Chapter 14: All The World's a Stage
Of all the things Rinzen had expected when they landed near the royal house on Ember Island, the last thing was to fall in love with the beach. The sand was softer than anything she had ever felt beneath her feet before, and still warm from a day's worth of sunshine even in the middle of the night. The moon hung low over the horizon and the faint white glow illuminated the sand, making it practically shimmer ethereally. The ocean waves lapped at the shoreline, the rushing sound of the tide coming in and out soothing as it washed away small pebbles and rainbow-colored shells before bringing new ones back and depositing them gently in the sand.
Rinzen found herself on the beach that night after everyone else had gone inside the house, just sitting at the edge of the water and feeling the waves wash over her toes.
"I was wondering where you were." She started at the sound of Zuko's voice, looking up to find him coming down from the house towards her. He was barefoot like her, probably having abandoned his shoes at the house the way she had when they had arrived.
She shrugged one shoulder. "I've never been to a beach before," she admitted, glancing back out at the moonlit horizon.
"Never?" He sounded surprised as he took a seat beside her, and she watched him dig his toes into the sand instinctively. She did the same, feeling the warm grains shifting between her toes every time the tide rushed in and then receded.
"Aang was the one who did most of the traveling when we were younger, not me. I usually stayed back at the Southern Air Temple," she answered. "I don't think it ever really hit me until recently how sheltered I used to be."
Zuko hummed consideringly, glancing out at the horizon as well. "I used to come here every summer with my family when I was younger," he said after a moment. "I guess I took it for granted back then." He picked up a small shell that washed up between them, fiddling with it absently before tossing it into the water and watching the tide take it away. "My father sent me and Azula here with Mai and Ty Lee for a weekend a couple months ago. I guess he wanted us out of the way for some time while he met with his advisors."
"How was that trip?" Rinzen tore her eyes away from the rolling ocean waves to glance back at him and he smiled wryly.
"We played volleyball, had a big heart-to-heart around a bonfire, and then destroyed a guy's house over a party he was having." She gave him a disapproving frown. "Hey, I felt bad about it afterwards," he protested and she rolled her eyes back at him. "The whole time, though, I couldn't stop feeling like something was wrong," he confessed.
"Well, yeah, you destroyed a guy's house," she pointed out dryly.
"Not that," he dismissed before wrinkling his nose in thought. "Okay, well, yeah, that, too. But the whole trip felt wrong from the start." He ran a hand through his hair absently and she noticed how long it had become, reaching down to the base of his neck now and hanging messily in his eyes. Her fingers itched to reach up and push his hair back from his face and she buried her hand into the sand to keep from giving into the impulse. "It feels right this time, though," he said after a moment, drawing her out of her thoughts and making her realize that she had been staring at him. "Being here with you." He turned pink, as if he hadn't meant to say that out loud. "And the others, too," he added quickly and she smiled faintly as she knocked her shoulder lightly against his.
"It feels right being here with you, too," she reassured him, but found herself unprepared for how warmly he smiled back at her, like the sun coming out from behind dark storm clouds. Even after Aang had outright spelled it out for her, it kept hitting her like a punch to the stomach just how in love with Zuko she was.
She started to open her mouth, trying to get the words past the lump in her throat, but Zuko was already climbing to his feet, dusting the sand off his clothes. "We should head back inside, it's late," he said and she nodded dumbly as she followed his lead, the moment gone as they made their way back to the house.
"You guys aren't gonna believe this," Sokka said as he and Suki burst into the courtyard the next day, where everyone else was gathered after Zuko and Aang's morning firebending session. He and Suki were dressed in their Fire Nation clothes, which meant that they had clearly just returned from the small town nearby. "There's a play about us!"
"A what?" Rinzen echoed, bewildered as she sat up beside Aang where he was laying flat on his back on the ground, exhausted from his training. He lifted his head slightly, too tired to move any further, and Rinzen nudged him upright the rest of the way.
Sokka brandished a large poster depicting caricatures of himself, Aang, Katara, and Rinzen with Zuko in the background. "'The Strangers in the Iceberg is a new production by acclaimed playwright Pu-on Tim, who scoured the globe gathering information on the Avatar from the icy South Pole to the heart of Ba Sing Se,'" he read off the poster. "'His sources include singing nomads, pirates, prisoners of war, and a surprisingly knowledgeable merchant of cabbage.'"
Katara snorted with amusement. "I told you we should've been nicer to that cabbage merchant we kept coming across," she deadpanned to Aang, who rolled his eyes in response.
