Day Two: Red String

What He Always Knew

Zuko thought Iroh never noticed. He thought he never noticed just how tightly he held on to the Waterbender's necklace when he thought no one was looking. How sometimes he would reach into his pocket just to feel the necklace's smooth stone and soft ribbon. Zuko thought Iroh never noticed, but he did.

It made the old General softly smile. It was time to tell his nephew an old folktale of the Fire Nation.

It was late into the evening as Iroh sat quietly sipping on some jasmine tea. Zuko sat across from him in a contemplative mood. Iroh observed him. He had been doing that for days after he had found the necklace.

"It will lead us to the Avatar," Zuko had claimed. How a girl's necklace would lead them to the young Avatar was not something Iroh had questioned out loud.

"Prince Zuko, have I ever told you the tale of the Red String?"

Iroh's voice made Zuko come out of his thoughts. "The Red String? Uncle this is no time for more nonsense stories."

"Oh Prince Zuko, humour your old uncle, besides were just sitting here, might as well pass the time."

Zuko frowned. "We have no time to waste."

Iroh saw his hand move discreetly towards his pocket.

"Perhaps not. What do you plan on doing with that necklace Prince Zuko?"

Zuko's hand moved swiftly away from over his left pocket. Iroh suppressed a grin.

Zuko huffed, got up and stalked towards the door. With a slam of the door he was out.

Iroh sighed. There would be another time for the old tale.

Iroh found the time for the legend the next time they encountered the Avatar. Needless to say, it was not the best of encounters and Zuko was not in the best of moods. The Waterbender's necklace, however, remained in the young prince's pocket and the prince himself was oddly not raging and instead sitting in contemplative silence yet again.

Iroh didn't even ask for permission to begin telling the old folktale. "There is an old folktale in the Fire Nation, the Red String of Fate. It is quite old, dating back hundreds of years." He stopped to see if the prince would object but Zuko said nothing and instead glared at him.

Iroh cleared his throat and continued. "It begins one morning, when a young boy was walking towards his village from the forest. As he reached the end he saw an old man under a tree, besides him is a large satchel. The boy sees the old man holding a large scroll. He asks him what the scroll contains. "It is the scroll of soulmates," the old man replied, "I only need to use one string from my satchel to tie two people together and make them soulmates,"" Iroh paused as Zuko rolled his eyes.

Iroh took a long sip of his tea and then resumed the tale, "The young boy had sneered after that."

"Anyone would have," Zuko murmured almost inaudibly. Iroh's eyebrow rose. So his nephew was paying attention to him. Although Iroh had never doubted that Zuko didn't pay attention, he just never seemed to bother.

"The old man took the boy to the neighboring village, an enemy village. While there the old man pointed out the girl that was to be his soulmate. The boy was angered," Iroh emphasized, "So much so that he picked up the nearest rock and threw it at the girl and left running back towards his own village. Years later peace was made between both villages and the boy was to be married as were many others to ensure that the peace would be eternal. On his wedding night the now young man lifted the veil of his bride. She was a beautiful woman."

Zuko shifted and looked directly at his uncle again.

"Of course the young man was happy to see that his wife was one of the most beautiful women from the other village, but he also noticed that she decorated one eyebrow in a most unusual way. He asked her why she did so and she responded as she took off the decoration, "Long ago, when I was but a little girl, someone threw a rock at me and it left me scarred. I never saw who it was, but I know it was a boy." The young man then remembered the old man from many years ago, and he remembered the scroll and the red string. He remembered what the old man had told him about the string. That it connects those destined to be soulmates." Iroh lulled for a moment. Zuko's hand had gone into his left pocket and his brow was furrowed. This time Iroh didn't stop his grin.

"Now, there is one more thing to add to that story Prince Zuko, The Red String of Fate may tangle and stretch, but it never breaks, and it will always lead to the right place, even if we do not see it."

Zuko said nothing to him but instead rose and walked towards the window and remained there until Iroh had left the room. In his own chambers Iroh mused over his own thoughts. There was not a doubt in his mind that he knew exactly why he meant to tell his nephew that old Fire Nation tale. He just hoped that Zuko would see for himself one day just exactly why Iroh had told him.

It was seven years later, when his nephew presented Katara with a betrothal necklace with a thick strand of red going down the middle of the ribbon that Iroh saw that Zuko had realized what Iroh had known from the beginning.