All around him there's blood smeared along the walls. There are corpses, desecrated and mangled, there are so many that it's as if someone had decided to tile the floor of the capital with casualties. He can smell the gut-wrenching scent of decay and death permeate through his nostrils, but it's not what is making him sick to his stomach.

Zuko is focused on one thing at the moment. His nerves coil in a bunch because he knows he should be moving, doing something, anything to help those in horrid desperation, clinging for life, looking to their leader to help. But, he can't. Nothing triggers him to move, he's paralyzed in terror. His hand reaches out and cripples, and he draws it back into his mouth to gnaw on, tears streaming off his face as he trembles, feeling himself on the brink of a mental breakdown. He wants to pretend he doesn't see it. He wants to act as if lying in front of him isn't the disgraced, maimed remains of his pregnant wife and unborn child. He holds his breath, and collapses to his knees. She's virtually unrecognizable for how they mutilated her gorgeous face and body, but he knows it's her, he would know her anywhere.

The fire lord can tell from the tears flowing down their faces, the flinches, and the way their mouths open wide with the horrific expressions on their faces that they are relinquishing blood-curtailing shrills in terror and pain. And, he knows that he's screaming, and crying in wracking sobs, too— he can feel it. But, his ears stopped working, the gears in his brain stopped turning. He could not do anything, and he'd never in his life felt more helpless. He knows there is noise. He knows there is lots of it. But, everything from his life from that point on, with the absence of her laughter, and could've been baby cries… everything would be quiet.