Again, thank you my beloved audience! It's been a while since I've updated but I'm actually well surprised that this story is getting any attention at all, especially because it's such a strange couple. Anyway, The Promise trilogy has now been completely released. I have to admit that I'm lightly dissatisfied by the ending—there weren't any plot twists or anything, but I guess it's understandable since we already know that the Legend of Korra has to come out of it.

Enjoy the update! :D

Chapter Three:

he curses his birthright, turning to a former enemy

The moonlight cast weary shadows over the Fire Lord, who later that night retreated to his bedroom looking half distracted, causing Ty Lee to ask him if everything was fine, a question he dodged by bidding her a thank you and goodnight.

As he swiftly walked past the two of them, Suki noticed the edge of jutting bone towards the middle of his chest in the pull of his sleep robes.

He was growing lanky, and the strong bulky armor that the Fire Nation uniformed their leader with was just a façade telling lies to the public that their lord was in good health, when in fact, he was tiring to death.

Suki met her hazel eyes with Ty Lee's.

So would begin their guard shift, which would last until three in the morning before the two of them would switch out with Riza and Su Lin.

The two of them stood silently, watching the night sky, but after a couple of hours and once Suki deemed Zuko was fast asleep, she expressed her concern to Ty Lee.

"What do you think we should do?"

The other Kyoshi Warrior seemed slightly confused about what she was talking about. "About what?"

"You know..." Suki's voice trailed, trying to find the best words, "...about...everything."

"You mean about Mai and Zuko," directly stated the other girl, not speaking conspicuously at all.

"Yeah..."

Ty Lee didn't continue the conversation—Suki suspected that she wasn't able to think of an easy solution for the two of them either.

"I don't know," Ty Lee said finally. "I guess we can try to convince Zuko to talk to her more." But those were empty words; they both knew that was easier said than done.

After a moment, she added, "It's not the first time that they've had problems with their relationship, you know?"

Suki turned her head. "It's been like this before?"

"Actually I feel bad for them because it's not their fault their relationship gets screwed up," Ty Lee explained. "It's never because of personal issues, aside from the one time we were vacationing in Ember Island, but because of the war and Zuko's banishment. And now, it's because of him being the Fire Lord. They haven't really been able to enjoy the best time together because of all the political stuff going on."

Suki thought a bit, before letting out a soft sigh.

The Fire Lord had always had it hard, she realized. Katara and Aang, despite the troubles they experienced, were always going to be on the same side of war and could guarantee that whatever they do, they'd be fighting for the same reasons. And herself and Sokka included; no matter the distance between them, they were always going to be supporting each other.

But Zuko...he was torn between the Fire Nation and world peace, within his own family, within his own self.

"They're still making the best of it though," Ty Lee continued, as Suki quickly realized that she had drifted off into her own thoughts. "I think that it'll all work out in the end. It always does—they love each other too much to not."

Suki's question was sudden. She asked without thinking. "But you're concerned about Zuko yourself, aren't you? This is more than just a favor for Mai."

"Of course," admitted the brunette. "I knew Zuko ever since we were small. Mai and I were probably his closest childhood friends in the Fire Nation before he was exiled. We were always hanging out over there, Mai and I, because we thought the palace was so grand and Azula was our best friend. And I think Mai just wanted to hang out there to see Zuko as well."

Seeing Ty Lee's glistening eyes made Suki suspect something. "You have feelings for him, don't you?"

The other girl smiled, turning her brown eyes back to Suki. "I admit that I had at some point…but to be honest, Zuko was always the special one. I always knew—even from when we were a kid—that he was going to grow up to do great things."

Hearing her companion's story, Suki suddenly realized that even after getting to know Ty Lee and having worked alongside her for so long in Kyoshi Island she had neglected to ask the Fire Nation-native about her own country or her childhood. For some reason, the other warriors never brought up the issue either.

After another round of silence, Suki decided to change that.

"Are you going to visit your family while you're here?"

A rare frown crossed Ty Lee's lips. "I don't want to talk about my family."

When Suki had been staying at the orphanage, before she was adopted and trained by the Kyoshi Warriors (she liked to think that Avatar Kyoshi was her godmother), she had always wished for a place to call home and people to call mother and father.

But it looked more and more like having a family was just as bad as not having one.

