i. the burial of the dead
Iroh comes home. He hugs Zuko, picks him up and holds him.
Lu Ten is dead. The spring flowers whisper on his cheeks, a beauty now always bitter. He plants flowers in the ground where Lu Ten can not be.
They flourish. Zuko finds himself crying.
(that corpse you planted last year in your garden,
has it begun to sprout? will it bloom this year?)
Iroh watches him, before retiring. Mother places her hand on his back, murmuring a song into his neck.
ii. a game of chess
Azula lies, Azulon dies, and Mother is gone. It is brutal and done before Zuko can scream at the injustice of it all.
Azula sits in her chair, eyes glittering at him, and Zuko remembers tales of dragons clicking along treasures.
(the Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
glowed on the marble...
doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
reflecting light upon the table as
the glitter of her jewels rose to meet it)
Ozai is smiling as he receives his nation. Cheers sound, and Zuko sees joy reflect in the faces of all he knows.
(HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME)
Zuko is not joyful. His mother is gone, and his grandfather is dead, and all he knows is that it is because of him.
He wants to be a good son. In a few years, he tries to take a stance in a war meeting.
Zuko looks up at the face of his father, and he cries. Begging is not enough. He smells the fire before he feels it; even charred flesh does not hurt as much as the fact that he is exiled, betrayed, erased.
(good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.)
He wakes in the Earth Kingdom, memories of careful wrapping distracting him from pain. Zuko learns things travelling three years.
iii. the fire sermon
(he promised 'a new start'
i made no comment. what should i resent)
Zuko rests in the village. He's not more than vagrant here, and the soft sigh of the desert crusts around him. The sun rests his hands on him in mocking, hinting burns aside the one which dominates his face. He works as the villagers need him to, and he ignores what he hears at night. Those noises were animals, nothing more.
The villagers do not know he is Fire. If anyone ventures a gaze at the boy with starlight skin, a flash of yellow eyes and and blinding white teeth holds them back from any questions.
Zuko waits, and he listens. For all that he is Fire, he connects to Earth in quiet ways. He watches the sands shift and wonders when Uncle will find him.
Zuko works and sulks and waits and listens for days at a time, and then the dust caked on his sun soaked skin begins to whisper.
A Water Tribesman arrives, cloaked by night. His name is Sokka, and his eyes are brighter than all Zuko has seen. He tells Zuko that his own sister ran off with an airbender. Even in its impossibility, Zuko prefers his voice to the sounds of their hammers working beneath it. He is also an outsider. His skin is dark enough to draw eyes of the villagers, and his blues are far too kind to scare them away.
Zuko hears screams that night. He listens this time, and finds Sokka clinging by his nails to the roof, bleeding like a cow before supper. Oh, that's what rage is. Zuko had almost forgotten.
(to Carthage then i came
burning burning burning
o Lord Thou pluckest me out
o Lord Thou pluckest
burning)
Zuko is pulling him up before he realizes it. Sokka is bandaged and wrapped, and they walk in silence out of town, carrying dual dao swords, a boomerang, and supplies.
Zuko lights a fire without thinking, and Sokka starts, before settling into the blankets he has nested himself into.
"Is Li even your name?" the silence breaks in an attempt at humor.
An answer returns quickly. Zuko tells him his name, and then, more quietly. his father's.
Sokka contains the recoil by a small margin. "You...you are the Prince of the Fire Nation?"
A gesture to a scar: "Not anymore."
Zuko tells Sokka about the death of his cousin Lu Ten, and how Azula always lies, unless the truth is worse. His mother is gone, and a few short years later, so is his eye and honor. He has always been honest, but to be so open is liberating.
Silence, and then Sokka begins, "It happened when the black soot came back. The first time, our waterbenders were taken and caged like animals. The second, my mother was killed in front of my sister, Katara. The third time, my sister flew to the North Pole with an airbending monk and drew them away. I'm hoping to find her."
Zuko accepts the invitation, and Sokka smiles at him brightly, the blood on his face shining in the firelight. Zuko feels himself blushing and pretends it's from the heat. Sokka sleeps late; the moonbeams linger on his broken skin as Zuko prepares treatments from the book his uncle slipped into his robes before he was dumped like one of Azula's pets in the Earth Kingdom.
Soon, Sokka is up, and they map out a route north. Zuko ignores the pull lighting in his stomach at the sheer tactical brilliance Sokka holds as he easily chooses a course avoiding danger.
iv. death by water
Things change when they find the posters telling that an Admiral Zhao had captured the Avatar and the savage girl he traveled with. Sokka pales, and Zuko knows that even a stronghold cannot-will not-stop him from ending whatever Zhao has attempted. The insult-calling the Water Tribes uncivilized, savage-only adds to his quick hatred.
Zuko looks at Sokka and the taut of his skin as it stretches over his tense jaw. They nod at each other.
(as he rose and fell
he passed the stages of his age and youth)
v. what the thunder said
On their way to the Stronghold, Zuko kills one of his own people for the first time. The man falls after a breath of fire strikes his chest.
(he who was living is now dead
we who were living are now dying)
He does not regret it, as he stares into the wide eyes of a young girl-barely 15, fuck-who is trying not to cry.
"He was gonna...he was gonna..." she doesn't finish her thought and shoves her arms around Zuko in something too raw, desperate to be considered a hug. Sokka looks at Zuko with an expression like admiration, and Zuko hides his blush with a cough.
The girl forces her parents to give them shelter and food for the night. As they leave the next morning, she thanks Zuko with a necklace carrying a small Earth Kingdom pendant.
Sokka teases him later, lightheartedly, about his admirer. Zuko stares at him hard, and Sokka blushes despite himself before looking shocked at Zuko's intensity. His face turns scheming, but it's a lighter look than he's had since he's seen the posters so Zuko no longer minds.
That night, as the food crisps over the fire, Sokka kisses Zuko like he's worth something. Savors his lips like a chocolate. Zuko feels something in him pop, like a joint back in place, when Sokka's fingers trace over his scar. Sokka sees him, all of him, and cares for him anyway. Calls him beautiful.
Zuko growls, deep and low, and hears Sokka breathe unsteadily. Come morning, they smile at each other, basking in each other's warmth. They know they are close to their destination.
(when i count, there are only you and i together)
They hide in the forests around the stronghold, and they forge their bonds together in blood. Sokka frees his sister, and the Avatar, and the fight is spectacular as a storm begins around it.
Zuko controls the fire, and his absolute peace draws the lightning into his grasp. Katara holds steel in her heart and controls the rain. The Avatar is so small-a child, Agni-and the wind roars in Zuko's ear, screams, whinnies, and Zuko learns true power.
(in a flash of lightning. then a damp gust, bringing rain)
Then, Zuko sees Sokka, noticing the raw force among him and disregarding it, his keen aim knocking any unseen assailants. Sokka spares a moment from his concentration to smile at Zuko, and Zuko's heart thaws.
(April is the cruelest month)