Chapter 2 – Still as a Shell: Hear what an Age of Glass

a/n: At this time Katara is 20, Zuko is 22, Aang is 18, Kiyi is 9, Yuze is 4. (This takes place the same year as White Light, which was spring.)

#

[2 months later]

The sky lit with a roar and flash. Rain pounded impossibly heavy on the ground, seeming like it would wash away everything in a great deluge, but by morning it would return to a flawless late summer morning with hardly a trace remaining of the storm's passing. Summers—violent, spectacular bursts of all the extremes his nation could hold. Katara held his hand as she watched the window with him. She had taken his right, and so, with his left, he reached for the jasmine tea. The carved beads of horn were cool against his wrist as they jostled in the motion, one of them replaced with black obsidian.

He felt the heat of the tea in a new way, with a new sense; awakened by his training with the twin dragons and with his new teacher, he felt heat as life and energy whereas, in instruction from his father, he'd been taught it as wrath and force, and it felt like seeing at last in full color after growing up in black-and-white. His damaged hands were flecked pink, like holding a handful of petals, but had made a full recovery otherwise.

Impromptu rivers tore across the ground as the heavy downpour was repelled by a fulfilled saturation and flowed downhill seeking a return to its source. The palace had been built at a highpoint of the city. The caldera was sloped, like a thumb-mark pressed into a circle of fresh dough that wasn't quite even, and the downslope fell towards the harbor. The ground was stony and hard, so they'd worked drainage channels into the stone to handle the volume of summer storms. Those would look like canals at that moment, filled to the rim, dragging grass-cuttings and waylaid items to the internal sea of the archipelago's crescent.

The pond at the center garden would be refreshed, pounded clean of algae and mixed with the fresh rain clean and cool. The turtleducks sheltered under the bridges, content to preen and nestle to wait it out. He marveled that the slender flowers, with their blossoms of velvet, did not rend. The surrounding palace sheltered them from gusts of wind, at least, but to the sky they were fully exposed.

He was falling into routines. Jeong Jeong seized his mornings for intense training and his evenings were given to study and work, but the more proficient he became with firebending the more weaknesses he saw revealed in himself otherwise. He still mulled over the events at Shu Jing, each repetition finding more he'd been mistaken in. Zuko still doubted his abilities to rule and was in want of something to further himself by, a new subject to study or new source of experience, but had nothing on hand.

Katara never seemed to be inflicted with the relentless self-doubt he was. When he had wandered alone after the detonation of his ship, he had almost starved, and, while she said it was the same for her at first, she'd found a way out of that poverty by learning a marketable skill, whereas his next step had been still in following the path laid out for him by his father retreating back towards home. She was resourceful and he felt equal parts envy and admiration. Jeong Jeong or Piandao would surely help him learn any subject but he didn't know what question to ask them to begin.

A servant announced herself and walked over with a newly arrived letter. He opened it to read.

Dear brother,

My apologies for not responding to you more promptly, and I imagine your previous situation will have already resolved by the time you'll receive this. I was reminiscing and recalled something that my husband had once mentioned to me. Knowing you had suffered difficulty lately, I am offering it to you to lift your spirits as it was an engaging story. Far away, lost in the golden sands of an immense desert, there lies buried a fantastic library containing more knowledge than could be read in any lifetime. Zhao tells me that, rather than being a legend, he himself made a visit there and proved it real. While courting me he once promised to take me there someday.

It reminds me of the kind of stories that our mother used to tell us.

Yours truly, Azula

"What is up with her?" He said, then paused to let Katara read it over. "She hasn't been this verbose before. I thought her communications were all under inspection from the prison guards."

She replied, "Well, maybe Jet's removal of the Dai Li impacted her conditions."

"That can't be. The Dai Li were not the primary overseers for her imprisonment, though they were the ones to capture her. The military had that authority."

"I don't know, Zuko. Anyway, it seems like she's just nostalgic. The isolation might be getting to her. She was haughty on the first day, but after this long she's probably suffering with the punishment and not feeling so smart anymore. Given her personality, I doubt she's quite made friends of the guards or anyone else, and I imagine a penpal would give her entertainment."

