The sun is setting, the air is cooling, and Iroh, Zuko, and I stand in a circle, facing each other. Iroh moves his arms back and forth, saying that it is like the push and pull that waterbenders use to make waves, that the moon uses to create tides. Zuko and I copy his moves.

"Waterbenders deal with the flow of energy," Iroh says. "A waterbender lets their defense become their offense, turning their opponent's energy against them. I learned a way to do this with lightning."

Zuko was a little distracted when Iroh first redirected lightning on the ship, so he is surprised by the move Iroh will be teaching. He stops moving, and says, "You can teach me to redirect lightning?"

Iroh has been mostly serious this whole day. I wonder if it is the injury weighing down on him, or the implications that his own niece did it.

It is in this serious tone that he begins to explain the process, "If you let the energy in your own body flow, the lightning will follow it." Iroh holds his right arm up, two fingers pointed at the sky. He follows the flow of energy through his body with his left hand, demonstrating the path the lightning needs to take to be redirected. "You must create a pathway from your fingertips, up your arm to your shoulder, then down into your stomach. The stomach is the source of energy in your body. It is called the sea of chi. Only in my case it is more like a vast ocean." Both Iroh and I laugh at this.

"From the stomach, you direct it up again, and out the other arm. The stomach detour is critical. You must not let the lightning pass through your heart, or the damage could be deadly. You may wish to try a physical motion, to get the pathway's flow, like this."

The three of us work our way through the motions. Passing down our arms, up the stomach, and out. Again and again. After a while, I feel my chi moving, what little there is left, moving through my body and out. Directing the flow isn't hard, but I can't imagine actually doing this in the heat of a battle.

"Now, are you focusing your energy? Can you feel your own chi flowing in, down, up, and out?" Iroh asks.

"I think so," Zuko says. I nod. I glance over at Zuko, who seems to be going through the motions rather quickly. It seems like he is barely bringing the chi through his stomach, just glancing through the sea. Iroh's movements made it seem like it needed to go deep, and then out.

Iroh starts doing a body wave, saying, "Come on. You got to feel the flow."

We continue to practice the movements for a while, the sun setting further beyond the mountains. I watch Zuko, and he is improving. He is slowing down his movements, being more intentional.

"Excellent! You've both got it!" Iroh says. Zuko and I straighten up. Zuko's face is beaming, excited.

"Great. I'm ready to try it with real lightning!"

"What? Are you crazy? Lightning is very dangerous," Iroh responds. I'm taken aback by this request from Zuko as well.

"I thought that was the point! You teaching me to protect myself from it!"

"Yeah! But I'm not going to shoot lightning at you! If you're lucky, you will never have to use this technique at all!" Iroh puts his hands up, exasperated at Zuko's request. He turns away from Zuko.

Zuko stares out into the mountains. I see storm clouds gathering near a peak in the distance. "Well, if you won't help me, I'll find my own lightning." He grabs the ostrich horse and storms off, heading directly for the storm.

I start to follow, but Iroh grabs my arm. Shaking his head, Iroh says, "You won't catch up to him. And it is unlikely that he will get struck by lightning out there. Come, let's make some dinner. You both did a lot of work today."

Later, when Iroh is asleep and it is just me and my thoughts, Zuko returns, drenched. I can hear the ostrich horse just outside the house, in the covering of an awning. I stare into the dim embers of the fire, holding a very cold cup of tea from after dinner.

After Zuko left, Iroh and I cooked dinner to refuel all the energy spent practicing. It is over this dinner that Iroh and I have a long discussion about Zuko and how he has changed after his trip alone.

"I don't think he's changed much," I say gazing out to the clouds that are pouring down rain. "I mean, he has a little. I feel like what he saw with Azula kind of shook him awake, but I still think he is holding that shame."

"Well, he is definitely as headstrong as he was before."

I laugh. "That's for sure. I mean, imagine having someone intentionally shoot lightning at you."

Iroh does not share in the laughter. He says, "Well, I think my brother would do it."

"Well, isn't Ozai a little off his rocker? Burning his own son, letting his own daughter go after said son to return him to some form of imprisonment at home? Doesn't seem like a very giving father to me."

"You are right in that aspect. That was never Ozai's way, but more what he had Ursa for. To take care of what he destroyed."

I don't really have much to say on the parental front, considering I was raised in a community by monks - any one of them could be my parents. My silence allows for a space for Iroh to ramble, to continue talking about the harshness of his brother.

