Zuko endured the expected round of internal criticism that night. I made her suspicious of me again. Worse, I told her she was right. Shouldn't I have let her go on not noticing me? I'm not friends with her. Why should I care what she thinks of herself?

He yawned and turned over in his blankets. He was tired; the voices lacked strength. They could inspire no more than a mild flopping feeling in his stomach, nothing like the gut-sinking guilt he was used to. Maybe we're a little bit alike, he admitted. She reminded me of me. If I could go back in time and talk to myself, I would have said those things. His thoughts were becoming soft, fuzzy, dreamlike. Even in that state, they had the power to push the critical voices away. The flopping stopped. He went to sleep peacefully.

His dreams that night were full of confusion, but not frightened confusion. He did not dream of being chased or hunted. He simply wandered from setting to setting, knowing there was some mystery he must solve. In some dreams he was looking for a person. In others, an object. In yet others, he had no idea what he was looking for but knew that he would recognize it when he saw it.

There was one dream where he was looking for a dragon. A guard delivered news that a traveling zoo camped inside the palace had had a dragon break free. Zuko roamed the palace looking for it. There was a dragon inside the palace. Where was it? He looked everywhere and couldn't find it.

.

The next morning, Sokka awoke with a sneeze. Momo had curled up on his chest and was flicking at Sokka's nose with his tail. He leaped off of Sokka's chest at the sneeze. Sokka rubbed his nose and groaned. He hated being awoken so suddenly.

But it had its benefits. Sokka crawled out of his tent and looked around. Nobody else was awake yet. He got his sword and went out to do an early morning patrol.

"Hyaa!" With quiet but still fierce cries, he parted the bushes with his sword. Nothing stirred. He challenged a tree. The source of the faint noise turned out to be an owl, which flew away silently. Sokka ended his patrol on a small hill. There were no other campers in sight. He nodded decisively. The area was firebender-free.

Or so he thought, until he returned to the campsite and remembered that they had firebenders traveling with them. Zuko slept peacefully in his blankets. Sokka frowned and made to pass him.

At the last second, he stopped. Did he want to make peace, or didn't he? Did he trust Iroh as a wise mentor in the art of leadership, or not? He did not like Zuko at all. There was no friendly feeling to be found between them, nor did they have any common ground. But, if he wanted to be the kind of person he wanted to be, he might just have to swallow his pride and find some. Sokka wanted to dismiss that as impossible, as he had always dismissed it before. But the strange conversation last night proved it was possible. He was obligated to try. If he didn't give it at least one try, Dad would be disappointed.

Sokka knelt down and nudged Zuko's shoulder with the hilt of his sword. The firebender awoke instantly, snapping his eyes up to look at whoever had awoken him with such an intensity that Sokka nearly jumped. For a moment, he looked almost…afraid? But then he saw it was Sokka and went back to his usual Angry Jerk self. "What do you want?"

There was one thing they had in common: they were both brothers. "I wanted to ask about your sister," Sokka said.

"Why?"

"I don't like the way you talked about her," Sokka told him. "You called her a monster. I can't imagine calling Katara a monster."

"Azula is nothing like Katara." Zuko pushed his blankets aside and sat up. "I may not get along with her, but I know Katara's just trying to look out for her people. Azula would never do that. She doesn't care about anyone but herself. Her 'friends' are really just her cronies, tools that she can use to do whatever she wants. She is manipulative and cruel, and she's been like that ever since she was a toddler."

Sokka crossed his arms. "So she's a brat. That doesn't make her any less family."

"My family is different from yours," Zuko explained. "My dad doesn't show affection with hugs and tears and all that soft stuff; he shows it with expectations. And we show our affection with obedience. I'm the older brother. She should listen to me. But she doesn't - she plays tricks on me every chance she gets, manipulates me, smiles when I disappoint Dad. She has no affection for me at all. Why should I expect anything from her?"

