A/N: Here we go, the rewrite has officially begun! By the time your reading this the original chapters will have been taken down, with rewrites and reposts due to occur over the next few weeks. This is going to be an 18-20 chapter fic, with postings every other week or so. Enjoy!
Prologue
They said that they killed his Uncle, had him executed only hours after his capture.
Zuko didn't believe them. The Dragon of the West was not that easy to catch and kill.
They said that the Avatar was dead, caught in a storm and drowned along with his bison.
Zuko didn't believe them. Aang would never had been so careless with Appa.
The memories seemed dark despite the blue skies they held. The days he turned his back on his homeland and joined Aang, his friend, the Avatar. Days spent in league with the White Lotus, traveling the world, teaching the Avatar fire bending as they worked to bring the Fire Nation to its knees. To end a war that was wrong in so many ways.
He could curse their foolishness, his foolishness. A small band of rogues and deserters, attempting to stop the genocide of the air benders or end an industrialized military complex that had made a small nation thrive. Yes, they were foolish indeed to stand one soldier strong against an entire nation, bred on blood and propaganda.
The Fire Nation had won. The war would continue. Zuko's death would just be a single digit in the millions that would follow as the Fire Nation marched their armies across the globe. He pleaded with the spirits for Aang to survive, for the Avatar to survive and end the war.
Several decades of war was long enough. What would happen to the world if the war lasted a century? Zuko shuddered at the thought.
He shuddered every humid night spent in the prison as he awaited his end.
He shuddered as he was dragged before the Imperial Council and his father, the Fire Lord, in chains. Only it was not the masses of eyes that bore into his back at his very public trial that rattled his spine.
"We the Imperial Council and by the grace of supreme Fire Lord Ozai, find the former Crown Prince Zuko guilty on all accounts of treason and acts of sedition. Crimes that are so heinous in their nature that he will be henceforth striped of his title and birthright, formally disowned and his name removed from the Hall of Dragons. In accordance with his crimes he shall be executed as this Imperial Council and Royal Household deems fit. Are there any last words from the former Prince?"
His own sister sneered at him as his sentence was read, while his father's face looked as if it was made of stone. But Zuko could barely make out a hint of a triumphant smirk amidst his father's composed mask. Zuko clenched and unclenched his hands in his chains, before drawing in a deep breath and staring at the council, his sister, and his father with all the fire he could muster and spoke.
"You may strip me of whatever hollow words you have given me and you may bury me in whatever ditch you find! But know that there will come a day when your names will be scorned for the crimes and the heinous acts you have committed in the name of what you call patriotism! You call me traitor but you will be called villains and like me, YOU will be buried and forgotten!"
The crowd was silent, save for a few quiet murmurs. Ozai stood from his seated platform above and behind the council. Thunder rumbled in the dark clouds on the horizon, the remnants of a great storm in the east. Zuko swallowed nervously.
"You claim your actions were committed out of honorable intentions. The right thing, per se. You have forgotten that as Prince your duty is to your country above all else. Honor and Duty first and foremost, for ruler and country. Both of which you have failed in and shall pay the ultimate price. Lets see if your brave words or your Avatar save you as you march to your execution."
Zuko's breath caught in his throat as Ozai reseated himself on the cushioned dais.
He wouldn't.
The crowd grew noisy and anxious behind him. Zuko swallowed nervously. As one of council members stood to dictate the extent of his punishment.
"You shall be shaved and branded as the traitor you are. Then you shall be taken to Ayumu Bay and drowned until the fire of your body and spirit have been extinguished. May the spirits have mercy on your soul."
A great weight landed in Zuko's stomach as the guards moved forward to escort him to the executioner's bay. His chained feet could barely move as they scuffled across stone ground, propelled forward only by the brutish force of the guards gripping his arms. They led him through the crowd that wrestled with the sentries holding them back to clear a path. The crowd bustled against the armored men just to steal a brief glance at the condemned royal.
His eyes scanned the crowd finding the peasantry mixed in with the noblemen, something that he never thought he would see. He hoped to catch a glimpse of Mai's pale face and soft eyes in the sea of distorted faces. He did not, and an unsure sense of relief came over him knowing that she wouldn't see her lover in such a humiliated state. He saw nothing. No one he would recognize, except for the sharp and hysterical voice of a woman screaming for her son.
Mom?!
Sunset neared on his final day. They branded him as traitor, a feared mark placed on the right shoulder of the convicted. He didn't remember if he screamed when they pressed the bright branding iron into his skin. The block of wood shoved in-between his teeth to keep him from biting his tongue tasted like charcoal once the iron was pulled away, the burn stinging in the open air. His eyes felt red and watery with smoke drifting out of his mouth, barely clinging to consciousness as they shaved his head and the thin traces of a beard around his chin. The guards stepped back to look at their masterpiece. The former Prince, bared and broken, with his hands shaking limply in his chains and his scar an angry red comet on his abnormally pale face. No longer a royal, just a dead man in waiting.
They placed him in a cart with his fellow condemned, all bearing similar markings if not more and Zuko wondered if he looked just as terrified and broken as they did. Their hands shook in their chains, faces downcast, one bit his lip as if he meant to stifle tears or rage. The cart lurched forward, pulled by a Komodo-rhino, beginning their final journey.