"'Brought to you by the critically-acclaimed Ember Island Players,'" Suki added as she read the small script at the bottom of the poster and Zuko scoffed from where he was sitting on the edge of the dry fountain in the center of the courtyard.
"My mother used to take us to see them. They butchered Love Amongst the Dragons every year," he grumbled as he rubbed a cloth over his hair, still sweaty from training with Aang. "This is going to be terrible."
"Not to mention dangerous. Do you really think it's a good idea to attend a play about ourselves?" Katara pointed out, frowning worriedly.
"Come on, this is the kind of time-wasting nonsense we've been missing," Sokka dismissed. "It'll be fine."
"I don't know, Katara has a point," Suki admitted hesitantly. "Most of the audience will be from the Fire Nation."
"Well, I say it'd be fun," Toph said, pushing herself up onto her elbows where she was reclining beside Katara.
"I'm in, too," Aang agreed. "What do you think, Rin?" He glanced up at her expectantly to break the tie and she shrugged.
"I guess I don't see any harm in it if we go disguised," she said, ignoring the betrayed look Zuko gave her.
"Majority rules, we're going," Aang said happily, far more energetic suddenly as he climbed to his feet. "We should get our disguises ready."
"Ugh," Zuko complained, but reluctantly got to his feet. "Come on, Rin, let's get you some Fire Nation clothes so you'll blend in." Rinzen climbed to her feet to follow him inside the house, letting him lead her up to the large attic and over to a trunk of clothes. "It's a good thing Azula left a bunch of her clothes here," he said absently as he pulled open one of the trunks and Rinzen wrinkled her nose.
"You're giving me Azula's clothes?"
"Why, would you rather go in what you're wearing now?" He glanced over his shoulder at her, eyeing the Air Nomad clothes she had found in the Western Air Temple and had taken with her when they had fled the temple. "I mean, you could, but it goes against the point of blending in." He dug out a light red long-sleeved shirt and a darker pair of pants, tossing them over to her. "Try these. You two are about the same height, so they'll fit you."
To Rinzen's dismay, the clothes did fit perfectly. Despite being Azula's clothes, though, they were comfortable and didn't make her feel like a stranger in her own skin like Fire Nation clothes often had made her feel in the past. She wore a headband around her forehead to cover her arrow tattoos, tugging her sleeves down over the backs of her hands, and it felt much like she had all those months ago when she had first started wearing Fire Nation clothes whenever Zuko's ship had docked at new ports.
No one looked twice at the group as they made their way into town and towards the theater that evening, even though Zuko and Aang stood out the most with Zuko's cloak pulled over his head and a ridiculously-pointy hat jammed over Aang's head to hide his bald head and arrow tattoos. They made their way to the back of the theater and filed into a balcony so that they could make a quick escape if necessary. Rinzen took the back row with Sokka and Suki, leaving Aang, Zuko, Toph, and Katara in the front row.
"Hey, uh, I wanted to sit there," Aang protested when Zuko sat down between him and Katara.
"Just sit next to me, what's the big deal?" Zuko said, nonplussed, and Aang looked mildly disappointed as he dropped into the seat beside Zuko.
Rinzen bit back her amusement, settling into her seat next to Suki as Toph complained, "Why're we sitting in the nosebleed section? My feet can't see a thing."
"I'll tell your feet what's happening," Katara reassured her as the lights in the theater dimmed and the curtain began to rise. Sokka made an odd squeaking noise from Suki's other side as he leaned over the back of Katara's seat, grabbing her shoulder and pointing at the stage. Katara chuckled as she patted Sokka's hand absently, but Rinzen couldn't begin to wrap her head around why Sokka was so excited to see the actors on stage, who looked nothing like the real Katara and Sokka.
The actress playing Katara, an older, bustier woman in Water Tribe clothes, sighed dramatically as she leaned on the bow of the wooden cut-out of the canoe they were pretending to paddle in. "Oh, Sokka, my only brother," she said, her voice quivering as if she was about to burst into tears at any moment. "We constantly roam these icy South Pole seas, and yet never do we find anything fulfilling!"
The actor playing Sokka, a thin, scrawny man, rolled his eyes. "All I want is a full feeling in my stomach. I'm starving!" The audience burst out laughing.
"Is food the only thing on your mind?" the actress playing Katara demanded.
"Well, I'm trying to get it out of my mind and into my mouth! I'm starving!" The audience laughed again.
Sokka looked outraged when Rinzen peered over at him, all excitement on his face gone. "This is pathetic!" he hissed. "My jokes are way funnier than this!"
"I hate to break it to you, but they're really not," Toph answered before Rinzen could beat her to it, grinning widely and leaning back in her seat to enjoy the show.
