AN: Age reminders: Azula and Ty Lee are 10, Mai is 11. You know you're in for a pet-safe chapter whenever I post those particular reminders.
Also, a reminder that the Gaang skipped over meeting Jeong-Jeong because The Almighty Schedule didn't allow for Fire Festival side trips.
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Chapter 32: Hahn's Awesome Day (is Zuko's Funeral)Caldera City was draped in white.
General Iroh's ship docked on a cloudy morning, the sky itself shrouded with Agni's own grief. Fire Lord Ozai and Princess Azula made a somber procession as they went to greet the last member of their family. None could hear the words exchanged on that dock; they saw only a hug between brothers, and the respectful bow of a mourning young girl to her mourning uncle.
"I postponed the funeral for you," Ozai hugged his elder brother close, and whispered into his ear. "Thank you for your support in these trying times, brother. I am sure you know how painful it is to lose a son."
They saw the General's face contort in grief so strong it could have been rage. He did not embrace his brother back. Misplaced decorum? Perhaps even a spurning of his Fire Lord's kindness?
No, the dockhands whispered; the barbarians crushed the Dragon's talons.
Maimed one prince and murdered another. The Earth Kingdom had much to answer for.
%%%
The Northern capital sparkled white under the sun. Hahn jumped to the dock before they'd even stopped moving; it was too nice of a day to stay and help tie up. He had places to be, people to be engaged to. His old man was going to be a little peeved he wasn't back in time for the birthday bash, but he'd be less peeved when the porters dragged home all the tiger-seals he'd caught. And the polar bear goose. A white feather-pelt like that would look stunning wrapped up around his Yue at their wedding, and he was already making the story bigger in his head, spinning it into a legendary tale of heroism and daring and at the center, humble hero Hahn. She would hang on his every word, gasp at just the right places—
A little bald kid in way too thin eye-stabbingly bright clothes bumped into Humble Hero Hahn.
"Sorry!" the kid said, and kept dragging some super shabbily dressed girl after him. Where had she even found a parka as worn-out and old-fashioned as that, her grandmother's closet? "Katara, you can't stab our waterbending teacher—"
"Oh, I won't," the girl said through her teeth. "He's not my teacher."
"Katara."
And then they said some more stuff, but Hahn was too busy being in love. Precious Yue forgive him, but the most beautiful sight in the world was before his eyes.
"—if he won't teach you, then I quit too! We'll—"
He just… couldn't tear his eyes away. Those sharp edges, those curves—
"No Aang, you have to learn—"
That blue, that white, that red and yellow and green, glinting like the northern lights held in one woman's hand—
"So do you!"
That dagger was made for him.
"How much?" Hahn asked, and he only had eyes for his newest acquisition.
The fashion-deprived girl narrowed her eyes at him, giving herself super unsexy forehead crinkles. "Half a day in a pirate's hold," she snapped.
"...Bwa?"
"Excuse me, I need to go know my place." She shoved past him, and didn't apologize. Hahn watched the dagger leave, and sighed.
It would look amazing on him. So would the girl, if she wasn't so much of a man. Not like his sweet Yue.
%%%
The royal palanquins progressed through city streets lined with people. In his grief, Ozai had ordered the empty litter placed first—the Fire Lord's position. The symbolism was not lost on those who touched forehead to stone as it passed. They mourned for the nation's lost future; for the Fire Lord they could have had.
The final steps up to the palace were lined in honor regiments representing all arms of the military: a squad of elite benders from the army's 82nd Division; the navy's Southern Raiders; the air corps' 1st Division in their new uniforms. Even Commander Shinu had spared a small detachment of Yuyan from the war effort. The Hiyokezaru and Usagi squads stood at attention as the palanquins were carried past, their division's legendary silence rendered common by the silence all around them.
The governor of New Ozai had even returned home; it was rumored that his daughter had been a close personal friend to both princess and the late prince, a rumor rapidly confirmed when the grieving Fire Princess took her hand and entreated her to ride in her very own palanquin, so that she would not be alone on this day.
"...And apparently mother thinks it's a charming idea, she always wanted a son she can give back if she gets bored," Mai droned, behind the safety of the curtains. Loud enough to be heard over Ty Lee's sniffles, but quiet enough not to be heard by the peasants outside as they bowed and scraped for royalty who couldn't even see them. Zuko least of all. "So I'll have a crippled Earth Kingdom commoner sharing my tutors when I get back. Yay."
Ty Lee sobbed, and clutched at Azula's hand. Azula tolerated the movement, but did nothing to encourage it.
"So New Ozai is as dull as you feared?"
"Worse." She propped her chin on her fist, and turned her face to the closed off window. "...Dad's petitioning to change the name to New Zuko."
"Now that is just tacky. Not that his first attempt at buttering father wasn't equally appalling."
"Tell me about it."
