Chapter 2: The Unrelenting Past

(In which the awkwardness continues, Toph is curious about a mother, and Zuko has a lot to digest, while there is a wanton attack on the dialogue by rogue ellipses.)

After retrieving what little equipment he had brought with him, consisting entirely of his two swords, Zuko strode briskly towards the entrance of the giant mansion. The weight of the swords on his back was surprisingly unnerving. For almost as long as he could remember, the cold, hard, sharp steel of a blade had been one of the things he had felt most comfortable about in the world. But now, the weight on his back made his throat itch. Zuko carefully felt the bandages around his throat, and he thought he could feel a slight indentation where none had been before. A cold shiver ran down his body as his fingers skimmed over the bandages.

As Zuko stepped out into the blazing noon sun, his eyes adjusting to the brightness after shadow-clad hallways, he came face to face with an impressive looking machine of war. Like a long, mighty tiger barracuda with added gratuitous spikes, the war balloon bobbed up and down, as if struggling against the ropes holding it down. Calling it a balloon felt like blasphemy. It looked far too deadly to be considered a balloon.

Zuko ran his hand through his hair, wondering why the Fire Nation had such a demented need to make everything it possessed so threatening in appearance. Hardly a flagship of peace, he mused to himself as he strode toward the gangplank set up against it.

As he boarded the vessel, he came face to face with Mai once again. They looked at each other awkwardly before both turned away to busy themselves with whatever business they could find for themselves. Mai hurried towards the aft of the vessel where she took to ordering a soldier around, while Zuko shuffled towards the bow, where some of his friends were gathered. He took one last look at Mai, wondering if there was something more he should say or do. Instead he remembered her words; how he was responsible. He knew he was, but somehow it felt so much more unsettling to hear it from Mai. She had always struck a chord deep inside him, deeper than most.

This whole situation felt so surreal. There was so much to do, so much to repair. Seeing her again just made it even harder.

Lost deep within his own thoughts, Zuko managed to bump into Toph, who was hunched over, inspecting something.

"Hey!"

"Oh, sorry, didn't see you there."

"Funny how I never have a problem with it," Toph said with a smirk.

The corners of Zuko's mouth began to rise slightly, before he noticed what Toph had been inspecting. Sokka was lying in a hastily constructed… bed, it had to be a bed, he was lying in it after all. His pale and clammy face poked out of a thick bundle of furs under which he had been buried. Ty Lee was on the other side of the… bed, making sure he was tucked in properly.

"The doctors say he needs the fresh air, but since he's so cold already, we have to make sure he stays bundled up," Toph answered Zuko's questioning silence, feeling that an explanation was needed.

"Oh… I see," Zuko said glumly, giving Sokka's sickly face another look. If it was possible, the poor man looked even worse than before; despite the fresh air he was receiving. His pale skin was starting to colour oddly, tints of purple and a greenish hue were present, while dark lines, most likely his veins, crisscrossed over his face. Whatever the poison was, it certainly was doing a good job at what it had been designed to do.

"We're taking him to Katara, right?" Toph asked, breaking through Zuko's stupor.

"Yeah… Katara," Zuko replied, remembering how they had parted. As if he wasn't feeling guilty enough already about throwing his country into chaos, playing right into the hands of some mysterious villain, and endangering his closest friends, he had also lied to Katara and went behind her back. She had insisted on a more peaceful solution, and it looked like she might have been right. Then again, what would the alternative have been?

…He had no idea. It all just felt so unreal; he hadn't had enough time to process it all. The Fire Nation was torn apart, Azula was gone who knows where to do who knows what, and Sokka might be dying. No matter how he looked at it, Zuko felt that it was all his fault. Everyone had trusted him to take charge, to make things right and all he had managed to do was fail yet again. His father's voice wafted through his mind, belittling him from the distant past. He locked it away, much like had done with the man himself.

Zuko walked away from his three friends and sat on the other side of the vessel, looking at the two women fuss over their Sokka. If he'd been awake, Sokka would have been revelling in the service he was receiving, Zuko thought bitterly. He would be okay if I hadn't pushed him along. He had his doubts, he wanted to give Katara a chance, but I convinced him we were doing the right thing.

