Zuko awoke to the sound of someone walking towards him. The footsteps were quiet, almost furtive. The sky was just light enough for him to make out the Avatar's silhouette. The boy sat down next to the blanket. "Hi," he whispered.

"Why are you sneaking around behind your friends' backs?" Zuko asked.

The Avatar glanced back at the tents, rubbing his bald head nervously. "I wanted to talk to you. I know you don't get along with Katara and Sokka, but we fought side by side just like friends once."

"You want to be friends?"

"Yeah!"

"It's never going to happen." The reasons why are too many and too obvious for me to bother listing.

"Why not?" Seriously? The Avatar sounded as foolishly optimistic as ever. "I thought more about what you said yesterday. You want to keep people safe, just like I do. You worked with us to keep people safe when the volcano was about to explode. We have a lot in common."

Zuko snorted. "We do not! You like to waste your time playing instead of looking out for or even thinking about danger. You only saved that town because you happened to stumble into it at just the right time. You didn't go up the volcano to check it, did you? You were up there for some other reason."

The Avatar shrank back, and Zuko was sure that if the light had been better he would have seen the boy blush. "I thought so. Pure accident. Dumb luck. I've charted your course, you know. When I first started chasing you, I thought you were using evasive maneuvers. But now I know you're just unfocused. Even though we need to get to the Northern Water Tribe as fast as possible, you're still flying at a slow, leisurely place, as if this is just some sightseeing trip."

"Appa's a living thing!" the Avatar protested. "He needs food and rest and sleep. He can't move day and night at top speed like your boat could."

...Fair point. "At least I spend our time in the air looking out for things," Zuko countered. "You spend it playing games and telling stories."

"What did you do on your boat?" the Avatar asked. "When you'd given orders and made a course and all that, and there was nothing to do but wait."

...Another fair point. "I practiced my firebending."

"And I'm practicing my people skills. Gotta have friends and make friends when you're the Avatar." The dawn was now advanced enough to see the boy smiling as if he'd proven his point, which he had.

Something ignited deep inside Zuko, a drive deep and powerful and demanding to be obeyed. Zuko embraced it like a friend. The Avatar was more than an enemy. He was an enemy who Zuko had come close to beating several times, who bent air about as well as he bent fire, who seemed to escape or win only because of luck. Did the Avatar think they were similar? Well, maybe he was a little right. The days of protesting against Uncle's training methods were long gone. As the wall of cooled lava showed, the Avatar was good. Zuko meant to be better.

"You would make a lot more friends if you didn't surround yourself with jerks," he countered. "Treating people like animals, throwing away opinions as if they're worth nothing, and calling people evil are better ways to make enemies than friends."

This time the light was high enough to see the Avatar blush. "Katara's got her own thing about firebenders, and Sokka was just angry."

"Why should I have to deal with her hangups and his feelings? I didn't earn this treatment. It's not fair, and you know it."

The Avatar looked down. That felt good. There was a reason Zuko embraced the urge toward rivalry like a friend. Sometimes, when he captured the Avatar through his own planning and skill or when he made his own share of very good points, it felt so good. The way he hadn't been listened to at all the day before was more than hurtful. It was frustrating! He couldn't make any point, good or otherwise. Zuko narrowed his good eye. Time to make a final strike.

"If they're your friends, why can't you talk to them about their hangups? Do you think she'll be angry with you, or he won't listen? What kind of friendship can't stand up to basic questions?"

Thunk. He imagined the sound of an arrow flying through the air and hitting the target dead-center, so accurately that it was like the arrow had been called home. That was what the Avatar's grimace sounded like, though the boy made no sound. Finally! I win. The Avatar mumbled something about talking to them later as he got to his feet and left, driven off by a series of very good points.

Zuko rolled onto his back, or as close to it as he could manage, and smiled up at the fading stars. See? I have good points too. I am just as noteworthy as anyone else here. It felt sweet and warm and delicious to have that recognized by someone besides his uncle.

