This was your place of birth, this daytime palace,
This miracle of glass, whose every hall
The light as music fills, and on your face
Shines petal-soft; sunbeams are prodigal
To show you pausing at a picture's edge
To puzzle out the name, or with a hand
Resting a second on a random page-

The clouds cast moving shadows on the land.

Are you prepared for what the night will bring?
The stranger who will never show his face,
But asks admittance; will you greet your doom
As final; set him loaves and wine; knowing
The game is finished when he plays his ace,
And overturn the table and go into the next room?

- P. Larkin

He'd lost the ability to determine if he had slept. All time, with the exception of when he was on the hunt, seemed to pass in the same unbearably slow way that made his old wounds itch. Certainly he had lain down, but his consciousness did not extend beyond this memory. The ground was cold and hard, but not yet wet with the dew of early morning. It had been enough time for the fire to die completely, but this he could observe and did not have to remember.

The knowledge that the hallucinations pursued him even beyond the confines of the palace caused Jet to feel something like despair. It seemed that one might call it cruel, even; that he had lost this much of his self-possession, and yet his self in its entirety refused obliteration, like the refuse from an imploded star.

The way he blinked was slow, and he felt it. One eyelid moving at a time. Blink. Reptilian. Blink.

One eye came to rest at the edge of the dead fire, where the banished prince and the child slept. They were positioned back to back, and it was Amit's, and not Zuko's, face that was visible to him. In the cold of pre-dawn time, the child's face looked as if it were carved from stone. Jet supposed he was obliged to feel something, but the recognition brought forth nothing further. One need not extend a fishing-pole into a foul sewer to understand that nothing living can be dredged up.

Observing Zuko's back, Jet noted that the breaths were far too few, and the breathing too shallow, for the firebender to be asleep. One corner of his mouth twisted in parody of interest and amusement, but he did not move from where he lay inert on the ground, like a snake on its belly.

It seemed the prince was a poor specimen from an otherwise impressive genetic pool. Closing one eye, Jet attempted to remember if his first impression of Zuko had been any different. The deceit he remembered. That trait was like Azula, and yet not. Deception for her was a means to an end at the conclusion of a path so twisted Jet doubted she was able to see it clearly herself. Fraud was the medium through which she experienced the world. Her very existence was disingenuous. She considered it an art.

In contrast, Zuko's deceit seemed clumsy, rough-hewn. To hide, to lie – for what purpose? Jet had never yet understood. From what he had heard from the time he was broken and re-made in Azula's image, their peaceful time in Ba Sing Se had come to an end. Zuko had betrayed his uncle; and then he betrayed his father again, in turn. If Azula's treachery was the arrow which finds its way into the heart of a comrade, then Zuko's was the archer who manages, inexplicably, to find himself impaled on his own shot.

Azula. Jet did not relish being so far from his mistress. Both to watch, and to be watched. For when her eyes were upon him, so too was he closest to the thread which kept him most securely bound to reality – the memory of her hands inside of him. Recalling the touch of her fingers on his skull, and the movement inside. The brain-meat had no nerves with which to feel, but he could smell it – the odor of burning matter, and a flash of light, and a portion of his reality melted before he could remember that it had existed in the first place.

In the half-consciousness after the operation, Jet heard the doctors call what she had done to him 'lobotomy.' Though he heard and processed very little, he seized upon this word, a clean word that was almost rapacious in its clinical, cold tones. A possession. As her country had taken possession of the world – as she had taken possession of his mind, of his past –

He would have. So he too would have.

A void hungers, if nothing else, with the yawning, yearning ache to come into being, or to destroy being; all one, in the end.

For days they wandered near-aimlessly through the forest. Using the tattered maps they had left – though bound to have shifted in the years since they'd scavenged them – Sokka led them slowly 'away' from what they knew would hunt them toward they knew not what. The rainy season was settling in upon them, and it was often wet, and cold at night. Katara's arms throbbed from the continual strain of waterbending cover over them, and when at last she let them fall, no one said a word as the rain began to pelt their faces.