"It's strange. My sister isn't the type to do anything without a motive."

"You could always ask Zhao about it, to verify the story. I think he'd do anything for a bottle of fire whiskey to pass the time."

He thought about it. The man was still locked in the prison he'd been thrown into upon Zuko's first return to the Fire Nation. Whenever he thought about Zhao, he remembered what the man had done to his father—maimed, mutilated, blistered raw pink and red with blackened skin—and felt sick. However much he resented his father, he had never wanted to see that made of him, and Zuko wondered what other atrocities Zhao had become familiar with in the course of his military service. He could understand why Jet hated them so much. "Maybe I'll have some whiskey, too."

Katara squeezed his hand playfully, having no idea what he had been imagining. He wanted to keep it that way.

#

For the Fire Nation, it was a chilly night. They had assembled at Ember Island during late autumn at her father's wish, at the close of the naval activity for the season when most of the fleet were making visitations at home. The upper brass and their families had been invited to a private affair at the royal family's beach house. The water was kept empty of children as it was timed, incidentally or purposefuly, for the season the jellyfish came in, and the water was packed with their coursing red bodies in the process of feasting and subsequently dying. For a child, a swim meant not one sting but twenty, possibly enough to kill them. The beach was laden with clotted, tangled bodies the color of congealed blood. She watched the beach from the railing of the upper story, overlooking the garden and its winding pathway to the black sand, and remembered playing with her brother there. Zuko was gone, banished three years prior. Their mother had vanished even before that. Her father entertained the guests alone, laughing at the stories of war. Azula was fourteen.

Someone came through the open doorway and paused. "Oh, I didn't know you were out here. My apologies, princess," came a voice, and the man turned to leave.

"Stay. I'm bored."

He hesitated, a drink in his hand. "Very well. May I entertain you with any story?" Zhao stood a respectful distance away and leaned against the railing, using it to coast his drink, which wafted the tang of alcohol.

He told her anything and everything she asked. Azula realized what an incredibly small fragment of the world the Fire Nation was and felt like a caged animal. The admiral had stayed longer than he probably had initially wanted, but looked content to recount stories of his travels for as long as she liked. He was a stupid, vicious man who spilled his own sins into his tales without self-awareness, yet was exceedingly competent in his execution of these missives and craved more, always locked into ambitions to increase his power. She had what he wanted, and he had what she wanted.

Azula pressed her arms into the sides of her chest and leaned over the bannister. She knew what effect it would produce and knew the admiral would look. In the Fire Nation the marriagable age was fifteen. He turned his face away when she glanced at him, and she felt disappointed, thinking, 'This will take some effort.'

She dreamed of a day she could drive her father out, as he had driven out her brother and mother. "May I try that?" She pointed to his glass. With hesitancy he passed it to her, then watched attentively as she placed her lips on the same place he had. It burned her throat as she drank.

#

The prison was a long walk from the palace, set into the hillside in an isolated area and multiple layers of security. Behind a wall spanning five guard towers topped with golden pagodas, a round tower of white was set into the black stone cliffside, dotted with square windows too small for anyone's body to pass through in an escape set into the thick walls wrapping each level. Looking back gave a fantastic overview of the city that was stunningly beautiful, ironic for such a terrible place. The bottle swung inside the fabric bag hanging from his wrist as he walked inside.

In the cell a man sat hunched over with his back to the door and his hands resting on either knee. Zuko dismissed the guard so they could have privacy and looked over the prisoner. "I see your hair has grown back well."

"What do you want?" His voice was sharp and still that of a military commander, deeply resonant and self-assured, and brimming with resentment. The conditions were not enviable, and the air was stagnant with biological odors and droppings from visiting rats.

"I wanted to talk with you about an assignment you worked on while touring the Earth Kingdom. You were young at the time, a lieutenant under General Shu." The documents had been marked confidential and locked away, but as Firelord nothing was beyond his access.

"You can read the reports for yourself."

"I have. I want more detail. You found a library in the Earth Kingdom, somewhere forgotten to history." General Shu had passed away in the war, and, due to the nature of the mission, no one else but Zhao knew the details. The exact location had not been recorded in the documents and the desert was too large and harsh a place to play games of chance in.

