Five years had passed since Ba Sing Se had been burned to the ground, and four years had passed since the assassination of Fire Lord Ozai and the rise of Fire Lord Azula. Three-and-a-half years had passed since the end of the war, and two years had passed since the Riot in Yu Dao. No one would be forgetting the crimes of the Fire Nation anytime soon, especially those that cried out in protest of the continual occupation of the Colonies-but, finally, there was peace.

Zuko had helped his uncle rebuild Ba Sing Se, and had dipped out of the city from time to time to put things right. He was barely Zuko anymore-just Li, the nephew of Mushi, and that was how he presumed he would die. The Earth Kingdom tended to bury their dead, and he could see it, a modest gravestone that no one would ever discover. Zuko was long dead in that regard, as was the great General Iroh.

He thought now and again of writing to his sister, but usually came to the conclusion that that was all done with. Maybe there was a small part of Azula that had loved him, but a large part of her didn't, and now that she was Fire Lord, he figured she would see it as his own feeble attempt to grab power. People, as always, seemed to fear her, but Azula did not need war to be intimidating. She was more than capable of managing the Fire Nation's post-war economy and changing just what needed to be changed while inspiring obedience.

He wondered if she knew that he lived.

His uncle encouraged him to live-find a nice Earth Kingdom lady, have a family, have a nice, cozy home. He did enjoy that Zuko worked in the tea shop, but even his uncle knew that was not his calling. Zuko barely Firebended anymore; his preference-Li's preference-when it came to combative skills and hobbies rested in swordsmanship. Though he would never admit it to himself, he was a master, and if he pleased, he could take on some students. Iroh was nudging him towards a swordsman in the Middle Ring that produced his own swords, to see if the man would take an apprentice.

Zuko knew he would do none of the things his uncle wished for him. He had the distinct feeling that he was waiting-but for what, he wasn't sure. For years, he'd been constantly fighting, and now that there was peace, he wasn't sure what to do with himself. Worse yet, the secret in his heart seemed to draw him away from doing anything he truly wanted. He wasn't even sure if he could want anything anymore.

There was a small group of Airbenders that had come to settle in the Middle Ring, not far from the swordsman. Iroh had seen them first. They were not the Airbenders of old, but rather the new ones, doing their best to honor the long-dead culture and their Earth Kingdom heritage. A few of them had come into the shop for tea, and Iroh had talked with them. As they had no masters to learn from, they had to rely on historical texts and their own creativity.

There were hundreds-maybe thousands-of Airbenders that had suddenly came to be in the past five years. No one seemed to know how it had come about, though most theorized that the Spirits had sought to strike balance again, once Fire Lord Ozai was dead. The theory was flawed only in that a dozen or so had walked into their powers before Ozai's demise. It didn't really matter. Zuko alone knew the truth.

He was relieved when he heard that one of the new Airbending couples had an Airbending child. Soon enough, the Air Nation would rise again.

The Avatar cycle could resume.

He had done enough damage already. He dutifully served the citizens of Ba Sing Se and tried to keep his head down and remember humilty. He did not smile much-he had never smiled much-but, despite the emptiness and dread he felt, he was more content than he had been in a long while.

He was just Li there. Just a refugee of the war, scarred by some nameless Firebender, serving tea with his uncle.

And then, Piandao came for a visit.

-oOo-

Zuko had not known that his uncle and his old master were in contact. He vaguely came to understand that his uncle was part of some weird old people society that had to do with playing Pai Sho, but he was still quite startled to see another Fire Nation face in Ba Sing Se.

Piandao greeted him warmly and pointedly used his alias. He came dressed in fine Earth Kingdom robes trimmed with gold and used his true name openly. A few Ba Sing Se residents seemed to know him, and called him Master. After a dinner where Iroh and Piandao discussed rather boring details of the new world politics that Zuko found he couldn't quite follow, Piandao invited Zuko to a duel.

It was close, but Piandao won. Still, he declared Zuko the master that he had been for quite a while, praising his ability. Zuko took it, blushing, murmurring thanks and trying to disappear to anywhere else. But Piandao was not done with him.

