Chapter Text
I. "If love were in the flesh I would burn it with hot irons and be at peace". -Kahlil Gibran
II.
A stick insect
with something feminine around the ribs
an iris in his midriff
(Death is in my hipbone, the left,
my jaws already calcified;
once I was as bright as a flower,
as bitter as blossom.)
Mutant. Transformed from man
to mantis by paternal wrath.
He is edible, digestible
like the crickets of the sea.The sun burns him
to blisters and shreds
and ash that drifts to the water.-Hugo Claus
Part 1: North
Hakoda has this memory of an Earth Kingdom port they’d anchored at during the early months of winter some years back; he’d been walking down the dirty streets, inhaling scents of mold and rot, and his gaze followed an emaciated dog, who wiggled its tail and nervously bent its neck as it approached a group of teenagers sitting underneath an archway, shushing and whispering to each other. One of them extended an arm and offered the corner of a bread loaf to the animal. The dog grabbed it gently between jaws and ran behind a corner to eat it. This simple and foreseeable action made the teenagers burst in laughter. Hakoda looked away and walked on. Maybe half an hour later, returning from the bazaar with a sack of rice thrown over his shoulder, he passed by the alley in which the dog had retreated. He found it lying inside a pool of blood forming underneath its head as it snaked over its tongue and dripped down the open mouth. The protruding ribs frantically went up and down as it took agonizing rattling breaths. Hakoda pulled the knife free from his belt, knelt down and slit its throat.
When he first saw the Fire Prince, he was standing next to Bato outside the cell, in the Northern Tribe Palace prisons. He was small, very young, tied up with arms dangling off the ceiling, upper body naked. Small flames escaped his lips when he screamed and wailed in a raw voice. If Hakoda concentrated, he could make out that he was saying “it hurts, it hurts”, over and over again. Then his eyes would unwillingly, driven by some sort of morbid curiosity, move back to his face, at the gruesome festering burn covering half his face that no healer had taken the time to treat. His hand itched to pull his blade free and score this pup’s throat through.
When his mouth goes bitter with bile, he turns to Bato, whose face is harsh and unreadable. “This is low, even for Arnook”, his friend grunts.
“It’s distasteful”, Hakoda agrees, swallowing hard. “He says they found him like this. Burned, I mean. We didn’t do that”.
“We”, Bato puts emphasis on the word, “wouldn’t do this neither. Stop making excuses for them. He’s Sokka’s age, you know that? Imagine your son in there and then come and tell me about how distasteful it is”. Sokka, at the time, had been a few months shy of thirteen. Hakoda was angry at Bato for days, because he couldn’t get the image out of his mind and he woke up drenched in sweat every night, shaking with anxiety. That visit to the North had been a short one.
They’re called back only a few weeks after returning home, for a council with the Earth King. It's a curious thing, for Arnook, the Northern Tribe Chief, to convince the King to travel all the way to the North, when the center of the war had been the Earth Kingdom, but a sign of power and independence for the water tribes nonetheless. Bato keeps muttering something about how Arnook’s stirring things up before the fires have died down.
This time they’re greeted by Arnook looking especially regal, with gold and silver jewelry adorning his frame. He holds a leash in one hand and its end connects to the firebender’s neck, secured to a leather collar that’s irritating his skin. Hakoda thinks of the Earth Kingdom, where they make monkeys and bears dance. The boy’s not dressed for the glacial temperatures, but wears the colors of his nation; a pair of red flowing pants with slits that expose pale skin and ripple in vibrant waves when he moves. A full ribcage is mapped out on his bare chest.
Bato is stiff by his side in the council room, built especially for the occasion at the Palace outskirts. There’s something opulent about the space, ice formed resembling polished crystal, so pristine and bright it hurt the eye to behold, that doesn’t match Hakoda’s shabby clothes, the worn leather of his boots. He remembers walking inside the throne room of the Fire Nation Palace and raising his gaze to a ceiling so high it made him dizzy. All around him on the floor ran molten gold dripping off the chandeliers, and in the centre of the room, the throne. Even charred, it made him feel unimportant, savage. He barely used cutlery to eat.
“All I want is to protect my people”, Arnook’s saying.
“That makes two of us”, the King replies, amiably, but his tone gets more rigid by the minute.
“And do you think they can be, while these demons-”, he pulls at the firebender’s leash sitting obediently at his feet, who does, in that moment, look truly otherworldly, with his mutilated face and his white body mottled with purple stripes from the cold, like an angered spirit, “-roam free among us?”.
“You realize you’re suggesting a genocide?”.
“As if they haven’t already committed one! Had the war been continued for a few more years, they’d have succeeded in yet another. The waterbenders were almost annihilated!”.
“You watched it threaten your people and you’re suggesting it as a solution? This is preposterous, entirely unethical”.
“You want to talk about morals?”.
The King sighs. “I think the best course of action is to organize the former fire nation citizens into a community ran by representatives of both the earth kingdom and water tribes, as well as their own, and try to integrate them into a unified society. If we let them loose to go into hiding, we'll be facing much bigger problems in the future. They shouldn't feel threatened or they'll show resistance. We mustn't forget that under competent leadership they certainly have the power to fight back”.
“You want to give them back their lands?”.
“No, Chief Arnook, I’m talking about integrating both the people and their lands into our Kingdom”. The man mistakes the silence for agreement. “Would everyone agree with this?”. He looks around the table. Hakoda’s nodding in compliance, but Arnook interrupts, rising from his seat.
“What about the water tribes?”.
Visible confusion is painted on the King’s face. “What about them?”.
“Why is the Earth Kingdom claiming the new lands?”.
The silence is deafening. A youthful voice, rough, barely audible, floats around the room. “You’d think the Fire Nation is adjacent to the Earth kingdom geographically”. The sound of the slap echoes and the next moment the young firebender’s bleeding on the floor.
Hakoda feels Bato tensing next to him. He clears his throat and speaks before his friend does anything stupid. “The water tribes are not currently in need or even capable of establishing colonies in the West. A place so far away is of no concern to us. Our people are not forbidden from visiting or living in any Earth Kingdom city, and this won’t be an exception. Is that correct, your Majesty?”, he turns to the King. He can feel Arnook’s vicious gaze blazing his skin.
“Of course. We are allies. And alliance is based upon trust, Chief Arnook”. He looks down at the Fire Prince’s collapsed form, breathing jerkily with his face hidden between his arms. “The boy was trained for the Crown. He knows things. You should make better use of him”.
“Oh, I make good use of him alright”, Arnook mutters. “Your Majesty”.
The meetings concludes soon after and they slowly start moving to the dining hall for dinner. Bato holds his wrist. “I’ll go lie down for a bit and eat in my room. See you later, yeah?”. Hakoda nods and wishes him a good rest before following the other people further into the Palace.
Meals in the North are another display of freshly acquired wealth. There’s this reckless abundance about food portions that makes Hakoda’s heart clench with anxiety, having known hunger and privation in his village. Platters filled to the brim with strange fruits and vegetables he’d only ever seen in the Earth Kingdom, animals roasted whole, pastries so sickly sweet they made his stomach pang, bread and noodles and bean-filled buns, and flagons overflowing with wine. People -servants, Bato’s voice inside his head supplies- are coming and going, carrying more things to the table, refilling cups, serving the food onto plates, and there’s always the noise, someone singing or playing an instrument, telling a very loud joke so that everyone can hear, because it’s a job now, to tell jokes to people at dinner, you get paid for such work. Or there’s the Fire Prince performing.
Arnook’s fingers are on the firebender’s jaw, tilting his face up to look at it. Hakoda doesn’t stare, but he can’t help taking glances towards the two. The Northern Chief motions to a stationed guard and tells him something. The same man later returns holding a steaming cup of tea which he passes to Arnook. It is then insistently pressed against the boy’s lips, who puts up a fight and struggles against a firm hand planted towards the nape of his neck. Hakoda hears the sharp whine when some of it spills on his bare chest, leaving a striking splash of color on the pale skin. He forces himself to look away because anger is boiling inside his chest. When he next looks towards them a while later, the pupils inside the golden eyes are blown a neverending black. He feels stupid for feeling betrayed by his allies, for believing so much in the Tribe's morals. His cheeks burn with the shame of sitting still and doing nothing as they drug a child.
“Come on, then. Get up”. Arnook’s pulling at the leash again, pushing the barely responsive boy around. “Who wants to see his fire?”, he shouts to the room and it catches everyone’s attention. Voices cry out in answer. “Come on. Show them your fire”. He’s forced to his feet, hands outstretched. He calls the fire in a mechanical way that feels wrong. There’s no bending, really, nothing like the show Arnook’s promoting, just a strange boy holding a flame in his palms and looking at it the way a rabbit looks inside a wolf’s jaws, petrified. The men in the room are jeering loudly and calling him all sorts of terrible names. When they grow bored of him, Arnook pulls him back down.
Later, the Northern Chief calls Hakoda to join him where he sits. The Fire Prince is sprawled on the floor between Arnook’s legs in a state of semi-consciousness, cheek leaning against the inside of his thigh. The man's hand is massaging the silky hair, gradually pushing the firebenders head closer to his crotch.
“Are you enjoying yourself, Hakoda?”, he asks him and the smile seems almost genuine.
“I am deeply honored by your hospitality”.
He nods. “Any service you might require, you only have to ask for”.
“That's very kind of you”.
“I know there's not a wife waiting for you back home”. Hakoda visibly stiffens. “It's not shame for a man to have needs”.
“I'm not an animal”, he snaps harshly. Then he bows his head. “I apologize. But I couldn't possibly betray my wife's memory in the manner you're implying”.
Arnook watches him carefully. Hakoda tries to keep eye contact and ignores the movement at the lower half of the Chiefs body. “It's a natural thing. I don't see why it would be a betrayal. Celibacy has driven men crazy, Hakoda”.
“I have no objection to- to loving another maybe, if it ever occurs. But I can't replace what was half my soul with a passionless body”. The wet sound forces his gaze down and he sees the boy mindlessly lapping at an uncovered pale half-hard member. Hakoda feels sick in his stomach. “In the South, we tend to keep such business private”, he whispers.
“In the North, we want to share what we enjoy with our guests”. He holds the boy down until he's choking. “It's cathartic, you know. Violating what once violated you. Fucking the Fire Nation on its fours”.
“This isn’t the Fire Nation. There is no Fire Nation anymore. Stop fighting invisible enemies. This is a boy barely older than your daughter, Arnook. What if they’d taken her instead, treated her like this?”.
Arnook’s face is cold. “But they didn’t, did they? I protected her”.
“They could have. It’s a matter of luck we won the war”.
“Careful now, Hakoda. If someone didn’t know you, they’d think you’re siding with the enemy. And you wouldn’t want such rumors to circulate, would you?”. There’s poison in his voice.
Hakoda swallows, breathes in, tries to rein his hammering heartbeat. He wants to punch him. His fingers tingle with a need for violence. He gets up, fists clenched. “Thank you, Chief Arnook, for your company”.
“He’s around, if you ever change your mind”.
“Yeah”, he swallows again and he feels like he’s choking on air. “Well, I won’t. Goodnight”.
“Sweet dreams, Chief Hakoda”.
He sits sleepless that nigh, thinking of his children back in the South, wrapped up in furs, peacefully asleep, then of the Fire Prince slugging his words and struggling to walk, with lips and fingers blue as if bruised. He wonders if the boy likes the sex, because it’s the only time he’s warm.
In the morning, he springs up with a knock on his door. “Who is it?”, he calls.
“Breakfast and tea, sir”, the firebender’s vaguely familiar rough voice answers.
“Right. Come on in”.
The boy walks in, hips swinging in a violently feminine way, reminding Hakoda of a viper recoiling before it attacks. He's skillfully balancing a tray on one hand while the other holds the deep orange fabric of his skirt up so that he won't trip on it. The skin on his naked torso is mottled with discoloration like bruises from the cold. Underneath his shackled ankles, his feet are tied up with bandages up to his shins, but there's no other protection against the iced floor.
“Chief Hakoda”, he bows his head. “I was instructed to serve you tea, if that’d be alright with you”. He sets the tray down on the table at the edge of the room.
Hakoda watches him pour it into a cup, steaming, and feels his cold fingers tingle with want. “Thank you”. The boy picks up the kettle with both his hands, fingers spread out, trembling a little. It must be scalding, but still he holds onto this source of heat for as long as he can. “Join me for a cup. You look cold”.
He doesn't seem to acknowledge Hakoda’s words. “It's a special blend. Very rare. I was told not to accept sharing it with you, should you offer, because it's not for the likes of me”. He locks a brilliant golden gaze to Hakoda’s own eyes and the man sees there a spark he'd never noticed before. Uneasiness sets down in his stomach.
“I do, of course, know of this blend. They made it sometimes in the Palace when I was a child. I wasn't to drink it then, neither”.
Hakoda swallows hard. “Why not?”.
“Well, my tutors told me that if the Fire Prince drank it, he would drop and convulse on the floor until he died of asphyxiation in about ten minutes”. He picks up the cup and approaches Hakoda in his provocative dance-walk. “Allegedly. But then again I never tried it myself”.
Hakoda looks down at his reflection on the dark surface of the drink. A sweet and floral scent reaches his nose. “And what would happen if the Southern Water Tribe Chief drank it?”.
“Nothing bad, I'm sure. Or else why would they ask me to bring it to you?”.
He accepts the cup, then tosses his arm to the side, loosens his grasp and lets it drop to the ground.
The Prince is on his knees in moments, picking up the empty cup and cleaning the liquid with his clothes. “Dear me, Chief Hakoda is so very careless”.
“Did someone tell you to warn me?”. He doesn't receive an answer. “Who gave the tea to you?”. Again, silence. He grabs the boy by the arm and pulls him up. “I could get answers if I wanted to”, he threatens, but it falls empty to his ears.
There's a tantalizing smile on his bruised lips. “Chief Hakoda can make me give him any answers he wants to, if he just says the word”. The grasp on his arm gets harder. The smile slips away. “You shouldn’t die. I like the things you say. You’re just and honest. You defended me”.
He lets him go, searching for something in the twin pools of molten gold that are his eyes, but he conceals it too well. The boy turns his back and leaves.
Hakoda sits on the bed, breathing harshly.
During mealtime, he catches Arnook’s gaze. The chief rushes to him. “Hakoda, can we talk in private for a moment?”. They move outside the dining hall, to an empty corridor. “I had word from the staff that the firebender brought you tea. I take that you didn’t consume anything that he offered, did you?”.
Hakoda studies his face that betrays nothing. “Why do you ask?”.
“I fear he might have laced it with something. Nobody instructed him to serve you. I’m glad you’re safe. He will be punished accordingly and I won’t let him move around so freely in the future”.
“Really, there’s no need. I drank the tea and I’m fine. Excellent blend and nicely brewed”.
Arnook hesitates for a quick second. “Ah. That’s good news. Still, I’d advice you to be careful around the little devil. He’s always plotting something, the bastard, I tell you”.
“That’s wise, Chief, I’ll keep it mind”.
“Of course. I’m terribly sorry for alarming you. The food in the dining hall is always safe”.
“I better head in then”. He nods and walks back.
Bato joins him on the table. “What did he want now?”.
“The Fire Nation’s poisoning our tea”, he sighs, then swallows down a mouthful of broth.
“Very convenient for his prisoner to poison guests, isn’t it?”.
He shrugs, avoiding to bring up the incident.
“We should get going as soon as possible”. The surface of his soup attracts all of Hakoda’s attention. “Did you hear me?”, Bato nudges him.
“We can talk about it when it’s time to leave”.
“Well, isn’t now a good time?”.
“There’s no need to depart so soon”.
Bato places a firm hand on his shoulder. “Hakoda, what is this? Your children need you back home”.
He looks down at his lap, chest clenching. “I can’t go back yet”.
“Why not?”.
“Because everything there reminds me of her. Them too, I can’t look at them without remembering her”.
“And you don’t want to be reminded? What are you trying to forget?”.
“That she’s gone!”.
“At this rate, you’re going to forget that she was ever here, too”. He gets up from his seat.
“Am I a bad father, Bato?”, he asks, feeling his eyes burn with repressed tears.
He avoids the question. “Children born in war are unlucky. It’s a blessing you’re alive to take care of them, so take care of them”.
He breathes in shakily. “Just give me some time”.
Bato seems to get distracted in thought. “You remember when you were a kid?”, he asks, firmly massaging his shoulder.
Hakoda half-laughs. “Yeah, of course I do”.
“Reckon there is much time?”.
His stomach plummets.
The other night they gather around to talk war reparations, supposedly. They find themselves among a few selected men sitting in a tight circle after dinner, drinking and smoking. The firebender’s sitting on the King's lap, holding a small flame in his palm that lights up the man's silver pipe. The nutty fragrance is heavy in the room.
“And what were the production rates in firebending-laboured mines?”, the King is asking.
The boy looks a little dazed as the pipe nozzle is pressed against his lips. He inhales deeply, then coughs a cloud of smoke. His pupils focus and unfocus as he speaks, gaze lost somewhere on the carpeted floor. “You can't have an accurate comparison. Fire Nation miners worked with different schedules from earthbender prisoners. They were obviously more productive, but not because of their bending”. His mouth searches for the pipe again and the man passes it to him. “Then again, there were a lot of prisoners”.
Arnook is sitting across them, visible displeasure written all over his face. “Has the Prince had his tea tonight?”, he asks coldly, interrupting the conversation.
“I don't need it”, the boy murmurs, leans his head on the King's chest.
“What tea?”, the man asks.
“It's pain medicine for his eye”.
“Ah, right. Poor kid. Such a bad burn. You were there in the invasion?”, he turns his focus to Hakoda and Bato.
“We got in the Palace after it was over”.
“I was there when we found him”, Arnook says, motioning to a servant. “Hiding in some crook in the throne room. He's lucky we checked or he'd been turned to ash and buried under the debris along with his father and sister's corpses”.
There's a distant look on the boy's pale face.
“We saw the explosion from across the battlefield. Couldn't believe my eyes when we walked into the building. I thought it'd have all collapsed”.
The Earth King nods. “Our scientists did an impressive job. It was the tipping point”.
The servant returns and hands the cup to him. He coaxes the Prince to sip it slowly, while he blows smoke. The boy protests and keeps it at a distance, leaning back. “Come on, kid”.
“It burns”, he whispers and he's already less coherent than a few minutes ago.
“You know, I never thought Fire benders could burn before I saw this face”, the King says and laughs.
Arnook joins in, though there is no hint of merriment in his eyes. “Come on, boy, what are you, a baby? Drink up”.
“Were the bodies found?”.
“What bodies?”.
“The Firelord’s, I mean”.
“Mostly incinerated. We knew it was him because the headpiece was intact. He's still in there under the ruins, probably”.
“Ah”.
The prince closes his eyes. Hakoda’s staring at the man's hand, which is stroking the boy's naked back.
“Perhaps in a few years we could start renovating the Caldera. Ba Sing Se is, naturally, our priority”.
“How's the palace coming along, your Majesty?”.
“It will be completed sometime in the next year, I believe. You will all be invited then for the ceremony, of course ”.
Arnook bows his head and smiles. “It'll be our pleasure. Now, let me unburden you”. He gets up and harshly pinches the boy's arm, who jerks awake. “Get out of our sight. Sleeping on guests like an animal”.
“Ah, just a moment, Arnook. My pipe went out. Give me a hand, boy. There you go”.
He shuffles away unsteadily, sparks shimmering around his fingers.
Once he’s out of the room, Bato asks: “What are you going to to with him?”.
There’s a beat of silence. Arnook gives him a curious look. “How do you mean?”.
“Is he going to die your slave in the North?”.
“What should I do, set the enemy free? Most of our people suffered and died unspeakable deaths as the Fire Nation’s prisoners and here I am, being merciful. He sets a foot outside this Palace and either the mobs will tear him apart, or he’ll crawl back to his people and finish what his daddy started. With all due respect, I think I know what I’m doing with him”.
The King clears his throat. “I agree that he should be kept under strict supervision”.
“Well, it’s common sense. What do you think, Chief Hakoda?”.
Hakoda looks at Bato, mouth dry. “The South doesn’t keep prisoners”.
“Lucky he’s not in the South then”. Arnook’s arm extends and fills Bato’s glass with clear liquor. The man looks down and drinks it in a gulp, then goes for a second. It slowly eases the frown between his eyebrows.
As Hakoda's returning to his room with nothing but the moonlight illuminating his way, a shadow stops him in his tracks. There, at the arch of a window, sits tightly curled into themselves a small figure. When he steps closer, he recognizes the protruding spine on skin bare and too pale for their people as none other's than the Fire Prince's. He makes noise as he moves, but gets no reaction from the boy, who's either asleep or already aware of his presence. “What are you doing out here?”, he asks.
There's a pause long enough that Hakoda leans in to check if he's actually sleeping, but the golden eyes are wide open, more pupil than iris. His heart clenches. “Let me take you to your room”.
A crooked sort of smile blooms shakily on his bloodless lips. “Take me to yours”. He's badly slurring.
Hakoda considers for a moment. “Come on then”.
The boy snaps his head, fully attentive now. “To your room?”, he repeats, with an urgent tone in his voice, smile widening.
“Yes. Can you walk?”.
He sprints up with all the energy of a boy his age and trots down the corridor in his familiar fluid motions. There's a twitching pulse going through his body and it reminds Hakoda of a fish writhing out of water.
Once they're in, he throws himself on the furs of his bed, fingers fumbling with ribbons around his waist. Hakoda doesn't miss how he's wiggling his shoulders to create friction with the warm fabric.
“It’s okay. Don't take it off”, he tells him and the boy freezes in place. He remembers his Sokka, coming down from the adrenaline of running around and playing for hours in the cold tundra and shaking with low temperature. He sits at the edge of the bed and takes the two smaller trembling hands into his own. He leans down and breathes out warm air between his fingers, then rubs the boy's skin until it turns red and feels a little warmer, before moving higher, to his wrists and arms and repeating the motion. He's aware of the Fire Prince whining as he flexes his fingers and closes them into fists again.
When Hakoda works his way over shoulder blades, chest and waist, he throws a heavy blanket over his upper body and begins the same ministrations to his legs, from feet to thighs. At some point during this, the body moves with soundless sobs. He looks up at a wet, reddened face. “What is it?”.
“It hurts”, he whispers, squirming under Hakoda’s touch.
