III. Alchemy

Zuko has little recollection of the first time that it happened. He remembers standing beside her at the funeral pyre, so close that their fingertips brushed, when he into existence the flame that would devour Mai's body. The other rebels remained for a few respectful minutes of silence before heading back to their posts. Fallen comrades were dime-a-dozen. There was still a war to be fought.

Zuko and Ty Lee stayed until the wind robbed them of the very last wisp of her ashes.

The midnight hour had already passed by the time that they staggered back to camp. Only they didn't stagger all the way back, because it was cold without her there.

Months later they have become more deliberate. Calculated. Practiced. Ty Lee's voice is too loud and Zuko's hands are too large yet somehow they always manage. Zuko can be as distant as Ty Lee wants and Ty Lee can be as sharp as Zuko needs.

Neither of them pay much attention to the rumors that swirl about them like dead leaves. They are not troubled when strangers stare at the bruises circling Ty Lee's wrists, or the tracery of long shallow cuts on Zuko's back. Their rituals are their own.

Under cloak of darkness, daggers in-hand, what would be a tawdry affair by light of day transmutes into a sacred act.

They have found a formula to raise the dead.