Chapter Text
Zuko instantly sat up straighter. “You can?”
Vaatu made a smug noise in his head. Don’t you start, Zuko thought at him.
“I am a member of a… a club, one might say, of Pai Sho enthusiasts, whose membership crosses national boundaries.”
“You’re in an international Pai Sho club?” Zuko repeated. He’d known Uncle Iroh was… eccentric, but that sounded weird even for him.
“In a manner of speaking. And as it happens, one of my contacts in this club is an earthbending master of some renown.”
“Where?” Zuko pressed.
“He lives in Omashu.”
One of the places Zuko had seen in the candle flames—he felt even more confident now that the diviners’ sage had shown him glimpses of his destiny. “You’re sure he still lives there?” he asked Iroh anxiously.
“Oh, quite sure,” said Iroh with a strangely amused smile.
“Then I’ll tell Lieutenant Jee first thing tomorrow morning to plot a course for Omashu.”
“Excellent! I have long desired to visit that great city and see its wonders—almost as dearly as the magnificent city of Ba Sing Se. Did you know that it has a system of mail distribution operated entirely by earthbending?”
“Which, Omashu or Ba Sing Se?”
“Omashu, of course! It is built on the slopes of a mountain, so the earthbenders lift earthen boxes of mail to the top and send them down stone chutes to their destinations.”
“Uh… interesting,” said Zuko, unenthusiastically.
“I can tell that you are tired, nephew. I’ll let you get back to your meditation, and then to bed.”
“Thank you, Uncle,” said Zuko. After a pause, he put his arms around his uncle and hugged him tight. “Thank you for… for keeping me.”
“Oh, Zuko,” Iroh said thickly. “I will stay with you until you no longer want me… and even then, you might find me hard to get rid of.”
Zuko finally released his uncle and stood to open the door for him. “Good night, Prince Zuko,” he said from the other side of the doorway.
“Good night, Uncle,” said Zuko, and made an effort to close the door more softly than he usually did.
“It would be ungracious to say ‘I told you so,’ but…”
Like you care about being ‘gracious.’
“Again, not as such… but I do have an interest in maintaining a productive working relationship with my human partner.”
So I’m your ‘partner,’ huh? Not just your vessel or your vehicle or whatever?
“I can’t accomplish much without your cooperation, now, can I?”
That would be true of an ostrich-horse, too.
“You’re a remarkably talkative and independent-minded ostrich-horse.”
Uh… thanks, I guess?
Vaatu just chuckled, and Zuko felt it again as a low vibration in his chest. It felt good; maybe he ought to make Vaatu laugh more often… and he chuckled again at that thought, intensifying the vibration.
“That’s what’s known as mutualistic symbiosis,” Vaatu remarked.
Zuko relit his candles to meditate. He had dutifully drunk his birch leaf tea, but he forwent the sage leaves tonight; he didn’t need any more unexpected adventures in the Spirit World.
Vaatu remained silent during the hour that Zuko spent counting his deep breaths and feeling the candle flames breathe in time with him. He could still feel Vaatu’s attentive, curious presence—like the ship’s mimic catopus (somewhat morbidly named Sushi), when she crouched in the corner of the room with her tentapaws tucked under her, watching him, keeping him company at a courteous distance.
Zuko finished meditating and washed up for bed. He had just settled in under his piles of blankets when Vaatu said, “I do hope you’ll take this as evidence that you can trust my judgments of character.”
So much for not saying ‘I told you so’…
“I didn’t say that.”
Uh-huh. Good night, Vaatu.
“Sleep well, Prince Zuko.”
It was the first time Vaatu had used his title in a non-mocking way. Zuko wondered if he was deliberately emulating Uncle Iroh, who seemed to use it in subtle defiance of Ozai’s decree.
Zuko did not sleep well. Instead, he dreamed that when he told his uncle that he was the new Avatar of the Spirit of Chaos, Iroh grew stern and angry. “You’ve joined with a dark spirit? Even in disgrace, you are still the crown prince of the Fire Nation! This will endanger our war effort, even the homeland itself!” Iroh stood and glowered down at him, trembling with rage, while Zuko shrank away. They were in a dimly lit room full of people, sitting around a long rectangular table, and Zuko knew that the figure sitting in shadow behind a curtain of flame was his father.
“You have dishonored yourself, the royal house, and your whole nation!” Iroh thundered on. “There is only one solution,” he said, his voice softer now, its anger edged with sorrow and pity.
“Uncle, please,” Zuko whispered.