"There is a young man from the Southern Water Tribe I would like you to train, Li," he told him. "His name is Sokka, and he is the son of Chief Hakoda. We met briefly in Omashu; he has been traveling with his sister, and a boy."

"Is the boy the one...?" Iroh's voice trailed off, almost guiltily.

"Yes, that is the one," Piandao confirmed, and Zuko stared between him and Iroh in confusion. "But, I do not think he is who they say he is."

"I had rather hoped so, with the arrival of the Airbenders," Iroh sighed.

"Who is the boy?" Zuko asked. Piandao studied him.

"You will train Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe?"

"Yes," he said, though he wasn't sure why he had agreed to it. He was frustrated with feeling like some idiotic child between the older men. "But who is the boy that travels with him? Why is he so special?"

Iroh and Piandao exchanged a meaningful glance.

"He is an Airbender-from a hundred years ago," his uncle started gently. "Young Sokka and his sister discovered him, preserved in the ice of the South Pole. He lives, and they are traveling so he might teach the Airbenders the ways of his people."

"Strange," he said, but he could feel that his uncle was still tense. Hiding something.

"Many believe that he is the long-lost Avatar, after Roku," Piandao said.

"Ah." Zuko shifted awkwardly. "So...they think this boy is the one who killed my father?"

Iroh and Piandao had not been expecting that. "Uh, no," Iroh said. "Your father was beheaded, Zuko. I don't quite think that the boy, Avatar or not, would behead him."

Zuko frowned, but said nothing. At last, Iroh breathed a sigh of relief.

"I was worried you would not take it well."

"Uncle, I don't really care about the boy. The Airbenders are lucky they have someone to teach them the old ways. It is a good thing."

"More that-well. If he was the Avatar, you spent so many years searching for him-"

"The war might have gone on forever if I had found him," he said, and Piandao nodded grimly.

"I spoke to the boy briefly. He is young-twelve or so. And he is kind, and remembers a world much kinder than our own."

"What is his name?"

"Aang, of the Southern Air Temple."

"So, it is Sokka I shall teach, and the boy, Aang, is his ward. Then who is his sister?"

"Master Katara," Piandao answered, but his lips quirked up into a smirk. "She earned her title when she dueled Master Pakku of the Northern Tribe, and gave him a lesson on the ability of women. Or, well-we gave her the title, and Master Pakku was quite bitter about it."

Iroh laughed heartily, but Zuko remained neutral. He had been to the Northern Tribe once before, and was dimly aware that they didn't allow their women to fight. Something he was sure that Azula would have never stood for, should they have been fated to be born there.

"Sokka, Aang, and Katara," Zuko muttered to himself, memorizing the names. "Then, where do I find them?"

Piandao smiled. "They shall come to you, Li. They will be here in three days' time."

-oOo-

Piandao was still around the Upper Ring when the Water Tribesmen and the Airbender arrived. Iroh had sent Zuko out to fetch a few things from the market-they would be preparing a nice meal for their guests-while the two older men sat around playing Pai Sho between Iroh serving his customers. By the time Zuko returned, Sokka, Aang, and Katara had arrived.

Sokka and Katara did nothing to hide their Water Tribe heritage. They were dressed in blues, exotic furs lining their clothing, their hair in braids the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation had never seen before. While the Northern Tribe was not Zuko's most vivid memory, he could tell there was something fundamentally different about the way the siblings held themselves and dressed.

Aang was their opposite. He was bald, for one, and had a blue tattoo on his head-but he had no fur, no bone jewelry, no elaboration at all. He was a monk, pure and simple, and small, and spindly. Both Katara and Sokka had some heft to them in the way of muscle; he imagined their survial in the subarctic was no easy physical task.

All three of them, however, were warm and loud. Iroh had closed up the shop early, probably upon their arrival, but the noise was almost as if the Jasmine Dragon was full.

"Li!" his uncle welcomed him, standing. The guests turned around to look at him, but remained seated near Piandao. "You are late."

