With their realm resembling the physical world's day and night cycle, darkness soon called for the masters to bring their exhausted students back to their home for food and rest. Awyr watched with some amusement as all three teenagers tucked into her admittedly mediocre cooking with much gusto, while her own companions were more or less dignified as they ate gathered together. Uisce, to no one's surprise, was the first to finish her meal, and the first to speak more than idle small talk as they enjoyed the food provided.
"I think we are overdue to explain exactly how this arrangement will work," she began slowly, carefully enunciating as she chose her words. With some satisfaction, she noted that she had the full attention of the three teenagers as she continued. "You are all aware that we will be teaching you with the intent to send you to your past. We are working under a timetable, but it is liable to change as the war progresses. Our understanding of the world as it stands gives us little over two years before our window of opportunity is closed. It isn't nearly as much time as any of us would like, but we must work within our means."
Awyr studied the trio of teenagers as they listened to Uisce. Even though all three were exhausted by the day's activities, there was enough energy in them for Zuko and Katara to exchange a worried look, their hands automatically reaching to grip Toph's hands. Responding to adversity with solidarity was a sound strategy, but Awyr found herself hiding a pensive frown. Something was different… There was something that passed in the gaze exchanged by the older two, something that the earthbender hadn't been able to intercept without sight. Awyr's own emotional responses might be muted, but she wasn't totally inexperienced with the deep-rooted trust that was strung between Katara and Zuko like a physical bond. She smiled gently at the recognition of that trust; their training would be easier if it were built on shared foundation.
"Much of your training will be individual," Rhyu began after a moment of silence. Exchanging a look with Uisce and receiving a nod from Cruinne, he continued, "But some of your training will be all together, or as pairs, or with a different master. We four live together because we draw strength from the balance of the elements, and so shall you. While you study under us, you will take time each day to apprise each other of your day's activities, no matter how banal you think them."
"Sharing is caring," Cruinne snorted softly, ignoring Rhyu's answering sharp look with practiced ease. Still, he had accomplished his goal of lightening the mood and Awyr watched as some of the tension drained from the table. Still, the teens' hands remained close or touching as the meal ended, conversation finished for the night.
The master's home wasn't designed with so many occupants in mind, as it had been centuries since they'd entertained guests, so their meals would be outside on a stone patio that Uisce had coaxed Cruinne to craft in anticipation of their students' arrival. Sitting opposite the house along the patio was an earthen structure designed to act as a bunkhouse to house the three teens for the duration of their stay. It was there that Awyr guided Katara, Toph, and Zuko as the other masters convened to discuss their students' level of mastery over their respective elements.
"We weren't sure if you would want private rooms, but we decided that they could be added later if you so choose," she explained quietly as she led the trio through the structure's first room: a living room sparsely furnished with a couch, a small coffee table, and an empty shelf. She gestured to two closed doors—the dwelling's bathrooms, that could be divided between the three as they so wished—before opening the door to the building's third and final room. It was a reasonably sized bedroom, with bunks shoved along three of the walls, and the center of the room was a wide, empty space.
Awyr knew grief. She understood how loss could twist a person's boundaries and needs, and she had been the one to insist that the teenagers—despite two of them being more or less grown and the third not far behind—would want to stay together. Awyr hadn't taken a mate or lover as Uisce and Rhyu had found in each other, but the years immediately following the death of her benders had brought her closer to Cruinne, relying on his strong and loud presence to keep her centered in this plane when her grief was sharpest. It was bittersweet now to recognize that they had lived together for millennia before Awyr had truly treasured Cruinne's easy friendship.
Awyr excused herself, leaving the three teens alone to exchange their own tales of training and their assessment of the masters. Days later, thinking of the three would bring a sad but knowing smile to her lips as none of the teens expressed a desire for a private room.
They pulled the mattresses off of the beds and onto the bed, pushing them together to form a large pallet. There were blankets available and the air was cooler than he was used to, but Zuko left the blankets where they were. They'd only be snatched by one of the girls if he bothered to pull them up, so he laid down without any further thought and made himself comfortable as Katara and Toph quietly claimed their place on his sides.