Zuko fell back into a light sleep, in which he had a single, simple dream. It was a vision of a starry sky, the feeling of a hillside at his back, and a breeze.

.

It wouldn't be long before others woke up. The first rays of sunlight were already touching the crowns of the trees above the campsite, and the sun wasn't quite on the other side of the hill. Aang sat down beneath a tree behind the tents and took a deep breath while he still could. The tent he had slept in rustled, and Momo flew out to join him. The lemur crouched on his hind legs at Aang's side and peered up into his face.

"I'm fine, Momo." Aang patted him on the head. "Sorry I left you behind."

Momo chirred softly and climbed up onto the Avatar's shoulders, his favorite perch. Aang let out his breath in a sigh. It was nice to have Momo's warm, soft body resting where it usually did. Momo was uncomplicated, a piece of the simple, happy childhood Aang remembered. Arguments back then were easy ones, based on who should have the first slice of pie or which team should have the best player. An argument like that would be good right now. Or even an argument like the one he'd resolved at the Great Divide, where nobody was really in the wrong. That one had been easy, since there was really no underlying reason why the two tribes should hate each other.

This was different. Zuko had reasons, and they were good ones. Katara and Sokka also had reasons, and they were also good ones. And Aang couldn't be impartial this time. He knew he was supposed to, but he was already on one side! Was it even possible to be impartial? If he tried, wouldn't Katara and Sokka feel hurt? Should he be impartial?

"I've never done this before, Momo," he told the lemur. "I'm the Avatar, but I'm also just a kid. I've never done anything before except get people to forget about problems that really didn't matter. What do I do about things that matter?" Momo chattered reassuringly, then nuzzled him on the head. "Thanks," Aang muttered, hugging his knees and burying his head in his arms. "I just wish people weren't so angry…"

The tent rustled again, and Aang realized he'd started speaking in a normal speaking voice at some point. He wasn't that far away from the tents. Iroh emerged and joined him under the tree. Thankfully Katara and Sokka seemed to be asleep.

"You have some hard questions," Iroh observed.

"Yeah." Aang stared down at the ground. "Zuko has reasons to be angry. So do my friends. I don't think I'm angry, but I don't like what everyone's saying. I don't like fighting at all. I wish they would stop."

Iroh laid a hand on his shoulder. "I understand. Anger is like a storm. It throws people in all kinds of directions, and you can't just tell a storm to go away."

"How do I get them out?" Aang asked. His eyes widened. Here was an adult who could step in! He wasn't alone! Aang found himself pressing closer and looking up at Iroh with desperate eyes, like Momo had looked up at him. He couldn't help it. He was just a child, after all.

"You must be patient," Iroh advised. "Anger is like a storm, but it's a storm of their own making. You can't pull anyone out of it. All you can do is try to guide them out. It's not up to you."

"What?" Aang's head spun. "But isn't that what I'm supposed to do? Make people not fight any more?"

"You can't do that any more than you can make people be friends," Iroh replied. He smiled reassuringly. "Trust your friends, Avatar. Be kind like you want them to be, and trust that they have the good sense to let go of their anger."

"I know about trust!" Aang snapped. "Of course I know about it. I'm the Avatar!" He turned away as if angry, but he wasn't angry. He was disturbed. Iroh's advice sounded too similar to Zuko's question for his comfort. What kind of friendship did he have? What could he ask Katara and Sokka to do? He was still so grateful to them just for taking him in as family when they didn't have to, when they already had family of their own. It was still so hard to believe they were serious about that. What more could he possibly ask for?

"Is there something else?" Iroh asked.

"Some stuff Zuko said," Aang mumbled.

Iroh smiled. "I trust in my nephew. But it is true that trust only goes so far." Iroh stood up. "I think I'll go check on him." When he was gone, Aang sighed. He'd been so happy to have someone else, an adult, around to handle things. But Iroh wasn't going to handle anything at all. He'd only made everything more confusing!

