One morning, about two weeks after we'd come to Ba Sing Se, I woke up, as usual, as the only one in the tiny bedroom. Both Iroh and Zuko possessed the strangest affinity for rising at the crack of dawn, something about "firebenders rising with the sun." Whatever it was, it was crazy.

However, after I'd washed my face and gotten dressed, I slid open the door to be met with an unusual sight: an empty kitchen.

Frowning, I poked my head back in the bedroom to see if I'd maybe missed Zuko's form under the blankets, but there was definitely nobody in there. I walked towards the table, the smell of tea hitting my nostrils as I approached. I glanced over at the teapot on the table, which was steaming lightly and had a small note stuck to it with words written in Iroh's neat print.

"'Dear Aria and Lee,'" I read aloud. "'I am going on a picnic and won't be back until past sundown. There are hot oats and jasmine tea on the stove. There is no work at the tea shop today, so you two will have to amuse yourselves. Please do not set the house on fire. Love, Uncle Mushi.'"

I laughed slightly at the double meaning in the last sentence before setting the note aside and helping myself to a generous portion of hot oats and a cup of jasmine tea. I sat down at the table, pouring some sugar on my oats and was just about to chow down when Zuko walked in.

"Where have you been?" I asked suspiciously.

"On the roof," he answered, brushing past me to scoop some oats into his own bowl.

"The roof?" I raised an eyebrow skeptically.

"It's a good place to think," Zuko said somewhat defensively and I smirked slightly.

"To think?" I repeated, waggling my eyebrows. "To ponder life's mysteries and think about our place in the universe?"

"Shut up," Zuko scowled, rolling his eyes at me as he shoveled food into his mouth. I merely grinned in response.

"Did you see Uncle leaving?" I asked. Zuko stopped eating and looked at me in surprise.

"No," he replied. "Where did he go?"

"Dunno, he left this note," I said, pushing the sheet of paper across the table. Zuko picked it up and read it, his brow furrowing deeper as his eyes scanned the paper.

"He's gone for the whole day?" Zuko cried incredulously. "What are we supposed to do for a whole day?"

"Why is he going on a picnic?" I asked curiously, looking at the paper again as if it held all the secrets of Iroh's mind. "Is it a special occasion or something?"

Suddenly, Zuko's spoon dropped into his bowl with a loud clang! Startled, I glanced up, freezing as I caught side of his face, which had gone very pale, his eyes wide and mouth slightly open.

"What?" I asked hurriedly, glancing over my shoulder. "What happened?"

"What's the date?" Zuko asked hoarsely. I told him, and his eyes only widened further before his head dropped into his hands.

"What's going on? What's wrong?" I demanded, startled by Zuko's change of mood.

"I'm such an idiot," Zuko mumbled into his hands. "Agni, I can't believe..."

"Will you please tell me what's going on?" I asked crossly. My frustration dissipated when Zuko lifted his head and looked at me, his golden eyes and face more somber than I had ever seen them.

"It's my cousin Lu Ten's birthday today," he said softly. My brow furrowed in confusion as I tried to understand, then my eyes widened suddenly with realization.

Zuko's cousin. Iroh's son.

Iroh's dead son.

"Oh, spirits," I murmured, my voice soft. "Oh, no, Iroh..."

"He would have been twenty five," Zuko sighed, his voice heavy with sadness. I sat back, unsure what to say. It was rare to see Zuko express any emotion except anger, but he looked so forlorn then, my heart reached out to him. "Agni, I can't believe I forgot... and we're in Ba Sing Se too."

My heart dropped as I realized the full weight of his words. On his son's birthday, Iroh was in the place that he'd been killed six years earlier. It would have been the first time he'd been in Ba Sing Se since his son's death.

"Do you think Iroh would...?" I trailed off uncertainly, not sure if we should go look for him.

"I think he'd rather be alone," Zuko said, once again displaying an uncanny insight into his uncle's thoughts. He didn't quite look at me, still immersed deeply in his thoughts.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I ventured quietly, not knowing what to say. Zuko looked up at me, his eyes wide with disbelief, and I prepared myself for the onslaught of scorn and aggression that was sure to come.

