A Harvest of Eight Leaves, an avatar: last airbender fanfic

Title: A Harvest of Eight Leaves

Author: Maguena

Summary: Unlike his uncle, Zuko hasn't always loved tea. It took a while.

Disclaimer: Avatar: The Last Airbender doesn't belong to me and I am making no profit off this.

A/N: Most of this story was actually written a while ago and I've just been fiddling with it off and on for about three years now. So I figured I should ignore the "not perfect" anxieties and post it. Hope you enjoy, and as always, I'd love to hear your comments and criticism. (And for those of you who might be wondering, yes, I'm still working on the next chapter of BotB).

When it feels like the side of his face is on fire again, Zuko gets his next dose of bitter pain killing herbs. Uncle always cools the infusion because steam would aggravate the still-healing burn, and he always sighs that "cold tea is a travesty." As if that's the only thing wrong with it. Even heavy sweetening doesn't help much. Zuko's tongue and throat feel sticky with the spoiled sweetness of it for hours afterwards.

When it itches maddeningly under the bandages, Uncle brews strong-smelling tea and presses a cup into Zuko's hands whenever one of them might stray up to scratch. Zuko's fingertips twitch and slide against the smooth porcelain, and he just wants to smash the cup against the nearest wall. Sometimes he does.

When, because of his weakness in this raw spring weather at sea, an ordinary cold turns into lung fever, his memories aren't clear, but he remembers not being allowed to get away from large hands looming out at him with cups of astringent herbal tea to bring the fever down. As soon as he can sit up long enough, he is forced to drape a blanket over his head and a teapot, and breathe in the steam, to clear the congestion in his lungs. The steam doesn't really hurt anymore, but it scrapes at his throat, and the feel of the bandages going damp over the burn makes his head twitch back uncontrollably.

When Uncle changes the bandages, he always has a freshly-brewed pot at hand, so when the pain becomes too much and Zuko needs a moment, Uncle pretends to have wanted tea at just that moment. The smell of ointment and the smell of tea mingle nauseatingly. It's everywhere in his room, on his clothes, in his mouth, and he can't escape.

When Zuko is upset, raging, trying to comprehend how his life changed this terribly, Uncle makes more varieties of tea than can possibly exist, and smiles. He makes light of everything Zuko says. Uncle couldn't be taunting him deliberately, because Uncle's not like that, but it feels like it. If Zuko complains, Uncle just makes more tea and smiles and tells Zuko to enjoy the good things in life, and Zuko knows again just how far from home he is.

Zuko used to think tea was okay, even though he preferred other drinks. Now he can't stand even the smell of it. He won't ever drink it again. Nobody can make him.

In autumn, Zuko learns what it means that "metal bleeds heat." They've got all the steam heat they want, piped through the spaces inside the walls. The air inside is comfortable enough this way, but the outside walls are icy. Water condenses on the plating and gets into every crevice. Rust and mold have to be fought off every day.

It shocks him, how easily the ship can be damaged by something so small, with only a little time. He doesn't like to think about that. It's been several months, and he still has no clue about the Avatar's location. His fourteenth birthday is coming, and he wants, more than anything, to be at home when it comes. He said that he'd devote his life to this quest, if he had to. He meant it. He still means it. It's his destiny. Destiny is supposed to be hard, so that when you get it done, it's a real triumph.

Sometimes, however, his thoughts get onto a track of their own before he can stop them, and these days, they tend to count up. Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen… when he gets to twenty-six, it's twice his whole life up till now, and when he gets to forty-two, it's the age his father is now. He can't really imagine all those years, but he can't stop counting them.

When he tries to meditate, the tang of rust in the air and the creaking of strained metal distracts him, but he can't let it get to him. He has to keep fighting it, that's all. He'll find a clue soon. It'll get better – it has to.

Uncle makes tea all the time. It never changes. He tells Zuko to have some, and Zuko tells him that he hates tea, and Uncle sighs or makes a joke of it. That never changes, either.

Just a few days before he's fourteen is the first time Zuko sees a person die. It's a crewmember, Wei Lao. Thirty-something years old – Zuko doesn't know the exact count, and he's not sure he has the right to ask. Because what if it was his fault? He's sure it's not, but what if it was? He's drained from wondering, and it's cold, and his thoughts just won't stop. Abruptly, he says "fine" to Uncle's latest offer of tea.

His throat spasms at the horrible taste. He thinks he might throw up, but he catches sight of Uncle's face and fights the urge down. At least one of them is happy. Uncle looks as if things are going to be better now, just because Zuko drank the stupid tea.

And fighting the nausea did make him think of something else for a while.

After that, Zuko develops a skill for getting out of most tea-offering situations before the offer is made. The taste of it still makes his stomach roil every time, and there's only so much he's willing to put himself through for Uncle's delusion that it's the greatest thing ever. But the initial raw unpleasantness has scabbed over enough, like the scar on his face, that it becomes easier to swallow the nasty liquid than to see his Uncle's hurt looks. And when he does drink it, he hides any trace of a grimace.

Now that it's just the two of them, forced to flee through the Earth Kingdom, Zuko can't dodge out of sharing tea like he used to. Of the two of them, Uncle is the only one who knows even a little about cooking, so he's the one deciding what they will drink after each meal. Never once does he surprise Zuko by picking something else. (If just once he didn't insist… but it won't happen, and Zuko wonders how it can be okay that it won't.)

With drinking it so often, Zuko quickly grows used enough to the taste. His stomach stops complaining as well. He thinks that it's about time that Uncle had a new teapot, amongst other things. Maybe that'll make things a little better for both of them.

