"He's a firebender!" Katara stepped in front of Aang, popping the cork from her waterskin.
The old man smiled, though it seemed distracted. "Yes. And you are the fierce water bender who defended the moon spirit from Zhao."
Katara let her hand fall from her waterskin. With Yue's sacrifice and Aang's possession by the ocean spirit, she's forgotten there had been a firebender who had fought against Zhao. But that wasn't the first time she'd seen this man… "You were with Zuko! Were you the one who let him in?"
His eyes widened. "You've seen Prince Zuko? My nephew survived?"
"He attacked us in the oasis!" Katara snapped. "He stole Aang's body. His spirit could have gotten lost coming back!"
"But it didn't, Katara, I'm fine now," Aang reassured her, laying a hand on her arm. "You saved me."
"Because Zuko was stupid enough to try fighting a water bender in a blizzard." Katara crossed her arms, pulling away from Aang's hand. If not for Zuko, maybe they would have been able to save Tui, and Yue wouldn't have had to die.
"My nephew is a determined young man, but he lets his passion blind him." The firebender placed his teacup down, folding his hands into his sleeves. "Do you know where he is now?"
"Probably still cooling off," Katara muttered.
"Katara!" Aang hissed, but Katara didn't take it back. If anyone deserved to be left in the middle of a blizzard, it was Zuko. If he died, that was one less problem for them to deal with.
"We needed to get back to the spirit oasis," Aang was sheepishly explaining. "So we left him there."
The firebender took a measured breath in, then smiled. "Prince Zuko is very resilient. Perhaps he is already on his way here."
Aang winced. "Uh, he was kind of unconscious when we left. And he looked pretty injured, but that wasn't us! Well, mostly wasn't us, unless it was from fighting Katara. But she was just trying to save me!" He grinned too widely, and shot a wide eyed glance at Katara, silently screaming for help.
Katara couldn't resist that, even without the way Zuko's uncle's smile fractured a little more with each sentence. She's never considered before that maybe Zuko had someone out there who loved him. "There was a cave nearby," she offered. "If he woke up and got to there, he might have survived."
"Please. Take me to this cave." The firebender's smile had completely fallen now. He was just an old man, eyes shadowed with sorrow. There was only the barest spark of hope in his eyes.
Katara found herself hoping Zuko had lived, just so she wouldn't have to watch that spark snuff out.
She knew it was nearly impossible he had. He was a firebender, left unconscious in a blizzard, while already injured. Even someone as terrifyingly persistent as Zuko couldn't come back from that. The most Zuko could do was take Zuko's body back to the Fire Nation; hopefully that would be enough to bring him peace.
"Of course we'll take you! Appa will know the way."
When they took off, it was still just the three of them and Appa. Katara wanted Sokka to be there, to have the solidity of her brother at her bar, but she hadn't been able to find him. She thought, or maybe hoped, he was out somewhere he'd been to with Yue, to say goodbye.
Without Sokka, it was up to her to protect Aang. She had to be the sceptical one to balance out Aang's optimism. Uncle (she still didn't know his name, and just calling him 'the firebender' felt weird. Zuko had only called him Uncle) would probably react badly to finding Zuko's body, so she needed to be prepared to fight him.
As they came down to land on the thick snow, Katara's fingers hovered over her waterskin. She didn't really need to use it, not with so much snow and ice to bend with, but she felt safer with it close.
If Uncle or Aang noticed, they didn't comment.
"I think the cave was that way!" Aang, through some sort of airbender trick, was gliding over the top of the snow, feet barely making a dent.
Katara spun slowly around, trying to get her bearings. "If the cave is that way…" The snowfall had made it harder, but she'd grown up with snowfalls like this. She knew how to see past it. "Zuko fell here." She lifted her hands, ready to bend the snow away, but Uncle breathed out a gust of hot air, melting the snow where she'd pointed.
There was no body.
