Zuko had a strange dream that night. It felt familiar. A dragon had escaped into the palace, and he was running around trying to find it. Why does this dragon keep escaping? Doesn't anyone have control over it? Zuko ran at an increasingly frantic pace through halls and rooms that twisted into an endless maze. He eventually made it to the royal baths. There was no dragon in sight. But there was a large mirror. Zuko looked into it. A horned, finned face looked back at him. His jaw dropped. I'm the dragon!

He woke up. He yawned and stretched, feeling quite relaxed. Another night without The Nightmare. I hope I never have it again. Good riddance! More dreams about being a dragon would be nice.

"You're awake." Iroh leaned over him. "That's good. Last night was so busy that I forgot to tell you something important. The king wants to meet with us this morning."

Zuko yawned again and sat up. He accepted breakfast and ate quickly, wondering what the king wanted to talk about. Has he found out Uncle and I are firebenders? If so, it's fine. The water spirit brought me here to get through to me, and it did. I'm ready to leave if that's what he wants.

They left their house and went to the stairs. At the base of the stairs, they met Aang and his friends. "Master Pakku said they were going to test you," Aang told Zuko as they climbed. "Do you know what they're going to test you for?"

Zuko had no idea. "Whatever it is, I'm ready."

Halfway up the stairs, Aang paused. "Now that you're not trying to be your dad anymore…"

"Let's talk after we meet with the king," Zuko suggested.

"Do you know what he wants?" Katara asked Iroh.

.

This is what Iroh had told everyone so far:

To Kalika, he had told almost everything he knew, from twospirits to elemental spirits to spiritbending to the fact that he and Zuko were firebenders. He had not told her that they were using fake names, what their real names were, or what their real background was. Just that they were firebenders.

To Aang and co., he had only had time to tell them that Zuko had been recruited by the spirits for a very important purpose, just as important as the Avatar's.

He was afraid to tell Zuko anything. He feared that the most secret revelations he knew would be nothing more than old news.

.

"I have suspicions," Iroh said.

They reached the top of the stairs. The guards escorted them straight into the audience chamber. It was impossible not to notice the guards casting them furtive looks. A couple of the guards were near their age, but looked grave instead of youthful. And the audience chamber was dead silent. The king, all of his advisors, the archivist, and a young man who wore spectacles all looked straight at them, following their every movement.

"This is creepy," Sokka whispered. Katara shushed him.

They stood in front of the king, as usual. The archivist signaled the young spectacled man, who got out a scroll and prepared to write. The king waited until the scribe was ready, then cleared his throat. "When I welcomed you all into the Northern Water Tribe, I had no idea what I was letting myself in for. I didn't even know what a twospirit was. Now I'm practically an expert in a whole subset of history that I had never heard of."

A twospirit? Is that a name for something? It must mean… Zuko stopped blinking. He stopped seeing. A thousand different memories filled his mind at once. They rushed through him, pooling into one enormous thing: a vision of his entire life. "There's a word for it?"

If there's a word, there must be more. There have been people like me before. He blinked once."There's a word for it?"

If there have been people like me before, then I do belong in this world. I have a place in it. I'm not a freak. "There's a word for it…"

He did not see the people staring at him. He saw only the vision. It was so enormous that he could hardly take the strain of it. It contained everything he was, had been and would ever be. Every thought he'd had about himself, everything he'd been told about himself, and every previous vision of himself was contained in it. Now, that enormity had a name. Twospirit.

He nearly fainted.

He did not faint. Instead, he raised a hand and created a fireball. It leaped out of his hand. He turned around so slowly and smoothly that it seemed he was not moving himself, but rather succumbing to sideways gravity. He blinked. The vision disappeared. In its place, he saw the spirits it was named after. They looked at him, two pairs of glowing eyes. Zuko looked back. He said, "Tell me everything."

Both spirits gave up their dragon forms and rushed toward him. They surrounded him in a roaring vortex of fire and water. The two elements mixed together and swirled so fast that it was impossible to see where one ended and the other began. The same happened inside of him: scorching hot, then freezing cold, switching back and forth faster and faster until he could not feel any switching at all, just a buzzing sensation. It started in a small ball inside his stomach and grew outwards, taking over his whole torso, then limbs, then head. Zuko came out of a trance and realized his knees were buckling. He slipped away, then jolted himself back to consciousness long enough to kneel. He slipped away again, this time for good. His whole spirit had been taken over. The buzzing lifted him away from his body, away from the whole world.

