Chapter 2 - Sins of the Father

In Republic City I hired on as a cabin boy on a merchant ship, and made my way down the Earth Kingdom coast in that manner. Many of the towns we stopped in were former Fire Nation colonies, and mixed families were a common sight - earthbenders in red, green-eyed firebenders, even the occasional Water Tribe influence. People came to the old colonies from all over the world, and I could have settled down in any one of those towns with ease and anonymity. But I wasn't looking to settle yet. When we reached the port near Gaoling and the ship's captain announced his intention to sail for the Fire Nation, I renewed my contract.

We were halfway to Fire Fountain City when we hit rough seas and the sky began to darken. It was unsettling for me, surrounded by all that water and able to feel the sun behind the clouds, but not see it. But I did my best to go about my duties on deck as the captain tried to navigate us around the worst of the oncoming storm. All cargo needed to be stowed or secured, and sturdy glass lanterns were lit at the bow and stern, and on top of the masthead. I was responsible for keeping the bow light illuminated - with my spark rocks, of course.

Soon the rain was coming down in sheets and we were being tossed by the rolling seas, in spite of the captain's best efforts. A great wave broke over the portside bow, knocking me off my feet - and dousing the lantern. I heard the deck officer shout to get the light back up, and scrambled forward to the prow, but my spark rocks were hopelessly soaked. After a few futile attempts, I gave in, and pressed the tip of the wick between my thumb and forefinger. A bright yellow flame sprang up instantly.

I climbed down from the prow to find the deck officer watching me. My heart leaped into my throat. He was the first person, besides my mother, to ever see me firebend.

"Should have told us you were a firebender, boy," he said gruffly. I waited, dreading the rebuke, the punishment, the rejection that was surely coming. "Well, don't just stand there! Go check the stern light, why dontcha."

With the storm still raging, there was no time to gawk. I did as I was told - the stern light had also gone out, and all the other deck hands were as soaked as I was, but I got it burning again soon enough, to the surprise of my crewmates. We found clear skies within the hour, and when we were relieved of duty, the deck officer brought me up to the bridge to speak with the captain.

"You should have told us when you signed on, Bumi," the captain echoed the deck officer's words when he had been told what I'd done. He was a big man, with close-cropped dark hair and a neatly trimmed beard. "Firebending is a useful talent, even at sea."

I hung my head, ashamed of my own secrecy. These people knew nothing about me, I was just another kid from the old colonies to them. "I'm not a real firebender, sir," I offered by way of an excuse. "I've had no training."

The captain nodded. "No one to teach you, I imagine?"

I thought of the bending school in Republic City, but shook my head. That had never been a real option for me. "My mother's Water Tribe, sir," I said instead. That much had always been somewhat obvious from my appearance, even if I didn't wear blue anymore.

The captain folded his arms over his broad chest. "And your father?"

"He wasn't really around," I answered bitterly, and, technically, truthfully, no matter how one looked at it. The captain didn't question this story, and I let him assume what he liked from the scant details.

"Well, when we reach Fire Fountain City," the captain said carefully. I was still waiting to hear him say I would be dismissed for lying, but instead he ran a hand thoughtfully over his beard and said, "My brother-in-law runs a firebending school there."

I blinked up at him in confusion. "Sir?"

"He's always happy to take students on my recommendation," the captain explained. "And a trained firebender would be paid more on any vessel than a simple cabin boy." He clapped a hand on my shoulder, almost avuncular. "Something for you to think about." With that, I was dismissed.

As I lay in my hammock below deck that night, I thought over the captain's offer. I had long resented the fire inside me, because of what it meant, and because I had to hide it. I had left my family and those problems behind, but the secrecy that my mother had ingrained in me from a young age had proven a difficult habit to break.

Yet why shouldn't I learn to use it properly? Bumi the kid from the colonies had no siblings to scandalize, no parents' hearts to break. If I was going to live that life, why not be a real firebender?

By the time I stood in the office of Master Genshi's Firebending School two weeks later, as the captain introduced me, I was confident that I could do this. I would live in the Fire Nation, and study firebending, and find a career that allowed me to use my skills, and I would do it all for myself.