"I don't remember that much about him," Zuko mumbled after a minute, to my intense surprise. He glanced down at the table, appearing to be talking to the wood, which I was thankful for because it gave me a minute to regain control of my expression.

"He left for the Royal Training Academy when I was seven," Zuko continued, still talking to his bowl of oats. Mine had been pushed aside, long forgotten along with my previous hunger. "I don't remember much except the vacations our family used to take on Ember Island when I was really young... I remember playing in the sand with Lu Ten and Uncle and how he would always let me put the flag on top."

Zuko's voice sounded so wistful, I felt myself leaning forward, captivated by the faraway look in his eyes. Dozens of emotions were coursing through me - shock and disbelief that Zuko seemed so different from his usual angry self, sadness for him and Iroh and Lu Ten's death, and a strange feeling of connection and empathy.

"He was more of a sibling to me than Azula ever was," Zuko said bitterly, running his fingers through his hair. To my surprise, it had gotten so long that he was actually able to run his fingers through it. I stared at it for a second, recalling briefly the days of his ponytail and how that seemed so long ago. There was no way Ponytail Zuko would have sat and had this conversation with me.

"Zuko, I'm so sorry," I murmured, reaching over the table and placing a hand on top of his gently. He tensed for a moment, but didn't pull away.

"Agni, I found out from a letter," Zuko sighed again and my heart sank further. "A letter telling us that Lu Ten was dead and Uncle had given up the siege on Ba Sing Se and was nowhere to be found."

"I know how that feels," I muttered, now looking down at the table as well. I saw Zuko look up in surprise, his gaze questioning.

"My parents were missionaries," I sighed. Apparently it was Share Our Past Day in our little mismatched home. "They traveled around the Earth Kingdom delivering food and supplies to the colonies nearby that had been hurt or ruined, so they weren't around much, but I was so proud of them. I was proud that they were helping people, that they were using their time and energy for good to help fix the damage caused by the Fire Nation. They were my heroes."

Zuko looked slightly guilty when I mentioned the Fire Nation, but he asked, "What happened to them?"

I shrugged, trying to mask how affected I actually was. "One day, they just never came back," I said simply, as if it could be as simple as that. "We got the letter three months later, saying the village they'd been in was burned entirely to the ground."

Zuko was quiet, but he flipped the hand under mine over so our palms rested together atop the table.

"I used to hate the Fire Nation so much," I continued quietly, lost in thought and half-talking to myself. "I used to... spirits, I used to be like Jet." Shame rose up inside me as I considered that possibility; it was my greatest fear - to be so consumed with anger that I lost sight of who I really was.

"You're nothing like Jet," Zuko said with a fierceness that caused me to look up in mild surprise. His golden eyes blazed with emotion and his face was set with such determination that I leaned back slightly.

"I know," I sighed after a second. "Hating people takes a lot of energy," I said, meeting his eye and smiling wryly. Zuko's shoulders sagged forward slightly, as if a weight had been lifted all of them.

It was strange, because technically speaking Zuko and I were on opposite sides of the war. He was Fire Nation, and I was Earth Kingdom, and by the natural order of things, we should have clashed. But inside our apartment, at this table, under the guise of Aria and Lee the poor refugees, there was no war. There was no Earth Kingdom versus Fire Nation, it was just Kioni and Zuko.

Just two people talking and sharing as equals, as friends.

"That letter changed my life forever," I murmured, remembering the terrible expression of grief on Bumi's face as he'd kneeled down, looked me in the eye and told me that he was so sorry, that he would love me and take care of me and he promised nothing would ever happen to me, but that my parents would not be coming home.

"Yeah," Zuko agreed, leaning back in his chair. "Our family was happy before Lu Ten died... or at least I thought it was happy, happy enough. But after that, after Uncle abandoned his siege and disappeared for months... everything went downhill."

