Two weeks. It's been two weeks since they'd left the catacombs of Ba Sing Se, and Zuko could still only sleep for half a night.
Azula would call him stupid for losing any sleep over that day. The Avatar was as good as dead, the glory had gone to him, and he should've been happy. He'd made the right choice, hadn't he? Sure, Azula still conspired against him, his Uncle was in prison and the silhouette of the Avatar, hanging in the air as lightning coursed through his bones, haunted him every time he blinked; but it was what had to be done, wasn't it?
He rolled in bed. Somehow, it was hard to believe.
Either way, he thought to himself, everything's said and done. Whatever happened to the Avatar couldn't be changed. Though, Zuko wasn't sure if he hoped he was dead or alive.
He took a deep breath, telling himself to relax.
Half a night of sleep was still sleep, and Zuko needed any rest he could get. He enjoyed that for even just a moment, the world and the weight of his choices disappeared. Azula's crafty schemes died in the dark, his father's approval was worth the weight of dust, and the fate of the Avatar was lost on him. Most nights, he was free from everything that troubled him; but this night, he would soon find out, would be no reprieve.
Dark, the place he was in was dark. It wasn't empty, though, there was the feeling of faint movement all around him, like the constant tremor of a forest's thousand parts. A voice, which echoed as if it were a hundred people speaking at once, washed over him.
Prince Zuko. You let the Avatar die.
He couldn't make out where the voice had come from, no matter which way he turned. The words lingered in the air, drawing out all the fear and guilt that had plagued him since the catacombs.
"Where am I? Who are you? Why did you bring me here?"
The voice didn't think to answer any of his questions.
You let the Avatar die.
"Answer me!" He tried to light a fire in his hand, but nothing came. Heart racing, words piercing, Zuko could do nothing but whip around in a circle like a cornered animal.
You…
"What!?" Zuko yelled to the void.
...let him die.
Light burst in the dark. It wasn't warm light, not like the sun or fire, but a harsh, blinding white that lit up the world in an unnatural glow. Hanging in the air, frozen in time, lightning coursing through his bones, was the image of the Avatar.
Lightning to the heart. No one took lightning to the heart and lived. He knew that as a fact, but he strained and strained to make it not true.
"No. No, he didn't die. The girl had the spirit water. She healed him."
It's not enough.
A heaviness seemed to weigh him. "No… no, it was Azula, it wasn't me. I had nothing to do with it."
The Avatar's eyes glowered down on him. You let him die. Go back. Find him.
The mirage grew brighter and brighter, until it swallowed his vision whole. When it dimmed, Zuko was in a different place entirely.
"Where… am I?"
The canopy above him was so thick of leaves that the sky was nowhere to be found. Mist rolled lazily across the undergrowth and through it he could spy little specks of light that reminded him too much of eyes peeking in the dark. He was in a forest, a swamp more like it, that felt wilder than any he'd ever seen before.
Not just any forest, a voice murmured in his head, you're in the Spirit World.
"The Spirit World," he mouthed, unbelieving.
Then he looked down at himself, and discovered he was blue. He was a wisp, see-through and light blue, as if his soul had been picked from his body. He could still touch things, hold things, and his head still hurt when he banged it on a tree trunk, but it all felt off. He still felt like he was in his body, but that might've been less because his body was really there, and more because this world was something other than...real. At least his definition of real.
But no. This was crazy. He couldn't be in another realm, could he?
A thing that must've been a spirit floated by his face… a six-legged creature with an exact likeness to the Avatar's sky bison. It licked his nose and disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Zuko rubbed his hands over his face, "What is going in here?"
This couldn't be the Spirit World, could it? Was this… a dream? It must've been, right? Except he could walk and talk and do everything he could as if he were awake. If it was a dream, he didn't seem to be able to wake up from it. And he'd been given a quest, which he's not sure he could've dreamt up.
Go back. Find him. The voice had said. Go back where, though? How could he even find him? Why should he?
He trudged to the forest, his dream-self tripping and sliding as any real body would, when he came across a spirit, if he really was in the Spirit World. It resembled a baboon, wearing monk's robes and meditating on a giant tree root. A blue frog with black stripes croaked beside it.
"You, spirit! I… I need to find the Avatar." Was he ever going to stop having that in his job description? He was just being typecast at this point.