Next thing he knew, he was thrown through the air. He landed on his rear on the ground. "Ah! W-what?" He looked around. He was sitting in front of a pond, which he had apparently just been thrown out of. The pond was surrounded by tall, gangly trees. Leaves and vines hung from branches so high up they could not be seen. The whole jungle was strangely lit with a yellowish light. Something wailed sadly far away. "Where am I?"

Nobody answered. Zuko stood up and felt very strange. It took him a few minutes to realize that he felt strange because he could no longer feel his spirits. He punched the air. No fire flew from his fists. He raised his hands up. The surface of the pond did not even ripple. He jumped back. "What's happening? Where are you guys?"

He had figured out that he must be in the spirit world. He looked around at the strange jungle and shivered. Then he turned back to the pond. But the pond no longer existed. In its place sat a water dragon - a real water dragon. Its hide glimmered faintly, looking greenish in the strange lighting. Streaks of deeper blue, purple, and actual green blended into it. Its red eyes did not glow; they were just ordinary orbs that happened to be red. It flared its gills once as if to say, Well, here we are.

Zuko picked his jaw up. "Where is…" He almost immediately spotted a red dragon leaping nimbly among the treetops. "Oh."

The water dragon trotted away. He had no choice but to follow it. The jungle was strangely devoid of animal life. They encountered nothing in the short distance they walked. The water dragon took him to another pool of water. It looked down, shook its head and moved on. Something swung through the trees above Zuko's head. He caught just enough of a glimpse to see that it had precisely 3 arms. He hurried to catch up.

The next pool of water was the one they were looking for. Zuko had no idea how it told the desired pool apart from all the others. There was a lot of water in this part of the jungle. Of course there is; there must be many water spirits around to handle the ocean and the ice. He wondered what forms the others would shapeshift into. They remained in their water forms, revealing nothing.

The water dragon opened its mouth and roared. The pool it faced shapeshifted into a giant turtle seal. Like the dragon, the turtle seal was mostly blueish and had solid red eyes. The water dragon gestured for Zuko to approach the turtle seal. He did so. The turtle seal turned and walked away. The dragon stayed where it was. It made a pushing motion: Go on. He followed the turtle seal away.

Zuko shoved his hands into his pockets to stop them from shaking. There's a word for what I am. There have been others like me. Is it taking me to meet one of them? One of my people? I HAVE A PEOPLE. If he'd been in his body, he would have nearly fainted again. There are people like me. There are people I don't have to explain anything to. We could trade jokes about how stupid the water spirit's sense of fun is. Like equals.

The turtle seal stopped. Zuko looked up and saw a hazy shape just ahead. It was a person.

His legs went numb. He couldn't move. This meeting was what he had wanted, longed for, and fantasized about for his entire life. Now that it was right in front of him, he was terrified. What if I'm a screw up? What if every other twospirit figured everything out way before I did? What if I'm too broken to save the world? "A little help here," he whispered to the turtle seal. It came up behind him and pushed him. That broke the paralysis.

As he approached, he saw that the person was a man dressed in garb that resembled Water Tribe clothing, but looked very different too. It was not blue, for starters. It had the same fur-lined design, but was made of different animal skins, as if the man had patched it together from whatever he could find. The man carried a spear. He faced away from Zuko, conversing with a floating flame. They were just joking with each other. Zuko took a seat on a nearby root and cleared his throat. "Uh, hi."

The man turned around. Zuko's mouth fell open. He was an old man with white hair tied into a single long ponytail. His face was weathered and tanned, with few wrinkles. That made it easy to see the resemblance. He looks like an older version of me!

The man saw this, too. He blinked in surprise. "...Who are you?"

"I'm Zuko," Zuko said. "The, uh… The new…twospirit." He shivered as he said the word.

The man smiled, but hesitantly, like he didn't quite know how. "My name is Hamoa. I am also a twospirit. I lived…it would be around 800 years ago, right?" His water spirit nodded. Hamoa took a seat on another large root opposite Zuko. "Welcome."

Zuko opened and closed his mouth. He had too many things he wanted to say. He struggled to find somewhere to start. "Your spear?"