Not, I had convinced myself, because I was holding out hope that somewhere in this nation I might also have a real father.


Fire Fountain City originally took its name from a fire-breathing statue of Fire Lord Ozai that once stood in the main square of the town. By my time, it had been replaced with a dragon statue instead, and from the mouth of this fountain, much more practically, flowed fresh water for public use. Still, the name stuck.

If I was somewhat older than most of Master Genshi's beginner students, I soon caught up, and after some eight months of intensive training was on track with other kids my own age. It turned out all those years of using my firebending only for meditation had given me better than average control, even if I always lagged a little in raw power.

But we were being trained for peace, not war - Master Genshi expected his students to go on to be blacksmiths, firefighters, glassworkers, and the like - and indeed, that was the sort of work I took up on the side to pay for my education. While we were taught some of the classical combat forms, this was for academic purposes only. One or two students from each class might enlist after graduation, but the Fire Nation armies had been greatly reduced since the end of the war, and merchant marine careers were a safer bet for those so inclined. There were still pirates to worry about, and merchants would pay good money to trained benders who could protect their shipments.

I quickly made friends among my classmates - I even dated a girl in the year ahead of me for a little while, though we broke up when she graduated. The school uniform was a very traditional red and black, of course, but even on my days off, exploring the city with my friends, I dressed mostly in red - not Air Acolyte clothes that could pass for Fire Nation, but real Fire Nation clothes. I used my bending freely and casually - from warming my tea to showing off for some local children to playing pranks on my classmates. There was a memorable incident involving a good friend of mine and an exploding garbage can, though his well-deserved payback left me without eyebrows for a few weeks.

I had always planned on going back to sea when I finished my training. There was a sort of standing offer from my first captain to rejoin his crew when I was ready - so I was surprised when Master Genshi called me into his office and asked if I had considered enlisting in the Fire Navy.

"To be honest, sir," I told him. "I didn't think I was good enough."

Master Genshi shook his head. "You're a hard worker, Bumi, and disciplined, and that's what the navy really cares about." Folding his hands on his desk, he leaned forward slightly, and gave me a steady look that had me shifting in my seat. "And there's something different about your bending…" Again I shifted uncomfortably, but he only went on, "You're more in tune with your inner fire than any other student I've taught. I'll be honest, I don't think a naval career is right for you long-term, but," here he reached down and opened a desk drawer, pulling out a stack of pamphlets, "if you put in your two years you'll be eligible for the great schools."

"The great schools?" I repeated. I had heard of them, of course, but they were highly exclusive. Nobles sent their children to learn firebending at those schools. I doubted they accepted many graduates from such a plebian institution as Master Genshi's.

Master Genshi gave me a hint of a smile, as if he knew what I was thinking. "Oh yes, it's possible, even for a kid from the colonies like you." He laid the pamphlets out on his desk one by one, rattling off the names of the schools. "Meidai, Keio, even the Royal Academy...they all have veterans' scholarships. If you prove yourself in the navy, they could teach you other styles of bending, more about the spiritual and theoretical side of it." He slapped one hand open-palmed on the spread of brochures for the elite schools for emphasis. "That's where I think your future really is."

I thought of midday prayers with the Air Acolytes, and how right that had always felt, even when nothing else about my home life made sense. The spiritual side of my bending had been the first part I had really developed, as much as I could have developed any of it living under my mother's rules of secrecy.

I promised Master Genshi I would think about it.


By my eighteenth birthday, two months before I was scheduled to graduate, I still hadn't made up my mind. But that was when my mother found me. I came back to the dingy little student apartment I lived in after class, and there she was, sitting on the worn out sofa in my living room. She leapt to her feet to greet me.

"Bumi, please," she said after the requisite hugging and crying. I was surprisingly moved to see her - my anger had had some time to cool, and it spoke volumes that she had actually come all this way, left the rest of the family behind to find me. And she was still my mother, the only person who knew both sides of who I was. "Please come home."

