The Fire Prince woke to the rustling of paper.

He raised a heavy hand to his face, joints screaming in protest at the movement, and felt something soft and yielding there. Without thinking, he tugged at the cloth. A book snapped shut off to his right.

"Don't play with it, dumdum. It's there for a reason," a familiar voice reproved him. His scalp prickled oddly.

"Azula?" he tried to say, but all that came out was "Ughn-ah?"

"You know, it's stimulating conversation like this that I think I'll miss the most," she sighed insincerely.

Zuko blinked a bleary eye in the soft lamplight. He was not sure what had happened to the other one, or what she was talking about, but knowing Azula, he would find out when she wanted him to, and no sooner.

She sat up from where she'd been reclining to his right, in what Zuko now realized was the palace infirmary, and laid the leather bound book she was reading on the elegantly carved end table between their beds. This also held a tall glass lamp, a few jars and bottles containing unidentified substances, and two white rags, neatly folded atop one another.

"What — happened?" he finally managed, turning his head to look directly at her as she swung her feet off the side of the bed to sit facing him. He silently wondered that his neck did not creak like an old iron door with rusty hinges when he moved it. He felt as if it should.

His eleven year old sister arched an elegant brow. She had started wearing makeup a few months ago. It bothered him for some reason he could not pin down. "Speak out of turn lately?" she said at last.

And Zuko remembered… Kneeling before his father. The arena around him blurring with tears. His desperate apologies. A hand wreathed in flame, reaching for him. And a pain so blinding that in that moment, the world was simply gone —

Zuko sat bolt upright in the narrow bed, the covers falling away from his bare torso, and uttered a sharp gasp, like waking from a nightmare. His clawed hands scrabbled at the bandage that covered the left half of his face, as if he would tear it off —

Nimble fingers closed around his wrists. "Stop it!" Azula hissed disdainfully, her grip surprisingly strong when she tugged his hands away. "You'll just make the scarring worse."

And the young prince froze, as the reality hit him with a force that took his breath away. That this was not a nightmare. This was his life now.

His uncovered eye fixed desperately on his sister. "How bad is it?" he choked out.

Azula hesitated where she stood beside his bed, brown-gold eyes narrowed as she watched him. And resentment flared in Zuko like a dying fire in a sudden draft. When had she ever shown mercy before?

"How bad is it?!" he demanded with growing heat, throwing off her hands.

"I haven't seen it up close," his sister snapped, as if he were being ridiculous. "I wasn't here when the healers bandaged you. But they told me how to change your dressings."

It was as close as she would come to offering, and Zuko nodded once, slowly. If there were no healers here, it was because Azula didn't want them here. And asking would do him no good.

He watched her with no little suspicion, fidgeting when she stepped closer and reached for the gauze that wrapped around his head, to unwind it with the fine concentration that made her such a natural in their calligraphy classes. Just like in everything else.

Azula bit her lip when she got to the thick layer of bandages closest to his skin, and he felt her fingers work around the edges, looking for an opening. He was already breathing hard, and she did not even draw attention to it, now Zuko tensed in anticipation of the pain. He could think of no one more fitting to reopen a wound.

But his sister peeled the bandage away slowly, with a care he thought of as so unlike her that for the first time in living memory, she almost reminded him of —

No. He couldn't think of what else he'd lost. Not today.

Azula drew a sharp breath, but gave no other reaction than, "It's going to scar." She lowered the bandage, studying his burn with almost clinical interest. "And your eyebrow will probably never grow back."

Zuko blinked once, hard, and then again. Something was wrong, or at least, something besides the fact that he still couldn't see out of his left eye. "I can't — I can't feel anything," he admitted at last, his shoulders slumping a little, as if in disappointment.

"Nerve damage?" Azula volunteered, in the disinterested tone she often adopted while studying her nails. Her hands full this time, she instead turned abruptly to drop the used gauze and bandages into a wrought iron waste bin at the end of Zuko's bed, and then crossed the room to a massive ash wood cabinet set against the paneled wall.

She paused in gripping the gold door handles to eye him over her left shoulder. "Though the healers say you should regain your sight, once the swelling goes down."

Zuko didn't reply, too busy studying his reflection in the panes of a window that looked out on a darkened courtyard to his right. He could not make out much of the burn except for a dark, irregularly shaped patch of skin … but the gleam of light off his newly bald scalp was fairly unmistakable.

"They shaved my head?!" he practically yelped, feeling quickly over the crown of it to confirm this.

"Well, someone's vainer than I ever guessed," Azula observed, opening the cabinet to take fresh dressings down from the shelves, "if he's worried about his hair at a time like this." She snapped the doors closed with her free hand.

"Like you wouldn't be upset if you woke up bald, Azula?" Zuko said mutinously, dropping his hands with half a glare for her when she crossed to the left side of his bed.