“I know. You're very cold. It'll feel better soon, okay?”.
He nods, exhaling shakily. Some time later, he's wrapped up snugly inside Hakoda’s bed, his face -the only visible part of his body through the heavy blankets- looking exhausted, eyelids drooping.
“Won't you lie with me?”, he asks, but it lacks the suggestive tone he tends to use.
Hakoda shakes his head no. “I have to write some letters. You get some sleep, okay?”.
He looks like he's slowly coming down from whatever they'd given him, eyes more clear. “Thank you, Chief Hakoda”. It holds more meaning than words usually do.
Six months later, Hakoda and Bato return home. From the very first day, he’s restless. When they sit down to eat with his mother, after the children are in bed, he’s already talking of leaving.
Bato sets his spoon down. “Hakoda, what are you talking about? We’ve just come back”.
“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to”.
He looks at him pained and continues eating.
“He’s right, son”, Kanna places a hand on his forearm. “These children are growing up without a father’.
“I’ll take them with me this time. It’s been more than a year of peace, it’s a strong diplomatic move to visit with my family and show that I trust our sister tribe with my children’s safety”.
“Is that all they are to you? A means to negotiations?”.
“We can't just haul up in our village and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist, Bato! I have a responsibility to our tribe. I'm sorry it's affecting the kids, but this is what it means to be the Chief’s son and daughter. I grew up the same way and I'm still alive, aren’t I?”.
“You're not your father, Hakoda”, Kanna speaks gently.
“Of course I'm not”, he scoffs.
Bato holds his head between his hands. “I'm not going to keep antagonizing you or anything. Just know that whatever you need, I got you. If you need to be away for a long time again, I'll watch over them. I'll be wherever you need me to be, you have my word. But you need to know what you're doing and you need to take care of your children and yourself. Okay?”.
Hakoda gets up and hugs him tight to his chest. “I don't deserve you”.
“Shut up, big baby”.
Taking the children to the North is, foreseeably, a disaster. Katara’s scared sick throughout the journey, waking up screaming and vomiting from nightmares about flames and blood and her mother. She won’t stop asking him about the firebender.
“What if he attacks us, dad?”, she cries and cries until she hiccups.
It’s taking a toll on him, talking about it every day. He can’t stop his mind from wandering to dark places and he musters all his strength to remain composed in front of them. “He’s a prisoner. Nobody there will let him hurt you, okay?”.
“Firebenders are very strong”.
“He’s not. He’s a child, like you. He’s not dangerous, sweetheart, I promise you’ll be safe”.
His son is watching him attentively, worrying at his lower lip. “If he hurts you, I’ll kill him”, he speaks to his sister gravely. “Me and dad are stronger than him, aren’t we, dad?”. He’s trying to disguise the worry in his voice.
Hakoda breathes in slowly, ignoring the way his lungs restrict. “Yes, Sokka. Don’t worry about him, okay?”.
Once they’re there, he prioritizes Katara’s bending, to keep her distracted from her fixation on the firebender.
Master Pakku, a stiff old man undertaking water bending teaching, plasters on a cold smile and suggests that the little girl begins with healing classes, so he meets with the healers and sends his daughter off to them every morning. She keeps it up for maybe two weeks before she's returning to her room complaining about how she wants to learn real bending. She skips her classes.
Pakku finds him one day, with the same smile that doesn't wrinkle his eyes. “Chief Hakoda. Your daughter has been disrupting my lessons. I ask of you to contain her or allow me to discipline her”.
Hakoda stares. “I've been meaning to talk to you. I believe she's at an appropriate age to start her lessons. I'm sure she can attend healing classes at the same time”.
He's trying to talk his way out of it. “See, I can't teach a child with no discipline. Healing classes for a few months will calm her down”.
“I assure you my daughter is capable of following instructions. Please, Master Pakku, just try her for a few days”.
He mumbles something that resembles agreement.
By the end of that month, Katara's coming back from her lessons with bruises. “Sweetheart, what happened?”, he asks concerned.
“He won't teach me anything! We've been practicing things I've known how to do since I was a toddler, while everyone else is advancing!”.
“Does he hit you?”, Hakoda insists, gently pulling the wild hair that has escaped her braid back from her face.
“No”, she grunts, then her face goes red. “I just practice with a boy after the lessons. So I can show him I can do better than the others he's been teaching. And I can! He's older than me and I can beat him now”.
“I think you should trust your teacher, Katara”.
“He's just mad that I'm good because I'm a girl!”, she whines.
Sokka’s head pops out from around a corner and he walks in the room, chewing on something. “She's pretty good for a girl”, he confirms to his father and plops down on the bed.
Hakoda sighs. “Will you please be careful and stay out of trouble? I don't want to have another conversation with Pakku”.
“You better not”, she mutters and walks off to ice a bruised knee.
The situation is giving him constant headaches, but he’s mostly relieved he doesn’t wake up to her screams at night anymore. He thinks that’s the end of it and he won’t need to reassure them about their safety again. He’s being careful, keeping them away from the dining hall, where the Fire Prince lingers at nights, and sending them off with all the other children of the tribe, who have learned by now to steer clear of the pale boy. He notices how, between the Northern children, it’s not really fear that keeps them away from him, but more of a discomfort and complete lack of curiosity. He’s not sure what the parents have told them to stir such a reaction.
Until one day a spooked Sokka runs into his room on the verge of tears. Hakoda steels up. “Where’s your sister?”, he asks immediately.
This catches the boy off guard and he scrunches up his face. “I don’t know?”, he mumbles. “At her lessons?”.
The man breathes through his restricted lung capacity. “What’s the matter?”.
“The firebender tried to attack me”, he says and finally starts crying.
Hakoda feels him over for burns or other injuries before pulling him into his arm, then gently coaxes the story out of him. “He fell on me in the corridor and threw wine on me and then threatened to kill me”, he narrates in a broken voice, then slowly, under Hakoda's questioning, he sings a different tune. “It wasn't my fault! I was just walking- well, yeah, I was walking fast and I didn't see him and he fell on me! No, I didn't fall on him, he did. Well, I saw him! He dropped the jug he was carrying and I got scared because I thought he'd hurt me. I know he did it on purpose”.
“Did he threaten you?”.
He squirms uneasily. “No. He only said he's sorry. I just got scared”.
“And he didn’t hurt you at all?”.
“He ran into me!”.
“Nothing else?”.
Guilt is blooming through his annoyance. He shakes his head no.
“Did you tell him something?”.
He's red as a cherry. “Yes”.
“Was it nice?”.
He shakes his head.
“Did you hurt him, Sokka?”.
New tears spring up. “I'm sorry. I thought he would burn me”.
“I'm not the one you should apologize to. He was as scared as you are”.
“Well, I didn't know!”.
“Would you have done this to him should he hadn't been the firebender?”.
He's stubbornly looking away. “I didn't know”.
Hakoda gets up. “Where is he now?”.
Sokka leads him to the boy. He's a few corridors down, a small figure scrunched up inside a hollow in the wall, knees to his chest. His nose is bleeding down his chin and there's a darkening spot across his unscarred cheek. The sound of his breathing is all wrong, short and erratic. When he looks up at them, his face crumbles with a desolation so acute it makes Hakoda wince.
The man steps over the wine stain on the carpeted floor and leans over to pick up the discarded tin jug.
“Get up, kid”, he tells him, and the boy obeys swiftly, back straight, despite the fluttering of his ribs. He turns to his son. “Come on, then. Say what you have to say”.
Sokka, now facing the threat with his father by his side, looks embarrassed. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you or, um. Hurt you”.
The firebender remains rigid. He's trying to hold in his frantic breaths, resulting in a painful jerk of his chest every few moments.
“Who was the ale for?”, Hakoda asks him, to put him at ease.
It takes him a few moments to answer. “Ambassador Burl”.
He recognizes him as an earth kingdom man. “You tell him I needed you for something urgent and you were delayed. Alright? Go fetch a fresh jug”. He pushes the empty one on his stiff arms, then leans closer and gingerly touches the bridge of his nose. On its left, one finger grazes the rough end of the scar. Mercifully, it isn't broken. He pulls down his sleeve and cleans up the boy's bloody face, then steps back to give him space. “Go on, then”. He watches the wordless young firebender walk off dazed, shoulders trembling with withheld tension.
When he's gone, Hakoda looks down at his son. “If he had accidentally burned you in self defense, it wouldn't have been his fault, but they'd still kill him for it. Do you understand, Sokka?”.
He only nods mutely, fist pressed tightly against his lips. “I didn’t know”, he keeps mumbling in a litany.
It is safe to say neither of his children particularly enjoys their stay. On the return journey, they're both so relieved and calm, Hakoda feels as if he's watching over a different pair of kids.
Notes:
i've been writing this in the past few nights because i don't sleep and i thought i'd share and test the waters. I'm halfway through and it's all planned out but i don't usually post such long fics so bear with me if the updates are slow. let me know what you think
Chapter 2: Seawards
Notes:
My inspiration for Hakoda's character in this chapter is that one John Mulaney quote that goes "you have the moral backbone of a chocolate eclair".
This part is mainly about Hakoda spiraling and it might be uncomfortable to get through (also check the relationship tags.. haha..). I dive into some pretty gray moral scenery, uncomfortable sexual encounters, suicidal ideation, trauma, issues concerning consent and bodily autonomy, hakoda endlessly guilt-tripping himself but never actually making good decisions, you get the jest.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The story's told
With facts and lies
You own the world
So never mind-Leonard Cohen
Part 2: Seawards
The invitation to the Earth Kingdom arrives with six months notice.
When he's once again announcing his plans to depart during dinner, spoons are slowly set down on the table and four pairs of eyes watch him.
“Since there won't be a large delegation from the South, I'll head North and join Anrook’s fleet East”. He's grown used to the wearied looks. “You are welcome to join me”.
“You'll manage on your own”, Katara mutters, then continues to eat, face shut off.
He turns to his son, a little desperate. “Sokka, you will be Chief one day. You should get to know other political leaders. Come with me”.
The boy looks uncomfortable. “I can’t leave Katara and gran-gran on their own, dad. And it sounds like a long journey…”.
“One you’ll have to make yourself soon”. Bato places a hand on his tensed arm and any further argument dies down his throat. “Well. I’ll miss you. Everyone”.
“You always do”, Katara murmurs, but has eyes only for her plate.
“Do you doubt it?”. He tries to keep his voice even, bare of emotion.
“How could I ever?”. Sarcasm is dripping off her tongue like a physical thing.
“We’ll miss you too, dad”, Sokka intervenes, and there’s a little motion under the table between the siblings. Katara doesn’t try to hide her annoyance.
Hakoda, unnervingly, finds he can’t believe him. It’s like there’s a great ice wall building between them, him on one side, his family on the other, and once and again he’ll peek over to look down the other side, but it’s growing so high and so steep, and slippery, and cold to climb with years. Could he breach it, could he bring it down? It seemed all the harder.
When he sees the firebender again in passing through the corridors, he looks different. He imagines its the same changes he's been noticing on his children as they grow away from their childhood, but the Fire Prince carries himself already like a matured person; no clumsy growing limbs and long strides just to try his new body out, no youthful mannerisms to betray his sudden coming into adulthood, his lack of practice being a person.
He's taller now, a lithe young man. There are less bones jutting out, only the impression of them underneath tight slender muscle that's slowly forming, with just the translucent skin to cover it. The terrifying gaunt childish face has been evened out; he has an elegant bone structure over a long swan's white neck, and he wears the scar like a sort of tattoo, alluring, otherworldly, daring to touch.
The first few days at sea, he thinks that maybe the Prince was left back in the Palace, for safety reasons. Then, one evening, he's walking around the deck when he spots a crouched figure leaning against the side of a lifeboat. They're still deep in arctic waters and the wind reaches underneath the skin like hooks of ice, so he's puzzled to see someone who isn't on duty sitting out in the open with a simple parka on, instead of hiding underneath thick bedding in their banks.
Then again, Hakoda himself couldn't manage to fall asleep in his cabin, because all his treacherous mind thought about was this same sleeping arrangement as he travelled the seas to his imminent death during wartime.
“Hey”, he speaks now, hovers over the figure.
They don't react at first, but then a head slowly turns to his directions and the moonlight illuminates the familiar face.
“Chief Hakoda”, the firebender greets with a bow of his head, but doesn't move from where he's curled up.
“Fire Prince”, he greets back. “Can't sleep?”, he asks him and lowers himself to the floor, cross-legged across him.
The boy shrugs and presses the side of his head against the wooden surface of the lifeboat, lids heavy over bloodshot eyes. “Do you want to talk?”.
Hakoda is taken aback by the natural tone of his voice, how it’s quiet and reserved in its inquiry. Nothing like the whiny act he puts up around men’s company, or the poisonous sarcasm he unleashes upon Arnook. He breathes out slowly. “Neither of us is sleeping, so we might as well. If you’d like to”.
A sound comes through his lips that, to Hakoda’s tired brain, sounds suspiciously like his son’s name. “What did you say?”, he asks.
“I said, Zuko. You can call me Zuko”.
It was vaguely familiar; he had probably known that was the Fire Prince’s name, but hadn’t really heard anyone use it in years.
“Sure”. He drags his body to the railing and leans his forehead against the wet wood, enjoying the chill against his face. “Why would he keep you tied up in a ship? Afraid you'll jump off?”, he asks eventually, eyeing the Prince's -Zuko's- shackles.
He shrugs. “I’ve tried to kill myself before”. There’s a tense silence as Hakoda watches him reach for his bandaged forearm and tug at the fabric until it comes loose to reveal the mangled white scar tissue, from the base of his palm to the crook of his elbow, thick like a rope. It resembles an animal attack more than anything possibly done by human hand. “Sliced myself up with ice shards. But they found me pretty quickly”.
“Spirits”, Hakoda murmurs, watching the boy’s unfazed face. “Well, if anything, it'll only make it easier for you to die when you're tied up”.
Zuko giggles faintly, then begins wrapping his arm again. “I told him as much. I think he just can’t bring himself to admit he’s still scared of me”. It doesn’t come out smug, not really.
The older man frowns. “You don’t think he should be?”.
He laughs a little and it’s an unnerving sound, like he’s trying to mimick somebody’s laughter but hasn’t yet grasped the right technique. “Your people have always overestimated me. Any firebender would tell you I’m about as skillful as a competent toddler”.
He considers him for a moment. “It’s a technique in war. Appearing weak, so as to give your opponent a sense of false confidence”.
Zuko scoffs. “You’d know about that, wouldn’t you”. Then, he’s quiet. “I tried to warn the Fire Lord”. He doesn’t say ‘my father’. “The servants knew. His generals suspected. It was hubris that destroyed the Fire Nation; Ozai’s pride. Not any of your genius war techniques”. He pulls and tightens the knot on his bandages with his teeth. “I haven’t inherited this delusional arrogance. I’d only rebel if I knew it would mean a quick death, but your people have made clear this will never be an option for me”.
“I’m sorry, Zuko”. He speaks the name in a breath that means apology.
“I don’t want you to pity me”, he tenses up. “We’ve all lost things in the war. It’s each one’s business how to deal with the loss”.
Hakoda stares intently at his elegantly wrapped fingers. “I wouldn’t have survived my wife’s death if I had dealt with it alone”, he says and turns his body fully towards the boy.
He’s gazing out into the ocean. “You weren’t alone because other people didn’t want to deal with losing you”.
He has nothing to answer to that. He’s not wrong; nobody would mourn the Prince of the Fire Nation.
Unprompted, he adds, “But I’m sorry for your loss, Chief Hakoda”. His voice is softer and it makes his rasp more prominent.
“Just Hakoda’s fine”, he hears himself answer.
He hums. “It can’t have been easy”, he murmurs. He does this subtle movement with his hand, gently rubs the pad of his thumb over his pointer’s knuckles, and Hakoda watches transfixed.
“I think”, he clears his throat, surprised at the wetness that slips out with his words. “I think it tore us apart. And it was my fault really. I left to join the Earth Kingdom forces when the children were the most vulnerable. And when it was over, when I could have reconnected with them, I couldn’t stand being around them”. He feels those same fingers tentatively touch his arm, then squeeze and knead his flesh in a steady motion, not harshly, but firmly. A shiver runs through his spine. “You know, I don’t recognise them anymore. It gets very lonely”.
“How old are they?”.
“Around your age”. He winces at his own answer, then guilt floods his chest for this reaction. He doesn’t want to compare him to his children, but he should be.
The fingers trail down and rest on his own hand. “I don’t think it’s too late”.
Hakoda smiles weakly, grateful to hear the words. “You’re sweet”, he whispers. He feels like he might cry, so he slowly rises to his feet and tears his eyes away from the firebender. “I’ve bothered you enough for one night. Thank you, Zuko, for your company. Get some rest”.
“Goodnight, Hakoda”, he whispers and offers a soft smile. He thinks his heart might stop, then wishes it does.
After that first night, he finds himself, plagued with nightmares and insomnia, seeking Zuko out on deck. He’s always at the same place, sheltered against the wind by crouching between the lifeboat and the quarterdeck. It’s the only place he ever sees him at, too; during the day, he seems to disappear and is only there once the ship is quiet, like an apparition walking out of his dreams.
The past few times he’s seen him, he had been looking especially sickly and his cheeks were sinking inwards.
“The sea doesn’t agree with you?”, Hakoda asks, taking his usual spot next to Zuko. He nods faintly, not turning his head. “What is it? Sea-sickness?”.
“Probably”. But he’s sitting by the waves all the time, lulled by the slow rocking of the ship.
“Are you eating properly?”.
He watches him stiffen, then nod fervently.
“I haven't seen you below deck at the galley at all”, he points out.
“Not allowed below deck. Chief Arnook feeds me”.
“If you're ever hungry, you tell me and I'll bring you something. Nobody will know, okay?”.
He shakes his head in refusal. “Thank you, but it won't be necessary. Chief Arnook feeds me”, he repeats.
Hakoda worries the flesh inside of his cheek. “What do you mean you’re not allowed below deck?”. With a dawning realisation, he stands up and raises the canvas covering the lifeboat. Sure enough, there’s a small bundle there, a change of clothing identical to what Zuko’s currently wearing and, peeking through, a red silk scarf embroidered with gold, which he remembers the boy playing with back in the Northern Palace when entertaining guests. “You sleep out here?”.
He shrugs. “The weather’s getting better. And the wind doesn’t get me”.
He sits back down, running a hand through his hair. “You should have told me. We can share my cabin”, he offers.
Zuko’s lips curl at the edges. “Actually?”.
“Of course. I have extra beddings”.
He cocks his head to the side, with a calculating look on his face. “Alright. Lead the way?”. Later, he’s sitting at the edge of the cot while Hakoda goes through the chest, looking for a second blanket. “You’ll be okay on the floor?”.
“I’ve slept in worse places”, he smiles and gets up.
“There’s space on the cot. If you don’t mind sleeping next to me. It’ll be warmer too”.
He bows his head down like a shy girl. “You don’t have to do all this”.
“Nonsense. It’s stupid Arnook hasn’t provided a bed for you”.
Zuko doesn’t answer, but takes a step nearer, lifting the blanket off Hakoda’s arms to his chest. “You’re so kind to me”. His voice is a harsh whisper that Hakoda has to lean in to hear.
There’s something curious stirring in his chest again. “It’s not hard”, he says, mouth dry. “Being kind to you. You…”. The golden eyes are watching him attentively. He tries to get closer. Zuko doesn’t retreat. There’s enough suggestion in the way he closes the distance between their faces, lips hanging suspended above his, slightly open, breathing in his breath. “Would you want this?”, he asks, throat burning with need.
“Yes”, Zuko answers simply. They kiss. The world melts away.
He's acting, some rational fraction of his mind supplies him, you're more than twice his age and he's been forced to do this for years. But then Zuko makes a little sound between their lips and all his foolish blood rushes to his groin.
Hakoda places his hands on Zuko’s shoulders and separates their bodies. “See”, he gasps, “I realise how this looks, but I didn’t actually lure you here to fuck you”.
Zuko laughs a hearty melody and sets the blanket down. “Not that I would mind”. He’s very animated, all of a sudden, overflowing with playful energy.
“Go to sleep, you menace”. He pushes him lightly on the bed. When they have both lied down, Hakoda pointedly ignores the suggestive way Zuko’s spreading his limbs, lightly touching his body, not enough to bother him or invade his personal space, but just there to remind him of his palpable presence. He doesn’t look down, because the warmth spreading underneath his belly freezes the blood in his veins.
The next night, he doesn’t find him on deck. The second night, he follows Hakoda to his cabin and falls asleep before the other man has even undressed, back turned to him. The shackles are off his ankles, but one of them, the left, still carries the silver band. Sometimes he asks to sleep on the floor and curls against the wall. Then some week later, there’s a knock on his door and the firebender is there, uninvited. Hakoda has already made clear that he’s welcome to come and go as he pleases, even during the day, but Zuko so far had waited for Hakoda to fetch him.
He’s standing at the door, a tantalising smile on his lips. “Am I interrupting you from something?”, he asks.
“I was ready to go find you. It’s a good time to sleep, I think”.
He closes the door behind him in smooth, fluid motions, like his body has no joints, no solid bones. He clicks something, a small glass bottle, against the nightstand. “Are you very tired, Chief Hakoda?”. It’s oil. He hangs his lower lip. There's a tangible mood in the air and Hakoda would be lying if he said it didn’t affect him.
“Don’t call me Chief”, he speaks. His voice is heavy with arousal and his throat is closing up.
He’s close now, fingers sprawled on Hakoda’s chest. He grabs him by the waist and leans down to kiss him. He’s a ravishing little thing, mouth warm and welcoming. He thinks of chestnuts roasting in the hearth, flesh soft and nutty and subtly sweet.
“Please let me have you”, he whispers breathily between kisses.
Hakoda’s so overwhelmed with sensations he might cry. “Yes”, he gasps for breath, before diving back in a bottomless ocean of lust, “yes”. His skin burns at the touch.
His hands are uncoordinated and shaking a little as he’s frantically pulling at articles of clothing. Zuko’s hushing at his ear, guiding his arms, fingers firm around his wrists. “It’s alright. Don’t rush. I’m right here”. He seeks out another desperate kiss.
He spares a quick glance at his pulsing erection, then pushes Zuko gently on the cot until he’s lying down and lowers himself between the young man’s knees. He extends an arm and blindly searches for the bottle on the nightstand. He’s uncorking it with one hand while the other tugs at Zuko’s loincloth.