"Seriously? You sound like you have a drill sergeant, not a family."

"We just do things differently," Zuko repeated.

Sokka really, really doubted that. What kind of a father wouldn't even hug his kids? It sounded terrible, the opposite of everything Sokka knew about families. But then… Fire Nation culture was different. It didn't have communities where everybody sat down to share dinner. It was harsh and cold, and people didn't need each other as much. Sokka decided not to say anything. Zuko was right. It was just another example of cultural difference, and if he wanted to be the bigger man he had to show respect.

Sokka tried to remember how that conversation had gone. He hadn't paid much attention, except to be amazed at Zuko talking like someone reasonable and not being a jerk for once. But he was pretty sure he remembered a lot of questions being exchanged. So he asked, "So if she doesn't respect you and obey you, she's a monster?"

Zuko's glare tightened. "That's not what I said. You're twisting my words."

What? Sokka had done nothing but try to repeat his words! "You just said she should listen to you because you're her big brother, but she doesn't, so why should you care? That's literally what you said just now."

"She treats me worse than she treats her friends, and they're just tools to her. She doesn't care about anyone, family or not. That's why she's a monster."

Sokka looked him over suspiciously. He wouldn't put it past Zuko to have been a big jerk to his little sister and earned her disrespect. If he was as domineering at home as he was on the bison, all high-and-mighty expecting everyone to do what he wanted just because he was prince, Sokka could totally see why he got no respect and Azula got her fun from laughing at him. There was no reason to think he was telling the truth.

But it would be polite not to say so to his face. "Sounds monstrous," Sokka agreed. "I totally see why you talk about your sister like she's something you scraped off your shoe."

Zuko looked away. "You don't believe me."

"I am an impartial judge," Sokka declared. "I insist on hearing both sides before I make up my mind."

"Impartial my butt. I don't know why I even bothered." Zuko shook his head and stood up. "Excuse me. I need to use the bathroom."

Sokka smiled as he did minor chores to start getting ready for travel. As far as he could tell, he'd had a pretty good conversation.

.

Iroh woke up from a very good sleep. His back popped pleasantly as he stretched. The air, though cool, was not too cold in his new robes. It was a wonderful start to the day. After yesterday, Iroh was determined that it stay that way for once. He snuck away from camp to find Zuko and have a talk with him.

Camp had been made next to a patch of woods. As Iroh's eyes adjusted to the morning gloom, he spotted Zuko crouching on the leafy forest floor, doing something. What was he doing? Was he…lifting a half-rotted log and poking around beneath it with a stick?

Zuko abruptly dropped the log and the stick. He leaped to his feet. "Uncle? What are you doing here?"

Iroh raised his hands. "I didn't mean to interrupt."

"I wasn't doing anything."

Iroh could only suspect that there was something important under the log. He hadn't known Zuko to indulge in a boy's idle curiosity in, well, forever. Well, whatever was beneath the log was sure to have run away by now. Iroh went to sit on it. "Let's sit."

Zuko sat to his left with crossed arms. When they had made themselves comfortable, Iroh began. "I've been thinking about what you said yesterday. It's not unreasonable. I worry about how the Earth Kingdom would react if we lost, too."

"Probably plunder and pillage," Zuko said. "They'd seek to bring us down, humiliate us."

"And you worry that if this happened, the Avatar would do nothing."

"He's a kid who doesn't know anything. He's a master airbender, and that's it. That's all he's good at."

"War has a way of making people grow up quickly," Iroh said. "Don't discount him so quickly, Zuko. By war's end, he'll be much more of a proper Avatar."

Zuko's hand tightened on his arm. "Strong enough to defeat my father, you mean."

"In other ways, too."

"If you're right, then the person I would be turning to for help would be the same person who killed my father. Don't deny it, Uncle; we know there's going to be a battle. That's what being defeated in battle means. I am not going to stoop so low as to ask for help from him."

