Woohoo! Chapter 3! I feel like I got a little sloppy towards the end of this chapter, but, you know, I tried.
I thought of a poem for chapters 1-5. "Roses have thorns/Petals crumble like ash/ As the forces of fire/ And deadly desire/ Malevolently clash."
Enjoy and review!
Gasping for air in a tangled sea of silken sheets, Prince Zuko awakes from nightmares of both his father's and his own raging flames. His shaking hands graze the scar that mars the skin beneath his eye, panicked, and it takes a few minutes before he realizes that only most of it was just a dream.
A sound slips under the crack of the wooden door, echoes through his dark bedchamber. Footsteps, without a doubt. Prince Zuko's eyes fall on the window across the room; the sky is still black, the night of the new moon empty of any light, as the searing summer heat has snuffed out every star in a wisp of smoke. Who dares disturb him at this time of night?
Silently lighting the lantern beside his four-poster bed with just a snap of his wrist and a deep breath, the prince creeps across the floor and unbars the door, prepared to give whatever person that waits beyond the door, servant, royal, or messenger, a piece of his mind. But to his amazement, when he thrusts open the door, no one is in the corridor. A fine scroll lays solitary at his feet, and for some reason he is hesitant to pick it up. Why didn't the messenger want to show his or her face? He draws the scroll close to him and closes the door on whoever was outside.
Maybe they just didn't want to disturb me, his brain tells him, but something in his gut says otherwise, loudly and defiantly and refusing to be ignored. It's this same feeling that screams at him not to read it aloud when he unfurls the scroll, this same feeling that tells him not to dismiss the words as utter garbage like he originally intended.
You must learn the history of your great-grandfather's demise.
What is that supposed to mean? How is that relevant to anything that was happening either in the war outside the capitol walls or the one inside the prince?
Shaking his head and resisting the sudden urge to burn it to a crisp, he tosses the parchment aside. It lands on the lit lantern, revealing a hidden message brought out by the heat. Whoever sent this must know the prince has a temper.
The Fire Sages keep the secret history in the Dragon bone Catacombs.
"The Catacombs," Prince Zuko says in a low voice, but that of the Dragon Bones is not the first to come to mind. He gulps and squeezes his eyes shut, extinguishing the lantern despite knowing that it's easier for his past to find him in the dark, when it burns brightest.
Surely the man's death will not have changed come morning, the prince thinks, begging for sleep to claim him before his memories do.
"But how did he die?" Prince Zuko persists, blocking his sister's path.
Azula rolls her eyes and shoves him aside, calling over her shoulder as she walks away, "Peacefully. In his sleep. He was ancient."
The prince grimaces, having learned nothing valuable from her. Old age? What "secret history" was there to possibly learn about that? Frustrated, he slams his fist against the wall. Why does he even care? It wasn't like his great-grandfather's life story is more important than anything that is happening. . Besides, the note was cryptic and suspicious and delivered in the dead of night- Prince Zuko even goes as far as suspecting it is a trap for him.
All the same, the voices in his head and gut are screaming for him to find out, to not dismiss it, to stare it full in the face and take whatever it is head-on. Perhaps just looking in the Catacombs will lay them to rest.
Hushed and alone in the darkness of the Catacombs, a yellowed scroll in his lap, Prince Zuko stares at the bottom of the parchment, confused.
I can feel my own life dwindling. I have spent the remainder of my time in search of the new Avatar, but somehow he manages to evade me. But I know he's out there, somewhere, the enemy's last hope: the last airbender.
"That can't be it!" he says, baffled. "There has to be more!"
But there isn't, and the last will and testimony of his great-grandfather Sozin, the first Firelord to harness the power of the Great Sozin's comet and the Firelord who began the Great War leaves the sixteen-year-old prince with only more questions than when he started.
"Hey, you! What are you doing in here?" a voice bellows, and Prince Zuko glances up, startled. A Fire Sage gawks at him, and the man's eyes widen when he realizes who the intruder is.