"I'm sorry about the note, Mom," I said honestly. I didn't really hate her, and regretted writing that in anger. "But I can't just go back. I want to finish school here." I hadn't said outright that it was a firebending school I was enrolled in, but I think she suspected as much. "And then, I don't know, I was thinking about joining the navy."

Still holding on to both of my hands, my mother gave me a strange look. I think she had never seen me as the military type, but I wasn't eager to explain my real motives to her just then. "If that's really what you want," she said gently, "the United Republic has its own naval force now…"

"And it's based out of Republic City?" I guessed. My mother didn't contradict me. We both knew what she wanted. I shook my head. Enough lies and half-truths. "I want to enlist in the Fire Navy, as a firebender. If I joined the United Republic forces, could I do that?"

My mother said nothing. I pulled my hands out of her grip.

"That's what I thought," I said. "I'm staying here."

My mother tried a different tactic. "We've had no word from you, all this time," she reminded me. Not for the first time, I felt a stab of guilt about that. But if I had written to my family, what could I have said to them?

"It's not my fault this part of my life has to be a secret," I pointed out impatiently. The happiness of seeing my mother again was rapidly being eclipsed by the bitterness of all the reasons I had left in the first place, and her efforts to entice me back were not helping.

My mother flinched at the accusation, but didn't argue. "I know," she admitted. "But it's been two years now. Even your father is starting to worry…"

And there it was, the real reason she was here. She had come all this way, left Kya and Tenzin behind, she who hardly ever traveled anymore and hated being separated from her family, not to see me, but to keep her husband from worrying, lest that can of worms be opened.

"What makes you think," I said darkly, "that if I went back with you, I wouldn't give Aang more reasons to worry than if I stayed away?"

My mother's eyes went wide, as afraid as the day she had first seen me bend. All these years keeping her secret, I had never once used it to threaten her like that. "You wouldn't," she said, her voice low and pleading. "I know you wouldn't."

She was right, but I didn't want to admit that. "As for my father," I went on, all the pent up anger and pain rising to the surface. "I doubt he's worried about me at all, since he doesn't even know I exist!"

My mother raised her chin. "He knows you ran away," she said, and this unexpected news cast my ire into confusion. "Aang spoke to Zuko about it, though neither of them knows why you left, and he is worried about you, too." She reached out for me again, though I pulled away, and she reluctantly let her hand fall back to her side. "He's the one who helped us find you," she added softly.

Reeling, I sat down heavily on the sofa. "Zuko?" I repeated, thinking I must have misunderstood her. The Fire Lord, the Avatar's best friend...surely he couldn't be… "Fire Lord Zuko?" I said, as if hoping she meant someone else. She didn't contradict me. I leaned on my knees, holding my head in my hands.

My mother sat down next to me, resting one hand on my back. I didn't push her away this time. "I thought you had figured that out," she said gently.

I let out a hollow laugh. "Otherwise you wouldn't have said anything, right?" What business was it of mine, who my father was? What right did I have to any more of her secrets than what fate had made it impossible for her to keep from me?

"No," my mother protested, leaning in to hug me again, her cheek resting against my shoulder. "No, I should have told you before...well, before it got to this point."

I didn't even know what this point was. The tentative plans I had made for my future seemed to pale in comparison to this new revelation. How could I just go on with my life, now that I knew?

"I want to see him," I said suddenly, lifting my head. My mother pulled away slightly, but left her hand on my back. "Zuko. I want to talk to him." Bumi from the colonies could hardly demand an audience with the Fire Lord, but I knew my mother could make it happen. After all, she was married to the Avatar, and they were all such old friends…

"I don't think that's a good idea," my mother said carefully.

"If you won't help me, I'll find a way on my own," I declared, getting to my feet. "I don't care who I have to tell the truth, I'll do it." It was the second time I had threatened my mother, just as much of a bluff as the first, but it clearly hurt her. So be it. She had hurt me.

She closed her eyes, and let out a pained sigh. "Fine," she gave in. "I'll write to Zuko and let him know I found you, and that you're coming to see him." She opened her eyes and got to her feet as well. "Now, what am I going to tell Aang?"