Zuko glanced over his shoulder at Rinzen, raising an eyebrow pointedly. "I told you this would be terrible," he muttered.
"Terribly hilarious, you mean," she corrected him as she placed her arms on the back of his seat, leaning forward and resting her chin on her folded arms.
"Well, we'll see how you feel when your actress gets onstage," he answered dryly, turning back around to face the stage. By the time Rinzen also turned her attention back to the play, the actress playing Katara had burst into tears in the middle of a speech about hope and the real Katara was scowling irritably.
"That's just silly," she grumbled, "I sound nothing like that."
"This writer is a genius," Toph said reverently, clearly soaking in the chaos with glee. Meanwhile, on the stage, a model iceberg rose up surrounded by mist as a spotlight shone on it to reveal two silhouettes inside. Aang leaned forward eagerly in his seat even as he glanced over his shoulder at Rinzen, who rolled her eyes fondly at his enthusiasm.
"It appears to be two people frozen in ice, possibly for a hundred years," the actress Katara gasped.
"But who? Who are the strangers in the iceberg?" the actor Sokka demanded.
"Waterbend! Hi-ya!" The actress Katara pretended to chop the iceberg in half as the model cracked open and two women leapt out. Rinzen recognized the smaller one immediately as Aang, with a skin-colored cap covering her hair so that she appeared bald, with blush painted on her cheeks. Meanwhile, the other actress looked vaguely bored, but surprisingly accurate to Rinzen herself with shoulder-length brown hair and an arrow drawn on her forehead.
"Who are you two?" the actress Katara asked wonderingly.
"I'm the Avatar, silly, here to spread joy and fun!" the actress playing Aang said cheerfully, her voice mockingly high-pitched.
"Is that a woman playing me?" Aang hissed furiously and Rinzen heard Toph cackle under her breath from the other side of the balcony.
"And I'm his sister, I guess," the actress playing Rinzen added, her voice entirely monotone. Rinzen decided immediately that she liked the actress and how little she actually cared about whatever script she had been given. "And we can't go around spreading joy and fun, we need to go back home."
"Aw, you're such a buzzkill," the actress Aang complained.
"Yeah, it's because I'm dead inside," the actress Rinzen shot back irritably and the real Rinzen snorted with amusement.
"Sounds about right." Everyone turned to stare at her, looking vaguely concerned. "What?" She shrugged. "You can't tell me I wasn't really boring when you first met me."
"Well, yeah, but we didn't wanna say it," Sokka confessed after a moment and Katara turned around to hit his arm.
"Sokka, don't be mean!" she scolded.
"Well, she was!" he complained even as they turned their attention back to the play, but Zuko was still frowning at Rinzen.
"What?" she asked, feeling suddenly self-conscious under his worried gaze.
"I didn't think you were boring when I met you," he pointed out quietly and she felt her cheeks warm as she ducked her head slightly to avoid meeting his eyes.
"That's different, you're biased," she mumbled and he opened his mouth to protest, but she nodded to the stage. "You're up." He still looked like he wanted to argue, but reluctantly turned to face the stage again, where a model Fire Nation ship had glided onto the stage and the actors playing Zuko and Iroh stood on the deck. The actor playing Zuko had a headpiece on to mimic the ponytail he had had all those months ago and a patch with a realistic painted scar over the wrong eye, and he was in the middle of an argument with the actor Iroh.
"I must capture the Avatar to regain my honor!" he shouted.
"Well, while you do that, I'll capture another slice of cake," the actor Iroh said cheerfully as he swallowed a piece of cake.
"You sicken me!" the actor Zuko snapped.
The real Zuko sank down further in his seat sullenly. "I sound completely stiff and humorless," he muttered.
"Actually, that actor's pretty spot on," Katara said from beside him, amused.
"How could you say that?!" Zuko protested, sounding betrayed.
"Let's forget about the Avatar and get massages!" the actor Iroh said from the stage and the actor Zuko wheeled around to face him.
"How could you say that?!" Everyone in the group turned to look at the real Zuko and he buried his head into his hands miserably.
The rest of the act proceeded just as awfully, with terrible jokes and clumsy dialogue that sounded nothing like what they had really said in the past. Only Toph, Rinzen, and Suki seemed to get some kind of enjoyment out of it, although Rinzen suspected it was mainly because Toph was an agent of chaos while Suki just seemed entertained by all the adventures everyone had gone on, and Rinzen found it easier to laugh at herself when even her actress didn't seem all that interested in what was going on most of the time and mostly faded into the background while rolling her eyes.