"Prince Zuko," the sage gasps, his nose scraping the floor in his bow. "My humblest apologies."
Prince Zuko raises a hand to stop his groveling. "I was just reading about the great Firelord Sozin, in honor of his comet's return." he lies, standing up and stretching.
"Is there anything I can get you, Your Highness? Tea? Another lantern? Please, do not hesitate to ask. Your regal wish is my command."
"No, no." It takes all of his effort to keep his voice level as the man's suggestions trigger something in his mind. "I… I'll just be on my way."
He practically runs out the door and up the spiraling stone staircase, up into the city, which is settling peacefully in the dusk. He takes a sharp left, his gaze set on the tall cylinder building in the distance. The closer and bigger it grows, the more he is sure of himself that the answers await him inside one lonely man's cell.
The guard says nothing as Prince Zuko charges inside, heads down the familiar path toward his uncle's cell; the prince has been here before, knows the drill. He bursts into the room.
"It was you!" he spits at the old man, stringy-haired and sad-eyed. "You sent that note!" Uncle Iroh doesn't answer, which only infuriates his nephew more.
"Well, I did find the secret history. Or should I say, the history-most-people-already-know! You said I had to learn about my great-grandfather's demise, but he was still alive in the end!" "No," Iroh replies stonily. "He wasn't."
"What?" Rapidly, Prince Zuko runs the details over in his mind once more. Sozin beginning the war, wiping out the air nomads, and defeating Avatar Roku.
"You have more than one great-grandfather, Prince Zuko."
And suddenly, he doesn't want Iroh to say the words, the ones that will turn his world upside down again, ignite his inner turmoil once more. Sozin was his father's grandfather, but his mother's grandfather… No, it can't be true, it can't be-
"Avatar Roku," he murmurs, looking up at his uncle for the confirmation he doesn't need nor want.
His uncle nods gravely. "You may think this means inner conflict was born into you, but this is a lie. Born in you is the opportunity to put the world at peace once more."
Prince Zuko presses his palms to his ears, sounding painfully like a frightened child, scared of the dark. "Well, maybe I don't want it! Make her! Make Azula do it!" He knows his plea is ridiculous, but it is the last fruitless card he has to play.
Uncle Iroh almost snorts. "Zuko," he tells the teenager, who is seeming more and more like the frightened boy he really is, a boy dressed in his father's armor, "it must be you."
"No, it doesn't!" Prince Zuko yells, fire spitting from his fists. "It won't be! You can't decide my destiny for me! I'm not the…I'm not the Avatar, Uncle!"
"The Avatar is dead." Iroh says unconvincingly, sitting back.
"No," Prince Zuko chokes out, crumbling to the ground and burying his face in his hands. "No. He isn't."
Iroh nods curtly, as if he already knew, then continues. "All your life, Prince Zuko, you have lived for others. Now it is time to live for yourself."
"That's not what you're telling me! This fairytale of yours isn't what I want!" "Isn't it?" Iroh persists.
Prince Zuko stands, scared and broken and furious and confused. "You're crazy!" he accuses, scratching the tears out of his eyes. "You're a crazy old man!" He turns to the door, shoulders shaking as he turns his back on Iroh once more, and it takes all of his willpower to do so. It is Ba Sing Se all over again, and Prince Zuko can feel is torn once more into pieces and scattered to the winds that can blow him over with a single gale, here in an old man's prison cell, the only place he is this vulnerable anymore.
Then, the words tumble clumsily from his lips, a promise he has every intention and no intention of fulfilling. "The eclipse is in a few days," he whispers at the threshold. "The Avatar will be in the city. And I…" he gasps for precious air. "I'm going to end this. I will."
Iroh only nods, even though Prince Zuko never clarified just what he was going to end- the Avatar, once and for all, or the full-blown war inside him, a destiny waiting to be fulfilled, decided by a single choice.
When Prince Zuko storms from the room, however, he isn't sure himself.