He absentmindedly tips the bottle and wets his fingers, but then the fabric is finally out of the way and his blood runs cold. Where he expects to see a penis, there is a long white scar against his crotch.
“My gods”. His stomach roils.
Zuko turns his head and pushes his face into the pillows, blushing. “You don't have to act so shocked”, he murmurs, pulling his knees together.
“Who did this to you?”.
“A man with a knife”. His tone is sharp and angry.
“One of ours?”. He regrets it the moment he asks, because there's an obvious answer. The Fire Nation, at least, would need a fertile prince to continue the royal line.
A sarcastic gasp leaves the boy's lips. He stares back at Hakoda, widening his eyes and scrunching his eyebrows the way he imagines himself looks right now. “Would you believe it?”, he mocks, fake-shocked. Then his face slackens and he seems exhausted beyond his years. “When they decided what they’d do with me, they had to make sure I wouldn't be having any fun while at it”.
He’s at a loss for words. He feels he might throw up. “I'm so sorry, Zuko”.
“I don't care now that it's done. It's not like I'd be a man with them on”.
He stares at the young man before him, swallowing down horror in gulps of bile. “They didn't take everything. You can still -I mean, if, with the right partner-, you can still enjoy it, you know”.
“Yea. I know”. His voice is very distant. “I enjoy it”.
“I mean, really. There isn't just ejaculatory orgasm”.
“I know about the birds and the bees, Hakoda. Been taking it up the ass long enough”.
The silence stretches, tense. Zuko speaks at last. “Sorry for ruining the mood. We can still do it if you're up for it”. There's a tantalizing intonation which Hakoda categorizes as insincere.
“No”, he declines immediately. “I mean, I’m sorry, Zuko. This is terrible. Not that you are- I mean- this shouldn’t have happened to you. And you’re beautiful, but, but this is cruel”. He swallows hard. Zuko’s face is blank. “Some other day, maybe. I need to process this”.
He starts to get up. A grip at his wrist stops him.
“I didn’t mean I want you to leave. You can stay here. If you’d like”.
He sits back down. “I thought you knew”, he mumbles.
“No, Zuko. My gods”.
“It wasn’t a secret”.
“I’m sorry. I would have never agreed to this”.
He’s quiet as he settles down under the covers, turning his face to the wall. “Sometimes I think that if I ever got hard, I’d cut them off myself. So that’s something”.
Something collapses in Hakoda’s chest. He presses his fist against his face to stifle the breath harshly knocked out of his body. “I can’t be complicit to this, Zuko”.
His shoulder blades shift. “I’m not some sort of crime, Chief, for you to feel guilty about. It’s a little late for guilt”, he spits the words out, caustic and bitter. “If I come asking for it, it means I want it. If you don't want it, it’s your business. But don’t put it on me”.
Hakoda cannot sleep that night, and he doubts Zuko does neither, but they both feign it fairly well and eventually the sun comes up and it’s over.
They avoid each other for the next few days and there’s a shift in the air. They’re entering warmer waters and the days are longer.
Arnook finds him at the galley, sits next to him on the long wooden bench. “You look good, Hakoda”.
He swallows down a mouthful before his stomach has time to lurch. “Thank you. The weather is merciful on our old bodies”.
He sighs. “That is true”. He shoots him a sideway glance. “But there are other things warming your body too?”.
Hakoda freezes and slowly sets his spoon down. “Pardon?”.
“I hear you spend your nights recreationally. I’m happy for you, Hakoda. I’m glad to see you’re doing better”. There’s a hand amiably clasping his shoulder, then Arnook gets up and leaves before he has time to process the words and come up with an answer. He climbs above deck and throws up over the railing.
Zuko next finds him perched over his desk, forehead pressed against the cool surface of a half empty liquor bottle.
A shadow of fear passes over his pale face, then it empties itself and settles into a stoic expression. “Hakoda?”, he speaks softly, closes the door behind him, but not all the way until it clicks. The man has no strength in him to respond. “I’m sorry if… I won't bother you. I only wanted to apologise”.
He looks at him, at the way his stands by the door, one arm folded at his side, hand resting on the door frame in a fist, the other behind his back, fingers wrapped above his elbow; at the soft braid he's made of his hair, just like she used to, then at the expanse of scar tissue across his face, the bloom of colour down the pallor of his throat, and can only think about that first time he ever met him in the Northern Palace prisons, burn still fresh and wet. It was how Kya’s skin had looked when they wrapped her up in a shroud. They couldn't change her into clean clothes because trying to remove the burnt fabric pulled off her flesh. He had looked down helplessly at what he had loved most in his life being reduced to these tattered remains they'd have to most efficiently burn a second time, successfully this once, to ashes, the job well done. He couldn't escape the smell of the funeral pyre no matter how far away from the village he ran. He was certain he would die that day, such was the pain clawing at his chest, and he hated that he didn’t, because afterwards sometimes he'd hug his children goodnight and bile would rise to his throat, should their skin flay and give in to eroding muscle and bone.
He can't do it. Can't look at him. “Go”, he whispers hoarsely, because he cannot grasp any other words from inside his muddled mind to utter. Another thought occurs, that he can't remember how she looked like with her face whole, when her teeth weren't peeking through a melted cheek. Panic seizes him. His lungs turn into fists again and he can't bring himself to make the motions of breathing.
“I can't leave you like this”, Zuko's voice drifts in and out. Fingers touch him, and they're cold, and they're hard, but there's pads of skin there, not ends of bones, and a pulse of flowing blood from a beating hard. She had such beautiful hands. He’d spend so many hours watching her work the loom, transfixed by the elegant movement of her agile fingers, watching the knuckles shift under her soft skin. He searched for her hands first, when he found her, then her face. He mourned every part of her as a separate loss. “Come one, now. I didn't know you drink like this. Come on, you're fine, stop doing this, you're fine, look at me for a moment”.
The urgent shaking of his shoulder snuffs his brain out like a match.
“Zuko”.
“That's me”, he mumbles, his face tense.
“Come to bed with me?”.
“Yes, of course. Yes. Are you okay?”.
“Don't talk to me. Let's just lie down”. His tongue feels thick, stuck to the roof of his mouth, and the words slur into one another.
“Yes”, Zuko repeats, quietly. He helps him up, struggling to carry the older man’s weight, and they land gracelessly on top of the cot. Hakoda’s focusing on his senses, the images before his eyes, to escape the whirlpool threatening to suck him back in. He’s not thinking about it. He’s not thinking about it, because he’s thinking about Zuko’s face and the tight wrinkle between his eyebrows. Hakoda wants to reach and smooth it down, so he wills his arm to rise. Zuko, when sensing the movement, stands still. The frown doesn’t go away.
Giving up, he falls back on the beddings. Zuko pushes him into a sleeping position, then slithers next to him, leaving a distance between them. Hakoda stares at this gap for a long time. He gingerly places an arm around Zuko’s torso and, when he sees it's well received, pulls him closer, his own chest pressing onto his spine. His nape, where Hakoda rests his face, smells of salt and, faintly, of the ship's turmeric soap. As he breathes in his scent and feels the warm skin underneath his fingers, blood lazily trickles down under his belly. Zuko must feel it against his thighs.
“I can take care of that”, he whispers pointedly, hips pressing backwards onto Hakoda's stomach.
“You take such good care of me, don't you”. It comes out of his mouth unconsciously and his nostrils fill with Kya’s smell in a manner so sudden and acute, it brings tears to his eyes.
Zuko makes an eager, agreeing sound, half-turning, and there's pressure on Hakoda's crotch and fingers are lightly padding against his length and he can't hold it in anymore. The sobs are so violent they hurt his ribs.
Zuko sits up alert, watching him carefully. “I'm sorry”, he says quickly. “I'm sorry, Hakoda- chief- I didn't know. I'm sorry”. He's slowly moving towards the edge of the cot, dismounting it. Through blurry eyes, Hakoda sees him sitting on his knees by the bed, fists tight on his lap, but he's crying so hard he can't get a word out.
He finds his breath some minutes later. “Gods”, he exhales shakily, lifting his body off the mattress. Zuko’s frozen in place. “Sorry, Zuko. Not your fault. Let's get some sleep”. He pats the empty space by his side. The boy obeys in an instant, but he moves stiffly. No further word is spoken and he falls asleep first, exhausted.
They're tiptoeing around it for days. Stray kisses, bold touches, Zuko's sickly sweet words spoken near his ear, teeth sensually grazing his lobe. Hakoda knows the guilt will destroy him, but he can't make himself refuse him, can't say the words “get out”.
They're both restless one night, with some kind of desperation building up as the shore begins to materialize in the horizon; Zuko's whining, uttering bubbling follies neither of them quite process, almost pleading with him, while Hakoda’s sweating through the sheets with want. He means to get up and walk out for fresh air, but the sight of his erection as he's getting dressed stops him dead in his tracks.
“I'll take care of that” Zuko peaks over his shoulder, then kisses the back of his neck. “Let me take care of it”. So he lets him.
It all happens in a frenzy and the climax hits him like a stone pillar to the face; the regret is instantaneous. When the deed is done, Zuko's springing up as soon as Hakoda's out of him, reaching for a towel. The older man studies his face, which lacks emotion, and feels a pang in his chest.
“Are you okay?”, he asks.
A naughty smile blooms on his lips. “Mmhm”, he makes a confirming sound.
“Did you-”,
“Yeah”. He leans over Hakoda and places a kiss on his mouth, pushing his tongue inside, then continues to clean down the inside of his thighs. “It was so nice. Wanna go again?”.
Hakoda laughs, a little uneasy. “Gods, no. Enough for me”.
“Alright, old man. I'm going to fetch you some warm water, okay? Don't fall asleep”.
Hakoda extends an arm and grabs the thin wrist. Zuko pauses. “You don't have to do that. Just lay here with me for a bit”.
“Alright”. He places his body snug against the man. Hakoda has noticed that, whenever he's naked, he delicately arranges his limbs in such a way as to hide his groin. Ever since that first incident, he's barely caught a glance of the scar. It's the same with his face; he places himself on Hakoda's right, so when he lays his head on his lap, the man can look at the unscarred side looking down.
“Do you feel sad? Afterwards?”, he asks Zuko, who's breathing gently now onto his chest. His golden eyes look up at him with curiosity.
“Sad? No”, he says simply. “Do you?”.
He nods slowly. “I just feel such… grief. Once desire is spent”. He doesn't speak about the guilt that plagues him, now that he's done what he had sworn himself he'd never do, ever since he first saw Zuko as a boy bent on his knees for the Northern Chief. Tomorrow, he'll make excuses for himself. Now, he places a hand on Zuko's soft black hair.
“Then I'll have to learn to keep the grief from you”, he answers softly, fingers trailing circles around Hakoda's knee.
Once they reach the shore, the delegation continues in a procession towards the City. There are ostrich horses waiting for them ashore and carriages for the gifts they're carrying to the King, fine leathers and dried meat and spices. Zuko, shackled again, at both wrists and ankles, is placed in one of these carriages, tied to the wooden wall. He meekly accepts the rough manhandling, lowering his head. He doesn't spare a glance at Hakoda, not when they're among people.
Meanwhile Hakoda endures an uncomfortable conversation with Arnook reassuring him that the firebender’s confinement is merely a traveling safety precaution and he shouldn't hesitate to request his services at any point; even gives him a spare key for the locks.
With the illusion of privacy he kept on the ship, having his own cabin, gone, he stays away from the Fire Prince, never once checking in on him, because the shame of being seen by his countrymen fraternising with the firebender is too great to bear. Now, with the distance between them, he curses himself for ever getting attached, regrets talking to him, letting him in on his bed. In his head, he starts blaming Zuko too, growing suspicious of his intentions. He had pushed him to sex so fervently, no man could have refused under such pressure. He'd probably lied about having no bed to sleep on, just to take advantage of Hakoda's bleeding heart and find his way underneath his sheets.
For the first time at night he does not dream of Kya, but of white Fire Nation skin. There was fire in his loins and he woke up shaking and grunting, clothes soaked through. He had fits of tremors throughout the day and was getting paranoid about every little thing anyone told him; he struggled to remain civil when answering questions about his wellbeing and lied and lied about how he missed his children and how he hadn't been the same ever since his wife died, he couldn't sleep at night, couldn't think, and fear gnawed at his guts, but what haunted him really was this pair of golden eyes searing into his soul. He burned so hot he grew certain there was some kind of mark on him; he was surely stigmatized to the world as one who lusted after the Prince of the Fire Nation, and inspired disgust and pity to everyone around him. He hated himself the most. What kind of father gets so preoccupied with a lover that he doesn't spare a thought to the children he'd abandoned at home? What worth was his love to Kya if he betrayed her so easily? How could he look Bato in the eye and admit that he felt no remorse for what he'd done, because this passion was swallowing him whole?
Their arrival in Ba Sing Se is greeted with a grand welcoming ceremony. He acts his role, waits his turn to bow before the Earth King and present a chest with gifts from the South; handwoven blankets, wolf fur pelts and carved wooden ornaments. When asked about his health, not conversationally, but with curiosity, he answers that he’s sick and then repeats the lie to everyone who wonders, until he believes it himself. He’s sick, that’s why he feels this way. It’s an illness and it will pass.
He spends the night drinking until he’s numb, eyes bitterly watching the Fire Prince perform for the King. He’s dancing in his fire nation garments, a skirt the colour of blood blooming like a bud into strips of fiery tongues with each twist of his waist. He can’t tell if the glimmer of his golden jewelry on his hair and arms and neck is a trick of the light, or if he was lying about his bending skills too, and the flames lighting his fingertips can so masterfully slither along his limbs and dance with him.
Despite the journey to here taking a physical toll on him -he’s thinner and his bones push at his skin with each bend of his body- he seems more alive than he ever was in the North. There’s no cold here to bruise him and muddle his brain, but a pleasant warm atmosphere, and he’s thriving on it, on the wine he sips from the King’s goblet and the bites of delicacies he mouths from his fingers like a dog accepting a treat. Hakoda can’t keep looking at him, or he’ll puke, but his gaze is glued and he disguises the tears burning his eyes with a series of yawns. A servant discreetly asks him if he’d like to be shown to the guests' rooms. He agrees and asks for wine to be brought to him. He continues to drink throughout the night. He wakes up at midday with high fever.
Of his sick days, he remembers little. He knows he had delusions, because he has memories of fragmented conversations, with Kya and Bato and with his father. His father, who sat by his bed on a stool, as stern and menacing as the day he last saw him, and locked his great blue gaze to his. “Do you know what our tribe does to monsters who fancy children?”.
Then his own cracking voice, begging to be believed: “He’s of age, father, I’m not this kind of man!”.
“A monster and a liar. As if you haven’t been eyeing him all these years. You deserve the worst kind of death”.
“Father, please!”.
Like that, the fever went up.
At other times, when his temperature fell, he’d feel hands on his forehead or behind his neck helping him up to sip on medicine, careful and soft, and refuse to open his eyes, afraid of the person he’d face. More conscious, he couldn’t stand the image of his wife or Zuko or, worse, their absence. He couldn’t open his eyes to a stranger servant simply obeying orders. He held onto these kind touches and cried with his eyes shut tight.
He saw him as in a dream. He realizes a long time must have passed, because his face looks softer, crevices filled out. He looks healthier, with colour to his cheek, prettier, if possible. He craves to touch this new body and the feeling aches like a physical wound.
“Hakoda”, he speaks in his soft rasp. The sound pulls at Hakoda's insides like a fishing line. He approaches and sits at the edge of his bed, one hand reaching for his. “I heard you're sick”.
“Zuko”, he mumbles.
“Are you alright? They said it's a bad infection”.
“It’s nothing”, he grasps at his hand. “I’ve missed you”.
“I don’t believe you”. He smiles a peculiar little smile Hakoda can’t quite decipher. “Show me how much you’ve missed me”.
He sees Zuko’s hand move before he feels it and sits up with a start. He reaches for him, ignoring his aching bones, presses his face against his chest and inhales his smell like it’s the only source of oxygen in the room. They don’t speak, only Zuko continues his ministrations until Hakoda gasps for air.
“Ah. I see now”, he murmurs cruelly into his ear. “I missed you too, Chief Hakoda”.
Notes:
Posting this so soon because I want to get over the Hakoda/Zuko-centric part so you'll be free of these shackles soon. It is the last we see from Hakoda's perspective, I think. Next chapter, switch to the Gaang.
Chapter Text
And I heard again
the faceless voice
saying, How can you expect energy from above
when you continue to receive it
from below
and are content?I Am Not Content!
Part 3: Underground
They’d found him half dead in the snow. It was a mystery how he had ended up there, a boy their age all on his own in the icy tundra, washed ashore by a sea that meant murder to people like him. He was dressed lightly, for a different, warmer part of the world. The bright colours, shades of orange, reminded Sokka of the firebender prisoner he’d encountered once in the North when travelling with his father. His clothes, however, had been provocative and ornate, a performer’s garb, while this boy’s were simple modest pieces, sewn for comfort, but not warmth.
Katara had stopped dead in her tracks, staring at the body with a vacant expression so much worse than any sign of distress would have been. Sokka noticed her silence and it was enough of a warning. He reached her in a few strides and grabbed her arm, pulling her back a few steps while he kneeled next to the boy to check for signs of life, heart hammering wildly behind his ribs. He finds a weak pulse beneath waxen cold skin. “Katara, it’s okay”, he almost chokes on the words, lungs releasing a gash of air with relief. “He’s alive, it’s okay. Let’s get him away from here”.
Sokka carried him over his shoulders to grandma, who looked from one of them to next and worked around Katara, changing his clothes and drying his limbs while the girl pulled water from his lungs without uttering a word. The old woman had an indecipherable look on her face and her fingers, shaking, lingered over the lines of bright blue tattoos adorning the young body before her.
“I need to speak to Bato”, Kanna mumbles, then repeats the mantra they’d been acquainted with since childhood, “Where is your father when I need him… Watch over him”.
It is hours later that he wakes up stretching as if from sleep. He takes in the scene before him with wide gray eyes still bleary and smiles a toothy grin towards the siblings. When they don’t share his enthusiasm, his facade wavers and something akin to anxiety or fear darkens his features.
“Hi”, he tries hesitantly. His voice is high-pitched and Katara wonders if he’s even younger than he looks, or if nerves make it hard to control. “I’m not sure where I am”.
“In our house”, Sokka answers dryly. He’s not sure how much he can say to this stranger. He wants to call for Bato but fears leaving Katara alone with him.
“My name is Aang”, he takes another route. He’s met again with apprehensive silence. “I’m not supposed to be here. I think I was caught in a storm”.
“Where were you going?”, Katara asks him.
His fists tighten until his knuckles go white over the blankets. “I don’t know”.
“Is there anyone looking for you?”.
“I don’t know”.
The siblings exchange a look. Sokka clears his throat. “We haven’t found anyone else. Maybe it wasn’t a shipwreck”.
“Oh, no”, he shakes his head, anxiety written all over the way he holds himself now. “I was travelling alone”.
“What?”, Katara startles. “How old are you?”.
“Fifteen. I wasn’t supposed to-… I was being stupid. I need to go back as soon as possible. Please, tell me where I am?”.
Sokka crosses his arms over his chest, lips tight, but Katara caves in at his distress. “It’s the South Pole”.
“Oh”.
“How did you come here alone? In a boat?”.
He jerks his head, throat clicking as he swallows. “You said you haven’t found… anyone else?”.
Katara hums a negative sound.
Aang takes a deep breath and Sokka blinks, confused, as he feels the air shift around him.
“Maybe an animal?”.
“What an-”.
“What’s going on in here?”, Bato abruptly appears at the entrance. Relief floods Sokka’s chest and the tight knot at the bottom of his stomach eases.
“He woke up”.
The man doesn’t move closer, only coldly stares at Aang across the room. “Is he coherent?”.
“I think so”, Katara answers, and the boy bobs his head animatedly.
“Well, then”. Sokka can recognize when the man is nervous. “I need to know the answer to one question”. Kanna has appeared behind him, looking small where she stands next to the taller man. Her gaze flickers to the other two children, then back at Aang, heavy and grave. Bato takes a breath. “Are you the Avatar?”.
Time stills around them, or maybe the air does. “Yes”.
Grandma’s praying gets lost underneath the buzzing in their ears.
Once the initial shock of the myth of the Avatar being true wears off, Sokka and Katara don’t fully grasp the enormity of his existence, and then it hits them all at once like a great wave. Grandma’s repeating the old fairytale, how the Avatar vanished just before the War broke out and his disappearance was the darkest omen in history.
Aang’s still recovering, lying down on a bedroll in the corner of the room, feigning sleep through the accusations. The Avatar was supposed to keep the world in peace, resolve tensions before they broke out in an unprecedented spree of violence and terror. Had he been there to stop the fighting, things would have been different. Mom wouldn’t be dead.
“What I don’t understand”, Bato’s saying, fists tight and trembling a little where they rest on his lap, “is whether a whole cycle of Avatars has passed during the War and it was kept, for reasons, a secret, or whether this is the same airbender who disappeared a hundred years ago”.
“Don’t be silly, Bato, he’s fifteen years old”.
But there are strangled sounds coming from Aang’s direction, heaving breaths and gasps and, gradually, wet sobs. “It’s my fault!”.
Katara, always the bleeding heart, is by his side in moments, holding his hand. “Of course it’s not. You weren’t even born when all these things happened”.
He’s shaking his head and crying, “It’s my fault, it is! I have done something terrible!”. And he narrates in broken sentences how he fled the Southern Air Temple and tried to save himself and someone else he kept mentioning, Appa, from drowning by trapping them in an oxygen bubble beneath the waves, where he must have stayed frozen inside, gently travelling across the sea and eventually freezing deep in the icy southern waters. “A hundred years of war because of me. And if what you’re saying is true and all the airbenders…”. He can’t finish the sentence.
Bato looks around at the three of them, then at Kanna. “It isn’t your fault. Had you been there, they’d have killed or imprisoned you. Nobody is responsible for this war but the line of Sozin and their line is no more. The spirits deemed this was the right time to return to us. So accept your responsibility to the world and do something now to bring true peace”.
He’s hiccuping through tears. “But you said the war is over”, he mumbles questioningly.
“It’ll never be, so long as people aren’t free”.