I frowned slightly at the guarded look on Zuko's face, at the way he drew himself inwards and set his mouth as if he'd decided he'd said too much. "What do you mean?" I asked, leaning forward.

Zuko shrunk further into himself, his face very obviously closing off. "Zuko," I said softly, putting my hand over his again and meeting his eyes, shocked to see them sparkling slightly. "You can trust me."

He seemed to deliberate for a minute, keeping his eyes trained on me. He looked so vulnerable, so afraid in that moment that my heart reached out to him completely, and to my gratitude, his face softened.

"My father," Zuko sighed, his tone growing bitter once more. "After Iroh disappeared, he tried to possession of the throne. My father always resented being the second born, perpetually the Crown Prince but never the Fire Lord. I think that's why he favors Azula over me. He said she was born lucky; he said I was lucky to be born."

Shock and anger shot through me. How could a father say something so horrible to his own son? Then again, I already knew how awful Fire Lord Ozai could be, so I'm not sure why this surprised me.

"One day, he brought me and Azula and my mother for a meeting with my grandfather," Zuko continued. "After the meeting, I wanted to leave, but Azula pulled me back to listen. He urged Azulon to revoke Iroh's birthright and grant him the throne. Understandably, Azulon was furious."

Zuko paused for a minute, lost in painful memories, but I didn't say anything, letting the silence fill the air until he was ready to continue.

"I left after that, but Azula stayed," he said finally. "Later that night, when I was about to sleep, Azula came into my room. She was so gleeful, and she said... she said as my father's punishment he would have to suffer the pain... of losing his firstborn."

I couldn't help the gasp that escaped my mouth, but Zuko didn't seem to hear me.

"I didn't believe her," he continued, clenching his fists above the table. "Azula always lies. But that night, my mother came into my room and told me that she loved me, that everything she had done she had done to protect me... and to never forget who I was.

I was so confused. I didn't understand, and I went back to sleep. But the next morning..." Zuko trailed off, his voice full of pain and the demons from the past that haunted him. "The next morning, my grandfather was dead, my father was Fire Lord, and my mother was gone."

My mouth had fallen in open in utter shock and horror at Zuko's story. I was incapable of any speech, and could only sit there with that stupid expression on my face as I tried to process how this amount of cruelty was humanly possible in a family.

"You don't think..." I trailed off, unable to finish the unspoken question.

"I didn't know what to believe!" Zuko thumped his fists on the table, a frustrated note becoming clear in his voice. "I still don't. The official story was that Fire Lady Ursa had died of grief and shock, but that can't be true. She never cared for my grandfather. There was never any body, and the ceremony was a closed casket with only me, Azula, my father and a few Fire Sages."

I didn't know what to say. I could only sit there and try to comprehend the immense pain in Zuko's life, pain that was clearly reflected in his vulnerable expression in that moment.

It occurred to me that Zuko's mother was the only person of the Royal Family that I had never heard about before. I guess I'd always assumed she was just sort of there in the background, watching silently as her husband wreaked havoc on the world. But that she had presumedly sacrificed so much, lost everything to protect her son...

"I never wanted any of this!" Zuko cried suddenly, his voice full of pain and anger. He sat upright, causing me to start slightly at the fire blazing in his eyes once more. "I never wanted to chase the Avatar, I never wanted to go to Ba Sing Se, to be a refugee from my own nation for Agni's sake. All I want is for my father not to think I'm worthless. All I want is to go home."

His voice broke on the last word, and he dropped his head into his hands. I sat there in shock, and I knew nothing I could possibly say or no amount of apologies or sympathy could make anything better. My heart ached with sympathy and sadness for him, but it frustrated me and made me even sadder that I could do absolutely nothing to help him.

I felt like I understood Zuko more than I ever had before, but I couldn't do anything about it, so I just sat there, watching silently as Zuko grappled with his emotions.

"You know what we should do?" I said suddenly, an idea coming to mind. Zuko glanced up, his eyes mouth set in a hard frown, as if he'd just been jerked out of his painful reliving of memories. Which was the point, to get him to think about something else. "We should spar."