"I'm a girl, dumdum, it's not the same thing. And look on the bright side," she added with a characteristic smirk, and sat facing him on the edge of the bed, dropping an armful of bandages on the covers, "at least they let you keep your ponytail." She gave it a tug as if for good measure, and Zuko angrily slapped her hand away.

"Uncle says it's called a phoenix tail!" he bristled.

"Yes, because clearly he's an expert on hair." She snorted lightly at the private joke, before adding, "Pass me the rubbing alcohol and a rag." Zuko blinked, and she sighed, "Clear bottle, Zuzu."

Scowling at the nickname, he handed her what she asked, and watched as she uncorked the bottle and held the rag over its mouth, upending it several times to soak the fabric, before she pressed it to his left temple. He hissed and flinched at the stinging pinpricks that erupted to life in his raw, charred skin, but Azula didn't pause in her work or even remark it, her gaze fixed on his burn and the eye that was swollen shut.

So he settled instead into watching her, confining his expressions of pain to the occasional grimace. The angles of her face had grown very gradually harsher in the last few years. He thought she looked more like their dad every day. But the warm light shining through the painted glass softened her features, and Zuko remembered how people would sometimes say that he and his sister looked alike. He thought they wouldn't say that, anymore.

"Azula?" he ventured at last, when she finished cleaning his wound and corked the short glass bottle, handing it back to him along with the rag.

"What?" she replied, an edge to her tone.

He paused in replacing the items on the end table, the burned side of his face turned toward Azula, so he couldn't see her. "Why did Father do this?"

"He says you showed shameful weakness by refusing to fight," his sister replied, as readily as if she were supplying an answer to their history tutor.

Zuko's head snapped around to look at her in disbelief. "To fight him? Our father?" When she just tilted her head to look sidelong at him, he further demanded, "Well, what would you have done?"

"What he commanded," Azula said seriously, and seeing him about to object, headed Zuko off, "You seem to forget that he's not just our father. He is the Fire Lord. Fire Lord first, Father second." She raised first one finger then another to count off.

"And the last thing you should have done was beg," she reminded him, a crease forming between her brows when they drew together in disapproval, just the way their father's did whenever he looked at Zuko. "The only people who ask for mercy, are those too weak to deserve it."

What was this then? he wondered, glaring at the gauze and bandages lying on the crisp white sheets. Some subtle form of torture? Azula smiled grimly, as if guessing the train of his thoughts. "You didn't ask," she clarified unhelpfully, and Zuko blinked. Then, "The white salve."

She uncorked this when Zuko handed it to her, and skimmed some off the bottom of the cork with her index finger, then swirled the same two fingers she used for her bending around in the jar, and began to spread a thin layer evenly across his burn. And Zuko mulled over her words, while the salve dulled any leftover sting.

"I wasn't begging," he insisted sullenly, watching her spread the salve out of the corner of his eye. "I mean — he's our father, it would have been wrong to fight him." One of her brows twitched irritably. "I didn't want to —"

Her hand jerked at this, and Zuko drew back with a start of surprise, when she got some of the cold salve on his nose. "You didn't want?" she echoed, while he wiped the salve off his nose. "You haven't earned the right to want. You haven't earned the right to an opinion." Azula spoke sharply, and he stopped at the harshness of her tone. "That was your mistake in speaking out at the council. You had not proven yourself sufficiently for that privilege."

"But what was I supposed to do?" Zuko hotly protested, his hands balling into fists atop the sheets. "Let that stupid general sacrifice an entire division of our nation's troops?" He didn't ask how Azula knew about any of this. She'd probably been hiding behind the curtains the entire time.

"Zuko," she chided him almost gently, sounding for a moment so much like their mother that he unclenched his fists unconsciously, "do you even know Dad would have approved his plan?"

And Zuko's undamaged eye widened in horror, when he realized the magnitude of his mistake. He had spoken before their father — indicating he did not trust Father's judgment. In front of his entire war council. He groaned and fell back against the iron headboard of his bed, while Azula smirked at him, and shook her head once, pityingly.

"You're so dramatic," she sighed, scooping more salve from the jar and leaning forward to resume her application. "It's always now or never with you. Did it even occur to you to approach him after the meeting, when he wouldn't lose face for your disagreement?"

Zuko scowled, sitting up straight again when she withdrew her hand. "Okay, Azula, I get it!" he grumbled, when she replaced the cork, having thoroughly coated his burn. "I screwed up! If the only reason you're here is to laugh at me," he grit out, glaring down at the sheets when she handed him back the salve, "then you can just leave!"

"It's not," Azula said shortly, forcing him to look up when she did not relinquish her grip on the jar, and his fingers brushed hers. "And if you could stop being jealous for a few minutes at a time, you might realize I'm trying to help you."

Zuko laughed unkindly at the prospect, and her expression darkened just a fraction. "You're lying," he dismissed, and Azula let go of the salve with a bitter smile.

"If you say so."

He set the jar on the cluttered end table, and turned back only for Azula to slap a fresh dressing none too gently on his burn. Zuko flinched at the sudden invasion of his already limited field of vision, though he didn't feel the bandage stick to the salve until she flattened the edges with careful fingers.