The execution grounds of Ayumu Bay were just as intimidating as he remembered when he was a boy. His father had brought him along to watch an execution despite his mother's protests. He remembered trying very hard not to cry or to scream watching men die in their watery graves.
They marched him and the other men up the stairs to the raised platform, standing on aged and watered wooden beams over the deep waters of the bay. He gazed out at the ocean's horizon, taking in the last sunset he would ever see. He thought of Mai, her cool gaze and pale beauty and the sunsets they watched together in a more peaceful time. The last time he'd seen her he was promising her he'd come back.
He did, just not the way he expected.
He ached for her then, wishing he was with her. He loved Mai, but guilt nagged at him whenever he dreamt of a dark beauty with bright azure eyes, capable of piercing his soul through his dreamed state. He had seen the natives of both water tribes and knew that this mysterious feminine muse came from them.
How? He didn't know. He glanced at the face of every water tribesman and woman, not one rivaled her beauty. He had spent countless quiet and lonely nights yearning, fantasizing about her touch and her voice. Occasionally forgotten when his Mai was lying next to him.
They placed heavy weights on the chains around his feet. The wood of the trap door creaking nervously under the leadened balls. Zuko shuddered, the manacles on his wrists were fastened to a larger apparatus far above his head. A pulley system, now lax, to more easily retrieve the corpses from the bay's depths.
The Sages began to chant their songs of death and mourning from the rocky beachside while onlookers from the slums nearby gazed at them curiously. Some murmured and pointed fingers at him, recognizing their Prince.
A small girl with raven-colored hair danced in the reeds, singing sweetly. She ran up the hillside, looking directly at Zuko over her shoulder. Beckoning him to follow.
A woman in rags wept and screamed furiously, knee deep in the bays' waters.
"Don't cry for me Lysha," the man beside him protested. "I'll be at peace, waiting for you."
The man's words did not hinder the woman's sobs, nor did they stop a few quiet tears as the man gazed up at the sky in a silent plea for mercy.
Soft footsteps whispered against the wood as the mechanical apparatus creaked and ticked in anxiousness. The flip of a switch where metal turned against metal, the gears loosening in a red breath of salt and rust. The condemned breathed their last in sharp inhales of terror, realizing there was no floor to stand on.
The trap door fell out from underneath him and the water hit him full force, a frozen punch against his bare skin. The weights on his feet swung out in effect, jerking his body violently against the bonds around his wrists. He wanted to scream, his eyes wide with horror despite the sting of the saltwater. He strained his muscles to lift upward, to climb up the chain towards the surface and to freedom. The weights around his ankles racked him and he desperately tired to shake them free. His lungs were burning as they ached for air, bubbles filtering out of his nose leaving his lungs vacant of precious oxygen. He opened his mouth but tasted only saltwater, and he choked. His chest heaved more and more violently as saltwater crept into his lungs, filling his throat and pulling him under, farther and farther down then the chains would allow. Above the sky seemed distant, the sunset a flickering haze of flames, dying out.
Numb and tired, the burning terror of saltwater in his lungs making him shake and jerk violently in his bonds.
So much pain. Why couldn't death claim him quicker?
Do not be afraid, my love.
Suddenly she was there, the indisputable presence of the water maiden. He thought he had banished her from his thoughts and dreams, yet she always remained.
How could she? She wasn't even real.
Yet he heard her voice, soft and soothing in the watery depths. Whispered like a lover's words into his good ear. Warm water currents suddenly encircled him, comforting him and tracing his lips in what felt like a kiss. Her touch was indisputable, foreign yet familiar, and leaving him longing for more.
Then suddenly he felt as peace, the need for air suddenly gone. He willed himself to open his eyes, expecting a bright light to blind him, but he saw the bay's waters, still and clear. The silhouettes of onlookers in the sunset above, watching him and the other condemned drown. He thought he could hear the sages chanting, when he realized the saltwater wasn't stinging his eyes.
He saw her, a faint outline in the water's around him that became more defined as the sky darkened from the sunset. Her bright eyes were piercing, and her face soft and lovely. Just like he had dreamed.
I wish you could remember a time when I was yours and you were mine. But we will see each other again and I'll be there waiting for you.
"Who are you?" he wanted to say, but no sound came from his mouth. Just a silent air bubble.
She willed his eyes to close and they did, suddenly feeling exhausted.
Be at peace and fight another day.
The ocean around him faded, replaced by a white mist that sang ancient songs in its shadows, foreign yet familiar. He couldn't remember if he wore chains when he saw the girl dancing through the reeds of the bayside. Her bare toes balancing on the smooth stones as she led him up the hillside, her white dress brushing against the high grasses. A silent wind bristled her hair when she looked over her shoulder, beckoning him to follow. Her face was round and child-like, eyes big and bright of a color he would never remember. He felt compelled to follow and he did, up the hillside, not feeling the grass and dirt underneath his soles. She disappeared over the crest of the hill, fading into the sunlight and into silence. Still he followed, not sure if he was falling or flying. But there was no pain, nothing, just peace, and he knew that he was dead.
Or so he thought.
Notes:
"Ayumu" Japanese name meaning (ayu)"Walk" and (Mu) "Dream, vision." pronounced ah-yoo-moo