"That's your business, Mom," I replied, with even less intention of going home with her than before. "I'm sure you'll figure something out."


I did in fact finish school, and submitted my Fire Navy application, before I made the trip to the capital, where the Fire Lord was expecting me. My mother had gone back to Republic City, presumably to continue spinning her web of lies to the rest of the family, and to be honest I was relieved she hadn't tried to come with me. I had met Zuko once before of course, but this time was different. This time I would be meeting my father, and I wanted it to be on my terms.

In hindsight, I don't think my mother could face him anymore.

The morning I arrived, the Fire Lord was busy meeting with his ministers of state, though Princess Izumi graciously offered to entertain me while I waited for him. Since the Fire Lady's passing, the role of palace hostess had fallen to Zuko's daughter. My sister. She was fourteen, three years older than Kya, and of course I couldn't help but compare the timelines of our lives, and realize that Zuko hadn't married until after I was born. Why that might have been, I didn't want to contemplate.

Izumi led me through the gardens, which looked remarkably like the park in Republic City. I said as much, and she smiled. "Well, my father had a hand in designing that park, you know," she said proudly.

"I had no idea," I admitted.

"My father is such good friends with yours," she went on, and I fought to hide a grimace. "It's strange our families never spent any time together."

It didn't seem so strange to me. "Well, they're busy people," I deflected. "And my mother doesn't like to travel much."

We came to a halt in front of a pond, where a pair of turtle ducks were paddling about idly. Izumi gave me a funny look. "But your mother traveled all over the world, when she was younger," she pointed out.

"She did," I agreed. It was something I had wondered about as well, though it ranked fairly low on my list of things I wished my mother had explained to me. "I guess that was during the war, and now she's done with it."

Izumi nodded, and started to say something else, but her gaze darted over my shoulder and she smiled. I turned to see who she was looking at. It was her father, and mine.

Zuko did not have a soft face, even if you could ignore the scar. His features were angular and his sharp jawline was accentuated by the pointed beard. But the look on his face was soft, so tender and full of paternal affection. It took my breath away for a moment. He was looking at Izumi, of course.

Zuko greeted his daughter first, with a kiss on the cheek. Izumi rolled her eyes at this display, and proceeded to introduce me. "Dad, you know Bumi, of course."

I got a friendly clap on the shoulder, something like when the captain of the ship had taken pity on me as a cabin boy. "Of course," Zuko repeated. "You've sure grown since I last saw you!" That had been seven years ago. He and I were the same height now. Still holding me by the shoulder, he wagged one finger at me with his other hand, scolding. "You know you had your parents very worried, young man."

Overwhelmed, I fell back on formality. "Fire Lord Zuko," I said, inclining my head respectfully. "I would like to give you a full account of my actions." I glanced guiltily at Izumi. "In private."

Zuko let his hand fall from my shoulder and nodded to his daughter, who took her leave of us. "I'm listening," Zuko said encouragingly. For the first time, I had my father's undivided attention.

I looked him in the eye, and took a deep breath. Better to just be out with it. "I…" One of the turtle ducks quacked. I lost my nerve. "I had to leave home, to figure some things out," I said instead. "I needed some space, away from...well, from everyone." I didn't want to single my mother out, even if my anger at her had been the final straw that had driven me away. Mentioning her at all suddenly seemed a daunting task.

Zuko didn't seem impressed with this explanation. "You should have at least written to your parents," he pointed out.

I shook my head at the absurd normalcy of it, getting the same lecture from my father that my mother had already given me. I offered much the same excuse in reply. "I didn't know what to say."

Zuko folded his arms, hands tucked into the rich sleeves of his formal robes, and looked down at the pond pensively. "Sometimes it isn't easy, to face up to your family," he said in a gentler tone. "But you should always at least make an effort."

"I know. I want to try." I swallowed nervously. "I'm trying right now."

Zuko gave me a cautious look. "What are you trying to do right now?"

"I'm trying to tell you what I couldn't tell them," I said. Zuko waited, patiently, and I launched into a rambling explanation. "I couldn't tell them that I left because there were so many secrets, and it was driving me crazy. That when I came to the Fire Nation, it was such a relief not to have to hide anymore."

