” He hesitates, just a moment, but then Sokka’s hand slips out of his own. With the lightest touch, he brushes the hair back from Zuko’s face, tucks it behind his damaged ear. It’s a gentle reassurance. He doesn’t actually have to say it, so of course he wants to. “I don’t actually want you to go.”
“I know that,” Sokka says, looking unbearably fond. “Obviously. I was just frustrated.”
“I’m—”
“Stop apologizing,” Sokka says. “I don’t want an apology. I want you to—to care about yourself.”
Zuko wants to protest, to say that of course he cares, but when he stops and really thinks about it, he thinks maybe he never fully learned how. The expression on Sokka’s face is still very hard to read—or maybe it’s not, and the open and sincere concern for his well being is genuine, and not hiding something else layered and undefinable, like he’s come to expect for most of his life. He nods tightly, but doesn’t know what else to say.
Sokka takes pity on him and doesn’t seem to expect an answer. He brushes a thumb tenderly over Zuko’s cheek and then drops his hand back to rest on his upturned palm. He might not know how, but he thinks he can learn.
Tomorrow, Sokka will grudgingly help him from bed. They will walk to his mother’s garden, and take their meals in his study. The servants will smile, and it will be true relief on their faces to see him up and about.
His advisors, his ministers, will bow when they pass them in the halls, and it will feel like a victory.
But for now, they enjoy the quiet peace. A night, hand-in-hand, with many more to come.