The first few evenings, Katara slept among the children, asking no permission and making no comment about the sudden change. It was warm enough yet to go without pitching tents, if one did not mind the dampness of the ground, and so Sokka would have had a difficult time with her nonetheless.

On the fifth day, however – a fifth day of endless walking, of very little talk, of more rain – Sokka called to them to rest, that he and Katara would scout ahead. Toph tensed visibly at the suggestion, but said nothing.

He claimed her against an ancient tree, not bothering to remove their clothing. The rain dripped down through the upper canopy and against the leaves with soft, bright noises. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the small sounds of the water, willing it to erase the slap of his pelvis against the backs of her thighs, the monstrous moaning of his ragged breath. So intent were they both in erasing their individual, conscious perception that neither of them noticed the child until it was too late.

Tanith, peering out from behind a bush, gave a little cry and fell. Instinctively she knew that she had seen something not meant for her eyes. At this noise Sokka paused, and Katara took the chance to wrench away from him, gathering her skirts back around her. Her entire body was flushed with exertion and shame. Though Tanith's eyes were blue, like her own, for a moment she had seen the wise, unreproachful gaze of Amit through the foliage, and it threatened to stop her heart.

Sokka cursed, fumbling to re-arrange his tunic. Neither of them said a word, but at length Tanith crept back out from behind the bush, mumbling under her breath. Kneeling with difficulty, Katara beckoned her over.

"It's all right; don't be frightened."

Yet there was no fear in the set of the girl's jaw. Having been summoned, she strode forward, recovering herself, and demanded, "Why was Sokka hurting you?"

She could feel her brother's eyes upon her, but did not dare look back to meet them. "He hasn't hurt me. Come, let's find the others."

As they walked away, she could feel his fury and indignation as keenly as if they had been stones hurled at her departing form. So thinking, she allowed the smallest of smiles to steal across her face.

After all, wasn't that how they dealt with such things in the old days? The Fire Nation said the Water tribes were a barbaric people.

Sokka proved that they were right.

"We're not fit to have care of these children anymore." Katara pronounced the words matter-of-factly, and Toph's foot on the earth twitched as she read the change in the waterbender. Her manner seemed to have become more serene. The curvature of her spine as the energy from it funneled into the earth and was read through Toph's sole seemed straighter, and less strained. Sokka, on the other hand, was even more morose than usual; she suspected she could feel the negative energy which radiated from his brooding form even if her feet were covered and bound.

"We never were in the first place," he muttered.

"What can we possibly do otherwise?" Toph objected. "It's not as though we could leave them to fend for themselves."

"All we have to do is find another camp somewhere. It shouldn't take very long. We can send another messenger mole."

"Your father's unit was stationed not too far from here a couple of weeks ago."

Silence. Both siblings seemed to shift around, looking to one another.

"What? Did you think I just ignored the messages, especially with the two of you neglecting to tell me? I had Zuko read them to me."

"I have no interest in seeing that man," Sokka stated flatly.

Toph stamped one dirt-covered foot dangerously close to the fire, feeling the scattered cinders drift past her and land on her exposed arms and legs. "It's not about your 'interest.' It's about getting them somewhere safe before something really terrible happens to them."

Now he shifted forward, placing both hands on his knees, his upper body positioned in a threatening, coiled posture. "Something really terrible, hm? Something more terrible than what happened earlier today?"

The concept of 'forcing a blank expression' was lost on Toph, but she had to still the impulse of her body to make a stray movement. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sokka," Katara warned, but the young man had already got to his feet.

"You were supposed to be watching them," he said. "I thought you cared about them."

Toph spit into the fire, making her contempt plain. "You have no right to question me."

"Then why did you purposefully send Tanith after us?"

There was a pause as Toph considered how to respond. She could feel Katara holding her breath, no doubt wondering about Sokka's accusation. Finally, refusing to lift her head or move from her seat, she said: "What was I supposed to do – let you have your way with her again?"

"Maybe you should have come after me on your own. Or were you afraid of what you might 'see'?" Sokka's voice rose as he spoke, wilder than the snarl of a beast.