She reached for the gauze and loosed some from the roll, then leaned forward to loop it around the back of his head. And Zuko froze at the unexpected proximity — for one crazy second, he thought she was going to throw her arms around his neck. Until he remembered that she hadn't hugged him, or even consented to be hugged, since before their mother…

Azula held the gauze stationary with a firm hand on the back of his head, while she wound the rest in successive layers around his bandage, securing it in place. Zuko looked down and away from her, not wanting to make her feel uncomfortable by staring.

Yeah. Her. Like she ever felt uncomfortable about anything.

But he was acutely aware of her silence, where he hadn't been before. Azula must have thought the same, when she abruptly remarked, "You really don't feel anything? That must be nice."

Zuko looked up to see something like a shadow fall over her eyes. She must have realized the strangeness of what she said, because she dodged his searching gaze to pluck a pin from on top of the sheets. She sprang to her feet to circle behind him, and pinned the loose edge of the gauze in place.

And belatedly, it occurred to him ask, "Has Father come to see me? Will — will he come?"

She did not move from behind him, but only replied, "He may be there when you leave." He felt, impossibly, one of her slender hands run up his left shoulder, coming to rest at the base of his neck. "Other than that, I can't say."

And Zuko twisted quickly to look at her, breaking her grip when his mind ground to a halt at the implication. "Leave? What —"

Her lips curved in what Zuko could only guess was amusement. "It occurred to me you might have been too insensible with pain to hear him, when Father passed judgment on you in the arena," she said softly, in the same delicate tone in which she told him their mother was gone, their grandfather dead.

A slow fire lit in the pit of his stomach. He hated it when she tried to act like a normal person.

"You are banished from the Fire Nation," his sentence fell from her painted lips, "until such time as you find and capture the Avatar."

"The Avatar?" Zuko repeated, breaking into a cold sweat. "That isn't — you're lying!" he accused again, but even he could hear the growing desperation in his voice. "You always lie!"

"Lies are supposed to be plausible, dumdum," she reminded him, registering no other reaction than a raised eyebrow and the crossing of her arms. "Even I couldn't make something like this up."

She tilted her head as if to study him, with a detached curiosity that was uniquely Azula. "You can ask Uncle, if you don't believe me," she added, in what passed for a generous gesture with her.

Zuko began to find it difficult to breathe. "Why — why are you telling me this?" he choked out, tears building in his eye.

Azula regarded him skeptically. "Would you rather I let the servants tell you? Or Uncle, with his sad face?" she mocked, pulling a grotesque impression of the sort of hurt aspect that Iroh indeed often wore around her.

"YES!" he exploded, clutching the sheets in shaking hands. "Yes, Azula! Any one of them, anyone but you!"

Azula watched him wordlessly for a moment, her expression curiously blank. But there was that shadow again, the one he only glimpsed before. "Well," she said coldly, at last, "I suppose I thought there should be one person in the room who wasn't crying like a little girl when the news broke."

"Shut up!" Zuko shouted at her, dashing the tears from his eye with the back of his hand.

"I will not," she rejoined, her tone hard as the amber eyes she narrowed. "You're pathetic! You expect to be Fire Lord one day, and you can't even think before you speak!" She unbound her arms, stalking to the footboard of his bed to lean down, gripping it. "You have all the subtlety of a Komodo Rhino in a porcelain shop, and half the brains. You should be glad Father's sending you away," Azula said poisonously, lowering her head to fix him with a burning gaze. "You wouldn't last five seconds at court."

"I hate you!" Zuko burst out, his voice breaking for a reason entirely different than it had been doing lately. He was crying again and too angry even to notice, he felt as if the sheets might ignite in his hands.

"You're expecting what, congratulations?" his sister sneered, though the light had gone out of her eyes. "It's not exactly hard to do." She straightened, looking down on him with the disdain she wore like a second skin fixed firmly in place again.

"You have a week until preparations are complete for your departure. Spend it sulking here, or put your time to some useful employment — you are free to choose," Azula dismissed him, and then turned herself to leave. She had not taken three steps before she paused, and slowly turned to face him again.

Zuko glared down at the sheets still clutched in his hands, breathing hard. He could not look up at Azula, he didn't dare. He had never wanted to hurt her so much in his entire life. And the clear certainty that he couldn't — because she was simply better, and beloved of their father — only made him want it more.

"You don't like what I have to say," she stated flatly. It wasn't a question, and Zuko didn't bother to answer it. "Then prove me wrong. Believe it or not, I'd welcome the revelation you're worth the time I waste on you."

He lifted his gaze at this despite his resolve, to see Azula leaving the room, not even waiting for his reply. Of course she wouldn't. Zuko could not stop himself, and hurled at her retreating back, "You're a monster, Azula!" His sister stopped, but didn't turn around. "You always have been," he added bitterly.