Zuko had become the center of their makeshift sleepovers for one simple reason: he was warm. Sleeping underground was damp and cool, and it wasn't as if any of them had the time or opportunity to grab bedding as they escaped capture. It wasn't an intentional thing at first—they'd fall asleep close to each other as a consequence of the small space and also the need to know that the others were near, that they were okay—but Zuko quickly recognized Toph's cold shivering. Even Katara, after her childhood surrounded by ice and snow, had become desensitized to the cold by months in the warm climates of the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom. Zuko hadn't been extremely comfortable with the idea at first, but his discomfort was pale in comparison to the wrongness that had risen up when he considered refusing. He and Toph and Katara, they formed a tightknit family in their isolation, and it was obvious that they were all left battered and broken by the war's last push. So he silently—unable to even think of how to offer such a thing without feeling completely foolish—pulled the two girls closer to him until days of inching together passed and they slowly became little more than a pile of limbs.
Zuko was the first to wake that night. His body was exhausted, sore from the exertion of climbing just under halfway up the volcano, but his mind was a tool against itself as it replayed and twisted the memory of the day. Rhyu had him sit above the heart of the volcano and, while the master had worked to carefully keep any of the volcano's poisonous gases from reaching him, he did nothing to spare Zuko the heat of it all. At first it had been almost invigorating to be so near to the heat buried just beneath the earth's surface, but time had passed and the brief moment of energy faded away to something almost sinister and oppressive. Heat was energy and life, but in that concentration it was smothering and choking him—
Zuko awoke violently, hands clawing at his throat as he struggled to remember to breathe. Toph was awake in an instant, her own experiences with nightmares keeping her sleep fitful combined with her seismic sense made her wonderfully talented at acknowledging the haunted dreams of her friends. Katara awoke last, groggy as the arm she'd rested her head against had been stolen away from her, but she understood the situation with as sharp and immediate an understanding as Toph as soon as she was fully conscious. Her hands automatically drew from the waterskin that had been left just within reach, and her hands glowed softly as she pressed them to Zuko's hands, pulling them gently from his throat with soft words.
The quiet and meaningless reassurances Katara offered were the only words breaking the silence as the automatic defenses of the three teens began to abate after minutes of inaction. There wasn't a threat—not one that they could physically combat at this stage, anyway—so Toph quietly smoothed the claws she'd drawn onto her hands back into the stone floor and Katara shifted her glowing hands to range further up Zuko's neck and onto his face, gently wicking away the sweat that covered his brow and soothing the sharp ache that had filled his head as he briefly struggled for air.
He didn't say a thank you, but neither of the other benders commented. Today Zuko was the first to wake. Tomorrow it could be Katara, as her mind filled with the brightness of lightning and the heavy ash covering a stony shore. Or it could be Toph, memories of Sokka's goofy grin and Suki's warm smile replaced by features twisted in pain and fear as the airship was destroyed around them.
It was routine for the three by now. One would wake, the others would follow. They'd react in predictable fashion, with one shifting to ensure the defense of their camp and the other moving to soothe the third's terror. The system wasn't perfect—if Katara was the one to wake up, neither Zuko nor Toph felt that they were in a good position to provide any comfort—but it had kept them sane thus far.
According to the habit, Zuko should lie back down. Katara and Toph would retreat enough away that only their hands were touching, and they'd stay until it was time to move again. It didn't feel right, though. The air was wrong, and Zuko found himself getting to his feet.
"What's is it?" Toph was the one to ask, voice alert to danger as one of her hands pressed against the stone of the floor beside the mattress. There was nothing physical nearby to cause them any harm, but Zuko still felt exposed.
"I—" His voice died away as he began to more closely examine what felt wrong to him. It wasn't that the air was wrong, it was that it wasn't still. He didn't just feel exposed, he needed to hide. But that wasn't right; it couldn't be right. Zuko couldn't reasonably live the rest of his life sleeping in one hole after another and there was a flicker of ironic mirth at the very idea. He trusted Toph and Katara with his life, with his mind, but he couldn't bring himself to answer properly. They were still awaiting his answer, though, so he forced himself to say something before making his escape out of the too-big room. "I'm going to take a walk."
