Zuko
Coming home…it isn't what I wanted it to be. Father accepts me, but something still feels wrong. There still feels like there's a whole in my life, one I don't know how to fill. I try to visit Uncle, but that only leaves me more confused, especially once I find out that my mother's grandfather was Avatar Roku. All I feel is anger: Anger at Father, Anger at Uncle, Azula, Mai, Katara, The Avatar, myself. Especially myself. Father tells me I have my honor back, but do I? Did I make the right choice? I'm home, Dad likes me, I'm dating Mai, I sent an assassin with a perfect record after The Avatar to close off loose ends. Everything should be perfect but it's not. I find out just how bad it is at Ember Island, a place I used to love, all it brought back were what are now nightmares. Mai's feelings are so buried and suppressed they're practically nonexistent, and I'm constantly wondering if I'm doing the right thing or the wrong thing or if she even cares. Uncle's rotting in prison, and that's all my fault too.
And all of that I might have been able to ignore or get past. But then that meeting…Father's completely lost his mind. Azula too, and all the advisors and generals who agreed with his insane plan. Burning the world to the ground. Now I know for sure, I made the wrong choice. I should have listened to The Avatar when he asked me if we could have been friends, to Katara when she asked me to change sides, to Uncle when he begged me not to choose Azula. I didn't, and I can't change that. But I can make new choices. Today's the invasion.
So I break up with Mai. I need a clean break, and it was never going to work out anyways. I like her, but I never know what's going on with her. I Can't take it anymore, the lack of feeling, the lack of passion, the lack of anything except childhood memories and physical touch. I realized as much at the beach, when I was yelling at her and realizing everything I said she wasn't, Katara was. I tried to ignore it since I burned that bridge to ash, but it always stayed in the back of my mind. I don't want to hurt Mai but I can't keep going, even if I wasn't becoming a traitor today. But I am, so a clean break is best.
Today I'm going to face my father, tell him how wrong everything he's ever done is. Then I'm going to Free Uncle, and I'm going to find the Avatar's team and beg them to let me join them, to teach him Firebending and help him take my father down.
I breathe in, open the doors and go in. Everything goes by in a blur and slow motion at the same time. I confront him. I try to leave, and he tells me Mom is still alive. I turn around just in time to redirect the lightning he shoots at me. Three things go through my head as I send it back.
Damn Bastard Son of a Bitch was ready to commit Filicide!
Uncle's teaching just saved my life.
My Mother's still out there, she wasn't killed, she was banished.
I walk out a changed man. With a new direction in life. And once I find out Uncle didn't need my help getting out of prison, I take my war balloon and do what I've been doing the last year: I follow the Avatar, and all his group. Sokka, Toph, and…Katara.