"Your list was impossible," Zuko scowled, but with a glance toward Piandao, quickly did his best to save his face. "Uh-hi. I'm Li."

"Oh, thank La, I thought you were going to be old," Sokka said, immediately striding over toward him. His sister looked rather horrified at his comment, but Zuko knew his uncle and Piandao would not be offended. He awkwardly shuffled his bags around so that Sokka could take his free arm in the Water Tribe way. "I am Sokka, your new student!"

Despite the fact that Sokka loomed over Zuko by quite a few inches, and was built up in a way that Zuko knew he'd never accomplish for himself, his goofy grin and dispositon made him incredibly not intimidating. His sister, on the other hand-

She came over next. She was a good deal shorter than Zuko, but her eyes were blazing in a way that reminded him of Azula's fire, and he could feel she was a great, fearless master. She would destroy him in an instant.

But her face was soft and sweet, and she was merely friendly and hopeful that her brother would be trained. Zuko exchanged the same Water Tribe greeting with her, and tried not to think about ice piercing his body.

Aang practically bounced over after that. His smile was much goofier than Sokka's.

He bowed in the Earth Kingdom way.

"Master Li!" It was strange to hear the boy call him that. He made a note not to let Sokka say that to him. "Your scar is really cool! It looks like a comet."

Katara looked like she was about to tell him off.

"Uh, thanks," he said, unconsciously rubbing it. Katara snapped her mouth shut. "Your arrows are pretty cool, too."

They were, really, just in the fact they were tattoos. Zuko had wondered every now and then if he should get one in the Lower Ring, but he didn't think a dragon would be a great thing for a random Ba Sing Se resident to have.

"They mean I'm an Airbending Master," he said. Zuko nodded.

"So I have heard."

"How did you get your scar?"

"Aang," Katara hissed, "you can't just ask that!"

"There was a whole war only a few years ago," Sokka said sternly before turning to Zuko. "Sorry about that."

"It's fine. Lots of people ask," Zuko said. Honestly, the whole matter of it was very tiring. "I was your age. I opened my mouth when I shouldn't have."

It was the truth, anyway. He was sure Sokka and Katara were imagining Fire Nation soldiers invading a village and Zuko mouthing off, but he wasn't about to correct them. Iroh cleared his throat from the back of the room, draining the tension.

"We should prepare our dinner if we want to eat before midnight, Li."

"Yes, Uncle," he sighed, shuffling past the guests.

-oOo-

Dinner was a traditional Earth Kingdom meal, about half of which was vegetarian. It was rather funny, Zuko thought, considering no one at the table was Earth Kingdom-though, he supposed, that was what he and his uncle were pretending to be.

Sokka and Katara talked the most, telling them what they had seen in the southern Earth Kingdom as they made their way north. They were bound for the Airbenders that had moved into an already-present Earth Kingdom community in the Northern Air Temple. There were a couple hundred there, supposedly, and they had managed to send an invitation to Aang when he passed through Gaoling.

"It's a bit annoying," Aang butted in when they talked about the welcome they received in a colonial town. "Everyone just assumes I'm the Avatar. I'm not."

"I don't even think the Avatar exists anymore," Sokka snorted.

"Well, they do say there was a Water Tribe Avatar, maybe eighty years ago, but that is mostly just a story," Piandao said. "The world has lost track of the Avatar cycle before. He, or she, will re-emerge once again."

Zuko tried to ignore the way his stomach curled. As normally as he could, he took a few more dumplings for himself.

"What do you think, Li?" Piandao asked. He froze.

"What do I think of what?" His mouth was half full of dumplings.

"The Avatar, of course," he said neutrally. Zuko didn't think he was actually being very neutral about it at all.

"Uh, well," Zuko picked at his plate a bit, "I think, soon enough, the Avatar will show up among the Airbenders again. That's where it left off, anyway."

"But in order for that to happen, there must be an Avatar now," Piandao pointed out. "...A Fire Nation Avatar."

"Well, that would suck, if Azula found out about that," Zuko muttered, and Iroh chuckled.