It was a surprise, but at the same time it wasn't. Of course Zuko, who had followed them from one end of the earth to the other, wouldn't die so easily. He must have gone somewhere. In a moment of fear, she imagined he could even be back in the city, looking for Aang, ready to terrorise them once again.
"I guess Zuko did make it." She'd expected Aang to sound happy. He had never wanted Zuko to die, and had argued for bringing him back with him. But Aang's tone was more layered than that, filled with emotions she couldn't name. Regret, perhaps? Or weariness?
Impulsively, she grabbed his hand in her own. He smiled at her.
Uncle didn't seem to have heard Aang at all. He was blowing more and more hot breath, the snow beneath them turning to slush.
"Maybe he made it back to the city?" Katara suggested. She could hear the scepticism in her voice, and missed Sokka again. She was supposed to be able to dream of impossible things, and Sokka was the one who doubted all of them but could plan and make it happen anyway.
"Or he went to the cave?" Aang's hand jolted in hers and she thought he was going to leave her to go check, but she squeezed his hand and he settled down again. She wasn't ready to be alone with the firebender. "Uncle Firebender, wherever Zuko is, he's not here."
"Maybe he got lost." It could easily happen, Katara knew. Injured, alone, with snow as far as the eye could see, Zuko could have stormed off in the wrong direction and been swallowed in the storm.
"I will not lose another son." With a mighty breath, Uncle melted a circle of snow around them, wider than Appa was long. Katara and Aang jolted as the snow melted under their feet, leaving them standing on bare earth.
On the far edge of the circle was a body.
"Zuko!" Uncle rushed forward.
Katara tried to hold Aang back, protect him from seeing the body of someone they'd known, even an enemy, but Aang pulled out of her grip, falling to his knees next to Uncle in the puddles of melted snow.
Uncle reached out a trembling hand, brushing a finger against Zuko's pale cheek. This close, his scrapes and bruises looked terrible, but still faded next to the vivid red of his scar.
Almost against her will Katara came closer, drawn by this rare chance to see the face of the enemy up close. He'd chased and terrorised them for so long, and now here he lay, his body curled on the ground like a child's.
'Oh,' she thought. He had been a child.
He couldn't be much older than Sokka, and Katara knew better than anyone that Sokka was definitely still a child. Yes, technically he was a man of the Tribe, but he was still a child. All three of them were. Yue had still been a child when she died, and now, so had Zuko.
A drop landed on Zuko's cheek, quickly freezing to join the frost collecting there. "My brave, foolish, beautiful boy." A second drop joined the first.
Katara swallowed against the lump in her throat, blinking furiously.
Aang looked at her, not even trying to hide his own tears. He said nothing.
Katara swallowed again. She knelt beside Zuko's body. There had to be something she could do. She couldn't save Tui, or Yue, or keep Aang safe. She couldn't keep Sokka's heart from being broken. But here, maybe, finally, she could do some good. If there was even a chance she hadn't come too late, again, she would take it. Not for Zuko, but for his uncle, and because if she finally had a chance to save someone, she had to take it.
She reached out with her bending, feeling the snow and ice all around her. She pulled it closer, turning it to water and coating her hands with it. Uncle and Aang watched, the tension palpable. Uncle's trembling hand still rested on Zuko's scarred cheek.
Closing her eyes, Katara lowered her hands to Zuko's chest. If there was any spark of life left in him, it would be here.
At first, she felt nothing. She pressed deeper, conscious of Aang and Uncle's eyes on her. Even the Avatar couldn't do what she was doing now. The only one who could help was her.
There was a weak flicker. She felt for it, coaxing it out. A single spark had refused to die, burning down to the barest ember but refusing to sputter out.
She fed into it, pulling it up, bringing it back to brightness. A firebender's chi was different from any she'd felt before, but like any other, it wanted to survive.
She opened her eyes, sweat beading on her forehead. Aang and Uncle were still staring at her. "He's alive."