Her voice low and urgent, Katara interjected, "Stop it. You're going to wake the children."

Now she did raise her head, aiming sightless eyes where she knew Sokka's face to be. Over the years she took note of how uncomfortable it made people when a blind woman made 'eye contact' with them, and used this now to her advantage, aggressing against him. "I'm not afraid of you."

He refused to back down. "Then state your accusations. If you have objections, give them to me, instead of laying the burden on a child."

Toph's heart skipped around in her chest, her nameless fear materializing, having been given a name, if not a visage. I've been a coward. Still, defiant, she forced herself to her feet, thrusting her chest outward, meeting his hostility with her own.

"The fact is, you've seen nothing, all of this time." He was close enough so that she could feel the stray moisture from his hoarse, desperate words hit her cheeks, but she did not flinch. "You didn't lose your parents, your people. You sacrificed nothing. You didn't see her die." Trembling madly, it seemed that Sokka had only just managed to hold himself back from striking a blow, as the posture of his body relaxed minutely and he stepped back, spitting a final accusation at her. "You know nothing."

With that, and a violent motion in Katara's direction, he was gone.

Katara moved to help support her, but Toph gestured roughly, folding her shaking arms over her chest. Her feet were planted firmly on the earth as she 'listened' to Sokka's footsteps fade into the jungle. Involuntarily, her toes curled, and she pressed one hand to her face, wondering if its expression was, against her will, etched with regret.

"This place is a ruin."

Zuko spoke without thinking before the thought had fully coalesced in his head. He, Jet and Amit were passing through the place where the gate to the capital city had once stood – now, an empty, gaping maw. Vendors, their carts empty, called out listlessly as they passed. The citizens who walked around kept their eyes fixed on the ground, and the one or two slaves Zuko saw were cuffed and on leads, following their masters with eyes no more alert than stray dogs'. He recognized little of the architecture and none of the people.

"All the metal's gone – war effort. All the food's gone – soldiers need to eat." Contrasted with these people, Jet looked almost human. The twitching in his face had subsided considerably, and he moved with long strides that seemed almost eager. Holding Amit's hand, Zuko had to walk quickly to keep up with him.

The former prince recognized him from a distance by sense alone, but his eye would have been drawn nonetheless because of the finery of his carriage and escort. Thuza hailed Jet with a simple bow, and then turned his attention to Zuko.

"Prince," he offered, bowing again. "It is good to see you once again."

Zuko did not reply, trying not to focus directly on the man's face, and instead detached his hand from Amit's and urged the boy forward, looking away. "Here's what you wanted."

"Not I, dear prince, but your sister." Thuza knelt to greet Amit face-to-face. "Hello, little one. My name is Thuza."

Out of the peripheral vision in his good eye Zuko watched the exchange. Amit did not shrink from the greeting or question what was to be done with him, but when Thuza rose and went to speak with Jet, the child recovered Zuko's hand. When he looked down again, Amit's face – surprisingly, to be sure – was glazed with what Zuko could only vaguely define as fear.

They were permitted to walk the rest of the way to the palace, but at the gates to the inner courtyard (which still stood, and did not appear to have changed in the years Zuko had been absent) the former prince was ordered to take off his robe, and restrained. Amit protested softly as they were separated, but Thuza put one arm over his small shoulders, saying,

"The prince must go to see his sister, young Avatar. You'll come with me. Quietly, and behave. Isn't that so?"

Amit seemed on the verge of dissent, but the way Zuko gazed at him quieted his objections. Nodding, he allowed Thuza to take hold of his hand. The scholar drew himself up, and looked serenely at Zuko and the two guards who flanked him.

"Your sister is eager to see you, Prince. Please convey to her my warm regards."

The guards were not particularly rough with him, but they spoke not a word. He meditated as he walked between them and through the heart of the palace, as Uncle had taught him, by forced willful control of his breath. He emptied his mind of what lay behind the golden doors to the Firelady's inner chambers, and saw only fire dancing in front of an empty throne.

This vision obscured his true sight as the doors swung inward and the guards pushed him forward into blackness.