And he was gone, leaving without another word. Katara found herself staring after him, eyes looking past the door he'd left cracked open in his haste to flee and frowned. There was something else there. It wasn't just the nightmare. She'd seen him have plenty of those, but he'd never reacted like that. She found herself absently squeezing Toph's hand, getting to her feet as well.
"I'm going to make sure he's okay," she explained, voice straining to sound as casual as she could manage. Toph was a bundle of nerves, but she nodded, hearing the unspoken plea in Katara's voice: let me, please. "I'll bring him back and you can help me beat him up for worrying us."
"Sounds good to me, Sweetness." The nickname didn't fall as naturally from Toph's lips as it once did, but Katara did her best to smile anyway. Then she followed after Zuko, leaving Toph alone in a bed far too big for a girl so small.
Zuko didn't go far from the house. Katara could just make out his outline against the silvery light reflecting off the water where he knelt, just a few hundred yards away from her. She walked towards him slowly, watching him carefully as she approached but he didn't react to her presence even as she knelt beside him.
"Do you want to talk?" Katara's voice was quiet with a sort of indecision and Zuko nearly smiled. If someone had told him three months ago that Katara would have done anything with any sort of hesitation, he would have asked them if they were feeling okay. He didn't smile, though, because he didn't even have an answer for her. Did he want to talk? About what? His nightmare? This bizarre situation they've landed in? The fact that sleeping in the open air made him feel like he was going to be sick?
"I don't know," he decided after a tenuous moment of silence. Then, only a bit more firmly, he added, "I don't think so."
"Toph's worried," Katara pointed out quietly. Zuko didn't need her say another word to relay that she was also worried. He didn't need her to brush her shoulder against hers to express to him that she was there and ready to listen and patient, but he felt an odd sense of warmth when she did. It wasn't like the heat of the volcano, cruel and sharp, but like the eternal flame of the Sun Warriors, warm and gentle and alive. That warmth curled delicately around his heart and he sighed, an unknowable tension draining from his shoulders.
"I know." It wasn't exactly an apology, but Katara accepted it with a soft nod as if it was one. Zuko was quiet for a long time, his eyes staring out towards the water. There was a weight in the air around him, as if Katara's concern tinted the air around him a deeper hue, but that weight seemed to close them off from the world. As time passed, dragging them along in silence, Zuko began to find it easier to breathe. A strange sense of wonder filled Zuko for the briefest of moments as he thought of that comforting weight, a small smile flickering at his lips before he smothered it, but it was followed by a sense of calm that refused to loosen its grip.
Katara's shoulder bumped into his again, perhaps testing for his reaction. At a loss for words to describe the storm in his mind or the strange calm that had begun to settle it, Zuko merely pulled himself closer to her side, mindlessly tangling his hand in hers as he continued to look out towards the water. He had been sure that, in the light of day, there had been waves cresting and rippling over the lake's surface, but now it was glass reflecting the sky above. Stars burned a thousand miles away in the reflection, untouched by the chaos of the war and the heartache and the anger of the nations, and Zuko wondered what it'd be like to be one of those stars.
They didn't stay beneath the stars too much longer. Toph was waiting for them inside, and time apart slowly gnawed at both Zuko and Katara. The last time they'd been apart weighed impossibly heavily on their minds, but Zuko hoped that he'd leave the nightmares under the night sky for at least the rest of the night.
Toph didn't ask any question as the other two benders returned to the pallet of mattresses and blankets they'd thrown together. The three all returned to the bedding quietly, hands quietly clasped in the darkness where nothing could try to tear them apart. It was something battered and bruised, but the small new shape their family had taken up was still strong and still important.
When Zuko found himself drifting back to sleep, his last waking thoughts were of the stars above them. They were so far, so untouched by the violence and the enmity that had shaped their lives, but they burned so brightly alone. He'd take this broken little family over the empty dark any day.
Published 5:19, 7.24.20