"So why did you decide to come to the Fire Nation?" Ty Lee asked. "I mean, I wouldn't know, but do you know Zuko very well?"

"I'm friends with Aang," Suki explained simply. "And Zuko is one of Aang's closest friends. I—"

The door between the two Kyoshi Warriors suddenly opened, and a mess of brown hair poked out from beyond the doorframe.

"Do you hear anything?" he asked quickly.

Suki wasn't sure if she was more worried about his panicked tone of voice or about the fact that her chatter with Ty Lee might have driven him awake in the first place.

"No, Zuko. It's been quiet all night," she replied calmly.

"Honest to goodness, there hasn't been a peep!" the other girl chirped.

They were surprised when the Fire Lord stepped further out of the room, looking to the left and right. After a moment, he met their eyes briefly and explained, "I'm sorry. It's not that I don't trust you. I know the Kyoshi Warriors are the best guardsmen in the world."

"Guardswomen, you mean," Ty Lee corrected.

But at the moment, Zuko was facing Suki and hadn't seemed to hear Ty Lee. Suki noticed the time—Zuko had barely been in bed for two hours.

"Go back to sleep. You have to at least try," she thusly encouraged him.

"No. I'm going to get a drink of water."

"Do you need someone to escort you?" Suki took a step forward and reached an arm out to him.

"I'll be fine," he assured, his hands waving her own off. "The walk will do me some good."

Suki felt Ty Lee's eyes meet hers, and the two of them looked at each other with some mutual worry for the Fire Lord.

They watched his figure get swallowed up in the darkness of the corridor beyond them.

"He's always been like that," Ty Lee suddenly stated, turning her head towards Suki. "You know, doing everything himself."

You see this, Suki? Compared to this, I'm nothing to be worried about.

Suki held his words to thought for a moment, weaving it through her mind. "Do you think," she asked, to no one in particular, "that if he had the choice, he wouldn't have been the Fire Lord?"

"If he had a choice?" the other Kyoshi Warrior asked. Her voice admitted, "Honestly I don't think he really has much of one…it was kinda all destined to fall on his shoulders."

Suki's mouth twisted, and she took her gaze back down the dark hall that he had walked into.

He returned later. Perhaps an hour or so later, but the two of them didn't say a word as his hunched over body slipped back into his bedroom.

thenextday

Rolling the silk over her shoulders, Suki still marveled at how the cool and impossibly smooth texture wrapped perfectly around her.

This was sleepwear? Geez, it was hard to imagine what other luxuries the royalty could afford for formal nights.

She yawned, wiping the night's sleep off her slowly awakening eyes. Throwing her feet to the bare hardwood floor, she stood up and accessed the lightweight fabric—completely unlike the heavy and sometimes irritating cotton that she was used to. Looking almost distastefully back at her warrior clothing, she couldn't see herself fitting her now spoiled skin back into the uniform.

Suki made her way to the door of her room, enjoying the gauzy billowing of the silk, making her way towards the kitchen pantry for some breakfast goodies. She skipped a bit, playing around with the royal pajamas.

A room to the left caught her attention however. She wasn't sure what the allure of it was, but the slight crack of the open door beckoned her to push it forward just a bit more…

And then she was inside of it, shelves of books surrounding her. A map of the entire expanse of the Fire Nation was propped up on the wall facing the door as she stepped into the study. Portraits of the previous Fire Lords were orderly placed around the room—she noticed that Zuko's face hadn't been added to the collection yet.

Briskly moving toward to the dusty spines of the catalog of books, she traced her finger over the binding before her attention was stolen by the plethora of files scattered across a dark mahogany desk towards the center of the room. She pranced over there, soundless as her sandaled feet made their way toward the desk to satisfy her curiosity.

She gleaned a couple of words: Harmony Restoration Movement, Yu Dao, campaign, King Kuei…

Names she barely recognized and—at least at the moment—were insignificant.

"First time wearing silk?"

"Oh!" she gasped, swiveling around. Shit. "Morning, Fire Lord," she said, composing herself.

She barely understood how he was awake, after having been out the entire night "getting a drink of water."

"I'd prefer that you stick with the job that you had originally come here to do, rather than snoop around elsewhere."

His declaration hit her at the wrong angle.

"To be fair, Lord Zuko, you had told me that as a guest of royalty your palace is 'completely open,'" she retorted quickly.

