we all want love/we all want honor

Part 10: I feel you driftin' away

"I sense trouble on the horizon, I'm afraid our time is up."

- Alec Benjamin, "Match in the Rain"

Finally, finally, they'd reached civilization. (Although a spa had not been what Zuko had had in mind.) And now Uncle wanted them to just sit around and get massages.

"Prince Zuko, lighten up! Yu Dao just a few days' journey away," Uncle Iroh said. "It won't be long before we see Lady Toph again!"

"And then what, Uncle?" Zuko turned to the older man, despair and frustration evidence on his face. "We have no boat, no crew, no method of transportation, no way of tracking the Avatar. I don't know what we're going to do."

"In times of despair, it is good to have a true friend by your side," Uncle said in his 'wise old man' voice. "Don't worry so much! Once we are all together, I'm sure things will seem brighter!"

Zuko wasn't so convinced.

They'd just returned to their room, bickering all the while, when a voice from the corner sent them both into high alert.

"Hello, brother. Uncle." Azula. What was she doing here? Zuko wasn't even sure his sister had ever left the Fire Nation before. He certainly hadn't, before his banishment.

Lady Toph was only seven years old at our betrothal ceremony. She'd had to leave everything. How had she ever forgiven him for that?

And then Azula started talking about how Father wanted him to come home, and all other thoughts flew out of his head.

"And what about Toph?" Iroh challenged him. "She's probably still Yu Dao, waiting for us- for you. Will you just leave her behind?"

"She's an earthbender," Zuko said. "This is the Earth Kingdom. She'll be better off here."

"Do you really believe that, Prince Zuko?"

Instead of responding, Zuko stormed out of the room.

The whole thing was a lie. Of course it was. (Azula always lies.)

Zuko awkwardly used one of his broadswords to cut off his hair, then handed it to Iroh. (His dagger would have worked better, but he didn't have that on him anymore.)

"We can't go to Yu Dao," he said as they watched the strands float down the river. "She doesn't deserve this."

"Are you sure, Zuko?" Uncle asked. "She may not deserve it, but she won't be happy about being left behind. Again."

"Better angry than dead."

I should know.

"My intuition tells me that it's the end."

- Alec Benjamin, "Match in the Rain"