She cast a sharp glance over her left shoulder at him, and swiftly replied, "At least I don't look it."

What he'd known would happen from the moment he glanced up happened, and with an inarticulate howl of rage, Zuko snatched up the heaviest projectile he could throw at her before she gained the door. This turned out to be the book she'd left —

And Zuko stopped with one glimpse at the characters on the cover, missing his chance when Azula walked out. He eased the leather bound book into his lap, running his index finger over the title. Three Generations of Searching, An Imperial History of the Hunt for the Avatar. Slowly, a little uncertainly, he turned the pages, and began to read…

And kept reading well into the night. And demanded more books from the royal library when he'd thoroughly examined the first. It never occurred to him to wonder why the servants obeyed him so readily in this, when they balked at most other commands from the newly disgraced prince.

It didn't matter. He had a purpose to fulfill, and he would return home with honor. He didn't need Azula's luck, he had his determination. He would use every resource at his disposal.

And it would be enough. It had to be.

Her voice pierced a deeper blackness this time than before, the kind that persisted even with his eyes wide open. "Oh no no NO!" it moaned, as if with awful realization. "What will — Father say? What will Father say?!"

Ty Lee wasn't even trying to talk her down anymore. Zuko thought he heard her crying quietly off to the side, while Azula's voice seemed to circle, as if she were frantically evading capture.

He wondered bitterly why they didn't just sedate her already, she could not be putting up much of a fight. And then Zuko realized that frail as she was, her handlers might be struggling to find a way to subdue her without killing her.

"I can't fail him — I CAN'T!" her voice rose to a shriek, as the edge of panic that colored it erupted into full blown hysteria. "I can't fail — he'll never forgive!" she despaired.

He couldn't listen to this anymore, he couldn't —

And Zuko tried to forget how, in the days immediately after he'd been burned, no one could seem to look directly at him, not the servants, not even Uncle… How except for the court physician, whose job it was to examine Zuko's scar and talk to him about it, everyone else seemed to want to pretend it wasn't there, and pretended so hard that it was all he could think about when he wasn't alone.

How it almost made him miss Azula — almost — because at least she still treated him like himself. She'd been a pain in the ass, but she'd been there. She was the only one who never flinched from him, and now…

He couldn't even look at her.

Zuko turned and, with leaden footsteps, made his way back down the hall. Coward, whispered the voice that sounded more like Azula than the dying inmate who demanded behind him, "How can — I serve him — without my fire?"

And he squeezed his eyes shut as if this would silence her, when he knew her voice would stay, long after she was gone. When he thought it was his punishment to hear her now and always, because he hadn't heard her until it was too late…

"I want — my fire back! I want my fire back! I want my fire!" her shrieks followed him down the elegant hall, growing fainter with distance. "I want — I want —" she stumbled, and he thought they must have taken her down at last."I want my fire —" she wept, but her voice choked off in a strangled sob.

And Zuko just walked faster.

Have you found her?

"… to the question of sovereignty in the western colonies," the voice of the Earth Kingdom ambassador droned on. Zuko barely heard him from his seat on the Burning Throne, its fires banked for today. It was all he could do to keep his hands from shaking where they rested on his knees. A few nights in a row without sleep would do that to you.

Zuko knew what he was waiting for. He knew. What he didn't know, was what he would do when it came. He felt Aang look up at him with fresh concern from his seat at the opposite end of the conference table.

"Are we boring our eminent host?" a low voice cut through his thoughts, and the address of the Earth Kingdom ambassador to the assembled delegates.

Zuko raised tired eyes edged with dark circles, to see General How stand from his place at the conference table. This sported the same map of the Earth Kingdom his father had once marched over in a fit of rampant egotism. The richly dressed ambassador frowned at the interruption, but took his seat without incident.

"I think I speak for us all, Fire Lord, when I express my surprise," the bearded general continued, brown eyes narrowing beneath pinched brows when he glanced to the other representatives as if for support. "That not only did you fail to attend a meeting you yourself had convened, but now you compound the insult by neglecting proceedings. We have come long way to be ignored," he concluded darkly, to low murmurs of agreement from the many-hued representatives gathered at the table.

The young Fire Lord confined his expression of annoyance to a subdued sigh, and sat up straighter to address this for what must be the dozenth time in the last few days. "I've already apologized to this assembly for my oversight," Zuko reminded him, with more restraint than he felt was deserved. "The summit was planned months in advance, and I could not have foreseen the circumstances that called me away."

Though, Zuko chided himself, he might at least have remembered when he visited his father and Azula that the opening round of meetings was scheduled for that morning. Mai had seen to it that the representatives were handsomely entertained in his absence, but she'd given him an earful when he got back. And she became even more irate when she learned the reason for his disappearance. This being Mai, "irate" mostly translated to silences more marked than usual and narrowed eyes and squared shoulders whenever he tried to get close to her, but Zuko knew her well enough by now to read the signs.

