.
—wicked
Ozai has never loved her more than he does in this moment— defiant gaze and proud posture and murder in her eyes, his wife is a wicked stranger standing before him and she has never looked more beautiful.
It's done, she says, keep Zuko safe, take your throne, I'm leaving, and she is gone and swallowed up like a flame in a storm with no lingering kiss for him to keep.
A mother's love has done away with his wife, and he is left in bitter awe.
.
—children
They run through the garden, Azula and Zuko, one chasing the other, and they laugh. They laugh and they play and their biggest concern is which one of them will be the first to trip or get caught or surrender.
They run across the Earth Kingdom, Azula and Zuko, one chasing the other, and she laughs. They jump and they fight and their biggest concern is what will happen if he trips or gets caught or surrenders.
They glare from opposite sides of the chasm, Azula and Zuko, one chasing the other, and neither of them laugh. He jumps and they fight and they fall and their biggest concern is whether or not she will keep falling.
(She survives with her hair pin while he is caught in the arms of one of his brand new friends, and she rubs her survival in his face. She will catch him, and she will laugh, and he will trip or get caught or surrender or maybe even die. They are not children anymore, and have no more time for games.)
.
—color
She has always liked the color pink.
It's a happy color, bright and free and none of her sisters have quite the affinity for it she does. She is the youngest, the smallest of the set, and she will do everything in her power to make sure she doesn't grow up to complete it.
She learns how to cartwheel and spin and walk on her hands, and when Azula- the princess, smart and beautiful and everything she wants to be- picks her out of the crowd and chooses her as a friend, she knows she will be different.
And when Azula- older, smarter, sharper in her beauty and radiating power- shows up in the new home she's built for herself and offers her a quest, she knows she will follow.
Ty Lee has always liked the color pink, but she can appreciate the darker shade of red.
.
—hope
Iroh comes home from the war, and has a dead son and a dead father and a brother on the throne.
Ursa is gone too. His brother does not seem to care.
His nephew knocks softly on his door, peeking in when he doesn't get a response, stumbling over himself with a tray too heavy in his arms (rice and tea). He sets it on the table and strings together words about Lu Ten and about Ursa and about worry, and when he turns to leave, Iroh takes him by the arm and hugs him and asks him to stay.
Iroh comes home from the war, and has a dead son and a dead father and a brother on the throne, and a small nephew who makes him smile for the first time in weeks.
.
—lull & storm
He's eight years old and he's locked in a storage closet. It's dark, and cramped, and too warm, and he feels vaguely claustrophobic and vaguely like he can't breathe. He pounds on the door and apologizes (I'm sorry I'm sorry please) and doesn't get an answer.
Father comes back a few hours later- maybe he forgot, maybe he was busy- and unlocks the door with a simple: don't do it again.
Zuko nods and bows and hurries away.
He's nine and his arm is broken in two places. Stuck on one set of katas for days- weeks, maybe- and nothing to show for it; half-baked excuses and one too many mess ups (he jumped right and kicked right and spun right, but he didn't land right, tripped up on the last shift of his legs, too tense because Father was right there- another excuse), and Father looses patience. Gets mad.
And it is Zuko's fault, it always is, because, I don't want to do these things, I don't enjoy it— but you just make me so angry, Zuko.
(The arms was twisted too far back and there was a sickening snap and sharp sharp pain and, now look what you made me do.)
He tells his mother that he fell out of the tree in the garden.
He's ten and his mother is gone. His cousin is dead. So is his grandfather. Father is now the Firelord and Uncle isn't home yet. No one knows when he'll be back. He is the crown prince now, but his father looks at him like he wishes he was a servant, or unborn, or gone, have his mother take his place.
A part of Zuko wants that too.
He's eleven and the back of his neck is singed and stinging. He thinks his sister has a cracked rib.
She's not perfect and he is far from it and they have to be flawless and he doesn't think they can be anymore.
He's twelve and Uncle Iroh asks what's wrong with his shoulder, why the back of his left hand is burned a tender bright pink. He feeds him the same lie he fed his mother, adds in something about a slight training accident, and runs off.
He feels Uncle stare after him. He's never been a very good liar.
He's thirteen and his face is on fire. He fucked up. Disgraced himself. Embarrassed his father in front of his generals— in front of half the royal court, now. Opened his mouth and said the wrong thing- again, again, always, in the war room and then in the arena because crown princes don't beg for mercy or cry on their knees, even if they're terrified, and he's done all of that and more and his father is right and his father is burning half his face off.
He knows that he is screaming and he hates the way the silence sharpens it, carries it, helps it echo.
