lessons in tea making - Chapter 2 - aloneintherain (2024)

Chapter Text

They fly until they see green land--and then they keep flying.

Agni’s touch grows stronger and sweeter the longer they fly, but Zuko still feels strangely unmoored, his stomach in knots. This feeling–it reminds him of sailing out of Fire Nation waters for the first time, knowing he may never return.

“We should land soon,” Aang says.

Zuko curls up tighter in his borrowed parka, huddled between Katara and Sokka. “We need to keep going.”

Aang frowns. “We’ve been in the air all day. It’ll be good to rest.”

“We can rest when we’re safe.”

“Zuko,” Katara says.

Zuko shoves away from the siblings and crawls to the other side of the saddle, suddenly feeling claustrophobic. “You don’t understand. The Fire Nation would have seen me during the siege. They’d know that I…” He swallows hard. “What about Uncle? What if they got caught up in the attack and they need help? What if–”

“Zuko,” Kata says again, softer this time.

Zuko exhales. He concentrates on heating the air between his palms. There’s no pot between his hands, but the act of boiling tea, of pretending to boil tea, calms him. He imagines water bubbling away, the aroma of tea leaves, the murmur of customers out on the sun-baked deck.

Slowly, the black sea retreats from his lungs and it becomes easier to breathe.

“We’ll keep going,” Aang decides.

Zuko lowers his still-warm hands. “Thank you.”

No one speaks after Zuko’s outbursts, but when Katara and Sokka wriggle over to his side of the saddle, he opens his arms and lets them huddle close.

The Jasmine Dragon is hard to spot in the near-dusk, docked in a small, unpopulated bay. Zuko’s eyesight has been half-ruined ever since the Agni Kai. He never would have found it. But just before sunset, Appa makes a low and hungry moan and tips to the left.

“You and me both, dude,” Sokka mumbles against Zuko’s arm.

“I think he can smell something,” Aang says. He pauses, and then he and Zuko both blurt: “Tea leaves!”

Aang lets Appa steer them towards the Jasmine Dragon on scent alone. They land in the middle of the deck to the excited shouts of the crew.

Zuko throws himself up and over the saddle, landing with a roll. He sprints across the deck. The crew try to grab at him, yank him into a hug, but Zuko dodges and keeps running.

He crashes into Iroh and almost sends them both tumbling overboard.

Uncle latches onto the back of Zuko’s parka and holds him tight. Zuko presses his face into Uncle’s shoulder, hiding his own tears and taking in the smell of smoke and jasmine.

They hold each other for a long moment before Uncle finds the breath to ask: “What happened?”

“I think I met the moon spirit.” Uncle pulls back to look at Zuko’s face. Zuko shrugs back at him. “The moon spirit possessed the princess. It was… kind of a blur.”

Uncle laughs. “You never do things by halves, nephew. I’m just glad you came back to me.”

“Always, Uncle.”

“And your friends?” Uncle asks, peering over Zuko’s shoulder. “Are the young kidnappers well?”

“Hi, Uncle!” Aang calls. “Can we get some more red bean buns? And maybe some green tea?” Appa bellows and nudges Aang with his nose. “Oh, and I think Appa would like some treats too, if you have them.”

Zuko stares balefully at Uncle. “You’ve fed my kidnappers bison?”

“I have no idea what you mean, nephew,” Uncle says to Zuko, and then very obviously winks at Aang.

Iroh bustles below deck to make tea. Chef pulls Zuko in a hug, sweeping him clear off his feet, and then insists they all sit while he makes them a warm meal.

While they eat, Sokka talks about their plans to fly deeper into Earth Kingdom territory in search of Aang’s earthbending teacher. As Sokka speaks, the black ocean rises up and over Zuko’s head again. He hunches over his tea, sucking in the smell of jasmine, and tries to ride it out.

Every time Zuko thinks the waves are retreating, he remembers that he will have to leave the Jasmine Dragon again and the sucking tide pulls him back under again.

“I can’t,” Zuko manages, interrupting Sokka.

The conversation stops. All eyes are on him, even Chef’s. Zuko focuses on the scorches and stains on the benchtop. Many of them were left by Zuko’s first disastrous attempts at cooking as a half-blind Fire Prince.

Zuko scratches at a scorch-mark with his thumb, not looking at his friends. “I’m staying on the Jasmine Dragon.”

The kitchen swells with silence. Aang is frozen with honeyed pear halfway to his mouth. Honey drips onto his tunic.

Katara stands abruptly, chair screeching. She looks like she’s going to water-whip him. Aang fumbles for her sleeve but she shrugs him off.

“You snuck into the Northern Water Tribe when it was under siege to warn us about Zhao,” Katara says through her teeth. “You’re involved now, Zuko. You can’t keep pretending the war isn’t happening after–”

“That’s not what I’m saying! I don’t want to stay behind permanently. It’s just– I’m not ready to leave the Jasmine Dragon. And I doubt having a firebender tagging along when you’re trekking through the Earth Kingdom and interviewing earthbenders will be all that helpful.”

Katara makes a face and opens her mouth, ready to argue with him. Iroh cuts her off. “My nephew has a point. It will be good for you to learn the elements in order, young Avatar. You already have air, and now a tentative grip on water. Next, you will learn earthbending, and then you can come back for my nephew. He’ll teach you the final element.”

His friends exchange unsure looks. Zuko purses his lips, if only to contain the apology bubbling up his throat. This has been so much, and Zuko’s heart is only so strong, and he wants to stay with his uncle for as long as he possibly can.

“The next time you kidnap me,” Zuko says, “I won’t fight it. I just need more time to say goodbye.”

Sokka strokes his chin. “Hm, it would be fun to kidnap you again.”

Aang perks up. “But you will teach me firebending? After I start learning earthbending?”

Zuko steps away from Uncle and bows. Not the bow of a Fire Prince. The bow of a tea server.

“Avatar Aang,” he says in the formal cadence he hasn’t used since he was at court, “I promise that I will be your fire-master when you return to me.”

Aang throws himself over the benchtop and drags Zuko into a twirling hug. “Sifu Hotman!” he cries, and Zuko wonders, not for the first time, what exactly he’s gotten himself into.

They wave down at the Jasmine Dragon until the small figures on deck, waving back at them, are too small to be seen. They keep staring at the small dot that is the Jasmine Dragon until it disappears into the horizon.

“I know he was only with us properly for a few days,” Katara says, “but it feels weird not having him here.”

“I’m going to miss him,” Aang says.

Sokka groans, throwing his head back. “Why did we let our cook and portable heat-pack stay behind? Aang, turn around. We need to go and kidnap him again.”

“We agreed we were going to wait until I found an earthbending teacher first.”

“But it’s cold up here without Zuko!”

Katara smacks him over the head. “You’re going to miss him just as much as we are. Admit it.”

“Yeah, I’ll miss his cooking. Now Aang and I have to go back to eating your mush–” Katara dives for him. Sokka shrieks and scrambles away. “I also miss having someone normal around.”

“I’m normal,” Aang says.

“No, Aang,” Katara says, managing to sound gentle even as she hooks an elbow around Sokka’s neck and starts to choke him out, “you’re really not.”

Zuko stares up at the cloudless sky. Appa has long since melted into the distance, but he can’t bring himself to move.

Uncle gives him some time to sulk, and then comes and presses an apron into his hands. Zuko shoves down his hurt, his uncertainty, his strange sense of longing, and gets back to work.

Aang pivots on his heel, attempting to find Katara and Sokka through the twisting trees. A flash of crimson makes him freeze. He fights his way through the soupy marsh and finds himself in an open clearing.

In the middle of the clearing, perfectly serene, sits his fire-bending master.

Aang approaches hesitantly. “Zuko?”

Zuko doesn’t look up at him. The skirts of his robe are haloed around him in a near-perfect circle. The robes are fine crimson silk with gold embroidery, far nicer than anything Zuko has worn before. More expensive than a tea server could afford.

Zuko has always seemed afraid of the Fire Nation. Whenever they mention it, his breathing quickens and he shrinks in on himself, as though trying to make himself smaller. And yet this Zuko, wearing crimson robes and a gold five-pronged hairpiece, holding a beautiful teapot between his palms, looks utterly peaceful.

A girl’s laughter rings through the trees. Aang whirls around. Another apparition–a young girl with milk-white eyes–flits through the trees and calls him away from the ethereal sight in the clearing.

“First a tea server that wants nothing to do with us,” Sokka says, “and now a blind noble that wants nothing to do with us. You really know how to pick your bending masters, huh, Aang?”

“Does it have to be her?” Katara asks. “There are plenty of benders in the Earth Kingdom. Can’t we just find someone else?”

Aang shakes his head. “It has to be her. I saw her in the forest.”

“Well, you might need to think of more options,” Sokka says, “because she might not come with us.”

“We could kidnap her,” Aang suggests. “It worked with Zuko.”

There’s a moment of silence as they contemplate that.

“Something tells me that Toph wouldn’t go along with it like Zuko did,” Katara says eventually.

Aang wilts. “You’re probably right.”

Sokka pats him on the shoulder. “It’s okay, buddy. We can always kidnap Zuko next time we see him.”

It’s easy to forget that Toph, who clicked with the group as easily as Zuko had, had never actually met Zuko.

At dinner, Sokka had remarked, off-hand, that he missed Zuko’s cooking. Katara had snapped back that she missed having someone around who didn’t take her for granted and actually pulled their weight. Sokka took offense, because he had been “been doing plenty around here and following Zuko’s lead”, which made Toph slam down her bowl of lukewarm soup.

“Alright,” she says, “someone needs to tell me who this Zuko guy is.”

“He’s my firebending teacher,” Aang says from where he had been hovering on the fringes of the sibling’s argument.

“Oh, yeah? Then where is he?”

Sokka winces. “He’s… still working through his issues. We’re going to kidnap him once Aang has the earthbending basics down.”

Toph perks up. “Kidnap him?”

“Well, he gave us permission this time.”

“This time? You guys have been going around kidnapping people?”

“No!” Aang says quickly. “Only Zuko.”

Toph cackles and throws her arms into the air, spilling some ofher soup onto Sokka. “And here I was thinking you guys were boring!”

Aang winces and tries to defend himself. “He was the first good firebender I had met since before the war, and something told me he needed to be my teacher. Just like with you.”

“Plus,” Sokka cuts in, “he cooks like an absolute champion. And he lives on a floating tea shop, so he’s literally a professional at brewing tea.”

Katara nods. “He doesn’t complain about chores. And he appreciates women.”

“I value women!” Katara’s soup twists in its bowl, like a snake considering striking, and Sokka quickly adds, “Now I do. I’ve gotten better. I have!”

“So, wait,” Toph says, before the siblings can start bickering again, “is this guy your firebending teacher? Because he sounds more likely to take out a restraining order on you all, not join you.”

“He only wanted to press charges at the beginning,” Katara says, like that makes that any better. Toph wonders if, had she turned down their offer to run away with them, they would have kidnapped her. Probably not. Toph would have kicked their asses if they’d tried.
“But he warmed up to us,” Sokka says, and then laughs. “Get it, warmed up to us? Because he’s a firebender?” He holds up a hand for Aang to high-five, which he does, but probably just out of pity.

Katara ignores him. “He joined us in the Northern Water Tribe, even though he knew it was under siege by the Fire Nation. He might still be hesitant to join us full-time, but it’s not an easy thing to fight against your own people.”

“We’re going to go pick him up soon,” Sokka says. “Now that we have you. Hey, Aang, you have all three of your bending teachers!”

Aang and Sokka do a little dance around the fire, with Aang wearing Momo like a chittering hat, and Katara laughs. They all seem happier talking about this strange firebender than they have in days.

Zuko spends the weeks after the siege at the North Pole slowly saying goodbye to the Jasmine Dragon.

He thinks he loves the repurposed warship with its rusted edges and cramped rooms more than he ever loved the Fire Palace. When he was thirteen years old and still feverish with pain, he thought this ship was his own personal hell, something he simply had to withstand before he could win back his honour. Now, the Jasmine Dragon is his home.

He spends time with each of the crew. He willingly helps out in the laundry room and the engine rooms more than he ever has before, and ignores the ribbing that earns him. He spends his evenings bent over Earth Kingdom maps, reacquainting himself with the inland geography, rather than just the ports. And when his eyes are dry and his heart is pounding, he slips into the kitchens and finds Chef. If he was going to get underfoot, Chef used to say when Zuko was thirteen and lured to the kitchens by the smell of cinnamon, then he might as well learn something useful.

The meals that Chef cooks now–that, Zuko realises, he’s been cooking since Zuko was first kidnapped by Aang–have been simple. Easy. Something filling any hungry teenager could make with simple, cost-effective ingredients and a campfire.

He spends more time with Uncle, too.

“I’m going to miss the Jasmine Dragon,” Zuko admits one evening, tea steeping between his heated palms. “I’m going to miss…”

Uncle reaches across the table to grasp Zuko’s wrist, squeezing it gently. “From what I have heard of your friends, you will be in good company. I will miss you dearly, but I take comfort in the knowledge that you will have them to keep you steady and remind you to eat.”