"Indeed, the Fire Lord is vicious and would likely use the Avatar for her own nefarious purposes."

Piandao didn't look at Iroh. Zuko felt like his skin was crawling.

"You don't think Fire Lord Azula is the Avatar, do you, Master Piandao?"

"Absolutely not," he said. Zuko shrugged and tried to look as collected as possible.

"Well. Either way. I think the next Avatar will be an Airbender, whether they've been born yet or not."

"I agree with Li," Katara spoke up. "I think it is part of the Spirits bringing back balance. The Airbenders are just the start, and the Avatar will appear to ensure the balance soon."

She smiled at him. Zuko wanted to disappear, and desperately wished the conversation would shift.

"How do they find out who the Avatar is, anyway?" Katara asked, turning toward both Iroh and Piandao. "Besides...well, actually seeing someone bend all the elements."

"Tracking the births around the time of the previous Avatar's death, usually," Iroh answered. "The children would then be monitored. There are ways to discovering a past life, usually with the current incarnation reaching out for what is familiar."

"But without that knowledge, it is extremely difficult," Piandao added. "The Fire Sages once had more...spiritual means...of finding the approximate location of the Avatar spirit, but unfortunately, those means have mostly disappeared since the start of the war."

"We were tested with toys," Aang said, though his tone quickly saddened. "I knew the Avatar, back then. That's how they knew it was Ming."

A series a strange emotions ran through Zuko's stomach before he quickly decided to get up to bring another plate of rice to the table.

"While you're up, Nephew, can you bring us some more ginseng?"

"Yes, Uncle."

-oOo-

As the night pressed on, Zuko found himself sitting out in the small garden out back with Sokka. The two young men looked on as Katara and Aang took turns manipulating the little fountain with their Water- and Airbending. He admired how gentle she was with the boy, especially considering his circumstances, having woken up a hundred years out of reach from his friends and his people. Katara, from what Zuko could gather, was a very mothering personality. She cared for the boy deeply, and the boy, in turn, clearly looked up to her as if she was everything.

"You're not Earth Kingdom, are you?" Sokka asked. Zuko stiffened before he sighed.

"Nope."

"Kinda guessed it. I mean, you look very...Fire Nation-y."

"Uh, thanks?" Zuko took a sip of the rice wine, and beside him, Sokka did the same.

"And also, well, I was trying to figure out at what point you were able to train with Master Piandao...and I figured, probably in the Fire Nation, if you did it before the war. Don't really see him running over here for students in the middle of that mess."

"Well, you're right."

Sokka turned to face him.

"How long have you and your uncle been here, then?"

Zuko glanced over at Katara and Aang again before staring into his cup. "Here-here or just...out of the Fire Nation?"

"Both, if you don't mind."

"Well, uh-let's see. I was thirteen when we left. We traveled all over. Showed up to Ba Sing Se around the time I was sixteen, and we were around when the Comet happened. Left and came back a few times. I was in Yu Dao for a few months, got back in the spring."

"You were here during the Comet?"

"Yeah. Uncle and I were in the group that tried to rebuild. It was mostly his old people club, though."

"Old people club," Sokka repeated, barking out a laugh. "That's a good one!"

"How did you meet Master Piandao?" Zuko asked quickly, hoping to take the interrogation off of himself.

Sokka leaned back and drained the last of his rice wine. "Omashu. First Earth Kingdom city we'd really been in. Aang was all about riding the mail system-don't ask me-and he snuck away from Katara and I while we were trying to find us a place to stay. He ends up causing a whole ruckus, gets arrested, and it turned out the King remembered him! When they were kids! He was, like, a hundred."

Zuko stared at the kid. He was giggling and looked rather innocent in the moonlight. "Well, anyway, they were talking about some weird kooky things, and then Piandao was there. Guess they knew each other? He saw my boomerang," Sokka touched it at his side, "and we got to talking and I mentioned I'd always wanted to be a swordsman, but it wasn't really what we did in the Southern Water Tribe. And he agreed to teach me, just like that!"