He hadn’t even noticed the change of scene, but now he was kneeling on a long blood-red mat in a courtyard that was open to the bright morning sky. “Please,” he said, “I am your loyal son,” as a hand came slowly toward his face, almost gentle in its approach. The arm it was attached to seemed too hard and muscular to belong to Uncle Iroh, but his gaze was frozen on the hand, he couldn’t look up to see who was saying, “You will learn…”
“Zuko,” said a voice that seemed to come from everywhere at once, and not to belong to this place at all. It reverberated through his head and chest, dark as the underwater mouths of sleeping volcanoes he had explored around the shores of Ember Island as a child. “Zuko, wake up.”
As soon as the command was uttered, Zuko obeyed. He opened his eyes into the perpetual twilight-dawn dimness of his cabin on the Wani. The thrum of the engines was constant here, where there was always enough light that someone could be carefully steering the ship between the icy barriers.
Vaatu? Zuko thought at the presence in his head.
“Yes?”
Did you wake me up?
“Yes, I did.”
Why?
“I could tell that your dream was about to become especially unpleasant, and I didn’t think either of us needed to experience that.”
Zuko took a moment to digest that response, then, a little grudgingly, he thought, Thank you.
“Think nothing of it,” said Vaatu (an interesting choice for saying ‘You’re welcome,’ under the circumstances).
But of course Zuko couldn’t help thinking of it, and Vaatu knew that. Graciously (despite his protestations not to care about such things), he said nothing more about it. Instead, after a few minutes of silence, he started humming, apparently to himself, some strange, haunting melody that must have been, that felt, ancient beyond measure. The humming vibrated soothingly in Zuko’s chest much like Vaatu’s laughter. Mutualistic symbiosis, indeed.
Zuko couldn’t sense exactly what time it was the way he could in places where the sun actually rose and set, but he did feel tired enough that he thought he could sleep another hour or two… and unlike the other early mornings when he had been woken by a nightmare—most often of that same terrible day—he was not afraid to go back to sleep, because now he knew that he would be awakened before he was forced to relive the worst moment of the worst day of his life.
As Zuko closed his eyes to go back to sleep, he felt Vaatu’s watchful presence, perhaps not for the first time but certainly more strongly than ever, as a comforting guardian rather than an intrusive nuisance or a burden.
Zuko gave Lieutenant Jee the new heading first thing the next morning. He expected Jee to ask why they were suddenly going to Omashu—how he had found a new lead in the middle of an ice field, and why he couldn’t have figured it out before they entered it—but he was remarkably incurious. Zuko suspected that Jee thought the whole mission was a pointless waste of fuel, so he didn’t care much in what direction they were wasting it, and was just glad they were going back toward somewhere warmer.
Once the Wani was out of polar waters, sailing toward Omashu proceeded much more expeditiously. Fortunately, they did not have to sail all the way back around the northwestern coast of the Earth Kingdom; instead, they could sail through a strait between Pohuai Stronghold and the first Fire Nation colony, Yu Dao, to reach the Western Ocean just north of the equator.
It was an immeasurable comfort and relief to Zuko that he could seek Uncle Iroh’s advice about his plans rather than having to plot around him, concealing from him the complex and weighty mission that Zuko would otherwise have had to wrestle with alone. He thought he could sense a hint of smugness from Vaatu’s silent presence whenever this feeling of relief washed over him, but in keeping with his declared intention not to say ‘I told you so,’ he held his silence.
“We’ll have to leave the crew behind,” Zuko said, thinking aloud over a game of Pai Sho, frowning and fidgeting antsily with a captured tile. Zuko didn’t really enjoy these weekly games, but Uncle Iroh insisted that it was essential for a prince to learn how to develop, execute, and fluidly adapt a complex strategy… and Zuko knew how much his uncle enjoyed playing, and how few members of the crew had any interest at all, so Zuko humored him. He seldom won a game, unless Iroh was deliberately handicapping himself in some way (and Zuko could tell when he was refraining from using a particular tile or move), but he must have been improving in spite of himself: whereas three months ago he would be obliterated in twenty minutes, now he was managing to drag the games out to an hour or even two. Which was not exactly the outcome he’d wanted… but he knew Uncle would be able to tell if he was losing on purpose, and anyway, Zuko’s own pride would not allow him to intentionally play worse than he actually could. Even if he didn’t want to be doing something, he always gave it his best shot.
“I’ll tell them I’m following a lead inland, and secrecy is paramount. No one would think anything of two war refugees, an old man and his young nephew, seeking safety behind the walls of Omashu; we’d be able to travel unnoticed.”
“Old?” Uncle Iroh repeated, looking wounded. “A man of fifty is not old—regardless of what my hair color may be telling you.” He paused. “And my figure.”
Zuko sighed. “Fine, a middle-aged man. I’ll have to tell Lieutenant Jee to take the ship somewhere safe—the colonies, probably—to wait for my word. Though I’m not sure how I’ll get word to them, it would definitely be suspicious if a pair of Earth Kingdom war refugees had a Fire Nation messenger hawk…”
“Not just a pair, nephew. Doctor Tulang must come with us—and perhaps it is best if Shun also comes along; the presence of a young woman may make the people of the Earth Kingdom less suspicious than a group of three men, even if two are middle-aged and one is very young…”
Zuko set the tile he was fiddling with down on the table harder than he’d meant to; the loud clack it made even surprised him a little. “You want to bring them with us? What are we supposed to tell them about why I’m staying in Omashu with an earthbending master?”
