Changing Tides Under Ba Sing Se

by FictionIsSocialInquiry

The past begins to blur. It looks like an oil painting left out during a storm. He forgets how he came to be in the Crystal Catacombs, and when Katara asks him why he was thrown into that dark, dank hole of a cave, he drops his head into his hands because he can barely remember.

2. Epilogue

Changing Tides Under Ba Sing Se | Part Two

Azula's lightning strikes him with all the venom of a snake that tosses Zuko into a fitful sleep, not of death but barely of the living. In the murk of that place, he sees every single repetition of his time under Ba Sing Se. And he hears ghosts discussing him from the darkness…

'This is water from the Spirit Oasis at the North Pole.'

'What are you doing?! Don't untie him!'

'Get away from him!'

'But he could wake up any minute!'

'I said leave him, Sokka!'

'It has special properties… '

'…kept talking about you. About how you draw on all the elements to make your own bending stronger. How you sat with him when he was sick; he said he dreamed of you as a dragon, helping him stay strong… I don't know, I didn't really understand a lot of it. He seemed… out of sorts.'

'My nephew said this?'

'…so I've been saving it for something important.'

'Did you, um…'

'What?'

'Back in the catacombs… before Sifu Iroh and I found you, what… what did you and Zuko talk about?'

The silence is bruising.

'Katara?'

'A lot,' says the distant voice of his healer.

'I don't know if it would work, but...'

Ba Sing Se has fallen and Zuko lays in the lap of his former enemy, soaring through clouds on the back of a sky bison. He is damaged, some part of him is broken, but the vial of spirit water on the waterbender's wrist is empty and air rasps between his lips. It's weak, fragile as a fledgling bird, but he feels his fingertips, his toes. His body hurts, but it's there.

He tries to thank her, but she is smiling and crying and touching his face and all he can do right now is sleep.