But that was what old people did. Monk Gyatso had done the same. Aang would try his best to follow in the footsteps of his beloved mentor, and the thought made his heart sink. He would have to be as old as they were before he understood what they understood, and he didn't have that much time! How could he make the world peaceful right now, when he wasn't even a teenager yet?

Aang wanted to get up and find some game to play, take his mind off of things for a while. But maybe Zuko was right; maybe that was the opposite of what he should do. The pressure was enormous, though! Aang clapped his hands over his temples as though he was holding his head together, and wondered how on earth Zuko could stand to live like this.

.

He couldn't. As soon as Katara and Sokka woke up, Zuko's day went straight downhill.

Iroh untied him and suggested that they go for a walk. "It is a beautiful morning for a walk, Prince - I mean, Nephew." Zuko declined, thinking that after his successful assertion of his personhood with the Avatar, he could handle the other two. Boy was he wrong.

Iroh left just as the waterbender and her brother came out of their tent. "Hi," Zuko greeted, trying to be civil.

Katara glanced over the tents, saw nothing singed, and only then replied, "Hi." That was the first clue.

The Avatar was nowhere to be seen, despite his earlier mumbled promises to talk to his friends. That was the second clue.

Appa needed brushing. That was the final straw and the lit match.

"You can brush him," Sokka suggested. "It's easy. All you need to do is find a branch that'll work like a comb, and hope he doesn't buck you off."

"Why would he buck me off?" Zuko asked pointedly. "I haven't done anything wrong."

Appa roared. Sokka pointed to the bison's left flank. "He's not a fan of fire anymore, after we ran that Fire Nation blockade and got singed."

"So what?" Ignore it. Ignore everything they're implying. Make them say it!

Surprisingly enough, Katara intervened. "It's fine, Sokka." But the surprise didn't last long. "We just won't start a fire for breakfast until after he's done. He can't make fire go nuts if there isn't any."

That was the exact moment where Zuko's day began a freefall. Katara's words rang him like a bell. He sat on his blanket in shock. That wasn't what he thought they were implying at all. He thought she hated him for his firebending. But she was really talking about… The fire spirit. They're treating me like less than human because of the fire spirit.

But how? He hadn't told anyone about the fire spirit. That hadn't stopped the fire spirit from making itself known, though. The ladder in the courtyard, exploding. The campfire the morning after he let them go, exploding again in front of everyone. Uncle might have mentioned the strange exploding torches in the ship on music night. Zuko had been so busy worrying about how the water spirit was acting out like it never had before and revealing itself, he hadn't thought of how the fire spirit was doing the same. You! You both! You're both turning traitor! The water spirit had stopped him with its ice and made traveling with the Avatar his only option, and now the fire spirit was targeting the Avatar and his friends, making them afraid. They were like a tag team, working together in a concert that only nonphysical beings could achieve, covering each other to make sure his life was ruined thoroughly.

Zuko's eyes narrowed into a glare, and he began to growl. The betrayal was incredible. I thought you would be at my right hand. I was going to bring you home! What, do you not want to go home now? Do you just like to hurt me more? I can't believe you would do this to me! What do you want?! The water spirit might be opposed to everything having to do with the Fire Nation, but that at least made sense. That was predictable. But the fire spirit, by preventing him from doing this, was turning traitor on its own home as much as it was turning traitor on him. Zuko couldn't believe he had failed to notice that. I thought you were on my side. I guess I was wrong. You're a spirit, and what spirit would ever be on my side?

Katara stared back. "Or maybe not..."

Zuko leaped to his feet. "No! I'll brush your bison. Maybe he'll be tolerable, unlike you!" Or maybe not. The fire spirit's turned traitor. Who's next? The animals? He stared at the bison. The bison stared back with its heavy-lidded eyes. He wasn't sure it could glare, but if it could, it wasn't. Animals are still better than people. He turned away from people and stomped off at an angle, up the hill and to the side, until he was past the bison and could safely go downhill to the trees without having to look at them.