Zuko huffs, blowing his fringe out of his eyes. “I do more cooking than the rest of them!”

“Would you cook as often and as well for yourself, as you do for your friends?” Uncle laughs at Zuko’s expression. “They are good for you, nephew. And we will always be here to welcome you home. After.”

Zuko tries not to dwell over what stands between his friends and after.

A shadow falls over the Jasmine Dragon. Zuko whirls around, wielding his broom like a sword, his fight or flight instinct kicking in before his conscious mind has even recognised the danger.

“Oh, so soon?” Iroh asks. “But music night is tonight!”

Appa is flying low above them. Aang is behind the reins. Sokka and Katara wave at him from over the side of the saddle. An unfamiliar blot of green sits behind them, hovering at Aang to fly lower.

Iroh disappears below deck while the rest of the crew says goodbye to Zuko.

“We’ll miss your Tsungi Horn playing,” Daichi tells him solemnly. “If you see your dad, kick him in the nuts for us.”

Zuko splutters. “What?”

Appa loops around the ship. He only stops when he’s almost on top of them. Aang’s newly acquired earthbender, who looks even smaller than Aang himself, hangs over the side of the saddle. She’s small and fine-boned like a doll and wearing a truly menacing smile.

The deck rocks underfoot. Zuko stumbles, dropping the broom. A wave crests the side of the ship, and Zuko has a moment to send up an apology to uncle for dying on him, before the wave skims the surface of the deck and encircles his waist. Zuko’s feet leave the ship. He yelps, scrambling for purchase, unable to keep himself from being thrown up into the air.

He lands on Appa’s saddle, sopping wet. He blinks dazedly at his friends and their new member, leaning into Sokka and cackling.

“You’ve gotten better,” Zuko says, blinking sea-water out of his eyes.

Katara smiles sweetly, and it’s the same look Azula used to shoot him before setting his tunic on fire. “Thank you.”

The earthbender snorts. “I would have done anything to see those early kidnapping attempts.”

“Hey,” Sokka says, “my story-telling was pretty good, wasn’t it?”

“It was,” she agrees, before turning that feral smile on Zuko. “Did you really flail that much?”

Zuko wrings water out of his braid, scowling. “No.”

“Yes,” Katara says.

“Yes!” Aang agrees from behind the reins. “Hi, Zuko! I wanted to be the one to kidnap you, but Katara said it was her turn since I did it last time.”

“If you’re on dry land next, I’m totally doing the kidnapping,” the earthbender tells him.

Zuko sighs. “There won’t be a next time.”

The earthbender shrugs, unbothered. “That’s what you think.”

What a horribly ominous statement.

Zuko agreed a while back that he would go willingly when the Avatar and his friends needed him. He’s had weeks to come to terms with his decisions. Weeks of Iroh’s proud, secretive smile and proverbs and last-minute firebending lessons, so he remembers everything he needs to pass onto Aang. He’d been worried that his panic would rise up like the ocean and smother him when it was time to leave the Jasmine Dragon, but he feels bright and steady as the midday sun. Looking around at the faces of his friends, he can’t remember why he was ever afraid of loving them.

“NEPHEW!”

Zuko gasps. “I didn’t say goodbye to Uncle!”

Aang circles back around and flies lower. Katara lowers him back down to his ship using the same arm of water, drenching Zuko further. As soon as he’s in arms reach, Iroh crushes him to his chest.

“I’m so proud of you, Prince Zuko,” Iroh murmurs, quiet enough that only Zuko will hear. It is the first time Iroh has called him ‘prince’ in a very long time. Years. Hearing it now is a shock, waking him up. “Please be safe and come back to me in one piece.”

“I will,” Zuko says, and means it. He won’t force Iroh to grieve another son.

The crew have gathered to see him off. Zuko quietly puts up with them passing him around, giving hugs and thumps on the arm and hair ruffles, though he scowls the whole time and tries valiantly to pretend he’s not blushing.

Iroh hands him his things: his bag, packed weeks ago; his dao swords, polished and tucked into their scabbards; a heavy bag of food from Chef; and a slightly smaller bag full of tea.

This time, it’s Zuko that pulls Iroh into a hug. His chest aches. He doesn’t want to leave this ship, the one that has become a home to him, but staying here feels too much like running away. And his friends need him.

Zuko pulls away. If his breathing has gone shaky and Iroh’s eyes are red-rimmed, no one comments on it.

“I’ll see you soon,” Zuko says, because he can’t bring himself to say goodbye.

As Katara heaves him back to Appa, Zuko waves to everyone on the Jasmine Dragon. They stand on the deck, seeing him off, until Appa flies too high and they lose sight of each other.

“Is that bread I smell?” the earthbender says loudly, inching across the saddle to get to Zuko and the fresh bakery smell. When she’s within reaching distance, she touches his arm, trying to untangle him from the food, and then stops. “You’re warm. Really warm.”

Zuko gapes at her. “It took Sokka weeks to figure that out. We only just met!”

“Warm,” says the earthbender again, and curls up against Zuko’s shoulder.

The earthbender’s name is Toph. She’s blind and twelve and more powerful than most earthbenders Zuko has met before.

Zuko likes her immediately.

“Sugar queen,” Toph says into the best damn curry she’s ever tasted in her life, “you’re fired.”

“That’s what I said!” Sokka says, already on his second serving.

“If you didn’t like my food,” Katara huffs, “then you didn’t have to eat it.”

“It’s not that we didn’t like it,” Sokka backpedals, “it’s just that Zuko is very talented. He works on a tea boat! A professional fancy tea boat! Of course he’s going to have some culinary talents.”

Zuko grimaces. “I don’t know if you could call the Jasmine Dragon professional or fancy. It’s run out of decommissioned warship.”

Toph lowers her spoon. “Wait. You sell tea out of an old Fire Nation warship? What the f*ck. How did you manage to swing that? Did you steal it?”

“Uh,” Zuko says.

“They’re Fire Nation, remember?” Aang pipes up.

Toph waves him off. “Yeah, I know, but it’s still a warship. Are you ex-military, firefly?”

“Uh,” Zuko says again. “No, but everyone else on the Jasmine Dragon used to be in the army. Like my Uncle. They, uh, discharged themselves a couple of years ago. The war...”

“You don’t have to go into it,” Katara says softly, laying a hand on Zuko’s knee. Toph can’t blame her for the casual contact; she always thought she disliked being touched before she joined up with this band of misfits and met their firebender. Touching him feels like laying out on a sun-warmed rock on a cool winter day.

“Thanks,” Zuko says, equally soft.

Zuko sidles up to Toph midway through Aang’s training. “Are you okay? I saw you fighting with Katara earlier.”

Toph ignores him. Her arms are crossed, legs shoulder-width apart, focused entirely on Aang’s clumsy bending.

Zuko wishes that Uncle were here. He’d know what to say. “You know, it took me a really long time to be able to make small talk with customers in the Earth Kingdom. I’ve never, uh, been great with small talk in general. I’m still not…”

“Yeah,” Toph cuts in, “you’re blowing me away with your conversation skills.”

Zuko runs a hand through his hair, his fringe dry with dust. “It took a long time for me to get over the cultural difference, I mean. I’d never even seen people who weren’t Fire Nation before I—um. Left it.” He barges past that fumble quickly. “It took me a while to learn how to speak a different language as a tea server. And isn’t that what you’re doing with us?”

Toph snorts. “You trying to say I should start speaking Katara’s language? I understand her just fine, bus boy.”

Aang twirls several fist-sized rocks into the air with a flourish. Toph stomps her foot. The rocks clutter to the ground and Aang’s eyes go wide.

“Airbending, twinkle toes!”

Aang looks like a kicked badger-dog. “Sorry, Sifu Toph. It’s a habit.”

“Too bad! More boulder laps.”

Aang groans and heaves the boulder back onto his shoulders. He takes off at a fast run around the makeshift training area.

Toph scowls, turning to face Zuko full-on. “Look, sparky, I don’t need another lecture about knowing my place and pulling my weight or whatever. Especially not from someone that spent months being kidnapped by these idiots. One of us didn’t need to be abducted into helping the Avatar and it wasn’t you.”

Zuko winces. She’s not wrong. He’s never willingly made a change like she has. It took being banished for him to see Ozai for who he really was. Not even burning half his face off in front of the entire court did that.

And even then, it took almost-daily kidnappings for him to befriend the Avatar. Toph, at twelve, is braver than he’s ever been.

Zuko wets his lips, following Aang’s unsteady progress with his eyes. “When the Jasmine Dragon first opened, I was terrible at regular chores. I burnt the tea and soaked the deck when I tried to mop it and turned everyone’s under-things pink when it was my turn to do laundry. Even though I liked the work.”

“You’re not going to make me suddenly like cleaning dishes.”

“You belong here,” Zuko tells her just as Uncle had told him years ago, when he was young and easily frustrated and still made foul-tasting tea. “That means you do what the rest of us do. Teach Aang. Tease Sokka. And yeah, wash dishes. It’s not about doing things because someone says you should, it’s about doing things because they’re the right thing to do. Because it makes someone else’s life a little easier.”

Toph goes quiet, though she’s still scowling. It had taken Zuko years to truly understand what Uncle had been saying to him all along, and even now, half of Uncle’s proverbs still fly over his head.

“You’re not going to guilt me into helping with the cooking,” she says at least.

“Not trying to guilt you into anything,” Zuko says, stepping away. “Just giving some advice. Uncle says it’s a server’s job to be good at gossip and advice, as well as brewing a good cup of tea.”

That actually earns him a laugh. “You’re good at gossiping?”

Zuko grimaces. “No. Not really.” He has no idea how Uncle does it so effortlessly with so many different people, a Pai Sho table between them and the world’s current events on their lips. “But if you listen to someone doing it for long enough, you start to pick up the basics.”

He pulls out a small bundle of biscuits cooked over the campfire and throws them at her. Another thing he learnt from Uncle: treats go a long way.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Zuko says, “but think about what I said, okay? Properly being a part of something can feel pretty amazing.”

Aang spots Toph eating biscuits and shouts, “Can I have some too?”

Toph shoves them all into her mouth. With a spray of crumbs, she yells back, “Keep going, arrow-head! You have another twenty laps to go!”

Zuko’s laugh doesn’t manage to cover up Aang’s groan.

Aang is normally the first person asleep in the evenings. That was previously Zuko, since Katara and Sokka are Water Tribe. Even if Sokka is a non-bender, he is still a descendent of the moon spirit, and the night affects him, though not as strongly as it affects Katara.

But now, all of Aang’s boundless energy is going towards training with all three of his teachers. He only recently grasped earthbending--a mammoth task, according to Toph--and is now learning firebending basics.

Zuko has conferred with Katara and Toph more than once. They need to keep Aang’s lessons separate. They don’t have the luxury of time, so they can’t space them out further, give Aang a longer break between, but they can keep an eye on him and make sure their conflicting bending styles aren’t slipping through. Not in a way that’s detrimental to Aang, anyway.

Maybe it will be good for him. The four elements are more interconnected than people realise. Aang is the bridge between them, and his bending style would have always become a mash of the four elements. And maybe, because he is being taught by three different masters in such close proximity, the four bending arts will come together to make something even stronger. Maybe that will make something beautiful.

Aang, splayed out on the dry ground, hoping the spirit world will do him this one solid and let him melt through the veil between worlds so he could be incorporeal for a while.

“She’s a little rough,” Katara says, “but you were the one who was so insistent on making her your earthbending teacher.”

“It wasn’t me! Well. It was me. But it was the spirits guiding me to her.” Aang closes his eyes, his lids appearing deep red where the sun pierces through them. He’s too sore to raise his arm over his face to block it. “They’ve been guiding me all along. Even with you and Sokka and Zuko. And now with Toph … I just didn’t expect this to be so hard.” He laughs weakly. “And I was so excited to finally have three masters to teach me.”

“Aang,” Sokka interrupts.

Aang peers up at him. “What?”

Sokka brandishes his sword and gestures for Aang to get to his feet. “All four masters. Come on, pupil Aang, up you get. We’re wasting daylight.”

“Sokka, I’m the Avatar. I don’t need to learn how to use a sword.”

“Aw, but I feel so left out. I want to kick you around, too!”

“Sokka no.”

“There’s no time for mini-vacations,” Sokka says, looking as stern as any teenager standing in a chorus of goffers can.

“Sokka’s not wrong,” Zuko says, a phrase that feels fundamentally wrong coming out of his mouth--not because Sokka is usually wrong when it comes to planning, but because of the smug look that takes over Sokka’s face when he says it. Katara looks like she’s going to water-whip Sokka, but then thinks better of it.

Aang wilts, lowering his flute. “I’m learning the elements as fast as I can. I practise hard every day with Toph, Katara, and Zuko. I have three masters now. I’ve been training my arrow off!”

