Chapter 44: Nightmare
…
In each other's shadow we grew less and less tall
And eventually our theories couldn't explain it all
-'Both Hands,' Ani Difranco,
…
It was her wedding. Faces swam into focus; Jareth, Toph, Aang, Sokka, Suki, Katara, Iroh… They smiled and swept her around in their arms. White and red. A strong, sure hand held hers and she knew her prince was beside her. Voices…noise…music…
Happiness.
She stood on a white balcony overlooking the beach and caressed the bulge on her stomach with loving hands. Strong arms came around her from behind and rested possessively on hers. She leaned against her prince's strong chest and stared out at the blindingly sparkling ocean.
She was alone in her bedroom. They had taken her baby away. Where was the prince? He hadn't been there. He'd been away. He'd been away from her. Where was her baby? She wanted her baby.
It wasn't a bedroom, but a prison cell. She called out to him, but he wouldn't come to her. She wanted out, terribly. Tears warmed her cheeks as they ran from her eyes. He loved her. Where was he? Why wouldn't he come to help her?
Footsteps down the hall. She knew the sound of her husband's steps. The prince was in shadow, but she could see his dark hair, the glint of his eyes.
"Where is my baby, Zuko? They took my baby. I'm trapped. I'm trapped, Zuko. Help me."
Her prince stepped into the light and looked her in the face. Her prince had Ozai in his eyes, in his scowl. He wasn't there to help her.
Her baby was in his arms. Wrapped in a red blanket. Soft black hair could be seen and she hadn't once been able to caress that soft head. Her heart was breaking, seeing her child so close and unable to see or touch him.
"My baby, Ozai, please, my baby."
Ozai shook his head and stepped back into the shadow, an icy and satisfied smile on his thin lips.
"Don't make me stay here! Don't keep me here! Don't do this! Don't you love me? Ozai, please! Don't you love me?"
He had backed into the darkness and she was alone. She was in Water Tribe clothes. She reached her arms through, pressing against the cold stone bars. There was a tightness in her chest that was collapsing in on itself. It was constricting ever tighter, suffocating her. She couldn't hold her weight. She fell to the cold stone.
"Ozai! Ozai, please! Not here! Don't keep me…don't leave me…in a cage…"
"Nami!"
She snapped open her eyes and the prince's face was in hers. She jolted away from him in horror. She could feel the chasm in her chest, the misery and panic of being jailed. He was going to hurt her, he was going to—
"Nami?" His expression was hurt. "It's just me," he soothed in a rush, "it's me. It was just a dream, just a dream, you're alright." He reached gently toward her again.
She couldn't breathe. It was still the middle of the night. Dark. Her chest was so tight, her throat thick with tears.
"Nami," Zuko groaned, terribly upset. "Nami, I'm here. No one's going to hurt you. It's alright, it's alright."
She took a slow breath, feeling the effects of the nightmare begin to fade. It was just a dream… She was in the summer house with Zuko. She wasn't married, Zuko was not his father…
He wiped the tears from her face with his hands as she sunk back down onto the pillows. He looked so worried about her.
"It's alright," he soothed again, his low voice earnest and pained. He touched her hair, ran an arm over her arms, her side. "Breathe, breathe, love."
She nodded, drawing another shaky breath. Zuko slowly pulled her into his arms and held her tightly.
"Don't be afraid. It's going to be alright. You're alright. Shhh." He kissed her hair, rubbed her back. But she was not comforted. Her fear was too real, too deep.
"Nami," he murmured, agonized. He hated to see her hurt and afraid. She was hurting him, but she couldn't get it together right now.
"I won't let anyone hurt you."
He didn't understand. He didn't understand what she was afraid of.
"I…I just need a few minutes," she said, and without waiting for his answer, she pulled out of his arms and moved quickly into the bathroom. She shut the door behind her and found the floor, pulling a towel to her face. She didn't want his arms, she didn't want anything touching her, holding her, keeping her somewhere.
When breathing came easier, she stood and splashed water on her face. She dried, then slowly went back out to him. She was calmer. She had accepted it was only a dream. But the nightmare had unsettled her.
Zuko was sitting up in bed, a couple candles lit in the darkness. He watched her with deeply concerned eyes. She sat slowly in bed but he didn't try and take her in his arms again. He inspected her face with his eyes.