"Ah yes, your family matter," the general replied. Zuko regretted yet again even letting them know his absence had anything to do with his family. Given the low regard they were still held in, this had not gone over well with the representatives. It was times like these Zuko almost wished his sister's facility with lying did not escape him. Almost.

"I can't help but wonder, Lord Zuko, just what issue could prove so absorbing to you," the general said significantly, the gold studs on his olive tunic gleaming in the light from the torches, "when of the three remaining members of your family, one is retired from public life and the other two safely ensconced in prison?"

"It's a mental health facility, actually," Zuko bit out, in growing irritation. And only realized his mistake when the assembled representatives exchanged worried glances in the pronounced hush that fell over the throne room. Chief Hakoda actually struck his lined forehead with the heel of his hand, and Aang became suddenly very interested in studying the map printed on the table.

"You have been to see the princess Azula," observed Chief Arnook of the Northern Water Tribe, from halfway down the table.

His tone was neutral enough, but Zuko still bristled. "She's my sister."

"She is a war criminal," General How flatly rejoined, to approving nods from several of the other representatives.

"What she is is not the concern of this council," Chief Hakoda spoke wearily, standing to address the table while Zuko could only sit fixed to the spot, feeling distinctly as he had in the fever-dream where the throne room crumbled around him.

This was hardly the first time he'd heard citizens of the other nations, and even his own, malign his sister. But to be blindsided by it at a time like this… "It has already been decided that the princess will remain in the care of her family, until she is competent to stand trial."

"The princess is well enough to receive visitors, but not well enough to stand trial?" said the special delegate from Ba Sing Se, who Zuko's intelligence agents revealed was not so formerly of the Dai Lee. Minus his conical hat, he looked quite unremarkable, but his words commanded an attention his nondescript appearance escaped. "Why, that is almost as convenient as the sudden onset of psychosis, at the prospect of execution for capital crimes."

Zuko leapt to his feet like a shot, gaining the advantage in height by his elevation and the triple spikes of his robes of office. And the fire that had faltered at hearing her called a war criminal ignited his veins again, begging for release. This bastard dared suggest —

"She's not faking!" Aang cried indignantly, heading off something much ruder Zuko had been about to say … or do. He hadn't thought it through too clearly by the time the Avatar stood to his own less imposing height. "I've seen her myself, believe me if you won't believe Zuko!" he bid them, forking a thumb at the his own chest.

And Zuko felt a swell of gratitude that almost brought tears to his eye, because they had not even spoken since the confrontation in the throne room, and Aang would still defend him. And his.

"She's sick, she needs help, not — not punishment," the young Avatar finished, looking down at the table with a pensive frown that did not seem to belong on a face that was still in many ways a child's.

"You're saying this?" the Dai Lee agent replied, with a subtle underline of skepticism. "You, who she shot full of lightning?"

"Well —" Aang began doubtfully, only to be talked over by the master waterbender of the North, whom Zuko knew instead from his Uncle's order. Pakku.

"Look, this is all very interesting, but I just have to ask," he drawled, somehow managing to appear even more bored and condescending than usual when he reached up to stroke his thready mustache. Maybe he'd been taking tips from Mai.

"Is it an unspoken rule that this Fire princess come up in every other summit we convene? I hardly see why more notice should be paid to the exploits of some girl-child, than to the more egregious crimes of lesser soldiers granted a blanket pardon." He here shot an icy glare at Zuko, who even after eight months of this nonsense, still could not believe how diligently these politicians turned every topic of conversation to their own concerns.

"Are you honestly unaware that she brought down the walls of the Impenetrable City?" General How of their Council of Five butt in, stooping to prop hard-knuckled fists belligerently on the table.

"You with your walls," Pakku sighed, not even needing to roll his eyes when his voice did that for him. "You do realize you can rebuild them just as easily as we?" He indicated his fellow Water Tribe delegates.

"The walls aren't the point!" the general hissed, growing red in the face.

"No, the point is, you'll never live it down," General Shinu stood to add, one of several representatives from court that Zuko had invited, merely so it might not be said he was unilaterally signing away his country's resources to foreigners. And he was regretting it more by the minute.

"What rankles more, General? That you were bested by the Fire Nation, or that you were bested by a fourteen year old girl?" The grizzled Shinu smiled mirthlessly, to a snort of derision from one of his colleagues. "She was not the most serious of our offenders, only the most successful.

"We all know that's the real reason you're demanding her head on a pike, when the Six Hundred Day Siege killed more men on both sides than her bloodless coup could ever account for. And yet, I don't hear any of you proposing that the Dragon of the West be brought from whatever obscurity he vanished to to face prosecution."

"That's enough," Zuko said forbiddingly, but the effect was somewhat lost to the renewed arguments that sprang up around the table now that all three nations had weighed in on the debate.

