As promised, Zuko made no complaint when they landed next to a lake and began to gather grasses. Zuko helped gather grass, yanking it out of the ground while Momo perched on his shoulder to catch bugs. Momo got a lemur's feast, and Zuko had few ticks to brush off. He paused briefly to watch Sokka stumble around like a dork, swatting at his legs. He sighed. "Go help him, Momo." The lemur flew away and clung to Sokka's leg, throwing him off balance and making him fall down. Zuko's lips twitched and he couldn't help but snort once or twice.

The Avatar's friends dumped their grass on him to deliver to Appa. Zuko bit his tongue. He had promised not to complain. He would do the honorable thing and keep that promise, even if it meant doing the menial work of a servant. I guess I deserve it, anyway. The last time I thought of using the water spirit, I shoveled in a ditch for hours instead and was happy about it. This is the same.

After chewing his makeshift hay for as long as he liked, Appa went for a swim. Zuko was surprised to see him flip over to float on his back when he reached the middle of the lake. How could such a large creature float, and how did he roll over? Maybe he's lighter than he looks.

"Cannonball!" The Avatar raced down a gentle rise and threw himself into the air with a burst of airbending. He landed in the middle of the lake next to Appa. "Hey! The water's perfect!"

"Really? I can't wait to find out," Katara said. She and the Avatar were both in bathing gear. She carried her regular outfit and the Avatar's in one arm, a small washboard in the other, and soap balanced on top of their clothes. With careful, slow movements, she put the washboard down without dropping anything. The Avatar blushed. He didn't need any more prompting to get out and help her.

"Ahh, there is nothing like the comfort of a warm, soft, freshly laundered robe," Iroh mused. He closed his eyes and inhaled as if he could smell it. "Unfortunately, we left so quickly that we didn't have time to pack a change of clothes."

Zuko rubbed the sleeve of his shirt. It was starting to feel stiff and itchy. That was a drawback of last-minute impulsive plans. "I'm sure we can get more at the next town we visit. In the meantime…" They were standing directly in front of a lake. Zuko looked around to make sure nobody was watching. He would rather not reveal all of the items he'd taken off his ship just yet. He backed away slowly, not drawing attention to himself (exept for Iroh who could be trusted not to say anything), until he stood in the grass. Then he took a few extra steps into the tall grass and bent down as if looking for something. He ripped up a thick mat of accumulated dead grass, placed all of his possessions underneath, and let the mat fall sloppily into place. There. Nobody else would be able to find this spot unless they were looking, but he should be able to spot the disturbed mat easily. Just to make sure, he lifted it again and grabbed a handful of dirt to dump on top of it. Then he returned to the lakeside as if nothing was wrong, took off his clothes, and dove in.

Iroh picked up his clothes. "Good idea, Prince Zuko!" He didn't see Zuko twitch. He was too busy delivering them to the washboard, where he helped Katara wash the clothes. She bent the water to keep all the suds contained, the Avatar pulled the dirty clothes through the water and scrubbed them on the board, and Iroh used firebending to heat the water. Katara smiled at him appreciatively.

What? Zuko's mouth hung open. She likes his firebending? He had thought she hated firebenders in general. That made sense. But she smiled at Iroh as he bent fire right next to her. Zuko knew that no matter what he was using it for, she would never smile if he bent fire so close to her. She doesn't hate me just because I'm a firebender. She really hates me, specifically.

He turned and swam away. So what? As if I care what any of them think. Yet… What did it imply about him, and could any of those implications be true? Iroh was unlikely to lose control over his fire. Iroh was unlikely to use it in anger.

Iroh's fire was unlikely to leap out of his hands and explode.

Zuko felt his inner fire flare at the thought. Katara probably thought he didn't have control over his fire. If she thought that, she was right. Thanks to the fire spirit, Zuko really was more dangerous to be around than any other human firebender in existence. He tried to push away the inevitable conclusion, and failed. She's right to hate me. I deserve that.

He swam madly to Appa's other side, where he took deep and painful breaths. This is what spirits do. They don't belong in the human world. When they come here, all they do is hurt and scare people. They're monsters. And they're making me look like a monster by association. Misfit. Outcast. Traitor. Monster.

He closed his eyes and thought of the Northern Water Tribe. A dark land of ice, snow, and cold (he could not picture it in anything other than nighttime). Howling winds, tightly rolled furs, the entire land curled up to sleep through the winter. Surely that was a place that could put even the fire spirit to sleep. Surely that was a place where the water spirit would grow lethargic, its substance frozen in place. If anywhere could allow him to be free of these spirits, the Northern Water Tribe could.

But now, he wasn't in a land of ice and cold. He was in a land of warmth and sunlight, where the fire spirit burned beneath his arms itching to get out and play and the water spirit swirled around him idly. The water spirit could afford to be idle. It could do anything it wanted, because until his clothes were dry he couldn't leave the lake. He was trapped with it.

.

Meanwhile, on Appa's other side, the clothes were getting clean. Katara's and Aang's outfits had been set aside on top of one of the packs, Zuko's outfit was almost done, and only Iroh's waited. He was now lounging contentedly some distance away, unable to help anymore.

