Two months after the Agni Kai, Azula snuck into his room, humming a sickly-sweet tune. He glared at her with his unbandaged eye as she poured herself a drink. Finally, she looked up at him, flashing a fake, saccharine smile.
"Thirsty, Zuzu?" she chirped, waving an empty cup at him. When he didn't respond, she let out a prolonged sigh, slinking to his bedside table. Medicine bottles jingled as she rearranged them, passively studying their labels and contents.
"You know, dad asked me to come visit you." She laughed when his head snapped into her direction.
"Mhmm," she continued, the mock cheeriness still in her voice. She held up a translucent bottle filled with a brownish liquid, swirling it. "The doctors are saying you're well enough to travel, to start training. Dad wants you on a ship tomorrow morning. And… as if that" –she gestured to his face, fingers splayed— "wasn't punishment enough, our insufferable uncle has insisted on going with you."
She frowned when he remained silent, stepped up to his bedside.
"Zuko…" she nudged him, more serious now. "Don't brood. You know, you're no fun when you brood. It's really not that bad. You get an entire ship to yourself and your very own crew to order around. It's simple: all you need to do is find the Avatar, and you'll get a hero's welcome home. Your honor, your place at father's side, me—your whole life is waiting for you here."
"I look like a monster," Zuko grumbled.
"Oh, come on." Pushing off the bed, Azula made her way towards the door. "You're so dramatic. Plenty of people have scars…"
A sly smile crossed her face as she glanced back at him.
"Besides, I happen to know a girl about—" she gestured "this tall, with black hair— she's your age. Oh, and she loves to brood, too. She told me scars are 'totally not boring' and add a great deal of 'character.'"
Zuko felt his good cheek flush. Noticing, Azula rolled her eyes, swinging out the doorway. Peeking her head one last time from around the entryway, she called back to him.
"Anyway, I have to go join our father for some stupid meeting. Later, dumb-dumb."
He waited for the door close, before he sat up. The conditions for his return home were clear. He needed to capture the Avatar and return him home.
Standing now, he made his way to his mirror, reaching up to touch the patch covering his eye. The doctors recommended he exposed his eye to the light for a few minutes every day, to keep it strong. Eventually, he'd be able to take it off permanently. Zuko scowled as he pulled the patch off, staring at the mottled face in the mirror.
Maybe he wasn't a monster… but he was broken. Honorless. A stain on the royal family. This mark was just a reminder of his own insolence, his own foolishness. He wouldn't make the same mistake twice. His father wasn't without mercy; he had given him the chance to turn his mark of shame into one of pride… An opportunity to return to home, to prove himself.
Whoever the Avatar was, wherever he was, he would find him… no matter the cost.
From her seat, she heard him wake up with a start, taking in a sharp breath. Yet another nightmare had been plaguing him moments before. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed his hand catch as he attempted to raise it. He tried his other, to no avail. The ropes were a precaution. Although they were nearly futile for a firebender, it gave her some peace of mind.
She had spent most of her time in the tent, catching a few winks of sleep here and there when he was unconscious. For the most part she had watched over him, thinking, waiting. She felt her fatigue start to gnaw at her sanity, bit by bit. This would have been so much easier had she just let him die.
"Your fever broke," Katara said, removing the temperate towel from his forehead. She pressed the back of her palm to his skin, nodding to herself when the coolness there all but confirmed it. She always heard firebenders ran hotter than others, but this seemed to be another baseless generalization. His skin felt virtually normal, in stark contrast to what she had felt hours ago.
"You were dreaming," she stated after he remained silent. Zuko stared at the ceiling of the tent, unmoving, a thousand miles away. "Do you remember what it was about?"
She watched his mind return. He twisted his wrists in their restraints, scoffing.
"No," he rasped harshly. The displeasure in his voice was evident, but it was hard to tell what irritated him: the dream or his newer, less comfortable accommodations. Maybe both.
He had been muttering her name, twisting his head side to side, fighting against his restraints at the thought of her. He had nowhere to run, no ship full of men or palace he could hide behind. So, Katara persisted.
"Your sister"—the very mention of her made him turn to her sharply— "She's relentless."
If he had fur, she was sure it would have been standing on edge by now, bristling up like one of Ba Sing Se's feral cats. She watched as his lips twitched, the beginnings of a familiar scowl threatening to break across them. He settled on a reserved grimace instead as he gathered his composure. The rage he would have left unbridled in the past was kept in check.
Temperance looked bizarre on him.
"She's always been that way," he said finally, on an exhale, "Ever since we were little, she had to be perfect. Anything less was a failure. Weakness."
