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There is no other end to Zuko than this.
This is inevitable (from the day he became second in line for the throne when Dad always favored Azula), even for the being that he is - one with blunt claws that cleave steel like butter. Broad wings that fold impossibly, allowing him to dart through the air. Not long ago he was dancing, following the rhythm of the winds, but something great blotted out the sky, and few things were greater than dragons.
Zuko twists, dodging grasping talons, but confrontations with his sister have never ended well for him, and he knows it isn’t long - she’s patient. She plays the long game, longer than he has ever been able to see, and her feathers stroke his scales - he twists to bite at her but she is gone.
In the Earth Kingdom, they saw the dragon and the phoenix entwined. The dragon must have seemed so massive, so dangerous to the phoenix, yet they spiraled together in the sky. All creatures existed in context, and the phoenix seemed to yield to the dragon, turning after its every move.
Zuko laughed when he saw that on some marriage plate he’d stolen, before he and Uncle parted ways the first time.
The Earth Kingdom doesn’t have flying snakes, the hunt no one has seen since his grandfather played out in miniature. The snake gets away, the hawk eats, or the snake winds itself around the hawk’s wings and they go down together.
There is no winning.
Zuko screams as Azula sinks into his flesh, past his hide and into the muscle and he twists, blowing fire - but it is nothing to her flame. They cannot speak like this, but he thinks he can hear her laughter around the rush in his ears and the flashing in his eyes - her flames scald him, though they should not, and fury rises in him. Why is it still like this? Why is he still a failure--
It doesn’t hurt, at first, but the sort of faint, dawning horror of waking up after an explosion, of being on his side and knowing he has failed, knowing his sister has killed him and is going to kill Katara, as the needles of the centennial cactus that grows on the edge of the caldera city pierce him. There are no friends to save him, not now, and he feels the fine-boned weight of her above him, gloating--
And then she’s gone, sweeping away. She doesn’t deliver the final blow.
Come back, he thinks.
Zuko wakes up.