So Aang floated in the shallows and waterbended from there, keeping the suds trapped while Katara used the washboard. Soon, all clothes that needed washing were washed. Aang backstroked happily while Katara arranged them on top of the packs to dry.

He stopped swimming for a moment to watch her. She was humming a song he recognized from other domestic chores. It was probably a song of her mother's. He started to get an idea, but was interrupted by a tap on his shoulder.

He turned around. Nobody was there. He looked around, wondering if someone was playing a trick on him, but nobody was even nearby. Zuko was nowhere in sight, Iroh was still lounging, and Sokka was busy applying bug bite lotion to his legs. Who, then, had tapped Aang on the shoulder just now?

There was another soft tapping on his right shoulder. He used waterbending to spin as fast as humanly possible, but there was again nobody there. Aang was very busy wondering what kind of ghost was bothering him when something grabbed his ankle.

It immediately let go, but that was enough to send Aang shooting straight up into the air and directly towards shore. "Aaggghh!"

Katara and Sokka immediately stopped what they were doing. "Aang? What's wrong?"

"There was something in the water touching me!"

Sokka groaned. "It's a lake. Whatever touched you was just seaweed, or maybe a fish."

Aang shook his head. "It felt like a person, but when I turned around I didn't see anyone."

"It was a fish," Sokka argued.

Katara held out a hand. "We can swim together, if you want. Nothing would attack two waterbenders right next to each other."

Aang blushed. "Uh, yeah, that's a great idea! Thanks, Katara."

Sokka rolled his eyes and continued applying bug bite lotion. Katara turned away. "We have to get the clothes drying first."

Aang picked up his own clothes. "I know how to dry these with airbending," he explained. He slung them over his left arm and walked around the side of the lake to where the ground was covered by small green plants. He didn't want to pick up dust and make his clothes dirty again.

There was just one small problem: when he got there, he didn't have any clothes on his left arm anymore. They had disappeared. Aang looked all around, though he was sure he would have felt them starting to slide. His clothes were not lying fallen on the ground. They had vanished.

Aang ran back to Katara. "My clothes just disappeared!"

Katara and Sokka looked at him for a few seconds, trying to decide how to respond to this odd claim. Aang slumped. He would find it hard to believe him, too. He waited for Sokka to say something skeptical, but it didn't happen. Sokka's eyes were growing wider and wider. So were Katara's.

"What is i-" Aang raised his head slightly as he said that, and felt something start to slip. He reflexively reached up and caught his clothes before they could slip off his head. "What? How'd they get there?"

"A wave came out of the lake and put them there," Katara answered. She touched his clothes. "They're dry."

Aang gasped. "You mean the water spirit was reaching out to me?" Finally! He'd doubted his ability to deal with the spirit world when the water spirit completely ignored him. But now it was playing with him! Katara and Sokka's dad was right; he just needed to wait!

Aang took his clothes off his head and left them with Katara as he turned and raced into the water. "Hey! I'd like to play too!" He looked around, watching for a friendly wave like Katara had described.

He did not see one.

Aang tried splashing in the water. "Hello?"

Nothing.

He put his clothes on his head. "Steal them again! I can chase you!"

Nothing.

"H-hello?" The smile fell from Aang's face. He looked from side to side slowly. The water spirit made no appearance.

He walked slowly out of the water. He didn't want to go swimming anymore. He was too hurt. Before he learned he was the Avatar, he was pretty popular. After, the other kids had been afraid, and then he'd gotten frozen in an iceberg and ever since then, everybody he met, human or spirit, treated him as important. As consequential. He walked into a town and people reacted. He talked to spirits and they listened. This kind of rejection, where it was as if he didn't matter at all, was something he had never experienced before. It made him feel almost sick.

"I'm sorry, Aang," Katara whispered as he passed her.

Aang sat down next to Sokka and buried his head in his knees. "I just wish I knew why."

.

Meanwhile, Zuko was completely absorbed in his own thoughts. Even the Avatar's scream had only briefly brought him back to the outside world. He sensed nothing happening, so dismissed it as part of some game the boy was playing and returned to the far more important business of controlling his thoughts.

Yes, it was unfair. Yes, it was sad. Yes, it was frustrating. He had made some preparations that night before pleading to be allowed onto the bison. He'd thought of making peace offerings, doing something good for them as a show of goodwill. That impulse had fled the moment he woke up and saw the waterbender watching him like he was a criminal. Should he have tried anyway? Could he have prevented the disastrous possibility of being kicked off the bison if he had tried to make peace back then despite the fact that they didn't deserve it? Treating them the way they honestly deserved only seemed to be fueling a downward spiral of attack and blame.

Zuko was very good at stoking his sense of anger. Summon up memories of all the injustice he had suffered, and bam there it was. He wasn't so skilled at repressing it. He didn't know how to. Concentrate on the present moment to avoid remembering? Tell himself sternly not to be angry? Go over all the reasons he had to be more peaceable? The first didn't work, the second only made him angry at himself, and the third would only have been possible if he wasn't already angry. Fat lot of good any of them did.