"I said, THAT'S ENOUGH!" the Fire Lord shouted, sweeping his hands down to ignite fire in the trough before him and draw their attention. The flare of light and heat silenced them more effectively than his shouting could, for while the latter was hardly uncommon at these summits, he usually held his flames in reserve as a sign of respect to the delegates. But if they would not even respect the purpose that called them here…

Zuko extinguished the flames with a wave of his hand. "As Chief Hakoda already noted," he indicated Sokka's father, who had resumed his seat beside Pakku, "my family is not what we came here to discuss, and —" He stopped, pinching the bridge of his nose in mounting frustration. "Agni's blood, I can't even remember what we were talking about before…"

"Governance of the Fire Nation colonies," put in the ambassador, who had not spoken since How interrupted him.

Oh good, he remembers, Zuko thought scathingly, about to resume his seat when a crimson-smocked manservant approached the table from the curtained entryway, and stopped to the right of Aang, waiting patiently to be acknowledged.

"Yes?" Zuko said shortly, the weariness in his tone audible even to him.

"My Lord, you have a visitor." At the incredulous look the Fire Lord directed at him, the elderly man added hastily, "You said priority was to be given to any news from the lady Ty Lee. She has … come to call."

And Zuko's fatigue vanished in an instant, until it felt like every nerve ending in his body was electrified. This wasn't — He wasn't ready for this. He hadn't had enough time to prepare for — He didn't know what he would do, when — when she told him…

But every delegate at the table was looking to him now, and as if the force of their stares compelled him forward, he descended the steps to the black tile floor, and followed his manservant to the curtained archway. He barely registered complaints of "Just walks out on us again," and "Maybe I should host these, so I could leave whenever I wanted," as he passed, or the worried look Aang sent his way. He walked past the guards on either side of the door as if in a fog.

Emerging after his servant from the relative darkness of the throne room and into the adjoining hall, Zuko spotted Ty Lee standing to the right of the curtained archway, her hands clasped tightly and big eyes already bright with tears. It was all he could do to fight the sudden urge to run the other way, when the curtain closed behind him. Because as long as she didn't say it, it hadn't happened. Because as long as she didn't say it, he could pretend Azula was still alive, and there was still a chance for her to be something more than one more life their father ruined. For them to be something more than bitter rivals and deadly enemies…

Ty Lee didn't waste any time, but ran to him and threw her pink-clad arms around his neck, while the manservant melted discretely from the room. "Azula woke up, and asked for water!" the acrobat cried joyfully. And Zuko had to ask her to repeat herself.

"She's eating again!" Ty Lee explained, grinning hugely through her tears and drawing back without any apparent care that Zuko was too shocked to return her rib-cracking hug. Her deadly hands still gripped his shoulders, as if to brace him against the news. "She guessed she lost her fire because — I mean, I didn't even have to tell her! — and she wants her bending back, so she decided to stop! Isn't that great?" And Ty Lee finally paused for breath.

It was all Zuko could do to nod weakly, as the same thought chased itself through his mind over and over again. He was right. She would not act to save her own life … but her fire instead. He didn't know whose sanity that implicated more, Azula for choosing so or Father for understanding her. He remembered himself when Ty Lee let go of his shoulders, and sobered a little on taking in his expression.

"I would've come and told you sooner, but they weren't sure Azula would — would make it the first few nights, and I didn't think I should leave," she said quietly, a hint of genuine pain creeping into her sunny demeanor. And it was only now that Zuko noticed she looked pale with sleeplessness, accenting the dark circles under her eyes.

"It's hard for her, but she's really trying now, and her aura gets stronger every day!" Ty Lee brightened, wiping the tears from her cheeks. "I mean, you know how she is!" The acrobat gave a watery laugh. "When she wants something, really wants something, there's nothing that can stand in her way!" And Zuko could hardly disagree with this, having tried — and failed — to stand in her way more than once.

"Well, say something, silly!" Ty Lee prompted him at last, grabbing his wrists and swinging them once side to side. "She found her center again! She's going to be okay!" the acrobat practically cheered, wringing his arms.

"That's —" Zuko started, his low voice rough with emotion. He gently extricated himself from Ty Lee's grip, and tried again. "Thank you, Ty Lee," he said formally at last, managing a shaky smile. "You've been — such a good friend to her." The only one she has.

Her gray eyes softened a little, a change hardly discernible from her usual aspect. "You know I'm your friend too, right?" she asked almost tentatively, with the sort of winning smile that made him forgive Ty Lee all those pranks she and his sister would pull. He nodded, supposing he could deny it no longer after this.

"I just want everyone to be happy!" she exclaimed, sweeping her arms wide as if to encompass all her friends, whom Zuko didn't doubt were multitude. "And healthy," Ty Lee added more quietly and glanced away. "Well, I probably better get back. I promised Azula I'd stay with her while she recovers, but I'm not totally sure she believed me, so…"

"Alright."

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot!" Ty Lee said, extracting a small scroll tied with a black ribbon from her pocket and holding it out to him. "She wrote you a letter!"

"What?" Zuko objected, recoiling from the scroll like Ty Lee had offered him a poisonous spidersnake. "Azula doesn't write letters!" At least, not to me.