He found a branch with multiple forking twigs on its side after just a few minutes of searching. As he stripped the leaves off, he thought, The Avatar is wrong. I will never be friends with him or any of his. They can all go jump off a cliff for all I care. I'm not sure I can travel with them, even though I have to. Even though I have no choice. Even though, if I try to make my own way… The vision returned. Himself, and two spirits, and nothing else. No future.

He bent forward suddenly, folding himself over the branch. His insides were freezing. Once again, he was trapped and in danger of having no future at all.

.

Iroh came back from his walk to find the camp in silent chaos. The Avatar, who had decided to join him, dropped his staff and his jaw. Katara and Sokka were taking down the tents without even having made breakfast, both of them in grim silence. Zuko was nowhere to be seen. Appa was grumpy and unbrushed. He and the Avatar had just been discussing trust, and here the Avatar's two friends were, emphatically proving with every move how much they could not be trusted to be peaceful in his absence.

"What happened?" the Avatar asked.

Sokka tossed a bundle of supplies off to the side. "I asked Angry Jerk to brush Appa and avoid scaring him with fire, Angry Jerk acted like he didn't know what I was talking about, and he stormed off after Katara pointed out how he's made campfires explode before."

"I even told Sokka to stop sounding so critical, and suggested an easy solution that costs nothing!" Katara gestured at the not-yet-used firepit. "And I stated exactly what I wanted to avoid, without making it sound like Zuko's a morally bad person for it. I don't know what he got so angry about! What does he expect?"

Sokka shrugged. "He gets angry over everything! I think that's just how he is."

The Avatar edged backward. Iroh could see why. It sounded like the Avatar's friends had tried their best to be civil, but something had still gone wrong. He wouldn't know what until he heard Zuko's side of the story. That meant that in order to resolve whatever had just happened, they needed to hear Zuko's side of the story, and that was going to be a challenge in and of itself. Iroh thought he could do it, but the Avatar likely couldn't.

"I will go speak with him," Iroh volunteered. "I would like to hear what he thinks happened."

"Go nuts." Sokka clutched his stomach as it rumbled. "And ask him to hurry up with the brushing!"

Iroh spotted Zuko coming back up the hill with a stripped branch just then. With a gentle shove, he urged the Avatar towards his friends, and hurried to intercept his nephew. Zuko stared blankly at him, then said, "There are other branches down the hill."

It didn't take long for Iroh to find one and return. Zuko must have been doing something else down there besides finding a branch. Iroh hoped it was just taking a few minutes to breathe deeply and cool down.

Appa lay on the ground and made low contented sounds as they worked over his left flank. The amount of fur they gathered was truly impressive. Iroh wondered how well a beast so obviously meant for the mountains liked traveling through the hotter parts of the Earth Kingdom. The depth of the love it had for its master was a thing to be awed at.

"I heard there was an argument earlier," he probed.

"Yeah." Zuko concentrated on his brushing, saying nothing more.

"What happened?"

"I realized something. I didn't like it. Having them around makes it worse."

Interesting. It sounded like his anger had not had anything to do with what the waterbender girl said, then. Iroh frowned at the truly staggering levels of miscommunication he had witnessed in this group over just a couple of days. "It would have been good to say so, Nephew. The waterbender girl thought you had taken offense to what she said."

"Oh, I do." Zuko leaned closer to brush more deeply at a particular spot. "I do take offense to everything she said."

They were working their way from Appa's tail to his neck, now approaching his neck. That was the side of him nearest where the Avatar was trying and failing to talk to his friends, so Iroh took over brushing the bison's neck while Zuko moved to his right flank. When they were both on the same side of the bison again, Iroh asked, "Which part?"

"The part where she treats me like I'm nothing more than a fire hazard," Zuko answered. "And now I know it's not even because I'm a firebender - it's because of something I can't control. What does she expect me to do, develop superhuman powers?"