Zuko allowed his head to droop, as he inspected the floor. He'd give anything to distract himself from his own personal hell.

After an indefinable amount of time, Zuko felt someone sitting down next to him. He raised his head and saw Mai sitting next to him, to his surprise. She was looking at the sky while she held her legs together tightly. Her hair blew elegantly in the wind.

"Hey," Zuko said uncertainly.

"Hey," Mai said, just as tentatively.

The pair remained silent for a long time, until:

"I like what you've done with your hair," Zuko said, unable to come up with anything more engaging for conversation than cosmetic appearances. At least he wasn't talking about the weather.

"Thanks, I like what you've done with your… neck," Mai replied, not daring to remove her gaze from the distant sky.

Zuko wasn't sure if he should laugh or not. Was that a joke? Or maybe she was just teasing with him like she used to in the good old days. Unable to decide fast enough, with the pressure for a reply building, he managed a weird cross between a cough and a chortle.

The pair remained silent for another painfully long moment.

"So, you're a leader in this… city-state was it?" Zuko asked.

"Yes," Mai answered curtly, still staring upwards.

"Nice… I guess." Zuko scratched the back of his head, seeking to stimulate his brain in some manner.

"It's not bad," Mai concurred.

A familiar silence descended upon the pair once more. They had no idea that others were picking up their conversation (or lack thereof). Toph and Ty Lee were sitting behind the bundled mountain that was Sokka. When they had noticed Mai sitting next to Zuko, they had decided to give them some privacy, but their curiosity had gotten the better of them.

Occasionally Ty Lee would quickly peek around Sokka's bed, to check if the pair had left, seeing as no conversation was being had. However, any shame they might have felt quickly disappeared after listening to the long, uncomfortable pauses. A far deeper reaching feeling, of the collective embarrassment of everyone on the front deck, soon prevailed.

"Uh, this is just painfully awkward to watch," Ty Lee whispered in Toph's ear.

"You should see it from my angle. Yikes," Toph whispered back.

At this time, Mai finally gave up on searching the clear skies, and gave Zuko a quick inspection out of the corner of her eye. "Zuko… about the things I said yesterday, I-" Mai started to break the silence, but was interrupted by Zuko.

"You don't need to explain, apologize or anything. You weren't at fault… I am and I swear I'm going to do something about it." Zuko raised his hand and squeezed it into a tight fist, wishing to make his promise clear to her.

Mai looked at him blankly, with mild surprise, before she turned to look up at the sky once again. "…Good, I guess…"

"…"

"…"

"So… I guess you certainly had a lot of time to think about what you were going to say to me."

"Heh, yeah, I guess. Even so…"

"Yeah…"

"…" Zuko turned to look at her.

"…?" Mai asked silently with a raised eyebrow.

"Are you sure you don't want to come along?"

"…Yes, Zuko, I have responsibilities too now… So I guess this is goodbye, the one we never got a chance to say properly before," Mai said solemnly before she leaned over, held his chin in a gentle caressing way and kissed Zuko gently on the cheek.

Zuko's eyes widened in surprise as he turned his head around to face her, but Mai was already getting up, ready to leave. Before Zuko had a chance to say a word, she had strode over to the ramp and waved at the soldiers making the final checks on the vessel. They quickly made their way off the ship. Mai stood aside, waiting for all of them to disembark.

She turned around and looked intently at Zuko and said, "Take care, Zuko, and maybe we'll meet again someday and have another annoyingly awkward reunion." She waved farewell to him and walked off the ship.

As Zuko stood up, the air ship lurched. He grabbed the railing to steady himself as the ship began its swift ascent. It was almost as fast as Appa.

Mai and her soldiers quickly became specks, which in turn disappeared inside the palace-like mansion, which became a blot on an island, which eventually became a blob of greens and browns. Zuko continued staring at the island, until it too became a mere speck on the horizon and eventually disappeared over the horizon. He wished he could see this final moment as something more beautiful and poetic than it was, but all he could see was a bland blot of earth against almost equally boring blue skies and sea. He noticed both Ty Lee and Toph scurrying away towards the main hold of the air ship from the corner of his eye. Had they…? Never mind…

I need some time to think, he thought to himself as he finally tore his eyes away from the horizon. And some tea. I have a lot to think about… the Fire Nation, the Mysterious Mastermind, Azula, Sokka, Mai… damn near everything…

Zuko sighed deeply. I'm going to need a lot of tea.


