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This story is the eleventh in a series, so please read the other ten before continuing!
Previously on Avatar
Katara furiously pulled and tugged against the impossibly firm wisps that bound her. But when Zuko lifted the mask and put it to his face, she ceased her struggles and watched in dismay as an eerie light surrounded him for a moment.
Slowly, the radiance receded and she gasped when his face, unmarked and perfect, was revealed. At first, she was confused when she saw his reaction, mystified and hesitant as he cautiously reached up to touch the place where his scar had been. But when his fingers brushed against the smooth skin, his eyes closed in a mixture of relief and elation and she began to understand the tragic significance of Tanha's temptation.
A resounding crack filled the air as Zuko fell backward, and Katara only barely registered the large shards of porcelain that scattered and fell around him.
Katara stumbled to her feet and tripped her way over to him, collapsing to her knees, and turning him over onto her lap.
Noticing one of the broken halves of the mask lying close by, she picked it up, looking at the unmarred porcelain depiction of Zuko's face, and then to the scar he truly bore. It was a disconcerting discovery that something as simple as wanting to be rid of his disfigurement was his deepest desire; the only one he'd unable to refuse.
"The path ahead of you is dangerous," Tanha told Aang, sounding genuinely sympathetic and concerned as it continued to wind around him, "Your task fraught with peril. You fear for your friends…and rightly so."
The Avatar's temper began to falter and his expression softened into a confused and worried frown. He could not deny the truth of what was being said.
"I can help," the mist continued kindly, "I can keep them safe…I can keep her safe."
Bowing his head, Aang whispered, "Katara…"
"It's such a shame really," she went on sadly, almost wistfully, "you deserve to be with someone like her. You've sacrificed so much already, it isn't fair that you have to give her up too."
She then spun toward him, her voice mirroring his own sense of indignant rage.
"And for what?" she asked unhappily, "You can't even go into the Avatar State anymore, so what good has come of renouncing your love for her? Nothing has changed so why must you suffer and deny how you feel?"
Aang waited until Zuko and Katara had left with Sokka before stepping out from behind the broad-leafed plant where he'd been hiding, watching their entire conversation. Kneeling down, he picked up the flower Katara had neglected to take with her, and stood back up, slowly twisting the bloom between his fingers.
"Tanha was right," he whispered resentfully, "it isn't fair."
Closing his eyes with an angry scowl, he didn't even notice when the flower began to wilt in his grasp, smoke curling from his fist until the panda lily erupted in a fiery flare. Only then did he look down to see the flower's charred remains fall from his fingertips in a whisper of black ash.
"I think…I think I saw my mother here in Kazimizu," admitted the prince uncertainly.
"Zuko," Iroh warned seriously, "Ursa has been missing for almost ten years. No one is even sure if she-"
"I'm aware of that, Uncle!" snapped Zuko. "But…if there's a chance…if it really was her…Uncle I have to know," he finished with a look of desperate pleading in his eyes.
"I'm not coming with you," Zuko told them quietly.
"I stand a better chance of slipping through places unnoticed if I'm alone," he replied, the tone of his voice indicating that he'd already thought this through completely. "So I'll take a different route and meet up with you outside the capital, in Port Shukumei, before the eclipse."
Zuko waited for the Avatar to approach; pet lemur perched on the air bender's shoulder. The boy seemed to hesitate for a moment, as though coming to a decision of his own, before suddenly reaching up to his shoulder so Momo could move to his lower arm. He then held the lemur out to the prince.
"Take Momo with you," he instructed resolutely.
No explanation was given, but despite his shock at the gesture Zuko didn't need one. He understood what Aang was trying to express. It was both a request and a promise; a silent plea for Zuko to come back to them, and a pledge that he would be welcomed when he returned. So it was with great reverence that the prince extended his arm out to Momo, who promptly scampered up it to rest on Zuko's shoulder.
Without a word, the two boys bowed respectfully to each other, and the next moment, Aang was hurrying back down the corridor to where the rest of the group was waiting outside.
Taking one last pining look at the light shining in from the end of the tunnel, Zuko slowly turned and headed back into the darkness.
Book Three: Fire
Chapter 11: The Factory
Zuko woke to a light pressure on the middle of his chest, and when he opened his eyes, another pair, bright green surrounded by a mask of black, stared expectantly back at him. Momo let out a low purr as the prince blinked sleepily at the little lemur.
"Let me guess," he grumbled, "you're hungry."
Not waiting for a reply, since naturally Momo couldn't give him one, Zuko sighed and sat up, fumbling around in a nearby bag and pulling forth a piece of fruit. Momo took it happily and settled himself on the dresser to eat his food while the teen put on his tunic and pulled a comb through his unruly hair.