“What’s wrong with having a little fun in our down time?” Katara sounds just like Uncle. Not for the first time that week, homesickness threatens to drag Zuko under.

Toph nudges him in the side, and Zuko musters up a small smile for her. She huffs. He doesn’t know how she reads him so well, especially being blind. Maybe it’s because she’s blind. He doesn’t mind it, though. She might snore and eat the last of the leftovers (something he’s familiar with, after living on the Jasmine Dragon), and fight with him about hogging Aang, but. She’s family now.

The others don’t notice their silent exchange.

“Even if you do master all of the elements,” Sokka says, “then what? It’s not like we have a map of the Fire Nation. Should we just head West until we reach the Fire Lord’s house? And then knock?”

“Um,” Zuko says. Everyone turns to him. “I know where the Fire Lord’s house is.” He shakes his head. The word ‘house’ feels wrong in his mouth, just like the word ‘home’ used to. “Palace,” he amends. “I know where the Fire Palace is.”

Because I lived there for thirteen years, he doesn’t say.

Sokka smacks himself in the forehead. “Of course! We have a walking encyclopedia of Fire Nation knowledge. Sorry, Zuko. I forget you’re Fire Nation on account of the whole ‘you’re not evil’ thing.”

Zuko never forgets. He’s hyper aware of the sun’s position, its strong rays beating down on the arid desert. The blandness of Earth Kingdom. The wrongness of green and brown in place of red and black.

The Jasmine Dragon is the homing beacon his heart wants to return to. He only visits the Fire Palace when he’s asleep.

“Could you make a map?” Sokka asks. “Or provide us with Fire Nation intelligence?”

“Zuko, providing intelligence? No way,” Toph says, and then laughs when he whirls on her, offended. “Come on, Sokka basically dangled the joke in front of me. I had to.”

“I could probably draw a rough map,” Zuko says, still glaring at Toph, “but I don’t know how useful it’ll be. It’s been years since I was in the Fire Nation so my knowledge isn’t current.”

Zuko might have spent years being drilled on geography by strict tutors, but he hasn’t had any reason to look at a Fire Nation map since he was banished.

Sokka looks much more relaxed. “It’s something, at least. I knew picking you up was a good idea.”

“You wanted to clobber him with your boomerang when we first met,” Katara corrects.

Sokka weaves through the goffer tunnels and throws his arms around Zuko. He instinctively hugs back, even if only to keep them both from toppling over into the dirt. “That was before I knew him! I appreciate him now. Our cooking, fire-lighting, map-creating, intelligence-having firebender.”

“Sokka, get off me or I’m not drawing you anything.”

Sokka jumps away from Zuko. “Right. I’ll just … I’ll fetch us some paper.”

After Zuko starts outlining the draft of a map and Aang spends some more time playing with the goffers, they go to Katara’s mini-vacation: a very disappointing natural ice spring. And there, they meet a professor, who tells them about a very sketchy sounding library in the middle of the desert. Zuko is quietly excited by the thought of ancient theater scrolls.

“Zuko said he doesn’t have current information,” Sokka says, perched eagerly on the edge of Appa’s saddle as they circle the desert.

“And an ancient library will?” Toph throws back.

Sokka points at her. “Okay, no, but Zuko is a tea server. He isn’t going to know about the important stuff, like palace schematics or naval bases. Right, Zuko?”

Zuko, who learnt about all of those things as the Crown Prince to the Fire Nation, swallows, throat suddenly dry. He musters up a smile that doesn’t feel right on his face. “Right.”

The library begins to collapse around them. Sokka and Aang sprint in the other direction, while Katara pulls him behind a shadow aisle to hide. Zuko watches his friends go, and realises that, even though he left the safety of the Jasmine Dragon, he’s still not sure if this war is worth fighting if it means his friends lay down their lives.

He doesn’t say that, though.

When they remerge in the desert, barely escaping being trapped underground with a vengeful spirit for the rest of their lives, they find Toph collapsed on her knees. Just Toph.

“We did it!” Sokka says, tackling Katara in a hug. “There’s a solar eclipse coming. The Fire Nation’s in trouble now.”

“That’s what you were after?” Zuko snaps, whirling on them. His heart still feels like it’s going to crawl out of his mouth. “A worthless eclipse?”

Sokka pulls away from Katara. “But firebenders can’t bend during an eclipse. They’ll be defenseless. If we attack on that day, then--”

“The royal family are as paranoid as they are crazy,” Zuko says, feeling hollow. “You don’t think the Fire Nation doesn’t know that our bending can be switched off? That’s the one day they’ll be expecting an attack. They’ll have Fire Sages tracking the movement of the stars in preparation of the eclipse. That …” He sinks to the ground. It still feels like the sand underneath him is shifting, falling, the library burying even deeper into the earth far below them. “That’s nothing, Sokka.”

Sokka stares at him, scroll tucked to his chest. “But … But that’s all we have. If we don’t--”

And then Aang asks, in a very small voice, “Where’s Appa?”

They almost die in the desert. Toph and Aang become despondent in the wake of Appa’s disappearance. Sokka becomes desperate for something after his last-ditch effort to form a plan was struck down so quickly by Zuko.

Katara swings between looking lost and fiercely determined. One night, as they lay down to sleep she inches close to him, the way she might if it was a cold night and the others were using him as a heat source.

Her eyes are wet. “Thank you,” she whispers, reaching for his hand.

Zuko blinks. “Why are you thanking me? I’m just as lost as you are.”

“But you’re here. You’re a firebender, I know you’re not going to go mad with heat-stroke like the others. If you hadn’t agreed to join us, I would have had to look after the others by myself, and I ...”

“You’d do an amazing job,” Zuko says.

“Maybe,” she allows, sniffling. “But the thought still scares me.”

Zuko grips her hand. He doesn’t admit that the idea of them being all alone out here, without him, scares him too.

After they’re denied entry to Ba Sing Se, they pick up three refugees and an old friend.

“Look at you,” Suki says, pulling Zuko into a hug. “You’re out and about, making friends and fighting in the war. Who’d have thought?”

Zuko squirms out of her grip, face warm. “You sound like Uncle.”

“How is Iroh?” she asks. “Is he the one that set you up with this lot? He’s been meaning to find you more friends, you know. More than just the Kyoshi Warriors, anyway.”

Zuko looks over her shoulder. Aang is carefully not looking at them. “Uncle is fine. He wasn’t the one that introduced me to Aang. He did that himself. Forcefully.”

Suki blinks. “What?”

“They kidnapped him,” Toph interjects, grinning. “Like, multiple times. Scooped him off his little tea boat and soared away, like a hawk-sparrow snatching up a baby mouse-bat.”

Suki bursts out laughing. “You guys kidnapped him?”

“Hey,” Aang defends. “I needed a firebending teacher, and he kept running away!”

Zuko sighs. “They wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

“Oh, no,” Suki says, though she’s still fighting not to laugh. “You’re not being held against your will, are you, Zuko? Do I need to rescue you from the Avatar?”

“I joined them on my own this time,” Zuko says. “They wore me down.”

Toph elbows him. “No, I kidnapped him.”

“I let you kidnap me!”

The three refugees are standing off to the side, watching them and clearly very confused. “The Avatar kidnaps people?”

They look at Zuko worryingly. “You’re a firebender?”

“He’s a good firebender,” Sokka says.

“He has the Avatar seal of approval,” Aang says. “He’s my firebending teacher. He’s a good guy. And he makes great tea!”

After the sandbenders tell them Appa was taken to Ba Sing Se, after Aang slips beneath the angry thrall of the Avatar State, after a long trip where they encounter Suki and refugee couple who seem wary of Zuko but eventually warm up to him, they make it to Ba Sing Se.

The Fire Nation beats them there.

Zuko stays at the back of the group. He knows that in green and brown, hair braided simply down his back, he passes easily as an Earth Kingdom native. But sometimes, if he ventures too close to people who have seen firebenders–fought firebenders–they’ll see the gold flash of his eyes and know who he is. What he is. And here, in the Earth Kingdom capital, with the Jasmine Dragon so far away, his identity has the potential to ruin them.

General Sung smiles sunnily at them. “I assure you, the Fire Nation cannot penetrate Ba Sing Se. Many have tried to break through it, but none have succeeded.”

“What about the Dragon of the West?” Toph asks. “He got in.”

Zuko is suddenly very interested in his sand-covered boots. So dusty. The leather is almost yellow from days of walking. So fascinating.

General Sung clears his throat. “Yes, but he was quickly expunged.”

They watch as an elite team of earthbenders are swifty taken down. From this distance, they don’t see who subdues them so quickly and efficiently, but it leaves Zuko feeling cold all over and General Sung desperate enough to accept Aang’s offer of help.

They meet the defeated earthbenders in the healers’ room. There are no visible wounds, though all of them are immobile. Their limp, unharmed forms, most of them conscious but groaning and twitching faintly, itches at the back of Zuko’s mind.

Katara kneels beside an earthbender, her hands glowing blue. “His chi is blocked… Who did this to you?”

“Two girls ambushed us,” says the earthbender. “One of us hit me with a bunch of quick jabs, and suddenly I couldn’t earthbend and I could barely move. And then she cartwheeled away.”

A chi-bender. A cartwheeling chi-bender.

Ty Lee would hate the brutality of the drill, such an ugly and large eyesore. And he can’t remember her ever being interested in or motivated in the war. She cared about greater ideals.

Like friendship.

Zuko stumbles back, throat tight. There’s nowhere to run. He’s at the very top of Ba Sing Se’s impenetrable wall and below him, closer than she has been in years, is his sister. Has she come to drag him home?

He never should have left the Jasmine Dragon, he thinks, one hand knotted in his hair. He never should have dreamed that he could be anything more than a tea server, or that the world could be anything more than what it already is.

“It must be Ty Lee.” Katara’s voice sounds very far away. “She doesn’t look dangerous, but she knows the human body and its weak points. It’s like she takes you down from the inside.”

She used to practice on him sometimes. She wasn’t as talented when they were very small. It only worked sometimes and it would hurt rather than feel numb like it was supposed to, but she would always apologise and weave flowers in his hair to make it up to him, and–and–

Zuko can’t breathe.

“Oh, oh, oh!” Sokka says, jumping in place. “What you just said: that’s how we’re going to take down the drill. The same way Ty Lee took down all these big earthbenders.”

Toph touches his elbow. “Zuko, are you alright?”

General Sung wrings his hands together, glancing between them. “Is your friend alright?”

“I’m fine,” Zuko manages, eyes squeezed shut. “I just… need to sit down.”

General Sung escorts him to a nearby storage room, empty save for dusty boxes. Toph stays long enough for him to wrestle control of his breathing. She takes his hand, squeezing his fingers, and promises to be back as soon as she can.

His thoughts come flooding back when she leaves, overwhelming him. He holds on for as long as he can. He runs through Uncle’s breathing exercises and steady mantras–I am safe; I am loved; I am far away from him–but every time he opens his eyes and sees a cramped cupboard instead of the Jasmine Dragon’s familiar walls, his calm slips away.

Time passes in a strange and unknowable haze. When his friends return, Zuko feels numb and far-away from his body. He flinches when hands reach for him, but the familiar murmur of voices and faces brings him back to himself and, with a gasp, he shuffles closer and lets them hold him.

His friends are watching him. They had seen how calm he had been at the Northern Water Tribe with an armada beating down their door. And somehow now, suddenly, he falls apart.

Toph is a steady lump by his side. She pokes him in the cheek whenever he starts to drift away again. “Sparky, you need to calm down or your heart is going to beat right out of your chest, and then we’ll have to find someone else to cook for us.”

“I can cook,” Katara says, indignant.

Toph huffs. “Barely.”

“Okay, okay,” Aang says, getting in between them. “I think we’re all just a little concerned about what happened earlier. Panic attacks don’t always have to have a cause, but it looked like something set you off, Zuko. Can you tell us what happened? So we don’t accidentally hurt you in the future?”

“It wasn’t any of you,” Zuko says, fidgeting in place. “I just… thought I recognised someone.”

“Ty Lee?” Katara guesses. “Have you run into her before? Her chi-blocks are no joke, especially for benders.”

Zuko fiddles with his sleeves. He wants to get up and make tea, but the apartment is still empty. If they were going to stay here, he would have to go to the markets and stock up.

Three sets of eyes peer curiously at him. Toph’s gaze has settled on his left knee, but he can tell she’s listening intently, even if she’s lounging against him and picking at her nails.

He hasn’t willingly told anyone who he was since he gave up on capturing the Avatar. Sometimes, people would squint and co*ck their heads like they were trying to recall where they had seen him before, but he always had Iroh and the rest of the crew to lie for him.

But these are his friends. He trusts them.

Zuko shoves his hands under his thighs to stop them from shaking. “I knew Ty Lee from before… before. I know Mai and Azula, too.”

They hadn’t told him that Mai and Azula were there, but they had to be. Ty Lee wouldn’t be on that drill for anyone other than Azula, and if she had been recruited into the mission then Mai would have joined them.

