Zuko feels another presence in his dreams.
DAY 15: CAN YOU FEEL ME?
The dreams always start the same.
He walks the path along the edge of a rocky cliff. It's the one his mother brought him to as a child on the rare occasion they visited her family in the countryside. A lush expanse of greenery extends out to his left, as far as the eye can see. In the distance, koala sheep graze tall reed sweet grasses. To his right rests the ocean, a sparkling sapphire in Agni's morning light. A fierce wind ripples the fields of grass, but it does not touch his skin. An eerie stillness follows him like a shadow.
Some days, he walks toward something. Other days, he walks away from something. He doesn't know what.
All he knows is the fear coursing through his veins, a panic tightening in his chest that makes him want to shout or run or do something. It consumes him, this sense that something is wrong. But the grass ripples and the ocean sparkles and all is still, and his feet will not allow him to do anything but stroll the cliffside trail.
It should be peaceful, this. But peace is far from his mind.
The first time he hears the voice, it startles him awake, gasping and frantic. But he is alone in his overlarge bed in his overlarge bedroom.
And like all things in this neverending recurring dream sequence, the first time is not the last time.
He hears it every night now. Can almost feel the breath tickling his ear as it whispers to him.
"Jump, Zuko."
He tries to ask it what it means, but his voice is lost to the sands of the dream.
"Jump, Zuko."
With each passing night, he becomes increasingly certain that he's heard that voice in his waking life.
"Jump, Zuko."
It's not a disembodied voice, he realizes. It's another presence, somewhere in this purgatory. He attempts to seek out the source of it, but to no avail. It is as if it has seeped into his skull, buried itself in the recesses of his mind.
Until it isn't.
"Can you feel me, Zuko?"
He blinks. Stops walking. He stops walking.
"Can you feel me? I'm right here. Jump."
The voice is coming from the ocean.
"Jump, Zuko."
A sense of calm settles over him like a blanket for the first time since these dreams began months ago. Gone is the fear constricting his chest, replaced only by a cool determination—its origins unknown.
So he breathes in, breathes out, and jumps. And the wind does whip against his skin as he plunges toward the sea below.
He wakes up.
He makes a decision.
Three days later, he puts a face to the voice when she threatens his life in the ruins of the Western Air Temple.