Ty Lee made a horrifying movement, like she was going to lean into Azula's shoulder and cry. Azula put a firm stop to that with a palm to the girl's forehead, and an equally firm shove back. "Ty Lee, please. Some of us are going to be on stage for the next three hours. I do not need snot-creases ironed into my shoulder."
The girl looked horrid dressed in white instead of her customary pinks. Like a bleached coral, dead on the sand. "Aren't you two sad?"
Mai shrugged, and declined to turn her face away from the closed window.
Azula rolled her eyes. "What would it help if I were? Oh, don't cry more—"
%%%
Sokka was on a mission. He strutted through the city, over ice-streets and ice-bridges, past towering architectural ice-marvels, following the flow of traffic like he would in any port town until the snowmelt trickles of foot traffic merged into streams, into rivers, and let out into—
The main market. He paused a moment to take in a nice frost-tinged breath, appreciating the sight of so many Water Tribesman in one place. Blue and purple and white, everywhere. Just… going about their day, in their giant waterbent city, as if he'd taken a step back a hundred years. Had this been what the South Pole had looked like?
...Was this what they could have been like, if they'd stayed out of the war?
Was this what they could still be like, if the North had answered their calls for aid? Or would this city just be a scattering of hand-packed ice-huts, too?
Bad thoughts, Prince Sokka. Bad thoughts. He was not on a Subtle Historical Resentments Shimmering Under All His Interactions With The Northern Council Mission, he was on a Girl Mission. A Girl Gift Acquisition Mission. Specifically: a ribbon acquisition mission. And there he spied, at that fine shop of necklaces and other glittery things, a whole line up. But did they have one worthy of his beautiful Yue? Perhaps that one, so dark blue it was nearly black. His stretched his hands towards it—
And had it snatched away.
"How much?" some teenager with fabulous hair and a steel-cut jaw asked.
"Excuse me," Sokka tapped his shoulder. "I was reaching for that one."
"And I reached it first," the teen said, throwing money on the table.
"That," Sokka said, "is the point I am trying to address—"
The teenager looked him up and down, and smirked. "Wow, nice coat. Did your grandmother make it?"
"Yeah, she did," Sokka puffed out his chest proudly. "I helped hunt the mink-wolverine for the collar—wait a minute, was that an insult? Were you insulting my Gran-Gran? Hey! Hey, come back here!"
The teen flicked a wave over his shoulder in an objectively cool, completely dismissive wave. Fine, whatever. Sokka would buy the white one. It matched Yue's Appa-hair anyway and was therefore the superior option. He couldn't let one no-name completely inconsequential probably-never-gonna-see-him-again jerkface ruin his shopping experience. And ooo, was that a whole stand of pet sweaters?
Hahn walked off humming, slipping the betrothal pendant to its new ribbon.
%%%
Years and years ago when people still called her a child, there had been an assassination attempt on grandfather. This was back before her own branch of the family had become important enough to attract such killers, though the man had come through their apartments on the way to more politically relevant targets. Perhaps he hadn't thought there would be as many guards there, or he'd thought that father hadn't already started pulling the court's strings to ensure his family got the very best.
Azula had slipped her nanny and her mother, and tugged on Zuko's hand, and they'd gotten to the hall in time to see the blood still wet on the floorboards. Zuzu had promptly cried, thus ruining their stealth, and mother had wrapped them both up in hugs and scolded their nanny and taken them, quote, away from that awful place, end quote. It had all been very dramatic. Azula had craned her neck over her shoulder, trying to get one last glimpse, trying to see.
The blood had looked the same as it did on the kitchen chopping boards, no different even though it was human and everyone acted like humans were more special.
Zuzu had cried, which told her here was something to cry about, even if it was by his own admittedly low threshold. Azula hadn't felt anything at all.
Maybe if she saw the death for herself, she would feel different.
%%%
Katara took her place in the half-circle of girls, feeling… tall. Awkwardly tall. This was clearly a basic lesson meant for the tribe's youngest girls. Should she tell the teacher she'd been helping set bones and brew teas and birth babes since before she could remember? She didn't need a basic first aid lecture—
And then the healer wrapped her hands in water, and it glowed.
Waterbending could heal. Uncle's hands, Zuko's scar—
The little girls around her tittered as she asked question after question. The old master, Yugoda, smiled and invited her to stay for the intermediate class. It would have taken the town guards to drag Katara away from the advanced lesson after that, with real live patients.
"Bring the water to the wound, and let your chi reach to theirs," Yugoda guided her. "Don't be frustrated if it doesn't connect immediately, some girls work for weeks to—"
The water glowed. Under her palms, energy flowed, hers and her patient's, and it wasn't really that the water was healing, it was that the water allowed the mixing, let a part of her know what was wrong and how it should be and let her guide their body to rebuild—
When she sat back to wipe the sweat from her forehead, Yugoda was smiling at her again. "You have a gift, Katara."
Fighting was important, but she'd been fighting since she left the South Pole. Fighting and winning.
This… this was important, too. And it felt incredible.