Iroh's interest was piqued. How could it not be? "Why do you think she treats you like a fire hazard?"

"I don't want to talk about it, Uncle." Zuko's voice was hard and on the edge of snapping. Iroh could see how it would look like his temper was prone to flaring for no reason. What was he thinking about that could make him so angry at the mere thought of it?

What was he thinking about, period? Iroh had noticed yesterday, during the fight, that something was off. His nephew's words had seemed to have a peculiar quality to them which Iroh could not identify. He had figured out what it was during his walk. Zuko sounded slightly out of joint with everyone else's understanding of the situation, as if he knew something he wasn't sharing. Now he had realized something else that he also wasn't sharing. Iroh couldn't begin to guess if this was typical or unusual, a problem or not.

That was why he did nothing. Best not to poke at a volatile situation until one understood it completely. All he said was, "I think you should speak plainly, Zuko. She might not know how disrespected her words make you feel."

"Everyone understands the meaning of being tied up and left out all night on a blanket." Zuko spoke as if that was a foregone conclusion, which of course meant he hadn't considered it before and would most likely take Iroh's advice. Iroh smiled.

The bison sounded very happy as they brushed its back and tail, underneath the tail and all around its legs. They worked in silence again, but the silence felt much better. Iroh snuck a sideways glance at his nephew. Zuko looked much more relaxed, his eyes narrowing only in concentration as he used his fingers to pick out bugs and leaves from the bison's long fur. He had been so much more relaxed with the lemur in his lap, too, and after the petting zoo. Iroh had never known that Zuko had such an appreciation for animals.

Zuko ate breakfast at a distance from everyone else, allowing Iroh to speak with the others openly. "What did he say?" Aang asked.

"It would be better to hear most of it from him directly," Iroh said.

Aang groaned. "But there has to be something we can use?"

Iroh rubbed his beard. "He likes animals. They make him happier and more relaxed. This little lemur could be the key to having fewer fights." He scratched Momo on the chin.

"Really?" Aang smiled up at his pet. "You hear that, Momo? You could be amazing."

The lemur hopped down from his shoulder, swiping his unguarded bowl of food on the way.

.

Sokka took them up in the air, heading north. He volunteered for this position because it helped him think. The cool breezes, relative quiet, and constant scanning of the environment helped him get into a more neutral mindset. That was exactly what he needed for the heavy-duty thinking he had to do.

In accordance with his warrior training, he'd thought of Zuko as an enemy fighter before, when the firebender was chasing them. Thinking of him that way was reasonably accurate and had helped Sokka get them out of close calls before. But now that the firebender was traveling with them, thinking of him as an enemy fighter felt wrong. He seemed like something different. But what?

Sokka looked out over the landscape, wondering what else an angry guy could be. They were still in a very coastal part of the Earth Kingdom, and Sokka found that he was leading them almost directly along a beach below. He wondered if the water spirit was down there, waiting. But nah, it couldn't be. They'd flown on a huge inland detour for multiple days' worth of traveling. It had no way to follow them, so it couldn't be down there waiting. For all it knew, they'd raced north and were much further along than this. It couldn't know about the stopover in Aunt Wu's town.

What was Zuko, and what was the water spirit? How should he think of them? Sokka had a feeling like his warrior training would be useful with both of them, but he couldn't figure out how to apply it. If not an enemy soldier, then what? And what could a spirit be? Another enemy soldier, or a natural disaster on the battlefield, maybe? Sokka liked the sound of that second one. The water spirit should be treated like a storm, he decided. That means no making friends with it, and no trying to figure out what it's "planning." Storms don't plan. Just figure out what it's doing and stay out of the way. It was important to tell Aang about that before Aang lost any more sleep. "Hey, Katara. Take over?"

Katara came down and took the reins, and Sokka scrambled up into the saddle. Zuko appeared to be dozing, which, Sokka suddenly realized, was really good news. He wasn't the only warrior in the saddle. He didn't have to guess at what Zuko might be by himself! But first thing was first. "Hey, Aang," he whispered loudly. "I thought of something that can help."