"Well, she wrote this one!" Ty Lee laughed, and then her smile fell a bit. "Her fingers kept cramping up so she couldn't hold a brush, and then her hands shook, and she messed up the characters and had to ask for more paper…" Ty Lee recalled, as if she'd forgotten for a moment that he was standing right there and didn't particularly want to hear this.

"Okay, okay," Zuko said bracingly, and took the scroll from her. "Did you … read this?" he asked almost hopefully.

Ty Lee shook her head, gazing curiously at the missive. "She said it was for you, just for you." She shrugged happily. "Be sure to tell Mai the good news, she'll be so relieved!" Ty Lee added in parting, before somersaulting from the hall.

And Zuko remembered belatedly that he had a room full of disgruntled delegates waiting for him. He slowly turned and made his way back to the throne room, where the conversations that had broken out in his absence trailed off as he approached the table. He stopped before he reached Aang, who eyed the scroll he held a little apprehensively.

Zuko felt distinctly odd, as if his fire were escaping his control, and an unaccustomed warmth spread from his core to the tips of his fingers and toes, bringing a flush to his haggard aspect and tears to his eye. He knew he must sound equally odd, when he adjourned the meeting until the following morning, and none of the representatives openly objected to this, instead muttering complaints to each other as they rose and filed out.

Aang stayed.

"Look, I know it was a long shot," Aang said nervously, as Hakoda left the room last with a backward glance, and the armored guards on either side of the door followed him out. Zuko approached Aang at a quick stride. "But I had to do what I thought was —"

His explanation was cut off abruptly when Zuko enfolded him in a fierce hug. "You saved her life. You saved her life," he choked out, his tears falling freely onto Aang's robes. "Thank you."

Aang looked a little confused, but shrugged and gave a sheepish grin, when Zuko released him to run the edge of his sleeve over his streaming eye. "Well, like you said, it's what I do."

"I'm sorry I doubted you before," Zuko said hoarsely, reaching up with his free hand to squeeze Aang's shoulder in apology. The airbender wasn't much shorter than him now. "I was out of line."

"It's alright," Aang said kindly. "I know it's hard to think clearly, when someone you love is in danger."

Zuko blinked once in surprise, and Aang added, "I mean, she's your sister." He looked at the Fire Lord with an intentness unusual to him. "You must love her, right?"

Zuko frowned, and let his hand drop from Aang's shoulder. "What are you getting at?"

"Uh, nothing," Aang said, rubbing the back of his head in evident embarrassment. "I'm just glad everything turned out okay."

"Yeah…" Zuko trailed off, glancing down at the scroll he held in his left hand.

"When Ty Lee showed up, and you came back here with that scroll," Aang admitted, speaking more freely now, "I thought for sure Azula was —" He stopped at the sharp look Zuko gave him, and barked out a nervous laugh instead. "So, who's the scroll from?"

"Azula."

"Um, what?"

"That was pretty much my reaction," Zuko replied, frowning at the otherwise innocuous scroll. "In our entire lives, she never once sent me a letter. Not even when we were kids. I mean, it would have been kind of pointless since we lived together, but…"

"Wow, living with Azula," Aang reflected with a shudder, and Zuko couldn't stop the tiny smile that broke over his face at this. "And you haven't read it yet?"

"No. I thought I'd wait until, you know, I was alone…" he tried for nonchalance and failed miserably, at the realization that there was no good reason for him to keep putting it off. Thankfully, Aang didn't question it.

"Sure," the young airbender replied easily, a glint of mischief lighting his gray eyes. "Just, you know, probably have it checked for poison first. And toxic powders, or maybe concealed deadly insects."

Zuko had to look twice at him to get that he was kidding. And when he did, he couldn't stop laughing for several solid seconds, until fresh tears streamed down the unscarred side of his face. It was a new and wonderful awareness for him, that his friends could make jokes about his sister. That they could find her funny sometimes instead of just sad or … or horrifying.

"You — you've been spending — too much time with Sokka!" Zuko laughed at Aang's put-on paranoia, clutching a middle that had begun to ache with laughing too much.

"Aaand you need some sleep," Aang directed him, grabbing his shoulders to turn him about and frog-marching him from the throne room.

Have you found her?

It was nearly two weeks later, with all the delegates departed, that Zuko finally opened the letter.

He had named his uncle Azula's legal guardian in the interim, after taking a hard, honest look at the situation that was long overdue. Aang was right, he decided at last. He was too close to this to think clearly, to make the decisions that needed to be made for her care.

He would have taken her firebending, the one thing that, in the end, had saved her. If he'd had his way, she would have died. And it would have been his fault. When he thought how close he'd come to killing her…

He could not live with that on his conscience.

Iroh had always seen her for exactly what she was, and Zuko knew his honor was beyond question. He would make the right choices for her, and keep Zuko informed of her progress, such as it was. Iroh could correspond with the asylum through messenger hawks, and make periodic visits to observe her condition.

