She was here.

The waterbender. She was here. Outside his room. On his doorstep. Standing right before him, her head bowed.

Zuko's lungs were out of air—his mind, a whirling tornado. He couldn't breathe, or blink, or move.

The Water Tribe eunuch escort on her right, the servants behind her in a neat line, and the two royal guards next to Zuko were bowing low from the waist to him, but he paid no attention to them—he didn't even see them.

It was only the waterbender that he could see—the girl he'd sentenced to a life of slavery, the life he'd stolen in the spring of her youth, the tormentor of his nights and days. Her. His past mistakes incarnated.

Her frame had shrunk down to nearly half the size he remembered. Her arms, out in the open through her sleeveless, crimson robe, were too thin and smeared with various shades of bruises—the rich brown of her skin faded, sickly. Even her braided hair, thrown over one shoulder, had lost its glow.

Although Zuko could only see half of her face from where he stood, the purple half-moon under her visible eye was unmistakable. Her hollowed-out cheek was marred with faded-out lines of scars, just like her brow and lips—remnants from the night she'd gotten captured, beaten, and tortured. On her bony right hand, clasped with the other on her lap, he spied the white, slim lines that tore across three of her now half-grown nails—twins, in shape, to the red scars marking his right palm.

And they'd put a collar on her. Leashed her like a feral beast.

Gone was the kind-spirited warrior that had bested Zuko time and again—standing in her place, a weary girl, undeserving of all the misery that'd been inflicted upon her. By him. By his people.

The thought nicked at an invisible wound in Zuko's heart. And he bled. He bled for all the suffering he'd put her through, for all the ways he'd wronged her, for letting her get treated like this despite knowing what was coming for her.

But then his bleeding heart shot up to his throat when her brows creased and she slowly began to raise her chin in his direction.

No, Zuko wanted to tell her. Stop. Don't look at me.

He couldn't bear to look her in the eyes again. Not after everything he'd done to her.

He wanted to hide. Wanted to shut the door in her face and be gone before she could see him. But his muscles wouldn't obey his commands.

And once she'd fully lifted her head and her eyes met his, the curiosity in them was wiped out instantly, morphing into surprise and then unfiltered hatred in a fraction of a second.

Zuko had to swallow past the lump forming in his throat to breathe.

Much like the rest of her shriveling body, her eyes were different now as well. Dulled and dimmed, they were—compared to the lively shine he'd glimpsed as she'd battled him, and then gazed into when they'd been trapped in the catacombs underneath the Earth Kingdom capital.

Where once had swum compassion in those vast oceans, there was now only disdain and the thirst for revenge, lurking beneath the clouds eclipsing her eyes.

The cut in Zuko's heart gushed forth. He bled out wholly now—bled until it felt like there was not a drop of blood left in his body.

The muffled mumbling of the eunuch escort echoed in some faraway part of his mind, but he couldn't make out the words, or look away from the girl before him—from her scars, her slimmed frame, her hollow cheeks. From the burning rage in her eyes.

It was a tentative hand on his back that brought him back to his senses.

"Something wrong, my dragon?"

Zuko finally tore his eyes away from the waterbender. He turned to stare blankly at Shila, a silk night robe draped over her naked body, gazing at him with a tinge of worry swimming in her brown eyes. Then he turned back to the waterbender, who had now fixed her gaze on the ground, her jaw set firmly and fury seeping out of her seemingly calm figure.

"Oh, her?" Shila asked. She hugged him from behind and rested her chin atop the thick padding of his regalia, staring at the Water Tribe girl from over his shoulder. "She's quite the sight, isn't she? Mikai…" She snickered softly. "Such a fitting name for this monstrosity. At least she makes a good handmaid."

Mikai. That was what they'd named her. A word taken straight out of the old Fire Nation tongue.

Zuko's sorrow switched to anger in an instant.

His gaze snapped to the eunuch. "You named her 'uncivilized'?!"

The man went rigid. "I—No, sir! It is Matriarch Lin that names the new arrivals, sir!"

