category: Avatar the Last Airbender
disclaimer: I don't own it.
The solid metal door of the cell pressed onto his palms with a definite coldness that had not been there when he had touched it, a world ago, from the other side. Zuko slowly increased the temperature of his hands until they themselves were nearly on fire in a halfhearted attempt to melt through the inches-thick metal, but of course it didn't work.
Of course.
He backed away from the door then, sat on the hard cot, and rested his face in his hands for a while. There really was no hope – not that he had harbored any from the second he was caught – but it would have been nice to be surprised.
He exhaled out in a puff of steam and fell back into a sleeping position, with his hands tucked behind his head. But sleep would not come. The temperature inside the prison was at a stifling level, even for him. Or perhaps that was just from the strain of his rapidly breathing heart. He screwed his eyes shut and forced his mind into a blank slate, and tried not to think (worry).
Unbidden, a flood of images flew into his head. Of Azula, and that girl Song, and his uncle. And Lee, who he had seen only two days ago. What a disappointment that whole encounter had been anyway, he tried to convince himself. Good thing he hadn't given his knife to that ungrateful brat after all. That entire village was deluded – the nerve of that old man to suggest he was an outcast! His father would welcome him home gladly and restore his birthright as soon as he captured the Avatar.
If he ever did, a nasty voice from the back of his head piped up. The echo of Azula's sharp words rang through over and over until he turned over onto his side to face the wall, clutching his head. But he really was a failure then, wasn't he? What had he accomplished in these years of plotting and mapping and tracking and trying? In the end, he couldn't capture a boy.
He was going to die soon, he knew, because that was the only way his father and sister knew to deal with him. He wondered who would remember him after that. He could count on one hand how many, and still have four fingers left over. He kicked his foot against the wall absently. What was his legacy, then? What proof would there be to show that he was an actual person, who did make a difference in the life of someone he had met in all his years?
The legacy of Prince Zuko, he thought with a sudden fierce anger: a wasted life. Nothing he had done would be remembered, or acknowledged. In all reality, there would probably be a parade in the streets of the capital to mark the day the disgraced prince of the Fire Nation was crushed under the heel of his own country.
How many people he would make happy by dying was a large enough number. The Avatar. His ragtag group of friends. The extent of his followers could be stretched out to the entire Earth Kingdom, and the Water Tribes, and all those in between. The Fire Nation would rejoice at the guarantee of a pure and capable successor, his sister the prodigy. And Zuko felt a sudden cold settle into the pit of his stomach. Now, when things were about to end, he realized it had all been for nothing.
There were solid footsteps in the hallway outside his door, echoing with all the solidity and authority of his own nation about to grind him into the dust.
The legacy of Prince Zuko: a wasted life. He closed his eyes.