“The truth, of course.”
Zuko’s jaw dropped. “Are you joking?”
“Not at all.”
“Then are you insane?”
“You told me, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I told you—because you’re my uncle, and my firebending master, and you didn’t have to come with me into exile but you did anyway.” He paused. “And because Vaatu thought I should. And wouldn’t shut up about it.”
“Thank you for sharing credit,” came Vaatu’s voice, for the first time since he had sat down to the game with his uncle (Vaatu had not seen fit to advise him on the game). “I think you should learn to play on your own,” he said in response to the stray thought that Zuko hadn’t meant to communicate to him. “Your uncle is right; strategic thinking is very important.”
You’re very rule-abiding for a spirit of chaos.
“Nothing of the sort,” Vaatu sniffed. “My concerns are purely instrumental.”
Zuko thought that his uncle looked a little saddened, or disappointed, to learn that trusting him had been Vaatu’s instinct rather than Zuko’s. “Well, then,” Iroh said, trying to sound lighthearted. “What does Vaatu think you should do about Doctor Tulang and Shun?”
“Bring them along,” Vaatu answered immediately. “You are not yet fully healed; I do not want my vessel weakened by pain or fever or unnecessary overexertion.”
So now I’m your vessel again? What happened to ‘partner’?
“Your spirit is my partner; your body is my vessel—our vessel—and that is my present concern.”
And you think I should tell them about you? How do you think they will react?
“I think Shun will listen to your uncle’s reasons and respect them. I expect the good doctor will be extremely skeptical, but will eventually take this in stride, as he has many other strange things over his long career.”
Uncle Iroh waited patiently during this silent consultation. At last Zuko said, his reluctance plain in his voice, “He agrees with you.”
Iroh nodded, a tad smugly. “Again, very sensible.”
You happy? Zuko thought sourly. You’ve met with my uncle’s approval.
“I am not displeased,” Vaatu said archly.
Zuko was still subjected to regular examinations by Doctor Tulang while his burns continued to heal—but the frequency had been steadily decreasing as the healing process progressed, and it was now down to once weekly. Iroh had stopped accompanying Zuko to these examinations after the first month (when Zuko had snapped at him that he didn’t need his uncle holding his hand), so Tulang and Shun were both surprised to see him at the one that took place two days after the discussion over Pai Sho.
“Prince Iroh,” the doctor greeted him with a brisk nod (he had learned by now not to address Iroh as ‘General’) while Shun stood up from where she was sitting, readying supplies on a low table, to bow to both princes. “I wasn’t expecting a visit. Is something the matter?”
“In a manner of speaking,” said Iroh.
“You know I prefer the plain manner of speaking, so spit it out.” Tulang had little respect for rank—or rather, his respect was expressed in frankness without regard for rank.
“I think it is best if Prince Zuko explains.”
Tulang’s sharp gaze shot over to Zuko, who had been standing quietly, staring at the floor and dreading everything that was to come. “Is something wrong, boy?” Tulang asked, his tone businesslike but not unkind.
Zuko raised his eyes first to Shun. She was part of the palace medical team who had treated him (and probably saved his life, he acknowledged uneasily) after he was burned three months ago; she was of humble origins, the daughter of palace servants, but she spoke to him without fear and trusted him with the truth, as adults so seldom did, and for that she had earned his trust. Shun gave him a reassuring half-smile, and Zuko steeled himself and met the doctor’s gaze. “Not exactly,” he said.
Tulang frowned and opened his mouth, probably to order the royals to stop being so damned cryptic, but Zuko continued in a rush, “We’re going on a mission in Omashu and we need you to come along. You and Shun.”
Tulang exchanged a surprised look with his assistant. “Omashu, hmm? What’s in Omashu? Other than the mail system.”
Was this something all old people knew about? Zuko wondered. No one had ever bothered to tell him. “A great earthbending master,” he said.
“What, and you think he was the Avatar’s earthbending master? Or is he the Avatar?” Tulang asked. His tone wasn’t sarcastic, exactly, but Zuko could tell he was dubious about any such prospects.
“Not as far as I know,” said Zuko. “But… I need an earthbending master.”
The look Tulang and Shun exchanged this time was outright mystified. “Why?” Tulang asked bluntly. “You can’t earthbend.”
Zuko looked up at Iroh, who nodded encouragingly. “Actually… I can.”
Tulang blinked a few times and then burst out laughing. Shun, of course, did not; her eyes widened, and her face was completely serious. “Don’t tell me you’re the Avatar,” Tulang scoffed.
