Constellations
It is the warmth he misses the most, the embraces like a euphoric suffocation that left him feeling waves beneath his shivering cage of bone. This was the unconditional, selfless love, that he was too young to cherish, and now he is left with shuddering pangs and yearning. Some days he still thinks of her, and wraps his arms around himself, his invisible fortress of rage toppled on all sides with her army of lingering affection. He mourns, and clamps his clever fingers over his mouth to prevent his howling. His uncle would have worried. His sister would have laughed. His new awkward peace with the Avatar's company would have- he does not know. He does not wish to know.
When Zuko was younger he and his mother would compare their love to patterns in the sky and tall buildings. "I love you as big as the clouds. I love you as tall as the castles." Now he realizes that his mother's love was more towering than any lowly edifice. No, her love reached above fluffy white bringers of rain and flew through the constellations. He cries, and calls himself a fool, to think that his father would be able to replace her radiating kindness, the man who could not be touched let alone be spoken to without formalities, the man who marked him and said he was lucky to have been torn from a warm belly into this aching world.
Lucky to be born.
He wonders often what she saw in his father, if she saw anything all. He thought he saw something in the man, but perhaps it was just the instinctual need to cling onto blood ties that made him want to please him for so long. He thinks, he wonders, if she loved him, if he loved her, if he loves her still, a love that must cross long barriers of land and perhaps sea that separate them. Banishment. No, he decides. His father loves power, his father loves displays of power, his father loves himself. But still, he is not sure; some things you can never be sure of.
Azula, he knows, received love as well, though she clearly did not care for it. His mother thought her a monster, and Zuko, knowing his mother's heart now like a slowly growing forest he was beginning to see, could tell that this was hard for her. She wanted to love the child, and Zuko followed suit, jealousy getting in his way of his heart, Azula's ice demeanor chilling all the embraces he ever dared to give. But he tried still, and his mother tried as well, and he thinks, perhaps Azula tried too, though clearly not enough.
His father told him that she was not dead, and this gave him both hope and pain. Would he meet her? What would he think of him, grown and deciding his own destiny? A stirring, trembling part of his heart knows she would remain the same, her love the only constant thing in his world. But does he deserve it now? Did he ever?
He has his doubts. He has his fears. He traces his fingers on her picture, carefully hidden in a crack in the wall in the temple when not in use. He closes his eyes, long having memorized her face by heart. He thinks he would like very much to love someone the way she loved him, this strong, struggling, latching, unending love.
Zuko weeps again. He has learned the finesse of careful silence, and keeps his choking to himself.
They have yet to discover him.