%%%
Azula knew what to do during a state funeral. She'd already practiced on grandfather's. It wasn't difficult: sit, bow at the appropriate intervals, look like a princess of the blood, don't do anything to muss her hair or robes. She hoped it didn't rain; if she was expected to be stoic, then great great great grandfather Agni had better keep his act together, too.
In the first rows of the audience—sorry, the mourners—Mai was doing her best impression of the low-maintenance daughter her parents had always wanted. Nearby, Ty Lee was sobbing enough for three people and a Sun God.
Uncle sat next to her on the stage. He bowed at the appropriate intervals, shuffling his broken hands from his lap to the ground and back again. He cried as little as her and father, but he made it look completely different and she didn't know how.
%%%
Zuko had never thought that being in the middle of an enemy nation's capital could be so boring. Aang and Katara were at their bending training, and he wasn't allowed to go with because there would be a lot of waterbenders intimidated by his ability to melt their city. It wasn't his fault their architecture was temperature-dependent. Sokka was supposed to be staying with him to protect him from the guards, but he kept remembering things for his stupid date with the scheming northern princess and then he'd run out and come back with pet sweaters.
Fire Flake huddled inside her penguin-otter hoodie, her wings stretched out inside the little black sleeves like she didn't even recognize them as part of her body anymore. At least she looked warm? Warm was the temperature of fresh trauma, right? Zuko was pretty sure that was right.
"Now I know I promised Appa Mark III to you, nephson, but—"
"I don't want your dumb carving," Zuko said, from his place sprawled spread-eaglelion on some kind of white fluffy-feathery animal skin spread in front of the fireplace. Momo was curled up on his chest, gnawing at the feet of his turtle-seal onesie. "Throw it off an ice bridge for all I care."
"But I promise you that Appa Mark IV is yours, just as soon as I carve it—"
"I said I don't care! And isn't that some sort of betrothal custom?"
"It's a what now?" Sokka asked, pausing as he strung the carving onto a ribbon, which was the point where Aang came in. "Hey, Master-Waterbender-in-Training Number Two! Where's Master-Waterbender-in-Training Number One?"
"Uh… isn't she back yet? I thought her class was just for the morning." The Avatar looked around like maybe they were just hiding her. Zuko glared up at him from the floor, on principle. "I really hope she didn't stab anyone," Aang said, with that nervous I-hope-I'm-Joking laugh he did sometimes.
"...Who did she try to stab?" Sokka asked.
"What did they do to deserve it?" Zuko found more relevant.
Which is when Aang explained that apparently waterbending girls didn't really learn waterbending in the North. He made it sound all bad and stuff, but Zuko was sitting up and leaning towards him.
"Waterbending can heal? How much? Can it do bones and stuff? What if the injury is a few weeks old, can it still heal then—"
"I don't know," Aang waved his hands, interrupting. "I'm not learning that stuff!"
"Why not?"
"I… don't know," he said, letting his hands drop. "Maybe Master Pakku was saving it for later?"
"Come on. Let's go find Katara." Zuko stood, catching turtle-seal Momo by the stuffed shell as the lemur fell, his wings not working so well inside the flippers. Zuko put him on his shoulder, and made for the door. As soon as he pushed it open, the nearest guard looked down on him. And narrowed his eyes. And cleared his throat.
"Fine." Zuko slammed the door, and promptly made for the window.
Sokka caught him by the hood. "Nu-uh. No ditching the guards without an escort."
"Aang will be with me!"
"I will? Yeah, I will!"
"No ditching the guards without an escort who has an attention span longer than a ferret-wasp in a flower field."
"Awww," Aang ruled himself out.
"Why don't you come with me, then?"
"First off? Not climbing out the ice window to my icy wall-climbing-and-failing-to-climb doom. Second? I have a date. I love you nephson, but I don't third-man-on-a-sled-for-two love you."
"What does that even mean?"
"And third," Sokka said, completely ignoring the question, "no you are not sneaking out the second I'm gone. Let's not antagonize your nice northern cousins, shall we?"
"They are not my cousins."
"Yeah, cousins would be weird." He was making his dreamy ensorcelled by an evil princess eyes again.
"Uggh. Your date isn't even until sundown!"
"Which is really soon. North Pole, not equator. Just after the Winter Solstice, not the Summer. And a gentleman does not leave a lady waiting, particularly when a gentleman is mildly afraid of mis-remembering the specific ice bridge the lady designated for their rendezvous, so a gentleman is going to spend a quantity of time we will not specify casually strolling in the general vicinity just in time to coincidentally bump into her on the way."
"It's okay, Zuko, I'll ask all your questions for you," Aang said. "I should probably get going anyway if I'm going to have time to visit the healer's hut, Master Pakku said something about bending me into an ice block for another hundred years if I was late coming back from break." The airbender laughed his I'm sure it was just a joke (I'm not sure at all) laugh.