“Before you left the Fire Nation,” Sokka says.

Katara looks like she wants to shuffle closer but is worried about crowding him. “They didn’t hurt you, did they?”

Zuko laughs, an unkind sound. How does he answer that? “No. Not really. We were ...” Not friends. Not properly, the way they might have been without Azula’s influence. “Azula is–she’s–she’s–”

“It’s okay, Zuko,” Katara says gently. “Take your time.”

Azula has been tasked with taking Aang down, since the Avatar has proven to be more than a spirit tale, and Zuko has shown he is not up to the task. She’s fourteen and that feels impossibly young, but then again, she’s older than Zuko was.

Azula isn’t going away. And if he doesn’t tell his friends who he is, then she will.

He inhales and says in a rush, before he can lose his nerve, “Azula is my sister.”

Aang blinks. Katara’s face tightens with something like confusion, something like disgust. Sokka’s mouth falls open.

“Okay,” Toph says, “I didn’t see that one coming.” There’s a pause. “Get it? Because I’m blind?”

Zuko laughs and covers his face with both hands.

“Hang on, when you say sister–” Sokka waves his hands at Katara. “--you mean sister -sister?”

“Yes,” Zuko says.

“As in you’re related? Biologically. To her.”

“That’s how that works, yeah.”

“The evil psychopathic princess is your sister?”

“As we’ve established. Yes.”

“So, then...” Katar presses her fingers to her mouth, as though she’s scared of her own words. “Fire Lord Ozai is...”

“Your father,” Aang finishes.

Zuko blows out a breath. There it is. “Yes.”

“And you didn’t think to mention that before?” Sokka demands.

“I don’t like thinking about it.” Zuko stands. He suddenly has too much energy. He paces in a loose circle around the room. “And what would I have even said, anyway? ‘Hi, I’m Zuko. I’ll be your tea server this evening, and oh, also I’m the Fire Lord’s firstborn son. Would you like Ginseng or Jasmine tea?’”

“Well,” Sokka splutters, “that would have made us leave you alone, at least.”

“Would it have?” Zuko asks, glancing at Aang.

Aang shrugs. “Probably not. I wouldn’t have cared that much.”

“I would have cared,” Sokka says, pushing to his feet. He wavers in the middle of the room, vibrating with tension, setting off all of Zuko’s worn instincts. Sokka scrubs a hand through his hair. “Spirits. The Northern Water Tribe would have drowned you if they had found out.”

“If you’re a prince, then that explains all the fancy-pants dishes you can make,” Toph says. “Good work getting out, by the way. Nobility sucks.”

“Not nobility,” Sokka says, “Royalty! What the f*ck, Zuko?”

“Sokka,” Katara says, “calm down.”

“Me? Why are the rest of you so calm!?”

“I’m not.” Katara’s face is placid, but her eyes--her eyes are burning. Zuko shivers and takes a few steps back. “But I realise that freaking out about this isn’t going to actually help. Zuko is our friend, even if he lied to us–”

“It wasn’t lying,” Zuko interrupts. “I just–I–I’ve been trying for three years to escape my father. I’ve been trying to forget the fact that I was once a prince. I didn’t tell you, because that’s not who I want to be anymore.”

“He’s telling the truth,” Toph says.

“Of course I’m telling the truth! I never lied to you about who I am, just who I was. I don’t like thinking about my past.” He swallows, keeping his eyes on the ground. “If you guys decide that you don’t want me around anymore, then fine. You can drop me back at the Jasmine Dragon when we find Appa and leave Ba Sing Se.”

All the energy leaves Sokka at once. “Of course I don’t want that. None of us do. Right, guys?”

“You’re one of us,” Aang says firmly.

“It doesn’t change who you are,” Toph agrees. “I don’t even know what the big deal is. People are just people, regardless of who their parents are. And sometimes we’re born to the wrong people, and we have to leave to become who we’re supposed to be.”

They all look at her. Zuko feels warm deep inside his chest, his fire-core has been stoked by her words. Toph flushes pink. “I can feel you all staring! Stop it. This is supposed to be about Zuko.”

“That was really lovely, Toph,” Aang says.

“f*ck off, twinkle-toes.”

Sokka finds him outside, sitting at the edge of their courtyard and staring up at the sky. Nights like these remind him of calm nights on the ocean with the moon glaring down at them, illuminating the miles of nothingness on either side of the Jasmine Dragon. It reminds him of Yue. It reminds him of late-night summer festivals with Lu Ten and Azula when they were small.

“I don’t want to talk,” Zuko says, not looking away from the half-moon .

Sokka drops down next to him. “I didn’t come to talk.”

“Right,” Zuko says doubtfully.

“What you said today–it’s a lot. I get it.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Okay, no, I don’t,” Sokka allows. “I have no idea what it’d be like to have the Fire Lord as a father, but I get that I won’t get it. And I get that you probably need space right now.”

Zuko squints at him. “You’re really bad at this.”

Sokka ignores that. “I’ve been thinking,” he goes on. Zuko braces himself. Here it comes, he thinks. The realisation that Zuko isn’t worth the risk. “What if we delayed the invasion?”

It takes Zuko a moment to process that. “Are you still going on about the eclipse? Sokka, I told you that it won’t work–”

“I know,” Sokka interrupts, “but what if we waited? They’re expecting an invasion during the eclipse, so their defenses will be up. And then once their powers come back, they’ll let their guard down again. That’s when we strike.”

“You want,” Zuko says slowly, trying to understand the full scope of Sokka’s studidly, “to attack the Fire Nation capital when they’re at their full power?”

“Yes,” Sokka says.

“Do you realise how dumb you sound?”

“Exactly! It’s so dumb they’ll never see it coming.”

After talking with Sokka, Zuko manages to fall asleep for about an hour. He’s woken at dawn, sweaty and disoriented in a way he never is at daybreak. Years-old memories are burnt into his eyelids. Every time he blinks, he sees his mother turning away from him, his father looming over him, his sister laughing at his warped face

He washes and throws his hair up into a ponytail, too tired to even bother braiding it. He shuffles into the kitchen and begins brewing tea. For once, the rest of the friends are awake before him. Even Sokka. Zuko wonders if they even slept.

“Wait.” Sokka is squinting at the map of the Fire Palace Zuko drew for him. He’s still not sure how accurate it is. Memories become distorted with time, after all. “If Zuko is a prince, why am I trying to work out how to sneak inside the palace? Can’t you just stroll up to the front door? You lived there. It’s your house.”

Zuko hands Toph a mug of tea. “They’d arrest me if I tried.”

Aang accepts his own tea with a sunny smile. “It’s not because you’re associated with us, is it? I know it probably doesn’t look great that you’re friends with the Avatar…”

“No, it’s because I’m not legally allowed in the Fire Nation. I was banished.”

“Banished?”

“Cool,” Toph says.

“Toph.” Katara scowls at her, even as she accepts her own mug of tea from Zuko. “It’s not cool, it’s awful. Zuko, what happened?”

“If you go to the Fire Palace, I’m not coming with you,” Zuko tells Sokka, ignoring Katara’s question.

Sokka purses his lips. “You’re the only person that knows their way around. The Fire Nation has the home-advantage and we need you there to level the playing field as much as possible.”

“We’ll be with you the entire time,” Aang reassures him.

Zuko shakes his head. “I was foolish enough to think I was safe in the Fire Palace before. Even after my father burned me, I still thought everything would be okay if I just worked harder and tried to prove to my father that I was a dutiful son. But Uncle taught me better. I’m free and I’m never going back.”

The room is quiet. Toph has stopped smiling, and Sokka is frozen, tea halfway to his lips.

“What?” Zuko says.

“Burned you,” Aang says, something almost fearful in his voice. “You said your father burned you.”

Katara puts her tea down. Her eyes are wide. “Zuko, where did you get your scar?”

Zuko’s first instinct is to lie or deflect. But he’s told them this much already. Is there any point to trying to avoid things now? It’s almost freeing, he supposes, to get everything out into the open.

“It’s not your fault,” Iroh has told him, over and over again, enough times that Zuko finally started to believe him. “You have no reason to be ashamed.”

Zuko cups his tea between his palms, letting the warmth ground him. He’s never had to say this out loud before, and finds the story coming to him in fits and starts. “I fought in an Agni Kai. I–there was this general. I had convinced Uncle to let me sit in on a War Council meeting, and he was talking about sacrificing a battalion of young recruits. I was just a kid and didn’t know about how terrible war can really be. I could barely understand what I was hearing. I spoke up against him.

“That was seen as an act of disrespect, so. Agni Kai.”

“Fire duel,” Aang translates for the rest of them.

Zuko nods jerkily. “Right. I assumed it would be against the General. He was the one I had spoken out against. But it had been in the Fire Lord’s council room.”

“Oh no,” Katara murmurs.

“When the time came, and I turned around and saw my father standing opposite me, I did what any loyal son would do: I got on my knees and begged for his forgiveness. I loved him. I couldn’t fight him. And in his eyes, that made me a coward. So he ...” Zuko gestures to his face. To the grotesque scar.

Sokka swears, jerking back and accidentally knocking his cup. Tea spills down his front and across the table. Sokka dives for the map of the palace and there’s a mad scramble as they all try to rescue the parchment before it can be too heavily stained by tea.

When the table is cleared and the tea mopped up, they return to the table in muted silence.

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Katara begins, “And I’m sorry for pushing you as hard as we did when we first met. You had a good reason for never wanting to get involved with the Fire Nation again.”

Zuko shakes his head, no. “You were right. I couldn’t have kept pretending that the war didn’t exist. I live in this world. I have to face it.”

Zuko pulls himself out of bed well before dawn. He only managed an hour or two of sleep before he was woken by nightmares, and he can’t take it anymore. The unfamiliar bed. The strange room. He’s used to sleeping on a ship or on the ground or on Appa. He was a prince once, but sleeping in a house unnerves him.

Or maybe it’s the knowledge that he was so close to Azula just a few days ago, or that his friends now know who he is. They took the news better than he had expected, but just the act of telling them, of saying it all loud, had ripped open an old wound he hadn’t realised could still bleed.

Zuko puts on a brown tunic and plaits his hair in an Earth Kingdom style, then he slips out the window.

The wealth in the upper ring sets him on edge, so he heads down to the middle ring and then keeps going down to the lower tings.

He’s surprised by the lower ring, then surprised by his own surprise. Maybe he’d tricked himself into thinking that the Fire Nation were the only source of evil in the world.

He ducks into a tea house mid-morning. The empty store is dim and smells of mildew, nothing like the Jasmine Dragon, but it’s quiet and out of the way.

“I haven’t seen you around here before,” says the merchant, Pao. He pours Zuko a fresh cup of tea.

“My friends and I arrived yesterday,” Zuko says awkwardly. He’s used to being on the other side of this interaction, a reverse kind of cultural shock he hadn’t expected. After his banishment, he was a former prince unaccustomed to serving others. And now, he’s a tea server who’s forgotten what it’s like to be served.

He takes a sip of his tea and then spits it out.

Pao jumps back. “What’s wrong?”

“This tea is nothing but hot leaf juice!”

Pao blinks at him. “Well, yes. That’s what all tea is.”

Zuko gapes at him. “How could you say that?”

Pao looks like he’s going to throw Zuko out even though he’s the only paying customer in the store, until Zuko starts talking about how tea is supposed to be brewed.

“You were a tea server?” Pao asks, a keen look in his eye. “Where?”

“All over,” Zuko says, glaring down at the cooling cup of leaf water. “The Jasmine Dragon never stopped traveling, I guess.”

“The Jasmine Dragon?”

Zuko blinks. “You’ve heard of it?”

Pao looks like he’s about to faint. “One of my customers mentions the Jasmine Dragon at least once a week. I always wanted to give the owner a talking to, considering how much of my business he’s driven away, just because my tea isn’t like the tea they serve on the Jasmine Dragon. Although...”

Pao studies him. Zuko feels like he’s being sized up for a meal.

“You’re new to the city, yes?” Pao says. “How about we help each other out?”

“What do you mean you got a job?”

“Now, Katara,” Sokka says calmly. “A man needs his independence. Zuko should be free to fill his days however he likes.” Sokka pauses. “How much does this job pay, anyway?”

“Not much,” Zuko says, shrugging. “Less than I got on the Jasmine Dragon. It’s in the lower ring, so I’m not expecting much.”

“Why the lower ring?” Aang asks. “We’ve all had your tea. And your cooking. You could open up your own place in the upper ring and be a hit.”

“And we’d be rich!” Sokka says.

Zuko looks down at his hands, fiddling with the apron in his lap. It’s not the same kind as the ones they wore on the Jasmine Dragon, but it feels familiar nonetheless.

“I don’t want to stand out,” Zuko says in a soft voice. “I don’t want the attention. Ba Sing Se is … it’s ...”