The tightness around his eyes made his small smile a bitter one. She watched a thought cross over his features before he turned away, staring the wall of the tent. The light from the candles cast long shadows over his scar. He was uncomfortable.
"Sounds obsessive," Katara said softly, a gentle prod, a new attempt at decoding more from a past she knew so little about.
He let out a sharp breath, "It was. But it was all we knew. Unlike her, I had the luxury of escaping it."
"When you were banished," she thought aloud.
"Yes," he said slowly.
"But you went back to it," Katara let her resentment seep into her words as she pushed further. "After what happened in the catacombs, you went back to the Fire Nation. You were there for all those weeks, right? With your sister and your father…"—his gaze found hers, the hint of a warning burning behind his eyes—"And you're telling me you suddenly flipped a switch and"—she scoffed—"decided to put that behind you?"
He frowned at the discomfort seeping into the tent, in the air that was now so thick between them.
"I know it's hard to believe…"
Katara gasped as the thought came into her mind. "You knew about the invasion plan, didn't you?"
His gaze was steady on hers, his mouth unmoving. Fight, flight, or freeze, and he was stuck on the latter. Right now, he must have been realizing that this was not what he had imagined by joining them: all this delving into the past, explaining himself, dealing with her.
"I did," he replied tersely, wincing at how bad this version of the truth sounded aloud.
She pounced. "So, if you wanted to help us so badly, you could have done something back there at the capital."
A pause, a moment's hesitation. Then, "I visited my father during the eclipse."
Her eyes widened, the rising retort quickly losing itself in her throat. It was her turn to be speechless.
"I was alone with him, in his bunker, with those"—he nodded toward his swords—"in my hands…" It wasn't regret she heard, but a restless anger, brewing somewhere below the surface.
Katara found her voice. "But you didn't…"
"No," he replied to her insinuation curtly. "I didn't."
"So… You finally had the chance to do the right thing..." she stood, winded by the revelation.
"It wasn't time—"
"You could have ended it all, right then and there. And you did nothing!"
"It's not my destiny to defeat my father."
"What do you know about destiny?!" she exploded. "A few weeks ago, it was your 'destiny' to kill Aang!"
He surprised her when he sat up, his wrists straining against the ropes. She stepped away.
"The combustion bender," his voice was stern. "Two ships worth of Fire Nation soldiers. Gone. I've made my choice, Katara."
She could see glowing flames licking the cold polar air, crumbling steel, burning bodies flailing. The images that had haunted her for days now, the guilt that had weighed her down every time she visited that little girl in her tent. She searched his face. As hard as his expression was, it was marred by pain in his eyes.
"What else do I have to do to prove that to you?"
*'*'*'*'
The next morning, when he woke up, he thought about their strained interaction.
'What else do I have to do to prove that to you?'
She never answered him. Instead, she turned on her heel and, with a flourish of the tent's flaps, left. It wasn't fast enough for him to miss the tears gathering in her eyes. The battle at the Southern Water Tribe weighed heavily on her. He knew she blamed herself for it. That was the very thing he sought to avoid, but now that it stuck it would be difficult to absolve her of it. He thought the guilt would be his to bear alone. Now, they were both carrying it— just in opposite directions.
"Hello," a little voice chirped. He quickly turned to find a little girl, no more than five, playing with a stuffed toy as she sat on the ground beside him.
"Uh… hi?" He sat up carefully. "What is that?"
"It's an otter penguin," she held it up, 'walking' it along the edge of the bed. "See? 'Prr, prr.'" She bounced the toy on his open palm. He looked around at an otherwise empty tent.
"Ah, the great otter penguin," Zuko gingerly took the toy, facing it to her. "It eats fish and mollusks. It's known for its natural curiosity and playfulness…" he hopped it over the 'slopes' of his blankets, glancing at her. She was hanging onto every word.
"And… its strong bite!" He roared, thrusting it toward her, until the rope went taut and yanked his wrist back. She let out a surprised squeak, falling into a fit of giggles. He surrendered the toy to her, baring a tentative smile as she clutched it to the crook of her neck.
Sunlight suddenly filled the tent. Squinting, Zuko looked up in time to see an old woman enter. Her white hair was tied back, save for two pieces that were plaited on either side of her face. She looked familiar, vaguely.
"You're awake," she remarked, turning her attention to the little girl, who ran up to her, hugging her leg, "You did very well, Suruka."
She patted her head gently. Zuko watched her usher the girl, Suruka, out of the tent.