Zuko flopped back on the animal skin rug by the fire. Momo bounced down next to him, legs kicking as he tried to get off his shelled back.
"Zuko," Sokka said. "You're staying in this room, right?"
"You really think the guards wouldn't notice me sneaking out?" Zuko huffed, in complete non-answer.
"Zuko."
"How would I even make it across the city when I have no clue where I'm going?" Zuko continued to not answer.
"Zuko I will drag you on this date if I have to. Please don't make me, Zuko."
Zuko rolled over, and buried his face in the fur-feather rug. "It's too cold anyway."
Which continued to not be an answer, but Sokka seemed to take it for agreement. Or enough agreement that, after fussing with his hair and clothes for another fifteen minutes, he finally left. So did Aang. Zuko peeked up over the rug's foof as the door closed.
How hard could navigating an icy city full of firebender-hating tribesman be? He double-checked the buttons on his coat, straightened his scarf, and took the stupid costume off of his lemur-hat before pulling his hood up. Fire Flake chirped entreatingly.
"Stay warm, girl," he said, and went out the window.
%%%
Not long after the assassination attempt, a royal ostrich-horse, one of the feathery beasts gifted to them by some Earth King trying to curry favor, broke its leg. Some noble had taken it joyriding over particularly craggy volcanic grounds. Azula wouldn't have cared, except that she heard the courtiers gossiping: apparently these creatures were as weak as the kingdom they hailed from. They could not heal from a broken leg, and the animal would need to be put down.
Azula watched the stablemaster crone sweet things into its ear as she slipped the knife in. The woman closed her eyes and kept stroking the dead thing's feathers for a long time after. Clearly this was a very moving experience, but Azula still didn't feel anything.
Perhaps would feel different, to kill with her own hand.
%%%
Some bumpkin bumped into Hahn in the palace hall. Hahn magnanimously allowed him to pass without body-checking him back, even though the scrawny guy was glaring at him like he'd—oh, it was the ribbon guy! And there really weren't many reasons a man would be shopping for empty ribbon necklaces, unless he had a hand-made pendant he needed to string.
"Good luck with your girl," Hahn said, patting his fellow dude's shoulders, in benevolent solidarity.
"Uh… thanks? Listen, I guess we got off on the wrong sled track earlier. I'm Sokka."
"Hahn. Nice to meet you, Soaka."
"...Sokka."
Hahn saw his dad, beckoning from down the hall. "See you around, Soaka."
"Sokka. Prince Sokka!"
Hahn turned back around, walking backwards and smirking. It was a little early, but he was just a signed contract and a rock around a girl's throat away from it being official. Close enough. "Prince Hahn. And mine isn't fake."
"Neither is mine!"
Wow, Sokka thought, as the Ribbon Thief disappeared into the council chamber. Yue's brother is a real jerk.
Huh, Hahn thought, as he passed the last window before entering the room, is someone humming?
But there was no one outside the window when he looked. He shrugged, and went in to meet his bride and claim his future.
The next chief of the Northern Water Tribe completely missed the white-clad child methodically melting hand-holds into the wall outside. Or the lemur keeping lookout from under his hood.
%%%
Over the prince's ceremonial funeral pyre, Ozai announced the expanded war effort. The savages that had killed him were from the Earth Kingdom; it would fall by summer's end, with the aid of their new air corps and by Agni's own grace. As for the prince's mission, so tragically interrupted—even now the greatest naval fleet they had ever amassed was gathering. The Northern Water Tribe had broken their long neutrality to train the Avatar for war; the Fire Nation's brave troops would sail to face the savages down in their own inhospitable lands. They would capture the Avatar, in their fallen prince's name, and finish the quest he had given his life to. The assault would begin as winter turned to spring, as the seasons turned to their favor; the time of rebirthed flames. The Fire Nation would not falter; in the name of their Fallen Prince, they would grow stronger.
He didn't announce Azula as the new crown heir. Though his speech continued, and the governor of New Ozai's petition was approved, Ozai was only New Zuko levels of tacky, not replace one heir with the other on the same day levels.
The subtext was fairly obvious, however. Azula bowed low as the city cheered for her.
The portraits of Zuko arrayed on the stage showed him unbandaged, unblemished, unscarred. She wondered how he really looked, in the end. She would never see for herself. Even if she left the palace and went to where he was, she couldn't ever meet him again. That was what being dead meant.
%%%
"Didn't you promise Sokka not to leave the room alone?" Aang asked.
"I didn't." The boy who'd just entered the healing hut pointed to the lemur-face staring out of his hood.
"Uh, I don't think that counts."
"We infiltrated Pohuai Stronghold together. Do you really think a snow fort is going to stop us?"
Katara knew, in the back of her head, she should probably take a little time to scold Zuko both for child self-endangerment, lying to her brother, and comparing her sister tribe's most advanced city to the piles of snow Sokka used to called fortifications. But she was sweaty and tired and manic.