Huffing, Zuko shook off Shila from his shoulder and ignored her cry of protest as he stepped over the threshold of his bedroom, eyes glued to the floor. And he felt the waterbender's hateful gaze following him under her lashes as he walked past her, the eunuch, and the servants on his way out.

For all the openness and sky-high ceiling of the broad hallway, it pressed down on him. Caged him in an airless box.

He struggled to keep his steps and breathing steady as he walked.

He reached into the small, hidden pocket on the inside of his sleeve and took out the flask of sake he carried everywhere. Slugging down his drink, Zuko turned right instead of left and headed straight for his first private lesson of the day, skipping breakfast entirely—mostly just to avoid having to deal with his sister.

When he burst open the doors of the study hall, the elderly scholar reading a book inside nearly jumped out of his boots. The man scrambled to get up to his feet as swiftly as his old age would allow, and bowed low before his prince.

"Prince Zuko. Forgive my bafflement, sire. I had not been expecting Your Highness for another ten minutes."

"I'm here now," Zuko said flatly and took a seat on the crimson cushion across from the man—sitting cross-legged behind his own low-lying desk topped with thick books and blank scrolls to take notes on—and tucked his flask back into his sleeve.

"Very well." The tutor sank back down onto his knees, shifting his weight onto his heels, and picked up the writing brush before him. "Let us begin."

-o-

Zuko didn't hear a single word the man said. Not that he wanted to, per se, but he simply couldn't get the image of the waterbender's scrawny figure out of his mind. Or the simmering hatred in her eyes. They drowned out all that he threw in their way.

It should've been him in the waterbender's place. Not her. Not someone that had only been protecting her friend. It should've been him that endured everything she had—for betraying her and living a life of utmost luxury while she slowly withered away.

"Are you paying attention, Prince Zuko?"

Zuko looked up from the scroll he'd been staring absently at, lost in thought.

He sat upright and cleared his throat. "Yes."

"Perhaps you could tell me what we were studying last, then?"

He gave the man a dirty look. "I don't need to explain myself to you."

The teacher held his poise, a mask of calmness plastered to his wrinkled, age-spotted face, but he smiled tightly and gave his prince a slight bow of his head. "Of course not, Your Highness. As I was saying, in the period of instability during Fire Lord Zoryu's reign…"

Zuko shut off the man's voice again—this time, on purpose. And as soon as he did, the thoughts of the waterbender and the subsequent wave of guilt came crashing in once again, fiercer and more destructive than ever.

He propped his elbows on his low desk and wiped his face.

"Covering your face while someone is talking to you is unspeakably rude, Prince Zuko," the tutor warned with a scolding tone.

Zuko drew away his hands to give him another, even dirtier look, but this time the old man didn't yield.

Rolling his eyes, Zuko folded his arms and looked away.

"Rolling your eyes and crossing your arms are not princely behavior, sire—only low-borns resort to such primitive mannerisms. You must, as their prince, be above your subjects and their lowly demeanor."

The Prince exhaled sharply through his nose.

"This includes huffing, sire."

"Why don't you just do your job and leave being a prince to me." Zuko's words came out as sharp as steel.

The man shut his mouth, clearly trying to contain his mounting annoyance, and bowed from the waist. "I apologize deeply if I have come off as disrespectful, Your Highness. It was not my intention to—"

He stopped speaking abruptly, his mouth hanging open, as Zuko pulled his flask from his sleeve and began drinking deeply.

"Prince Zuko!" he yelled. His mouth opened and closed as if he were at a loss of words. "What are you doing?! You cannot drink during my class!"

Zuko huffed a laugh, shaking his head, then got up to his feet and wordlessly made for the doors.

"You cannot leave in the middle of the course, sire!"

"Watch me."

He yanked the doors open and walked out. The tutor kept shouting at his back to no avail.

Zuko chugged his drink as he tracked back to his chambers. He didn't have to speak to anyone as long as he was cooped up in there. He could brood and drink all he wanted without any disturbances.

But then he stopped suddenly halfway through, right in the middle of the hall, when a thought occurred to him.

