Ember Lilies

The Fire Lord's beach house was sizable, even among the many opulent estates of Ember Island. It could be called cozy compared to the Royal Palace at the capital perhaps, but it was still a sprawling building with a large enclosed courtyard, a large greeting hall, and more than a dozen bedrooms across several wings to house a royal entourage.

But much of it's past glory had yielded to the passage of time. White washed walls had cracked, red paint was peeling, and gold foil had flaked away. Many a wooden timber had begun to succumb to rot in the tropical climate. A thick blanket of dust was doing its futile best to hide the decay.

To see the place that had brought Zuko so much joy as a child in such a neglected state left a dull ache in his chest.

Perhaps that was why he spent so much time outside the house. The rocky hills that spread out around the house had changed only by growing green and more alive. Graceful ferns and tall grasses had overtaken once tidy gardens. The rolling green expanse mirrored the crashing blue waves of the sea, the two expanses separated only by a thin line of black sandy beaches.

A summer sun was high above Zuko as he walked a path through the greenery. A gentle breeze coaxed the grass into a graceful dance. Out here the ache of bittersweet memories was just a shadow of what waited inside the house. The path Zuko was currently on wound through what had once been a flower garden, though nothing was currently in bloom. That was odd for summer. The only splash of color in the garden was the scarlet fire nation silks draped around a slender girl with darkly tanned skin.

"Katara," Zuko called out to her.

"Zuko," she called back. "What are you doing here?"

"Just getting some fresh air. What about you?" he asked.

"I was looking for some wild greens I could add to dinner, but I got a little distracted. It's these plants, there's something familiar about them but I can't place them," she explained.

Zuko looked around at the patch of closed buds that surrounded them. He wracked his brain trying to remember what had grown here. He bent down to pluck one of the slender delicate stalks and examined it. Something about it tugged at Zuko's memory.

"They're Fire Lilies," he said.

"Really? How can you tell?" Katara asked.

"When I was banished Uncle made us sit at port for almost two months once, waiting for a field of them to bloom. I spent so long glaring at them I'd recognize them anywhere," Zuko explained.

"Wow, he must have really liked flowers," she said.

"Well there aren't many fields of Fire Lilies outside the Fire Nation, even in the colonies, and they only bloom a few weeks each year. Uncle liked to appreciate the little things, and he was never in much of a rush. It annoyed me at the time. Now I wish I'd appreciated it with him." Even out here Zuko had found a bittersweet memory.

"I see," Katara said, a far away tone had crept into her voice. Zuko looked up to see her glancing around slowly. The melancholy look on her face told Zuko that she had her own complicated feelings tied to these flowers.

"What's wrong?" Zuko asked.

"I saw these flowers in bloom once, a few months ago. It was after I met another waterbender from the Southern Water Tribe. Probably the only other Southern waterbender left. She taught me some things about waterbending. Things that crossed a line..." her voice seemed to give out as she approached the bitter parts of the memory.

For a moment Zuko wondered what it was. Then he remembered that night when they attacked the Southen Raiders beneath a full moon, and the man twisted to the ground by his insides. He felt his own insides twist just thinking about it.

"That sounds complicated," Zuko said, not knowing what else to say.

"It's the past now," she said brushing past it, "So I guess these flowers wont bloom again?"

"Not until next year," he said.

"That's too bad, they're pretty in bloom," she said.

Zuko considered the small plant perched delicately between his fingers. The petals were tightly folded, completely hidden within a green bud. Another memory came to him, a little thing Iroh had shown him during the months long wait for the flowers to bloom.

"Let me show you something," he said.

"What is it?" Katara asked stepping over to Zuko.

He raised up the closed bud for Katara to see. He took a deep breath, and as he exhaled his finger tips grew warm. For a heart beat nothing happened. Then his finger tips began to smoke and smolder. Like a piece of paper lit by an ember a thin orange glowing line spread from his touch across the surface of the stem. Where the flame less burn spread the flower was left gray and ashen. The delicate outermost layer flaked away. As the bud was consumed the bright orange petals burst free. Katara watched the display with awe, her blue eyes shimmering.

"Here," he said handing her the flower, "it's called a Ember Lily."

She took the flower delicately in both hands, black char smudging her fingers as pink smudged her cheeks.

"It's beautiful," she said.

"It's not as good as a natural bloom. The stem is fragile from being burnt, and the petals get discolored by the heat," Zuko explained.

"I love it Zuko," Katara said.

"Then you can have it," he replied. "This is all I can do for now. But maybe, if things go well, you can come back next year and see them bloom. We can look at them together to appreciate them properly," he said.

Katara was spinning the flower in her fingers, thinking as she examined it. The she flashed Zuko a smile before throwing her arms around his neck.

"That sounds nice," she whispered into his neck, "thank you Zuko."

Zuko awkwardly returned the hug, feling his face flushing as his heart raced.

"Yeah, really nice," he said as a smile pulled at the corners of his mouth.

Now both of them had a sweet memory of Fire Lilies to balance out the bitter ones.