"What?" Aang loudly whispered back. They whispered loud enough for anyone who was awake and in the saddle to hear it. Iroh looked interested.

"You know me. Only warrior in the Southern Water tribe, after Dad and the other men left." Sokka placed a hand on his chest with pride. "So, since it feels like a battlefield up here ever since the water spirit and this guy showed up, I thought I'd lend a little warrior's wisdom."

"What wisdom is that?" Aang scooted closer.

"There's a lot of stuff a warrior has to know. Dad always said you should know where you're fighting, who, what they're like, with what… A lot of stuff. So," he wrapped an arm around Aang's shoulder, "I thought I'd figure out what we have to deal with. I know what the water spirit is."

"You do?"

"Yeah. The water spirit's like a storm. It covers the whole field, changes everything that everyone does on both sides, and isn't part of the fight itself." Sokka poked Aang in the chest. "That could change. But for now, that's the role it's playing. It's remote, can't be talked to, you can't make friends with it. Storms don't plan anything either, so trying to figure out what it wants is a waste of time. We should just figure out what it's doing and stay out of the way."

Aang blinked. "Wait a sec. So, you think all five of us are like a battlefield?"

"Correctamundo."

"With us on one side, and Zuko on the other?"

"You got it."

"And the water spirit's like a storm?"

"Yeah, that's it."

"Huh." Aang thought about that scenario some more. "I don't know… Are you sure, Sokka? Zuko doesn't really seem like an enemy. We don't fight him with bending anymore."

Sokka took his arm off of Aang's shoulders. "Yeah, that's the other thing I was wondering about." He turned to Iroh. "Aang's right. Thinking of him as an enemy warrior worked before, but it doesn't now. You're a general; what do you think he is?"

Iroh rubbed his beard. "Hmm…" He thought deeply for a while. A long while. Aang was starting to get bored when Iroh finally said, "How about a landscape?"

"A landscape?" Sokka blinked. "You gotta be kidding me."

"No, I'm serious," Iroh said in a very serious tone of voice. "Interacting with him is a lot like entering new terrain. Some areas are peaceful, others are risky, and others are actively dangerous. Getting where you want with him requires a safe path, and depending on where you are he can either hurt or help. Some parts of him are flexible, while others are stubborn like mountains."

Sokka considered this. "Huh. That...kinda fits."

"So what should we do?" Aang asked.

"There are three rules for navigating unfamiliar terrain," Iroh said. "The first rule is to get a guide or a map. You shouldn't travel anywhere without knowing where you're going." He glanced at his nephew, and his voice dropped to a whisper. "Zuko would be the best guide, assuming he knows what makes him angry and what makes him more agreeable. I'm not sure he does, and I'm not sure he would tell you. I'll do my best.

"The second rule is to proceed with caution. You never know exactly what lies ahead. Something might have changed since the last version of the map was printed. In his case, I don't know what the water spirit is doing to him. He seems more easily angered in some places, but unchanged in others, and explosive in a few spots. Even I can't assume I know how he feels anymore.

"The third rule is to prepare appropriately. To climb mountains, you need to bring rock climbing equipment." Iroh took a break here to think of how this advice might apply to a person. "It seems like animals can make any part of him more flexible and gentle, so Momo is good to bring. Expect stubbornness around anything to do with the Fire Nation. Be alert when you talk about the water spirit. I think you can relax when you talk about the Northern Water Tribe; he seems to have nothing but high hopes there."

"Thank you." Aang's eyes shone with gratitude. "This'll help so much!"

Sokka was impressed. "Any other tips and tricks you got?"

"He likes to have a goal," Iroh said. "Don't ask him to do nothing. That never works."

"Wow," Sokka said. "You've learned so much about being a general. Can you teach me other stuff?"

"I would be honored," Iroh said with a smile.