Sokka had heard Bato’s opinion on this topic before, when discussing it with his father and, at times, with Sokka himself. The fanatical hate for the Fire Nation hadn’t died down after the end of the war, but perhaps had even increased as the fear of them dissipated. Murder of entire families and communities discovered seeking shelter from the Earth Kingdom troops were frequent news and large populations of non-benders were forced into slavery and captive labor. Benders, if not executed for breaking the new law forbidding fire bending, were imprisoned in inhumane conditions, in underground cells to weaken their flame. Fire Nation citizen’s only relief was death. Children of mixed origins only escaped this fate if their physiognomy wasn’t western, and still were treated cruelly, as some lowly race. “The only ones ever at fault were the Fire Lords”, he would say. “Maybe some of their subordinates, too, but the Sozin line was known for being vicious men who would terrorize their people into submission. Why should an entire nation suffer the punishment for their deeds, I cannot understand”.
It had taken years for Sokka to sympathize with this view. He had feared and hated the Fire Nation with every thread of his being for what they'd done to his mother, what they had intended to do to his sister should they have discovered she was a bender. He hated them for the war that took his father away from him. He blamed them for what had become of Hakoda, a flimsy man avoiding to step on the ground who had bred him, because their mothers murder had traumatised him so deeply that he could see parts of her haunting him everywhere; in his family home and in his children and in himself.
He knew the Prince of the Fire Nation had been a prisoner to the North when their father took them with him on one of his trips there. He had wished to find an excuse to fight this boy, punish him for what he had done to his family, or at least enjoy a spectacle of anyone else punishing him. He longed to see a firebender in chains, suffering like they had suffered, hurting like they had hurt. And he did.
The scar on his face was the first thing that threw Sokka off. By that time, he had been familiar with burns; he'd watched Bato heal from a gruesome wound stretching across his upper body to his shoulder and arm and, once healed, struggle to live with it, some days immobilized by pain so strong he needed help to perform simple activities. The Prince was a boy his age at the time, no older than sixteen, a gangling thing all jutting bones and bruises, branded burnt and shivering cold, despite whatever stories Sokka had heard about firebenders always staying warm. Sokka had thrown him to the floor and punched him and he had taken it all quietly, obediently, without making a sound, a body made for violence, the way cups are made for water to pour into or boots to be worn on feet.
Something had shifted inside him that day. All his hate was spent.
They’re telling all this to Aang, whose face is a mask of devastation almost comical in its intensity. Kanna’s intently watching the tattoos across his hands, where a chittering cup of tea is placed, moving along the trembling of his limbs. “That is quite enough”, she calls out to everyone. “The Avatar needs to rest. Bato, leave the children alone”.
They help him carry his bedroll to Sokka and Katara’s room and they all lie down, trying to keep all the words swirling inside their heads private.
“I’ll make it right”, Aang says eventually. “I won’t let the Fire Nation suffer anymore. I’ll find Appa and-”,
“Who’s Appa?”.
He goes quiet for a few moments. “My friend”.
They spend the next couple of days scanning the shore for a sky bison. They trust Aang’s description for him – “you can’t miss him, he’s huge, with white fur”- because the idea of a bison, a flying one at that, is foreign to both water tribe siblings.
“Maybe he flew away”, Sokka suggests, eyes hurting with the long hours he’s spent staring at the expanse of ice and snow.
“Appa wouldn’t leave me”.
“If he’s still in the sea, we’ll never find him, buddy”.
“I will”. His face is set with determination.
Katara melts the snow to uncover translucent ice and make sure the animal isn’t trapped underneath. A few days in, she shows Aang how to perform the simple bending move and together they paddle through melting ground, eyes searching. Sokka steps around them in wide strides, scraping snow with his boots.
It’s more than a week later when they find him, drawn by the hollow clink of ice colliding with ice. The large floating block, once melted down to a clear quality, shows patches of matted dirty fur. They need to hold Aang back from diving in to confirm that it is his companion frozen in place before them.
“Aang”, Katara speaks carefully while they’re both tensely melting ice off the animal’s leg. “We don’t know if… if he’s okay. After staying in the ice for so long”.
“He’s fine”. His arms are shaking with concentration and the effort it takes to bend.
Sokka has to run to the village to get them a tent and supplies, since Aang is refusing to abandon Appa to get back for food and sleep.
Once they’re done, the sun is creeping up from the sea and illuminating the wet coat of the huge beast. Aang gets lost under the fur, checking his vitals. When he comes out, it’s with a huge sheepish smile. He collapses soon after, relying on Katara to dry them both.
When they’re awake, Aang shows them how the beast can fly. He’s an erratic little thing now, manipulating the air and moving in whirlwinds, full of wild energy. He’s sharing snippets of ideas, half-formed plans he’s making up on the spot; how he’ll travel to the Earth Kingdom capital and negotiate with the King for the Fire Nation’s freedom, or to the Fire Nation to help families out of hiding, then, around the Air Temples, to find survivors of his people, who he is convinced cannot be all gone.
“I’ll leave soon. Tomorrow, maybe. Whenever Appa’s feeling like himself. Does your dad have a map?”.
“Bato’s not out dad”, Katara corrects him.
“Look, Aang”, Sokka’s trying to talk down his frenzy. “You should take some time to think these things through. You can’t just fly off with no solid plan”.
“Then come with me”. He speaks the words in a manner so natural they take a moment to register. “You know more things about the war than I do and we want the same thing. Help me fix things”.
Sokka’s mind seems to malfunction. “I can’t just-”.
“And I’ll teach you proper water-bending”, Katara chimes in.
“Yes!”.
“Katara!”, Sokka scolds his sister. “We can’t just leave! Not without telling dad”.
“He’s left without telling us before, so I don’t see how it’s a problem”, she answers coldly. “Besides, we’re not children anymore. He has no word over what we do. Not that he ever did”.
It feels like betrayal to his father when he reluctantly agrees and his chest hurts with it.
The day they agree to fly off, they meet a long figure by the edge of the village, where they walk to find Appa. Bato shifts his body when he sees them arrive and smiles his wolfish grin, like when he’d caught them red-handed playing with their father’s weapons.
“What am I supposed to tell your father?”, he calls out to them when they’ve closed the distance to him.
“That he’s a hypocrite. And that we’re actually doing what he doesn’t have the guts to do”, Katara spits, ready to fight the man should he forbid her to go.
“What would that be?”.
“Save the Fire Nation”, Aang replies gravely.
Bato’s gaze stops on Sokka for a long moment. “I think we should talk. There are some things you need to know”.
“We’re leaving and you’re not going to stop us!”, Katara firmly stands her ground, arms crossed over her chest.
“I won’t stop you, Katara”, he speaks very gently to her. “Come with me?”.
He walks them back to his hut and opens a chest overflowing with parchments and scrolls. One by one, he opens them, reads the contents aloud, and passes them to Sokka. There are locations of secret Fire Nation camps, carefully drawn maps of underground hideouts shaped by earthbenders allies, letters from old generals overseeing the immigrant movements and from earth merchants supplying the groups with food and clothing and from healers from the North. There are detailed reports of supplies sent out from the South, weapons and leathers, copies of instructions on how and when and where to receive them, signed receipts of the amount of silver and gold offered for the transportation.
“The leading group of the operation actively planning military action is based in Ba Sing Se. Most camps are located in underground formations around the city to the south and towards Chameleon Bay. We know a lot of people are sheltered in the Western and Northern Air Temple but they are independent communities by now. The Fire Nation islands are mostly abandoned since they’re under Earth military occupation. It’s only prisoners there and if there are still people living in hiding, we have no communication with them”.
The three children stare open-mouthed. “Does dad know about all this?”, Sokka asks.
Bato winces. “Not really, no. Your father…”. He sighs and rubs his face. “He agreed with me, but considered it treason to act upon it. He… You need to know he hasn’t been himself in a long time. I trust it will not reach his ears, not by you at least”.
“Of course not”, Katara reassures him.
“I will write letters to a few people I know so that they know to trust you. They will guide you through everything that needs to be done. Know that I will always help you in every way that I can. And when the time is right, I’ll speak to your father”.
Aang first hugs the man tight and long. “Thank you for giving me this chance to redeem myself”.
Bato smiles and rubs his back. “The spirits work in ways concealed to us. You are here now for a reason. I believe it was meant to be”.
The airbender bows low, then steps aside for the sibling to say their goodbyes.
“Dad will know this is the right thing”, Sokka chokes on trapped tears.
“Yes, Sokka. Your father loves you more than he has been able to show, I promise you”.
Katara stands cold by their side. “We don’t need his love. We have you”.
It is with a pained expression Bato kisses her forehead goodbye. Before they go, he fumbles with something in his coat pocket, then takes Sokka’s hand in his and places a wooden pai sho tile on his palm. “You’ll meet a man by the name of Iroh. You’ll give him this in exchange for a cup of jasmine tea”. Sokka nods and hides his face inside one last hug.
They arrive in the Earth Kingdom’s capital weeks later in low spirits. Aang carries the grief of his people’s annihilation like a heavy cloak on his shoulders. Katara doesn’t think she’ll ever forget how he looked that day kneeling by the bones of the monks in the Southern Air Temple, the sound of his wailing, his catatonic look for days to come.
They dismount Appa outside the Outer Wall and make their way to the city on foot, following a procession of merchants. With Bato’s written direction, they arrive at an inn deep in the Lower Circle. It’s a small shop which, despite its worn down appearance, is clean and warm. There’s a counter in the back where a girl is idly sitting, stacking pai sho tiles on top of each other into a rather impressive wooden pile. Long black hair falls over her face. She doesn’t acknowledge them, until Sokka promptly clears his throat. Then, she turns her head to their direction and they can see a pair of drooping sleepy eyes, a thin film glazing them a milky green. “What business?”, she asks and her gaze remains unfocused towards their general direction.
“We’re looking for Iroh”.
“There’s nobody named Iroh here”.
“Oh. Sorry, um-”.
“We were really hoping to try his jasmine tea”, Aang chimes in.
The blind girl raises her eyebrows. “It can't possibly be better than Mushi's jasmine tea”. She turns her head towards a door behind her and calls out the name again. A few moments later, an old man comes out of the room. He has a round face sunken with deep wrinkles and sagging skin. The harsh lines and deep circles underneath his eyes make him look exhausted and weary and ancient. “Hello”, he greets, and with that word he lights up warmly.
“They’re asking for someone named Iroh”, the girl tells him.
His face falls again. “Who are you?”.
Sokka steps forth, fingers grasping at Bato’s pai sho tile. “I was told to give you this. For a cup of tea”.
“What tea?”.
“Jasmine”.
He looks at the three of them. “Come with me to the back”.
The girl frowns. “What’s all this supposed to mean?”, she demands from the man.
“I’m sorry, Toph”, he grimaces.
“Not yet, you’re not”, she mumbles, then walks to the front door and locks it. “I want jasmine tea too, Iroh”.
He breathes out slowly. “Very well. Follow me, all of you, please”.
It’s an ordinary kitchen in the back and there are series of shelves on the walls carrying jars of tea mixes. The odour of the dried herbs along with the steam of boiling water by the hearth create a stifling atmosphere that gives Sokka a headache. They sit around the table in the middle of the room.
“Bato wrote to me. He said you would come”. They nod. He turns to Aang. “Are you truly the Avatar?”.
Aang shows him two simple bending tricks, one with air and another with water. The old man’s eyes glisten wet.
“The Avatar?”, Toph repeats. “What are you talking about?”.
“He bends air and water, Toph”.
She leans back on her seat, closes her eyes. “Not earth?”.
“Not yet”, Aang replies.
“Mushi, does he really?”.
“Yes, Toph. He does”.
She nods. “Why did they call you Iroh?”.
The man rests his hands on the tabletop. “That’s my name. You’re all too young to know me, but I used to be Crown Prince of the Fire Nation before my brother, Firelord Ozai, usurped the throne”. Whatever Toph might be thinking, she keeps it to herself and listens attentively. “My brother has hurt the Fire Nation deeply. I long to see my people heal. I understand you wish the same”, he says to the three guests.
“I want that, too”, Toph says.
“Thank you, Toph”.
“So”, Aang speaks. “What can we do?”.
Iroh sighs deeply. “Young Avatar, there is a lot to be done. The most important thing is that you remain vanished. It is not the right time for people to learn of the Avatar’s return”.
Aang nods sullenly.
“In the meantime, I can teach you earthbending”, Toph offers.
“And I will introduce you to firebending, if you wish it”, Iroh adds. “We can move to our hideout after nightfall. I’ll have to ask you to limit the time you spend in the city and always be careful not to be followed when returning back”.
Toph gets up and stretches her arms over her head. “I have to do something before we go. I’ll meet you back here before sunset”. She walks to the door.
“Toph”, Iroh speaks, voice quiet. “I trust you”.
“I know”, she says quickly. “I know. I’m not- I won’t turn you in. I just need to tell a friend I can’t meet him tonight, is all”.
“Of course. Take care”.
Once she’s gone, he turns back to the rest of them. “Alright. Why don’t you tell me what you know while I make us some tea?”.
They sit and talk for a long time.
------------------------------------------------------------
It had been a year since Toph left home at fourteen, with nothing more than a note left behind to her parents warning them to not go looking for her and a reputation as an underground fighting tournament champion greater than her years. She rented a bed in a small inn deep in the Lower Circle and worked in the reception in the mornings instead of paying rent, acting her part as the blind charity case when interacting with customers. At night, she left. Mushi, the owner, never confronted her about her evening outings, but she felt he knew somehow about her. He seemed to always know all these things without anyone telling him. Or maybe he thought she prostituted for money. It didn’t much concern her, though she enjoyed the old man’s company more than she had any adult’s in her life.
She headed to the underground arena, dressed herself in dark attire and covered her blind eyes with a black cloth, as a way to hide her identity more than anything else. It hadn’t taken long to make a name for herself. She was established now as one invincible opponent. Benders from around the world travelled to try her hand. For a few hours each night, she was in the centre of the universe and shaped the earth around her as she willed. Nothing could contain her but her protective walls of rock and soil. She was free. It was a good life, for all she cared.
The tournaments weren’t the only time she exercised her bending, of course. There were smaller, more private training grounds underneath the Lake, abandoned now by the Dai Li. That’s where she met him, the first time.
She knew he was there the moment she stepped through the cave entrance, but paid him no mind. He seemed to be hiding at first, body folded inside a cavern, quiet as an insect frozen in place. Then, as she’s going through her training routine, she feels his head moving to follow her body. She stops abruptly when he gets up and turns full body to his direction. He moves carefully, like a girl. “What are you looking at?”.
“Your uppercuts are very quick. Could you show me again?”.
She raises an eyebrow. “Come closer”. He takes measured steps forward, arms tight at his sides. She grins at him, then throws an uppercut that throws him flat to the floor, a cut lip bleeding down his chin. He exhales slowly. “Fair enough”.
She laughs at that. “What's your name?”.
The hesitation before he answers already tells Toph that he'll lie, but his spiking heartbeat is a confirmation. “Li”, he says in his quiet, raspy voice.
She has no reason to question him about it. “You like getting beaten up, Li?”.
She feels him stiffen, defensive. “I want to learn how to fight”.
“Oh, I don't know about it. You're a dainty little thing. What do you need fists for?”.
“If you won't show me, I'll find someone else”, he snaps and turns to leave, ignoring her question.
“Come on, now”, she mumbles under her breath and throws a kick at his calves. He drops on his hands and knees without a sound and stays in the position, frozen. “Will you stay there and look pretty, or get up and fight back?”.
He unleashes his arm with an anger so hot it catches her by surprise and she avoids his hit only by instinct. A startled laugh escapes her. “Good! I thought you’d have a spine in there!”. She allows him to land the next few attacks so she can study his movement. He's agile and glides his body like a snake, a thing with no bones. Toph thought he might be a dancer, so she's curious at his steady stance, at how he positions himself like a trained man. His body seems to know all the right movements, but he struggles to remember and then sometimes is too weak to execute them. They're good techniques too, not dirty tricks one learns in street brawls out of desperation. There's a careful military precision inside his flimsy frame, masked by the flowing ripple of his limbs.
Toph sweeps him off his feet again. This time, he's up in the blink of an eye. She nods her approval. “You've been trained”, she points out. He doesn't reply and she can appreciate the fact that he doesn't lie to her. “Served in the War? You're out of practice”.
She's not sure if his silence is caused by his hesitancy to share things about himself or his effort to concentrate in avoiding Toph’s blows.
Then, she notices another pattern. His steps remind her of waterbenders she’s fought in the ring. “You're a bender?”. Her fist in his stomach violently forces the air out of him. She hadn't meant to hit him so hard, thinking for sure he'd deflect it, but he's on the floor again, quiet, heartbeat spiking with the lack of oxygen, the way he's not allowing himself to gasp or cough. “Don't do this”, she reprimands him, but kneels by his side, a hand on his arm. He stiffens. “You'll pass out if you don't breathe”.
“I'm not a bender”. Lie.
“Breathe”.
“You don't believe me”.
“I said breathe”. It takes a while for his pulse to even out. “I don't care. I just noticed the way you move is all”.
“I was trained by benders”.
“That's usually how bending training works”. There goes the pitter-patter of his heart again. “I said I don't care. If it'll make you feel better to hear that I believe you, I'll say it. Stop thinking about it”. She plops down next to him and grabs his arm, looking for his pulse with her thumb on the inside of his wrist. There's scar tissue there interrupting the softness of his skin, but she doesn't go exploring further up. It's his business anyway. “You need to be calmer”. He scoffs. “You panic and act like a cornered cat”. It'll kill him, she thinks, the way it races; some little heart who'll beat itself to death.
“Cats still have their claws”.
“You have them, too, if you care to use them”. She pats his knee amiably, draws quickly back at his flinching. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You’ll come here every second afternoon-”.
“I can’t”, he cuts her off. “Sorry. I’m not always free in the afternoon”.
“Okay, fine. Whenever you are, then. Or you can find me after matches end in the arena”.
She feels his questioning gaze on her. “What arena?”.
“You haven’t been to the arena?”, she frowns, surprised. He’s shaking his head, then quickly verbalizing his ignorance. “I thought you knew who I was”.
He grows quiet. “I- Not really, sorry, I don’t-”.
“It’s whatever. You really don’t know where it is? Are you not from the Lower Circle?”.
“No, I, I live in the Palace. I- work? there? Um. I’m a servant”.
“Right”. It wasn’t a lie in itself but he talked so nervously it sounded like one. “As, what, and escort or something like that?”.
He gulps. “Yeah, I supposed that’s it. An escort”.
He holds himself like one, she thinks. Like one of those persons who's not much of a person at all. “Good for you, wanting to know how to defend yourself”.
“It’d be nice, wouldn’t it”. His voice goes toneless again.
“You’ll be fine. I’ll make sure to teach you well”.
If he reacts, she doesn't sense it.
“I can't pay you back”.
There's an anger brewing inside her, for whoever’s selling him out, and she tries to not let it show. “I should be paying you for offering to be my punching bag! You're good. I have more money than I could use”.
“Well, then. Thank you”.
He speaks it so earnestly it pulls a surprised laugh out of her. “Aren’t you cute”. She’ll never get used to how quickly his heart picks up and batters away like a war drum.
She doesn’t stop meeting Li after moving underground with Mushi -Iroh, she keeps correcting herself – and meeting the Avatar. He waits for him at the same place and sometimes takes Aang there for training. Li has watched their lessons a couple of times, hidden in shadows and rocky crooks, unnoticed by the airbender.
“You’re making a profession out of teaching people how to beat each other up?”, he comments one day once the younger boy is gone.
“It’s what I’m good at”, Toph shrugs. “Now. Get in position, sir”.
He’s moving stiffly that day, grunts when she lands hits. It’s not long before he’s struggling to defend himself, visibly at the end of his rope. Toph stops. “What’s wrong with you?”.
“Sorry”. He gets back in position.
“I asked you what’s wrong”.
He goes quiet.
“I’m not going to keep kicking you around. It’s alright if you’re tired”. She promptly sits down. He follows some moments after.
“I’m gaining muscle”, he says abruptly.
“You are? Let me see”. He extends an arm and she pokes his bicep. Sure enough, it’s firm. “Good job”.
He sighs. “Isn’t there a way to… not?”.
“Not what?”.
“Not… change my body. Like that”.
She scoffs. “Of course not. How do you expect to have a strong body with no muscle? What, are they giving you shit about it?”.
He shifts his legs, uncomfortable.
“It's a healthy body, Li. You won't look like a boy forever”.
One day as she’s leaving the hideout with Aang, Sokka and Katara follow them close behind. “Do you think we can watch?”.
Toph shrugs. “If you’re quiet and don’t spook him away, you can watch my next pupil too”, she winks at them.
“You have another one?”, Katara asks, incredulous.
“Oh, I’m quite popular. Just- maybe don’t let him see you. He’s a little flimsy”.
True to their word, once Aang’s training is over, they disappear behind rock. Still, Li has some supernatural sense of being watched and he’s especially tense that day. His technique’s getting better, but his strength is deteriorating. In passing locks and grasps, Toph can feel the flesh of his limbs diminishing, his bones pushing through skin. She lets him go with a strong reprimand to stop starving himself and he dodges his head as he walks out of the cave.
Sokka walks out of their hiding place pale as if he had seen a ghost. Katara has grabbed him by the arm. “Toph”. His voice is low and carries a warning that chills her spine. “Have you got any idea who you've been teaching how to fight?”.
Any sarcastic remark dies at the tip of her tongue.
“This is the former prince of the fire nation”.
“What?”. There's an uncomfortable clenching in her stomach. “Don't be stupid”, she says and she wants to find it funny, she wants to laugh, but the possibility makes her dizzy. She knew he was lying, after all. It made sense if she wanted it to. “I thought the Prince was dead”.
“He’s been a prisoner to the North. I don’t know if he’s escaped or-”
“He says he lives in the Palace. Maybe they’re keeping him there”, she says, Then, “You can't turn him in. He's not a bad person at all. He's not dangerous”.
“He's more dangerous than you think”, Katara mutters, worrying her lower lip. “But we'd be stupid to turn him in. We need him”.
Aang’s head turns with a swoosh. “Yes, we do!”.
“How do you mean?”.
“There's nothing that will motivate the fire nation to fight back more than their own prince. We need him on our side, underground”.