His father is walking away and he hates that he can do nothing but watch.
.
—smile
"What'd you do this time?"
Azula's voice cuts through the sound of silence and splashing water. He is cleaning the blood from his nose, from his mouth, from his chin, where it ran and clogged his senses and filled the back of his throat.
He looks at his sister's reflection in the mirror- standing behind him, leaning against the door frame, smiling, always smiling. His eyes dart up and down her figure once— she's dressed to train, all sweat and smoke and bruises on her arms and weight on one leg.
"What did you?"
She shrugs— no big deal, it hardly happens, I am perfect, her smile says. Always smiling.
"You've gotta it together soon, y'know. Father might already regret not killing you."
Zuko frowns, a spark of anger, denial, but says nothing. There's nothing to say.
He turns his attention back to the little bit of blood still dripping onto his lips. It tastes vaguely like iron and shame.
When he looks up again, Azula is gone.
.
—lost/found
He finds his nephew, and is struck down by his niece.
He will have a brand new scar- lightning, this time- but it's fine. Zuko will worry about it enough for both of them, he knows, and wishes he wouldn't.
He can't stand up yet, but that's fine too— Zuko wouldn't let him anyways. Their roles are reversed, this time around.
He wakes to the first rays of the rising sun and the creak of the wooden floor. His eyes wander the room and land on the figure of his nephew (already up, already getting dressed). Zuko reaches for his shirt on the floor, and Iroh is struck with the fact that he can see every single bump of his spine, could count each individual rib if he wanted to.
The world hasn't treated either of them very well, on their own.
He lies back and wonders what his nephew has done these past few weeks, wonders where they'll get their next meal.
(Zuko notices he's awake, asks him how he's feeling and if he needs anything with that little concerned frown on his face, and Iroh smiles.)
(He's found him again, and that is enough.)
.
—linger
We can have another son, he says, a better son, a more powerful son, it'll be fine, I'll make it painless the boy will be asleep we can have another son.
Ursa is appalled and shocked by the nonchalance in his tone, as casual as if discussing tomorrow's weather and not the possible murder of their son.
What Azula said is true then, and her husband is going to murder Zuko, kill their son because his father said so and because the Fire Lord is a cruel horrible man—
Ozai is going to kill her son.
(She wasn't taught to sneak in and out undetected and stab a man in his sleep, she never learned to kill. So instead she brings the old man some tea- something she does often enough, no suspicion in his ugly eyes- slips in some slow-killing poison along with the sugar, and waits.)
(There is something oddly satisfying about watching the shock register on his wrinkled face as his limbs lock and he collapses backwards, about seeing the light leave his eyes, and thinking you were going to kill my son, this is what you get.)
She is a murderer, and she is gone when the sun comes up.
(She cannot bring her son.)
.
—murmur
Mai takes great care not to touch the scar.
"It's not so bad," she says, and she kisses him. If he thinks she's lying, he doesn't say so. He doesn't say anything really, lets her kiss him and hold his arm and wonder what he has done these past three years, where he has gone, what he has seen.
She wonders what he'd say if she asked about it. She doesn't ask about it.
He's not the same boy he was, and she's not the same girl— she's older, filled out her figure and grown out her hair and mastered her skill, she has thirty-three knives on her right now, could kill him in a moment if she wanted to. She doesn't want to.
He's older too, he's cut off his hair and and let it grow too, mastered his skill too. And he is angry and unsure and scarred, half his face a mess of red and an eye that can't open all the way.
(It's a shame, her mother says, he was such a handsome boy.)
"It's not so bad," she repeats and hopes he will believe her.
(He tenses and looks away and she knows he does not.)
(It's a shame, her mother says.)
She decides she doesn't particularly like the Fire Lord.
.
—regret
Iroh is a coward.
(Even five years ago, he would've laughed. The Dragon of the West, soon-to-be conquerer of Ba Sing Se, a coward.)
Iroh is sitting in the audience, watching a thirteen year old boy cry on his knees before his father. Watching the man raise a flaming hand. He looks away.
(He can see red through his eyelids, and his ears work just fine, can still hear the screams and the utter silence that falls like a heavy blanket over the crowd.)
Iroh sits next to his nephew in the infirmary, the boy small and weak and dwarfed in white bandages that wrap up the majority of his face, and all he can think is: I put him there. I let him in. I did this.
(He has no illusions about his brother, so when he hears that Zuko has been banished, sent off to capture a ghost in the name of honor, he knows that Zuko is not meant to return.)
Iroh packs a few belongings of his and of his nephew's and boards the little ship they'll call home for the next long long while.
Iroh is a coward, but he won't look away again.
.