"Go play with Innik and Nakua," she crooned after her. The sounds of excited chatter and fresh laughter faded as the tent flap closed behind her. The woman approached him, coming to sit on the stool by his bed. Her amicable expression faded, replaced by a stern and ever-so-wary one.
"Prince Zuko." She addressed him by his full title, and though her tone was not unkind, its lack of formality indicated that his status carried little weight here. Then again, he wouldn't expect it to.
"You might not remember me, but I certainly remember you. It was almost a year ago when you terrorized my village during your hunt for the Avatar."
Zuko sat up, his tethered hands resting in a neutral position in his lap. He did remember her now; hers was one of many faces that had watched him that day with fear, contempt, anger…
"I was lost then. I regret what I did to you and your people," he said remorsefully, then added, "I'm sorry."
Two words that he felt deeply but had a hard time saying. Old habits die hard. The woman eyed him carefully, as if weighing the faithfulness of his words.
"Do you know the significance of this place?"
Zuko nodded. "We're at the Southern Air Temple…"
"And what happened here?"
"This is where Sozin started his atta—"
Kanna raised a finger, stopping him. "No. Not Sozin…"
He balked, at a loss. She sighed.
"A little more than a hundred years ago, before the massacre took place, it was easy to point the finger at only a handful of people: Sozin, a madman, who abused his power, and the fire sages, who carried out his every demand in exchange for prestige and citadels. As word of troops being mobilized spread, the world downplayed the nature of the threat. The water tribes disagreed on how to respond. After being engaged in territorial skirmishes with the Fire Nation for decades, the Earth Kingdom believed the Fire Nation's new target meant temporary respite for them.
"The genocide of the airbenders was swift. By the time the world's leaders amassed the soldiers and ships to aid the air nomads, they were forced to rescind their support to protect their own lands. I was Suruka's age when the war began spilling into the Northern and Southern Water Tribes. Since then, I've watched Fire Nation soldiers destroy my land, take my family and friends, kill my daughter-in-law… The place I called home for over seventy years was almost erased in front of my eyes: huts were burned, women raped and killed, infants battered in front of their screaming mothers… for what?"
He wasn't meant to answer. No apology would be enough to make up for the past. No words offered could begin to rectify those atrocities.
"This war was never only about Sozin or his predecessors Azulon and Ozai," she continued, more quietly now. The anger in her voice had yielded to the type of level-headed wisdom expected from someone her age.
"They may have planted the seeds of treachery, but it was their sycophants that cultivated them and their people that flocked to harvest the bitter crop. And so, the people of the Fire Nation have been poisoned. They fervently believe that this war is necessary, and they justify their atrocities by maintaining that they are superior in race, in ambition, in value, in ability, in morality… They believe that they are re-claiming a world that has always belonged to them."
She leaned back in her chair, folding her hands in her lap. Her gaze was steady on him.
"Do you understand why I am telling you this?" she asked.
Zuko didn't answer immediately, taking the time to process her words.
"This war…" —the truth dawned on him as he answered— "It won't just end with my father, will it? The Fire Nation needs strong leadership to change, but it goes beyond that… The world will need time and healing to even start forgiving past wrongs. To redeem my nation, there needs to be a purging of the old… Everything needs to be rebuilt to ensure a war of this scale never happens again."
There was a glimmer of approval behind her weathered eyes.
"You're better spoken than I was led to imagine." He begrudgingly wondered if Katara was the reason for this. "My granddaughter tells me you want to help her and the Avatar defeat Ozai."
Zuko's good eye widened. Of course. Some of the resemblance was there. But why hadn't he seen it before? How could he be so dense?
"You're Katara's grandmother…"
"Mm," she nodded, her eyes twinkling—all wit. "But you will address me as Kanna. I know what you did to protect our village. Although I believe your intentions are good, I cannot speak for her."
"I've given her so many reasons not to trust me. She has every right to hate me." He looked down at the ropes digging into his wrists, confessing, "I don't know what to do."
"You said it yourself, hm?" He looked up at her. "'Time and healing.'"
Zuko felt a frown tug at his lips. Time, they didn't have. Worse still, everything he said seemed to drive Katara further away— the opposite of healing. Suddenly, as if to spite him, his empty stomach grumbled loudly, breaking through their shared silence. He looked up, embarrassed, to a smiling Kanna.
"You must be hungry."
He nodded. Starving.
She procured a bone knife, razor sharp, and leaned forward to cut him loose. He rubbed his raw wrists, but otherwise stayed put. By the way she held it, she knew how to use it for more than just cutting ropes.
"Freshen up and find me outside," Kanna said cheerily. "Prince or not, you'll have to earn your supper here."