His words bit him back, and it showed briefly on his face. "Well…not everything is open," he revoked, muttering almost under his breath.

Suki almost snarled back, but she refrained herself, spotting Ty Lee passing by in the hallway. "Sorry then," she apologized briefly and took Ty Lee's appearance as an excuse for her to just walk out of the situation.

Ty Lee received her with a raised eyebrow. "What were you up to in there?" the other Kyoshi Warrior, who had just woken up, asked her as they walked down the corridor.

Suki brushed off the question. "Nothing much," she replied, her hand waving. "I was just checking out the place and got intercepted by Zuko."

Ty Lee nodded, expecting a bit more detail to the answer. When she didn't get it, she cheerfully suggested that Suki and her go to see the city to get some fireflakes.

And so the two of them did, and Suki was having a marvelous time, shoveling some of the crunchy spice into her mouth.

But then in the middle of her laugh, she spotted an older man giving her a scornful look, all the way down from the milk crate that he used as a seat with an empty cup in his hand and all his world's possessions wrapped in a black sack aside him.

She chocked mid-bite, an evanescent memory of the feel of silk on her shoulders passing.

laterthatday

Upon stepping into the dining room and noticing that Mai was sitting across from no one, Suki immediately ducked out of the place and firmly decided to find the Fire Lord, setting aside her own discouragement to do so—especially after being so harshly spoken to from the man earlier this morning.

Sheesh, what was the whole deal? It wasn't like she was sitting down at the desk and studying the files with a notepad in her other hand.

She spotted him in another room, head tilted over a lamp-lighted table, holding his head and biting down hard on a pen. Suki took a calming breath, watching him mark up a page, before she stepped into the room, making sure her entrance was audible.

Despite her obvious presence, he didn't respond, even as she was standing inches from his table.

"Fire Lord Zuko?"

He finally looked up. "Suki."

"You should join us for dinner."

He shook his head. "No time."

She paused, mentally exasperated, but then tried again. "Just this once."

He surprised her by agreeing and then getting up. Suki wasn't able to process her joy in being successful, as Zuko's strides were wide and unforgiving. She had to add an extra bounce in her steps to catch up to him.

Taking a moment to think her thoughts through, she apologized to him first. "I'm sorry about earlier today."

He dismissed her comment. "Have you been enjoying your time here so far?"

She was taken aback at his change of subject. "Uh yes, I went to see the rest of the capitol today."

"I know."

She gave him a look, but he explained without even a glance at her. "You smell like fireflakes," the firebender said, as a-matter-of-fact-ly.

Recovering, she replied, "Uh, I tried some earlier this morning."

"Do you have more?"

"Uh…yes?"

"Then as Fire Lord, I order you to give me the rest of your fireflakes," he demanded before a soft chuckle afterward indicated it was just a joke.

"I'm guessing you like fireflakes," Suki said dryly, tone unamused.

"More than life itself," he affirmed, then tilted his head a bit. "Actually, that might not be saying much."

Raising an eyebrow at the ironically emo-ness of the comment, she asked. "Well if you like them so much, just tell your palace chefs to make them for you. Then you'll have it all you want."

He wrinkled his nose. "They serve it baked. It's the street version, all greased and over-spiced, that I grew up on…and I haven't been outside of these walls in the longest time."

A small smile was perched on his face all throughout the remainder of Suki's conversation with him and even carried through the dinner, the Fire Lord frequently making bad jokes and acting completely normal. He seemed to be enjoying himself, and as relieved as Suki was to see the Fire Lord not depressed, she was even more worried at his sudden change of mood.

Mai didn't seem amused, and every time Zuko attempted to make eye contact with her, she denied him the gratification.

Somewhere between the rice and meat and the sweet dried fruit, he snapped.

"Damn it, Mai—what am I doing wrong?!"

The silence after that question was even more deadly than the silence that persisted throughout the dinner. Everyone around the table tensed up and not even a scratch of silverware could have been heard.

She didn't reply, continued slowly spooning soup into her mouth.

"I'm smiling for you! Is that enough?"

Her spoon dropped to the bowl, clanging hard against the porcelain. She pushed back away from the table and quickly walked out the door without a word.

"Mai!" Zuko stood up as well, reaching out a hand as though he could catch her. "Mai!" he repeated, louder and running after her.