"We can't bend," he deadpanned, glaring slightly.

"With our swords, genius," I replied snarkily on impulse before realizing the moment had been too serious for that. Thankfully, he seemed to let it slide, and I plowed on. "Come on, it'll take your mind - both of our minds actually - off this."

Zuko glanced at me for a moment before his face fell back into its surly expression. "Maybe I don't want to take my mind off this."

I stood, pushing my chair in behind me and walked over to his side of the table. As he glanced up sullenly once more, I held out my hand to him and met his eyes, silently begging him to take it.

"Zuko," I said, my voice soft but firm. "Come on."

I held his gaze for an infinitesimal moment, and then he sighed and placed his hand in mine.


Twenty minutes later, we stood on opposite sides of an empty clearing behind the apartment complex with our swords drawn. I'd changed into the clothes I'd worn while traveling to Ba Sing Se, because while they were not as fashionable, they were certainly more practical for fighting than my puffy-sleeved blouse and skirt.

"Remember the rules," I called across to Zuko. "No bending, no knockouts, and if you get blood on my clothes, I will cut you."

Zuko's eyes widened in protest. "I'm not going make you bl-!"

"Relax, hothead, I'm just joking," I cut him off, grinning slightly. "Friendly spar, remember?"

"Right," Zuko rolled his eyes, shifting into stance. "Don't worry, I'll go easy on you."

"I'd say the same thing, but I think you ought to worry," I shot back. One side of Zuko's mouth twitched slightly and we stared at each other for a moment, analyzing the situation, before Zuko drew his swords back and charged towards me.

I slipped into a crouch, my muscles tensed as he ran closer, and then flipped sideways as he swung his swords forward. I felt the whoosh of the blade as it swung under my back, and landed nimbly on my feet a few yards away.

I bit back a smirk as Zuko whirled around, his eyes widened in surprise before they narrowed again in concentration. He began to circle me, and I followed his movements closely, watching his every move. His eyes broke away from mine suddenly, glancing up and to the left, and instinctively I followed his gaze, realizing my mistake too late as he rushed at me, swords flashing.

I swung my swords upwards just in time, blocking his attack and pushing him back. My foot slipped slightly as he pushed back against me, his strength obviously overpowering mine. Trying a different tactic, I feinted to the right and then twisted left as he twitched right, ducking around him and backing up quickly.

Zuko was quick, however, and he whirled around before I could properly regain my balance, stepping forward and swinging at me. I was forced to take a defensive position, blocking his swords with my own and was unable to land any offensive attacks. Sweat beaded on my forehead as I gritted my teeth in concentration, bringing my swords in a wide arc to clash against his in a flurry of sparks.

I continued to back up as Zuko pressed forward, swinging with sharp, precise strokes, until my back landed against one of the walls of the clearing. Grinning triumphantly, Zuko brought his swords forward to press against my chest in an X, but I blocked him with an X of my own. I glared up at him, my chest rising and falling, as we pushed our swords against each other.

"Looks like I win," he smirked, smugness practically radiating off his body as he pushed me further into the wall.

"You know, Iroh taught me a very important lesson once," I replied conversationally, keeping my tone light. Zuko frowned slightly, confused, and I smirked internally. "With a poor stance, you are unbalanced..." I continued, imitating Iroh's voice, "...and you can be easily knocked over."

With one swift move, I stopped pushing against Zuko and dropped down, sending him stumbling forward. As I pushed off the wall with the hilts of my swords and slid through his spread legs, I caught his ankle against the hilt of one sword, sending him tumbling sideways as I skidded across the arena on my knees. I stood, brushing my pants off and laughed as Zuko struggled to his feet, grumbling angrily and picking up his swords.

"Oh, you are so going down," he growled at me, but his eyes sparkled with amusement. Or was I just imagining it?

I stuck my tongue out at him impishly. "Come and get me."

Zuko ran at me, swinging his swords in wide arcs above his head and at his torso, and I sidestepped again, feeling the heat from his body as I twisted around his side and jabbed at the other side. He spun, blocking my attack with one sword and bringing the other one swinging down. Blocking the attack with my other sword, I used the leverage to push up and flip over Zuko's head, landing behind him before I swung at him again.

