Sokka got up very early to wait for Princess Yue at the base of the palace steps. As soon as he saw her, he jumped up. "Princess Yue! Glad I caught you. Is now a good time to talk?"

Princess Yue turned to her attendants, two women about her age. "Go on. I'll meet you later." They left. She turned to Sokka. "I got your message."

"Yeah, I'm really sorry about that. I was just…freaking out all over the place. I didn't want you to see me like that."

She lowered her eyes. "You've come to tell me that you don't want to marry me, haven't you?"

"Well…" Sokka wavered back and forth. Then he stopped and took a deep breath, put his hands on her shoulders and looked right into her face. "I've been doing a lot of listening to my heart. What my heart has to say is, the life of a prince isn't right for me. I like to have fun. Wild, crazy fun. If I was royalty, I wouldn't be able to do that anymore. And I don't think I can live like that."

Princess Yue started to cry. "That's what I love about you, Sokka. You're so different from anyone I've ever met before. So much more interesting, and approachable, and -" She turned away. "But you're right. You'd have to learn manners and become this formal guy. I can't ask you to give up who you are."

Sokka hated her crying. It stabbed him in the gut like a thousand tiny forks. He'd spent all of the previous day trying to not have to tell her this, knowing the news would make her cry. But his heart had been very clear on the matter. "I'm sorry."

She composed herself. When she turned back to face him, her face was dry. It was also blotchy and she couldn't look at him, but it was dry. "Thank you for being honest with me. I'll…I'll figure something out." She turned and hurried away, leaving behind a Sokka slumped with sadness but also, strangely, proud of himself. For he had listened to his heart.

.

Meanwhile, Zuko found a way to do the same. He woke up to the smell of breakfast, because a midnight awakening had disrupted his sleep. No nightmare had caused it - his eyes just abruptly snapped open, heart pounding, as if he'd narrowly avoided something terrible. He sat up and yawned. "Soup?"

"Made with squid," Iroh said. "I've never had squid before. I can't wait to try it!"

Zuko waited silently until breakfast was ready. Iroh served him a bowl of broth with one squid. Zuko slurped its limp tentacles like spaghetti, drank the broth directly from the bowl, and got up to leave.

"Wait," Iroh called. "Zuko." He came around and stood in front of Zuko. "I want to apologize for the harsh way I spoke to you yesterday. I'm not angry at you, Nephew. I'm just worried for your safety."

"Uh huh." As if I believe that. "I'm perfectly safe, Uncle. Now get out of my way. I have a lot to do today."

"Can we sit down and talk about it?" Iroh asked. "I want to hear how the training is going."

"I said I didn't want to talk about it." No way am I telling him what I can do. He would never believe me. "I have to go."

"Your doctor said she would come to check on you at breakfast and dinner," Iroh reminded him. "She hasn't come yet."

"Tell her I'm not interested in talking."

Iroh sighed. It sounded to Zuko like his sigh was borne of irritation and frustration. Iroh stepped out of the way. "If that's what you prefer." Translation: I think you're being wrong and stupid. Thanks, Uncle. Nice to know you don't even care about my viewpoint.

Just then, Kalika entered. "Hello, Lee."

"Too late," he said. "If you want to talk to me, you'll have to come earlier. Better yet, don't." He went around her and left the building.

Zuko turned his feet in a direction that was already becoming familiar. He sighed when he came to the first canal. His body was getting used to being up and about, but he still wasn't anywhere close to full strength. Going out of his way to find and climb up and down a staircase every time he needed to cross the street would be a real chore, one that would drain him of much-needed energy to use for training. Besides, he was learning how to use the water spirit's powers for his own purposes. It was fine to practice that outside of training time. More practice never hurt anybody. Crossing the street the easy way while he was weak and recovering wouldn't hurt a thing. He could climb staircases when he was healthier. Zuko reviewed all of these reasons three times before crossing the first of the canals he would have to cross on his way to or from the tunnel. He had to.

He sat down outside the tunnel to take his usual break. He stiffened, eyes flying open. Lots of people saw you just now, the inner voice whispered. They probably think you're a waterbender. And what would that make them? Zuko jumped up, turned and began to climb the tunnel as fast as he could. He climbed so fast that he fell down twice. He made it all the way to the other entrance on one long burst of adrenaline.

He sat down in the snow outside to take another break. It doesn't matter what a bunch of Water Tribe peasants think. It doesn't matter. So what?

They saw you. They're going to talk. Soon the entire tribe will know.

So what? So what? It doesn't matter. It doesn't!

An entire nation will know.