"Zuko!" she called. "Yugoda! Yugoda Zuko!"
The old healer turned a tolerant smile on her. The young Fire-and-Adopted-Water Prince finally noticed her. And ran straight past Aang, his hood falling back and his lemur hat flapping, to reach her.
"Katara, Uncle—"
"Yes! I think? Yugoda!"
"I would have to see the patient to be certain, dears," the old healing master said. "And with injuries like Katara described, it may be that we would have to rebreak the bones to heal them correctly. But I can assure you the healing will go much faster the second time." Her smile wrinkled her face into a hundred different lines of warmth and kindness and just a hint of habitually laughing at her patients. "Now, let's see what we can do for you, young man."
"For me?" Zuko said, in a voice that made it clear he hadn't even thought of that. Katara wanted to hug him. Yugoda squeezed his shoulder, and guided him to sit down on one of the healing beds. His eyes widened as much as they each could, tracking the water in her hands as it started to glow.
She slowly brought it to his face; he scrunched both eyes shut, a moment before it touched. "Hmm, yes. Would it be all right for my apprentice to take a look as well, Prince Zuko?"
"Katara?" he asked. At the healer's affirmative, he nodded stiffly.
Yugoda moved over. "Come, tell me what you feel. Don't try to heal just yet—diagnosis only, Katara."
She wrapped her own hand in water, and pressed it to Zuko's cheek. He flinched a little at its chill. His eyes were still squeezed tight and his forehead all wrinkled, his fists clenched in his lap. She reached out with her free hand, and set it on top of his. They uncurled, just a little.
"Tell me what you feel," Yugoda urged.
She swallowed. "The skin... doesn't remember how it used to be. Does it?"
Yugoda nodded. "This is common with deep scars. It will remain."
Zuko's hands twitched under hers. His head turned slightly away.
"Of course," the old woman continued, as if she hadn't noticed a thing. "A scar is the mark of a survivor; it shows the strength of the one who bears it. And the ladies quite like them, I hear."
"Eww," the prince said. But he relaxed again.
Yugoda chuckled. "What else do you feel, Katara?"
She didn't know what else there was. It was just one huge scar. His bad eye squeezed shut even tighter as she moved her hand—
His eye. She could feel where the fire had been too hot, too bright, where it had scalded inside the eye itself. But it wasn't anywhere near as bad as his skin. Maybe his own firebending protected what was under the surface, because—
She looked at Yugoda. Yugoda smiled, and nodded. "Diagnosis only, dear," she reminded. "I'll be doing that part myself. It's delicate."
"What's delicate?" Zuko asked, all tense again. She didn't want to get his hopes up, didn't know how much Yugoda's healing could do, so she didn't answer. He she shifted her hand to his ear, and her water tickled inside, he squirmed. And she felt the same thing—there wasn't much they can do for the deformed skin, but there was almost… it felt like little hairs deep inside his ear that were burned and warped, but wanted to be straight again.
Yugoda was still smiling. She motioned, and they switched places. "Keep your eyes closed, dear. This won't take long."
The water glowed over his eye, his ear. Then she motioned again, relinquishing her place at the bedside. "Go ahead and finish things up."
"But I thought—"
"It won't be what it was, no. But I think the young man would appreciate never needing a debridement again. Burn scars can take months to heal the usual way, and they don't do so easily."
Zuko was so stiff under her hands. She closed her own eyes, and settled both her hands on his face, cupping over the scar both in front and on the side. She could see the glow of the water through her own eyelids, and she wondered how it looked to him.
"You can open your eyes, now," Yugoda said, as Katara dropped her hands.
She didn't know if it was for her or Zuko. Or for both of them. They open their eyes together. Gold blinked, and widened just a little more than it could before.
"I can see." He poked at his face in a way that she wanted to stop, that probably wouldn't have been healthy if he'd done it ten minutes ago, but Yugoda was chuckling tolerantly. "And it doesn't hurt at all, and—" He snapped his fingers next to his burned ear, then the other, then back to the burned one.
Then he lunged forward, and hugged her.
Which was the first time he'd ever hugged her. She was more than happy to hug back.
"Avatar Aang," a voice droned from the doorway. Master Pakku stood with his arms crossed, clearly unimpressed by this touching scene. "It is not my habit to track down my students when they fail to return from the breaks they begged of me. On their first day of training."
"Master Pakku, healing is amazing," Aang gushed. Katara had almost forgotten he was there, because he'd been on the edge of another bed, leaning forward but watching quietly. There was a look on his face she recognized; she'd probably looked exactly like that, when she'd first seen Yugoda's hands light up.
"It is… utilitarian, yes." His eyes flicked over Zuko, who was still pressed into her shirt. She glared, on her nephew's behalf.
"When will you be teaching me that?" Aang was almost vibrating in place.
"I won't be."
"So when will I get my turn training with Master Yugoda?"
"Healer Yugoda knows as well as I do that a fighter's chi is soon disrupted if applied to the gentler arts. They will lose their cutting edge. That is why we separate the classes."