When Zuko looks up, his friends are looking at him with gentle expressions and it just reminds him they all witnessed his breakdown the day before. It makes him feel strange. Both relieved and twisted-up all at once. Because they know the truth now and don’t care, but--they still know and that’s more than he knows how to deal with.

“Any money is going to be helpful when we get moving again,” Sokka says, purposely casual. “It’s not like you’d be much help here anyway. We only need so many hands to put up posters and the Earth King still hasn’t gotten back to us.”

“Maybe you can ask around about Appa,” Aang says.

Zuko rests a hand on Aang’s shoulder. “I’ll do my best,” he promises.

((The gaang have enough of waiting and decide to infiltrate the Earth Palace))

“The palace will be packed,” Katara says. “We can sneak in with the crowd.”

“Won’t work,” Toph says, throwing herself on the mound of pillows.

“Why not?”

“Well, no offense to you simple country folk, but a real society crowd would spot you a mile away. You’ve got no manners.”

Katara puts her hands on her hips. “Excuse me? I’ve got no manners? You’re not exactly Lady Fancy-Fingers.”

“I learned proper society behaviour and I chose to leave it. You never learned anything. And frankly, it’s a little too late.”

Sokka sits up. “But you learned it! You could teach us.”

Sokka and Aang wrap themselves in blankets, and put on their snobbiest expressions. It doesn’t fool Toph for a moment, even before they bow at the same time, smash their heads together, and almost knock each other out.

Zuko chooses that moment to return from the kitchen with a tray full of tea and biscuits. He ignores Sokka and Aang’s groaning, and kneels down beside the expanse of pillows.

His posture is prim and straight-backed, his movements graceful without being too slow. There’s an effortless air to his movements, Toph realises. It’s always been there. It’s in his bending, in his tea brewing, in the way he moves about the world. She’s always felt it, but she’s never been as aware of it as she is now.

“Now, there’s the man we need,” Toph says, sitting up. “You commoners couldn’t even pass as bus-boys–and okay, maybe Katara could get in if she was wearing fancy clothes and didn’t speak too much–but Zuko, on the other hand…”

Zuko squirms under everyone’s sudden attention. “What did I miss?”

Katara gasps. “Of course! You’re royalty. You would know how to talk to nobles, especially the Earth King.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Zuko says. “What are you plotting?”

Toph slaps him on the back. “Buck up, Sir Prissy Pants. We have a party to infiltrate.”

Katara does Toph’s make-up and helps twist her hair into an elaborate up-do. Katara must be more observant than Toph thought, as it only takes her a few tries to apply the make-up (correctly, if Zuko’s comments are anything to go by). Zuko helps Katara pin her hair in place and fix the hair piece. They all have different hair textures, different cultural upbringings, but Katara has known how to braid since she was a little girl, and Zuko has been living nomadically around the Earth Kingdom for years and has picked up a few styles himself.

Even with two larger bodies bent over her, fussing with her face and hair, it doesn’t remind her of the servants at the Bei Fong household, the ones who helped her dress every morning and evening, because her parents didn’t believe a blind girl was competent enough to do anything for herself. Katara and Zuko bicker as they work, and they never once ignore her or treat her like a doll to be moved and adjusted. They ask how everything feels. They are careful, but not especially gentle or practiced.

When they’re done, Zuko ducks out so Toph can get changed. Into a dress. The Earth King had better be worth this.

When she’s done, Zuko comes back, and he and Katara stand back, looking at her. The hair, the make-up, the dress–it all feels like a mask, as it always has. But not one she wears to satisfy her parents. This time, it’s a disguise. A weapon. It almost makes the feel of silk and pinchy-hair pieces worth it.

“You look beautiful, Toph,” Katara says.

“You look like a very pretty, very normal noble,” Zuko says. “It’s weird. I mean, you’re always pretty, but you always look like Toph. Now you look like someone else.”

“Zuko,” Katara scolds.

“What? She doesn’t look like herself. Isn’t that the whole point of this?”

Katara whacks him on the arm. Toph ducks behind her fan, feeling warm and seen and validated all at once. It’s a strange, squirmy feeling. Like eating a big meal after being hungry all day. Like being able to lay out in the morning sun after a very cold night.

“Okay,” Toph says, when she feels less like the demure child she’s pretending to be. “Zuko’s turn.”

Katara slips into the living room. Sokka and Aang are sitting by the pillows playing a game, but they look up when she clears her throat.

“May I introduce the young Lord and Lady Bei Fong,” Katara announces.

“Don’t make us sound married!” Toph shouts from the other room.

“I meant like siblings!”

“Oh, carry on then.”

“May I introduce,” Katara tries again, “the young Lord and Lady Bei Fong, the respected and annoying siblings.”

She pulls the door open. Toph and Zuko are poised in the doorway, dressed in matching robes of sage green and white. Toph is half-hidden behind her fan, curled demurely around Zuko’s supporting arm. Zuko stands tall and graceful as a young sapling, an arm behind his back, his chin held high. Half of his hair is piled atop of his head, held in place with a jade hair pin, while the rest flows loosely down his back.

They really do look like siblings, Katara thinks. Toph doesn’t act like a noblewoman normally. She slouches, and burps, and cackles whenever Aang faceplants after a hard day of bending.

Zuko doesn't act like a prince, either. He attends to their meals and drinks, and completes chores with the casual diligence of a server. He ducks his head and shrinks into himself, avoiding attention wherever he can.

They were both born and escaped high-society and still hold scars–physically or emotionally–from their childhood.

Zuko looks from Katara to the shocked faces of Sokka and Aang, that worried look back on his face. “Do you think this will work?”

“Oh, yeah,” Katara says. “It’ll work.”

((They arrive at the ball only to realise they need an invitation.))

“What now?” Zuko hisses.

“Calm down, firefly,” Toph whispers back. “I can feel how hard your heart is beating. It’s going to be okay. Just think: what would you do if you were at home?”

“The Jasmine Dragon is my home.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t know,” Zuko says, resisting the urge to run through his hair and ruin Katara’s hard work. “Wait until someone realised I was missing and hope my dad didn’t hit me too hard when he found out?”

Toph pauses for a moment. “I can’t wait until twinkle-toes Avatar States your dad into the sun.” Zuko laughs breathlessly at her side. “Well, you know what I’d do? This.”

Toph breaks away from the crowd, wandering almost aimlessly until she bumps into a nobleman. She stumbles back, eyes wide. “Oh! I’m sorry.”

The nobleman blinks down at Toph, registering her milky eyes, staring at a point over his shoulder. “That’s quite alright. What are you doing here all by yourself?”

Zuko takes that as his queue to rush over. “Toph! Don’t wander off like that.”

Toph latches onto his sleeve and actually sniffles like she’s going to cry. “I’m sorry. I just thought you were mad at me for losing our invitations… Now we won’t be able to find mother and father.”

Zuko grew up with a manipulative little sister. It’s been a long time since he was on this side of it, but he still remembers how to play his part.

“It’s okay,” Zuko says, trying to sound soothing. “Mother and father will notice we’re not at the party… eventually ...”

Tears well in Toph’s eyes. “You’ll get in trouble. You always get in trouble! It’s my fault—”

“Toph, it’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.”

Zuko turns to the stunned nobleman. He gathers Toph to his chest, trying to look as young and bewildered as he can. “Please, sir. Can you help us get into the party? My sister lost our invitations.”

“I’m sorry,” Toph cries into his chest, muffled. Zuko shushes her, rubbing circles into her back.

The nobleman offers Zuko a handkerchief, which he takes and uses to fuss over Toph, making sure not to smudge her makeup.

“I’d be honoured. You don’t see such devoted big brothers these days.”

Zuko pauses. He thinks about Azula at the walls of Ba Sing Se, closer than she’s been in years. He stopped writing to her after his first year of banishment. He told himself he didn’t regret it.

He’d told himself a lot of things.

Toph makes up for his sudden silence. “Thank you, sir. I’m lucky to have Lee to look after me.”

The nobleman, Long Feng, turns out to be the Cultural Minister to the king. He also isn’t content to let them go when they enter the party.

While Zuko pretends to scan the crowd for their parents, Toph manages to buy them time. Long Feng asks about Zuko’s scar, and Toph barely misses a beat before launching into a story about how their carriage was attacked one day when they were outside of Ba Sing Se, and Zuko leapt in front of a bandit to defend her. It makes his ears burn.

Her fake saccharine voice and the sh*t-eating grin she flashes him whenever Long Feng turns away makes him homesick for someone he hadn’t thought he’d miss.

When Long Feng is pulled into a conversation with another noble, they take the opportunity to sneak away. They find Aang, Sokka and Katara posing as waitstaff.

Katara glares sharply at them before she realises who they are.

“That bad, huh?” Zuko asks.

“If another person calls me sweetheart,” Katara hisses back, “I’m going to bend this champagne down their throats.”

Sokka pretends to offer Zuko a crab puff. “How’s it going?”

“The guy who escorted us in won’t let us out of his sight.”

They scan the crowd, but suddenly there’s no sight of Long Feng. There is, however, Joo Dee, who looks panicked beneath her plastic smile.

Aang reveals himself to be the Avatar. He comes so close to talking to the Earth King—until the Dai Lee escort them out of the party. Long Feng, the man that escorted them into the party, turns out to be more than just a Cultural Minister.

Maybe he didn’t buy Toph’s story after all.

Tonight wasn’t a complete waste, however. They find out that the king is a figurehead for the Dai Li and they might never be allowed to talk to him.

But they can’t do anything with this information or else they risk getting thrown out of Ba Sing Se and losing their only head in tracking down Appa.

They double-down on trying to find Appa. Or, at least, Aang does. It’s easy to get distracted in this big city with so many winding streets. There are so many things to do and see. So many side-adventures to get caught up in.

Zuko, for his part, enjoys the city during the day. He tells Aang he’s keeping an ear to the ground for information, but he loses himself in the sweet monotony of tea serving. He’s offered a position in the Upper Ring, but he turns it down. The last thing he wants to do is mingle with nobility again, even as a tea server.

Sometimes, when there is a steady stream of customers and his mind is calm, the way it always is when his hands are busy brewing tea, he thinks he could have been happy here. If he was born a tea server instead of a prince, he could have built a life for himself and been content.

He tries to shove that thought deep down when he’s around his friends. If he had been born a tea server, just another anonymous face in Ba Sing Se, then his friends would be by themselves, and the thought of anything happening to them scares him almost as much as the thought of never getting to see the Jasmine Dragon again.

But at night when the nightmares are close, he unearths that thought and holds it close. He imagines Uncle getting to run a real tea shop in Ba Sing Se. He deserves something big and beautiful, more than just a converted warship.

Despite his dreaming, this city is not perfect. They’re no closer to finding Appa, and Zuko can’t forget the things he sees in the Lower Ring, on his way to and from Pao’s Tea House. The poverty. The displaced victims of war. The crime. The people who have no way of fighting back.

Ever since meeting Aang, Zuko has lost his ability to ignore the world around him. He has to do something.

((Enter Blue Spirit stage left))

“You’re a good fighter. Weird mask, though.”

Zuko sheathes his dao blades and bends down to check the prone figures. They’re just unconscious. No serious wounds.

Jet scoffs when Zuko checks the men’s pulses. “Bleeding-heart vigilante, huh? Don’t bother with them. They got what they deserve.”

“How old are you?” Zuko tries not to talk when he’s the Blue Spirit, but he’ll be fine. This city is so vast. He doubts he will run into the other boy again.

“Almost seventeen.”

His age, then. He thought so. “You’re too old to believe that the world is made up of black and white.”

Jet bristles. “I’m not a child. I’ve been through more than you can imagine.”

“Are you sure? You don’t know who I am.” Zuko takes a step back, just in case Jet gives in to his reckless anger and attacks him. Just because he snuck out tonight, itching to do something, doesn’t mean he enjoys violence. “The world isn’t made up of monsters and their victims. Most people aren’t entirely good or evil. It’s all about choices, the kind you make every day. Sure, lots of people don’t choose to change, but if you kill them, you’re robbing them of their chance to grow and become something else.”

Jet’s face is twisted up in a scowl. “Some people don’t deserve the chance to try again. You can’t forget the things some people have done.”

“Sure,” Zuko says. “The Fire Lord doesn’t deserve a second chance. But how do you know that these people are beyond redemption? You couldn’t.”

Zuko leaves quickly after that.

He slips into his bedroom soundlessly. He tucks his mask and black clothes out of sight, and collapses onto his futon, groaning. Why had he said all of that? To a stranger? He’s turning into Uncle.

“Why do you do this?” Jet asks one night.

Zuko wets his lips. “Because no one else will. Because these people deserve it, and I feel like I can’t help in any other way. Because it’s the right thing to do.”

“You know,” Jet says, “if we teamed up, we could get a lot more stuff done. Start making a difference around here. I’m a Freedom Fighter. My friends are too, but they don’t want to do anything.”

“I’m not any kind of Freedom Fighter,” Zuko says. “I just help people when they need it.”

Jet turns away. “How very righteous of you.”