"Are you…are you alright?" he asked softly.
"Yes."
He shifted closer to her, his fingers twitching like he itched to hold her. "Nami, talk to me. Please."
"It was just a nightmare."
"You said…you said my father's name. I won't let him hurt you, Nami." He sounded fierce. "I swear it. I swear."
"I know."
"If you did, you wouldn't be so scared."
"It was just a dream, Zuko."
"I've never seen you like that. You were…you were terrified. Panicked. Afraid of me. Why? What happened?"
"Nothing. It was just the dream that scared me. I'm sorry."
"You were crying in your sleep…"
"I'm sorry."
"It's not—don't apologize, just tell me what I can do."
"I'm fine, Zuko, I'm fine," she assured him gently. She moved toward him and he pulled her swiftly into his arms.
"I'll keep you safe," he said fiercely, the emotion in his words ringing.
She shook her head into his shoulder. He didn't understand. "Zuko… you love me…don't you?"
"More than life," he groaned, gathering her up even tighter against him. "Don't question that. Don't, Nami. I love you. If you need to hear it every minute of every day to believe me, I can do that. I love you, I love, I love—"
"Don't leave me alone," she whispered.
"Never."
"I want…I want the sky. And to travel and… Let's not stay in one place, okay?"
"Okay," he agreed immediately. She could tell he had not really thought about it.
Zuko, I am afraid, she wanted to say. But not of the war, of you. Of what loving you will do to me. She wanted to tell him, but she didn't know how. Her mouth could not form the words. She did not want to hurt him. She did not want him to know she was afraid of their future together. It was too much, and not something she could ever say in the right way. Nami rested her heavy head on his shoulder and closed her eyes.
…
"Nami? Wake up, love. We have to pack."
She opened her eyes. Zuko caressed her face with his hand gently, his eyes soft but holding a remnant of worry from the night.
She sat up slowly and rubbed her eyes. "Pack?" she mumbled.
"Yeah. We're leaving the island today, remember?"
"Right. Sozin's Comet and all that junk." She smiled a little, but Zuko's lips didn't return it. He grimaced and cupped her face in his hands. He kissed her forehead long and hard.
"I am fine, okay Zukiezuzumuffin?" she said, rolling her eyes lightly. "No more nervous breakdowns. All business. The GAang in action. Water, earth, fire, fan, whatever." She smirked and his crooked smile twitched up in the corner of his mouth. He looked relieved to see her light spirits back.
"I love you," he said, looking seriously into her eyes.
She leaned forward to kiss him lightly. "I know. And I love you. Let's get going."
They changed clothes and packed and Zuko took his belongings out to the courtyard where the others were loading Appa up for travel.
She had finished brushing her hair and teeth, and was placing her last few things into her bag. She hesitated before slinging it over her shoulder. Suddenly she turned on her heel and slipped out of the room. She ran up the stairs, down the hall, and opened the door to the library, lit by the sunlight streaming in through the one floor-length window.
She grabbed the last of Ursa's diaries on the bottom row of the last shelf. It was bound in dark crimson and held itself together better than the other blue one. Hiding it under her shirt, she closed the library door behind her and hurried back down to the bedroom. Zuko hadn't returned from Appa yet, and she quickly hid the diary deep into her bag below her clothes. She took a breath and then slung the bag over her shoulder to load it on the flying bison.
Zuko hoisted her bag up for her when she came out, and Sokka stepped back, looking at Appa.
"Okay, that's everything," he said.
"No, it's not," replied Toph, sitting on the fountain bench in the center of the courtyard. "Where's Aang?"
The six of them looked at each other. Aang was indeed missing from the group. Everyone took off for the inside of the house and ran up another flight of stairs to where Aang slept.
"Aang? Aang!" Zuko called.
"C'mon, lazy bones, let's go!" Toph yelled. Everyone split up to check the upstairs, but no one found him. They followed Sokka out to the balcony, where he picked up Aang's staff.
"He left his staff. That's so strange."
"He's not in the house," Zuko muttered. "Let's check the beach."
On the beach they found his footprints leading to the water's edge, and then nothing else.