Zuko jumped up and ran down the slope to his training place. As he slid down the ice wall, he felt the voice go away. He sighed in relief. The water dragon appeared. It looked at him, head tilted, gills spread. He glared back at it. "What are you doing here? I'm about to start. Go away." The water dragon tilted its head the other way, then did as asked and disappeared.

Zuko took a deep breath. Waves. That's where we left off last night. He turned the bottom of the ridge to water, then, without letting go of his grip on it, pulled it up into a wave. Said wave immediately rushed towards him. Zuko grunted and forced his inner grip away from him. The wave thundered down the length of the ridge and crashed into a far wall. I've got to stop doing that!

He spent the next twenty minutes of training holding up a wave of water, just trying to keep his inner grip from accidentally pulling it in directions he didn't want. Steady. Steady. After a while, he guessed that it had been long enough and put the wave down to take a break. He sat down and shivered. His guess was right.

The water dragon appeared, like it had the day before. Instead of digging, it walked around. It trotted. It balanced on one fin for up to a minute at a stretch. It tried to use its clawed flippers for climbing, and made it halfway up the wall of the ridge before letting go and falling back down. Zuko winced when it fell onto its back. He knew better than anyone else that water dragons were not meant to roll on land. The water spirit turned its head in all directions, trying to find a way out of its predicament. It folded its flippers in close to its body and flexed its muscles to try to turn over. It succeeded. But now it needed to get up, and that was going to be hard because it had just rolled over one of its own flippers. Its flippers, being modified wings, were much less flexible and more easily damaged than a turtle seal's flippers. The water spirit got up easily. But that was only because its body was made of ice. A real water dragon would have struggled from pain, and they both knew it. It looked down at its flipper. One of the fingers seemed twisted. Zuko shook his head. That's why a water dragon should never roll over on hard-packed ground.

Then he blinked. Wait, how long have I been watching it play? It felt longer than fifteen minutes. He'd gotten so absorbed in watching the water dragon trot around happily that he lost track of time - he could have been watching for half an hour. Ugh! I can't believe I let myself get lazy! He leaped to his feet and glared at the water dragon. It's your fault! Go away. I can't believe you did this to me.

The water dragon went away, as requested. Zuko went back to his training. This time, he had no problems. The water wave hung in the air, wavering back and forth but staying steady. He didn't move it anywhere he didn't mean to.

Then a snowball passed directly in front of his face. Zuko reacted on reflex, stepping back and raising a hand to brush it away. He also pulled the wave towards him. Before he knew it, he was picked up inside a giant wave of water and slammed backward into a wall that transformed into snow just in time. Zuko lost his grip on the water, letting it all splash onto the ground. "Gah!" He rubbed at his face frantically, shivering as the cold air touched the cold water and made him want to pull his head back into his coat.

The water spirit tapped him on the shoulder. He snarled at it. It reached out towards his head and pulled all the liquid water off of him. Just like that, he was at a comfortable temperature again. He turned away and went back to his practice. He picked up another wave. It held steady. "Try to distract me again."

That was what he spent the entire morning on: trying to hold a wave steady while being distracted. He was surprised at how hard it was. If something compelled the rest of his body to move, then his inner grip seemed drawn to move along with it. His inner grip was a part of him just like his arm was, and it moved just as easily and unconsciously. He got wet several more times. By the end of the morning, he had succeeded only in noticing the wave's movement fast enough to stop it from engulfing him. As he sat, feeling almost feverish, he wondered what his inner grip was.

It's like I have an extra limb that I never knew about. He put a hand over his stomach. If anything, it's easier to control than all my other body parts. Too easy. It's so easy to control that I don't have any control over it. I can't even tell when I'm using it. That was something he had learned from Master Jeong Jeong. Using my inner grip isn't like bending. Bending is something special, something you make time for, something you choose. This isn't like that. Using my inner grip is something I do all the time. In order to use it better, I have to practice using it just like I would practice using my arm. All the time, everywhere, for anything it was good for.

He shivered and wiped sweat from his upper lip. But less often. I can't use it for very long, or I feel sick. Though, if I hold my arm in the exact same position for a long time, my arm starts to ache too. How do I use my arm? He looked down at his arm and imagined a day of using it. Activities he would use his arm for included: swinging it back and forth as he walked, which was such a mild and constantly changing exercise that it would never tire him. Reaching for something: a very short task immediately followed by long periods of rest. Carrying stuff - that was difficult enough for his arms to feel some strain, but not usually long enough to tire them and wasn't required very often. And, of course, firebending: precise motions that were difficult for his arms to do until he practiced them enough for the movements to seem familiar. Once his arms knew what to do, the exercise involved in firebending became no more difficult than carrying a light load.