“Okay”. Her mouth feels dry. “I can talk to him”.
“Let’s talk it over with Iroh”.
Iroh proceeds to accuse them of lying. They haven’t seen the man this agitated before.
“The Prince died. It was confirmed. Wasn’t it?”. He’s turning to his partners for reassurance. Piandao looks as confused as him, if calmer.
“It isn’t possible for Prince Zuko to be in Ba Sing Se without us being aware”.
“I know who I saw”, Sokka insists. “I’ve seen him before in the North. I could recognise him anytime”.
“Maybe you haven’t seen enough fire nation citizens to tell them apart”, Iroh’s breathing deeply, head in his hands.
“Do you want to talk to him or not?”, Toph cuts in, annoyed at the fuss. This would never go well.
“Yes! Yes, of course I do!”.
“If what you’re saying is true”, Piandao speaks somberly, “it changes everything. The Prince’s presence-”.
“Our water tribe allies never told me anything about it”, Iroh’s insisting.
Sokka thinks back to any instance Bato had mentioned the Fire Prince, and comes up with close to nothing but a drunken fight between the man and Hakoda he was supposed to be sleeping through, soon after they had returned from the North. He remembers Bato screaming at his father’s face that he was a coward, then never leaving the South to visit their sister tribe again. “They were ashamed”, he speaks coarsely. “The North hasn’t treated the prince well. They wouldn’t want you to know”.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”. The low tone of Iroh’s voice makes the hair on the back of his neck rise.
“I think we should speak to him”.
The older man falls back, exhausted. “Alright. Alright”.
Toph can’t help but feel guilty for what she’s about to do. She waits for Li to come closer, then corners him, closing off his exit from the cave. He treats it as an exercise, prepares his body. She sighs deeply. “Listen, Lee. I gotta tell you something”. She doesn’t fret over it, but swiftly immobilises his legs with rock up to his shins, only allowing him to still move his upper body. If he can trully firebend, he doesn’t call flames against her. “I know who you are”. His heartbeat is so quick she thinks he might pass out any moment now. Still, he doesn't speak. “I'm sorry for the rock thing, I just really need you to hear me out right now and not go running”. She slowly, carefully encircles his arms and pulls him to the floor in a sitting position, then sits down and crosses her legs next to him. She can feel the way he's tensing his body away from her, limbs as rigid as the stone around him. There's something else in his ragged breathing now, something wet. “Are you crying?”.
“I'm stupid”, he whispers, then, “I don't care what you'll do to me”.
“Don’t say this”. She realises now that he had trusted her, in his own cautious way, and that she was betraying him. “I don’t care about- oh, spirits strike me down, okay, listen to me. I don't think you're my enemy. I'm not against you and I have no intention to turn you in; in fact I- well. I believe the Fire Nation should be liberated”.
He sucks in a breath and grows quiet.
“I have friends, powerful friends, gathering forces. You won't have to do anything you don't want to. Nobody will ask you to fight. We're offering you sanctuary from the earth kingdom, protection for as long as you need it, shelter. The only thing we ask of you is to let us use your name. Have them think it's you they're fighting for”.
He's quiet in contemplation. “I'm not the man you think I am”.
“No”, she agrees. Because they’d done their research on him, they had discussed this. How to keep it a secret from people what their Prince has done -what had been done to him-, how the heir to the throne became the King's lapdog and catamite. What a scandal it would be once discovered, how it could blow their plans to pieces. And still, they had to take the risk. “We don't always get what we want”.
Notes:
yay gaang :-))) you guys were right i lied about the chapter count oops
>also can you tell yet bato is literally the only grown man in this fic I actually like
Chapter 4: Underground, II
Notes:
zuko's pov haha.. heads-up this is a graphic chapter and most of the warning tags apply. check end notes
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
He pointed at a comet and said,
"Look, my father's winking at you."Then, his mount grew restless.
"I would like,"he said, "the greatest sinner
among you to take a bite out of my ear."But they kept staring at his girlish hair
and sullenly he spurred his pony on
across the crushed-ice sand.
Part 4: Underground, II
It is cold in the caves and dark and he follows Toph blindly through tunnels, as much afraid of producing a flame in his palm as failing to do so.
She said they’d meet her friends in an undisclosed location, for privacy, and that he was safe, and that he could leave whenever he wanted to, and that there would be no repercussions if he changed his mind, but they’d appreciate it if he didn’t snitch on them and he didn’t fuck it up and he dind’t fuck it up and he didn’t fuck it up
He squints his eyes at the burst of light that comes through the opening in the wall Toph pulled down with the flick of an arm. Toph said he must already know them, The Southern Chief’s children. He wondered how much they really knew about him; if they knew all the things Hakoda whispered to him in the dark, lying next to him in bed, pleasure spent, one vulnerable man and a snake coiled around him -Zuko, Zuko was the snake, always the snake.
The water tribe siblings stand tall besides him, a stern look on their faces. They're dressed in black, no indication of their roots other than the small beads adorning their hair and the tan color of their skin.
“You're the Fire Prince, right?”.
His body clenches at the title. “Zuko”, he offers. “There's no fire prince”.
The girl’s face stiffens, but when the boy -Sokka, a memory from years ago resurfaces- speaks, his voice is softer. “Zuko”, he repeats the name, and it makes Zuko's fingers numbly tingle. He tells himself it's from the cold. “You're right. This is- relevant to what we wanted to talk to you about, actually”.
“Toph told me already”, he says, throat dry.
“Well, we’re going to tell you again”, the girl answers sharply.
Sokka clears his throat. “I’m Sokka”, he offers, “and this is Katara. You can sit down if you’d like. We want to go over a few things”. He gestures towards the stone stools raised from the ground in a circle around the cavern. Zuko sits close to the exit, eyes fleeting among the three of them.
“We are planning to restore the Fire Nation grounds to its people and remove all foreign military forces. That done, we will negotiate establishing a government. We are relying on an initial show of force to draw the Earth Kingdom’s attention. We are gathering men, but a number of groups are still hesitant to agree, fearing repercussions. This is where you come in. We believe that, by bringing back the assumed dead Prince, we can unify our forces and lead them under your command”.
“Phantom command”, Katara interrupts.
“Well”, Sokka shrugs. “The resistance does have a strong and capable leadership, it’s true. You’ll be welcome to participate in planning meetings, of course. But the important part is that you’re okay with people knowing you exist, at first, and then that they can see you. We just need you to go back to acting like royalty, is all”.
Zuko’s listening numbly, his head floating in the stifling humidity. “It is safe to assume the people hate my father, after everything that happened. What makes you think they will be willing to follow his son?”.
“We’ll sell a good story. You were young and had no involvement in the War. There’s nothing to stain your reputation, unlike the surviving generals and counsellors. The former Crown Prince, Iroh, had to step down because of backlash”.
His heart skips a beat. “Iroh’s alive?”, he asks in a rough voice.
“He’s expecting to meet you later, if you’d like”.
He nods and empties his mind into nothingness, ignoring the pain in his chest and the way his heart is racing. “You don’t think rumours will circulate? About what I really do?”.
Sokka meets his eyes and looks away, colour creeping up his throat. “It is expected, especially if the Earth Kingdom realizes what’s happening. But we are making a plausible story. The people will believe what’s more convincing, eventually. If you play your part well, there will be no reason for concern”. He sees the disbelief in Zuko’s face. “You’re right to worry. It’s a risk, obviously”.
“I think you got the wrong man”.
“There wasn’t any right man”, Toph speaks from behind him where she’s standing by the entrance. “There’s only a man willing to do the job, if you wish it. It’s your choice, ultimately”.
He stares down at his lap. “I want to help you. I will do whatever you want me to. But you can’t expect things of me”.
“We don't need a puppet”, Katara snaps. “You are their Prince! We thought you'd care to save your own people, fight for them! What's wrong with you?”.
His eyes darken with anger. “They won't even recognise me”. His arm gestures towards the scarred side of his face for a moment before he pulls it tightly to his lap again. “Their Prince is dead. They deserve a man with honour to lead them, not me”.
Sokka holds a hand out, places it placidly on top of his sister’s knee. “You were a prisoner of war and you survived. I rather think this makes a man honorable".
“I'm hardly a man”, he answers, turning his face away. He composes himself with a quick inhale of breath. “This is what I have to give you, if you’ll take it. I’ll do my best to serve your cause”.
There’s a small smile pulling at Sokka’s lips and it gives Zuko a quiet feeling of satisfaction. “Great. You are moving freely in and out of the Palace, is that correct?”.
“For the most part. I won’t have issues coming down here, if this is what you’re asking”.
“Okay, good. Well, then. Thank you, Zuko”. He holds out an arm and Zuko, after a moment of hesitation, staring down at the strong forearm, extends his own. Sokka grasps it in a strong hold and shakes it warmly. His skin buzzes where he touches him, his cool fingers on the firebender’s heated flesh. “Toph can take you to your, um, uncle? He’s very anxious to see you”.
Zuko nods again, refusing to form a thought about his uncle.
As they’re all standing up, Katara approaches him, arms crossed over her chest. “By the way, Zuko”, the sound of his name like an insult, “we have been made aware that you’ve slithered your way inside our father’s bed”, she says coldly, viciously, “but he should hear none of this, or else everything collapses. Know that putting trust in you is an act of desperation”.
Zuko is no stranger to poisonous words. Yet anger flares inside him. “Does it bother you that he fucks me?”, he asks. When Katara doesn't return his piercing gaze, he turns to Sokka, who blushes violently.
“I don't know what you've said to him. But I hope you know it's a low thing to take advantage of a widowed man to-to-”, she reddens in the face as well, but from anger.
“He's an adult. He can make decisions for himself”.
“So you will continue warming his bed?”.
“If he wishes it also”.
“So you wish it?”.
“Yes”, he answers in an unwavering voice. He recognises the look on her face. It's the look people give him when they call him a slut. He can't control his temper. “Say it”, he challenges her. “Say it, then”. His fists are tight and shaking.
“Say what”, she asks bitterly.
“I know you're thinking it, so say it”.
“Say what”, she repeats, but the color in her face shows she's understood.
“Come on, now, guys, let's calm down-”, Sokka tries to interfere and lowers a hand over Zuko's shoulder. He flinches so hard Sokka reels back as if hit by thunder.
“Our father”, Katara’s voice is wet and trembling with emotion, “he's not- perfect and he's made many mistakes. But he loved our mother. After she died, he never, ever even looked at another in such a way. And now, now, after all these years, for him to bed a whore!”. Tears roll down her cheeks and Sokka takes a step and holds her. She cries with her face hidden in the crook of his shoulder.
Zuko feels hollow. He's suddenly aware of a feeling of jealousy blooming inside him, at how easily Katara cries. He wants to cry too. He wants to cry and it makes his skin tingle with an urge to tear at his flesh.
“I won't tell him anything”, he whispers hoarsely.
“Thank you, Zuko”, Sokka speaks over Katara's hitched breaths, and there's a lump in his throat.
Toph nudges him. “Come on, firecracker”, she tells him quietly. “Let’s go”. The wall closes behind them, cutting off the girl’s hitched breaths. They walk in silence for a while. “Are you alright?”, she asks him.
“Yeah”, he answers stiffly. He swallows and the sound echoes through the tunnels. “I thought my- I thought Iroh was dead”.
“He thought you were dead, too”. Her steps gradually slow down. “You don’t have to see him, if you don’t want to”. His throat closes up and he can give her no reply. “You seem very nervous, is all”.
“Does he know?”.
“Know what?”.
“Don’t make me say it again”.
Toph is quiet for a few moments. “Yes. He does”. Zuko nods shakily. He almost trips over when Toph stops walking. “Whenever you’re ready”.
The sound of rock sliding against rock is lost underneath a whirring in his ears. He gets a glance of his uncle before his vision blurs, and it’s that of an old, wary man. Gray unkempt hair falls around his shoulders; his face is engraved with lines Zuko cannot remember on him and sagging dismally, unsmiling, the same way he held himself after the death of his son. There's nothing of Ozai’s image on him, other than his amber eyes, and maybe this unfamiliarity is what lets Zuko breathe out.
“My gods”, says Iroh.
He grabs Zuko around the neck, pulling him inside and holding him. They both lean for a moment against the cave’s entrance.
“My gods”, he murmurs again. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know, nephew, I thought you were dead”.
It’s a great shock and it weakens Zuko, exactly as though he had been struck in the belly. He clings to Iroh like he’s a rope down a cliff. Then he pulls away.
Iroh looks at him, looks hard at him, up and down. And his uncle’s face tells him how he looks. He moves away from the entrance, away from Iroh’s scrutiny, and turns his face to the side, hiding his scar.
He gets sucked inside a whirlpool of memories; himself at thirteen, chained inside an ice cell, delirious with fever and pain, begging for someone, anyone to save him, fantasizing about his uncle melting this place to the ground and pulling his aching shivering body into a warm embrace. Later, when older, he thought that, logically, there was no chance Iroh had made it, and gave up on the dream of being rescued. He mourned for him, quietly, the way he had mourned for Azula and father, in a way detached from them, not as Zuko, but as a son and a brother and a nephew mourning family members. He thought that maybe they wouldn’t want Zuko to mourn them, that he’s unworthy to be in any way associated with them. A great dynasty had met its demise and Zuko couldn’t be part of it.
It was prophetic, in a way, his father’s last paternal touch; the rough flaming caress across his face. How he had held Zuko down a few hours before the explosion killed him, when his frantic son had ran into the throne room speaking of treason, begging his father to order evacuation of the Palace, to take Azula away, and He held him down and told him that his birth had been an ill omen for that very day, the day the Fire Throne would burn and collapse. He had branded him a coward and an outcast to the family that burned so bright they burned. The thought of his father surviving and finding out Zuko was alive and opening his legs for the enemy kept him up at night, sweating and shaking. He dreamt of his face in the mirror scarred on both sides.
Shame and anger colour his face, that Iroh mistakes for some longing emotion. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you, nephew. To have you so unexpectedly restored to me...”.
The words fall empty to his ears. It means nothing to Zuko now, seeing Iroh. “It’s good to see you, uncle”. The word burns his tongue.
“Would you stay?”, he gestures towards a similar set of seats as the previous room he’d been in and a stone table, where a tea set is laid out. “We have a lot to talk about, Prince Zuko”.
It almost makes him laugh, the image of the disgraced rightful firelord and his whore nephew drinking tea in a cave under Ba Sing Se. “I can’t stay any longer. I will be back soon and we can talk then”. He doesn’t wait for goodbyes, only turns his back to leave.
“Nephew”, the man says with a strain in his voice. He moves to hug him again. Zuko stands limp as the arms pull him tight to the man’s chest. He raises his face to the ceiling and exhales through the few seconds it lasts. “I’m glad you’re alive”.
He can’t think of anything to answer. Toph’s fingers tentatively search for his wrist and she pulls him outside with her. She’s thoughtful enough to not utter a word.
He's seized by guards the moment they spot him and dragged to the King's quarters. He's in a sour mood, drunk and foul.
“You've come prepared then?”.
Zuko swallows back down the bile trickling up his throat. “No, your Majesty”.
“I sent order that you do, didn't I?”.
“Yes, your Majesty”. Not that he would know about it.
“And don't you know what to do with orders, ash-pit?”.
He nods, nauseous, not trusting to open his lips with how his mouth fills with saliva.
The man slaps him across the face. It's always his scarred side, so that he won't bruise the pretty part. “What was that?”.
“Obey them. Your Majesty”.
“Correct. So when I ask something of you, I consider it done the moment the words leave my mouth. Strip and get on the bed”.
Later, in the baths, when he rubs the washcloth between his legs, it sharply stings with pain. Looking down, he sees a ribbon of blood unravel in the water. It wakes up something feral inside him. He pulls at the skin and pushes two fingers in, muscles slowly relaxing in the heat. More blood clouds the water. He pushes deeper, feeling giddy with elation the darker the water around him grows, and looks for the soft spot inside his body that makes his skin tingle and buzz, until his arm cramps from the strain. He gets out of the water, dries himself, lathers his limbs with oils that smell of jasmine and pads through corridors to Hakoda's rooms.
He opens the door drowsy with sleep and lets Zuko in. “It's late”, the man tells him heavily, moves back to the bed and rubs at his eyes.
“I haven't had you in days”, Zuko whispers.
“Come here”. Zuko obeys, but the man simply pulls him to his side and lies back down, ready to go back to sleep.
Zuko, determined, hooks his fingers under the man's waistband and kneads at his member, suppressing the spark of anger in the back of his brain. The touch revives Hakoda soon. Before he can finish, Zuko props him up, strips off his own clothes and pulls at him, kissing furiously at his mouth, demanding attention from the man's still limp and hesitant tongue. “Spirits, Zuko”, he mumbles, but he sounds more aroused than annoyed. His arm extends towards the bedside table, blindly looking for the oil bottle. Zuko gets it for him and holds it in his hands. “I'm all ready”, he tells him as he removes the cork with a pop. “You don't have to do anything”.
Hakoda kisses his face, so softly that Zuko falters for a moment, a tight sensation in his chest, before the numbness takes over again. “Why didn’t you come to me earlier, you sweet thing?”. Zuko has nothing to answer. He turns his back and kneels on the mattress, hiding his face inside his crossed arms.
He sighs with relief at the penetration. There are electrifying shocks of pain going through his lower body with each motion of Hakoda’s hips and it finally fills his chest with something, some ecstatic sensation of adrenaline running through his bloodstream so overwhelming he lets himself gasp with it, hungrily seeks the burning friction between his lacerated skin and the man above him.
He’s aware of Hakoda stopping the rocking, fingers tightening around Zuko’s hips, then releasing them. He feels a knuckle brush the inside of his thigh, along the wet trail running down his skin. “Zuko, you're bleeding”. He says it in a tight voice, sobering up abruptly. He pulls out and the numbness crawls back up Zuko's spine. “Did I hurt you? You said you were prepared”.
Zuko ignores him, frustrated. “Go on. Why did you stop?”.
“No. No, I said you're bleeding, did you hear me?”. He grabs Zuko by the arm and turns him around, waving bloody fingers in front of his face.
“It doesn't hurt. Can we go on?”.
“No, Zuko, what the fuck?”. He's positioning the firebender’s limp body so that he can inspect his backside. The skin around the ring is all torn up, not quite clear how badly with the amount of blood lazily trickling out of the fissures. “Did I do this? You're really hurt, Zuko”.
He hums and splays his body out on the mattress. “I'd like to keep going”.
“Can you not hear me?”. There's panic seizing the man's voice. “You're torn up!”.
“It's fine. We can be quick”. He tries a tantalizing smile and pushes his body up to kiss Hakoda's mouth. The man reels back, breathing heavy.
“Did I do this?”, he repeats. When Zuko doesn't reply, he shakes him roughly by the shoulders, trying to meet his fleeting golden gaze. “Zuko, you must tell me. Did I do this?”.
“Not all of it”, he murmurs. He tries to kiss him again. Hakoda pushes him away and he falls back on the sheets.
“You should see a healer”. He moves about nervously, hands shaking as he pulls his pants on. “Get up”.
“In the morning. Come lie down with me?”.
The man’s eyes roll over his naked body and stop at the red stain on top of the bed covers. “I’m going for a walk. Go to sleep”.
The door clicks shut. Zuko groans and leans on his side. With an outstretched arm, he reaches down to his bleeding opening and keeps prodding with two fingers viciously, then digs and scratches at his insides. He sleeps like this, shame and loathing a burning swirl inside his chest.
When he opens his eyes with the break of dawn, Hakoda’s still nowhere to be seen. He looks at the dried blood coating his fingers and the searing pain registers slowly. He pulls himself up and staggers to the baths.
The next time Toph leads him underground, they enter a larger room with visible signs of habitation; pillows and furs over smoothly formed furniture, wooden boxes and crates spilling with parchments, shelves against the walls heavy with books and bottles and glassware.
In the round table in the centre of the hall sit a group of people, whose conversation was interrupted with his arrival. Zuko looks around the table quickly; the water tribe siblings are there, sitting at either side of another teenager who’s staring at him with wide gray eyes, as well as his uncle. The rest of them are older men and he finds himself nervously rolling his shoulders back and straightening his spine as their eyes go over him. A couple of their faces are vaguely familiar and he feels sweat gathering over his temples. He recognises one of them as a water tribe man he’s sure he knows from the North. He prays silently to every god that can hear him that they haven’t fucked, burning with shame, dizzy with it.
“Prince Zuko”, one of them says and gets up to offer a polite bow. He knows this man too, he’s sure of it. There’s a building pressure at the back of his head. “I was delighted to learn you survived”. He nods, nauseated. The man must see something in his face because he continues, tilting his head to the side with a small reassuring smile. “You might remember me as one honoured to be your swordmaster”.
“Oh”, he exhales weakly. The clenching in his chest is unbearable. It was the thing he had feared for the past six years, people coming back from his past and witnessing what has become of him. He swallows dryly, unable to come up with a response.
“You can sit down”, another man, white-haired and wild looking, calls to him. He bows his head and stumbles to the closer seat. This time, Toph sits down with him, fingers clutching at his sleeve. He searches for her palm with his and holds onto her small hand. It never occurred to Zuko how young she was, how strong and brilliant, when at her age he had already been undone, had become nothing at all.
“We take that your Highness has not changed your mind?”. He winces at the title. “If you haven’t, you should grow accustomed to being referred to as royalty”.
He clears his throat and croaks out, “yes, sir”.
“And you are not to refer to any of us as sir or any other superior title”.
“As you wish”. He’s staring at the tabletop, unable to meet anyone’s eye. Toph’s thumb is steadily rubbing circles into his skin.
“We have decided to announce your return by the end of this week. Before this happens, you need to escape the Palace permanently. You will be accommodated here, in the bunker, for your safety. We ask that you conclude any, uh”, he swallows, “well, responsibilities you might have in the Palace by tonight. You understand that after word gets out you cannot return”.
“I doubt that he would want to”, Sokka comments, loudly enough to be heard across the table. Heads turn to him. “You’re talking to him as if he’s not their prisoner”.
“It is not my place to assume what the Prince’s role in the Palace is”, the man continues coldly.
“You’re being insulting on purpose, Jeong”, the water tribe man says, arms crossed over his chest.
His eyebrow twitches. “Point is, you should be here by tomorrow and you are to stay confined in the caves. They’re going to turn the city upside down if their greatest war prize simply disappears. I’m surprised they’ve been so lenient with you this far”. He narrows his eyes at Zuko.