"It's in the report." He'd written it himself and knew how few specifics had been included.

Zuko frowned. "I want to know exactly where it is and how you found it, how you reached it."

"What's in it for me?" He still faced away from him, and Zuko took the contents of the bag and slipped the bottle through the iron bars. It clinked as he set it on the stone ground. Zhao looked at it and scoffed. His face was unkempt and his beard had grown longer in neglect. "That's it?"

"You know that I can't release you. You're lucky I spared your life. It's in the law that someone committing regicide is to be put to death with no exception. For that matter, your accommodations are relatively comfortable—you yourself have seen the treatment the Fire Nation gave to prisoners of war. Some wanted that replicated for you. You owe me."

"Such a tone, Prince Zuko." The ex-commander still refused to acknowledge him as the new Firelord, but it didn't bother Zuko as much as Zhao thought it did. In his hunched form he saw the same pitiable state his sister was in, chained to the floor like a wild beast and shut away to darkness. "You catch more moth-flies with honey than with vinegar. Why don't you offer me something?"

"What could be valuable in your position?"

"My son. I want to see him."

"You never showed interest in him before. You abandoned him and left to seek glory for yourself in war."

"I'm a commander. It is my job to lead the navy, and I served my duty well. You just don't want to admit that some fathers actually want to see their sons." He paused for effect and turned to watch his face expectantly. "Hit a nerve, Prince Zuko? You're taking my son from me out of jealousy that your own father never loved you."

"Shut up. I'm protecting him from you."

"You're brainwashing him to be your servant. When he gets old enough, what do you plan to tell him? Do you intend to pass him off as your little brother? How are you going to explain to him why you didn't allow him to meet his own father?"

Zuko felt the heat building inside himself and the flash of all-consuming rage. Stifling the reaction, he turned to leave and slammed the door behind himself. He wanted to curse but had to wait until he was out of earshot. I knew it was the easy mark for him to strike, and I still let it get to me. This is only Zhao, for Agni's sake—I've faced my sister and father at their worst. He'd left the whiskey behind, even though Zhao had not yielded anything to him, but it was too late to retrieve it and would look petty. He stalked down the stairs and tried to remember Jeong Jeong's lessons on restraint.

Katara hadn't wanted to see the cell for herself, but waited for him in their bedroom. "How did it go?" she asked, and, wordlessly, he collapsed to the bed and hugged her into his arms. His breath was still heavy with frustration as she smoothed a hand over his hair to soothe him. "What happened?"

"The whiskey wasn't enough. He wants to see Yuze."

"Well, that's understandable, he is his father. It would be a great benefit to humanity if we could recover the library. After a hundred years of destruction, it would be good to have it back. Everyone would be glad. Surely Zhao wouldn't harm him."

He laid flat on his back beside her on the bed. "If Yuze is exposed to him, to that evil, what if it turns him against me, what if he begins to hate me and side with his mother and father? I don't want to be in hostility with him. He's so young and innocent, and seeing how happy he makes my mother and uncle, I don't want to risk what we have."

"What about Jeong Jeong? He can supervise a visit and make sure Zhao doesn't say anything to Yuze that would harm your relationship with him." His old teacher was indeed the only person Zhao would fear to cross. "He'll agree to help."

"Maybe. I'll think about it. If we could recover the library, such would be a small price to pay for it." Ceasing the war and giving aid for reconstruction were nice gestures, but he couldn't make adequate compensation without bankrupting the nation. Restoring a lost relic to humanity was a prospect too good to give up on.

A few days later, after asking the guards to prepare a cleaner staging room, Zuko led them up the long path to the prison. Yuze had just woken from his nap but the ride put him to sleep again. Not wanting to draw attention, the group moved by covered carriage, of the type the upper class used, not palanquin, drawn by zebra-ox through the stony streets. The child slept with his head on Katara's lap. Jeong Jeong sat outside next to the driver in a foul mood. He had agreed, but not before cursing Zuko up and down saying how much a fool he was. Iroh had intervened in the end to convince him, but himself did not want to attend as there were a number of stairs to be climbed and his legs were not up to the task. He had laughed, slapping his belly saying that he was too heavy for palanquin-bearers to heft him to the top of the winding stairways, but Zuko thought he didn't want to see the ex-commander in that state, nor be reminded that while Yuze was a part of their family by true blood, his biological parents were people in conflict with them.