That's what I have to do? Mild stuff I can keep up with no strain, reaching for things, and carrying things? I'm already doing the equivalent of firebending training. So I just need to add all this other stuff to my day, and then I'll have as much control over my inner grip as I do over my arms.

But how do I translate reaching for things and carrying stuff into tasks I can use my inner grip for?

That was a question to be answered some other time, because he had just finished a training session. It was time to rest for a few hours. His stomach growled. Zuko got off his ice chair and stretched. The water spirit was in its dragon form, quietly digging ten feet away. "Lunchtime," he declared.

The water dragon immediately threw itself into trotting position and ran over to him. It grabbed him with its barbels and squeezed him, lifting him up against its neck. He tried to push himself away, but was helpless. He had to wait until the water dragon put him down. When it did, it flared its gills wide and flapped its fins at a speed it had never reached before. It waved its head from side to side in a frenzied way. Super super super excited! was what all this movement translated to. It grabbed his neck with one barbel and gave him a noogie with the other. You, yes, you! So proud!

Zuko swatted away its barbels and stepped back. "No!" he told it sternly. "You are not to do that anymore. No hugging, no touching my head, nothing like that. It's not allowed."

The water spirit continued to flap its fins and wave its head. If it had been a real dragon, it would have been making a constant stream of calls and trills that would have drawn every other dragon in the pod over to see what was so exciting. Zuko would have been the center of attention. Every dragon in the pod would have been celebrating around him, because of him.

"What are you so happy about?" he asked. "I didn't do anything impressive."

The water spirit shook its head and slashed the air with one barbel. No, wrong. It pointed at him, at its head, held an imaginary object, use one barbel to tap at the air in front of it, then pretended to slide the imaginary object through a hole. Technically, these were the signs for You, head, object, of, inside. What the water spirit was actually saying was, You had an introspective idea.

"You're impressed because I thought about myself? Wow. Your standards are so low a starfish would struggle to walk under that bar." Zuko shook his head. "Go back to being ice before someone sees you. I need to eat."

He made his way back to the city and checked how much money he had. It was enough for a bowl of mixed sea creature soup with a side of mashed sea plants. As he slurped up another squid and followed it with a spoonful of green mush that was probably half algae, he dared to think it was a good day.

.

Iroh had no knowledge of this. He had found the people who frequented the diner to be very partial to a game of Pai Sho. He played with many new people, and he won a fair amount of money from bets, but his heart wasn't in it.

One of the people who stopped to play with him was a grown man in perhaps his 30s or 40s. This man refused to bet, apparently having seen the pile of Iroh's winnings. He played for fun. Iroh's mood perked up as they played; he saw in the way the tiles moved that this man was a true fan of Pai Sho. It was nice to play with someone else to whom the game mattered as more than just a game. This led him to think of the secret society to which he belonged, which led him to think of other things, and before he knew it he was lost in sadness again.

"Is something wrong?" the man asked.

Iroh looked up at him. "Do you have children?"

The man nodded.

"Then you might understand." Iroh hoped he would understand. He even dared to hope the man would be able to offer advice. "My nephew has been struggling lately. He's more angry than I've ever seen him. He refuses to be around the only people who have tried to be friends to him, he snaps at me, and he spends all his time alone. I can't remember the last time I saw him happy. I don't know what I can do for him. Perhaps he needs time alone to figure some things out."

"How old is he?" the man asked.

"Sixteen."

"That's too old for childish sulking," the man said. "What he needs is a firm hand. You need to tell him that he's got to snap out of it, no ifs ands or buts. He can figure things out in his alone time. But when he's with others, he's got to behave. Letting him think that snapping at other people just because he's unhappy is okay will just set him up for disaster. Trust me. I've seen it. When you've got a problem kid, you can't let them walk all over you."

"He's not a problem child," Iroh argued. "He is kind-hearted and generous. He is a good man."

"If he's not acting like one, then he's not one."

Iroh couldn't find a way to refute that argument. "I know him very well. I've been by his side every day for the past three years. He's just confused."

"That is no excuse for treating his own family members rudely," the man replied. "He's got to learn that there are limits, just like everyone else."

Again, Iroh couldn't refute that argument. As they returned to play, he pondered the man's words. It was true that, as a prince, Zuko hadn't had much education in the ways of discipline and restraint. Perhaps more restraint, and not less, was what he needed. Letting him go down this dark, self-destructive path had already led to disaster. Iroh's resolve rehardened. This time, he would intervene. This time, he would not lose.

"Thank you," he told the man as they shook hands and parted ways.