The rest of them around the table attempted to return to eating, but found that they had lost their appetites.

thatnight

"Is Mai okay?"

Ty Lee didn't answer, and Suki decided that it was better to not pry.

The door between them opened up, and the Fire Lord stepped out, presumably from the middle of an unsatisfactory sleep. The two of them found themselves unable to say anything to him and watched him walk down the long corridor away from his room.

It had been five minutes since he had passed before Ty Lee let out a soft sigh and turned her eyes toward Suki.

"I don't know," she replied finally.

Suki turned her face down.

The two of them didn't talk for the next two hours, and by then the man that they were bodyguarding was heading back to his room.

"You should be getting rest, Fire Lord."

"That's okay—I should be fine," and he walked back into his room without any other regards.

For the remainder of the night, the two Kyoshi Warriors replaced their silence with worry instead.

beforethesunrose

Shift over, Suki spotted a cloaked figure walking in a direction away from the palace. Deciding to make sure that this suspicious person wasn't a threat to royalty, Suki had decided to delay her sleep for the time being.

She continued following the unnamed man toward the northern corner of the city. He turned to head towards a tall building, spiral-like. Since it was night, she didn't remember it too well from when she had taken a tour of the city in the daylight but she was relatively sure that this was the prison.

Suki gritted her teeth. She knew this mysterious person had to be investigated. What if there was some sort of a conspiracy to overthrow the—

The hooded man suddenly removed his outer cloak, and an all too familiar looking scar revealed itself.

Zuko?!

Is this where you've been going at night all this time? she asked him in her thoughts. Holding herself silent, she waited for the Fire Lord to slip through the slightly open doors of the prison.

What was he doing here? Why was he here? The questions rustled through her mind while she waited a couple more seconds to pass. Taking a couple more deep breaths, she quickly rushed over to the entrance of the prison and put her fingers into the small crack that was left between the doors, rank and acrid dungeon air seeping out.

She slipped through the doorway and quietly closed the double doors to the same position that she had found them in before turning around and waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Making sure her footsteps didn't echo on the stone floor, she made her way through the labyrinth before reaching a split.

Hoping that some sound would give her a hint to which direction Zuko had taken, she stilled her very breath.

A clink.

Her eyebrows narrowed. Porcelain?

She followed the sound through to the right, and soon the discordant voices that she had been hearing cleared up as she turned another corner.

There wasn't any doubt—it was Zuko's voice!

But who was he talking to?

Suki leaned in towards the voices, bringing herself right to the edge of being spotted by either Zuko or whoever he was talking to. She stopped herself from advancing forward—just another inch and she'd be discovered.

She really wanted to know who Zuko was talking to, especially what criminal Zuko was taking time to talk to…complete with tea, if her nose was accurate.

The Kyoshi Warrior dared herself to just take a quick glimpse…

The prisoner bore a strong resemblance to—Ozai?!

Pressing up against the wall and letting her heart calm, Suki tried to figure out what was going on.

She hadn't even known that Ozai was so close to them! She knew that Aang had taken away his bending, and she knew that Ozai's power had been stripped so that he was no longer a threat, but never would she have guessed that the living man was just a few blocks away from the palace!

And Zuko was talking to his father? What for? What ungodly reason did Zuko have to talk to the man? Was this what he had been doing all this time while he was out at night? Was this man who Zuko was losing sleep to?

Why was the Fire Lord even associating himself with the largest criminal of the entire world?

She tried to listen in to their conversation, but her mind was having a debate with itself, trying to figure out what made Zuko want to talk to his father.

Why? Why was he talking to him? She couldn't simply ask the Fire Lord—then he'd know that she had been following him! Was Zuko going to be doing this again tomorrow night? Would she have the guts to stalk after him, listen in to their conversation? Did she even have a right?—was it a personal conversation? Was it about official business?

"Get out!" the older man's voice bellowed, and Suki almost fainted if it weren't for the second later that she realized—with the sound of a thrown cup and broken porcelain—that Ozai was not speaking to her, but to his son.

She looked in both directions. There was only one way out—she'd be caught if she didn't get a move on!

Quickly removing herself from the scene, she managed to get back a couple feet before she was interrupted by Ozai's voice.