Hamoa held it up. Now Zuko could see that its point was made of ice. From that point flowed two ribbons, also made of ice. "My greatest creation," Hamoa said with a smile. "As I throw it, I light the ribbons. They act like fuses. When the animal is speared, fire explodes from the tip, killing it instantly and without pain."

Zuko opened and closed his mouth again. His head was spinning. With or without a body, he was in danger of passing out. Making weapons out of ice is a tradition of my people? I have a people. I have traditions. His vision grew blurry before he remembered to blink.

"Are you well?" Hamoa asked.

Zuko shook. "I always thought I was a freak, a mistake, something that wasn't born right and didn't deserve a place in the world. And now… There's a word for it?" He bent over, took deep breaths and tried not to start crying. There's a word for it. He failed.

Hamoa put the spear down and hugged him. Zuko clung to him like a drowning person. "I always thought I was alone and that there was no point. But last night, the water spirit told me I have a purpose, and now I find out I'm not alone. It's a lot."

"I'm so sorry."

Zuko broke off the hug earlier than he would have liked. He didn't want to inconvenience his ancestor. "I'm sorry. I'm still getting used to everything."

"It's well." Hamoa moved his hands around in a confused way, then reached out and ruffled Zuko's hair. "It's well."

Zuko smiled. "Has it been a while since you talked with people?"

Hamoa's shoulders slumped. "Yes. It has been a very long time. I lived out in the fields as a hermit, hunting only for myself. My social skills have grown worn."

Zuko wiped his face. "You're okay. That's exactly what I needed."

They smiled at each other. The metaphorical ice was broken. They sat down on the roots and began to talk in earnest. Hamoa looked very, very happy to have someone to talk to. He told Zuko all about his life: how he grew up as best friend to the crown prince, dreamed of working with dragons, was finally forced to put those dreams away, how he went on to find and embrace a new life. He spoke highly of his best friend, the prince who became firelord. "I couldn't have done it without Rokin. He and his dragon came to me often. He was my link to the rest of the world."

"Is he here?" Zuko asked.

"Yes. He has spent much time away lately, talking with other firelords. I do not know of what."

Zuko decided not to tell him. For the first time in his life, he thought of the war and felt shame. He wouldn't understand. He wouldn't understand how great the Fire Nation has become, how we have a destiny to… He remembered the air temple. Innocent people of air, crying. He - I - he wouldn't understand.

Zuko spoke about his own life: growing up as the crown prince, trying to be the brave and decisive son his father wanted, failing. "He offered me one last chance to earn my honor back. I had to, uh, seek out a certain person and bring them to the Fire Nation. I was going to do it, too. I found that person, captured them, was on my way back, everything was fine. But then the water spirit appeared and froze my boat! It forced me to let him go and go to the Northern Water Tribe instead. Like you, it forced me to let go of all my dreams. I mean… Those dreams weren't real anyway. I never was the son he wanted." Zuko hung his head. "I just have to find a way to live with that."

Hamoa blinked. "Are you sure the water spirit froze your ship?"

"Uh, yeah. I saw the ice."

"Yes, but did you also feel the ice? Inside?"

"Yeah."

"Before or after the ice appeared in the outer world?"

Zuko crossed his arms. "I don't understand."

Hamoa looked at a loss for words. He shifted uncomfortably. "What I mean is… It sounds like your father was very mean to you."

"No. He was trying his best to raise me as his son to follow in his footsteps. It's not his fault I wasn't cut out for it."

Hamoa struggled for words again. "...How will you travel the world to find the darkness?"

Good question. The Avatar has a flying bison, but I can't expect him to give me a ride anywhere, especially not after the stunt I pulled. Zuko blushed bright red. No. I can't expect a single favor from him ever again. So what will I do? I don't have a dragon to ride. … Except I do.

"I'll use the water spirit," Zuko said. "It's a dragon. It can carry me."

Hamoa's mouth fell open. "What?"

"Water dragons," Zuko said, grinning. He turned around and yelled, "Come over! I want to show him water dragons!"

The turtle seal ambled away. Zuko told Hamoa in a waterfall of words how he had always liked to imagine dragons, imagine himself as a dragon, imagine living with them on a fantasy island. He spun around at the familiar dragging sound of flippers. "Look! This is a water dragon. See, it's got flippers instead of wings, and no legs, and barbels, and…"

Hamoa's mouth was still open. When Zuko finally finished talking and looked at him expectantly, all he could say was, "You love dragons more than I ever did."