What if the waterbender was still there? Zuko had told Shila she could stay in his rooms after he'd left and it hadn't been long since he had. She could still be there—which meant the waterbender would still be standing outside as well, waiting for her mistress to leave.

Zuko couldn't see her again. Not so soon. Possibly not ever.

He closed his eyes, contemplating his options. He could turn around and walk back to the study hall—to that tutor and many more that would come after him—or go to his chambers and risk crossing paths with the waterbender.

Suffering through a day of senseless babbling of ancient men and constantly being told how he should be living his life, or potentially facing the girl he'd stabbed in the back and left to wither away…

Zuko sighed, running a hand through his neatly tied topknot. This was impossible.

Unless…

His eyes darted open. There was one place he could disappear to—one that not even Azula or the most seasoned servants in the palace knew of. No one would bother him there.

He immediately whirled around and stomped down the halls he knew like the back of his hand. He turned corner after corner, watching his back and looking around to make sure he wasn't being followed, and ignored the servants and maids he came across.

He only slowed down once he'd entered the narrow hallway he'd sneaked into so many times in his childhood. He counted the spiky torches mounted on the wall on his left as he walked past them.

Seven… Eight… Nine… There.

Zuko stopped and scanned his surroundings one last time to see if anyone was in the vicinity to see or hear him. Then, to the torch he would've had to jump to reach when he'd been little, he now gripped easily and pulled it toward himself.

A mechanism inside the wall clicked and the metal torch tilted down from the hilt. With a low rumble, the wall right next to the torch lazily slid open—to reveal the secret door and passage inside, just tall and wide enough to fit one person in.

The musty humidity in the air inside the passage hit him in the face—a sensation he still remembered vividly, despite the years. Zuko ignored the smell and walked into the darkness within, pushing the wall-door closed, leaving the passage in total darkness.

Zuko summoned a small flame above his open palm. Moss and cobwebs covered the worn-out stones on the walls and low ceiling. Just like he remembered.

Without delay, he began walking. He strode straight ahead, before following the left track in the forked pathway.

Zuko immediately recognized the marks he'd carved into the mossy stones on the corners he was supposed to turn, all of them now almost entirely faded away. And he followed the clues, treading into the depths of the palace until he saw the final mark, bigger and deeper than the rest, on a stone at waist level on the wall on his right. He stopped at the mark, reached down, and pressed the stone in. Yet another mechanism clicked inside the wall, before it slid open to a reveal tiny, somber room hidden behind it.

He hadn't set foot in here since the day his mother had been… taken from him all those years ago, but it was the same as he'd left it, if only much smaller than he actually remembered. On the stone floor laid a number of open scrolls, huddled in one spot by the door, most of them filled with black-and-white drawings. A writing brush, an inkwell, and a partially melted candle lying beside them, all of it still in the same place he'd last left them.

Crazy as it sounded, he could see his younger self curled up by the wall, crying softly after Ozai had punished him for something that probably wasn't even his fault—and if he focused hard enough, he could hear the echoes of his whimpers.

Brushing aside the aching of the past in his chest, Zuko stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. Lighting the candle by the scrolls, he walked over and picked up the drawings from the floor, skimming through each and every one of them.

They were filled with the figure-sticks of his mother, sister, uncle, Lu Ten, a couple of turtleducks botched to the point of unrecognizability, and even some skull-faced palace guards hanging back. His family were holding hands or playing together or firebending, all of them smiling merrily no matter what they were occupied with. The sun was shining down on them from the corner of the papers, also smiling.

Zuko felt his eyes burn at the sight—at this glimpse into his childhood, at how he'd been able to see the bright side of life even when his petite body had been overrun with bruises and scars, endowed oh so graciously by his own father.

That was another thing that stood out to him. There were no figures of Ozai in any of the drawings. He'd drawn all members of his close family, but not his father. Never his father.

Zuko loosed a heavy breath. He let the papers cascade to the floor, then closed his eyes, slumped against the wall behind him, and slid to the floor.