“Not the Avatar… but an Avatar. Sort of.”
“Don’t dance around it, just explain,” the doctor snapped.
“I’ve bonded with another spirit—like the Avatar Spirit, but… her counterpart. Her opposite.”
“I didn’t know the Avatar Spirit had an opposite.”
“Many of the most ancient spirits do,” said Iroh, finally coming to Zuko’s aid.
“This is the spirit of chaos that you spoke of?” Shun said suddenly, recollection dawning on her face. “The one trapped in the Tree of Time?”
Zuko nodded. Shun’s mouth opened in shock and she drew in a quiet breath.
“Show me,” said Tulang, predictably. “Earthbend.”
Zuko nodded again. He looked around for something in the room that was made of earth, and most of what he found were jars and pots of various medicaments, which he didn’t want to risk spilling… but then his eyes alit on an empty stone mortar and pestle. He stretched out a hand toward the granite pestle, picturing how it must have cooled slowly in the heart of the earth, turning from liquid fire to fine hard crystals; he felt it as frozen fire and called it to him. It trembled at first against the mortar, tapping out a stuttering rhythm, then flew into his outstretched hand.
Zuko turned to Tulang and Shun in triumph and found their eyes wide and mouths open, Tulang’s in disbelief, Shun’s in what looked almost like terror.
“Impossible,” Tulang said tightly.
“Evidently not,” Iroh gently pointed out.
“What will you do?” Shun asked abruptly. “If you’re the Avatar of Chaos, what will you do with your new power?”
“I… I still want to find the other Avatar so that I can regain my honor… and go home. But Vaatu—the chaos spirit—won’t tell me where he is until I’ve learned to bend the other elements—earth, then water. But I’ll need to find the other Avatar if I’m going to learn airbending, because he’s the last airbender. Or she,” he added.
“All right,” said Shun. “But once you’ve learned all the elements, once you’ve found the Avatar—the other Avatar—what will you do? Will you help the Fire Nation win the war? Or will you try to bring chaos to the world, somehow?”
Zuko blinked; even Iroh had not asked this (fairly obvious) question. “I don’t know yet,” he admitted. “I don’t know what Vaatu wants me to do… and I don’t have to do what he wants. Though he can get pretty annoying when I don’t…”
“All in good time,” said Vaatu. “In time, it will become clear what you must do.”
“He says it will become clear in time,” Zuko repeated.
“Damned spirit nonsense,” Tulang muttered. “Always clear as mud.”
“But what does he want?” Shun pressed. “Just… more war forever? Anarchy?”
Zuko could answer this one on Vaatu’s behalf—at least, he thought he could. “Not exactly,” he said. “He says he doesn’t care who wins our stu— our wars. He just wants to make sure change is always possible—that societies don’t get stuck in one place, one way of doing things, forever.”
“Even if they have found the best way?” she asked, frowning.
Vaatu laughed in Zuko’s head—he was tempted to describe it as ‘uproarious’, especially compared to his usual muted chuckles. “There is no such thing,” he scoffed. “For the same way of life to be the best for all peoples, for all time… even for a single people for all time! The idea is absurd.”
“He says there’s no such thing as ‘the best way’” was all Zuko relayed; he decided not to report the derision.
“Are you talking to him right now?” Tulang asked in consternation.
Zuko nodded. “He lives in my head.”
Tulang frowned. “If I hadn’t just seen you earthbend, I would think you needed to be sent to a peaceful retreat in the mountains.”
“A madhouse, you mean,” Zuko said shortly.
“Not to put too fine a point on it…”
“You believe the Avatar is real, don’t you?” Zuko demanded.
“Of course. The historical evidence is unquestionable.”
“Well, the Avatar was new once, too. And maybe people thought he was crazy when he said he’d bonded with a spirit and could bend all four elements. But he was reincarnated so many times, and so many people encountered his reincarnations, that now nobody doubts it. Maybe I’ll have hundreds of reincarnations, too—me and Vaatu—and then no one will doubt that he’s real.”
Tulang put his hands up in surrender before the force of Zuko’s indignation. “I don’t doubt you,” Shun said quietly.
“I know,” Zuko said, feeling the fire in his stomach subsiding. “Thank you for that.”
“Are you willing to come with us?” Iroh asked seriously, looking at the doctor and his assistant in turn.
“To help you learn earthbending and become a fully realized chaos Avatar—and then what? For what purpose? You can’t tell us,” Tulang directed at Zuko, and punctuated his challenge by folding his arms.
“I can still be a champion for the Fire Nation,” Zuko insisted. “The other Avatar threatens our nation’s interests; I can be there to oppose him, to counter his power.”
Zuko heard Vaatu sigh in his head, sounding long-suffering. What? Zuko thought at him sharply.