“The King trusts me”, he says, then realizes the implication in his words.
“Right”, the man -Jeong – says dryly. “Do you have any questions?”.
“What do they really know about me?”, he asks. “The people”.
His swordmaster -he’s struggling to remember his name- answers. “That you’re dead”. He supports his elbows on the table and leans forwards. “There were rumours about your capture in the first few months while the soldiers’ blood still boiled, but they died down. And it's better that way, if you ask me”.
“Better yet if I had truly died”, Zuko adds.
The man looks taken aback by this.
“Better not discuss hypotheticals”, his uncle speaks hoarsely from the other side of the table.
“It is a great deed you’re doing for your nation, Prince Zuko”, the swordmaster continues.
He shakes his head. “It was disgraceful of me to have given up on my people so quickly”. Toph squeezes his hand.
Heavy silence settles in the room. “If that will be all”, Sokka speaks eventually.
“His Highness is free to go”.
He feels Iroh’s gaze burning into him but ignores it. “Come on, firecracker”, Toph whispers and urges him outside.
It’s dark by the time he returns to the Palace and there’s only one thing he can think of doing. He walks to Hakoda’s rooms with a fire burning at the pit of his stomach. The man looks up sharply from a pile of papers on top of his desk and his face grows pale.
“Zuko”, he says quietly. He pushes his chair out and turns fully to the firebender.
“Hi”, he breathes and gets on his knees by the man’s feet. “I’m so lonely tonight”. He watches Hakoda’s Adam's apple bob up and down as he swallows. “Can I stay here tonight?”. He stretches his body and his lips find the other’s mouth. Stubble prickles his cheek.
Hakoda breaks the kiss and holds Zuko’s wrists. “Zuko”. The way he speaks his name sends shock waves down his spine. “Not tonight. I want to be alone”.
He skips a heartbeat, panic seizing him. He struggles against the fingers on his skin, desperation swallowing him whole. “But Hakoda”, he whines, “I’ve missed you so much. Please? Just tonight. I miss you, I need you to-”, destroy me, I need something to destroy me- “Let’s. Let’s just kiss. I love you, Hakoda, do you know that? I love you. Please”.
He keeps him at a distance, stubbornly shaking his head. “No, Zuko. I told you to leave”.
Zuko wants to scream with frustration as the hands keep pushing him away. “Don't you want to have a good time tonight? I can make you feel so, so good, Hakoda. Kiss me, Hakoda, come one, please, I need you to kiss me, please, just tonight!”, he's growing frantic, “just tonight! I'll be good, you can do whatever you want to me, I want you to, so please, please, Hakoda, please-”.
“Stop it!”, he snaps at him. Zuko eats up the anger in his face, leans down and mouths at the hand holding him away. Hakoda pulls his arm back, expression grave. Then, he exhales slowly. “This cannot go on, Zuko. You can’t come back. What we have between us, it’s not-- right. It was a mistake”.
Zuko stares into his face, not fully processing the words he hears. There’s a buzzing in his ears and he pulses with an uncontrollable anger, or fear, he can’t tell. It gnaws at his insides like a dog on a bone. “What?”.
“I want to end this. I can’t keep seeing you”.
“No”.
He sighs deeply. “Zuko, I’m sorry. I know you’re upset and it’s all my fault. I made a mistake”.
“But you like me. You wanted me, didn’t you? You asked to kiss me”.
He avoids looking at Zuko. “I didn’t know what I wanted. I have been-- unwell, and I’ve made a terrible mistake by involving you. You’re right to hate me and I don’t know how I can ever make it up to you”.
“But you like me?”. His hands tremble and he pulls them into fists.
“Not like that”.
It throws Zuko off-balance, like a slap to the face. “You kissed me!”, he’s screaming at him, “You took me to your room and kissed me so don’t lie and tell me you don’t want me! You're lying! Stop lying!”.
“It was a mistake”, he says firmly.
“I’m not a mistake!”. Bright sparks escape his lips and float around him. “I’m not a mistake!”.
“Zuko, that’s not what I’m saying-”.
“You wanted me, just say that you wanted me, you did, you d-”.
“I didn’t”
“You fucked me and you liked me, how can you fuck me if you don’t like me? How can you not like me and fuck me and kiss me, how-”.
“Zuko, I’m sorry, but this was a mistake!”.
“It wasn't it wasn't! It wasn’t for me it was not!”. He’s wailing folded over Hakoda’s feet, a bruising grasp on his ankles.
“I’m sorry”, the man keeps repeating, supporting his heavy head on his arms. “I’m so sorry. It was a mistake and it’s all my fault”.
His hitched breaths don’t reach his lungs. “But I love you, Hakoda”.
“No, you don’t”.
“I do love you, Hakoda, I lov-”.
“Stop saying this, you don’t, of course you don’t! How could you! How could you love anyone at all!”.
Zuko reels back as if kicked. He’s struggling to get air in his throat. “Please”, he gasps.
“Zuko, this is enough. Go to sleep”. All fight has left both of them.
“Just let me stay here?”.
“No”.
“I'll sleep on the floor. No funny business, I promise”.
“No, Zuko”.
“Please. I don't want to be all alone. I'll just sit there by the corner and you won't even know”, he points at a space not visible from the bed.
“I'm sorry. You need to go”.
He's breathing hard. “Just tonight. I'll never ask anything of you”.
“Don't make this harder than it is, Zuko. Goodnight”.
He staggers outside, body numb. He shakes with fury at himself for being so stupid and pitiful when the man talked to him. What was he, a child, whimpering like a bitch?
He goes through dark stone corridors and punches the walls until his knuckles bleed. Then, he takes a few grounding breaths and walks to the kitchens. There’s a soldier standing guard by the door who watches him come carefully.
“I’m getting something to eat”, he says, and the guard nods, allowing him to pass. His eyes follow him as he looks through the pantry for dry meat. He grabs a knife and slices through it, sits at the table and eats in silence. He gets up, cuts another piece. “I’ll take this for later”, he tells the guard and shows him the piece of meat he’s wrapping in a towel. He nods again. He doesn’t notice that he never returns the knife back to its place, or doesn’t care to stop him.
Zuko slips outside to the gardens and exits the Palace grounds into the Upper Ring of the City. He makes his way down, avoiding patrols in the shadows of buildings.
His body feels numb, his limbs detached from him. He has only a primal physical instinct of existing that guides him through the streets; his mind is elsewhere, a candle snuffed out. There’s only one familiar place in the whole city that feels safe; the cave where he trains with Toph. When he arrives there, it’s empty. He crouches inside a crook in the rock, lifts his sleeves, unties the wrappings around his wrists, shakily retrieves the knife from the waistband of his pants.
When he digs in, he imagines he’s a slab of meat and it doesn’t feel like anything at all.
Notes:
tw for victim blaming, reference to Zuko getting his scar/child abuse, non-con, zuko being extra self-destructive & graphic sexual descriptions, suicide attempt. this is as bad as it gets for this fic
>>thanks for everyone engaging and commenting your views on this, i really enjoy reading your feedback
Chapter 5: Over Lake Laogai
Notes:
starting with Bato's pov and ending with Zuko's on a happier note this time :))
tw for suicidal thoughts, victim blaming and disordered eating
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
I.
Says to himself
The boy's no good. The boy is just no good.
but he takes you in his arms and pushes your flesh around
to see if you could ever be ugly to him.Richard Siken
II.
Historical problem:
it's harder than you think to burn even what's
flammableKaveh Akbar
Part 5: Over Lake Laogai
Bato leaned against the stone frame of his cot, forehead resting on his knees. He was cold and his bones ached with the humidity underground and the old burn scar pulsed like a second heartbeat with deep-rooted pain, and he couldn’t sleep, couldn’t let himself sleep. Sometimes he feared he would never wake up again if he did. It scared him that the thought didn’t altogether displease him.
He heard the footsteps first, then the rock sliding, and he steeled himself, snapped his head up and waited. A small shadow burst into the room, frantic energy spilling all around it.
“Katara?”, he asked softly, blinking rapidly. She had walked in on him before, awakened by nightmares, when her father slept in strange beds away from her.
“It’s Toph”. Her voice was shrill. “Something happened. Follow me”.
He got up blindly, not bothering to get out of his night clothes or wear his boots. She led him up, he sensed the incline, and into cold night air. The moon illuminated the cavern and he could discern another figure there crouching in the corner. “Katara”, he spoke out softly.
Her head snapped to the side. Her eyes were pools of fear. The metallic smell of blood reached his nostrils and he inhaled it deeply until he suffocated and felt he would choke on it, or puke. Panic seized him. “Katara–”, he said again louder now, voice hoarse with terror and rushed to her side. She didn’t respond; she never did when she was afraid, only froze there and detached herself from the world, but he saw finally the cause of the girls’ distress. Inside a hollow in the rock, body folded neatly like a ragdoll children play with, black with blood soaking his clothes, laid the Fire Prince, unconscious. Katara was holding one of his bloodied palms in her own, extending his arm to display a gash like a gutted pomegranate, bursting out of him violently.
Bato felt his fingers tingle and go numb, his head floating disembodied. It’s been over twenty years since he saw the open fruit of a wrist, over twenty years since he sat dazed and drugged by the entrance of his hut and watched men shovel away red snow. His wrists felt itchy and tender. He kneeled by Katara’s side and gently untangled her clenched fingers from the firebender’s. “He’s alive, sweetheart”, he whispered to her. “Run and fetch supplies to his room and I’ll carry him there”. Her gaze was still cloudy, but she seemed more alert now. “He’s alive”, he repeated to her. He had sworn that he’d never let the children have to witness another brutal death, another body fatally maimed. The boy was okay. No artery was damaged. It looked like he had tried to go back and hack away at whatever vital vessel he could aim at, but it was a careless effort and a spirit had guided his hand to relative safety.
“I’ll carry him”, Toph said gravely from behind him.
He shook his head. “No. You get us back quickly”. He untied his own wrappings from around his forearms and tightened the wound, then secured it with his nightshirt. He placed the firebender’s body flush against his chest and made sure he could feel his pulse through the contact, then followed Toph back down.
“What did they do to him?”, she asked after a few moments of silent walking. “Katara wouldn’t say. I felt a lot of blood”.
He lowered his head, inhaled the floral scent of Zuko’s long hair, which spilled wild around his arms and down his back. Jasmine? “He tried to kill himself, Toph”, he said. “Cut his wrist open”.
Her brisk step slowed down a pace. “You need to help him”, she told him.
“Of course I will. Of course. Whatever you need--”.
“No, you need to help him with what they want him to do. Him being Firelord and all that. The council wants to use him like he’s not even a person. You can’t let them”.
He nodded solemnly. “I’ll do what I can”.
“You can’t tell anyone what happened. They’ll use it against him”.
“Don’t worry about that, Toph. Nobody will notice a thing”.
He lingered in the room, watching Katara work in the candlelight, then brought Zuko a change of clothes and helped the girl wash the bloodied sheets and garments. He offered to watch him while he sleeps, but Toph was already sitting on a stool near the headboard like a statue. Zuko only woke once to look around him blurrily and shed tears down his scarred cheek. When it became clear he’d be out of it for a while, Bato walked back to his room and stayed sleepless for a long time, resting his head on his hands and breathing heavily.
There’s a tense energy sparking up inside the council room and everyone’s stealing nervous glances of the lethargic future Firelord, who’s placed in the middle seat, body slump and eyes glassy and unfocused. Piandao had approached Bato as they waited for everyone to arrive and whispered in low tones: “Was the Prince received without harm from the Palace?”.
Bato thinks of a few nights ago, when he found Zuko cut open, body glistening black with blood in the dark. “To my knowledge, yes”, he lies, because he promised to the children he’d keep it a secret; because the council couldn’t possibly handle the idea of loading all their hopes on a suicidal teenager.
The other man hums, musing. “He’s listless”.
“You can’t expect the boy to be happy about what he’s doing”.
Piandao gives him a strange look. “How could I not? He’s free and safe and among his people again, fighting to liberate his nation. Prince Zuko has a very passionate character and a strong sense of justice. It was prominent ever since his seventh year of age, when I started training him. It is very unlike him to act like this”.
“A long time has passed since he was seven years old, Master Piandao”.
He looks around the room again, lips tightening at the sight of the firebender. “I preserved hope that he at least wouldn’t have changed. See, I used to fear his transformation, that he would grow up to adopt his father’s instincts… Now I can’t decide what is worse”.
Iroh enters the room, and they turn to him, but he has eyes only for his nephew. It takes just a moment for his gaze to darken. Piandao gives a small smile to Bato and hurries to the older man.
He spots Katara at the other edge of the room, in the middle of a spirited conversation with Aang. She stops talking when she notices him. “Did you give him something?”, he whispers urgently, because Zuko is drawing all the negative attention they had tried to avoid so close to the completion of their goal.
“Nausea medication”, she answers. “He was throwing up every single thing that went down his throat like multiple times today”.
“Nausea medication? Katara, you know I trust you, but I have never taken something for nausea that made me look like this–”.
“I know!”, she whispers tensely. Aang is rotating his head to look at each of them, biting his lip. “Psychosomatic reaction or something. I don’t know what’s wrong with him”.
“He was a bit agitated about drinking the tea”, the younger boy offers.
“Well, yes, he cried, but we also couldn’t have him vomit on the council table, so we decided him being uncomfortable would probably be worth it. Evidently it wasn’t”.
Bato rubs his forehead, exhaling. He looks over to Zuko again, where he’s sitting between Toph and Sokka, who’s leaning close to him, caught up in a nonstop vivid monologue, though the firebender shows no signs of registering the words. Toph catches his eye and gestures in a positive manner, which alleviates some of his anxiety.
Iroh clears his throat and calls them to their seats. Bato sits uneasily at a place where he can have a view of the Prince. “The council is aware that as of tomorrow, we will be announcing the return of the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation”. Himself avoids looking at his nephew. “We have communicated with groups around the Earth Kingdom and residing in the Eastern Air Temple and they should all have arrived by morning at the latest. Some of you have already received instructions as to helping lead them underground. The assembly will gather over lake Laogai and guarding teams will be placed at all entrance trails to the area. We have planned the speech at midday, when the sun is at its highest, to ensure Agni’s audience and ask for His blessing in our noble cause. Jeong Jeong, as representative of our nation, will commence the speech. I will have to ask”, he looks towards the younger members of the council, “the Avatar to remain concealed, if possible away from the spot and underground. The revelation of your return must happen with a considerable delay and after laying down the proper foundations for it to be well-received”. He makes a pause, drinks from his tea, swallows loudly in the silent room. “As for the Fire Prince–”, his voice breaks and he sips again, tense.
Jeong Jeong exchanges a few looks with other members of the council and takes over. “Prince Zuko, someone will fetch you in the morning to lead you to the location. You will be accompanied by competent guards to ensure your safety. Before that, later today, one of us will go through some key points you’ll have to mention in your speech. The essence of it, as you understand, is that, despite being gone for so long, you have, like the people themselves, struggled to gain your freedom and return to them and that you are willing to do anything to liberate the Fire Nation. You’ll practice the speech in a private environment a few hours before the event. Is everything clear, your Highness?”.
“Yes”, he answers in a soft voice, deceivingly lucid.
“And is there something you would like to add, your Highness?”.
“I think I will further discuss the speech’s contents with my designated advisor”.
“If this is what you wish to do. Nothing else we should be aware of? Prepare for?”.
“You have been made aware of my defects, I believe. I cannot in good conscience ask you to blindly trust me. But I am sure you have already prepared accordingly”.
A vein twitches at the side of Jeong Jeon’s forehead. “I am not certain what your Highness is insinuating”.
“I will not sit here among you and play pretend”.
“Your Highness, I was just–”.
“I can mentor the Prince on his speech, if everyone is in agreement”, Piandao speaks up, smiling placidly at Jeong Jeong.
There are nods of heads and sounds of agreement all around the table.
“It is not fit for a ruler to be insecure and meek and– and unambitious!”, the white-haired man rants on, pointing a severe finger towards Zuko.
“I never claimed I was fit for a ruler, did I? You seemed to decide that for me”, the Prince answers heatedly, waving a hand towards Toph, who’s squeezing his arm with passion in warning.
“Do you relinquish your position, then? Were you more content on the Earth King’s lap?”.
“Jeong! Enough”, Bato intervenes sharply.
“Because you can go back. Nobody’s keeping you here by force”.
There’s the softest wince on the boy’s face before it drops white and dull.
“I will not stand here and watch you threaten to violate the sanctuary offered to a prisoner of the enemy”, Piandao speaks again, getting up from his seat, grey eyes glistening like they hold a storm inside them. “If the Prince is uncertain, it is our duty to guide him”.
“I was meaning to be a royal advisor, Master Piandao, not a dog trainer”.
“There’s one person barking like a rabid dog among us and it’s not the Prince”, Bato says coldly.
“This is not your nation’s future, watertribe, so it might mean nothing to you, but it means everything to me”.
“It is my nation too”, Zuko says. “This is why I want to help. The weakness of my nature I cannot change, but I have a name you can use and half my father’s face. It is not my leadership skills you need. Let’s quit being insincere when in this room at least”.
There was blood in the air and a confusion as to who was supposed to make a show of force, have the last saying; between the Crown Prince of a conquered nation, future leader only in name, said name built upon unpleasant family relations and lies, and one of the rebel firebenders who had long before the conclusion of the war forsaken the Fire Nation patrimonial rule and had dreamt of using this opportunity of the Sozin line’s extinction to offer true liberation to his people, it was hard to argue against Jeong Jeong’s ultimate goals that had been terminated or paused, at least, with the re-emergence of the prince. For years, the crowds had shown only distrust towards Jeong’s suggestions of democracy, or a council government, like the unofficial leading force of their revolution. Zuko, presented as the deus ex machina, the long-lost Firelord returning to save them, really had been a last resort, and disappointing at that, after everything the people had gone through under Azulon and Ozai’s reign. Therefore, his anger when facing the uncertain future monarch had been reasonable.
But blaming Zuko for the state of things, when he had been imprisoned inside an ice cell with no connection to the outside world for six years, was cruel. The kid was only being honest with them and more of a realist than many members of the council. He wasn’t trying to cultivate false hopes. Jeong, more than anyone else, should respect that. Instead, his frustration and weariness was getting the best of him.
The man sighs deeply and rests his forehead on his open palms. “Very well, your Highness. I apologize. Agni may guide us in the right direction. If there is nothing else, Piandao may accompany you to his study so you can go over your speech?”.
Zuko stands up from his seat and sways on his feet. Sokka grabs him by the elbow to steady him. He pays him no mind. “Master Piandao might remember that I’ve gone through rigorous training as the Crown Prince. I will not be incompetent tomorrow. You’ll find me to be a disciplined dog, Master Jeong”. He bows low towards the older firebender and waits for Piandao by the exit.
Iroh clears his throat, sips his tea, coughs repeatedly for a few moments. “The meeting is adjourned”, he speaks hoarsely. There’s a short silence, then a low buzzing grows inside the room as murmurs build up and multiply among them.
Jeong Jeong approaches Bato and gestures to catch his attention. “You think me cruel”, he says, a statement. Bato nods in agreement, because he can’t think of something to say and they’re beyond civilities at this point. “I can’t be sentimental when it comes to politics, Bato. I can’t see him as some boy when he’s Ozai’s son. If he doesn’t have the guts for it, he’s out. You know that too, so don’t look at me like I’m the hypocrite”.
“You can be strict without calling him a dog and threatening to send him back to his torturers”.
“A lot of people have been tortured”, he says impatiently.
“I have not, and neither have you”.
He clicks his tongue. “This is the easiest part. We will not be ready for the backlash when they start circulating rumours. He will not be ready”.
“Yet you agreed to take the risk. The decision was unanimous”.
He sighs again and steam escapes his nostrils. “You’re a determined man, Bato. I respect that in you”.
“And you’re a rude bastard”.
A wolfish smile splits his face. “Go find your children, mother hen. Make sure the boy will be alright for tomorrow. He was sweating like he was running a fever today”.
He nods and raises an arm in goodbye as the man walks away towards a pale looking Iroh.
Later, Bato finds Sokka brooding inside a training room, boomerang resting on the ground between his legs. “Sokka”, he speaks his name quietly. He raises his head and his mouth forms a half smile which doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Everything okay?”.
Bato watches the shape of his collarbones shift as he inhales a deep breath. “I just hate these council meetings”.
He hums as he lowers himself next to him on the ground. He must make a sound, or groan involuntarily, because Sokka giggles. “Making fun of your old man”, he tuts. “These old bones have been carrying you around since you were a baby, do you know that?”. He feels his heart fill with affection momentarily, but the feeling dissipates when he sees the grief on Sokka’s face. “What is it, son?”.
“Don’t call me your son”, he mutters, turning his face away from him. “Just because dad’s gone, you don’t get to take his place”.
Bato frowns. “It’s just a manner of speaking, Sokka. Don’t talk of your father like he’s dead”.
“He might as well be”.
Something in his chest aches. “I’ve been meaning to talk to him. He’s in Ba Sing Se too, you know”.
He’s shaking his head, eyes glistening. “You shouldn’t. He doesn’t deserve to be forgiven”.
“You don’t have to forgive him”. He’s trying to detach himself from the situation, trying to think of Hakoda as if he’s the vague concept of a father and not his best friend in the world. “Listen, Sokka. I understand that the things your father has done have hurt you and I agree with you that you should be angry at him. But it doesn’t make your father a monster. He’s been through a lot. He was a different man before all this, I promise you. He can change again”.
Sokka hesitantly leans against Bato and the man hugs him close. “I can never look at him and think he’s a good man”.
He tightens his arms around the boy’s shoulders. “Not all fathers are”.
He did this sometimes, in war, built this impenetrable wall between body and mind, saw things, touched them, smelled them, but never registered any of it, never conjured a thought, never connected a sight to his brain and heart. It’s what kept him going through dismembered and incinerated bodies, what urged him to run for his safety as he watched the same boys he grew up with crumble into bloody masses. He was tired, sometimes, with a new battle to fight early the next morning, and he couldn’t spare to mourn his friends over the funeral pyre or he’d fall apart and not get up again, so he put his walls up and watched the ashes of the remains drifting softly into the night, with a sort of animal curiosity in him, aware of the sight, feeling nothing.