He, Katara, and Yuze waited in the new room while Zhao was brought under supervision of Jeong Jeong. He arrived cleaned-up and without chains, as they thought it would be disturbing to Yuze, and looked similar to his old appearance with his facial hair cut, but he had lost weight and his eyes were sunken from stress.

Yuze clung to Katara as the man sat down in a provided chair. The child was shy and didn't understand what was happening, but Katara reassured him that it was okay and they were just there to talk. Jeong Jeong lurked nearby like a wolf-bat keeping his eyes on Zhao.

Seated and in clean clothing, he began by softening his expression and using a gentle tone of voice. It would be the first time he'd seen his son since he and Azula had abandoned him as a newborn in care of the palace staff to take to ship. "Well, you look healthy, Yuze. Are you four now?" The boy nodded. "Tell me, what kind of things do you like? Do you like animals?"

"Turtleducks."

He continued in a surprisingly father-like voice, "What do you like about turtleducks?"

"They waddle. But they swim, too. I like to swim."

"Where do you go swimming?"

"Beach." A few times a year they took him for a trip somewhere in the Fire Nation, though not yet overseas.

"I like the beach, too. Do you study?"

The boy looked to Zuko uncertainly, then replied, "Mommy reads books to me. We learn animals and colors."

Zhao looked appalled and glared at Zuko for an answer. "He means Ursa." He had picked it up from listening to Kiyi and didn't know what it meant, but Zhao obviously didn't like it, though he couldn't argue with a child, especially one to whom he was a stranger. They continued the conversation, Katara sitting stiffly in her chair uncomfortable with the situation and Zhao looking sincerely interested in everything he said.

Yuze was becoming more confident and at ease, finding the novelty of conversation with a new person interesting. "Uncle Iroh does fire. He says a lot of people can." His vocabulary was growing and his sentences were understandable, far more so than the previous year when he had been three and his speech was emphasized by shrieking and gibberish, but he could only express so much and his range of knowledge was limited to the lessons from their family. "Can you fire?"

Zhao nodded happily. "Yes, I can firebend."

"I want to see."

He glanced to his old teacher asking for permission. It seemed he was on his best behavior and willing to endure any humiliation to see the boy, like he really had paternal instincts and wanted to participate in raising him, which repulsed Zuko and was contrary to his expectations. He had felt off about the situation from the beginning. Zhao made soft, happy expressions he had never seen the ex-commander sink to, and Zuko wondered if he was sincere or only acting. Does any father really find inane babble that interesting? I wonder if he's forcing himself. I can't remember my father ever acting like this.

Zhao stood up and walked slowly through a simple movement, at the end of which he created a small, controlled puff of flame harmlessly into the air as to not alarm them. Jeong Jeong supervised warily. Yuze was delighted and exclaimed, "Pretty!" Leaping from Katara's side, he took the same beginning stance and energetically tried to follow, but soon found himself lost. Zhao returned to the beginning and drew the boy's eyes, then walked through step-by-step, correcting him with a word or demonstration.

He hadn't seen Yuze take to anything so quickly before, but within a few minutes he had the motion memorized and could step through it correctly. He punched his small fist outward at the ending motion. A burst of sparks lit the air.

Zuko stood so abruptly that he knocked his chair over. Yuze watched the sparks dissipate, his eyes wide, then turned to Zuko, saw him apparently upset, and teared up, thinking he was about to be scolded. "No, no, you didn't do anything wrong," Zuko explained with his mind in a blank shock. "I was just surprised. It's okay."

"That a'boy, that was amazing," praised Zhao. He hadn't even noticed the chair being toppled or Zuko's horror. "What a strong little soldier you are."

