Missed Opportunity

"I just really messed up, didn't I?"

That was the thought that had flown through Zuko's head just before the arrow flew true and smacked him right inthe head. Zuko would have expected the arrow to go through his head just as easily as the thought, but something must have happened- perhaps the Blue Spirit mask protected him, or the arrow was blunted, or the Avatar did something to slow the arrow, or a combination of all of those- and now he was waking up to the sight of newborn sunlight filtering down between the leaves of the forest.

He wasn't dead.

He was alive.

(Which was the logical conclusion of not being dead, but still a good thing to confirm.)

Zuko tried blinked his fatigue away. His head had a dull ache in it, which was better than having an arrow in it. He was lying on something even harder than his mattress back in his cabin on the ship, but there were no rocks poking up to batter his spine. In fact, now that Zuko focused, there was something cushioning him from the hard ground of the forest. This worried Zuko more than anything.

He turned his head to look around, and found the Avatar sitting there smiling in the sunlight.

Zuko's first impulse was to leap up and try to grab the kid. His second impulse was groan at the prospect of moving his stiff muscles so quickly. His third impulse was to snarl and growl, but that was a common one.

Zuko successfully managed to suppress all three of those impulses, and simply stared up at the Avatar and thought the situation over. The Avatar must have been the one to save him, to drag him away from Pohuai Stronghold, to stuff- Zuko shifted slightly, and yes, those were the sounds of leaves rustling below him- stuff leaves beneath Zuko so that he wouldn't sleep in complete discomfort.

Well, that was unusually nice of the Fire Nation's Ultimate Enemy.

A part of Zuko noted that the Avatar's niceness had placed him in a vulnerable position, and that if Zuko got over his fatigue, he would be able to attack or grab his quarry.

Another part of Zuko remembered his last thought before the arrow had hit home, that he had really messed everything up and was about to die, and wondered if the Avatar was responsible for saving his life.

It didn't change anything, of course. Zuko had a mission, given to him by his father, and he had to prove himself worthy of returning home. But if the Avatar was sitting here, making himself vulnerable for the sake of Zuko's life, then it would be dishonorable to take advantage of the situation. They could consider this a kind of... yes, a truce. An honorable truce. When the Avatar departed, Zuko would be free to pursue him once again.

Then the Avatar spoke, his voice in harmony with the faint morning breeze.

Zuko hoped the kid would get through this quickly.


"You know what the worst part about being born over a hundred years ago is? I miss all the friends I used to hang out with. Before the war started, I used to always visit my friend Kuzon. The two of us, we'd get in and out of so much trouble together. He was one of the best friends I ever had– and he was from the Fire Nation, just like you. If we knew each other back then, do you think we could have been friends too?"

Now that Zuko was awake, Aang half expected the prince to attack him, but to his pleasure, Zuko continued to lie on the ground, blinking up at him. There was a long moment of silence between the two, broken only by the tickling breeze and the calls of the forest birds, before Zuko finally spoke.

"No."

Aang wanted to immediately ask why, but he knew that this was a sensitive moment. It was like playing hide and seek with a lemur, or tiptoeing around a snoring elder. Zuko was obviously an angry guy, and he thought Aang was his enemy. Aang needed to be very careful. So he kept his smile, gave Zuko his most understanding expression, and waited.

Finally, Zuko turned his gaze away and spoke again. "A prince of the Fire Nation has no friends. He has responsibilities to his nation that stand above all else."

Aang felt a frown tugging at his face, but he resisted it with all his power. "Is that how the war started? Responsibilities making people fight because they weren't already friends?"

"You don't understand." Zuko brought a hand up his head, and massaged it like it was paining him. "The war is supposed to make things better. Once the world has been civilized, the fighting can stop and people will be able to live better lives. The war is as much a burden on the Fire Nation as it is on the rest of the world."

This time, Aang did frown. He had seen the burning buildings on Kyoshi Island. He had seen the Earthbenders taken from their families and stranded on metal islands in empty seas. He had seen the kids who had lost their parents, and had seen the way hatred for the Fire Nation had taken a kid like that and made him grow up into Jet. He had seen Zhao. (Seeing Zhao was enough; it didn't matter what he was doing.) Aang didn't think Zuko really knew what he was talking about here.

But Zuko was the skittish lemur in this game, and Aang didn't want to scare him away, so he just said, "And what's your burden? Why are you trying so hard to keep me from helping people? I don't want to hurt anyone from the Fire Nation."

"You're our enemy!"

"No, I'm just friends with people who the Fire Nation tries to hurt. I want you to be my friend, too. Then no one will have to get hurt, and we won't have different sides anymore."

Zuko's eyes closed. "You're naive."

That made Aang smile again. "That's what everyone says about Air Nomads." Then a memory bubbled up, an errant fact that Aang loathed with everything he had, but as the last Airbender, he let that hate drift away with the memory on the wind. The only remnants of the memory emerged from him in a small voice: "Well, that's what they used to say."

Zuko's eyes opened, and Aang could see pain clearly visible on the unburned side of his face. Did he really understand the wrong that his nation did, a hundred years ago? Was he starting to regret all the wrong that this war was doing? Aang leaned towards the prince. "Do you think we might be able to be friends now? Even if we're still on different sides, for a little while?"

Zuko blinked. "I-"

Aang waited.

"I- I don't know."

Aang looked over again at the rising sun, and let the morning breeze caress him. "Why are you chasing me? Really?"

With the same sensitivity that allowed Aang to name the winds, he felt Zuko abruptly stop breathing. "Because I am a loyal son of the Fire Nation."

And then Zuko jumped to his feet and ran away.

Aang wanted to chase, but he knew it was a bad idea. He had spooked the lemur he was stalking, and Sokka and Katara were waiting for their frozen frogs. All there was left was to clean up, move on, and look forward to another day. But the weight of his failure hung heavily enough to keep him on the ground for a long moment, long enough to say one last thing:

"I just really messed up, didn't I?"

END