Zuko sat quietly on the deck of the airship, slowly sipping warm tea. Toph walked up to him silently across the wide deck and flopped down next to him, feet spread in a big V-shape. Zuko gave her a good look over. His gaze started at her pretty face, partly covered by her dark bangs, slowly progressing downwards (with significant pauses here and there), until he reached the bottoms of her feet. He raised an inquisitive eyebrow, before he sipped some more tea.

"Man, you have some dirty feet, odd how I never noticed before," he observed casually.

"…Uh, yeah…" Toph said uncertainly, turning a perplexed frown towards Zuko. "And since we seem to be pointing out the obvious today, you have a really big scar on your face."

Zuko took a big sip of his tea. "Yeah…" He stared into the murky depths of his cup, searching for something he felt he had lost, but not finding anything, not even his own reflection, but a green-brown swirling mixture of tea, so he turned his eyes to the floor, tracing the little path-like lines across the deck, wanting to see where they led.

"What's got you so down?" Toph asked, leaning back on her arms.

"…" Zuko looked up blankly at the horizon. He didn't feel like discussing anything at the moment. He just wanted to drift along with the flow, until a solution would present itself to him.

"You're right, it's so obvious it doesn't need to be said… Sooo, about this ice between us that needs to be broken, got any ideas?"

"…"

"I don't have any of that special tea on me at the moment, but it doesn't mean we can't… I dunno, grope each other inappropriately again, heh… C'mon that was funny, right? Right?" Toph gave Zuko a few jabs in his side with an elbow, while her eyebrows jumped up and down like a pair of wild gazelle chimps.

Zuko once again looked contemplatively at his tea.

"Okay, this is just starting to get annoyingly pathetic and depressing. Look Zuko, I know this must be especially hard on you, what with losing your country, causing it to fall apart, meeting your ex suddenly and Azula disappearing and… oh boy, this is not going well." Toph admitted, starting to feel slightly depressed herself at merely listing all of Zuko's problems.

"Yeah, tell me about it…"

Toph scratched her head, visibly straining to come up with a change of subject. "You know… we never did find out what happened between you and your mama… you found her, right?"

"I'd rather not talk about it."

"Oh… um, ok. It's just that, you know, seeing as it was you reuniting with your lost mom after all those years…" Toph scratched her head hesitantly. Had she struck a nerve?

"Not much to say really. I don't understand why people have these weird, grand delusions about everything I do. I met my mom, we had some tea, we talked, I went back to ruling the Fire Nation, that's it," Zuko said in a surprisingly conversational tone.

"…Ri~ight." Toph decided to continue her advantage, obviously she was starting to get through to the doofus. She knew the guys she liked to hang around with were the more silent and strong type, but the problem with that was that they liked to bottle things up a bit too much. "You expect me to believe that? No huge revelation, no dark secrets revealed, no new motivational direction, nothing? Oh c'mon, nobody's going to believe that."

Zuko sipped some more of his tea. "What can I say? My mom is a pretty normal person; she's living a nice quiet life, just like she wants to."

"But what about why she left?! There must have been something huge! Something that would shake the foundations of the entire world? Something dramatic and intense! C'mon what was it?! It was huge wasn't it? You can tell me! How cool was it?"

Zuko gulped down the last of his tea and then scratched his scar unceremoniously while his lips curled slightly upwards at the edges. With an uncommonly playful look in his eyes, he said, with great emphasis on the single syllable, "Meh."

"OH, COME ON!!" Toph deflated from sheer frustration.

"None of your business anyway…" Zuko said, licking his teeth. There was something odd about that tea. There was now a lot more solid stuff between his teeth than when he'd started drinking it.

"Humph," Toph huffed indignantly as she glared at him silently, with cute, pouting lips. Zuko turned his head around to look at her. He looked at her blind eyes intently.

"Hey, thanks for, you know, cheering me up a bit…" Zuko said awkwardly, giving the surrounding area a good look around. "Toph, there's something I'd like to –"

But whatever it was that Zuko had intended to tell Toph was cut short as a pained grunt was uttered from a massive heap nearby.