To Zuko's great surprise, his uncle had immediately agreed to his proposal, though he expressed misgivings. Hardly surprising, given their history, but it was the best either Zuko or Iroh could come up with.

Mai, of course, was simply glad the weekly reports and their depressing influence would stop. And that there was now an additional degree of separation between the siblings.

All the while, the scroll tied with black ribbon sat on the writing desk in Zuko's room, the cavernous chamber that had been his father's when Ozai was Fire Lord. And his grandfather's before him. Sometimes Zuko wondered if old Azulon had been murdered in this very room. He supposed he had no way of knowing, but that didn't stop it serving as yet more substance for unpleasant dreams.

Sitting on the edge of the crimson covers, clad in cutoff pants and his sleeping vest, Zuko eyed the scroll suspiciously where he'd cast it in among many other official documents that littered the desk, amendments for his review, reports from the colonies, requests for an audience with the young Fire Lord. Communications that were lower priority tended to end up here when he brought them to bed with him and fell asleep reading them, his usual nightly send-off when Mai wasn't available…

He could still pick out his sister's letter from among the others easily. He had only spent the past several nights in a row watching it while he fell asleep, wondering what she could possibly have to say to him after all this. Did she know Zuko came to the asylum, and didn't see her? Did she blame him for staying away, or for letting her almost die? The scroll could contain any number of hurtful reproaches or attempted manipulations, knowing its sender.

And Zuko chided himself. He was the one in control here, even if that was easy to forget when it came to Azula. He was the Fire Lord. It was not for him to be afraid of her, or anything she might have to say.

He lurched to his feet, and quickly crossed the cool stone floor to the mahogany writing desk set against a foldable paper screen. Its panels depicted two dragons, one red and one blue, fighting viciously with teeth and claws and flames. Or maybe mating. He supposed it was hard to tell, with dragons. Oddly enough, this was his favorite article of furniture in the entire room, because it reminded him of Ran and Shaw, the dragons he met at the Sun Warriors' Temple.

Zuko plucked the missive out from among the others, untying the ribbon and casting it to the floor as he walked back to his bed. He flopped ungracefully onto his back on top of the covers, before unfurling the scroll.

"'Have you found her?'" he read slowly aloud, in disbelief. "That's it?"

And he sat up abruptly, turning the scroll over in his hands to check for more writing on the back, though of course, he already knew, there was none. He even held the paper up to the light of his bedside lamp to check for hidden characters, like when Uncle wrote him from prison.

The scroll remained blank as ever. That was all she wrote. A single question, and he didn't even know what — Oh. Oh, of course. And he recalled the first and only time he visited her in the asylum.

Have you found her? I thought you would look for her, now that Father —

The anger, however, caught him unawares. Didn't she think he would tell her if he found their mother after all this time? Of course she knew, she must know, that Zuko continued to fail in this with all the resources of the Fire Nation at his disposal — and she would take any opportunity to remind him of it. She was just using their mother to hurt him, just like Father…

"And what did you expect, dumdum?" he berated himself, in the absence of Azula to do that for him. "Thanks for letting me bend again when I'm the last person who deserves it? Let's be friends, even though I hated and despised you all my life?"

And then what? he recalled Mai asking him dryly. She would love you?

Zuko threw the scroll away from him with a snarl of frustration when he felt a familiar prickling at the back of his eyes. It rolled to a stop as he crossed legs beneath him, and reached up hold his head in his hands, glaring darkly at the shortest letter he'd ever received. And the only one ever from his sister.

After a long moment, he ran his hands through his shoulder-length hair with a defeated sigh, and climbed out of bed again. Retrieving the ribbon and scroll from the floor, he shoved them in an empty drawer of the writing desk, and extinguished the lamps with a wave of his hand. He lay on his back with his hands behind his head, and studied the intricate metalwork of the canopy above him in the moonlight that filtered through the window screens.

Hours passed before he went to sleep.

As you may have noticed if you read my last author's note, yes, I had to break this chapter up again. The writing kind of got away from me, and it became apparent that I was (again) going to exceed 10K words if I included everything I had planned for this chapter. And that's a sort of informal rule I'm going to try to hold myself to, not to go over that word count in any given chapter. For your sake, dear readers, not mine, since as you've seen, I really enjoy writing and find it kind of hard to stop.

It works out for the best anyway, since now we have a chapter break to make our (more-or-less) permanent return to the "present" of the storyline less jarring. And I can guarantee that will happen first thing next chapter because ... I'm about three paragraphs away from finishing the next chapter, which is what alerted me to the fact this one was getting too long. You'll probably see chapter 5 in the next few days, about a week at the longest. I just need a little more time to sit on it, and then come back to revise and correct any mistakes. Fair warning, it will be a little shorter than usual (as in, only a few thousand words) but I don't think you'll object to that, will you? Of course not! :)

I hope this made for enjoyable long-weekend reading, and as always, please leave a review!