Tears threatened to spill from his eyes—though whether they were of grief or fury at himself for letting everything come to be, he didn't know. He leaned his head back against the damp stone wall behind and pulled out the flask from his sleeve. And he held back his tears, his throat constricting, as he drank his sake.

Zuko drank to his mother, to his uncle, to his cousin, to his sister's innocence, and to the waterbender. To all the lives he'd destroyed and all the smiles he'd erased.

And when he'd shaken the last drop of sake out of the flask and onto his tongue, he threw the metal container to the corner, wrapped his arms around his legs, and dropped his head onto his forearms.

He sat there for hours, unmoving, memories of his worst mistakes and failures circling his mind, as the candle melted to nothing and the room grew steadily colder.

He buried his face in his hands, groaning, struggling to think of something, anything he could do to fix this mess. But, before, when he'd screwed up, it had always been Uncle who'd come to his aid, who'd known what to—

Zuko's head snapped up.

Uncle. Maybe he would know what to do, some way to help, if Zuko could just get to him, make him listen...

Without missing a beat, he shot to his feet and nearly ran out of the room, leaving his flask behind in his haste—out into the palace that housed his greatest as well as his worst memories, to the prison he'd been too scared to step into the last time he'd visited.

-o-

"I brought you some komodo-chicken." Zuko slid the box of food he'd stolen from the palace kitchens through the prison bars. "I know you don't care for it, but I figure it beats prison food."

His uncle was sitting cross-legged on a tattered mat behind the bars, slouching and with his back to the Prince, his grey hair down and unkempt. He stayed silent. Didn't move a muscle.

"I admit it," Zuko went on, kneeling before the bars and eyes cast on the ground, "I have everything I always wanted, but it's not at all how I thought it would be. The truth is, I need your advice." He grabbed the bars and gazed at his uncle's back, feeling fragile, brittle, vulnerable in Iroh's presence. "I saw the waterbender today, Uncle. The Avatar's friend. Azula put her in Father's harem after she got arrested in Ba Sing Se. I saw her today and she was…" He hung his head in shame. "She looked horrible. And I put her there. I did this to her."

When the old man still didn't respond, Zuko looked up again. "Please, Uncle! I'm so confused! I feel like I'm losing my mind! I need your help! Please! Say something!"

Nothing. No reaction whatsoever.

Boiling fury swelled inside him.

Zuko jumped to his feet. "Forget it! I'll solve it myself! Waste away in here for all I care!"

With that, he turned on his heel and came back the way he came. He yanked open the metal door, breathing heavily through his nose and meaning to storm out, but he stopped, and he looked back at his uncle one last time, his hand lingering on the door handle—desperate for the old man to turn around and console him as he'd done countless times before.

But Uncle kept on sitting with his back turned, offering no response or sympathy at all. The same man that had pulled Zuko out of the pits of despair after his Agni Kai now sat still, quiet.

Zuko spun back around, another wound tearing into his already damaged heart, and slammed the door shut behind him. And as he did, he missed the solitary tear that trickled down his uncle's face.

The sun had nearly set by the time Zuko had sneaked out of the prison, unseen by the guards, and night had fallen completely by the time he'd arrived in his chambers more than half an hour later, utterly drained of energy even though he hadn't done anything throughout the day.

He stood in the entrance of his chambers, the doors closed and locked behind him. His eyes were glazed and he was looking at nothing in particular—just glazing over everything in the bedroom as he felt a hollow nothingness swell within him, stretched out across his heart and lungs too snugly for comfort.

His eyes finally focused on something, then he was moving before he even realized.

He strode over to the desk at the corner of the room and pushed the heavy, wooden table aside—until that one loose floorboard beneath one of its legs came into sight. Zuko crouched down, pulled the floorboard up, and looked down into the dark space beneath.

In place of the Blue Spirit mask he'd once hidden now laid a blue necklace atop his all-black attire, glistening like an isolated star in the night sky. Zuko hadn't touched it, much less looked at it in months—with the exception of the few seconds he'd held it to place it here, in its new home.

He reached for the pendant and cradled it in his palm. And he traced the markings on the pendant with his eyes and thumb, losing himself in the gentle curves of the carved waves.

