The Dai Li agent leads Zuko through a hidden door in the wall that leads from the Lower Ring into the Agrarian Zone. Luckily, Iroh is paying intense attention to everything the Dai Li agent is doing and sees where the door closes. Upon arriving at the wall, there is no break in the rock. Seamless. That is, until Iroh presses against part of the wall to reveal a door.
Iroh smiles at me, saying, "The palace had a lot of these hidden doors. Press the right tile, and a new door appears that wasn't there before."
We quickly enter the room, which is lit by those weird green rocks. The room looks like a meeting place, with a long table and a lot of chairs. Right now, there is no one here, not even Zuko or the Dai Li agent. However, Iroh rushes over quietly to another door, this one more obvious than the other. It is the only exit.
It leads us out into the Agrarian Zone. A lot of trees hug this side of the wall, putting us into a deeper darkness. There are no lights around the wall, and Iroh doesn't dare use his bending to light the way. Instead, we can see a lantern swinging back and forth, like someone is carrying it, far ahead.
Iroh ushers me forward, closing the door slowly behind us. I try to be quiet in the darkness, but there are a lot of roots and brush to trip into. Iroh chuckles at me, trampling through the woods, and grabs my arm. "Look here," he whispers, gesturing in the darkness. "There's a small foot path, intentionally kept overgrown."
I can see it, mostly if I squint really hard. However, the more we are in the darkness, the more my eyes adjust. It is a small foot path, just like Iroh said. Here and there, I can see the spots to step on. It makes us quieter, but I can see the lantern light getting smaller and smaller. I rush a little bit more, and Iroh is right behind me.
After a few minutes of walking through the thick brush, we arrive at the edge of it. Iroh grabs me, pulling me back into the darkness of the trees. There, to our right, is Zuko and the Dai Li agent. The Dai Li agent is holding the lantern out, and it reflects back at him. The sound of water and the reflection of the lantern lead me to believe we are at a body of water.
"Lake Laogai," Iroh whispers in my ear, watching the Dai Li agent intensely. The agent bends out toward the water, pulling up a long walkway that goes into darkness. The Dai Li agent leads the way, going out toward the water. He bends something at the edge of the walkway, and the two of them disappear into the hole the agent made.
We quickly follow, though it is slow going on the walkway. We can't see the end of it, where Zuko and the agent disappeared down. However, the closer we get to the end, the more a green glow permeates. Then, we can hear a struggle the closer we are to the end of the walkway. It ends quickly, seemingly in Zuko's victory.
After a moment, in which Iroh leans over the hole, he starts to climb down the ladder. The green glow we witnessed is the same eerie glow that all the lights in Ba Sing Se are made of. At the bottom of the ladder, a tunnel stretches endlessly to both sides. The lanterns are placed evenly at the edges of a thick walkway.
We see neither the Dai Li agent nor Zuko again. Iroh gestures to me to be quiet, but to start looking through the cracks of the door. I open them just a sliver, and I see nothing. Empty room after empty room it seems. However, in a smaller room, I find the Dai Li agent tied up and gagged, passed out and in a corner. So that was the struggle from earlier.
After a few minutes of looking, a deep rumbling sounds, followed by heavy stomping. It is the sound that I am somewhat familiar with, at least 100 years ago. It is the sound of a very angry flying bison. I grab Iroh who is looking at the door behind me and run toward the noise.
We stop at the door that the loud noises are coming from. Iroh steps in front of me, opening the door and letting us in. Zuko is holding his swords out at the ready at us, but lowers them when he realizes it's us. "Uncle? Zia?"
"So, the Blue Spirit," Iroh starts, putting up face. "I wonder who could be behind that mask . . ."
Zuko sighs, shaking his head. He takes off the mask. "What are you doing here?"
"I was just about to ask you the same thing. What do you plan to do now that you've found the Avatar's bison? Keep him locked in our new apartment? Should I go put on a pot of tea for him?" Iroh's anger is leaking through his voice. I've never really heard him speak like this before, especially toward Zuko.
"First, I have to get it out of here," Zuko says, gesturing toward Appa.
Animals are smart, and Appa is no exception. I leave Iroh's side and go up to Appa, who is enraged and growling lowly at Zuko. I put my hand out to let him smell me. Maybe his memory is better than Aang's. He takes a few deep sniffs before pushing his nose into my outstretched hand.
I smile, and Appa lays down. I rub Appa's cheeks, listening to Iroh as he fully becomes angry at Zuko now.
"And then what?! You never think these things through!" Iroh is pointing at Zuko, continuing, "This is exactly what happened when you captured the Avatar at the North Pole! You had him, and then you had nowhere to go!"
"I would have figured something out!" Zuko yells back.
"No! If his friends hadn't found you, you would have frozen to death!"
I didn't know that. Granted, after seeing what happened to Zhao, I didn't have many questions about Zuko's time alone at the North Pole. He didn't really want to share, either.
"I know my own destiny, Uncle!" Zuko looks back, and we make eye contact.
"Do you?" I ask, quieter than Iroh and Zuko. Calmness goes further than yelling, and I can tell Zuko has been yelled at too often. His reactions to yelling are, well, more yelling and frustration. "Is it your destiny, or one that was forced upon you?"
"Stop it, both of you! I have to do this!"