Iroh closed his eyes. That was true. At this point, there was no peaceful way to end the war. Ozai had to be stopped. He wouldn't change his mind, and he wouldn't be allowed to change his mind even if he wanted to. A former warlord could not just turn around and make peace with the people whose livelihoods he had destroyed. Forgiveness was a powerful thing, but it had limits and should not be relied on.

"I understand. You have much more than patriotic interests at stake in the war," he told Zuko. "You, more than anyone else, want it to be won by the Fire Nation. Anything else would be very painful."

Zuko squeezed his eyes shut. He was in terrible pain already. "But I helped him. I taught him about firebending and earthbending. How could I do that?"

Iroh put an arm around his shoulders. "It's hard to balance, isn't it?"

Zuko nodded. "What do I do, Uncle? If I get friendly, I accidentally help him. If I don't, everyone yells at me and calls me a jerk. I know you hate it when there's a big fight. But I like it when there's a fight. It's the only time I feel safe."

Iroh's cheeks grew hot. And here he was, hunting down his nephew so he could persuade Zuko to be friendlier and not have any more fights. From his perspective, things were a lot simpler than they were from Zuko's. Iroh tried to remember that.

"I don't know what you should do," he admitted.

Zuko sighed. "That's what I thought. The truth is…"

Iroh waited. And waited. "What is it?"

Slowly, Zuko shook his head. "It doesn't matter. Nobody can do anything about it anyway." He stood up. "Come on, Uncle. We've got more flying to do."

.

Meanwhile, Aang noticed that both of the firebenders had disappeared. He guessed why, and realized this was his own chance to correct his mistakes. He had promised to do the duty of the Avatar, and Zuko had said he didn't trust that promise. That hurt. The thought of letting people down was more than Aang could bear. He had to earn that trust back.

"Guys," he said, gathering Sokka, Katara, and Momo in a tight huddle. "I have something I need to say."

Sokka cut in. "You don't need to worry. Everything is under control."

Despite himself, Aang said, "Really?"

"Yeah. I had a nice conversation with Angry Jerk this morning. Katara made pals with him last night. We're good. There won't be any more fights."

"I am not friends with him," Katara disagreed. "I don't know what that was."

"Are you sure, Sokka?" Aang asked. "Everything is tricky with him. I don't think anything's settled."

"Definitely not," Katara agreed.

Sokka sighed. "I'm outnumbered. Fine. What do you think we should do?"

Katara nodded to Aang, inviting him to speak. Aang smiled back at her. He puffed his chest proudly. "I know how we can stop the fighting. You guys have to stop blaming Zuko for things he didn't do. He'll open up if he knows we'll be friendly."

Sokka and Katara went quiet again. They shared a look. "Guys?" Aang asked. "What's wrong?"

"It's not that easy," Sokka said. "Letting him control us feels exactly like letting them raid us. I'm a warrior. It's not in my blood to let things like that happen. I might as well join a circus."

"He didn't order the raids. He wasn't involved with any of it," Aang tried to say.

"It's not reasonable. It's instinct." Katara blushed. "I want to be reasonable, but you can't just ignore instinct. It feels so real. And he told me it was real. Zuko himself said that I should trust my instincts."

Sokka shrugged. "If the man himself says we should listen to our guts, who am I to argue?"

"But that leads to fighting!"

"Well…" Sokka scratched his head. "Okay. I'll try to remember that he didn't kill our mom."

Aang looked to Katara. She nodded slowly. "I don't think I'll have any more fights with him."

"Please," Aang asked. "How can I save the world if people don't trust me? I have to keep my promise. I know it's hard to be nice to someone who reminds you of bad people, but… Can you try?"

"Oh, Aang." Katara wrapped him in a hug. "We're not the sort of people he said we were. We do want peace. You're not alone."

Aang hugged her back. "Thank you."