The creature opened a single eyelid. "You don't seem too sure about that."
"I don't want to find him," Zuko gritted, "The... spirits are making me; I have no other option."
"That's absurd. You always have another option."
"Like what?"
The baboon thought for a second, "You could sit here and contemplate the meaning of finite existence, living humbly among the wild creatures of this world, all the while your soul loses hold on the earthly plane and your mortal body dissipates into nothing."
"Okay…" that was not an answer Zuko needed right now, "Can you just tell me where I am? What is this place? What's going on? Why is everything…" the blue frog ate the spirit equivalent of a fly, and swelled to the size of a watermelon, "...like that? Wait, how did we get here?"
They weren't in the swamp anymore. In just a blink, the spirit was sitting on the root of a different tree, in a completely different forest, and he'd taken Zuko with him. Pale brown trees with curling trunks surrounded them, with bluish leaves and flower buds that glowed like lamps in every color.
"The Spirit World bends time, space, and distance," the spirit said, unfazed, "Walk a mile towards the mountains and you'll end up in last week. Wait here for a few hours and you'll be at Hai-Riyo Peak."
"That doesn't make any sense!"
"You don't make any sense. You're looking for someone you don't want to find!"
Zuko was about to argue, when a chattering sound came closer, and half a dozen little spirits scrambled forward, looking at him with astonishment. One of the spirits clambered up on his foot. It looked like a giant, translucent bean, with six little stubs as arms and legs.
"You found a human!" It chirped.
The first spirit grunted, "No, a human found me. Now if it could un-find me, that would be very much appreciated."
Choosing to ignore the quip, Zuko looked back down at the spirit, which waved up to him.
"Hi, human!"
Another bean, a green one, snuck up behind him and sniffed his leg. A pink one pattered by to check him out as well. "He smells all firey!"
"And sad," the green one looked up at him with beady little eyes, "Why are you sad, human?"
"I'm not sad! Get away from me! I need to find the Avatar!" Zuko shook the critters off of him, but they clambered right back on at the mention of the Avatar.
"The Avatar? The Avatar! He's here! Is he here! Where is he? Can he fix it?" They all said in a jumble.
Zuko's ears caught on the last question. "What?"
"It's dark. It's all dark. And there's always lightning. We're scared of lightning." The spirit pointed up to the sky, which peeked in between the trees. He'd just noticed how overcast the sky was, as if about to pour down sheets of rain. As if on cue, a silent lightning bolt snaked across the sky. "It's been like that for a while. Can the Avatar fix it, human?"
"Can he? Can he?" Came the voices of the cowering spirits, clambering over him again.
"Just calm down! I'll find him and… and he'll fix all this, alright?"
"Yay!" They cheered and danced in circles. He took the moment of not being climbed on by bean spirits as a chance to leave. For some reason, he'd expected spirits to be a lot more… somber, than these. And at least a little bit more helpful.
"Be careful, human!" They called after him, "Hold onto your head!"
"What does that mean?"
The voice of the baboon spirit answered in a chuckle, "The mind doesn't stick to the body like it does in the Mortal World. It likes to roam; memories become like little butterflies flapping in the wind."
"What are you talking about?" He asked, but when he turned back, the spirits were gone, and he was shouting to an empty forest. "Can't you damned spirits make sense for once? I have enough on my plate as it is!"
No one answered, and so he trudged off into the forest once again, not really knowing where he was going or what he was trying to do, but off he walked anyway. Afterall, if you don't where you're going, any road can take you there. If he was in the Spirit World… well, he hoped some string of fate would get him out of here.
If he'd taken a moment to care, Zuko would've found the forest beautiful. Stout, blooming trees grew with ample space between them, their flowers casting all sorts of smells, from sweet jasmine to smoky incense. He passed strange flora and fauna that glowed like foxfire, and the dew stained grass made the ground sparkle like emeralds. It was about as close to paradise as you could get, if not for the lightning pulsing over the gray sky.
Eventually, he found a bunch of puddles. Not that much of discovery at first glance, but these were perfectly round, crystal clear, and still as glass. They were almost like mirrors set in the ground, but when he leaned over one, he didn't see his own reflection. They weren't mirrors… they were windows.