“You and your ‘nations.’ How many times must I say I don't care about their ‘interests’?”
Well, I do, Zuko retorted.
When he returned his attention to the other human beings in the room, they were all watching him expectantly. “What?” he asked again, this time aloud.
“I asked how protecting the Fire Nation’s interests advances the cause of your chaos spirit,” Tulang said impatiently.
“It doesn’t,” said Vaatu, and Zuko sighed in annoyance and repeated, “It doesn’t. But I have the power to bend all the elements now and I’m steering this ship. So Vaatu can complain all he wants but I’m still loyal to my nation.”
Tulang’s face, with his eyebrows raised and the corners of his mouth pulled down, very expressively communicated something along the lines of ‘This whole situation is completely absurd, but within those absurd parameters that makes perfect sense.’
“I will come with you,” said Shun.
Tulang looked over at her, eyebrows still raised. “Eh, what the hell?” he said. “A quiet retirement was never really an option; might as well make an adventure of it.”
“Excellent!” Iroh brought his hands together in delight, then formed them into the proper flame shape and bowed. “I cannot sufficiently express my gratitude to both of you—again.”
Zuko took the cue and also bowed, as deeply as his uncle had. “Thank you,” he said to both of them, but it was Shun’s eyes that he met as he straightened again. She held his gaze steadily for a moment—a reassurance that she would keep doing what she could to protect him, despite her own apprehension and uncertainty—before she appropriately lowered her eyes in deference.
“How’d you get involved in all this, anyway?” Tulang asked Iroh. “You didn’t guide him into the Spirit World, did you?”
Iroh looked uneasy at the question—even guilty. “It’s not his fault,” Zuko put in quickly just as Iroh was opening his mouth to respond. “It was the diviners’ sage that allowed me to enter the Spirit World, on the solstice—but Uncle couldn’t have known. That herbalist woman on the mountain, she must have known… not that this would happen, exactly, but that the herb could have that effect. I just told Uncle Iroh first, is all.” He looked over at his uncle, who still looked uneasy, but did not contest this explanation. “I was going to try to deal with it on my own… but Vaatu convinced me to seek my uncle’s help.”
“Interesting. Your chaos spirit doesn’t want you to go it alone?”
“I’m the spirit of chaos, not of idiocy,” Vaatu huffed.
Zuko decided not to relay that one. “No. He thought I should trust Uncle, and you.”
“Trust, eh? Doesn’t seem especially chaotic.”
Vaatu made a disgusted noise in Zuko’s head. “Raava doesn’t have a monopoly on trust, or friendship, or loyalty. Alliances and friendships can foster either order or chaos, stasis or change.”
Zuko conveyed the gist of this statement while leaving out most of the irritation. Tulang considered it, then accepted the point with the same ‘makes sense within absurd parameters’ expression as before.
“Well, if all that’s settled, I still need to examine my patient,” the doctor said briskly.
Zuko obediently sat in his usual spot on the tatami and Tulang sat beside him to conduct his examination, while Shun stayed standing, ready to fetch anything as needed, and Iroh hovered solicitously behind her.
Tulang prodded gently at the newly formed scar on Zuko’s face, asking if anything hurt, how badly, and in what way. “You’ve been using that liniment I gave you?” he asked.
Zuko nodded. Once all the open wounds had been replaced by new skin or scar tissue, and Tulang had been able to take the bandages off, he had given Zuko a little pot of a pale oily concoction that smelled of onions, stale tea, and a hint of piss. He told him to rub it onto the new scars twice a day, to soften them and help with the tightness and itchiness—though it might not do anything to make them less visible, he had warned, his voice softer and kinder than usual. He also instructed Zuko to do exercises to stretch the skin of his face and keep it flexible, gradually increasing in intensity. The usual scowling and shouting ought to do, he’d said with a wink and a short bark of laughter, though take it easy for the first month or so. At that Zuko had scowled, then winced; Tulang’s only comment had been a smug “Hmph.”
The newly formed scars were still tender to the touch, and the constant aching and itching had gotten worse as it got colder, the closer they got to the North Pole; Zuko prayed it would ease again as they headed back south into warmer latitudes. For the past few weeks, though, Tulang’s examinations hadn’t found inflamed spots that felt too hot or were acutely painful when touched—unlikely to betoken actual infection, the doctor said, since there was no longer an open wound, but not impossible if the fragile new skin and scar tissue had torn from excessive movement, especially when it was stretched too tight in the cold.
Once his examination of the scarred-over flesh satisfied him that nothing was dramatically wrong, Tulang did his routine test of the vision and hearing in Zuko’s left eye and ear. He told Zuko to cover his right eye and report what he saw (distinct objects, now, but somewhat dimmer and blurrier than he saw with his right eye). He moved his finger from one side to the other of Zuko’s face and asked him when he lost sight of it, first with only his right eye open (to establish his normal range of peripheral vision), then with his left; it was gradually improving, but still relatively restricted.