“We’re not going to find him,” Aang says in a voice so quiet and dead that Zuko almost doesn’t realise it’s coming from him.

“Of course we’re going to find him,” Katara soothes.

Toph thumps Aang on the shoulder. He sways with the impact, but otherwise doesn’t react. “We’re not going to let them run us out of the city. We’ll find him.”

Zuko knows how a realisation can crack the soul in two. When he finally recognised his father’s abuse for what it was, only the desperate efforts of Uncle and the crew had saved him from sinking into despair.

“Aang,” Zuko cuts in, firm. “We’re going to find him.”

Aang nods, too tired to argue.

They inch closer to Aang, huddling around him in solidarity. Between refills of tea, Zuko disappears into the kitchen. He casts one last look at his friends, heart aching, and quietly slips out the window with his mask tucked under one arm.

It’s not hard to find and corner a Dai Lee agent. Zuko has been peripherally aware of them for some time, but he’d always tried to stay away.

He’s done playing it safe.

He’d thought the Dai Lee agent wouldn’t crack as easily as this one had. Maybe the mask unnerved him. Maybe it’s the dual blades. Maybe it’s the thin layer of rainbow fire flickering on the blades like a mirage, pressed close to the agent’s neck. Whatever it is, it gives him the first proper lead they’ve had since Appa went missing.

The maze-like tunnels are dimly lit and smell damp. Lake water and rot and, he realised as he moves deeper underground, the distinct smell of animal fur.

Zuko hears chanting behind closed doors but pushes on. His mission tonight is rescuing the final member of their group.

The sight of Appa in chains hurts more than he was expecting it to. Zuko has never been imprisoned and the thought of being cut off from Agni’s light horrifies him. It must be just as bad for Appa, a sky bison, chained deep beneath the earth.

When he closes the door behind him, Appa keens loudly and bucks in the chains, straining to reach him.

Zuko hushes him, slipping off his mask. “You have to be quiet. It’s okay, I’ll get you out of here.”

As soon as Zuko is close enough, Appa licks him with enough force to lift him off his feet. Zuko can’t help but laugh. He’s drenched in slobber and there’s a deranged cult of earthbenders behind him, but he missed Appa. Missed those rumbling noises he makes, the feel of his fur under his palms, the way he pushed into Zuko’s hands when he pet him. Zuko leans in and presses their foreheads together and fights back the hot, tight feeling in his throat.

When he’s sure he’s not going to start trying, he steps back and clears his throat. “Let’s get those chains off you and then we can go home.”

The Dai Lee try to stop them, but Appa is like a bulldozer, flying up and over–or just through–any attacks. And then they’re soaring up into the air, passing over weathered roofs and sloping buildings. Ba Sing Se is spread out in all directions beneath them, bathed in the soft light of dawn.

Zuko reached Lake Lagai by scaling rooftops, so he’s not too certain how to reach from the air. But Appa barely seems to need any guidance. He beelines for the Upper Ring, flying straight home to Aang.

They land in the street in front of their house. Dust billows up around Appa. There’s a sudden shriek from inside the house, following by the stampede of feet.

The front door is thrown open. Toph and Katara are open-mouthed in the doorway, Aang standing white-faced behind them.

Zuko raises a hand. “Hey, guys. I found Appa.”

Aang barrels down the stairs and launches himself at Appa. He’s crying freely, taking great big gulps between sobs. Appa groans loudly, almost a wail, and shoves into Aang, nosing against every inch of him as if inspecting him for injuries.

Katara and Toph tumble down the steps. A sleep-rumpled Sokka follows shortly after, rubbing at his eyes blearily.

“Zuko,” Sokka says, awed. “What the f*ck?”

“What?” Zuko says. “Isn’t the whole point of coming to Ba Sing Se to find Appa?”

Zuko jumps off Appa. Katara immediately swoops him into a hug. Toph thumps him on the shoulder, beaming. “You’re unbelievable, Sparky.”

When Aang has composed himself, he throws himself at Zuko. He stands rigidly, unsure what to do with an armful of sobbing Avatar.

“Now that we have Appa,” Toph says some time later, “the Earth Kingdom can’t hold him over us.” She cracks her knuckles, grinning. “Let’s go bag ourselves an Earth King.”

“How?” Katara says. “We didn’t even manage to talk to him when we were inside the palace.”

Sokka’s grin sends shivers down Zuko’s back. “We do what we did with Zuko.”

“Kidnap him over and over again until he gives up and stops fighting it?”

Aang peaks out from Appa’s fur. His blotchy face is drenched with tears. “Kidnapping you was the best thing we ever did.”

At the sight of Aang’s puffy face, all Zuko’s bravado drains out of him. He thinks he was ruined the first time he saw that brightly-coloured boy in the moonlit alleyway all those months ago. “Okay.”

Zuko steals into Kuei’s room a few hours before dawn. The Earth King is in bed, cocooned in silk sheets and snoring like an earthquake. Bosco is awake. He blinks lazily as Zuko tiptoes towards the bed.

When Zuko shakes Kuei awake, he squints muzzily at Zuko and then screams. Zuko clamps a hand over his mouth.

“Quiet,” Zuko whispers. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

Kuei eyes him up and down with obvious doubt. Zuko broke into the king’s chambers in the middle of the night, dressed in dark colours, dao swords strapped to his back, and now he’s smothering Kuei with his palm.

Aang was a much friendlier kidnapper than Zuko.

Zuko slowly pulls his hand back. “I’m sorry for scaring you. I want to show you something.” Kuei’s gaze flicks to his blades. “It’s not a weapon.”

“Can’t this wait until morning?” Kuei asks. “People are not allowed in the king’s chambers aside from servants and...”

Zuko would bet Kuei was about to say Long Feng. He knows what it’s like to realise that the people close to you can’t be trusted. Kuei is a grown man, but he wonders if he felt anything like Zuko did, thirteen years old and freshly scarred and fumbling through every interaction, trying to reorientate after his life had been turned upside down.

“Long Feng has been keeping a lot from you,” Zuko says. “And not just about the war. You’re the Earth King, but you’ve never even stepped out of your palace. You’ve never seen your people or walked amongst them.”

Kuei settles himself against the headboard, nose turned up. “And I should believe what you tell me instead?”

“No. You should believe what your eyes tell you.”

Zuko steps away from Kuei. He opens up the balcony doors. The cool morning breeze blows through his hair and catches on his ribbon.

“Your Majesty,” Zuko says, holding out his hand, “how about we take a little field trip?”

In the end, it’s Bosco that helps convince Kuei to go with him. The bear likes him. Zuko doesn’t know why or how this happened and would honestly rather the just-a-bear stay far away from him. But when the bear nuzzles into Zuko’s palm, his fur is warm and soft like Appa, and it makes Kuei think he’s trustworthy. So maybe cuddling the cute abomination is worth it.

Zuko half-carries Kuei as they scale down the palace. It’s clumsy work. Kuei is much heavier and taller than Zuko and he shrieks at every leap.

It takes over an hour for them to get to the lower ring. As soon as they move into the city proper, Kuei–dressed in drab brown robes Zuko had borrowed from his manager at the tea shop–looks at everything and everyone with wonder. In the upper ring, he’d seemed so pleased by the empty streets and beautiful buildings. He’d been full of wonder at the sight of the filling streets in the middle ring.

His expression sours the closer they get to the wall.

He takes in the thin alleyways, shapeless bodies moving in the dim light. The stench of sweat. The thin, patchy roofs and cramped houses. The children, crouched in the dirt, watching Kuei with dark, distrustful eyes. “This… this is...”

“This is your city,” Zuko says. “These are your people.”

Kuei only recently learnt about the war. He hasn’t seen the stretches of ash and scorched earth where towns once stood. He hasn’t seen crowds of skinny war orphans beg at ports, or widowers wailing in the street, or veterans learning how to live with newfound disabilities.

A part of him hates Kuei for that. He’s spent most of his life sheltered in his palace while his people were being ravaged by war.

He watches Kuei stumble around his city’s slums in helpless circles, slack-jawed with horror as he sees the truth of poverty for the very first time. Zuko stays close enough to offer protection, but otherwise lets him take it all in silence.

When Kuei begins to look less overwhelmed (and after Zuko has had to steer him away from three would-be muggers), he turns to Zuko and says, “I thought it was just the war that Long Fen was lying about. How could I not know how my people were suffering?”

Zuko thinks for a moment. “When you’re being fed beautiful lies,” Zuko begins, choosing his words carefully, “you want to believe them. It’s easier that way. Denial is better than admitting that your people are in the wrong. That you’re in the wrong.”

“I didn’t know,” Kuei says, and he sounds so young.

“You know now.” Kuei just looks lost again. Zuko takes him by the elbow, resisting the urge to shake him, and says, “You’re their king. They need you. Are you going to stick your head back in the sand?”

Kuei looks at him with wide eyes. “Who are you?”

“What?”

“I’ve never met anyone like you before. The Avatar showed me the Dai Lee, but it’s his job to maintain peace. But this field trip has nothing to do with the Avatar.”

“You should know that your people are suffering.”

“Yes,” Kuei agrees, “but how did you know that I needed to see it? Who even are you?”

“I was lied to for a long time too,” Zuko admits, fixing his eyes on a shuttered window further down the alleyway. Light spills out around the cracks. “Even after I started seeing the truth, I made excuses and ignored the truth of the war, because I was frightened of what might happen to me if I got involved. It took a while, but my friends helped me see the truth. While I was ignoring the war, good people were suffering, and they would continue to suffer until someone stood up and did something.”

Kuei considers him for a long moment. “You’d make a good advisor. You wouldn’t happen to be looking for a job, would you?”

Zuko grimaces. “I really don’t think you’d want to hire me.”

“Are you sure?” Zuko stays silent, glaring stonily at the thin slat of light emerging from the window. Muffled laughter drifts through the window panel. Kuei sighs. “It’s a shame I can’t hire someone to be king for me.”

First, Princess Yue. Now, King Kuei. Is this going to be an ongoing theme? Is Zuko going to be collecting repressed royalty the more he travels with Aang?

Then again, the most repressed royal is Azula and he has no idea how to start with her.

((Everyone wants to run off in different directions just like in canon. Zuko convinces Sokka AND Katara to go meet up with the Southern Water Tribe. Aang decides to stay in the Earth Kingdom with him rather than hunt down the Guru, as he’s not as desperate to master the Avatar State since he’s closer to mastering all 4 elements now that he has 3 bending masters.))

((Instead of Katara spotting Zuko in the Upper Ring like in canon, it’s Jet that someone finds out the Blue Spirit’s identity and tracks him down.))

When Zuko enters the tea shop to tell Pao he’ll be leaving Ba Sing Se in the near future, he finds Jet lounging at one of the low tables, two empty cups and a teapot in front of him. “I haven’t seen you in a while, Blue.”

“I’ve been busy,” Zuko says, sliding into the bench opposite him.

“Busy? With the Avatar?”

Zuko winces. “I didn’t know that you knew them. Honestly, I didn’t think it was any of your business.”

Jet turns away, examining the tea shop. He’s still angry, but his anger isn’t focused on Zuko. It’s just an ever-present thing. Directionless. An old wound that never closed, a constant irritation of the soul.

“I would’ve thought you’d go somewhere more upscale,” Jet says. “This place is a f*cking dump.”

It is, so Zuko doesn’t argue, though he is glad Pao is out of ear-shot. The Jasmine Dragon was run out of a small, rusted war ship, the only home a banished prince could afford, but it still hurt when people turned their nose up at it.

Zuko picks up the teapot and pours tea for both of them. “I don’t like the Upper Ring. Everything is so clean and bright, and it feels like everyone is watching you.”

“I’d love to see it,” Jet admits, though Zuko can’t imagine him rubbing shoulders with nobles--not without throwing their own tea in their face, losing it at the clear wealth disparity. “Though I’d probably go mad up there. It’s not what either of us are used to, right?”

Jet is extending this branch, this shared experience. It’s the closest he’ll ever come to apologising.

And Zuko can’t even relate. Not properly.

Zuko lowers the teapot, carefully thinking over his answer. He hasn’t ever lied to Jet, but he did withhold information. He’s still withholding information. But maybe if he let just a little bit slip through, a hint of who he was …

“I grew up somewhere like that, actually,” Zuko says. “By the time I was--forced to leave, I hated it. It wasn’t exactly a kind environment.”

Jet draws back a little, frowning. “I wouldn’t say living in the slums, having to fight for every scrap you could get, was a ‘kind environment’ either.”

“That’s true. I never had to live like that, but ...” Zuko shrugs, helpless. How can he describe the violence of royalty? The careful, controlled life of a prince, the knife-edge he walked, constantly in danger of falling, of failing, of catching the full attention of his father, even if that was what he had craved for so long. “That life would’ve killed me, in the end.”

Jet laughs. It’s not a kind sound, but then, his laughter never is. “It figures that you used to be some fancy noble. I should’ve realised.”

“What?”

“You’re so--” Jet waves a hand at him.