If Zuko had any suspicions as to what I might have been hiding, or why I would want to talk about it with him of all people, he didn't show it. I was standing there in front of him, dressed in Fire Nation clothes, prattling on about secrets in my family - couldn't he guess?

But in the face of his placid silence, I had no choice but to continue. "I couldn't let my...my family know where I was or what I was doing, because they wouldn't understand," I went on, echoing my mother's warning with no small amount of bitterness. I held both my hands clenched into fists in front of me, and my voice rose gradually. "I still don't understand, but I know that I am a firebender and I used to be ashamed of it but I'm not anymore, and what I'm trying to say is, I am your son and how could you not have known?"

There was a burst of flame around both of my trembling fists as I shouted this last question at him - harmless, but enough to forestall any doubt. I hadn't done it deliberately. It was an emotional outburst, the only time I had ever lost control.

Zuko did not look scared, like my mother had. His calm was finally shattered by the shock of seeing me firebend, but once that faded, he looked...broken. My mother had often been sad, but this was something worse. Zuko actually looked like he might cry. "I didn't know," he protested weakly. When I said nothing, he came closer, and took my face in both of his hands, eyes searching, perhaps, for the resemblance. It was subtle, but there was some. "I need you to understand that much, Bumi," he said firmly. "I did not know."

That was all very well, what he needed. "You never bothered to find out, did you?" I said, losing the fight with my own tears. My mother had never told him, of course, but I doubted he had ever asked, either. He had to have at least known it was a possibility.

"You're right, I didn't," Zuko admitted. With one thumb, he brushed aside the first tear that fell, but that only made me cry more. "And I am sorry for that."

My mother, I realized, had never apologized to me. But even from my father, it felt like too little, too late. So much for his talk of making the effort for family. I knew my mother hadn't wanted me to be Zuko's son. Of course Zuko hadn't, either.

"Well, you know now," I said accusingly. "What are you going to do about it?"

Zuko pulled me close, so my head rested on his shoulder. I let him hold me, but I didn't return the hug. I was still too angry at him.


Naturally, what Zuko was going to do about me was far more complicated than could have been worked out with a hug, anyway.

It had been assumed that I would stay at the palace for several days, at least, as a friend of the royal family, and changing those plans now would seem suspicious. Since I was once again, as far as the royal court was concerned, Bumi the son of the Avatar, rather than Bumi the kid from the colonies, that meant my bending had to be kept discrete - though Zuko, eager to see what I had learned, brought me to his own private training room on the second day of my visit, so I could give an unobserved demonstration.

"You've accomplished so much," he said when I had concluded the basic katas I knew with the traditional bow, hand over fist. "I'm proud of you."

I shrugged off his praise with roughly affected indifference, knowing my skills were not really that impressive. Flattery didn't make up for any of my shortcomings, and it certainly didn't for his, no matter how much I wanted those words to be true. It was all I had wanted since I was six years old, for my father to be proud of my bending. But I was used to living without it.

Then there was Izumi. Zuko wanted to tell her the truth as well. I pointed out that doing so would only be forcing her to keep the same secret I had been burdened with all these years. Surely he didn't want to put that on his daughter.

The idea of ending the secrecy was too impossible for either of us to mention. I was hardly the first child ever born of a Fire Lord's indiscretion, but my mother being the wife of the Avatar made the situation politically fraught. On the personal level there was the issue that Aang was still unaware, unless my mother had had a change of heart since I last spoke to her - a situation that I was growing increasingly uncomfortable with, but still felt powerless to change. At any rate, the Fire Lord publicly acknowledging me as his illegitimate son was not the right way for Aang to find out.

Yet Zuko insisted Izumi at least had a right to know she had a brother. He was quite close with his own half-sister, whom he owed to very different but equally complicated circumstances which I would learn about later on, and I think that must have influenced his decision. Zuko spoke to his daughter in private on the third day of my visit, and immediately after she came and found me.