"Oh," Aang said. "Huh."
Pakku narrowed his eyes. "What, Avatar Aang?"
"I think I should be a healer, then. I mean… if I can only be one, then healing is more like me? And Katara's our fighter, so you should really take her back as a student before her chi gets all messed up, because she's really good and we kind of need her—"
Pakku's scowl was deepening. Yugoda had turned her face demurely to the floor. But, Katara saw, she was biting her lip like she was stifling a laugh.
"Avatar Aang, are you a man or a girl?" Pakku snapped.
"Uh, a boy?"
The master fighter's eye twitched. Then the shouting started. "You will return to the training grounds at once, and report to Tulak for sparing practice, and you will remain there until I return to excuse you. If you have time to be bothering women you have time to train for the coming invasion. You," his voice dripped with something she couldn't place as he shifted his gaze to Zuko. "Will come with me." He didn't address Katara at all, to no one's surprise.
Zuko shifted his head out of her coat just enough to glare. "Are you going to disappear me down an ice crevasse?"
Pakku pinched the bridge of his nose.
"That wasn't an answer," the prince pointed out.
Yugoda turned away, her shoulders shaking with laughter.
%%%
Not long after the ostrich-horse, Azula looked down at Zuzu's stupid ferrekeet and still didn't feel any different. He didn't talk to her for a week except to shout, which was completely unfair because he never shouted why.
At least he shouted. When father found out, he smiled.
Mother was long gone by then, of course. Even if Azula left the palace and went to find her, she wouldn't know where to go. That was what being disappeared meant.
%%%
The world was amazing, Zuko could see almost as far to the side on his left as his right and when he closed his good eye the world wasn't blurry at all. Just really bright, oww. It felt like he'd just stepped from the darkness of a ship out onto a sunny day on deck, and Agni was saying hello directly to his cornea. Maybe he should… not stare at the sun. Until he got used to this not-being-partially-blind thing.
He could see Pakku turning to scowl at him from both sides, and hear the water in the canals and the people around them with both ears, and when some random person smiled at him he realized that he'd been smiling first and it seemed to really annoy the old waterbender so he kept doing it. Even though his cheeks kind of hurt. He wasn't used to smiling this long, oww.
"Keep up," the old man snapped.
"Or what?" Zuko smiled. "You'll leave me unsupervised in the middle of your city?"
The waterbender growled, and reached down like he was going to grab Zuko's arm and drag him like some kind of child. He wasn't expecting an angry lemur to come chitter-charging out of Zuko's hood like a foreign predator was invading its territory. Zuko upgraded from smiling to smugging. The old man huffed, and kept walking like that was what he'd meant to do all along. Zuko also kept walking. In a really slow, deliberately distracted manner.
To be fair, it wasn't his fault the city had mysterious holes down to an unseen bottom.
"Where do those go?" Zuko asked, sticking his head in one.
Pakku risked the lemur growls to drag him back out by his hood. "To the turtle-seal caves."
"...There are caves that lead right into the middle of your city?" Zuko asked. "Aren't you afraid attackers can just climb right up?"
"Not unless they can hold their breaths as long as a turtle-seal," the old man monotoned.
Zuko starred speculatively back down the mysteriouscool hole. "...How long can turtle-seals hold their breaths?"
The master let out a I will refrain by sheer will from killing you breath, and kept walking. Zuko followed, more or less. There was a lot to see now that he could see it. It was all the same stuff he'd seen on the way to the healing huts, but now he could use both eyes.
The waterbender lead him back to the palace, and off into a side room he hadn't seen before, and… set up a pai sho table.
Zuko sank to the floor in well-practiced resignation. At least the tiles were really pretty to look at. He grabbed Uncle's favorite and closed his right eye and turned it over and over, admiring the mother-of-pearl inlays. Uncle would have really like playing on this set. It was too bad he'd definitely ever had a chance. Maybe when he came to get healed.
...But would the tribe let him come to get healed?
"The guest has the first move," Pakku intoned, like this was some kind of ritual instead of an old man trying to distract him from wandering the city.
Zuko clicked the white lotus title down in the middle, frowning at the board, because nothing on it was helpful to his thoughts. They played. He didn't lose as badly as normal, because Pakku made some really weird moves at the start that had almost destroyed his game.
"Did your Uncle teach you nothing on that ship?" the old man growled, when they were done and the board was its usual mess. Which was a pretty normal reaction when one of Uncle's friends tried to play pai sho with him while Uncle was off talking about flowers at port—
But why would Pakku—
Zuko screwed up his face. The skin on the left tugged, but there wasn't any pain in it, just tightness. So he screwed up his face more because he could. "Are you seriously telling me that you're one of Uncle's pai sho pen pals? I am not talking with you about tea. Or flowers."
The old master looked a little like he regretted not shoving Zuko down a turtle-seal hole. "Who captained your ship?"