Then he tested Zuko’s ability to trace a sound to its location first with his right ear, then with his left: he told him to close his eyes and put a hand over one ear, moved around him and snapped his fingers from one direction or another, and Zuko pointed to where he thought the sound was coming from. With his right ear, the exercise was insultingly easy; with his left, it frightened him how often he was wrong… but Tulang found his performance satisfactory, and again remarked on his gradual improvement before giving him permission to go and resume his normal activities (with his usual admonition not to do anything stupid, provoking another beneficially face-stretching scowl).
“Please don’t say anything to the rest of the crew about why we’re really going to Omashu,” Zuko said to Tulang and Shun before he left.
“Of course,” Shun assured him. “What should we say about it, if they ask?”
“Say I’ve figured out that the Avatar’s earthbending master lived in Omashu, and we hope to find either him or someone who knew him, who might have heard him say something about the Avatar. But of course we have to travel in small numbers, to avoid raising suspicion.”
Tulang shook his head in resigned astonishment. “One day I’ll tell Riu what he actually signed me up for. I look forward to seeing his face on that day…”
Riu was the palace doctor who had treated Zuko after the Agni Kai; he was Tulang’s former student, and had asked his mentor, a retired Navy doctor, to come out of retirement to accompany Zuko on his travels… in truth, to keep him alive during the fragile first weeks of his healing. Tulang had said that he agreed because he owed Riu a favor; neither of them had ever specified what he owed him for, and the way this journey was heading, Zuko suspected that Tulang would end up far overpaying his debt.
“I trust you do not plan to give Riu any hint of this before you are in a position to see his face,” Iroh said delicately.
“You think I’d send a hawk about this?” Tulang asked, his expression incredulous and mildly affronted. “Never mind the risk of it being intercepted; if the boy weren’t there to show he can bend other elements, he’d think I’d gone around the bend.”
“We are grateful for your discretion,” Iroh said with a gracious bow.
“And for your trust,” Zuko added sincerely, bowing as well.
Shun returned their bows and said, “Thank you for trusting us.”
A little reluctantly, Tulang gave his somewhat curt, truncated bow as well… mostly, Zuko suspected, because everyone else was doing it.
“I am honored to have this opportunity to aid you, Avatar Zuko,” said Shun with a small proud smile, placing slight emphasis on the honorific title.
Zuko made a face, then winced when his scar pulled. “I’m not sure I like that.”
“What should we call you, then?” Tulang asked, only faintly sardonic. “The Anti-Avatar?”
“You are an Avatar: the incarnation of an ancient spirit,” Vaatu put in.
“Just… Zuko is fine. For now.”
“Prince Zuko,” Uncle Iroh corrected him. Zuko looked down.
“We can’t exactly call you that while traveling undercover in the Earth Kingdom,” Shun pointed out. “My name won’t stand out, but yours…”
“Oh. Right.” Zuko had thought of that, but it kept getting displaced by other concerns. “Uh… call me Li, I guess? That’s a common name in the Earth Kingdom too, right?”
“I have given some thought to the name I will use in the Earth Kingdom,” Iroh said, stroking his beard portentously. “I have decided to call myself Mu Xiu, which means ‘lover of the good and beautiful.’”
Is it just me, or is that really pretentious? Zuko thought for Vaatu’s benefit. And kind of… goofy-sounding? His only outward reaction was to shift his eyes to the side.
“It’s not just you.”
Tulang sighed. “Can’t I just divide my name into two parts? Does Tu Lang mean anything in the Old Earth Tongue?”
“I don’t believe so,” said Iroh, who knew about these things (Zuko had no idea). “But Tu Yang, written in a certain way, means ‘map of the ocean,’ which seems very appropriate.”
“Fine. I guess I’m a navigator now.”
Zuko and Iroh conferred with Lieutenant Jee about their plans and determined that the Wani would land as close as it was possible to approach to Omashu without coming into view of the Earth Kingdom naval base at the mouth of the inlet north of the city. The landing party would have to travel some ways overland… but they were prepared for that; they had their false names and cover stories for the benefit of any Earth Kingdom authorities who stopped them, while their true identities would protect them if they encountered Fire Nation forces.
Once they had disembarked, the Wani would sail back to the colony of Yu Dao and wait there… for how long, Zuko could not say.
“How will you reach me when you need to return to the ship?” Jee wanted to know. “A band of Earth Kingdom refugees can’t very well be traveling with a Fire Nation messenger hawk.”
“No, indeed,” Iroh agreed. “Do not worry; we will find a way.”
Jee looked skeptical, and in truth, Zuko was a little uneasy about the matter himself; Iroh would not share everything he knew with Zuko, either.