Uncle hates the teapot. Says that he doesn't want Zuko doing anything, including capturing the Avatar. Acts like Zuko's entire life up till now has been worthless, just because they don't agree about things like that hope stuff.

Zuko's newfound charity towards tea dies a quick death then and there.

Much as he may scowl and complain, Zuko is not going to stop working in the tea shop. It would mean leaving Uncle without the extra money, or the help he deserves when he gets tired during the too-long work hours, or protection should someone discover their secret. By the same token, Zuko cannot do a bad job of it, but him, serving tea? He messes up several orders on his first day. It's because he can't tell one variety from another, and when there are many cups on his tray, he can't always memorize which is which just by position. The pinch-faced tea shop owner's glare becomes more and more pronounced.

In desperation, Zuko struggles to learn the differences. For instance, jasmine tea and green tea can be the same shade, but jasmine has a distinctive smell. He infiltrates the shop late at night just so he can study this unwelcome subject. He pays close attention to Uncle when the teas are brewing (Uncle is extremely happy that Zuko is starting to show interest in his favorite drink). He glares at the tea cups as if to force them to become memorable by sheer will.

It takes him days, but the study pays off, and for the first time in years, Zuko has more than one opinion on tea. Bushroot tea is his favorite, because of its deep fiery tints and the way that swirling the teacup produces layers of changing color. The smell of ginseng tea actually helps him keep awake on the late evening shifts. Oolong is unpleasantly smoky, but as long as he's not the one drinking it, that's fine. He pays attention now to the taste of tea as he drinks it, and is surprised to find that he can tell the differences there, too, and there are some teas he likes more than others.

After Zuko betrays his uncle, every sip of tea washes up guilt and grief. Which is stupid, because he did the right thing, and he has everything he wants, and he doesn't have to drink tea ever again if he wants. He repeats this to himself several times a day, but can't convince himself entirely, and he becomes even less certain when they sail back home. Something about being on a ship again messes with him just enough that he soon finds himself in possession of a pot of tea. Oddly enough, it's ginseng, not one of his particular favorites, although the mild bite of it is sort of nice. Defiantly, he drinks it. Those unwanted feelings roll over him again, but he keeps drinking until the pot is finished. Maybe it's because, together with every unpleasant memory, he gets flashes of that sunset in the shipyard, the exhilaration of having won against Zhao, and his uncle's teasing words. Even though Uncle will never be proud of him again, Zuko still remembers all that.

If Zuko had rescued his uncle from prison, then it would have been so much easier to apologize. It would surely have counted for something. It would have been one small thing to begin to make up for everything. But Uncle broke himself out, and Zuko doesn't know where he is, and he's working on his other set of difficult apologies, having joined the Avatar's team. He thinks sometimes that maybe putting behind who he used to be and working on changing himself is a way of apologizing to Uncle, too. He hopes so, because Uncle taught him everything, even a way to work past the awkwardness of trying to prove that he is not the enemy anymore.

He makes tea for everybody and serves it around, with relief and pleasure at the way they appreciate this gesture. He wonders whether Uncle would approve of how the tea has been brewed, and memories of being scolded for overboiling the water by ten seconds make him smile. When Sokka asks to speak to him, he's glad for this chance to talk, but in the back of his mind, he's also wondering if he'll get to drink his tea before it cools.

The comet trails away, and the sky is its normal color again. It's over. They survived. The full list of the problems that Zuko will have to address trails off into the distance, too, with no sign of ending.

He doesn't know how he'll be able to do it all.

Then Mai comes to help him downstairs, to where everybody's gathered for breakfast (he could deal with the pain himself, or just eat alone, but he no longer wants to do either). They've all been battered about, too, but unlike him, they're not inclined to gloom; they're boisterous and excited about all the things they can do now that the war is over instead. He's not the only one who wants to rebuild his corner of the world, even if his corner has the most intractable problems. Once they get started on that topic, there are a lot of ideas flying back and forth about best methods and how they could work together to get it done quicker.

Toph has found some tea for them, which is supposed to be one of the best kinds of tea there is, and Zuko wishes for a moment that he had the skill to taste it properly and understand what's so special about it. All he can say is that it tastes good – the tang of bitterness is refreshing rather than sour. He looks forward to asking Uncle about it, when Uncle finishes up his work in the Earth Kingdom and gets here. His problems may not be solved by tea alone, of course, but he finally understands just how tea makes everything manageable, when shared. He knows now why Uncle used to smile so much when offering it to him.

Zuko's most favorite drink still isn't tea; it's mulled brightberry juice. But at every important point in his life, at every celebration, every happiness, there's tea. Nothing would be right without it. That includes this party, a summer get-together of all the friends and family, new and old, who could make it (which happily was most of them).

Just as Zuko glances around to see who needs a refill, Uncle takes a sip of tea and breathes out fire to entertain the children (not to fight and escape), and Zuko smiles. He continues around the room as he pours the tea and serves it, comfortable in the ritual they've all followed for the last ten years. He can barely remember now the resentment with which he'd first learned to serve tea, or the fear and anxiety he'd felt before his friends accepted him. Not that he's forgotten, precisely – but the past doesn't shadow him as it used to. Things are so different for him, now that he has more than he'd ever known to want. Even though the Fire Nation still has a long way to go, even though there are still riots, disasters, and assassins to deal with, he's not alone in that huge destiny.

The smell of tea wafts through the air and wraps around everyone present. It means comfort. It means being together. It means that there's always a way.