Zuko crossed his arms, because that was a really weird question. "What, Uncle didn't put that in his letters? How did you even get letters up here? Do you have some kind of arctic messenger hawks? ...Can I see them? For tactical reasons," Zuko hurried to clarify.
The waterbender was pinching the bridge of his nose again. He stood, and left, and Zuko assumed that meant he was supposed to follow even though the man wasn't saying anything to him at all. He was right: they went back to the room Chief Arnook had given his distinguished guests. The guards looked distinctly uncomfortable to see Zuko approaching from this side of the door.
"Gentleman. Keep closer watch on our visitor."
"It's boring in there," Zuko tried. "Can't I come help Aang train? He's going to need to know how to fight firebenders. I bet your people haven't fought many either. I bet I could take them."
"I sincerely doubt—"
Zuko let a little lightning spark over his fingertips. He really wanted to try using his lightning again, now that he was pretty sure that he could do it, and now that he had the depth perception to aim it properly.
"What was he teaching you," the man hissed through his teeth. "Stay here, Prince Zuko. Not everyone will be so lenient if they find a firebender wandering our—what was that?"
Zuko might have been muttering that they wouldn't find him unless he wanted to be found, but he pressed his lips together and scowled up just as hard as Pakku was scowling down.
"Stay. Guards, be sure to check in on our guest regularly."
Zuko went inside, and flopped facedown on the rug again. And shivered, a little. It really was too cold out there.
%%%
Azula found Uncle that night, sitting by the turtleduck pond, like he was trying to take Zuko's place. But he was doing it all wrong—Zuko had always sat here, not there.
"Princess Azula," he greeted her, with the minimum respectful nod of his head.
He hadn't nod-bowed to Zuko in years. And he'd been as likely to call him nephew as Prince Zuko.
Azula crossed her arms, and lifted her chin. "I'm the heir now. That means you have to teach me just like you did my brother."
"I'm sorry, princess," he raised his ruined hands. "I fear I will be doing no teaching. I am but a humble old man, now."
"I want to know what you were teaching him." She did not stomp her foot; that kind of show was for peasants. She lit blue flames in her hands, instead. Much more appropriate for the unofficial crown princess.
"Primarily, I taught your brother how not to fall into polar waters. And what to do, when he failed at the first lesson." His smile was shallow, his eyes just like mother's whenever Azula was doing something that father would praise her for.
They both knew he'd been teaching Zuzu more. Father hadn't murd—hadn't pruned the royal tree on a whim. He'd been scared of his twelve-year-old son, for the same reasons that the streets had overflowed today, and Azula needed to know why and she needed to know now because ten wasn't very far from twelve and father was young and now that he was down to one heir he might remarry and make more. If this fat old man knew something, Azula could use it better than Zuzu had. She had always been better. She was, after all, the one who was still alive.
Something in Iroh's eyes went weird, like he was being soft. People didn't do that with her; it was clearly a trick. "Perhaps we could have tea together, sometime. Or a gripping game of pai sho."
She narrowed her eyes. Perhaps they were code words? The old man was unusually devoted to his hot leaf juice and his flower tiles. "Fine. We'll start with the… tea. But I refuse to play pai sho."
"Your brother was much the same," he said, and there was something warmer in his smile. But it wasn't for her; it was for her liar of a brother, who wasn't here to make her look good anymore.
"And father can't know," she hurried to add.
"As you command, Princess Azula." He agreed, and neither of them had to talk about why.
%%%
Operation Causally Bump Into the Princess had been a success. Now he watched, with all due nervousness, as phase two was enacted: Operation Present Her With A Recognizable Gift.
She turned Appa Mark III around in her hand. "Is it… a sky bison?"
"Yes! Yes it is."
He didn't know why his beaming pride led to I'm engaged and tears and running away from him. He caught her hand, and he didn't know what he'd just ruined, but he did his best to fix it.
"Hey. I'm sorry, I didn't know. About the engagement thing. Could we still be friends? Because you're a pretty awesome person, Yue, and I'd like to get to know you better even if it's only for strictly platonic friendship activities—" Oh wow now she was sobbing harder. "Or, or maybe I'm not friend material, that's okay too. I, uh, I'll see you around?"
"I don't even—" She bit her lip on whatever was about to come out next, but Sokka was getting pretty good at interpreting half-finished trauma-based sentences.
"Then why are you marrying him?" he asked, in as gentle-practical a manner as possible.
She ducked her head. "My father commanded me."
"Uh. Your father's not the one getting married." He didn't understand.
And she didn't understand why he didn't understand.
And then they both realized it.
"...Your women can choose who they marry?"
"Yours can't?" And Sokka wasn't Fire Nation, but he kind of wanted to complain about the northern savages right now.
"Then the one your sister is betrothed to, she choose him? That's," Yue wiped at her tears. Which did nothing to help, since there were more where those came from. "That's lovely. I'm so happy for her."
