Teaser: spawn of the nothingness, child of dirt, son of the abyss... despair and, therefore, die
Author's Notes: we're really chugging right along here, aren't we? I'm pleased with this chapter, even though it was difficult to right (again). Now Zuko can finally learn to grow up!
/X: Nothing/
-"The Winter's Tale"
He finds their graves along Be Sing Se's walls as he begins his journey to… he does not know where he is going. Only that he is going and whatever he has been waiting for is out there somewhere.
But before he can even begin Zuko finds their graves. It's his first milestone and he stares at them for a long time, as the sun breaks across the new day and the world is, for the first time in a hundred years, free from war.
Already he can feel the hum of it in the air. The whisper of change following through on the wind. Zuko is caught up in it for a moment and he thinks he will fly with it. But just for a moment, because he is tethered to the earth. He is a child of dirt.
And now he is an orphan.
They are tiny little stones carved with names. Iroh's is the first he notices. At first he is surprised Azula bothered with burying him. But then he remembers that Azula would follow Fire Nation custom and she would bury the once great general because that is what Azula is. Prideful and cruel and loyal and traditional.
It is a simple tombstone. Iroh, General. But it is more than Zuko had thought he would have gotten and for a moment he can do nothing but stare at him, his hand itching to touch the stone, to be close to his uncle again.
Because he wants to cling and cry and beg, he sits down across from the grave and stares at it long and hard. He remembers Iroh. Iroh teaching him and staying with him and supporting him and loving him… and looking at him with such great disappointment.
Zuko's hand grips the tattered shirt over his chest and he sucks in a hard breath, his vision wet. He blinks back the moisture in his eyes and feels his throat go dry. For a moment, he starts to—he thinks—cry but it's gone.
Beside him are three other graves for the three other people that Katara had ordered buried. Buried because Katara knows the difference between necessity and cruelty. Even her enemies deserve respect.
Ty Lee.
It hurts to think about them. Not because he holds fond memories of them—he doesn't; he can't; he hates them—but they're dead and he's not and Zuko will never, ever be sure why.
The shattered pieces of what makes him up—he doesn't think it's his soul; he doesn't have a soul or a heart—shudder and he thins his lips in pain.
Then he stands he walks away from the graves. He can't leave, though. He's not ready to let them go, not yet. Somehow he needs to cling to what they once were, what they used to symbolize to him.
The past. He cannot let it go.
He finds flowers a little off, spurts of color growing in the very earth the Fire Nation's drill had destroyed. He picks them, just a couple, and walks back to the graves.
Each tombstone gets one. He sets them gently on the stone and watches the wind ruffle the petals, almost soothing the severed plant, almost whispering to him that everything is going to be okay, at last, at last.
But he isn't done.
Zuko is not an Earthbender and so the task is hard. He finds a stone farther down the wall of Ba Sing Se and he struggles to bring it back to the other graves, sweating and cursing and breathing hard but never stopping. Never stopping.
Finally, the stone is in place. He props it up beside Iroh's grave and pulls out the chipped stone he has tucked into his pants. He begins to carve. It is a long, tedious task and the rock is nearly impossible to indent but Zuko does not give up.
His task is not finished until the moon is high.
It is done, though, and he stands back and looks at it. It is a haggard grave, nothing compared to the other four, but it is all that Zuko can do and he knows that he cannot simply do nothing.
The grave says Ozai.
That is it. Just a simple name. Not father or brother or king. Just Ozai. But that is more than he will get from anyone else and it is all Zuko can do for his father.
He picks one last flower and gives it to Ozai's grave.
They are just five graves against the high, impenetrable walls of Ba Sing Se and no one will remember who they are or who buried them or why they were buried outside the city. No one except Zuko.
This is all he can do for them. But it is more than anyone else will. No one will give them flowers or look at their graves or trace the inscriptions of their names.
So he does. Zuko can do this for them if he can do nothing else.
The last name he traces is Iroh's and for a moment Zuko is breathless staring down at the name of the only man who saw him as a son. The man he betrayed and killed and turned away from.
The only man who understood him.
"I'm sorry," he says and something inside him moves. It burns up his throat as he bends down onto his knees. He wraps his arms awkwardly around the stone and wishes—wishes, wishes, wishes—that it was flesh and solid and warm.
He manages to give it a clumsy kiss before he pushes himself to his feet. With nothing on his back and nothing in his mind he stumbles away from the grave stones. They are just pale etchings in the moonlight now.
Somehow, looking at them, he knows that he will not come back. Ba Sing Se is a place that will become a memory and nothing more to him. He will never make a journey back to visit the graves.
But it isn't necessary. Each grave will be a stone in his stomach and it will weigh him down and remind him and never leave him.
Zuko is bound up and breathing with the memories of those who are dead.
Again he feels as he had three months ago, like he is waiting. He wonders if he will ever find what he is looking for, if there is something out there meant to be his fit, or if he is merely a shell doomed to travel an endless world, never settling, never peaceful, forever looking back.
Something tells him not to look back. The future's the key.
"Uncle?" he calls and there is no answer. Zuko is tired, too tired to even think of walking. He wants to curl up beside the graves and sleep and join the dirt.
Yet his feet move and they bring him farther and farther away from the graves. From Iroh and Azula and Mai and Ty Lee. Farther away from Ozai. Towards a bleak and unknown future and he cannot decide if he is afraid.
His journey doesn't halt until Ba Sing Se is nothing but a small line on the horizon. Zuko does not know where he is going but he will allow his feet to take him there. It's time to try again. To finish what was started in a small room in Ba Sing Se.
It hurts to think about Iroh, but Zuko forces himself to imagine his face and his smile and the disappointment in his eyes.
This time, Zuko will be on the right path. He will see to it.
Katara told him to start over. It's time he begun.
notes: now, finally, Zuko can get on to some much needed redemption, and maybe a few life lessons along the way. XD God knows he needs it, doesn't he?
Hollywoodland my funny stories are the only thing without angst in my work, too. I guess because in humor, I refuse to take anything seriously. And never be afraid to post anything, there are people here who give constructive criticism believe it or not. It's the best way to get better!
Beetle: thanks! This fic was mostly created because I had a big "WFT is going on in your head?" moment after the season 2 finale. So I went into his head. XD
Kitty Elkabush I didn't want to seperate them, but I understand that both Zuko and Katara, were they're at now, couldn't move anything farther together. The war's only just ended, and Zuko's got some emotional baggage he needs to sort through. If they got together now, it wouldn't last. They'd end up destroying each other. They both need to live a little without all the shadows that had previously hung over them before they can do anything together. Or, at least, that was my justificiation.
BlueDove there's actually several points in the next few chapters were you'll probably be "you could've ended it right there!" but trust me when I say that I was waiting for that one perfect moment where the story could draw itself for circle. That's when I end it.
catho oh, it's not! When I reach the end, I'll have a nice big "FIN!" sign at the bottom. That's won't happen for the next five chapters!
akeyana oh, no. I get you. I love chiched fics, too, but sometimes you find out of like twenty of them one with this original idea and, even if it doesn't end the way you like it, you're can't help but go "wow, that's so good!" And, yes, the torch was symbol. So glad you caught it! And, hopefully, I fixed the "despair" thing... I'm so... silly sometimes.
Story Weaver1yup, you guessed it. Zuko's going on a Walkabout.
Paradigm08 why, thank you. Glad you're enjoying. I never really realized how much fun it would be to pick apart Zuko's mind until I started this fic... and now I can't seem to stop. :D