Eventually, a fourth strategy occurred to him. If he was so good at stoking himself, why not stoke something that was the opposite of anger? So he tried that. Saving that crewman's life in the storm. Drinking tea with Uncle. Standing with the Avatar at the head of the trench. Petting Momo. It was harder to bring peaceful memories to his mind, but he redoubled his efforts. An invisible switch flipped, and a great feeling of peace washed over him. Zuko kept going, bringing more and more memories to mind. Defeating my sword master for the first time. Sitting with Mom. Splashing with the water spirit. Laughing as the water spirit corrals the waterducks and makes them spin and they sound so confused. Being hugged by the water spirit…

At that point, he struggled to stop. He didn't want to concentrate on those memories. But the feeling of peace had built to such levels that it was impossible to just stop thinking of that time. He struggled to repress that memory, until he remembered that repression didn't work. Encouraging the opposite worked. Sitting there crying, hardly able to breathe, struggling not to fall apart as the entire court leaves the dueling arena in disappointment. That worked. He opened his eyes and took a big breath of air. He'd almost made himself so peaceful that he would have stopped swimming and sank.

But he hadn't. The memory of pain had pulled him out of it. Now he was peaceful enough to face the Avatar and try to make things better. Hopefully it would work.

He swam out from around Appa's tail and saw something he hadn't expected to see. The Avatar wasn't acting all happy and childish like he usually did. He was sitting and looking depressed. Zuko swam over to his uncle. "Uncle, what happened?"

"You didn't hear it, Nephew?" Iroh looked shocked. "He ran out of the water screaming because something was touching him. It was the water spirit. But then he asked it to do something, and it didn't. Very strange."

Why would that be strange? It couldn't hear him. It's just water; it doesn't have ears. The only ears the water spirit had were Zuko's, and he hadn't heard anything. But he couldn't admit that. The purpose of everything he did now was to distance himself from it before it made everyone believe he was a monster. Admitting that it was entangled with his own spirit was completely the opposite of his goal. So he swam away without saying anything.

Wait. A peace offering. What better peace offering could I give than cheering up the Avatar when he's depressed? Zuko thought up some things he could say without giving away too much. Then he called out to Katara. "Can't you just pull the water out of my clothes?"

"It's not good for the clothes," Katara answered.

"I would like to be able to get out of here sometime in the next 3 hours."

Katara shrugged. "Fine." She pulled the water out of his clothes and carried them around the side of the lake so nobody would have to watch him get dressed. Thankfully, the side she carried them to was the side where all the plant life was. Nobody raised an eyebrow, if they were even looking, when Zuko took his clothes and moved a little further than that, into the grasses.

She was right. His clothes didn't feel nearly as good as they should have. She pulled the water out as liquid water. It didn't have the chance to steam. Fine. He would give water a chance to do what it would do naturally some other time. Right now he had more pressing concerns. He found the place where he'd hidden his things and breathed a sigh of relief to see that it was undisturbed.

Zuko tried to ignore the feeling of eyes watching him as he walked over and sat down next to the Avatar. He tried even harder to ignore the voice in his head. The Avatar. The Avatar! Most dangerous person in the world. Enemy! Cannot risk becoming friends with him!

Zuko gritted his teeth. I need to do something drastic. Only something like that can undo what I did when I called the water spirit. I can't be cautious right now. He wanted to be. He wanted to bolt back into the water. He wanted to be anywhere other than right next to this sad boy.

He called back a peaceful memory to soothe his nerves. Then he forged ahead. "So the water spirit's ignoring you."

The Avatar lifted his head. He looked up at Zuko. Zuko could not quite see, but knew he must be very surprised. "Yeah. It is." The Avatar turned forward again. "I just wish I knew why."

Zuko ran through a few scenarios in his head and chose the best one. "It comes and goes. It does something big, and then it does nothing. Maybe you just need to catch it when it's active again."

The Avatar blinked. "You mean it's not ignoring me?"

"Not deliberately. It just needs its sitting-around time." Zuko was relieved. Everything he said was true, and therefore he sounded convincing when he said it. It was really inconvenient to have to hide the truth when he wasn't any good at outright lying.

"How am I supposed to know it's in the mood to do things before it does them?" the Avatar asked.

"I don't know. Same way you'd know with anyone else?"

The Avatar considered his words for a few seconds. "Maybe you're right," he said, standing. He was still in his bathing gear. "Thanks, Zuko. Cannonball!"

And now we can stop at the nearest town and get a Pai Sho set and I never have to do that again. Zuko was wracked with shivers. The Avatar had thanked him. He wanted to scrub himself against the washboard now. He grimaced and moved over to where Uncle was.

"How kind of you, Nephew." Iroh plainly meant that as a compliment.

Zuko shook his head. "No. How desperate of me. If I didn't need them to think better of me so badly, I never would've comforted the enemy."

"Enemy or not, he's a small boy."

"A dangerous weapon."

Iroh shrugged and settled back. "Never forget that even your enemies are people, Zuko. They should be treated as such."

Maybe your enemies were people. Mine aren't. Zuko looked out over the small lake, which was still flat despite the Avatar's efforts. They shouldn't be treated like they are.