He blocked with one sword and swung with another, and I was shocked to see a slight grin on his face as we circled each other, slashing, parrying and blocking, and was even more shocked to feel a similar grin spread across mine. I felt strangely lighthearted, even letting out a giddy laugh as I dodged Zuko's strike, ducking to the left and swinging forward only to have him sidestep out of the way.

I saw an opportunity as Zuko ran forward at me again with one sword drawn back, and as he swung at my midsection, I dropped into a lunge. Stepping forward and bringing one sword above my head to catch his, I swept under his outsretched arm and emerged behind him. The sword I had caught against mine moved, causing Zuko to twist up and around as I pulled the sword up with his arm until he was forced to lean backwards with the sword above his head.

Eyes wide, Zuko swung his other sword around to the side, but I caught the blade against the hilt of mine and pulled it upwards as well, so that Zuko stood in front of me, bending backwards with both swords above his head as I leaned down over him, my blades pressed against his.

"Gotcha," I whispered, grinning, as satisfied emerald eyes met stunned golden ones.

Time seemed to slow down as I gazed into Zuko's eyes at his bewildered expression, eyes wide and mouth slightly ajar, and I felt the air whoosh out of my lungs as the smug expression slid off my face. Our faces were only inches apart and I became hypersensitive of every detail - the brown flecks in his golden eyes, the heat that constantly radiated off of him and the smell of smoke and sandalwood that filled the air. Had I not been so transfixed, I would have noticed Zuko's eyes flick downwards to my mouth.

And in that moment, I realized I wanted nothing more than to lean down and kiss him.

The realization shocked me so much that I stepped back, taking the pressure off Zuko and causing him to fall backwards with a startled yelp. I didn't even hear the thump as he landed on the ground; I stared into space, my mind reeling.

"Ow," Zuko groaned from the ground, staring up at me ruefully. He stood up, rubbing his backside and frowned. "What was that for?"

"Sorry," I muttered, unable to meet his eye. "I thought it was time to end it."

"Yeah, probably," Zuko replied sheepishly, rubbing his head now. "I'll get you next time, though."

"Y-yeah," I stammered, my cheeks starting to heat up despite myself. Oh, spirits, I had to get out of there. "U-um, I'm gonna... go for a quick walk. I'll meet you back at the apartment."

"What?" Zuko asked, surprised, but I had already started to hurry away. "Hey! Kioni, wait!"

I dashed around the corner and down the street, ducking into a back alleyway and glancing back out to make sure Zuko hadn't followed me. Once I'd determined I was alone, I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes, trying desperately to regain control of my erratic breathing and pounding heart and will down the blush rising in my cheeks.

Get a grip, Kioni, I told myself sternly.

But my traitorous mind decided it would not listen, and I flashed back to the memory of that night on the mountain: Zuko's strong hands clutching my waist and pulling me close against his body, his burning fingers sending sparks rushing across every inch of me as they dug into my rain-soaked skin, his lips forceful but soft against mine, moving with a desperate passion that made my head spin, and the overwhelming feeling of safe safe safe and so, so right. My stomach fluttered happily and the blush rose higher against my face.

Oh, spirits, this was not good. I dropped my head into my hands and let out a groan.

This was really, really, really not good.


So, "The Tale of Iroh" is kind of a misnomer, since Iroh wasn't even in this chapter, but its basically what happened during the Tale of Iroh. Ooh la la, things are heating up. *rubs hands together and cackles evilly*

Each Tale of Ba Sing Se is going to get its own chapter, and they might be a bit shorter, but I also should be able to publish them faster. Hehe, both Zuko and Kioni have come to their own little realizations... what will happen next? This was definitely a key chapter in terms of the relationship, both in subtle and obvious ways.

Review please! Guess what you think will happen next, tell me how you liked the chapter, any improvements I can make, etc etc.

Next up: The Tale of Kioni.