“You just gestured to all of me.”

“Exactly. Weird accent, fine features. That straight way you sit. The more-noble-than-thou air you carry around when you’re the Blue Spirit. Wouldn’t expect a dainty nobleman to have such a mean right hook, though.”

“I’m not a nobleman. Not anymore.” Not ever. But saying he was once a prince would only make Jet hate him.

“No,” Jet says evenly, and he almost looks thrilled. It’s the same way he used to look at Zuko before he found out he knew the Avatar. “You’re not. Hey, my friends are getting lunch just across from here. You should join us.”

“Your freedom fighter friends?”

Jet’s scowls, just for a moment, before it’s gone. “They’ve given up the Freedom Fighter life. For a ‘fresh chance.’ Whatever that means.”

In that moment, shoulders hunched and glaring at nothing, Jet reminds Zuko starkly of himself a few weeks into his banishment, Iroh’s words ringing in his ears, trying to convince himself that his father wanted him to come back, that his banishment wasn’t a life sentence.

“Starting over can be overwhelming,” Zuko says, careful to make his voice soft without sounding condescending. “But you shouldn’t pass up the chance to build a new life. You deserve to be happy. Even if you don’t feel like you can be happy here after your old life was--so much more, even if it was also so much worse--you should still try. You deserve that chance.”

Jet stares at him for a long minute, scowling, looking like he so desperately wants to shake off Zuko’s words, but then he blows out a rough breath. “f*ck, you sound just like Smellerbee.”

I sound like my uncle, Zuko thinks, feeling strangely warm at the thought.

“Maybe if everyone is telling you the same advice, you should listen.”

Jet rolls his eyes and stands up. “Yeah, maybe. Are you coming to lunch, or not?”

“Let me just tell Pao.”

He tells the tea merchant he’s heading off with friends now. He’s disappointed to see his best tea server leave for the day, but waves him off without a fight.

Zuko picks up his abandoned tea as he goes and follows Jet out of the door and into the street. Jet is waiting for him. He can see a pair of teenagers dressed strangely, like echoes of Jet, loitering outside the cheap noodle shop down the street. They must be Jet’s friends.

Zuko takes a sip of his tea. Almost spits it out again. It’s so cold.

Without thinking about it, Zuko heats the cup between his palms, the way he has warmed a hundred drinks and pots and meals, because his friends have a tendency to get distracted and forget to finish their food and drinks before they cool. Sometimes, Zuko thinks they’ve become too spoilt with a firebender around. After all, Aang can bend fire now, too, but everyone insists that Zuko does it better. Even Aang.

He takes another sip. The tea is hot, almost boiling, steam curling into his face like a caress.

The tea is knocked out of his hand, and a hook is held at his throat.

Jet’s face is very close, eyes burning. “You’re a firebender.”

“Wait. I can explain.” Zuko reaches out instinctively, but Jet bats his hands away roughly with the flat side of his hooks.

“Explain about how you’ve been lying to me? Tricking me? What are you doing here?”

He’s gotten too comfortable. He’s always known that Ba Sing Se is dangerous, but after the adrenaline-rush of finding and saving Appa and digging the King Earth out of a well of lies, he’d started slipping.

“No trick,” Zuko says slowly. “I’m in the city with my friends. We’re trying to stop the war.”

Jet scoffs. “Yeah. Like I’m going to believe that.”

“I’m with the Avatar. I’m teaching him firebending. Really, Jet--”

Jet steps back. “You know Aang? And Katara and Sokka? They’re here?”

“You know them?” Zuko echoes.

((They’re attacked by the Dai Lee))

Jet tries to twist out of the hold, but the Dai Lee wrenches his arm back. He chokes, goes down hard.

“King Kuei knows the truth about the Dai Lee,” Zuko says, thrashing against the iron fingers digging into his wrists. “I’m friends with the Avatar. They’ll get us out of here--”

A new voice answers. “The Avatar?”

Zuko stops. Forgets how to breeze.

“Let go of me,” Jet shouts, looking past Zuko’s captors. “He’s the firebender. I haven’t done anything wrong!”

This is what it had felt like when Aang had found him in that dark alleyway all those months ago. It’s the sharp tug of an arm around his stomach as he’s hoisted into the air, the weightlessness of being snatched up. It’s looking down at the sinking Jasmine Dragon and knowing the fall would kill him if he struggled.

Azula looks down her nose at Jet. Her hair is longer than he remembers and she’s lost some of her baby fat, though not all of it, and she looks strange in Earth Kingdom colours but–it’s her.

“Azula,” he rasps, throat tight, “what are you doing here?”

He should have known that she wouldn’t give up after his friends stopped the drill outside Ba Sing Se. If Azula wants something, she doesn’t stop until she gets it, no matter the price.

Azula’s voice is low and smooth and hits him right between the ribs. “I’m here to fix all of your mistakes, Zuzu. Do you think I don’t know what you’ve been up to? Turning on the Fire Nation, helping the Avatar… I always knew you were a coward, but I hadn’t realised you were a traitor too.”

Zuko swallows hard. “I’m doing this for the good of Fire Nation.”

Azula laughs. “You’ve spent too long with Uncle if you’ve actually started believing his lies.”

“His lies?” Zuko pushes back against the Dai Lee and tries to stand as tall as he can under Azula’s heavy gaze. “Azula, we grew up with nothing but lies. Have you seen what the Fire Nation has really been doing? There’s no honour in this war. We’re not spreading our culture. We’re destroying the rest of the world and ourselves in the process.”

Azula almost looks disappointed in him. She brushes hair out of her face, and tells the Dai Lee, “I’ll deal with them later. Put them somewhere they won’t be a bother.”

The ground opens up. Zuko is shoved down into the hole and tumbles down a long tunnel, feeling like the earth is swallowing him whole. He’s vaguely aware of Jet shrieking as he’s thrown in after him.

In the glowing catacombs, Zuko huddles against one wall, legs drawn close to his chest. He focuses on keeping his breathing even and tries to stop shaking.

He should have convinced his friends to abandon Ba Sing Se the moment he realised Azula was behind the drill. And now Aang and Toph are somewhere in the city, alone, unaware that Azula has infiltrated Ba Sing Se’s walls.

It’s been three years since he saw Azula. She’s been alone in the palace, bearing the full brunt of their father’s expectations. Zuko doesn’t know what kind of person she has become.

Maybe she’ll take him back to the Fire Nation. His banishment is still in place, but maybe she’ll capture Aang, and bring them both back to the Homeland, drag them in front of Ozai, and then--

A pebble, no bigger than his finger, bounces off his arm. It stings.

Zuko looks up. Jet glares at him from the other side of the cave, holding up another rock. “You’re freaking out. You need to calm down.”

Zuko shakes his head, because--because--

((Zuko has a panic attack. Jet gives in and helps him through it. He says he did it because he didn’t want Zuko to get spooked and firebend in the enclosed space, but Zuko admits some things about his past trauma and he can tell Jet is no longer as hostile towards him.))

Aang topples onto the beach, panting and wild-eyed. Katara almost shoves Sokka into the waves in her haste to get to him.

“This can’t be good news,” Sokka mutters, following her.

“There are Kyoshi Warriors at the Earth Palace,” Aang says. “Except–except they’re not.”

“Aang, slow down,” Katara says, rubbing a hand over his back. He’s trembling faintly.

Aang shakes his head. “No, you don’t understand. I recognised them. And I swear they’re the same Fire Nation girls that fought with Azula.”

Katara and Sokka exchange wide-eyed glances. It hadn’t escaped Sokka’s notice that Aang was alone.

“Aang,” Sokka says, heart in his throat, “where are Toph and Zuko?”

((Aang and the siblings run into Toph on the way into Ba sing Se. They’re all super worried about Zuko considering what he’s told them about his family and how badly he’d freaked out when they first ran into Azula at the drill.

They also run into Smellerbee and Longshot, also looking for Jet. Katara is Not Thrilled to learn that Jet is in the city too but they decide to all work together to find their boys. They eventually end up finding them - only to also run into Azula.))

“It’s not too late for you,” Azula says.

“I’m not helping you capture the Avatar,” Zuko says, hands balled into fists at this side. His palms feel red-hot, flames lingering beneath his skin. “And I don’t want to go back to the Fire Nation. Why would I?”

“No.” Azula shakes her head. She’s carefully not looking at him, as though Zuko is beyond her notice. “I mean you should leave now while I’m feeling merciful and will still allow it.”

“I won’t abandon my friends--”

“Your stupid little friends are already lost. The Dai Lee will subdue them soon, if they haven’t killed them outright.” Azula waves a hand in the air lazily, cutting off Zuko’s protests. “Yes, yes, I’ll put in a good word for you. Maybe they’ll be spared if they comply. But there is no reason for you to join them. Uncle is still out there somewhere, is he not? He’s already lost one son. Would you really force him to lose another one?”

((Zuko thinks about leaving and returning to the Jasmine Dragon. He’s homesick and misses Uncle and the crew SO bad, misses that simple but happy life as a tea server desperately. But ultimately he decides that he could not abandon his friends and realises that his previous life is now lost to him, the way his life as a prince had been lost to him so long ago. Zuko fights Azula and is eventually joined by the rest of the gang (+ Jet, Smellerbee and Longshot) and the Dai Lee. Aang still gets hit with lightning. Jet, Smellerbee and Longshot hold off everyone long enough for the gaang to escape with Aang))

Below are some snippets I had written for what was going to be my final chapter covering Book 3:

Zuko hasn’t worn all-red in years.

On the Jasmine Dragon, Zuko’s wardrobe consisted mostly of browns and yellows and muted greens. The clothes he’d taken from the Fire Nation Palace were too small for him now and not suited for a tea server. And it was difficult to procure red clothing in the Earth Kingdom. Zuko didn’t mind. The Jasmine Dragon was quite obviously a Fire Nation vessel, but customers reacted more favorably when he was dressed in neutral colours.

He runs his hands over his cropped red tunic. He’d stolen it from the clothesline of a coastal villager, so of course the quality would be nothing like his royal robes. But it still feels…

He snaps a hooded capelet to throw on over his tunic. It wasn’t the elaborate gold finishings he had grown used to as a prince, but the simple yellow thread, stitched with swirls and spikes that reminded him of the flame on the Fire Nation flag, made him feel strangely homesick.

“Calm down, sparky,” Toph says. “I think you look great.”

Zuko tugs at his high-waisted pants, looser and darker than his tunic. “Thank–oh. Very funny.”

Katara rolls her eyes. “Well, I have functioning eyes and I think you look great, Zuko.”

“Very Fire Nation-y,” Sokka says with a thumbs up. Zuko examined his friends. Aside from Toph’s green hair-band and Katara’s necklace, the group also looked perfectly Fire Nation. It was almost eerie.

They wander into town to replace their foreign accessories. Zuko’s yellow ribbon had been lost in Ba Sing Se, so he found one in a similar canary-yellow shade and tied his hair back in a high ponytail.

When he turns back around, Aang is standing in front of him holding several identical beaded bracelets. He holds one out to Zuko, looking almost shy. “Sokka sometimes likes to joke that we should all get matching jackets, but I saw these and thought… You don’t have to take it if you don’t like jewelry–”

Zuko ties the bracelet around his wrist. There’s only a dozen glass beads on the thread, and he twists them around idly. “There’s plenty of space on the bracelet for more beads. Maybe one day we can add other colours for the other nations.”

Aang swoops in to hug him tightly. Zuko squirms in his hold. He’s just grateful that Aang didn’t sweep them both off the ground and up into the air, like he normally does when he hugs his friends. Such a clear display of airbending in a Fire Nation market would not end well.

Every so often, Zuko catches Aang looking down at the bracelets on everyone’s wrists and smiling to himself. He silently decides to never take the bracelet off.

“Are you going to stop him?” Toph asks.

They watch, several steps back, as Aang nods to a bewildered man. “Flameo, hotman.”

“Um,” the man says “hello? I guess?”

“Hotman,” Aang says to a passing woman. “Little hotman,” he says to the child waddling behind her.

“Eventually,” Zuko tells Toph. “Let him embarrass himself for a little longer. A bit of humility is good for the spirit, as my uncle likes to say.”

Toph smirks. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

“I’m going to kill you,” Sokka tells Aang. “I know you’re the world’s last hope and all that good stuff, but--I’m going to kill you. You’ve left me no choice.”

“Sokka, calm down,” Katara says.

“A school,” Sokka says. “We’re in enemy territory and he went and enrolled in a school, Katar!”

Zuko hands him a bowl of broth. Sokka sips at it, still glaring at Aang. “There are worse things he could have done,” Zuko says.

“And it’d be more suspicious if he suddenly disappeared,” Katara agrees.

“How are you two on board with this? Aren’t you supposed to be the rational ones?”

“Katara, rational?” Zuko says, at the same time that Katara says, “Zuko’s not rational.”

They frown at each other. Off to the side, dangling a wiggling cave-hopper at Momo, Toph snickers.