As the first act concluded and the intermission began, everyone filed out of the theater to stretch their legs and the group found themselves on a flight of stairs just outside.
"So far, the best part of the play is the intermission," Zuko complained as Rinzen took a seat beside him.
"I don't know, it's not so bad," she reasoned as he gave her a dull glare. "I liked the part where I saved you from drowning after the ship exploded."
"Yeah, because that's the only part that actually happened the way they showed it," he pointed out as Aang frowned back at them.
"Wait, that was real? I thought it was just some drama they threw in."
"Yeah, that was a thing that happened," Rinzen answered vaguely, earning a worried look from Aang. "We were fine," she added reassuringly, but he didn't look all that convinced.
"Apparently, the playwright thinks I'm an idiot who tells bad jokes about meat all the time," Sokka grumbled as he returned with a bag of fire flakes and Suki grabbed a handful to munch on.
"Yeah, you tell bad jokes about plenty of other topics, too," she teased.
Sokka didn't catch on to her sarcasm. "I know!" he agreed vehemently and Suki rolled her eyes.
"At least he kind of looks like you," Aang pointed out bitterly. "That woman playing the Avatar doesn't resemble me at all!"
"You are pretty in touch with your feminine side," Toph deadpanned and Aang glowered at her.
"Relax, Aang. They're not accurate portrayals. It's not like I'm a preachy crybaby who can't resist giving over-emotional speeches about hope all the time," Katara said, but raised an eyebrow when everyone just stared back at her. "What?"
"Yeah, that's not you at all," Zuko muttered and Rinzen dug her elbow into his ribs, making him wince slightly.
"Hey, this playwright did his research," Toph said, sitting up slightly. "I know it must hurt, but what you're seeing up on that stage is the truth."
"Yeah, well, let's see how you feel when you're up on that stage," Sokka retorted. Soon enough, it was time to return to their seats for the second act. Aang dropped into the back row of the balcony with Sokka and Suki this time, leaving Rinzen to sit in his abandoned seat next to Zuko.
To everyone's dismay, Toph was delighted to find that a tall, muscular man had been cast as her. She giggled madly to herself as the actor playing Toph screamed a "sonic wave" at the audience before claiming to have gotten a pretty good look at everyone. The rest of the act flowed the same way the first had, although with far less of Rinzen sneaking off to visit Iroh and Zuko than had actually happened in real life, since Rinzen knew practically no one had known about her friendship with them at the time. She still took some enjoyment out of how bored her own actress seemed to be throughout the play while everyone else worked themselves up into a frenzy over how awful their respective actors were. The only time she felt a twinge of annoyance was when they reached the catacombs and the actress Katara and the actor Zuko were left alone.
"I have to admit, Prince Zuko, I really find you attractive," the actress Katara said flirtatiously. To Rinzen's relief, the real Zuko and Katara leaned away from each other, trying to put as much space between them as possible.
"You don't have to make fun of me," the actor Zuko huffed, crossing his arms.
"But I mean it!" the actress Katara insisted, closing the space between them and taking his hands as she batted her eyes. "I've had eyes for you since the day you first captured me!"
Rinzen leaned over to glance sideways at Katara and Zuko, who both looked visibly uncomfortable. "I didn't realize I was getting between you two lovebirds," she deadpanned to hide her own discomfort and Katara huffed as she reached across Zuko to swat at Rinzen's arm.
"Stop it!" she hissed. As Rinzen sat back in her seat, grinning, she heard Aang get up behind them and leave, but knew better than to call attention to it when Katara was already so flustered over what was happening on stage.
"Please tell me you don't actually believe that happened," Zuko muttered under his breath to Rinzen, eyeing his respective actor and the actress Katara embracing with a disturbed expression on his face.
"I've been taking this whole play with a few handfuls of salt, don't worry," she joked and he relaxed slightly, but his expression remained tense as the rest of the act progressed.
As the act concluded, Aang's actress was hit with a paper bolt of lightning and crumpled lifelessly to the floor, to the rest of the audience's delight, and Rinzen found herself getting out of her seat before the curtains even fell, making her way out to the open balcony of the theater and leaning over the wooden railing as she took a few deep breaths to calm herself down. It was a poor rendition of what had actually happened, but for a split second, she had been transported back to the catacombs, seeing Aang get hit by a jagged bolt of lightning and fall to the ground, and she had been helpless to do anything about it.
"Rin?" Zuko's voice behind her drew her out of the memory, worried and uncertain.
"I'm okay," she reassured him, scrubbing her hand over her face to compose herself before glancing over her shoulder at him with a small, forced smile. "Just needed some air."