"I believe my brother to only have a heart of ice. He holds no warmth toward anyone, even his children. All he cared about was power, and Azula had the strength and firebending prowess to be another Ozai. Cruel, manipulative."

"So Ozai molded her into what she is today. A little crazy," I ponder. "What happened to Ursa?"

Iroh pauses for a long time, before saying, "When Lu Ten died and I returned from Ba Sing Se, my father, Azulon, died. It is said that his dying wish was for Ozai to become Fire Lord instead of me. Ursa disappeared around the death of my father, and many believe she had killed him to advance Ozai's desires."

"What do you think? Could Ursa have killed her own father-in-law? Didn't she see how crazy Ozai was when they married? Why would she abandon her own children?"

Iroh holds his hand up, pausing my thoughts. He takes a drink of his own tea. "I don't think she had a choice."

"But, don't we always have a choice?" Iroh looks at me, sadness clear in his eyes. I keep quiet, grabbing the dishes from dinner, the conversation clearly over.

I know some part of Iroh agrees with me on this front. That we always have choices, no matter what is placed before us. I wonder what Ursa's choices were. To kill Azulon or to face some unknown consequence?

Which would I choose?

Zuko returns to us while I am pondering these questions. His arrival honestly shocks me; I had half-expected him to leave again to be on his own after Iroh was unwilling to shoot lightning at him.

I stand up quickly, knocking the tea to the ground. Zuko is drenched from the rain, and he is shivering. I usher him over to the embers of the fire and add branches to awaken it. Though firebenders are naturally warm, I doubt they are able to stave off colds from the weather or hypothermia.

"You're freezing, Zuko. Sit down. Change your clothes so you're not sitting in those wet things." I rummage through his pack, looking for a change of clothes. I find a tunic and pants, both dark green. I throw them at him and begin working on warming up the fish soup we had for dinner along with some tea. Hopefully that will warm him up.

While I wait for it to heat up, I wind the cloth up and down my arm to focus me. My anxiety has spiked again at the thought of Zuko, behind me, changing. From behind me, I hear Zuko ask, "Why do you do that?"

I turn to look at him, because he is nodding toward the cloth. He has his shirt off, but has already changed his pants. I quickly look away. "I do it because I'm anxious, I think. The repetitive nature of winding it up and down focuses my mind. Gives me something to do besides think."

"Oh, glad you're using it for something."

I laugh. "Orange doesn't really go with the browns and greens of the Earth Kingdom, now does it?" I hear the wet slaps of Zuko's clothes as he throws them into a pile in the corner. I turn to look fully at him. His hair is still soaked from before, but his shivering has slowed. I grab him some soup and a cup of tea. Lunch wasn't very filling, so I imagine he's starving.

While he eats, I set up a makeshift drying rack for his clothes near the fire. Iroh plans to leave in the morning, likely having anticipated Zuko's return from the mountains. I glance over at Zuko, who does not look like he's been struck with lightning. Good.

"You should sleep close to the fire tonight," I tell Zuko, though he doesn't look sleepy at all. He grunts his response, setting his bowl and cup aside. He stretches, and I try hard not to stare at him.

Iroh sleeps propped up against the wall still, with the only blanket we have wrapped around him. The night is getting cold with the rain, so Zuko and I sleep as close to the fire as we can. Our backs are to each other, but I can feel the heat from him and the fire as if they were touching me. My thoughts bounce quickly around in my head, trying not to focus on holding him, of being warmed by his skin.

I swallow. I turn to the side facing Zuko, and he seems to have gotten closer. Closer. I squeeze my eyes tight, trying to keep any perverted thoughts out of my head. I turn back over to my other side, to keep the image of Zuko from burning into my eyes, like I've looked too long at the sun or a fire.

I can't sleep, but I don't know why. I'm incredibly cold, which is a feeling I'm not used to. As a bender, I could change the temperature of the air around me, to keep me warm or cool. Now, I'm just a shivering mess in front of a fire.

After about a hour of laying down without actually sleeping, I hear Zuko rustling behind me. I jump because I feel him press himself against my back, his arm wrapping around me. Oh, spirits, what is happening?

"You're shivering, Zia," he mumbles close to my ear. I try to calm my breathing, and I can't think of anything coherent to say back to him. He pulls me closer to him, wrapping me in his warmth. I open my mouth to say something, but Zuko shhs me, muttering that we both need to go to sleep.

I feel Zuko's breathing even out, but I cannot sleep for the life of me, focused on Zuko touching me, holding me. My heart jitters around in my chest, and sleep never comes to me that night.