By the time he was done getting dressed, Momo had finished his food and he glided down to the floor, sitting across from where Zuko was now dining on a simple breakfast as well. The lemur's gaze followed Zuko's every move, waiting patiently for the bits and bites that he knew the prince would eventually give him.
"You're as bad as Sokka, you know that?" he chided.
But despite Zuko's gruff remarks, it was clear that he was not bothered at all by the creature's appetite. And Momo wasn't disappointed when, true to form, Zuko broke off a small piece and tossed it to him.
Eating it quickly, Momo alighted to the prince's shoulder and nuzzled against the boy's cheek, purring happily when Zuko reciprocated by scratching the lemur behind the ears. The simple truth was; Zuko liked having the lemur around (although he'd never admit that if asked) and he had been completely stunned when Aang had insisted Zuko take him.
"You miss them, don't you?" asked the prince, not caring one bit that Momo couldn't understand him. "I'm sure they're fine," he continued soothingly. "Aang is a smart kid, and Sokka is pretty resourceful when he has to be. Plus Toph and Katara will keep them in line. And Uncle Iroh will look after them too." He let out a sigh, slow and full of longing, before adding quietly, "They'll be fine."
If anyone had been around to hear this conversation, it would have been painfully obvious that Momo wasn't really the one Zuko was trying to reassure. But as it was, nobody was there to witness it, and the prince continued talking aloud, grateful for the attentive but silent audience.
"I promise we'll leave Kazimizu soon," he announced briskly, snapping out of his pensive mood and handing the lemur another bite of food. "I've already wasted two days here, and still there's not been any other sign of her."
Scowling slightly in frustration, he took one last bite of food and stood up.
"There's just one more place I need check first."
Katara opened her eyes to a riot of color in the treetops above her, the soft scent of flowers drifting down on a warm, humid breeze. Whatever she had expected the Fire Nation to be like, it certainly wasn't this beautiful, tropical paradise that she found herself in.
Iroh insisted that not all the islands were like this; that as they traveled further north it was much more temperate. But Katara had already decided that it didn't matter. This place was just about as perfect as it got in her opinion.
Sitting up and looking around the camp, she noticed that the others were already awake and eating.
"Good morning, Sleepyhead," Toph called cheerfully.
"Morning," the water bender replied with a yawn. "How long have you guys been up?"
"Long enough for Iroh to fix us a tasty breakfast," answered Sokka happily, taking another bite of food.
"Sorry I slept so late," she apologized.
"It's okay, Katara," Aang reassured her unconcernedly, "Toph said you didn't sleep well last night."
"I didn't keep you awake too, did I?" worried the older girl.
"Nah," Toph said dismissively, "I got up and moved to the cart where it was quiet."
"Come get something to eat," suggested Iroh kindly. "Before your brother eats it all," he added teasingly.
Nodding, she came to sit by the others and gratefully took a bowl of food from Iroh. The lighthearted banter died away as quickly as it had begun, having been somewhat forced in the first place. The truth was, despite their best efforts to behave as if nothing bothered them, they all missed Zuko and wondered how he was doing.
As Iroh poured out some tea into the mismatched set of cups they owned, Katara noticed how the old man's gaze lingered on a lone teacup. Every morning, Iroh would unpack all six out of pure habit, but for the past two days, he'd had to put the smallest, a black cup with white trim, the one that Zuko always drank from, away again…unused.
Somehow sensing the retired general's melancholy, Top sighed and stared sightlessly into her tea.
"I still think one of us should have gone with him," she declared petulantly.
It was the first time since they'd parted ways with the prince that the topic had even been broached, and the others looked at Toph in surprise at the suddenness of the remark. Naturally, they had argued about Zuko's departure while Iroh was saying his goodbyes to his nephew, but in the end, Aang had insisted they let Zuko do what he felt was necessary. And once again, it was Aang who responded to Toph's statement with coolheaded resolve.
"Zuko will be fine," he said calmly. "He's got Momo with him, and he's really good at getting around without being seen. Trust me," he added under his breath, thinking of the Blue Spirit, "I know."
"How?" wondered Katara, a bit taken aback by Aang's certainly.
Aang hesitated, suddenly regretting having mentioned so much about Zuko's adeptness as a burglar, but Sokka spoke up and spared the Avatar from having to make something up.
"He got past the walls of the Northern Water Tribe," the warrior pointed out.