“I can be rational,” Katara says.

“So can I,” Zuko says.

“You’re both disasters that have very passing moments of common sense,” Toph says.

“None of us have common sense, clearly!” Sokka waves a hand at Aang, spilling broth down his pant leg. He’s so annoyed he doesn’t seem to notice.

“Sokka, come on,” Aang tries. “Every minute I’m in that classroom, I’m learning new things about the Fire Nation. I already have a picture of Fire Lord Ozai!”

Zuko hasn’t seen his father in years, and there were no photos of him onboard the Jasmine Dragon, even though paintings of the Fire Lord were customary in many Fire Nation dwellings. He thinks Iroh had seen how uncomfortable Zuko had been with his father’s painting glaring down from him. Maybe it had made Iroh uncomfortable too.

Aang holds up a second picture. “And here’s one I made out of noodles!”

Zuko bursts out laughing, a violent sound almost like a sneeze. Ozai’s noodle-face frowns down at him. He chokes on his next wheeze.

Toph thumps him on the back roughly. “You good, buddy?”

“Oh sorry, Zuko.” Aang lowers the pictures. “I forgot. It must be super weird to see your dad made out of noodles.”

Zuko waves him off. “It’s fine, Aang. I kind of like it.”

“It’s impressive, I’ll give you that,” Sokka says. “But I still think this whole thing is too dangerous.”

Aang looks off to the side. “I guess we’ll never find out about the secret river, then. It goes right to the Fire Lord’s palace. We were supposed to learn about it in class tomorrow.”

Sokka turns to Zuko, who frowns at Aang. “There’s no secret river.”

“That you know of! Maybe it’s so secret that they didn’t tell you.”

“So secret that they wouldn’t tell the Crown Prince, but they would tell a group of schoolkids in an outlying coastal village?”

Sokka looks disappointed at the lack of convenient secret rivers, but remains stern. “There’s no point in going to school, Aang. We have our disguises. We have Zuko to tell us everything we need to know about Fire Nation culture. There’s no point wasting time and risking our covers just so you can make noodle art about an evil war criminal. No offense, Zuko.”

“None taken,” Zuko says.

Aang’s shoulders hunch around his ears. “I’m finally interacting with kids my own age. I know you guys are close to my age too, but--I’m doing it in a normal way. And they’re normal Fire Nation kids! I’m getting to see the side of our enemy I haven’t been able to in one hundred years. They’re people, too.”

“Humanising the enemy isn’t always a good thing,” Sokka argues.

“Too late for that, Sokka,” Toph says, poking Zuko in the ribs.

“Toph is right,” Katara says. “We’re never going to look at the Fire Nation the same way after seeing the Jasmine Dragon and meeting Zuko. And what about when the war is over? Zuko will go back to being a Fire Nation prince, but he won’t stop being our friend.”

Zuko grimaces. It’s weird to think of “going back” to being royalty, of slipping back into his role as prince after years of relaxing into his role as a tea server. “Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.”

“So you both agree with me!” Aang says.

“No, I still think this is crazy,” Toph says. “Why do we need to learn about the Fire Nation when we have Zuko?”

Zuko shifts under their gazes. As uncomfortable as he feels, he can’t get Katara’s words out of his head. When this is over, when he is no longer banished and Ozai is no longer an immediate threat to his well being, would he go home to the Fire Palace? Was that even home to him anymore? “I don’t know everything about the Fire Nation. It’s been three years since I was here. And even before that, I was the prince. I don’t know what it’s like in these villages. I don’t know what the rest of the country thinks and feels about--everything. I don’t know what our children are being taught in schools.”

Maybe, if he knew a little bit more about how his people functioned outside of the Court, he could understand them better. Understand this war. Understand himself.

“I can’t just go around asking these questions,” Zuko goes on. “It would be too suspicious, but Aang is in the perfect position to learn how the Fire Nation operates from the inside.”

Sokka sighs. “Fine. Fine! We’ll stay a few days, just to make Zuko and Aang feel better.”

Aang jumps into the air, hands up. “Flameo, hotman!”

((Aang convinces them to throw a dance party))

“I can’t believe you’re going along with this, too,” Sokka grumbles, trailing behind Zuko as he lights the candles scattered around the cave. “You’re supposed to be Mr. Cautious, and I’ve heard you whine about music night on the Jasmine Dragon. But you want to help throw a dance party in a cave when we’re fugitives?”

Toph cackles. She’s leaning against a recently erected stone pillar. Zuko just hopes the kids are as unfamiliar with the other forms of bending as he had been at that age, because the cave has clearly been modified with earthbending.

“Mr. Cautious? You mean the guy who ran around Ba Sing Se in a tacky theatre mask?”

“It wasn’t tacky!”

“The mask was kind of cool,” Sokka agrees reluctantly. “But you were so against coming to the Fire Nation. Why are you suddenly all for this?”

Zuko shrugs. “I grew up in the Fire Nation, remember? I know how stifling the lessons can be, how little you learn about the arts and self-expression and just enjoying yourself. If Aang can help these kids unwind for a night, kind of like the Jasmine Dragon helped me unwind, then I think it’ll be worth the risk.”

Aang floats to their side of the cave. The accompanying gush of air almost blows out the candles Zuko had been lighting. “Zuko’s right. They deserve a night to cut loose! We’re trying to restore balance to the world. That means helping the Fire Nation, too.”

Sokka groans. “Fine. I agree that the Fire Nation needs an overhaul, and I’m all for less murder and more dancing. I just don’t like that we’re doing this in the middle of an enemy nation when we’re still at war.”

Aang laughs, the way he often does when Sokka is this stressed, because he secretly thrives on chaos. He steals a hug from Zuko, snags a cup of tea, and then scampers off to check in with Katara.

“If we don’t all die horrible before the war ends,” Sokka says, looking tired again, the way he often does these days, “then you can throw all the dance parties you want. You can throw one right in the middle of the capital and I’ll be dancing in the streets beside you.”

“I’m not throwing any dance parties, Sokka.”

“Just you wait. Aang is definitely going to bully you and your uncle into it.”

Zuko grimaces, knowing he’s right.

The sun slips behind the moon at midday. A shiver runs up Zuko’s spine, and the warmth inside him, the fire on a constant low-simmer behind his sternum, goes dark. He fumbles at his robes. His heart beats against his hand, alive and scared, but he still feels like a part of him has been snuffed out.

When he looks up, he finds everyone watching him.

“Try and bend,” Sokka says.

Zuko tries to draw a flame in his cupped hands. Nothing. He stands, performs a basic kata, one he has been able to do since he was nine years old. Nothing. Even his breath of life doesn’t warm him.

“It really does take your bending!” Sokka says. “Also, Zuko, buddy, I never realised it before, but those bending forms look kind of dumb. It looks good when you’re flinging fire everywhere, but otherwise--”

Zuko sits back down, scowling. Suddenly feeling cold, he shuffles closer to Toph. She smirks at him, but thankfully, no one comments on the clear real reversal of their situation: the firebender seeking warmth from another person.

“What does it feel like?” Katara asks.

“Like my internal flame has gone out. Like I’m cold and empty and totally powerless.” Zuko makes a face. “Is this what you guys always feel like?”

“Hey,” Toph says from under his arm, “earthbender here. Earthbender who can totally kick your ass.”

“Sorry,” Zuko mumbles. The chill is making him feel achy and tired, like he’s running a fever. He shivers and curls even closer to Toph. She’s radiating heat. He thinks he understands why everyone always shuffles close to him on cold nights.

Katara gets up and sits on his other side, sandwiching him between them. She puts a hand on his forehead. “You always run as hot as a camp oven, but now you feel so cold…”

Sokka scowls. “If the Fire Nation hadn’t prepared so well, this would’ve been the perfect attack. Look at Zuko! The Fire Nation is totally powerless. If only they could stay like that for a while.”

“For forever,” Toph says.

Sokka thinks for a moment. “We can’t take down the sun, right? Although…”

“Sokka!” Katara says. “That’s what Zhao tried.”

“I know that! I wasn’t serious. I just think it’d be really helpful if all the evil firebenders magically lost their bending forever.”

Aang stands up so quickly he wobbles and almost falls back down again, clearly not unaffected by the eclipse. Zuko wonders if he would have been as affected before he stoked his inner flame and learnt how to firebend.

“Zuko,” Aang says, eyes so wide they’re almost manic, “that’s it.”

((Field trip to the spirit realm))

Twenty-four hours have passed since the eclipse and their journey to the spirit realm.

Three years have passed since Zuko first spoke out against an act of violence against his own people and, in reward, was scarred so deeply that for centuries to come people would see his portraits and recognise him for the rough, red skin warping one side of his face.

Three years after Ozai cast him out and told him not to come back unless he had the Avatar in tow, Aang bursts into the throne room where Fire Lord Ozai is holding court. He is flanked by his bending masters.

“Fire Lord Ozai,” Aang begins, but stops when Zuko places a hand on his shoulder.

“Fire Lord Ozai,” Zuko says without bowing, without flinching “you told me to bring you the Avatar, and like a good son, I have done so.” He smiles. “I hope this pleases you.”

He doesn’t have time to enjoy this moment; twin jets of lightning come at him at once. Aang takes Azula’s, and Zuko catches Ozai’s.

He won’t let Ozai hurt him or his friends ever again.

My plans for this fic:

• At the beginning of chapter 2, after Zuko had gone back to the Jasmine Dragon, I was going to imply that the gaang minus Zuko ran into Azula, Mai and Ty Lee. The gaang drew comparisons between Zuko and Azula - “no wonder Zuko left the Fire Nation”, “we promise that OUR firebender is nothing like this, Toph”, “I really don’t think Azula is gonna be as nice to us as we were to Zuko whenever we kidnapped him..”, etc. Azula also makes some cryptic references to Zuko that worry the gaang, but overall she’s just pleased to see that they’ve seemingly left Zuko alone and he’s safe back at the Jasmine Dragon.
• Azula and Zuko confront each other in the crystal caves. Azula admits that she’s been keeping an eye on the Jasmine Dragon over the years (so has Ozai lbr). She was resentful towards Zuko but ultimately could handle knowing that he was weak and accepted a pitiful life as a lowly tea server (esp since she knew that was safest for him, far away from Ozai and not a threat that needed to be ‘taken care of’). But Zuko JOINING the Avatar and finally fighting in the war (AGAINST the Fire Nation) after all these years?? She can’t tolerate that. Plus Zuko has processed Ozai’s abuse and talks openly about it in a way that Azula can NOT handle. Azula tries to convince him to leave the gaang and stay in Ba Sing Se under her protection, even graciously allowed to open his own tea shop under her “”care”” and ofc she’s furious when Zuko rejects her.
• (Azula’s redemption happens post-canon. Zuko visits her regularly, always with tea.)
• In Chapter 3, Zuko goes through an emotional rollercoaster in the Fire Nation - homesick and panicked and guilty all at once. Zuko moves through the Fire Nation as both a tea server and (hidden) prince, rubbing elbows with his people and trying to help them and having experiences that will shape his future policies as Fire Lord. He has a LOT of thoughts about his people as both victims and perpetrators of the war.
• They meet Piandao and he reads them into some of the White Lotus stuff. He has a letter from Iroh about how he has been wanting to induct Zuko into the White Lotus for years, but he wanted to protect Zuko’s peace first and foremost and respected that he didn’t want anything to do with the war for a long time.
• The final battle occurs the day after the eclipse and it ?? works?? (I hadn’t gotten around to this part tbh) The Northern Water Tribe sends allies with a message from Yue, who has been taking on greater responsibilities since the siege. Zuko reunites with Uncle and the Jasmine Dragon crew!! There’s lots of crying and tea to go around. The Jasmine Dragon does/ does not survive the attack (I also hadn’t decided on this)
• Zuko’s friendship bracelet is burnt in the final attack :((( He’s devastated and knows it’ll upset Aang. But the gaang decide they’ll just have to go back to that coastal village and find the jewelry maker so Zuko can get them to make another identical bracelet (the jewelry seller is just a teenager trying to make a little bit of extra cash on the side by selling slightly sh*tty homemade jewelry and she did NOT expect the Fire Lord and co. to track her down for one of her cheap bracelets??? What the f*ck??)
• Post-canon, Zuko uses his customer service experience as the Fire Lord - both on purpose and on accident. He deals with awful nobles and ministers by using similar tactics for dealing with sh*tty customers, and he’s able to relate personally with the servants in a way that baffles them. Although he accidentally slips up more than once and uses his customer service voice on people when he’s exhausted, which makes people REALLY uneasy to hear coming from the Fire Lord.
• Fire Lord Zuko also has an easier time forming relationships in other nations compared to canon too. He’s met a lot of people as a tea server - Yue, Kuei, Bumi, Hakoda - and they already like him. As Fire Lord, Zuko has to deal with a LOT of people squinting at him trying to place his face before recoiling in horrified confusion when they remember that he was tea server on the very famous and very beloved Jasmine Dragon.