"It's probably not going to work, though." Sokka shook his head sadly. "I don't want to bring everyone down, but it's the truth. Being nice and friendly goes both ways. If he doesn't bother, I don't see why we should."

"That's exactly what he said."

Katara took Aang by the shoulders. "Ignore Sokka. I have a good feeling. Things will be different from now on."

.

"I have an idea," Zuko announced. "You people do whatever you want, and I'll burn sacks. We don't have to get in each other's hair anymore." He took a piece of sackcloth out of his pack, leaned against the side of the saddle with the cloth on his knee, and lit it.

Due to diplomatic difficulties, Sokka was at the reins. He insisted he'd had a good conversation, but somehow nobody believed that. Katara and Aang looked at each other hopefully. "That's a great idea," she said. "Keep it up."

Momo peeked in from Zuko's side to see what he was doing. His ears flattened back against his head at the sight of fire, and he ran to Aang. "Don't worry, Momo." Aang patted his head. "He's really good at the cloth exercise."

Momo raised his ears, then lowered them again. His left ear flicked sideways. "Huh." Katara studied him. "Hey Zuko?"

"Didn't we just agree that it was a good idea to stay out of each other's hair?"

"You can keep burning the cloth. I just wanted to know if you had any tips on how to speak lemur."

"The important parts are the ears, tail, and arms," Zuko muttered. "The arms express specific requests, the ears express general feelings, and the tail expresses more specific feelings if the situation's complicated. Listen mostly with your eyes, and try not to talk."

Katara did as advised. She listened with her eyes and did not speak. However, she kept her gaze firmly on Zuko. What was going on with him? More than ever, she wanted to pry him open. There was so much more to him than she'd ever suspected. An accident that nobody but he witnessed and nobody else believed. A mysterious childhood friend that nobody had ever heard of or seen. Ironically, she was less afraid of him now. The more secrets he kept, the more he started to seem like those spooky spirit boogeymen from her childhood who lurked in the darkness to snatch children who wandered away from camp. Katara had always questioned where they came from and what they wanted, but no adult would tell her. They emerged from the darkness and disappeared into it, leaving behind nothing but myth.

What myth was Zuko hiding?

If he had been sitting around like normal, she might have gotten some clues. But she could see nothing with him busily concentrating on the cloth. Frustrating!

Katara turned her gaze on Momo. The lemur looked up at her. His ears lowered and his tail curled around his legs. She realized she must be looking at him very forcefully. "Don't worry, Momo. I'm just trying to understand you."

Momo chattered and held out his hands. Specific requests. What was he asking for? Could it be...a distraction? A distraction would help him feel less scared from being watched. Katara gave him a fruit and watched his tail as he examined it. Momo's tail flicked just before he knocked on the fruit to see if it was ripe. His tail remained high and alert as he experimentally nibbled. Then it relaxed and swished back and forth along the saddle in a steady rhythm as he tore through the fruit with gusto.

"Huh. I never noticed his tail before," Aang said.

Katara burned inside. What kind of childhood friend that wasn't a lemur could have taught him to speak lemur? She felt like she might explode if she didn't find out.

"Katara?"

"What does 'like a lemur but not' mean?" she muttered.

"A cat, perhaps?" Iroh suggested.

No. A mere cat was not befitting of the half-myth background he now possessed. If it was a cat, there would be no need to be so vague. The mysterious childhood friend had to be something that he did not want to describe. Something unbelievable, perhaps? Did he avoid describing them because he knew from past experience that nobody would think he was telling the truth? Was this mysterious friend also behind the mysterious accident?

If Zuko had seen the kind of gaze Katara leveled on him, he might have leaped from the saddle wings or no wings. But he did not. He breathed and burned his cloth, and no matter how hard Katara looked she could see nothing at all.

.

Iroh was having great fun enticing Momo to play and watching how his tail moved when Katara cried out in frustration. "Ugh!" she yelled. "I take it back. Burning that cloth is the worst thing you could possibly do! It's even worse than crossing your arms and refusing to say anything - I can't find out anything about you at all!"