(“It is safer that way,” his uncle had assured him.
“You’re as bad as Vaatu,” Zuko had groused at him. “I’m sick of old people keeping things from me ‘for my own good.’” He laid deliberate stress on ‘old’ because he knew it would bother his uncle, and he wasn’t disappointed.
“As difficult as it may be for you to tell, I am not ten thousand years old,” Iroh huffed.)
“And what if there's a problem with the ship or the crew and I need to reach you?” Jee asked.
“Send a hawk to the gatehouse in the wall of Omashu with your message wrapped inside another message,” Iroh instructed him. “The outer message must say: ‘Those who keep to the ancient ways can always find a friend.’ It will get to me.”
At that Jee looked even more intensely skeptical, as did Zuko. “The sentry who reads that message will know that it is meant for my friend, the earthbending master,” was Iroh’s partial explanation.
“How would some random sentry on the wall know that that means the message is for one particular earthbender?” Zuko demanded.
“I am afraid I cannot say more than that,” Iroh said, sounding only faintly regretful about it.
The Wani stopped in Yu Dao, the oldest colony, where the strait through the northwest peninsula met the coast of the Mo Ce Sea. Fire Nation citizens had lived there long enough to intermarry with the Earth Kingdom natives, and the streets were filled with a mix of red and green clothing, sometimes even combined on the same person (more successfully in some cases than others).
Zuko and his companions needed green clothing to blend in among the refugees traveling the roads of the Earth Kingdom, and it was easy enough to find here; the shopkeeper never even asked why they, as people of the Fire Nation, would want it. It posed no problem for their story that their clothes were in the customary style of the northwestern coast; they could say they had fled the Fire Nation’s occupation of the region just south of here, where the locals had not yet been reconciled to Fire Nation rule.
They started wearing their new green clothes around the ship to give them the appearance of age and wear. Soon the whole crew was making a game of quizzing them about their cover stories, which was somewhat annoying, but also, Zuko had to admit, probably helpful. He was asked what character he used to write his name and told that it couldn’t be the same as either of the Ensigns Li, because that would make things unmanageably confusing. He decided his name would mean ‘dawn’, but pointed out that they didn’t have to use the meaning of his name to address him because he wasn’t an ensign: he was either a prince, or in his assumed identity, ‘just Li.’ Somehow that phrase stuck, and he found himself being addressed as Prince Just Li to match Ensign Logic Li and Ensign Power Li.
Their story was that their village on the northwestern coast had been attacked by the Fire Nation, and they had managed to flee the fighting, but Li had been badly burned in the attack and his parents had been killed. His Uncle Muxiu, now his guardian, had run a tea shop in their village (“It's always been a fantasy of mine,” Iroh confessed). Tuyang was a doctor (despite his nautical name) whose practice had been next door to the tea shop; Shun was his apprentice, who had been living with him in the same building where he ran his practice. She didn’t know whether her own family had survived; she had not found either them or their bodies in the aftermath of the attack, and she hoped they had managed to escape. The doctor and his assistant had been able to salvage some of their precious medical supplies before they fled, which had probably saved Li’s life.
It was through one of these playful quizzes from the crew that Zuko realized that none of them other than Tulang and Shun knew how he had been burned. The landing party were rehearsing their story at the unofficial officers’ table at dinner, and Zuko said for the umpteenth time that he (as Li) had been burned by one of the firebending soldiers who killed his parents.
Sub-Lieutenant Somsak interrupted him to ask, “Did you fight back?”—inviting him to flesh out his story, to fill in the details that he would surely recall if it were true.
But as soon as he heard the question, a ringing started in Zuko’s ears (both of them, not just his left) that soon grew loud enough to drown out all other sound; his field of vision narrowed, darkness closing in around the edges. He stood up without a word, without even picking up his dishes to return them to the kitchen, and walked briskly out of the mess hall.
He’d meant to go to his quarters, but a wave of nausea rising in his throat turned his steps instead toward the head. He opened the door to one of the cubicles, knelt on the cold steel floor, and retched what little of dinner he had managed to eat into the hole that emptied into the ocean.
“He couldn’t have known,” came Vaatu’s deep, gentle voice as Zuko knelt there, cold and shaking, his face wet with tears (just a reflex, he told himself).
What? he thought back hazily. He spat weakly into the trough in the floor, trying to clear the bitter taste from his mouth.
“He didn’t know the story of the Agni Kai,” said Uncle Iroh’s voice from behind him, on the other side of the cubicle door. He must have figured out where Zuko would go and followed him.
“Does he know now?” Zuko asked dully.
“No,” said Iroh.
“What did you tell them?”
“I told them you still have difficulty with the memory of being injured. Lieutenant Jee said he thought you had been burned in a training accident; I said the story was more complicated than that… but that it was up to you to choose to tell it, or not.”