They stared back at him, seeming to taunt him, accusing him, vilifying him. They called him a thief. Not for stealing the necklace—no, for stealing the life of its bearer. Or was that the faint and fading echo of his own conscience, dying now without Uncle or anyone to give it life?

He looked up from the necklace, toward the alcohol cabinet across the room and the numerous ceramic bottles of sake standing on top of it. Gently, Zuko replaced the necklace underneath the floorboard and buried it in the depths of his mind alike once more, before he got up and pushed the desk back into its place.

He dragged his feet toward the cabinet, grabbed the bottle closest to him, and knocked it back. Then he set the bottle down and braced his hands on the edge of the wooden console, his head hung and shoulders slumped.

The sake burned his throat on its way down, but it didn't hurt nearly as much as Zuko wanted it to—as much as he needed it to. What he needed was a release of the tension he felt coiling in every fiber of his body. And there was only one thing on this planet other than alcohol that could give him that release.

"Guards!" he yelled across the room without lifting his head.

The doors unlocked and opened right away.

"Yes, sir."

"Go to the harem and tell them Prince Zuko requests company."

"Would Your Highness prefer your Favorite?"

Summoning Shila meant seeing the waterbender again.

"No."

"As you wish, sir. I will let the eunuchs know."

The doors closed again, and Zuko was left all alone in his vast bedroom, left to sulk in the dim moonlight that poured into his room through the windows. He picked up the bottle he'd drunk from and walked to his bed, gulping from it on the way, and didn't bother to light any of the candles as he flopped onto the mattress.

Minutes passed by in a flash as he drank and drank, his elbows digging into his knees, replaying everything that had happened today in his mind. He'd almost gone through the entire bottle when the knock on the door he'd been waiting for came.

"Enter!" he shouted, then winced—his own voice too loud for his drunken, oversensitive ears.

As the doors opened and shut once again, Zuko looked up from the spot on the floor he'd fixed his stare on. His head spun a mile a minute, but he was able to make out the two young women standing before the doors, both clad in revealing and exquisite crimson robes, curtsying to him. Their porcelain skin and brown hair shone under the moonlight.

"C'mere," he rasped, eyes half-lidded. And they obeyed.

He set down his near-empty bottle beside his feet. The concubines glanced at each other sidelong, grinning, but otherwise didn't react as they reached him. They both settled beside their prince on the bed, one on each side, touching and caressing his bare arms and shirt and clothed thighs. He'd ditched his padded regalia some time before they'd arrived, just to make things easier.

Zuko straightened in his place and put his hands behind him on the bed. He looked at the woman on his left, beautiful beyond words as all concubines were. She was smiling at him, eyes locked on his lips and running a hand over his thigh. He felt her slender fingers slowly make their way up to his hardening parts and start untying his pants.

Without wasting another second, Zuko took her face in his hand and captured her lips with his. She moaned softly into his mouth and returned the kiss immediately, leaning in herself and darting her tongue between his parted lips.

He felt another set of lips on the crook of his neck, kissing and licking him in the sweetest places, and a hand on his chest. The hand drew lower on his abdomen, toward the knot by his ribs that held his shirt together.

His fingers latched onto the wrist on instinct. The concubine gasped at the sudden attack.

Zuko pulled away from his kiss and turned to face the woman on his right he was gripping. "The shirt stays on."

She bowed her head. "Of course, Your Highness."

Zuko let go of her wrist, then cupped her cheek and kissed her next. His hand on her cheek ventured south and wrapped around her waist to draw her closer. She looped her arms around his neck in return.

At the same time, he felt the other concubine finally undo his pants and pull them down. Then she slid down the foot of the bed to kneel before him and parted his knees apart with a gentle nudge.

When she lowered her mouth onto him, a guttural groan ripped out of Zuko's throat, swallowed by the other woman he was still kissing. His head and entire body suddenly felt too heavy. The room spun, and he fell backwards onto the mattress.

And the moment his head hit the bed, he sank into blessed darkness, letting all his troubles drift out and away.

He'd deal with them later.