That’s how he faces his best friend now. Like a strange object to inspect.
“Hakoda”.
He half-expected him not to show up. He hadn’t replied to his note. But when he arrived, his friend was already there, anxiously rocking his body back and forth. He looked haggard and wasted, like he hadn’t been eating, or like this grief coming off his frame in palpable waves was feeding off him.
There’s a haunted look in the other man’s eyes and he starts crying and shaking his head. “I’m sorry”, he mumbles, steps forward, then again, heavily falls against Bato, who raises an arm and rests it on his shoulder, a mechanical reaction of a hug. “I’m sorry”.
He lets him cry it out, then moves away and sits down, inhaling a sharp breath as he comes down slowly from his derealized state. He catches Hakoda’s eyes and looks at him gravely, demanding his attention. He can’t hold his gaze for long and looks down at his lap, embarrassed.
“Why didn’t you talk to me?”, Bato asks. His emotions are fuzzy still, the anger subsided for now.
“I didn’t think I could”.
It’s a painful realization to come to after so many years; that his best friend in the world has turned into a spineless coward. “I hope you know this is offensive to me. You didn’t think you could? After everything between us?”.
“I wasn’t in my right mind, Bato”.
“Does this excuse you? Did it sound better to your son and daughter that you abandoned them to go around raping a child?”.
He watches him flinch, shocked at the harsh words. “I didn’t rape him, Bato”.
“You know what you did”.
“You can’t say this to me. I didn’t rape him, I’d never do this, I’m not this kind of man, okay? He was of age and he– he initiated, he wanted it, we both–”.
“Gods, would you listen to yourself?”, he snaps, interrupting him, disgusted. “You saw what they did to a fifteen year old boy, you saw it and heard them talk about it. You knew, Hakoda. And this is what you do? I don’t care whether you were in your right mind or not, you had sex with a vulnerable person who’s been tortured with sex for years. I can’t believe I’m discussing this with you of all people! I don’t care if he wanted it, but how could you ever want it? Why would you do this to yourself? You could have talked to me!”.
“I’m sorry!”.
“It’s not enough to be sorry! You’ve ruined your family, Hakoda, you’ve lost your children, and for what? For what? You infuriate me! Once I thought I understood you better than myself, Hakoda, and now-- now--”. He lifts his arms hopelessly, looks at his strange old friend and feels his heart rip itself to pieces all over again.
“I don’t know what to tell you”.
“Because there’s nothing to say”.
“I don’t want to lose you and the children, Bato. You must tell me what to do. I don’t know what to do”. There’s desperation in his voice and anguish, like there’s only Bato between his life and death.
“You need to go back home. Take care of your mother. Wait for your children to choose and come back to you. Be there this time. Alright? Your mother doesn’t know and she’s been worried sick. She’s an old woman. Don’t lose her too”.
He nods fervently, tears running down his sun-burnt face. It pains Bato to see this face he’s known since childhood fold and darken with time and sorrow. “Thank you, Bato. I’ve been wanting to die lately and--”. He stops himself, looks nervously in his friend’s eyes then back down. “You’re the one person telling me that I shouldn’t. In my head, I mean”.
“Oh, Hakoda”, he whispers, tucks him inside his arms for a last embrace. “You need to take care of yourself this time around. Be off and we’ll meet again on better terms. Okay?”. He rests a kiss on his friend’s forehead, holds him close. It was partly Bato’s fault as well, that he let him get this bad. It was just that he hadn’t known what exactly he was capable of. Silly of him to know a man so well, his mirror image for years and years, and not think all this violence would lead to self-destruction. He misses him like a limb, he realizes as he breathes in the ill and nervous scent of his sweat. “I can’t forgive you but I love you always. Stupid sick bastard. Go home”.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There’s a girl with blue eyes looking at him across the room. The Chief’s daughter. Their eyes lock and then Zuko looks away and the hole inside his torso is huge again and pulling at him like quicksand. He hadn’t really planned to be dead today, but he could be, considering the extent of the damage. If nothing else, it was disappointing.
He refuses to look down at his arm, but curiously feels no pain. He wonders if he’d torn something important, if he would ever be able to use it again, but when he clenches tendons and muscles, they work just fine, albeit a little stiff.
“I’m sorry for what I said”, he hears her speak. His brain doesn’t immediately register that she's talking to him, so he keeps testing his arm’s mobility. “About you being a whore. I wasn’t being fair. I took my anger out on you”.
“Katara, what are you saying to him? This isn’t the time”, a sharp voice cuts in. Toph walks in the dark room, face pulled tight into a scowl so unlike her.
“I just think he should know!”.
“He’s barely conscious, Katara”, she sighs. She comes over and sits at the edge of the cot where Zuko’s lying, head inclined to the side and turned to his direction. Her hands search for his – the uninjured one – and she squeezes softly. He squeezes back and holds on. “Katara patched you up. She’s a waterbender, she can heal people”.
He nods, feeling exhausted. “Thank you, Katara”, he croaks, throat dry and burning.
The other girl stares at him from the other side of the room, worrying her lower lip. “I said I’m sorry. For what I said the other day”, she repeats.
“Katara—”.
“You don’t have to be”.
“For calling you a wh--”,
“Katara!”.
“It’s fine. It’s not a lie”. Finally, he looks down at his wrist, undoes the bandages. There’s a brand new bright pink scar slicing through the wide pale scar tissue underneath. It feels tight, pulling at his skin, and tender with a soft, throbbing pain, but healed. “Waterbending can do this?”.
Katara nods.
“We haven’t told anyone. Just Bato, to help us carry you”, Toph tells him.
“Bato’s my dad”, Katara answers his questioning look. “Kind of. Since our father left us to go sleeping with prisoners”. It comes out harsh, bitter. He remembers with how much love and desperation Hakoda talked about his children. He wants to tell her but doesn’t dare.
“Thank you”, he repeats. You shouldn’t have, he thinks. You should have let me bleed out and die, he thinks. Let me bleed out and die. I need to bleed out and die.
“You should rest today. We won’t let anyone bother you”. She gets up from her seat. “I’ll come back in a bit with breakfast. Toph?”. The rock wall moves, opening up before the girl. She walks through and it slides back.
Zuko and Toph sit in silence for a while, hand in hand. “When I said I’d teach you how to protect yourself”, Toph says conversationally, “I didn't think I'd have to show you how to throw punches to your own fucking face”. He closes his eyes again and leans his head against the pillows. She moves closer to him, leans over his ear. “It won’t be this bad again”, she whispers. “Whatever it is, I won’t let it be this bad again, I promise”.
The words sink in slowly. He feels a tear, hot, solid, run down his face. “Why would you say this to me?”.
She moves back, shrugs. “You’re my friend now, you know. My friend”.
He cries in silence and she sits there, holding his hand.
She’s holding his hand, grip tight and warm and grounding. He feels a little like he's floating and then she squeezes his fingers again and he takes sharp breaths, remembers where he is, what is happening to him.
“You're not alone”, she keeps whispering in his ear. “You won't deal with this alone”. It's a beautiful lie and it calms him down for a moment or two, before his body abandons him again.
It’s the day they’ll announce his return. He’s been going over the speech with Sokka for hours, under Piandao’s careful gaze, stumbling over words and stuttering and breathing so fast he grew dizzy. His old swordmaster finally took the paper they had written it on and tore it to pieces. “You just say what you feel, Zuko. Better to be honest than eloquent”.
Now he’s standing in a cave underneath Lake Laogai, waiting for his signal to walk out and speak. He hears them from above ground, booming voices, surprised cries, the uproar. Prince of the Fire Nation, they say, rightful heir, they say, whore, they don't say, traitor, they don't say; these things they want and don't want to hear, and he doesn't know if it's the truth or the lie they want more. But still, they lie and lie so beautifully.
He unclasps his hand from Toph's hold and steps to the side. He retches silently and throws up on the ground.
“Come on, son”, Bato's by his side, a strong arm around his shoulders. He pulls Zuko's hair back from his face, runs his fingers over his skull in a calming repetitive motion. “It'll be over in a minute”.
“I'll fuck it up”, he croaks, leans against the man, lightheaded.
“Then we'll fix it up again. It's all we've been doing. You just try your best”.
An out of breath Sokka rushes down the opening. His face is flushed with colour. “You're up!”, he calls to Zuko. Then, he notices the way he's curling into himself, pale and shaky, and hesitates before moving back up. “If you can't talk, we'll handle it. They just want to see you, that's all. I'll be right there”. He outstretches a hand and Zuko takes it, grateful for the grounding pressure on his skin and the support as he makes his way up on unsteady legs. The sun blinds him momentarily and brings tears to his eyes.
Jeong Jeong is already there, and so is Piandao and his uncle. Their figures blur together as he approaches the edge of the elevated mound to look down to a sea of people who are screaming at him, a deafening buzz that seems to go on forever before it slowly, slowly dies down and everyone anticipates in silence for him to speak, to prove that he’s real and not a ghost.
There was an introduction to the speech Piandao helped him write, a greeting, a name to address the audience. His brain has emptied out. “People of the Fire Nation”, he speaks in as loud a voice as he had in years, maybe for the first time in his life. He was always ordered to be quiet, speak softly, gently, be respectful, be discreet and docile, like a girl, like a lamb. Now, he’s trying to give them what they want again. Confidence, assertiveness, eloquence, passion. “It’s an honour for me to be reunited with you all. I know-- I know… that you’ve felt abandoned and I know you’ve been hopeless and desperate. I know you’ve lost loved ones, you’ve lived in fear and destitution for too long. You’ve witnessed violence and death, under Azulon and Ozai’s iron fist, in war, and during recent prosecutions. And maybe you’ve wandered, through it all, if it’s worth it, all this pain and grief. So if you have still this question in your heart, I, in my turn, ask you to look all around you, at all the people gathered here today who are just like you, united by nation and by desire for peace. And I ask you to look inside you, at the inner flame always alight and burning bright, Agni’s reminder that He’s always with you. These dark days are over. Agni’s light will guide us now, and with His blessing, we’ll restore our nation”.
He pauses, looking for words. Piandao's speech was two pages long; he'd just said a few words he was already forgetting inside a whirlpool of panic inside his mind. The audience translates the silence for the end of the speech. As the first noises start to break out, he bows to them, makes the symbol of the flame with his hands and prays silently to Agni as he draws heat from the blinding sun across the mountains and produces his fire between his fingers. And if it’s feeble and small, nobody will tell from such a distance, he thinks to himself to keep breathing. The noise grows louder underneath him, people screaming almost it seems and he can’t tell if it is an applause or condemnation, if they accept him or see right through him for what he really is. He feels weakened and looks around for Sokka, stepping back slowly from the makeshift stage.
He feels a warm hand on his shoulder and he turns to look right into the sun; so brightly Sokka smiles and his eyes glisten like a cloudless sky. “Good job”, he whispers and Zuko's heart flutters with the praise.
“You think it worked?”.
“Buddy, they're worshipping you down there. You did great”. He pats his shoulder and Zuko leans towards the touch, until the boy's arm reaches around him, radiating warmth.
When they're back down, he sees for a split second Toph's small body fly towards him like a missile. “You brilliant man!”. She hugs him tightly around the waist, then, with a strong grip, lifts him off the ground and swirls him around in the air. Zuko makes a surprised sound and then giggles like a child. They land down heavily, limbs entangled, and share this tender laughter for a few moments more.
Bato looks at them smiling broadly, arms crossed over his chest. “You did great, Zuko”. His heart swells so much it might burst. The older man’s eyes search for Sokka. “Go ahead and grab something to eat with Zuko. There will be a briefing in the next council meeting”.
In the kitchens, Sokka serves them both two heaping portions of food.
“I won’t eat all that”, Zuko protests.
“It’s okay. I’ll eat your leftovers”.
Zuko stares between the bowls and Sokka bewildered. He’s not heavy-built; on the contrary, he’s a bit taller than himself and lean, toned arms peeking through his short-sleeved tunic. Zuko looks down at his wiry wrists, the anatomy of bones and tendons, and blushes. He always took pride in his thin body, thought of himself as something desirable, excluding his face. Now he finds himself stealing glances towards Sokka’s vigorous body and feels like a sickly child compared to him.
Zuko, when he does allow himself to eat, has the habit of eating quickly, always afraid of the food being snatched from his hands; a lesson learnt in the North. Sokka too eats fast but then speaks a lot at the same time, which evens out his pace. He copies the other boy, follows his spoonfuls, calculates how much food each carries, and it's all controlled, until Sokka starts talking and sweeps him along in a conversation about– was it animal species in the South? – and the next thing he knows is that he’s spooning cold food inside his mouth and his bowl is almost empty. He startles and sees that Sokka has already finished his portion.
“I think all the stress for today made me ravenous”, Sokka tells him. Zuko agrees with a numb nod and sets his bowl down. “You won’t eat that?”. He shakes his head no and pushes it towards him. Sokka smiles brightly at him. “You might just be my new best friend”.
Zuko raises an eyebrow.
“Anyone who shares food with me has a place in my heart”.
“That sounds too easy”.
He shrugs, mouth full. Zuko tries to look anywhere else other than his Adam’s apple jump as he swallows. “I’m an easy man”.
“I might just take advantage of this piece of information, then”, Zuko says, and if it’s suggestive, Sokka doesn’t notice, only smiles one more of his sunny smiles.
“Who’s taking advantage of who in this situation, if I end up eating your food?”.
“It’s a mutual agreement, I think”.
“What do you gain? Other than the pleasure of looking at my beautiful face, I mean”.
He has to breathe deeply to compose himself and not let this giddiness he feels inside his chest bubble up. “No food waste”, he replies.
“Spoken like a true future environmentalist Firelord”, he nods.
Zuko hears himself giggle and he turns to see Sokka again smiling at him and he wonders if men ever die of happiness.
Notes:
Thanks everyone who's been following along, I get occasional emails about comments that remind me to work on this fic oops. Will the next chapter be the last one? I can't really promise this because I have a bunch of snippets that I need to connect and I don't know how long the end result will be, so if you see the chapter count go up once more (which realistically will happen), no you didn't. Plot-wise there are specific things I want to do but I get carried away with character-driven subplots and here we are. Anyhow, hope you enjoy it regardless. Things have happened in this chapter 👀let me know what u think!
Chapter Text
1
young father,
hoarse and red,
whispers to his first born:
"Live and dread".
100
"How can I ever get warm,"
she cried
"with this ice-cold snake inside of me?"
Part 6: Aloft
Bato felt old, and weary, sitting on a stool at the far end of the Earth King’s large conference table. His tailbone protested at each shift of his torso and his eyes lingered over the weathered faces of Earth and Water tribe representatives. Sometime down the years, he thought, all these great men he knew, all the heroes of war, the great leaders, handsome figures, with strong arms and legs and defined jaws and veins running over calloused fingers like jewelry that made Bato’s mouth go dry with want, had bulged and sagged into creatures he hardly recognised. The drink, the poppy and the newly introduced western diet of dumplings, rice and pig lard had made them heavy, had melted the muscle right off their bones. You could easily forget they ever led an army into war.
Himself was a stranger in the mirror. He had wasted his prime cursing the spirits for keeping him alive despite it all, while, like punishment, they took away all the people he had loved, or had tried to. Now, well into his forties, he only felt this deep passive submission to the idea of his demise. During the meeting, his mind kept drifting and daydreaming, imagining the King getting up and announcing Bato’s execution; Bato listened calmly and nodded, offered his arms to be tied, resigned to the hold of the soldiers that carried him away, and their torsos pressing against his back and sides were firm and warm and– and–
“We will refuse to have ever captured the Prince. He died in the fire with the rest of his kin. There never was any official announcement made, anyway. He was meant to be executed”.
Chief Arnook raises an arm and doesn’t wait to be granted permission to speak. “The Northern Water Tribe knew of the boy's existence. It wasn’t a secret”.
“It could be any fire nation brat. We’ll shut down the rumours. Send a squad to retrieve any remaining bones, fake and not, and call it a day. Convince everyone he's an impostor. They want to make a martyr out of the boy. It won’t happen if he never existed to begin with, so erase him completely”.
“Then we should terminate the search for him?”, the captain of the guard asks.
“Of course not. Find him and swiftly execute him. This story has dragged on for too long”.
“Should we extend the search outside the city walls?”.
The King’s face darkens. “Are you implying he could have fled the city walls without the royal guard realizing? I do not delight in incompetence, captain Gih”.
“Of course not, your Majesty. He will be swiftly captured, your Majesty, sir”.
The man leans back on his chair, looking around for his cupbearer. “The meeting is adjourned. No chance you’re hiding any other Fire Nation Royal up your sleeve, eh, Arnook? I could use a competent page”.
The chief forces a laugh. “If only, your Majesty”.
Bato realizes he’s been staring when Arnook turns his head sharply towards him and narrows his eyes. “Any news from Chief Hakoda?”.
He clears his throat. “His health is improving, I hear”.
“Send him our wishes for swift recovery”. He takes this as his sign to get up and leave.
As he walks through the stone corridors of the Palace, thoughts of Hakoda plague him. There’s this image of him in his mind, forever engraved in his memory: his friend, young and beautiful, holding newborn Sokka in his arms, and his face is split by a smile so bright and broad, he looks like the sun was contained in a man’s body. His chest aches with grief. He might as well be dead, Sokka had said, and he couldn’t have ever known how these words had slashed through Bato like a knife. They had been so happy, Kya and Hakoda and him, him, because his own father’s death had been fresh still and he had ached to see another child grow into so much love. He had carried that tiny lovely toddler countless times back to Kya, because he mindlessly babbled words of affection unworthy of Bato’s rotten unlovable soul and he had cried like a baby himself under the boy’s uncomprehending confused gaze. Hakoda was never angry or jealous when he found his friend curled up with head resting on Kya’s lap while she caressed his dark hair to calm him down, only smiled and gave him a nudge and said something stupid that made all of them laugh through the tension, and this sound of the adults laughing sparked again the child’s merry giggles. Having lived such moments of great happiness, Bato thought, he could die at any moment, content.
Light steps follow him in the darkening paths, a woman’s brisk walk. He pauses and looks back. It is Arnook’s daughter, Princess Yue. She is an ethereal figure, tall and thin, glowing with the dawning moonlight, her long fair hair circling her like a halo. “Bato of the Southern Water Tribe”, she speaks low.
“My princess”, he bows his head.
As she walks past him, she whispers in an almost inaudible volume: “They are going to attack you tonight”.
He freezes, certain his mind is playing tricks on him. “I beg you pardon?”.
She looks around, then pauses and takes a step closer to lean in and whisper in his ear. “I overheard my father talking to the King. They know you hide in the caves. Go back and tell the Fire Prince to hide”.
He frantically grabs her soft hands in his and raises them to his lips, places a kiss on her knuckles. “Thank you”, he whispers breathlessly.
“Go!”, she hisses and continues to walk calmly down the corridor, taking the light with her.
He runs.
He runs and doesn’t stop for anything, not to look back and make sure he’s not being followed, not to inform anyone, merely grabs one of the guards as he’s rushing through the passages and whispers harshly “we’re under attack!”, though he doesn’t hear the words as he utters them through the pulsing of blood in his ears, only feels them vibrating in his throat.
He barges into the alcove where the firebender sleeps in a panic. “Zuko!”, he shouts. The boy violently jolts awake and corners himself at the edge of his sleeping cot, visibly distraught. His eyes, though blurry with sleep, widen in agitation. “We’re under attack! You need to leave! Come on, Zuko, quick!”. He’s shaking his head no. Bato doesn’t wait; he moves to grab him by the arm.
It all happens in the blink of an eye. Zuko screams high and shriek and then there’s a brilliant arc of fire that lights up the cave for a split second. Bato moves back, heaving. The fire dies down and the boy looks terrified, but keeps screaming. “Don’t touch me! I’ll burn you alive!”.
“There’s no time for this, Zuko, I’m sorry”. Despite the threat, he doesn’t bend again, only moans a litany of no’s as Bato carries him out, unaware of what’s happening, lost somewhere in his head. Frustration is building up in the man’s chest. They don’t have time for this. They need to figure out what to do, now. He’s blindingly running towards Iroh’s lodgings when the first cries of alarm are heard.
Zuko’s whining stops as abruptly as it started and he goes limp in his arms. “Put me down”, he whispers hoarsely.
“Can you run?”.
“Yes. Put me down”. He does and they break into a sprint.
The rock behind them splinters into a thousand pieces. “Don’t stop running for anything!”, he cries at Zuko, who proves to be a fast little thing, already a few paces ahead of him.
“Wait!”, someone shouts, but it’s a familiar voice. Toph. “Come with me!”.
“He needs to hide”, Bato pants as he drags Zuko with him through the narrow opening Toph bends for them.
“He needs to leave. We’re going to find Aang and get out of here. Anything happens, you stay silent and pray nobody sees you in the dark!”. They try to match her quick pace, arms outstretched to support themselves against the cave walls. A few minutes later, they hear muffled voices from across the rock. Toph brings her foot down three times and the ground shakes with it. The voices rise.
“Toph, no!”, someone screams as she tears the stone apart. Katara, Sokka and Aang stand in the centre of a large cave hall, surrounded by earthbenders.
“Fuck”, the girl exclaims. “Fuck, fuck!”.
Bato’s heart is up his throat. He crashes into the tight circle of soldiers with nothing but a hunting knife in his hand and is immobilized in seconds. Katara yells and leads a wall of ice daggers against their stone shield. Aang swiftly joins forces with Toph. Together they counter-attack the earth bending with their own charges of rock, creating a deep rupture on the ground and breaking the human circle in two. Sokka dives down and strikes the rock around Bato’s limbs with a short dao sword, slowly breaking through it.
Zuko is left alone on the other side of the dividing line, slowly backing away from the approaching earthbenders. His fists are alight with flame, but he doesn’t bend.
“Fight, Zuko!”, Bato screams at him, because the sight of his wordless surrender makes his blood boil. “Fight them off!”. A stone claw moves towards the boy’s waist, but a burst of fire crumbles it to bits.