"What I'm saying is this—there is no right or wrong apart from what you decide. Who you choose to defend deserves to be defended simply because you chose them."

She tried to make sense of what she was saying. Defend? Was there trouble going on that she had no idea about? Fighting, perhaps? How could she have not heard about this?

"You are the Fire Lord. What you choose, by definition, is right."

There was a painful silence that followed Ozai's sentence, and in that heavy tense air, Suki suddenly realized an ever greater danger.

Zuko was taking advice from his father?!

"No!" she heard him retort. "Right and wrong are bigger than me, or you, or even the Avatar! And I believe that the Avatar, the Earth King, and I can come closest to what's right by working together!"

Ozai didn't seem fazed. "I've heard rumors about this little meeting of yours."

Suki thought it curious that even she, so close to the Fire Lord, hadn't heard anything about arguments between the Earth and Fire Nation, while Ozai, locked all the way up in jail knew about what was going on. Even behind bars, the former Fire Lord seemed to know everything that was happening in the world.

"Do you think the Earth King, after being humiliated time and time again by our mighty nation and his own incompetence, will be reasonable? Do you think he'll treat the remaining Fire Nation colonials fairly? In an attempt to restore his own dignity, he'll send out his army to crush them...If you truly are the Fire Lord, you will defend the Fire Nation citizens of Yu Dao ferociously! Not simply because they are your people, but because they are an expression of your will!"

Disagreeing, Zuko replied, "I'm going to wait, and my patience will be rewarded with a peaceful resolution for everyone! Even as we speak, the Avatar is—"

"The Avatar is an irrelevant relic of a bygone age! He wants to keep the world frozen in time by denying the inevitable victory of the strong over the weak!"

Suki couldn't help the small gasp that left her lips.

This sort of an influence couldn't possiblybe good for Zuko.

"Avatar Aang is my friend! More often than not, he's been on the side that's right!" Zuko argued. She felt the tension in his voice. "I trust him."

There was a stressful pause in their conversation before Ozai asked, "More than you trust yourself?"

And here, was another painful silence. Zuko could find nothing to defend himself with.

"You sicken me, Zuko. Leave my presence."

The Fire Lord erupted. "Who are you to talk to me this way?! Have you forgotten your current place in—"

"Leave! My! Presence!" the former Fire Lord demanded, punctuating each word.

Suki made up her mind. She had to leave. She had to leave now.

Her foot clobbered on a loose stone.

"Who's there?" Ozai boomed.

Covering her mouth to keep herself from screaming, she rushed down the corridor before she could be found out, not stopping until she reached her bed, where she shook until sunrise.

thefollowingmorning

She hadn't slept at all that night.

"Ty Lee…" Suki said, while pouring herself some tea and taking in what energy she could from the strong drink. "What ever happened with Azula?"

The other Kyoshi Warrior's eyes glazed over. "She's in a mental facility."

Suki's heart thudded with a sudden fear. She almost spit out her bitter drink. "Where? Here?"

"Not on the main island. She's out on one of the eastern islands—why?"

"Just curious," Suki replied, swallowing slowly.

nightfall

He's manipulating him, she surmised throughout the entire day. I have to talk to Mai.

Zuko would listen to her…right?

Passing by her room, Suki quickly prepared herself the impending conversation, but heard soft whispers outside of Mai's room.

"I'm sure he meant well," wafted Ty Lee's voice.

"I know." And Mai sighed. "I know…but he can't just pretend that everything is going alright. I wasn't asking him to be happy with whatever shit he has to deal with, I was asking him to be honest with me!"

Realizing that standing outside of the room just listening to their conversation made her relive her eavesdropping on Zuko and Ozai, she decided to join the girls, sitting down on the floor next to them.

"Oh, Suki," Mai greeted, and Ty Lee gave her a tight smile.

"Did you get to talk with him afterwards?"

The raven-haired girl shook her head. "I was too angry."

"Well then, you should go explain to him!"

Mai clenched the fabric under her fists. "No," she declared. "If he can't even understand that then what difference is it going to make if I spell it out for him?"

"I'm sure he has a lot of things on his mind that he has to deal with," Suki interjected once the time was right.

"I know." Mai's eyes shot up to meet Suki's. "But he's not talking to anyone—no one knows what's going on. And if no one knows what's going on, no one can help him." She turned her head back down to the ground. "I wish I could help him. But I can't if he isn't letting himself be helped. And I feel useless."