"Good point," his sister conceded sadly, not liking the unpleasant reminder of that particular event. "Still," argued Katara glumly, "he shouldn't have felt he needed to go off alone."
"I assure you, it was not an easy choice for him to make," Iroh informed her quietly.
All eyes turned to the Dragon of the West, eager and desperate for whatever wisdom and insight he might be able to offer in regard to their absent companion.
"Words cannot express how grateful I am to all of you for accepting my nephew and making him a part of your family," he praised them warmly. "Over the past several weeks, you have given him something he has been missing for most of his life; friendship and love.
"It has been many long years since I have seen Zuko this happy and at peace with himself. And his leaving to ensure Aang and the rest of you stay safe is the greatest sacrifice I have ever known him to make."
The four teens hung their heads thoughtfully, suddenly feeling ashamed of their own selfish sense of loss compared to what Zuko had apparently unwillingly relinquished in order to protect them.
"He cares for you all more than he will ever admit," Iroh continued, "even to himself. And you cannot know how difficult it was for him to give you up…especially after he has already lost so much."
Of this last statement, only Katara fully understood what Iroh was referring to, remembering what Zuko had told her in Ba Sing Se about losing his mother. Unconsciously, her hand went to her neck, reaching up to touch the last memento she had of her own mother. But when her hand touched the foreign red choker that was there in its place, her hand dropped back to her lap forlornly as she reminded herself that her mother's necklace was packed away.
By now, the others had begun taking down the camp and, looking around, Katara realized she needed to be helping. As she rolled up her blanket and began stuffing it away into her bag, she suddenly was taken by the urge to see her mother's necklace, and she set the blanket aside for a moment to search for it.
She checked the side pocket first and found nothing, then another interior compartment, in which she found only her comb and hand mirror.
"Where did I put it?" she muttered.
Digging into the main bag itself, her fingers brushed across something hard and cold…but too big to be the necklace. Curious, she pulled it up, and her heart twisted in her chest when she saw what it was.
There in her hand, she held the broken mask that the spirit Tanha had used to tempt Zuko. Sadly, she ran a finger across the piece of porcelain just large enough to cover the prince's scar, tracing the painted eyebrow that the real Zuko had lost years ago. Iroh's recent words echoed back in her head, 'you cannot know how difficult it was for him to give you up…especially after he has already lost so much'.
"You about finished over there, Sis?"
The sound of her brother's voice snapped Katara from her melancholy musings, and she hastily dropped the mask fragment into her bag.
"Yeah, just about," she called back.
Picking up her rolled blanket, she stuffed it into the satchel and latched it shut, her search for the necklace completely forgotten.
After Zuko finished packing his clothes and a light blanket into his traveling bag, he turned to the dresser and paused to stare for a moment at the drawing laying there. He'd worked on it most of the night, trying to get the details of his mother's face as perfectly as he could remember them.
It wasn't as difficult as he'd expected it to be, considering how long it had been since the days of scribbling little pictures in the margins of his notes during classes. That's not to say it was easy, but the likeness was certainly much clearer than the hastily sketched image he'd been using, drawn on the spot at a shopkeeper's counter when he couldn't think of a better way to describe Ursa.
Almost reverently, he folded up the drawing and tucked it into his tunic. Hopefully, this new drawing would be well worth the effort.
He was about to pick up his ink and brush set to pack it away when Momo came crashing across the dresser, madly pusuing a large bug that had flown in from the window. Papers scattered in all directions and the brushes clattered to the floor, rolling away.
"Momo!" he scolded angrily. But the damage had already been done and the little lemur was once again chasing his prey around the room.
"You know, half the reason I feed you so much is so you'll stop eating those disgusting bugs!" he ranted pointlessly.
Muttering and grumbling under his breath, Zuko began picking up the mess, noticing as he did so that one of the brushes was still meandering its way along the floor, coming to rest a good distance under the dresser. Naturally, it was the prince's favorite brush.
So he knelt down on the floor, peering into the darkness under the piece of furniture to find it. But as his eyes adjusted to the dim light beneath the dresser, he noticed a gleam of blue. Intrigued, he reached past his brush and pulled it out. Opening his palm to see what it was, he rested back on his heels and blinked in surprise at the intricately carved, bright blue stone, its dark ribbon dangling on either side of his upturned palm.
Rubbing his thumb pensively over the cool surface, he wondering if Katara knew she was missing her necklace. In the end, it didn't matter, for as he closed his fist around it, he decided he would just have to make sure he got it back to her.
With an unconscious deftness born of an almost forgotten habit, Zuko swiftly wrapped Katara's necklace around his wrist and tucked it neatly into his sleeve.
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