“Fuck!”, Sokka breaths above him and Bato feels warm blood splash against his face. He looks around and soon spots its source; one of the men is pressing his fingers against his jugular, making wet noises as he goes down. When the blade comes down again, it glistens red. Sokka’s face is distorted in a grimace of pain. The familiar smell of burnt flesh comes down as he gulps for air. Toph is shouting incomprehensible words. Split blasts of light illuminate more people moving in the enclosed space and Sokka is bringing the sword down with more force than before. “Aang!”, he cries out. “Help him out!”, then he’s gone. A few moments later, he’s free of his restraints and moves hastily to his feet. A hand on his arm steadies him and pulls him back, places the heavy hilt of a hatchet between his fingers. “Stay close to me”. He recognises the voice, but his brain, muddled with adrenaline, can’t place it in the dark.
The room lights up with dancing flames high on the walls. The sudden illumination slows down all movement as the two sides weigh the situation. Bato’s eyes hungrily search for the children. He recognizes Sokka from the blood down his front and the shape of his sword. Katara, too, is standing in the middle of the action, with tendrils of water extending from her slender wrists whipping the air around her. He swallows dryly.
“That is enough!”. It’s Aang’s young voice, loud and clear. It carries and echoes across the cave. A gust of wind pushes everyone to the floor, like reeds. There are shocked gasps, then silence. “You will stop this nonsense!”.
“It’s a trick!”, one of the earthbender shouts, to which Aang replies with a protective ring of fire all around him that scorches the men closest to him. A stone rises from the earth to support his body above them. The Avatar, a whisper starts and spreads. “Lies! A trick!”. The whisper persists.
“All these years”, he speaks, “I have been talking to the spirits. They are not happy with your work. They demand justice. You can compromise, peacefully, or know their wrath”.
“We are not children to be fooled with fairytales!”.
“And you are not men to face me!”.
“Avatar or not, you are outnumbered. You will die down here like rats. If the firebender surrenders, we’ll let you live”.
Zuko is standing over the fracture with shielding flames covering his arms. He looks back and, strangely, meets his uncle’s gaze, who, along with other men, has joined the battle and is holding his hands up high, controlling the lights on the walls. The old man shakes his head no.
“The King promises his life, too, if he complies with his orders”.
“Liar!”, Bato shouts.
The decisive move is made by Katara, who extends her ocean limbs and engulfs Zuko’s body, pulling him to her. The attack starts anew. Aang is trying to raise his voice over the clashing of rock, but the violence doesn’t stop. The earthbenders advance on them.
Bato lifts the hatchet up and brings it down with force his muscles haven’t known in six years. He feels heat against his side, and glances to see Jeong-Jeong standing by him, unleashing waves of fire that protect them both. “I got you, southern sweetheart”, he yells at Bato with his wolfish smile menacing and bloody on his face.
“You have a northern one too?”, Bato replies and slams with the flat side of his blade the rock flying right into his chest.
The fire focuses and lengthens itself into a rope that stirs clear and straight like an arrow. A man across from them screams. “Gods blind me if I do”.
There’s a swirl of dust in the centre of the cave, loud cries. His head snaps when he hears Katara’s voice, but the lights are dimming and flickering wildly with each Iroh’s low grunt from somewhere behind him and he can’t detect her.
“Seize them!”. He recognizes the man as the captain of the Earth King’s guard.
The firebender by his side presses his shoulder against his. “The kids will be fine. Take care of my old friend for me?”. Then he charges forwards with a youthful force that defies all evidence of old age on his short agile body.
Bato is not sure who he means, only keeps swinging his hatchet madly, muscles burning with strain. In hindsight, the pain at the back of his head, though sharp, is very short-lived and this black toothy mouth of unconsciousness eats him up whole before he has time to process any of it.
He wakes up in a bed with chains around his ankles but not his wrists. He draws his aching body to the edge of the mattress and throws his legs to the floor. The room is small and bare, just the bed, a table and a chair. Light shines through a small window at the top of the back wall. Bato stretches his arm and tries to grab the pitcher of water left on the table for him, but his old scar protests with the movement and shoots a sharp pain across his chest. His head is pounding with a headache. He realizes belatedly that it’s bandaged. When he touches it, the fabric is dry and soft.
With effort, he pushes himself upwards and takes one step towards the chair, where he collapses and gulps the cool water greedily. He stays there for a few moments and breathes heavily, then gets up again and knocks firmly against the metal door of the room. There is no handle on his side. “Need to take a piss”, he calls to whoever might answer. He waits for a few moments, straining his ears, but no sound comes from the outside. “Hello?”, he calls, louder.
A small metal window on the door slides open and he’s met with a pair of vibrant green eyes. “Chief Arnook will soon be on his way to see you”. Then it slides back in place.
“Will Chief Arnook help me piss?”.
The window opens again. “Wait”.
A few minutes pass in silence, then there’s the sound of keys on the lock and the door opens. Arnook stands there, awkwardly holding a chamber pot. “Always a pleasure, Bato of the Southern Water Tribe”.
Bato gets up and snatches the pot from his arms. “Can I have a moment, Chief?”.
Arnook sighs. “Yes, of course. Knock when you’re done”. He pulls the door shut.
He takes some time to empty his mind, calm himself down. Empties his bladder. He knocks on the door. Arnook walks in impatiently. “Take his chains off. We’re not savages”. He sits heavily on the chair. Bato watches the guard unlock the metal band from around his ankle and sits back down on the bed.
They wait for the door to close in silence. “Well. To say I’m surprised would be a lie”.
“Chief Arnook”, he bows his head in a respectful greeting.
The man looks him up and down. “How are you feeling?”.
Bato raises a brow. “I am most satisfied by your warm hospitality”.
“You took quite the blow”, he ignores the man’s sarcastic remark. “Our healers warned us of memory loss, or similar brain damage. I am relieved to see your skull is as thick as always”.
“Southern stock. It should stay intact, as long as it’s attached to my body. Sir”.
He smiles coldly. “You fear execution? Ah, no, Bato. I’m not here to punish you. You are not a child, though you seem to forget. I’m just trying to understand what you thought you were doing down there in those caves. Do you know?”.
Bato juts his chin out and keeps his mouth shut.
“Don’t get me wrong, I was aware of your rebellious sentiment. You never tried to hide it, you or your chief. But I didn’t think you capable of betraying your tribe to satisfy your delusions of grandeur. I thought you too would have given up these childish tendencies when Hakoda finally calmed down and stopped spewing his nonsense, but I see now the poor man was coerced by you”.
“Hakoda held his own opinions”, he said, trying to keep his face expressionless.
“A decade ago, maybe. Then, he became this shell of a man. The only reason I ever turned a blind eye to this ideological madness, Bato, is because when Hakoda tragically went off the deep end, you acted as an honourable second in command. You were reasonable and logical and composed and you could take over when your chief had his little fits in the middle of battle, like it was nothing. I admired that in you and I have wished in the past, yes, I will not lie, that you were the chief, just so I could consider my sister tribe truly reliable. That’s what I thought, anyway. Not that you used him like a puppet at his weakest moments. What did you do? Crawl under his sheets? Keep his wife’s side of the bed warm?”.
“How dare you!”.
“Is it a lie?”.
“A ludicrous one! Hakoda was like a brother to me! And he was a good man, a good father, until you made him into this beast!”.
Arnook purses his lips. “These past couple of years now, it’s the best I’ve seen of the man. Did he manage to pull the leech out of him?”.
“I will not speak about Hakoda”. He turns his head away.
“No, that’s not why we’re here at all. I just had to make sure you weren’t acting under his command first. Now that this is out of the way. Really, Bato, what did you expect?”.
“Justice!”, he explodes. “This war never stopped and I can’t understand why! You took your revenge! Nobody’s going to oppose you, there is nobody left on Sozin’s line--”
“You just put someone on the line! You brought him back from the dead. So what is it that you meant to do, if not revive the united nations’ worst enemy? You are acting irrational, Bato, irrational when you should have been diplomatic. The age when you could have played the heroes and got a trophy for your courage is long past. Had you come to us with a treaty proposition, we would have accepted it”.
“A treaty with terms of slavery for the Fire Nation!”.
“With terms that keep them subdued, yes, which is more than they should wish for. We’re speaking about a century of war. People do not forget as easily as you do. With time, things would have ameliorated, and you know that. Don't play the martyrs now”.
“I believe that the Fire Nation citizens should not be punished for their ruler’s actions”.
“Well, it wasn’t bloody Ozai himself burning babies in their cribs, was he? Do you realize you've been plotting against your tribe with the Dragon of the West? Do you remember the atrocities that man committed inside the walls of this very city? With your tribe’s history, I find it absurd that you do not possess an ounce of anger inside you!”.
Bato’s body slumps, defeated.
Arnook sighs impatiently. “Bato, I see you. I respect your ideals, I do. You’re a virtuous man and I agree with you on some points. I don’t believe in senseless violence neither. But what you’re proposing is simply not realistic. We’d be blowing our politics up in the air for what? Sentimentality?”.
“Yet you tortured that child. Was that part of your politics?”.
His face darkens. “The fire bastard was not just any child. He was never a child to me, he was of Sozin’s blood. And sure, yes, I shouldn’t have taken it this far, you’re right, but I sought revenge at every corner back then and nothing satiated me, I’m telling you now in all honesty, and I had no wife anymore to advise me, did I? So I did what I did and then couldn’t back down. It wasn’t smart. It wasn’t diplomatic. But I thought it wouldn’t matter, I thought I’d kill him soon enough and be done with that cursed family for good. If only I knew where my soft spot for that whore would have led us!”. He cuts himself off and breathes heavily into the dense silence of the room.
Bato hides his face in his hands. “I won’t stop until you do something”, he says weakly. He feels the man’s fingers squeeze his shoulder; the good one.
“I can keep you here in this room, or I can send you back to the South, with guards of our own that report on your movements. What do you prefer?”.
He squeezes his eyes, flattens his thumbs against his aching temples. “Kill me”, he whispers.
“I will not kill you, Bato. You can take some time to think it over. Okay? Whatever you need, ask them to come to me with your request”.
The chair scrapes against the ground as he gets up. Bato abruptly lifts his head and grasps the chief’s wrist. “Protect them. Please. It could have been your daughter”.
They lock stern gazes. Arnook doesn’t ask who “they” might be. He presses his lips together and leaves.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Katara exchanges one decisive look with Aang and the rock explodes around them. Toph catches on quickly; she grabs Sokka by the elbow and pushes him into the hole she opens under their feet. Zuko follows Katara’s shout and in a matter of seconds, they disappear from the ground of action. They move swiftly through the tunnel Toph is opening in front of them and once everyone has stepped through, the rock behind them repairs itself as if it was never disturbed.
“Which way do we go, Aang?”, the earthbender asks.
“Appa is on a meadow, east of the lake. We trained on the cliffs nearby two weeks ago”. The younger boy, propelling his body forwards with his air bending, is the only one among them who is not panting with the effort of running.
“Got it”.
“Are they following us?”, Katara yells from a few paces behind.
“Yes”, Toph answers simply, and urges them to go faster up the increasingly inclined slope of their path . The rock stitches itself back together and pushes against Zuko’s heels. He picks up his pace. “When we break the surface, you need to be ready”.
“For what?”, the other girl demands again.
“Anything! They might be there already!”.
They burst like missiles into green land and it's quiet for a few seconds, the only sound the frantic pounding of their feet against their ground and their uneven breathing. Aang whistles to Appa. When the sound of breaking rock echoes behind them, they can already see the great beast dive down from the sky like a heavy cloud. Zuko seems to falter for a second at the sight of him. Aang catches his loss of momentum and sends a gush of air his way, then makes his way onto his flying companion. When everyone makes it on the saddle and Appa slowly makes his way up towards the sky, a sleeve of the earth is torn from beneath them and protects Appa’s belly from the attacks of the earth benders that just arrived on the scene.
“Aang, where do we go?”, Katara asks and moves to the reins.
“South”, he calls to her, body half hanging out of the saddle to control the rock. When finally they are high enough that the structures of stone thrown towards them can’t reach the bison anymore, Aang collapses back with a loud “oof”.
“You alright, twinkletoes?”, Toph asks, palms spread on the harsh fabric of the saddle with such tension her tendons poke through, white.
“Yeah. Oof. Yes. Everyone okay?”. He doesn’t get anything more than a couple of nods for an answer. He turns around on his belly and crawls towards Katara, nudging her over to take the reins. She gives them over easily and brings her knees close to her chest. They sit in stunned silence for a long time. Then, she notices the tremble on Sokka’s limbs.
“Sokka”, she speaks low to him. “Braid my hair?”, because it’s the first thing that pops in her mind that would calm him down. He needs to have his hands occupied at all times, or he spirals.
“It’s already braided”, he lashes out at her, without turning to meet her worried gaze. The trembling gets stronger and he sits on his hands to conceal it.
“Braid Zuko’s then”.
Zuko snaps his head up with a look of dawning terror. Sokka grudgingly looks at the other boy. “You want it done?”.
Katara shoots him a menacing look. He nods. “Please”, he whispers.
“Come here then”. Zuko scrambles awkwardly, with no sense of balance. “Sit still”, he says and positions the fire bender with his back to him.
“I haven’t washed it”, he murmurs.
Sokka gathers it all between his fingers, runs a hand coarsely through it. It’s tangled at places and oily at the roots. Still, he finds the comment oddly amusing. “Good. Or I would smear blood all over your clean hair”. Katara is right; the repetitive motion of combing through the long hair with his fingers, then separating them into strands and plaiting them into one long braid starting at the base of his skull soon calms him down. His limbs still their shaking, his face loses the lines of tension. His sister passes him a cord she unties from around her wrist.
“Thank you”, Zuko tells him softly and coils the end of the braid around his long pale fingers.
Katara doesn’t miss the way Sokka trails the movement with his eyes, transfixed. She feels the urge to sigh in grief for Toph’s blindness, because she needs someone else to notice her own eyes rolling. “Okay”, she speaks up. “Who needs healing?”. She spends the next hour patching up scrapes and cuts over their bodies.
“We fled like cowards”. Sokka’s rocking his body in the dark. “They might all be dead for all we know”.
“The plan was to help Zuko escape. Someone had to leave the others behind”, Toph speaks firmly, but quietly. Katara is dozing off in one corner of the saddle, Aang on the other. Zuko, too, is curled up tightly with his face away from them, but Toph knows he’s awake, from the wild beating of his heart, noticeable even through the faint sense of movement she can feel through the thick leather of the saddle. Appa too has slowed down. They’ll need to stop soon, for him to rest and for supplies. They’re all ignoring the low growls their stomachs let escape every once in a while. It’s been a whole day flying nonstop, after only a short rest to fill flasks with clean water, and all they can see now are endless planes of desert.
“They’ll be okay”, Toph tries to reassure him. “These old men are masters in talking their way out of sticky situations. They’ll make it”. Sokka sighs deeply. She can practically see the gears of his mind working endlessly in a self-destructive pace. “Come on, snoozles. Braid my hair too? I hear you’re good”.
He lets out a huff that could be a sound of agreement, then extends his arm to touch her and guide her near him. His fingers touch the top of her head and stay there for a long time, then he leans down and buries his face in her hair. And if she hears him sniffle, she wouldn’t ever tell anyone. She leans back against his chest, turns her body and throws her arms around him. In the safety of the embrace and the dark, he cries in earnest for a while. When she feels him quieten at last, she nudges him with an elbow. “You forgot about my hair”.
“As if you can see it”, he mumbles wetly, but he has this lilt to his voice that tells her he’s smiling.
Katara is sewing Zuko’s torn blouse, while he sits with his bare upper body crouched over his knees, skin stretching thin over his ribcage. It caught on one of the saddles latches as he politely hung over the edge to puke a meagre breakfast of raw roots softened in warm water. (“Is it okay if I throw up in the sky?”, he had asked, which earned him a couple of scandalized stares from everyone else on the saddle. “Sure”, Aang, answered cheerfully. “We did it all the time back in the temple when we first started flying”).
“May I ask”, she starts, “if we have any idea where we’re heading to yet?”.
Aang rubs the sleep from his eyes. “Yes, we were meant to mention it. Sokka and I have been looking over Bato’s maps for places that are surely and securely, um–”.
“Neutral”, Sokka finishes the sentence.
“And have you found any?”.
Sokka scrunches up his face, but Aang answers with more certainty. “Yes”.
“We know that it’s neutral ground, though they used to send supplies to the Southern water tribe during the war. We do not know their stance today, but there are no earth military squads and technically we have not heard of refugees being turned away? Though there are no reports of any arriving there neither”.
Katara chews on her lip. “Where is that place?”.
“It’s the Kyoshi island”, Aang answers. “Where Avatar Kyoshi was born. When I was younger, I met one of the Kyoshi warriors. I know they have a strong sense of justice. Zuko will be safe there”.
The girl frowns. “What I’ve heard about them is that they are ruthless and overly protective of their land”.
“Well, we’re not trying to take their land”.
“But who knows what ideas they have about the Fire Nation!”.
“If anything goes wrong”, Aang says with confidence, “I will take responsibility”.
She keeps chewing on her lip intently. “Zuko, what do you think about this?”.
He raises his head to regard them with his cloudy gaze. “Firelord Ozai”, he pronounces the name strangely, “never was confident enough to attack the island. He said it wasn’t worth his time to conquer a land of women, but I believe he truly considered it a great risk. He wasn’t one to step away from an easy victory. If we decide we’re going there, we will be at their mercy. But I have no strong reason to oppose the idea”.
“If they’re going to want to kill someone, it will be you”, she points out.
There’s a nervous twitch of his fingers. “You know my opinion on that matter already”.
Sokka breathes out slowly. “Okay, then. That’s settled. Alright”.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Suki’s one arm is tangled trailing circles underneath Fume’s long skirt when someone comes knocking on her door. She curses under her breath.
“Something big is flying towards us!”, Mira calls. “Should we call formation?”.
“Yes, there in a moment!”, she replies and hastily wipes her hand on her own tunic
.
“If this is one of their pranks”, Fume drawls out, clearly annoyed by the interruption as she strips down to her undergarments before pulling on the dark green kimono.
“It’s not”. Quicker with her fingers than her friend, she applies the white face paint on Fume’s face, while she’s tying the knots of her armor. “She sounded genuine”.
“She’s a good actor”.
“Come on. Your forearm guards?”.
“Back at my house. It’s fine”.
“Fume–”.
She shuts her up with a quick kiss on the mouth. “This better be quick, or I’ll make it everyone’s problem”. She’s already striding out the entrance, with Suki rushing behind her, fixing the belt of her sword.
The band of the Kyoshi Warriors is waiting in the main street of the village in strict formation, shields ready over their heads. Fume breaks into a sprint and takes her place among them. Suki, suddenly self conscious of her disheveled appearance, clears her throat and looks up at the sky. “So”, she speaks, hands resting on her waist. “What is big and coming towards us?”.
Mira steps forward and raises a finger to the sky. Suki follows the movement of a great cloud for a few moments, until she realizes it's increasing in size and carries the willowy outlines of people on it. She blinks. It's still there.
“It's a flying bison”, one of the elders shouts from the open door of her house.
Suki wants to laugh, but everyone else is regarding her seriously, so she squares up her shoulders and takes a breath. “I want the benders on the first line”, she commands. There are three earth benders in her team and one fire bender. “Immobilize the riders should they initiate an attack. Do not hurt the animal”. It feels like a fairytale acting out. A flying bison! Like something out of her grandma's bedtime stories. “Shields stay up, but keep a clear visual range”.
She can’t understand if they’re purposefully meaning to land in the middle of their village or if this is a vast and vastly stupid miscalculation on their part. The animal does a full circle overhead. They are close enough now that she can see a long braid of black hair violently swing against the wind, attached to what looks like a slender young woman. There are five people aboard.
“I think they’ll land on the beach. Keep formation and follow me”.
Though they move swiftly, they arrive at the beach after their landing. The bison, bigger in size up close than she could have ever imagined, is floating on the shallow waters, feet stirring the sand at the bottom of the sea. A lithe young boy with blue tattoos on his bare skull is feeding it berries from his hands. The rest of the small group of travelers is standing still and guarded, watching them approach.
She stops at a reasonable distance and motions to her warriors. “Who are you and what are you doing in our lands?”, she asks.
The bald boy steps away from the beast, hiding the food in a pocket of his trousers. But it is not him who speaks. It’s the person she noticed before, the one she thought a woman, but who really is a young man, or so she supposes from the angles of his face – devastatingly maimed by a brand of fire – and the opening of his shoulders. His hair reaches beyond his hips. He steps forwards. “My name is Zuko”, he says, “of the Fire Nation. I have come peacefully, to seek refuge on your island”.
“And your friends?”, she asks. They introduce themselves one by one. “We will take you to our village’s leader, who will decide our final answer on your request. You will keep your hands behind your back and be bound and blindfolded, in order to walk through our village, until you are deemed trustworthy to move freely. You have my word that no harm will come your way, unless you try to harm one of ours. Do you agree with this?”. They nod.
“What about Appa?”, the youngest boy asks, pointing at the bison.
“The animal will not be disturbed by us”.
She moves first towards Zuko and ties his wrists together. She feels him tense up. “It will not hurt you if I use this on your face?”, she asks and pulls one of her own handkerchiefs to cover his eyes.
“No”, he whispers hoarsely. “Old scar”.
She hums. “I would blind you regardless”, she says.
“That would be fair”.
“Fair can be cruel”. She places a gloved hand on his wiry arm to lead him back to her formation.
“It can”, he agrees.
“Then you want us to be fair when we make our decision?”. She watches his pale lips intently for a reaction, a snarl, a stretch or a tightening. He remains perfectly expressionless.
“Yes”, he answers. “Fair would be best”. She continues her quiet humming.
A few steps later, she locks eyes with Fume and passes Zuko to her with a light shove. “What d’ya think?”, she asks her, raising an eyebrow.
“Am I getting one of these tonight?”, Fume growls low in her ear, her finger pointing at the piece of cloth covering Zuko’s eyes. Suki grins and skips uphill to guide the band back home.
Notes:
took me a while but here's another one. I hate writing any sort of action haha can you tell!! Going a bit off-course from my initial idea (which means I didn't touch the drafts for months and lost any little sense of the plot I had), so here's SUKI!! Everyone clap. Also used the little slip of information from chapter 1 that Yue is alive to make her relevant to the plot because I felt that urge.
In the NEXT chapter, which will be posted in a shorter time interval than between this and the previous one, hopefully, we have kyoshi island content, sokka's gay yearning AND (TW) Hakoda?? again.... you'll never escape his sad ass sorry
Hope you enjoy, thank u so so much if you're still following along you’re a soldier. Leave a comment etc thanks for reading xoxo
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