Yuze leapt up and down laughing, then repeated it. Zuko turned his face away and took his seat again. No one had yet confirmed Yuze was a firebender, and he didn't like that this was the event to initiate it. They finished the session out and Yuze had discarded apprehension of Zhao as a stranger. The man asked, "Will you come visit me again?"

"Yes. I want to read book."

"Okay, we can do that. Keep practicing your firebending. You'll be great at it someday."

He couldn't express himself until he was alone with Katara that night. She had picked up on his mood, and he had spent the ride back stewing in the feeling of having been wronged. "He's never firebent before. He watches Jeong Jeong and me every morning and never managed to copy a full motion, never made a spark. Why Zhao of all people? Why him? It's like my uncle and I aren't good enough." I don't even understand why it upsets me this much. He isn't my child.

"Well, we know now."

"Why did he trust Zhao so easily? He doesn't know what that man has done!"

"Zuko, it's okay."

I sound jealous. What the hell is wrong with me? "What if he really should be with his father and my sister? What if we're wrong to keep him here?"

She grabbed his arm and began to rub his back, which she only did when he was in a terrible mood. It's affecting me too much. This isn't right. She answered, "Both his parents are criminals. He can't be with them. They're in prison for a reason. He has family here, good family who love him. Don't read too much into it. You said a lot of children demonstrate their first sign of firebending around this age, right? It was just coincidence." I couldn't do that until eight. My sister is better than me—even her child is better than me. I can't provide anything for him. "Being in a new environment might have helped. He often says he's bored just being in the palace."

"Yeah, maybe." He exhaled and tried to relax. "I'm just overthinking it."

Zhao had provided all the information they'd asked for, including navigation instructions and what type of animal could handle the desert conditions as transportation to get them there.

"Look for a tower in the sand. The library is immense, but only the tower remains above ground. From the way the air bends in the heat and distorts everything you might miss it if you aren't careful. Take your instrument readings precisely." Zhao's good mood lingered even as he was locked back into the cell. The fire whiskey sat untouched against the wall.

Jeong Jeong wasn't as elated. "If they don't return alive, I will make sure you never see your son again, Zhao. Your information had better be accurate or you will pay for it. This cell and darkness will be all you know until death."

"It's correct. Keep your instruments safe. The desert is much like the ocean, Prince Zuko, and the stars are reliable. Travel by night and you will never be lost."

By morning his clarity of mind had returned. They watched Yuze eat his breakfast, still speaking about the 'teacher' they had gone to visit, referring to the man he didn't realize had fathered him. Ursa didn't like it, and Zuko felt like he'd inadvertantly hurt his mother's feelings. From that point on he felt frustrated and took it out on the councilmembers during their session. He didn't know how long they would be gone and he had a lot to stipulate before their departure. They had not informed anyone but their family of what their destination was or why they were going away, only that they had business and would return when finished. His uncle, raised as a crown prince with all the education thereof, would cover while he was abroad, but Zuko's foul mood needed a vent and impressing his authority was a constructive use of it.

I can't be jealous of Zhao. That doesn't explain it.

They had the gear procured and a ship prepared and staffed. Jeong Jeong was staying behind, saying he hadn't signed up to trek across a desert. Zuko sat beside Katara on a bench in the garden for tea and dessert, overlooking the pond and the yew tree. Above them the late evening sun spotted through golden-red and shifting through a canopy of star-shaped leaves, full and green. Beds were blanketed in dozens of colors of flowers, giving the air a subtle sweetness. Katara happily nibbled at a honey-cake dusted in cardamom. "I wonder if we'll be back in time for autumn. I wanted to see the maple trees turn red again this year."

He replied, "Isn't enough here red?" in a joking tone, then followed, "It's far away, Katara. I can't say for sure that this will be easy. Do you want to come with me?"

"Of course I do. I like you more than maple trees." She pouted. "I did want that maple-leaf mochi, though."

"I'll inform the staff to save you some."

He watched her eat, trying again to straighten his own feelings out. If he went to bed angry a second night in a row he would be sleep-deprived for the ship's launch. At the bottom of his teacup he arrived at a conclusion.

No, it's Yuze I'm jealous of.