"Maybe he was captured," suggested Katara worriedly.
"I don't think so," replied Sokka, squatting by the end of the prints. "There's no sign of a struggle."
"I bet he ran away again," Toph sighed.
"But he left behind his glider and Appa," Sokka argued.
"Then what do you think happened, o sleuthy one?"
"It's pretty obvious. Aang disappears before an important battle. He's definitely on a Spirit World journey."
"But if he was, wouldn't his body still be here?" Zuko asked.
Sokka deflated. "Oh yeah. Forgot about that."
"Then he's got to be somewhere on Ember Island," Katara said. "Let's split up and look for him."
"I'm going with Zuko!" Toph exclaimed, grabbing one of the prince's arms and holding it to her. Zuko stared down at her, his eyebrows raised.
"Everyone else went on a life-changing field trip with Zuko," Toph defended. "Now it's my turn."
"But where else would he be?" Nami asked everyone. "If he's not here, I doubt he's anywhere else on the island."
"We have to look," Suki said. "You could stay here and see if he comes back."
Nami nodded. "Yeah, someone should do that. I can stay here. Good luck, guys."
They nodded and headed off different ways, Zuko and Toph around the rest of the beach, Sokka on Appa, Katara and Suki into town.
Nami watched them leave and then went back inside. Through the halls, up the stairs, and into Ursa's library. She took from the bottom shelf a book nearer the end of the row; a diary bound in green. She went to the divan and curled up on it as she opened the diary, found a good entry, and read by the light of the window.
December 8th—
Azula turned five today. I looked in her face this afternoon and saw how much of a baby she no longer is… Only five and she has advanced well beyond her years in speech and firebending. Only five! She seems at least ten sometimes when she looks at you with her characteristic impassive expression. She understands the world more than she should at her age. More than I think I want her to.
The way she's growing…she worries me. I love her with all my heart, and she's beautiful and bright…but she strays from me. There is a selfishness in all of her actions and words that is upsetting. She is so smart, so talented. If she could only use her gifts to help instead of harm. She could do so much, be so much. But she instead uses it for her own gain. She looks to Ozai for instruction, not to me. And Ozai is pulling from all of us. I feel it daily. We don't touch. We don't laugh. He regards Azula with pride, yet with detachment. I don't want him to use her. I don't want her to take after him. Gods, I would give anything to reshape the path our lives are taking. Something went wrong —something made us slip from the path we were supposed to have in life. If I could but go back and fix it…would Ozai have time for his family? Would he still catch my hand and bring it to his lips like he used to before we married? Would Azula know humility? Kindness?
I try and fix things. To reach out to my husband, to discourage Azula's coldness. It's not enough. I don't know what to do. No one is here to help me. Iroh is at war and barely has time to write. My handmaiden Mezeradi is too frightened of my husband now to continue the friendship we had. I feel so alone these days. But it is foolish to wallow in self-pity in this way. I am strong for my children, and for myself so that I can still appreciate the sweetness of the summer breeze, the warmth of my son's smile.
Zuko is my joy. The little one is three years old and still my baby. He is clumsy, bright, energetic, lovable. My spirits are lifted just by writing about him. Both of my children are brave, but Azula is very subtle in her risks. She is too clever to take too much of a chance. Zuko knows nothing of odds. He would go right up to a crocodragon and bite it first. No matter how harsh Azula is to him, Zuko still puts himself between her and danger. He is so small and yet believes he can take on anything the world has to throw at him. His heart knows nothing of selfishness. That's not the person he is.
Azula was so angry at him today. He's a three year-old little brother and so of course he stuck his spoon in her birthday soup. She flew off at him. She wouldn't dare hit with her father standing over her, but she yelled such that he burst into tears and ran away. I am ashamed to admit I wanted to strike her for such behavior. I left to comfort Zuko and Ozai continued eating, his face unchanged by his daughter's outburst or his son's tears.
Nami read for hours, feeling how Ursa's family was deteriorating slowly but surely and her distress when she was powerless to stop it. It seemed painful for Ursa to write about her husband, but when she did the script almost brought tears to Nami's eyes.
When she didn't want to read anymore, she replaced the book and went back to the courtyard steps to wait for everyone's return.