"We understand," Ty Lee consoled her friend, while Suki held words at the tip of her tongue.

Mai doesn't know about Ozai, does she?

"But I really suggest that you talk to him to sort things out as soon as possible," Ty Lee continued. "If you guys keep up this silent treatment, everything's just going to turn out even worse than it did before. And he tried, right? He was trying to make you happy—"

"Is that enough for me?"

Ty Lee's eyebrows furrowed. "What?"

"Is that enough for me? That's what he said," Mai repeated, her jaw clenching. "Does it really take that much to just tell me what's troubling him? He doesn't want to bring me into this mess? Does he really think that I want to see him suffer through all that alone? I can't—"

"You have to talk to him," Suki said.

And then when the silence after her interruption grew too large, Suki admitted the truth.

"He's talking to his father?!"

thedayafter

Zuko was always the special one.

Remembering this line from Ty Lee, she slowly approached the Fire Lord, who was sitting at his desk, head cradled in his left hand.

His golden eyes flickered up to greet her.

She almost stepped back, sure that he knew that she had been there when he was visiting Ozai.

"Suki," he acknowledged. Some warmth crossed through his eyes.

She caught her breath again—he didn't know. There wasn't any way that he knew, anyway. Why was she worrying about such a thing? If he had known that she had been listening in, he would have already confronted her. He couldn't have known that she—

"Do you want something?"

The Kyoshi Warrior almost stuttered. "Fireflakes. I picked some up while I was downtown." She handed the firebender a white paper bag full of crisps and spices.

She was out the door before she heard his thanks.

thatnight

He had been playing with the flames around his throne, extinguishing them once he realized there was someone else behind him.

She started first. "I know you've been secretly meeting with Ozai."

"Mai!" he exclaimed. And then her sentence hit him. "Who did you hear that from?"

From behind a podium, Suki's breath stopped.

"Does it matter?" Mai retorted. "Not from you."

It took Zuko a while to find his voice. "I know I keep screwing up. But, please…I…I love you, Mai."

"I know," she replied. "But lately I've realized that you love your secrets more. You'll have an easier time keeping them when you're alone."

"…what are you telling me?"

"Goodbye, Fire Lord."

Suki's eyes widened.

"Mai! Come back! I—I—I order you to come back!"

Suki bent over, struck with guilt. Fuck, she had actually made their relationship worse by meddling and interfering with everything! Seeing his agonized face, she rushed over, immediately getting down on her knees.

"This is my fault! I'm so sorry!" she blurted, cursing herself over and over again in her mind. "I…when I asked her to talk to you about your father, that wasn't quite what I had in mind!"

"Suki! But how did you know—"

She didn't let him finish, apologizing further. "I followed you. Sorry about that, too." She took a deep breath before continuing. "We just wanted to know what was going on, to see if we could help in some way. The Kyoshi Warriors are really worried about you, Zuko." And then she realized that she had been speaking in plural for something that she had done completely on her own—"I'm really worried about you."

Her hand reached up to his hand, but his hand flicked back when hearing someone else rush into the throne room.

"Fire Lord Zuko!" a military personnel greeted.

"General Mak."

"A message has arrived from the spies you sent to the Earth Kingdom!"

"You sent spies?!" she gasped, realizing that there was a lot more to Zuko's secrets than just his consulting his father!

"Your suspicions are confirmed. The Earth King's army is now marching towards Yu Dao!"

"Father…you were right," Suki heard him say under his breath. "Thank you, General Mak. Please prepare a fleet to go to Yu Dao immediately. We will leave tomorrow morning at daybreak."

Stunned, Suki exclaimed, "You can't do this—you haven't thought this completely through! What are you going to do once you're in Yu Dao? Start a full-on war?!"

Zuko's eyes—no longer soft—returned to Suki.

"Leave."

She was unable to sleep that night.

atdaybreak

He was surprised that she appeared on one of the ships leaving.

"I'm your personal bodyguard," she explained briefly.

The Fire Lord didn't reply.

"Did you even tell Mai?"

"Mai doesn't care anymore," he spat back. "Don't you remember?"

Thanks for reading, don't forget to leave a review behind!—or I'll make sure Zuko knows that he can regain his honor by chasing after you!

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