Example Learned
Zuko's birth came along unexpected and painful for Ursa. She drew on short, harsh breathes and swore that each would be her last. But she lived, and so did he, so did the little infant she held.
"What would you like to do with him?" her maid asked.
Ursa sighed in contempt and hate, "Toss it in the river."
In the river like a rotten fish, after a day's catch, it goes back. Dead.
Born in the middle of the night, Zuko always knew what the dim was like, soughed. There was no sunrise of him, just the perpetual dark. And like all clichés go, he grew up bursting from a flamed wheel.
-x-
…inception is like conception…
there is regret
or there is joy
never both
-x-
"Aren't you scared?" Toph asked.
And Zuko frowned, the furrows grooved deep in his forehead—price of royalty, the price to rule. "No, why would I be? I'm not the one in there…the one…you know."
"What if something goes wrong? Something horribly wrong? And she dies. And…and…"
"You know, you're really encouraging, a natural. I feel infinitely better after that," he snapped back.
"I'm just saying."
"I know."
Because it was almost dawn, just like he was told and remembered. Like a rotten fish. Fetid and reviled.
But Toph knew that one too.