…
Sokka was the last to come back. He landed with Appa in the courtyard and leapt off.
"Judging by your faces, I take it none of you found Aang either," he sighed.
"No," Zuko muttered. "It's like he just disappeared."
"Hey, wait a minute," Toph said, sitting up. "Has anyone noticed that Momo's missing too?"
"Oh no!" Sokka cried, turning toward the sky bison. "I knew it was only a matter of time! Appa ATE Momo!" He lifted open the bison's mouth and stuck his head in. "Momo! I'm comin' for ya, buddy!"
"Sokka," Katara sighed, "Appa didn't eat Momo. He's probably with Aang."
"That's just what Appa wants you to think!" Sokka replied, climbing his way further in between Appa's enormous jaws.
"Get out of the bison's mouth, Sokka," Zuko growled. "We have a real problem here. Aang is nowhere to be found and the comet is only two days away."
"What should we do, Zuko?" Suki asked, looking up at the prince as Appa hacked up Sokka in a puddle of saliva and let him ooze out of his mouth.
Zuko looked down at her, and then at Katara and Toph who were looking to him for direction.
"I don't know. Why are you all looking at me?"
"You are kind of the expert on tracking Aang," Katara said.
"Yeah," Toph added, "if anyone's got experience hunting the Avatar, it's you."
Zuko brought a hand to his jaw. "Well…there is someone I know who can find anyone. But we'd have to go to the Earth Kingdom." He looked at Nami.
She met his look. "June?" she asked.
"June."
…
Princess Azula crept in the black of night through an irritatingly creaky door that connected the royal palace to the rhino stables. Wrinkling her petite nose at the smell, she slunk through the rows of snorting beasts to the back of the long stable where the animals' hay was piled. Down on a pile of loose hay that had fallen from moving all the loosely-tied bales, a young man in dirty brown clothes slept with an arm under his head for a pillow. Another, scrawnier but less dirty young man slept on a rough cot in the corner—the ex-private who had stuck up for his Lieutenant-Colonel.
She gazed at the young man sleeping soundly on the hay and bit down viciously on her lower lip to keep her tears in. Even filthy, smelly, and snoring lightly, he was the most beautiful boy she had ever seen in her life. He was a talented soldier, he was strong, he was hardworking, tender, sensual, and clever.
He was the best man she had ever known.
And because of her he shoveled rhino shit every day.
It was his fault, she tried to protest. But though she could lie to everyone else, she could not lie to herself. She had pretended to be someone she wasn't. She could not have expected him to be able to take her identity in stride when he found out. He had probably been afraid and confused—but that still did not forgive his unfeeling change. There wasn't one conflicted glance from him, one hint of pain in his stony eyes.
She had almost goddamn pled with him! Her. Pleading with a boy, for god's sake—it was more than she had ever given anyone else in her life! But he had ignored it, stomped on it, didn't give a shit about it. 'Oh, she's not who I thought she was, so game's over, back to business.' Fuck him! FUCK HIM!
Azula reeled her temper back in before she could do something stupid like shoot lightning at the sleeping young man in front of her. She closed her eyes, and an uncalled-for reel of memories flooded her like her mind was bent on thwarting her justification for her actions. His thick, muscular arms holding her in the black of night. His deep, low voice in her ear. The chuckles that shook his chest. The soft, loving, muddy gold of his eyes. His delighted beam when he saw her across the gallery. And the blood running from his face and his eyes closing when he found out who she really was.
She tasted blood as her teeth pierced her lip. But her tears welled and spilled over despite her stubborn efforts. Azula wiped them roughly from her face. She could not take back what she had done. It would show too much of a weakness; it could undermine everything she had worked for her entire life—everything that was coming to a head in the next two days. She had to…to stop.
Why now?
Nothing this strong had ever gripped her before. It was as if someone had reached inside her body and taken a hold of her heart. She could feel that hand right now—its firm, unyielding grip. It was pain; that was all it was. Suffering. Only now did she understand the tortured expression in her mother's eyes when her father had turned from her, pulled away from her touch, or ignored her when she spoke.
Her fingers twitched as her eyes ran over his sleeping face. A passionate, irrational desire to touch his cheek, to brush the dark brown strand from his eyes was almost unmanageable. Never had she come upon such a powerful force. It was stronger than gravity, than bending, than her willpower.