He looked down and saw the two Water Tribe siblings sitting around the body of the Avatar, in a gray room that reminded him suspiciously of his old ship. Katara and Sokka, he dimly heard their names. They exchanged worried words over the Avatar's weak, pallid body, but he couldn't hear them.
He stared down another puddle and saw Azula walking the palace halls with an entourage of Dai Li behind her. He saw Uncle, meditating in his jail cell.
Then he came across another puddle, and his eyes rounded even more, "Is that me?"
It was him in the water, rolling in his bed, as if something in his dreams was troubling him.
Somehow, he knew that if he broke the still surface of that water, he would've been sent straight back to the Mortal World. He'd wake up right at that moment, put off this mess as a dream, and go on with his life as he wished. There was nothing stopping him. Why wouldn't he want to go back to that moment? And besides, how would finding the Avatar help him, anyway?
His hand hovered above the still water, when a butterfly fluttered past him.
Butterflies. What had they said about butterflies?
It was strikingly colorful, like so many other things in the Spirit World, and Zuko stared. His hand still hovered over the water, but the beating of the butterfly's wings seemed to draw him. With every beat, the scene around him seemed to change; the glowing flowers turning into fiery torches, the puddles growing into green crystals, the forest turning into a dark cave.
And then sudden, a boy with blue tattoos and glowing eyes was rising into the air in front of him.
"The Avatar!" He shouted, and took a step forward as if he could catch him, but suddenly a lightning bolt flared in the air and beat him to the chase.
Zuko staggered back, but everything had gone still. Azula's smile was frozen on her face. The Water Tribe girl's expression was set in horror. The Avatar was petrified in the air, at the very moment the lightning had passed through him. They were in the catacombs again. Zuko never wanted to relive that moment again, especially not when the image of the Avatar shot full of lightning was burning into his eyelids.
You let it happen, the voice mourned.
"It was…" a mistake, he wanted to say, but couldn't. It couldn't be a mistake, he'd gone too far, lost too much, for it to have been a mistake.
Then, the scene changed. The catacombs melted away, and Zuko stood in what looked like an Earth Kingdom village. The streets were dusty and the wooden houses were thatched with straw roofs. Everyone was inside, their fear permeating outside so great that even he could feel it. Throttling across the sky was an angry fist of red fire: Sozin's Comet. Hanging just below it, was a fleet of war balloons.
Zuko stood right there in the middle of a deserted dirt road, as a spark was ignited at the foot of each ship, and turned into a tsunami of fire. He stood there as the inferno washed over him.
This is what will be. You can stop it.
The scene burned away, and suddenly he was back at the Royal Palace. He was standing at the foot of a dais staring at… himself. It was him, hair bound in a topknot, kneeling before the Fire Sages as they held up the Firelord's crown in the air. A coronation with no attendees, as Sozin's Comet burned above him.
"I'm afraid you won't be crowned Firelord today, Zuzu," came a voice, eerily from behind him, "I am."
His other self stood up from the dais, "Azula. What're you doing here?"
No one knew Zuko better than himself, and Azula knew him well enough to understand. They both knew the question didn't need an answer. They both knew why Azula was here, and they both knew this was the moment he'd feared most; the moment that everything he'd worked for began to crumble between his fingers.
"Father has put up with this act of you being his heir for longer than I thought. But it's time to set things right," Azula smiled, as if this were all a happy occasion, "Let's settle this. Just you and me, brother. The showdown that was always meant to be. Agni Kai!"
He'd gone too far, he realized. He'd made too many wrong choices, from the war room to the North Pole to the catacombs, and Zuko was about to make another one. But there was no other choice. He was ready to take it all, or nothing.
"You're on."
Watching, detached from it all, Zuko knew the crown would never fall on his head. He could never face Azula. The scene faded, and Zuko returned to the forest, with an undying certainty that what he'd just seen was what fate entailed for him if he'd touched that puddle of water.
The voice shuddered in the air: Find him.
AN: I love spirit shenanigans. I was going for an Alice in Wonderland vibe but that comes out more in later parts, and then the puddles came from one of the Narnia books, and somehow this turned out more angsty than I thought it would... and I tagged it as humor. I swear it gets funnier later.
Hope you guys enjoyed!