"...My sister is what to the who now?"
Yue explained. It was an explanation that quickly boiled down to Zuko being right about the necklace, hoo boy was that an awkward gift in retrospect, and yes he would politely take it back as she blushed and they both agreed not to mention it again. Unless in the future, when they knew each other better. If it became worth mentioning again.
Which would be a little hard, with her already being engaged.
Sokka was learning a lot tonight. About the Northern Tribe's culture, and why Gran-Gran had run, and women's rights. Which they needed some of, up in here.
"Hey," he said, squeezing her hand. "Worse come to worst, feel free to hop a bison south with us. I've got a grandmother who would love to meet you."
She laughed, and scrubbed at her eyes again. And hey, what do you know—she really was done crying.
They stayed up on the bridge awhile longer. Their activity was talking softly, and standing a chaste distance away, and watching the moon. Man, Yue had some crazy childhood stories about the moon. He just had the fishhooks story.
"Two fishhooks?" she covered her mouth with her sleeve when she laughed. It was a really cute habit of hers, like even when she was making fun of him she was perfectly polite about it.
"Well, now I regret this anecdote. But it made sense at the time, okay?"
Neither of them noticed the teen, out strolling after his objectively awesome day, too wound up to sleep. He'd been humming to himself—some weird song that had gotten stuck in his head earlier in the day. He stopped when he saw the silhouettes on the bridge. Wouldn't want to harsh on another man's date. He was just going to quietly walk under the bridge, and straight on by, when he recognized those voices. Both those voices.
Hahn clenched his fists. So she didn't love him, couldn't even stand him, was revolting from daddy's orders by seeing some badly dressed trash the same night they'd been engaged. Fine, whatever. He'd only been in this for her assets, anyway.
It had never felt so good to punch a punk. That white-ribboned betrothal necklace the guy had in his hand went flying into the canal where it belonged, down where it would never touch his woman. So did the punk. Yue was yelling at him to stop, and people were coming out from the houses and holding him back as they helped the shivering wannabe bride-thief out of the water, but it didn't matter. Hahn would get what was his. He already had.
%%%
Azula did not creep into the family shrine. She strolled in. After dark. Between guard patrols. Hours past when her servants had tucked her into bed.
Inside the palace Fire Temple was the room where everyone important who died got to sit on a shelf and listen to the family prayers for eternity. Or until they were so old that no one cared about them anymore, and the Sages took their ashes away to wherever people who didn't matter went.
Zuko's urn sat next to Lu Ten's. It was black with a red sheen. Inside was only wood ash, she knew. Azula looked at it, wondering if this was what Zuzu had felt about his ferrekeet. It was twisty and awful, and she didn't like it at all.
%%%
Sokka was the last to stomp back into the room that night. Soggily. He could tell, by a glance at the other faces here, that stomping was a sentiment shared among multiple parties. They all looked up at him from their floppy pile on that giant what-even-was-that-animal rug in front of the fire. Zuko was still bundled up like he was going to catch frostbite if he lost a layer; Katara was sprawled next to him, so warm she'd shed down to equatorial Earth Kingdom levels of clothing. Aang was next to them, encouraging a despondent Hawky to fold her comically stiff wings back next to her side. ...Had she kept them hilariously stretched out since he'd put that sweater on? No Sokka, bad Sokka, focus Sokka. Less hypothermia, Sokka.
He stripped out of his own wet shirt and pants, and rolled up in a corner of white feather-fluff to shiver. Even better idea: he grabbed his firebender nephson over for flailing, protesting, super-heated cuddle-grumps.
"I hate you," Zuko said, when he'd finally surrendered to the inevitable. "What did you do, go swimming?"
"I think it should be apparent to all parties that the answer to that was an involuntary yes," Sokka sniffed. "Now do the fire breath thing."
He wasn't sure if Zuko actually did the fire breath thing, or was just an angrily steaming parka puffball in his arms. Same effect, either way. There was something a little different about his nephson, though.
"...Hey, is it just me, or did your scar heal like three years since—you snuck out as soon as I left. Didn't you."
Zuko lifted his head, bumping Sokka's chin. "I was testing their city security. They failed."
"...Uh-huh."
"Why did you go swimming, Sokka?" Aang asked, still messing with Hawky's wings. The adorably miserable bird wasn't even bothering to murder-peck him.
"Ah yes, that." Sokka sat up a little straighter. "Hey, everyone. You know what this tribe needs?"
"Rights for women," Katara snapped.
"Equal rights," Aang corrected.
"To meet my sister," Zuko said.
"Right," Sokka rubbed his hands together. They were all on the same page, then. "So how are we going to do this?"
%%%
Ozai posthumously rescinded his son's banishment. Quietly, but publicly, with no particular fanfare to remind the nation of who sent a fire-scarred twelve-year-old on an impossible quest in the first place.
The clouds over the Fire Nation cleared as the first such proclamation was nailed up. No one took particular notice of this fact.