“They think I’m weak now,” Zuko said with low-burning anger—but the anger was at himself, not his uncle. He shouldn’t have run out like that, should have been able to control himself…
“They think you’re a thirteen-year-old boy who has recently suffered a grievous injury.”
“I’m a prince. I can’t afford to be weak.”
“You are human. It is good for the people of this nation to see that their rulers are human beings.”
Zuko just hmphed dubiously. He felt too drained to argue about it.
“Come back and finish your dinner,” Uncle Iroh coaxed him.
“I’m not hungry anymore. I think I’ll just go back to my quarters to sleep.”
“As you wish, Prince Zuko.” The weight he placed on the words gave Zuko the feeling that they meant something more.
He hauled himself to his feet and exited the cubicle. His uncle placed a hand on his shoulder for a few silent moments before they walked through the door into the hallway and went their separate ways.
Zuko pushed the door open wearily to find a catopus sprawled on top of the papers strewn over his desk: his maps of the Earth Kingdom and intelligence reports regarding troop positions, his own notes and sketches of possible overland routes to Omashu from various potential safe landing sites. Sushi raised her head when the door opened and blinked sleepily at him, but evidently felt safe and comfortable enough not to try to blend in with her surroundings, because her coat maintained its natural coloring: patches of black and tabby-striped orange, with white on her throat, underbelly, and at the tips of several of her tentapaws.
Zuko sighed. He wasn’t surprised to see her; he had learned by now that the spaces the catopus could fit through were limited only by the size of her dainty beak-snout, and the gap between his cabin door and its frame was definitely wide enough for her. Oh well; he hadn’t really been planning to get any more map work done tonight.
Maybe he should think about packing; they were nearing the inlet that divided lands occupied by the Fire Nation from the lands still controlled by the Earth Kingdom, guarded by a base at the southern lip of the inlet’s mouth. Zuko rummaged in his trunk—still not fully unpacked, after three months; anyway, where else would he put things in his tiny cabin?—for a rucksack that he used for short trips. He had a couple changes of green-and-brown clothes that he’d been cycling through (it was not implausible that, even in the aftermath of an attack, refugees might have been able to gather a few necessities, including a change of clothes). He also had a set of all-black clothing and dark gloves for… covert activities.
The rucksack was long enough to conceal his sheathed dao, and their shape would not be recognizable if they were surrounded by other items: clothing, food, a few simple cooking supplies. At the bottom of the sack, wrapped in the black clothing to protect it, he placed an old theater mask of the Dark Water Spirit from Love Amongst the Dragons that had belonged to his mother. Not even Iroh knew that he had taken it with him into exile; there was no reason to let him know that he was also taking it with him on this shorter journey.
“What exactly do you imagine you’re going to do with those?” Vaatu asked with ironic amusement.
Why are you asking? Zuko thought back testily. You can read my fucking mind.
Vaatu tsked. “There’s no need to be profane.”
What you meant to say is that you think I’m being ridiculous.
“I think you’re being… fanciful. Despite what your drama scrolls may lead you to believe, most covert work is not done by men in black clothing and masks sneaking around on rooftops with swords. It’s done by unassuming people in unassuming occupations—servants, waiters, tailors, cooks, gardeners—who are just as invisible to their targets as masked men in black… if not more so.”
And you know this because… general patterns, again.
“Yes.”
Zuko sighed and shoved a rolled-up green shirt into his rucksack more forcefully than necessary… and was greeted by an indignant yowl, claws scrabbling at his hand, and a catopus shooting out of the bag, rapidly changing color as she crossed the room, until she came to a halt in the corner near the door, back in her own black-and-orange coloring, and started vigorously washing herself with an air of indignation. Apparently she had crawled into his luggage while he had been distracted by the argument with Vaatu.
“Damn it, cat…”
“Now, there’s a natural-born covert operative.”
“She can’t come with us,” Zuko said out loud… possibly because he felt it would be rude to ‘talk’ about her in her presence in a way that she couldn’t hear.
“More’s the pity.”
You’re a catopus lover?
“All cats are my creatures.”
Zuko considered this. “Is that why they all like to knock things off tables for no reason?” he said, out loud again—and pointedly in Sushi’s direction.
“Precisely.”
Zuko put his partially packed rucksack down on the floor—closing it first to discourage stowaways—changed into his sleep clothes, and sat down to meditate. He had been siting there quietly breathing, feeling the pulse of the candle-flames, for about five minutes when he felt the slight pressure of a tentapaw on his leg, then another, then a warm weight settled into the cradle formed by his crossed legs.
Zuko didn’t open his eyes, but he did interrupt his breathing pattern to say, “I’m leaving soon. You shouldn’t get too attached.”
As if in defiant response, Sushi started purring. Vaatu chuckled, adding his soothing vibration to hers.