"Hold that thought," Toph said as she walked over to Sokka with a worried look on her face. She carefully peeled back a few layers of protective fur, checking that none of his stitches had opened and his temperature by gently placing her hand on his forehead. She took a long, silent moment to look at him while Zuko inspected the pair from his spot next to his tea pot on the deck. As Toph carefully bundled Sokka under a thick blanket and returned to Zuko, he quickly looked away at the horizon.

"So, what did you want to tell me?" Toph asked, as she once again flopped down into her relaxed position on the deck next to Zuko, turning to face him expectantly, eager to hear what was bound to be important.

"Never mind, it's not important anymore…"

"Oh, okay," Toph said, sensing that the ice she had worked so hard to break had reformed around them again. Zuko's defences were up again, unrelenting toward any further attempts she might have made that day. No more weakness could be shown, no more soft, squishy, sappy emotions. She could understand that kind of behaviour, seeing as she subscribed often to it as well. But knowing the kind of problems Zuko was facing, she knew it couldn't be good to bottle it up like that. There were times when you needed a good talk with an even better friend. She didn't quite understand why she was willing to let Zuko remain silent, knowing all of this.

She sighed deeply. Boys will be boys… and I guess I'm no different either, really.

The pair sat silently, gazing at the horizon for awhile longer, until eventually, Toph got up and left Zuko alone with his now empty teapot.


"We're here!" Ty Lee shouted from the brow of the ship, jumping up and down excitedly.

Zuko and Hefeng walked forward to see, while Toph remained next to the heavily bundled Sokka. The three people at the brow of the ship watched as the glistening spires of the Southern Water Tribe's capital slowly crept closer.

"Hmmm, I trust you will be able to take care of Brother Sokka without my aide," Hefeng said with a voice that made her sound rather preoccupied.

"What do you mean?" Zuko asked.

"I've been away from the temple for too long as it is. I need to check and see if everyone is alright and report to my brother and Sister, and no doubt the Order of the White Lotus will want a personal recount from me, even though they are probably aware of what has already happened."

"I see… Well, you're free to do as you want, but there are few things I'd like to ask you before you leave, if it's alright with you."

"Certainly, Honoured Brother."

"We didn't really get a proper chance to discuss it earlier because of the… the mission, but I'd like to know if – if you have any more information about Aang that we might have missed."

Hefeng looked sadly at Zuko before she answered. "I'm sorry, we know nothing more than you do. Katara was the last one to see him, all he told us was that he needed to go and settle something related to the Spirit World. For a few years, one of us would be excused from teaching the younglings to search for him, but to no avail. Eventually, we gave up… We fear the worst might have happened to him…"

"Yeah… same here. It's been – what? – 10 years? Aang definitely wouldn't willingly stay away for that long, and it's hard to imagine anything that could threaten a fully realized Avatar. Even if there was something like that, wouldn't he have come to us for help?"

"I'm afraid I do not know," Hefeng answered despondently. "All we can do is hope, I guess."

"Yeah, but… what if the worst has happened? It's been ten years already. Maybe there's a new… Never mind. You make sure everyone's safe on your end. I have a feeling things might get worse before they get any better."

"You are probably right, Brother. I only wish I had been of more use in stopping the ensuing battle between the great nations."

"Not your fault, Hefeng. There are far more guilty parties here than you," Zuko said miserably, staring down at the heaving waves below the airship.

"Well, I guess this is goodbye, for now at least," Hefeng said, tapping the end of her staff against the deck, red wings spreading out for the impending flight.

"Yeah," Zuko muttered, before he offered his hand to shake hands. Hefeng stared at his hand for a moment, before she realized, blushingly, that handshakes were a more common and casual show of mutual respect than bowing. She took his hand and shook it eagerly.

"It has been an honour just knowing you, Oh Great Brother," she said, smiling broadly.

"Hey! Don't leave without me giving you a proper farewell as well!" Ty Lee said as she jumped between the pair and gave Hefeng a big hug.

"Ouuuchy…" Hefeng tried to complain as politely as possible as her tender ribs were mercilessly hugged by Ty Lee.

"Damn, not again, sorry. Why does this keep happening?" Ty Lee asked, genuinely perplexed, as she jumped back.