Zuko smiled. "Really? That's the best news I've ever heard." He brushed ash off his knees and continued to burn cloth with a smile on his face.

"I know you're hiding something important about that mysterious friend of yours!"

"Sorry, I'm too busy to hear you."

"Gah!" Katara looked ready to explode. It was a good thing they weren't passing any clouds.

"Maybe you should switch with Sokka," the Avatar suggested.

"Maybe I should." With one last glance at Zuko, she traded places with her brother.

"I thought of something just now," Sokka said as soon as he was in the saddle. He asked Iroh, "You know his sister, right?"

"Somewhat."

"Is she really a manipulative monster who treats her friends like tools and her family even worse?"

Really? Was that what Zuko thought of his sister? Iroh would have liked to be surprised, but he wasn't. "Azula takes after their father, unfortunately," Iroh said. "Ruthlessly practical, and with very high standards. She'll go to great lengths to make things happen the way she wants them to happen, even if that means treating others - and herself - harshly in the process."

"Things are never the way she wants them to be," Zuko added. "She always has to be better. She never stops plotting and training. She never sits back and relaxes. She never lets herself get distracted." His tone got increasingly bitter as he spoke, until he grunted and raced to repress the fire on his knee.

"So she's a workaholic," Sokka said. "Now why does that sound familiar?"

Zuko growled. "I am not like she is." He muttered something under his breath.

Sokka paid no attention. "Thanks," he said to Iroh. "I thought the description I got was one-sided. I needed to hear another side before I would decide anything about her. I am the spirit of impartial."

Zuko concentrated on his cloth with an intensity that could have torn it to shreds. But he said nothing and did not start a fight. Iroh's spirits rose. Zuko had described the need for something as absorbing as Pai Sho, but that could be used while flying. The cloth burning exercise was exactly what he needed!

"I hope we don't have to meet her," he said. "That would mean something bad was happening."

Aang shivered. "Me too. She sounds scarier than Zuko." Momo chattered. He hopped onto Aang's shoulder and nuzzled him. "Thanks, Momo."

Iroh knew Azula to be a dangerous patch of territory, one that made Zuko angry to even consider crossing. But thanks to the cloth burning exercise, Zuko said nothing and did not start a fight. That was good. Progress was being made!

.

She doesn't sit back and relax. She doesn't let herself get distracted. In other words, she's better than me.

The critical voices were back and at full power. Thanks to the cloth burning exercise, Zuko could not find any relief or distraction. He was trapped with them. His cloth was on the verge of exploding. It was a struggle to keep breathing properly.

I get distracted too easily. I sit around and relax like some lazy do-nothing idiot. I can't devote myself to my training the way she can. If I could, I would be just as good as her. But I can't. I don't have the self-discipline.

Zuko forced himself to breathe properly and reminded himself that he was practicing right now. He concentrated on burning the cloth. This was the only form of training he had ever seemed to have a real knack for. He couldn't let himself be distracted from this, of all things.

So, for the first time in a long, long time, he resisted the critical voices. I can get better. I beat the Avatar. That proves that I can do it. I'm not going to fall behind. The end of the thread he was burning glowed and turned to ash.

The critical voices abated. But they did not disappear. As Zuko lit a new thread, he found himself thinking about how Azula would never bother with such slow and useless training before he even realized it. He forced those thoughts away. No! This training is valuable. It's good for something. I have to believe that. He had to believe that this thing he was good at had worth. Or else it would join everything else he liked as something he couldn't have, and he would be left alone with the critical voices again.

On some level, he was scared. What would they do to him if he was left all alone with them? On a much, much deeper level, he knew the answer.

So he finished the thread, took the cloth off his knee, and held it out to Iroh. "Uncle, look at this. I've burned nearly half of it."

Iroh smiled proudly, and Zuko felt just a little bit less afraid.