I was in the sitting room of my guest apartments, reading some scrolls I had found in the palace library about the Sun Warriors. Their ancient customs fascinated me, and rekindled my desire to continue my firebending studies at one of the great schools someday. I was still waiting to hear back on my naval application, but the recruiter I had spoken to back in Fire Fountain City had seemed optimistic about my chances.

But when I saw the scowl on Izumi's face, I quickly set my reading down. "He told you," I guessed, wishing Zuko had taken my advice. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not angry at you," my sister replied. Then, to my surprise, she came and sat next to me on the sofa, collapsing back into the cushions in a rather undignified way. It was a stark contrast with the ladylike decorum she had maintained at our first meeting. "So, are you going to challenge me to an Agni Kai for the crown or something?"

I blanched, shifting around to face her more directly. "Of course not!" I protested. I hadn't come here looking to mess up her life, or take anything away from her. "I have no interest in being Fire Lord, ever." I didn't think it would even be legal, what with me being a bastard, but presumed she would know the finer points of the laws of succession better than I did.

"That's too bad," Izumi said casually, kicking her feet up on the low table. I snatched the library scrolls out of the way just in time. "Might have been nice, to have some of the pressure off me."

I was unused to her sense of humor. I didn't really know her at all, of course. But now that she was in on the secret, as much as I regretted the pain that would cause her...well, at least I could talk to her without having to worry about hiding anything.

"If all goes well," I said, rolling up the last scroll I had been looking at. "I'll soon be too busy as a lowly tar in the navy to worry about affairs of state." I gave her a tentative half-smile. "Sorry to disappoint."

Izumi gave me a searching look. "So your ambitions are military rather than political?"

"Well," I said, setting aside the scroll again, far away from her feet. "I was told navy service would be a good way for me to get into one of the great schools."

"Oh," Izumi replied. "You know you don't have to do that, right? Dad could get you into any school you want."

Dad. As in, the father we shared. She said it so easily.

I slouched against the couch cushions, imitating her posture. "I don't want him to do me any favors," I insisted. "And besides, no one can know I'm his son." I gave her a nervous sideways glance. "He did tell you that, right?"

"He did," Izumi confirmed, scowling again. "Which I think is completely unfair and hypocritical of him, by the way." I shrugged, but didn't argue, even though I had been more insistent on the secrecy than Zuko had. "But," Izumi went on, "he could still help you out without giving that away."

Idly, I conjurined a small flame in my right hand, spun it into something like a cord with a flick of my wrist, and wove the fiery tendril in and out of my fingers. "I want to earn it myself," I said quietly. Otherwise, I'd never be sure if I really deserved it.

Izumi was watching me bend with interest, so I coiled the little rope of fire into a ball in my palm, then tossed it gently in the air and made it burst like a firework. It was a parlor trick I'd come up with that was a hit at parties, though it had little practical application.

"Wow," Izumi breathed as the gold sparks faded from the air. Moving her feet off the table and back to the floor, she sat up straight. "Think you could teach me how to do that?"

I obliged, showing her the trick again slowly, describing how it was done as best as I could. But while Izumi was able to form the little fire rope after a few attempts, it would collapse back into amorphous flame as soon as she tried to do anything with it.

"Sorry," I said yet again as she huffed in frustration at yet another failure. "I guess I'm not the greatest teacher."

"No, I'm sure I just need more practice," Izumi insisted with a self-deprecating eyeroll. Then she fixed me with a mockingly stern look. "Speaking of which, even if you won't fight me for the crown, you're not getting out of here without sparring with me at least once."

I laughed at her enthusiasm. "I don't think you'd find it much of a challenge to beat me." She was four years younger than me, it was true, but as a princess of the Fire Nation and heir presumptive, she would have been instructed in all the classical firebending forms from a young age, whereas I had less than two years of provincial schooling.

"Only one way to find out," Izumi replied.

We faced off the next morning, in the private training room. Neither of us had felt compelled to inform Zuko of our little friendly contest, so we had no audience. Izumi didn't have quite the upper hand I had expected - her bending was far more powerful than mine, but her form was still clumsy at times. I began to suspect her comment about needing more practice was only echoing something her tutors must have told her constantly. It might have been nice to have some of the pressure off her, she had said.