No, it would not be the master of her. It would not take away from her everything she had worked for. She would not allow it. She could force it down. Away. She had to.
…
"Whoa there. Whoa! Settle down, you stupid beast!" Jareth exclaimed, jumping backwards after giving a rhino his lunch bucket of oats and grain. The animal's horn had punched through a hole in the wood of the stall and had come dangerously close to Jareth's chest. "Gods."
"Watch that one, 'ee's a handful," the crotchety old stable master said, feeding another rhino in a stable down the row.
"I got as much," Jareth replied dryly. "Someone should fix that hole." He looked up from the feed buckets as a group of people came in through the back door of the stable. It was Takeo followed by three soldiers. Takeo hurried up to Jareth, looking excited. But before he could say anything, Jareth exclaimed "Watch it, Tak!" and grabbed the collar of the boy's shirt to wrench him away from the side of the wooden stable just as the irritated rhino's thick, sharp horn slammed through the hole again, right where Takeo has been a moment ago.
Takeo stared at the horn. "Whoa, thanks." He looked back at Jareth. "Jareth, these guys—"
The soldiers who'd come in with Takeo were Kichiro, Shanyuan, and Kuro from his old platoon. Jareth interrupted them before they could say anything.
"Boys, you shouldn't be here," he said. "Association with me or Takeo could mean a discharge for you too."
"We don't care," Kichiro replied. "You here doing this—it's absurd. We all would've done what Tak did if we'd been there—"
"And we're going to send a brief to Sergeant Makoto about it. With both yours and his combined connections, I'm sure we can—"
"No, boys," Jareth replied wearily. "No amount of connections can overturn a royal dictation. I don't want to get Mak—or any of you—in trouble with me. And I deserve this. I was considerably foolish—"
Here all of his boys uttered various disagreeing expletives that had the old stable master turning to give them a stern look.
Jareth smiled a little, but still shook his head. "Please don't write to Mak. And don't come to see me again. You all do not deserve a discharge."
"If this" —Shanyuan gestured at the stable— "happened to us, you'd do everything you could to get us out of it. Especially if all we did was piss off the most spoiled little bitch of a princess the Fire Nation—"
"Shh!" the stable master hissed fearfully. "Are you out of your mind?"
"Bugger off, old man," Kichiro snapped, and the stable master grumbled insults under his breath as he shuffled away.
"He has a right to be afraid," Jareth said. "Insulting the royal family like that could mean banishment or worse. I don't want to see anything happen to any of you."
"We know what we're doing, sir," replied Kuro.
"I'm not 'sir' to you anymore, Kuro," Jareth said softly.
"The hell you're not," Kichiro growled. "Taking your badge doesn't mean shit."
Jareth smiled, touched. He put his hand on Kichiro's shoulder. "You're good men, you know that? All of you."
A flurry of voices could be heard on the other side of the stable doors, and they turned to look as two stablehands hurried inside. Jareth recognized them from his time here.
They saw the group and hastened over, one more eagerly than the other.
"Did you see? Have you heard?" he breathed, speaking to Jareth and Takeo.
"Heard what?" asked Jareth. The two didn't look happy about whatever news they had, but apparently it was important.
"Ozai's leaving for the Earth Kingdom and he just proclaimed himself the 'Pheonix King', supreme ruler of the world. Can you believe that?"
"Careful," the man's companion warned, looking fearfully at the soldiers standing next to Jareth and listening.
"He just left," he man continued, "but before he did, he decreed that Azula would become Fire Lord in his place."
Jareth and his soldiers stared at him with open mouths.
"We watched it happen," his companion added. "Azula will be crowned tomorrow as the ruler of the nation. As Fire Lady, I guess. But it doesn't make sense with Prince Zuko still alive—he should be Fire Lord by rights."
Jareth leaned back against the side of the stable. A rhino rammed his head against the wood on the other side, but he didn't notice.
"Azula…Fire Lord? Tomorrow?"
"Sozin's Comet comes tomorrow," Kuro muttered. The stablehand nodded.
Jareth felt like everything was coming at him suddenly. "The comet is tomorrow," he repeated.
Tomorrow.