"I'm begging you, Prince Zuko! It's time for you to look inward and begin asking yourself the big questions. Who are you, and what do you want?"
I've been asking variations of that question of Zuko for a long time. Is it the face of his supposed destiny, along with his uncle's intense questioning, that is finally showing Zuko who he is becoming?
Zuko yells, throwing his swords and Blue Spirit mask angrily to the ground. I continue to console Appa, especially to keep him from trying to hurt Zuko. Iroh approaches Zuko as he continues to seethe in his frustration. Iroh places a comforting hand on Zuko's shoulder, and Zuko looks up at him. Something passes between the two of them, and I hear Zuko say, "I don't know anymore. I don't know!"
Iroh doesn't say anything, but in the growing silence I say, "It's okay that you don't know. Just that you recognize that you are not the person you once thought you were." I look upward, at the patch of natural light that circles Appa and I. It is natural light from the rising sun, not the green light from the rocks. It is an exit, for someone that can fly at least. "But I know how to get Appa out of here."
Zuko and Iroh look at me, and I smile, pointing up. "That's a step," I say to Zuko, "in the right direction."
In silence, we work on removing the cuffs from Appa's feet. When Zuko approaches him, Appa starts to freak out, though I calm him with soothing words. Once Appa realizes what we are doing, he quiets his grumbling and growling. He picks up each of his feet in turn, allowing us to work on getting them off him.
When they are all off, Appa takes flight immediately, bursting through the hole I noticed in the ceiling. Some rocks tumble down from the edges of the hole. I look up, shielding my eyes from the brightness. I smile. I didn't expect us to be down underneath the lake for so long that the sun started to come up, but it shined the light on the way to help Appa.
It shined the light on Zuko too. Showing me the difference in him. Suddenly, after weeks of traveling the Earth Kingdom with him, I realize that Zuko is different. Still the same, angry Zuko, but he is realizing the differences in himself too. That there is more to life than just anger. And a forced destiny.
We exit the tunnels the same way that we arrived. We don't see a single person on the way out. Maybe there are multiple entrances underneath the lake, and this is just the one our Dai Li agent chose, since it was closest to Appa.
Either way, we exit the tunnel. I lead the way, and Zuko follows. Zuko pulls Iroh the last way out of the hole, and the sun shines on us all. It is a little foggy over the lake, but it is a beautiful sight.
Iroh says, "You did the right thing, nephew."
Despite this, Zuko still looks sad. He grabs his Blue Spirit mask and looks down at it. He is at a crossroads here, in the middle of an Earth Kingdom lake. But he is going down the right path.
"Leave it behind," Iroh says to Zuko. The mask holds something for Zuko, a different life maybe. Does he remember caring for me when I was sick, so long ago, back on the boat? I thought he was a benevolent spirit at the time, but the mask stands for different things for different people. For Zuko, it is a different version of himself. Or, an escape from who he thinks he is.
Exiled prince. Banished son. Would be capturer of the Avatar.
Whatever it is, he drops it in Lake Laogai. We watch it sink into the bottom of the lake.
We take the long way back to our apartment in the Lower Ring. That is to say, we go to the nearest tram station and take the first one going up from the Agrarian Zone into the Lower Ring. It is a short ride, and I glance at Zuko during it. He is sitting between Iroh and I, and he looks incredibly dazed. Has he been sleeping?
Zuko is dragging his feet when we leave the tram, dragging his scabbard at certain points. I ask him, "Zuko, are you okay?" However, he doesn't answer with words, simply grunts at me. I help him up the stairs and into the apartment.
The sun is continuing to rise, slanting rays of light across our apartment complex. We are nowhere near done packing, and the apartment is in chaos. Zuko leans against me as Iroh unlocks our door. Somehow, Iroh hasn't noticed that something is wrong with Zuko. Granted, I don't even know what's wrong with Zuko.
"You did the right thing. Letting the Avatar's bison go free," Iroh says, closing the door behind us.
However, Zuko stumbles out of my grasp, saying, "I don't feel right." His eyes roll back into his head, and he reaches for a side table with a vase on it. Knocking the vase down and landing into a pile, Iroh and I rush toward Zuko.
Iroh says, "Zuko!"
Zuko is burning up, more so than usual. A thin layer of sweat lines his forehead, and he won't wake up. Iroh and I lock eyes, stunned by this sudden turn toward illness. Together, we drag Zuko into the bedroom, laying him down gently on a futon. Together, we take off the black clothes that Zuko wore as the Blue Spirit. He is sweating, and mumbling, and delirious as he tosses and turns against our grasp.
A mixture of my knowledge of herbs and Iroh's knowledge of being a caring person, we fall into a rhythm, never leaving Zuko's side. Cooling wet cloth, frequent changes of the blanket wrapped around Zuko, quiet conversations between Iroh and I.
He isn't sick like I was on the ship. Iroh tells me that this is different. This is "A spiritual metamorphosis," Iroh says. "The choice he made at the lake, with the Avatar's bison, conflicted with the image within himself."
"Like a caterpillar into a butterfly," I mutter. Iroh nods. "He is changing into a different person." I laugh at the thought of Zuko creating a cocoon for himself, for him to sprout beautiful wings and suddenly be a different person. Iroh smiles at me and grasps my hand. He nods.
"It won't be a pleasant experience for him, but with both of us here, supporting him, he should be fine."