Spirits
Iroh held Zuko in a tight embrace in the shade of his tent at the White Lotus camp. Zuko accepted the embrace. Tears were in both of their eyes. They had been separated for weeks or months depending on ones point of view, but it had felt like a lifetime. Finally destiny had brought them together again and Iroh couldn't have been happier, but the hug couldn't last forever. Zuko had found him for a reason, and on the day of Sozin's comet no less. Slowly they both pulled back from each other.
"Uncle, we need to..." Zuko began, but Iroh cut him off.
"Patience Prince Zuko. I am famished, and you could do with some breakfast as well no doubt," Iroh said. Zuko could do with a great many breakfasts it looked to Iroh. He wasn't as skinny as he had been during their stint as refugee's, he had gained a bit of muscle, but he was still worryingly lean.
"There isn't much time," Zuko tried to protest.
"If there is time enough to say it in my tent there is time enough to say it over a bowl of rice. We will all need our strength for today," Iroh said, polite but unyielding.
"Alright," Zuko relented before standing up.
Iroh noticed lots of things, it came with age and patience and the odd instructive experience or two. He noticed who Zuko ran over to first as they stepped out of his tent. Iroh recognized her as the young Water Tribe girl the Avatar had always traveled with.
"You were right Katara," Zuko said to her.
"See, I told you," she replied. Iroh noted that the conversation was easy and comfortable. Iroh remembered the last time he had seen these two together, locked in an explosive fight. It seems he wasn't the first person Zuko had sought to make amends with. The sight made Iroh smile with pride.
Of course anyone would have been able to see that, provided they were looking. Iroh saw something more, the kind of thing that is often there but imperceptible to most. But Iroh had travelled far in his life, walked plains most never would seeking something he would never find. A souvenir of that long sad journey was Iroh's ability to see spirits most couldn't.
He saw two of them now. A pale koi, similar to the spirits of the sea and moon but with shimmering violet scales, floated along beside Katara. Beside Zuko flapped something very much like a falcon with red wings rippling like fire and a long smoking ashen peacock tail. In the mouths of each was a long trailing red cord that tied to the pinky finger of either bender.
Iroh watched as the falcon spirit glided around the koi, attempting to tangle it in the red cord, but at the last moment it would slip free of the thread. Then as the falcon would give up on catching the fish she would in turn leap and dart at the falcon, attempting to snatch the red thread from the falcon and make the two one herself. But the falcon dived and dodged as swiftly as the koi.
Iroh smiled as he watched the spirits at play, hoping they might at last tie the knot they were both struggling with. Iroh knew what the read thread of fate meant.