"You don't have to lie to me. I know that wasn't easy for you to see." He leaned on the railing beside her, lowering the hood of his cloak since they were alone, and she let her smile fade as she lowered her gaze away from him. "Aang's fine," he reminded her quietly. "He's talking to Katara on another balcony right now."
"I know. I know he's okay." She rubbed her eyes as they stung sharply, embarrassed to be on the verge of a breakdown in front of Zuko. "Sorry. I'm being stupid, getting upset over it after all this time."
"He's your brother," he answered simply. "I can't blame you. I mean, I've had a few nightmares about Azula falling from that airship since it happened."
She looked up at him, startled. "You have?"
He shuffled uncomfortably, glancing away from her. "Yeah. That sounds stupid, doesn't it?"
"No, it doesn't." She reached out instinctively, lacing her fingers with his. "She's your sister."
"So why's it different for you?" he pointed out as he looked back up at her. "If it's not stupid for me to worry about my sister, it's not stupid for you to worry about your brother. Especially since you and Aang are a lot closer than Azula and I are."
She huffed slightly as she dabbed at her eyes again with her sleeve, unable to find a fault in his logic. "Don't use reverse psychology on me."
He cracked a smile. "Then quit being stubborn." He reached up to place his free hand against her cheek, his thumb swiping underneath her eye to wipe away a stray tear that she had missed, and she found herself leaning into his warm touch instinctively despite knowing that she shouldn't.
It felt surreal to have someone worry this much about her, to the point where he constantly went after her whenever she slipped away from the group. No one else had ever done that for her before; even Aang, as much as she knew he loved her, had always chosen to leave her to her own devices whenever she had disappeared in the past, trusting that she would come back eventually.
Whatever Zuko saw in her face made him frown suddenly, his eyebrows furrowing in concern. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," she said quickly, trying to manage a smile to reassure him, but his expression shifted almost instantly, closing off and becoming unreadable.
"You can tell me if it bothers you, you know. Being this close."
"It doesn't," she insisted, but he was already moving backwards, no longer looking at her.
"We should head back inside," he said quietly.
"Yeah, I'll be there in a minute," she agreed reluctantly, feeling shaken and unsure what had suddenly changed between them. He nodded once before disappearing into the theater quickly, almost as if he couldn't wait to get away from her, which only left her more confused and hurt.
Lingering on the balcony for a few more minutes didn't give her the motivation to return to the theater and watch the rest of the play, and she found her feet carrying her to the exit instead, making her way along the beach until she reached the shores near the royal house. Momo chirruped from where he was sitting between Appa's paws at the sight of her and she collapsed onto the sand beside the lemur, letting him climb into her lap as Appa grumbled and nuzzled the top of her head lightly.
"I'm okay, big guy," she murmured soothingly despite how she actually felt, rubbing his nose fondly to settle him down again.
She spent another half hour cuddling with Momo and Appa before the rest of the group returned, looking just as downtrodden and miserable as she herself felt. Clearly, the play hadn't ended on a pleasant note, and she vaguely wondered if the story had ended with the failed invasion or if it had continued on to predictions of the future.
Zuko walked straight past her into the house without meeting her eyes, which only stung more when she didn't understand why he was upset with her. Sokka was loudly complaining about the play with Suki and Toph as they headed inside, leaving Katara to trail after them while glancing at Rinzen with a concerned expression. The airbender waved her off, managing a smile, and Katara grimaced, not looking entirely mollified as she entered the house.
With a heavy sigh, Aang flopped down beside Rinzen, tossing the hat he had been using to hide the arrow on his forehead into the ocean.
"You're going to regret that," she warned him as she watched the tide take away the hat, although she doubted it; the hat had been pretty ugly, anyway.
"Love is hard," Aang said simply instead, dropping his head against her shoulder abruptly, and Rinzen cracked a wry smile.
"Yeah, you're telling me." She wrapped her arm around his shoulders, squeezing him close.
I knew writing so many chapters at a time wouldn't last. Writer's block hit pretty hard this time, but I managed to get this chapter out right before Halloween!
I also know this chapter's a little shorter than the last few, but I wanted to keep The Ember Island Players relatively self-contained and short so that we can jump into the series finale (and the finale of this story) from here, but GOOD NEWS. THE STORY WON'T END HERE.
I'm actually planning to do a sequel to this story following the post-show comics' canon, so I'm eager to focus on that soon!
Hope you all enjoy this chapter in the meantime! Happy Halloween and hope you all get tons of your favorite candy! :D