But she still beat me in the end.

"Not bad, brother," she said as she helped me to my feet. We were both breathing hard from the exercise, but sporting matching grins. "I'm sure you'll do better once the navy toughens you up."

"So you'd be up for it if I came back for a rematch, then?" I asked, playing along with her game, but also wondering in earnest. I would be heading back to Fire Fountain City soon, where I expected I would find the navy recruiter ready to formally enlist me, and when, if ever, I would be able to return to the palace was far from a settled question.

"You'd better," Izumi shot back. "How else am I going to show you when I get the hang of the firework trick?"

I laughed, and pulled my sister into a one-armed hug. She pulled a face, as I would learn she always did at such open affection, but not because she was truly annoyed by it. "I can't wait to see that."


I had one last private talk with Zuko before I left, in his office this time. Izumi and I had both been somewhat avoiding him, finding it easier to spend time with each other and deal with the awkwardness of our newfound sibling relationship than to put aside our anger at our father. After all, neither of us were to blame for this situation, and on my part I felt I had learned all I needed to know. He might have been slightly less keen on lying than my mother, but I was just as much of an inconvenience, just as much of a potential humiliation to Zuko as I was to her.

When he asked what I was planning to do next, I finally told him about the navy and my aspirations of pursuing further studies. He made the exact offer Izumi had said he would - I could skip the navy and go straight to the Royal Academy on his recommendation - but I dismissed it just as firmly. At the time I thought he was relieved I had said no to the offer, which obviously would have risked someone making connections we didn't want made. But maybe he was only unsurprised at my desire to prove myself.

"I do think," he added, "that you should go back to Republic City before you ship out." He was pacing the length of his office while I sat stiffly in one of the chairs in front of his desk. "They really have been very worried, and it would do them good to see you." He gave me another one of his looks full of guilt, which I was getting tired of. "Your mother and...Aang," he added as unnecessary clarification.

The whole length of my stay, we had hardly talked about my mother.

"She won't want to let me leave," I complained. "She wants to keep me hidden away on that island for the rest of my life." An exaggeration, and I even knew it at the time, but I hadn't forgotten that my mother had been the one to decide, on everyone else's behalf, that my bending should be a secret, and I hadn't forgiven her for it, either, even as I still deferred at least in part to her decision.

"I imagine she only wants to protect you," Zuko replied, then added, wistfully, "Mothers are like that with their children."

"And fathers?" I asked.

Zuko halted his pacing, right in front of my chair. He had refrained from touching me since that first hug, which I had tacitly rejected, but now he reached out and brushed one hand against the right side of my face. "Fathers, too," he said. I turned my head aside, away from his touch, my face set like stone.

"I don't say this as an excuse," Zuko went on, his voice soft. "But one reason I never asked any questions was because I thought…" He hesitated, turned and took a few steps away from me. I watched his retreat, saw him straighten his back deliberately before he continued. "I thought that either way, you already had the best father you could want, and I had no right to take that from you."

I knew at that point, in broad strokes, what Zuko's relationship with his own father had been like. How the Fire Lord got his scar was certainly common knowledge. So I knew that whatever neglect I felt I had suffered from Aang was a far cry from the worst thing in the world. Still, I thought, Zuko had no idea what it had been like, if he had really believed what he said. But I hardly wanted to speak ill of Aang to him now.

"What about the truth?" I asked. "Did you think I had any right to that?"

Zuko sighed. "The truth of who my father was disappointed me once," he said, turning to face me again. "I'm sorry it's done the same for you."

It was a less profound apology than the first one, but that was probably why I found it easier to accept. I couldn't forgive everything all at once, but I was willing to take small steps. I met my father's eye. "I am glad I came here," I told him. And since I had already as good as promised Izumi I would return, I added, "This won't be my last visit."

I think Zuko knew that it wasn't really for his sake that I would come back, but it was enough just that I would. His face went soft again, almost like when I had first seen him in the garden, except there was still some pain, some regret to it. But this time the look was all for me.

Still, I left the capital feeling unsatisfied.