"Wow," Zuko mused. "It was...very hard to get him to teach you in the Fire Nation. I had to petition for it for months, and..." he paused, wondering how much he should reveal. "My family, we were pretty high up, you know? I can't imagine what it would be like for a...regular person to ask him for instruction."

"Maybe that was the issue," Sokka said. "Maybe he didn't want to teach the high-ups!"

"Yeah...probably."

Katara and Aang wandered over. Aang was soaked from the knees down, but Katara easily waterbended the excess water away.

"Are you drunk, Sokka?"

"No," he said, but his breath smelled heavily of the wine. His sister wrinkled her nose.

"Well, we're going to bed. If you want to be up in time to tour the palace, I suggest you go to bed, too."

"Don't worry about me, Katara. Let me and Li have some man talk."

"Man talk?" Zuko repeated dubiously, while Katara rolled her eyes.

"Sure, Sokka. Goodnight, goodnight Li."

"Night."

When the door opened, Zuko could hear Iroh and Piandao's voice spilling into the garden. Zuko was thankful when it closed, and he was faced with the relative stillness of the night.

"I'm not going to tour the palace," Sokka said after a bit. "I was thinking...could we start tomorrow?"

"Sure. I'm helping Uncle with the tea shop in the morning, but I will be free after lunch."

"He's really your whole life, isn't he?" Sokka asked. "Your Uncle, I mean."

Zuko shrugged. "He's my only family I have left, really."

"...Are you sure you want to leave with us then? I have no idea when we'll be back."

"I've been away before. Once, I didn't see him for a year."

"If you're sure." Sokka set his empty drink aside. "I guess, Master Piandao did say that you needed to get out more. Or maybe he said your uncle said that. Not sure."

"It definitely came from Uncle."

"So...what about your...dad? Mom? Where are they in all of this?"

Zuko sighed, focusing on the now-empty fountain. "Dad is dead. Don't know what happened to Mom. She's probably dead too, though."

"Sorry buddy, I should have guessed," he said glumly. "Our mom's gone too. Raid when I was a kid."

"I'm sorry. You do seem close with your sister, though."

"Yeah. It's been just her and me for a long time. Dad went off to fight in the war after Mom died, and from then on, it was just me and Katara. When we found Aang, we knew both of us would have to go with him." Sokka paused. "Did you have any siblings? Cousins?"

"I do have a sister," Zuko said hesitantly. He didn't feel like lying. "We were never close, though, even before I...left."

"You should reach out to her. It's been years! Maybe she misses you," Sokka said encouragingly. Zuko grimaced. It didn't help that Sokka's words were increasingly blending together, or that every time he turned to face him, he took in a large whiff of alcohol. Sokka was only...what? A glass ahead of him? Two? He hadn't been paying much mind at dinner.

"Uh, I'll think about it."

"C'mon, let's write her a letter now-"

"You really are drunk."

"C'mon, Li, Li-Li, Li-Li-boy-"

"Spirits, Sokka, not now. Your sister is right; you should go to bed."

With a huff and the grace of a baby moose-lion, Sokka rose from the bench and made his way inside. Zuko stayed out on the bench a while longer, listening as Katara chided her brother somewhere above the shop. Iroh's hearty laugh sounded from within as he conversed with his old friend.

In two days, Zuko would head out of the city toward the Northern Air Temple. Anticipation filled him in a way it hadn't when he'd gone to Yu Dao.

Sokka and Katara were easy to like him, and easily likable themselves; Zuko did not dread traveling with them and the boy. But he had emptied himself for so long he wasn't sure if he could ever be as real and vibrant as them. He felt old and done. A ghost, really.

His father was dead. His sister was Fire Lord. The Airbenders were making their comeback, and now they had an Air Nomad, saved by the Spirits, to lead them. As far as Zuko was concerned, he'd reached his destiny, and now he was just waiting for it all to come to a close.

Yet, he was propelled forward.

He didn't go inside until Piandao had retired and Iroh called him in.

-oOo-