"Nonsense," Zuko replied. "You wanted to devote your life to them. I was just a scared kid using them as a way to escape from my life."

"All I wanted was to take their wisdom, their ability to fly, their fire, and use it for myself," Hamoa said. "You want the reverse. You want to join them."

Zuko patted the water spirit's neck. It made him sad. He could feel the power of its muscles, the smoothness of its hide, the dragon blood pumping through its veins. The water dragon was more beautiful in the flesh than he had ever imagined, and this made him sad because he would never find this in the real world. There were no more dragons in the real world. "I would give dragons the whole world that I imagined if I could."

"That truly is love," Hamoa sighed. "Wanting to give another all you can, and the more you give the more you have to give. Sacrifice that strengthens you, never weakens."

Zuko stiffened. If he had control over water, it would have frozen.

"You have discovered the secret of us twospirits," Hamoa said. He laid a hand on Zuko's shoulder. "We use our spirits as our weapons, but are not diminished. The more love we spend, the more we have. That is the source of our power."

Zuko's knees trembled. He felt like he was close to fainting again. Mistake. False. It was never true. All an illusion. "Are you saying he never loved me?" This was not the true shock. The real surprise, the true illusion, it was - "Are you saying I never loved him?"

"Uh…"

"No, no, that can't be true." Zuko shook his head violently. "I am my father's devoted son." He paused. "But then why did it feel like everything I did to make him happy was killing me?"

Hamoa shrugged.

"If it wasn't love, then what was it?" Zuko gasped. His hand flew to his neck. A vision of a knife blade flashed before his eyes. That's how you kill someone in the middle of the night without them waking up. With a knife. "I'm afraid of my father?"

"It would make sense."

"How can I be afraid of him? He's never done anything but favors for me. Except for the one time he tried to kill me, but that was just because he was ordered to. And he would be forced to execute me if he knew about the water spirit, for the good of the nation. No, I can't be afraid of him. I'm afraid of the role of being Firelord. That has to be it." Zuko was still rubbing his neck. "If only he wasn't Firelord, I could have loved him just fine."

Hamoa circled around and put his hands on both of Zuko's shoulders, looked him in the eyes. "You have come from a horrible place, and you have a long road ahead of you. We all did. That is the life you were born into. You are one of us; you can make it through." He gave Zuko another hug.

Zuko hugged him back. "The water spirit told me that the past repeats and becomes the future. But there are multiple pasts and futures, so it's not easy to tell which past it's going to be. This might sound weird, since I only just met you…"

Hamoa chuckled. "That's not exactly true, but go on."

"I hope your past becomes my future," Zuko said. "I already have my own weapons made of ice. I'd like to live away from other people, at least half the time."

Hamoa released him from the hug and looked him in the face again. "Like I said, it's not true that we only just met. The rest of us twospirits have always been with you. You and I, in particular… We wear nearly the same face. I never had children, but I will call you my descendant."

Zuko couldn't speak. It was one thing to be adopted by spirits. It was another to be adopted by his own species, by someone who could look at him face to face and speak with him as an equal and hug him. "Thank you."

"Do not fear your future," Hamoa said. "It will become whatever you think it will be."

Zuko laughed. "Like the fishbones."

"...Yes. You already understand this." Hamoa looked up at the water dragon. "Take care of him, friend." The dragon nodded.

It was time to go. "Will I be able to talk with you again?" Zuko asked. The water spirit inserted its head into his field of view and nodded. "I look forward to it."

"So do I! I never had a descendant before." Hamoa ruffled his hair again, then turned and walked away.

The water spirit led Zuko off in some direction. He didn't care which; he was too busy thinking. I don't have to fear my future. It might not be the same as everything I've been through before. It might be different, better. Thanks to Hamoa's careful descriptions, he could imagine what it would look like in fine detail. I can't wait!

.

A/N: Hamoa was inspired by the book Ivory and Bone, by Julie Eshbaugh. He is not directly based off of any character in that book. Rather, the detailed descriptions of how prehistoric people in North America lived inspired me to think of my own character who lived the same way.