It took all the willpower Zuko possessed to not roll his eyes, too much that is.

"Well, goodbye, I guess. You know where I am, so send word if you need our Brotherhood's help," Hefeng said, rubbing her sides gingerly.

Then she took a proper hold of her glider and jumped off from the airship. Her small frame plummeted like a rock. Both Zuko and Ty Lee rushed forward worriedly and looked down. Hefeng however quickly summoned the necessary winds to her aide and began rising, gently revolving around the airship while she slowly gathered altitude.

"Farewell," came the wind-muffled goodbye as the glider headed off, away from the airship.

Zuko stared at the continuously shrinking, winged figure until it disappeared from sight. He felt he had grown too static, watching others move onwards, while he remained behind, watching the progress of others. Much like the vast horizons he had been staring at lately, a proper sense of direction was lacking. There was no path to follow. And knowing where his last path had taken him, he felt wary about looking for another one to follow. What if he once again chose –

"Hey, Zuko! Snap out of it! We're just about to land. Get the ropes ready," Ty Lee nudged him quickly before she hopped away in order to do her part in the landing.

Zuko looked around bleakly before he got to work. It was only a matter of minutes until the airship was above a familiar looking, icy platform, with blue-clad soldiers running about on it. Zuko and Ty Lee tossed ropes down to the men on the platform, who pulled the airship down with surprising efficiency.

"Careful, now," Toph instructed, with a scowl of concentration on her face as she and Zuko lifted the bundled up Sokka on his little, clumsily constructed contraption he had been resting on. A pair of short, pained grunts escaped his pale, cracked lips. Toph bit her lip, "Careful."

Slowly, the pair edged their way with Sokka between them onto the gangplank, laid ready by Ty Lee. Like an odd looking crab, they slowly disembarked.

"Okay now, you go left. Yeah, like that, but lift him up on your end. No! Not like that, support him! Damn it, now his hand his hanging loose, isn't it? The weights shifted, I can tell. Someone put the idiot's hand back where – no, not like that! Stop, you'll make us topple!" Toph continued her instruction's like a maddened commander after an unattainable creature of the sea, unsatisfied with any results as Zuko did the best he could and the nervous Ty Lee skittered about back and forth around them, trying desperately to help without getting in the way. "Go, go, go! No, not that fast! Now we're going too slowly. Gah, what is wrong with you people? I'm blind and I can see what's going on here better than any of you!"

"What did you guys do?" spoke a chilling voice of subzero proportions that stopped every single person dead in their tracks on the platform.

Like little misbehaving children, Zuko, Toph and Ty Lee slowly and grudgingly turned to face Katara, who had the most horrible glare in her eyes.

"Uhm, hi there, Katara. We, uh, have a teensy-weensy, itsy-bitsy, tiny problem here we were hoping you could help us with," Ty Lee said fearfully, her face swiftly losing its rosy composure in the coldness of Katara's glare. She hesitantly pulled back some of the bundles so that Sokka's face was fully visible for Katara.

It was amazing how instantaneously the temperature in the snowy lands of the South Pole seemed to lower to a deadly degree as the look in Katara's eyes became even more dreadful.

"Uh-oh," the three returning 'heroes' said quietly, all hoping they had come up with better last words.


A/N: Whew, been busy, busy, busy. Sorry for the very long wait between updates. January turned out to be the most hectic month I've experienced in a long time. If I had known that, I might have pushed back the story's release a bit, so there wouldn't have been such a jarring halt in between chapters. Well, c'est la vie or something. It's time to get outta the funk and get into my writing pants, so to speak. (Actually no one speaks like that. Forget it.)

Thank you very much for the proper critique, OmniSchreiber. Always good to hear some proper pros and cons so I can see what works and what doesn't. I think I understand why the Zuko/Mai scene might have seemed slightly forced. I felt it was necessary for her to function more as a plot device and expositional tool than a real character (sincere apologies, Mai fans). Too much probably was dumped into the scene now that I think about it, unfortunately this felt like the thing to do to ensure a proper pacing. I'll be sure not to mistreat characters merely to further the plot anymore. :P

EDIT: Silly spelling mistakes fixed. You are turning out to be an invaluable resource, Omni. I now know what bop means as well. W00T!