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A penny for your thoughts, my good sir? Let the light it reflects clear your worries. A burden shared is a burden halved, after all.
They say that in addition to the spirits of the world, there are also guardian spirits that watch over individuals. It is debatable whether everyone has one, or if it is just for people who have caught the spirits’ attention. The former is comforting; the latter definitely is not.
Sometimes, Iroh wants to find his nephew’s guardian spirit and throttle it.
The boy is currently juggling a plate of teacups while the nice young girl with the braided hair attempts to engage him in conversation between tables. It’s sweet, and it reminds Iroh of the years he spent courting his dear Natsu - surprise flowers and notes by private messenger hawk, evading property guards for awful serenades under her balcony, and secret meetings in the dense branches of a massive banyan tree on the outskirts of Caldera. After everything Zuko has suffered, it would be nice for him to settle down and find someone like that who genuinely cares about him, completely unbiased and no strings attached.
But Zuko is not wrong; their life here is a deception. Whatever love or fancy he finds here will be tainted by the knowledge that this is a ruse; he knows as well as Iroh does that they cannot stay as Earth Kingdom refugees forever, and it will break Zuko’s heart to find something good here only to have it ripped away from him.
Iroh can only hope they are able to make their way here long enough to survive Ozai’s insane conquest.
--
Really, is it too much to ask of their guardian spirits to just give them a break?
--
“Uncle? Uncle!”
Someone is shaking his shoulder. He groans softly as two hands lift him slightly, trying to maneuver him into a sitting position against the rough wall. He slumps over against the stone, eyes screwed shut against the torchlight.
“Uncle, can you hear me? We’re in prison under some lake. We have to get out of here!”
“Where…” he starts, then trails off. Speaking is just so much effort.
“The Earth Kingdom, Uncle. Ba Sing Se. Come on, you have to know something about this!”
“Latch, behind the door…for nonbenders,” he slurs, summoning decades-old knowledge of Earth Kingdom prisons from the back of his mind.
“There are no doors or windows in here. Just rock.”
He thumps his head back against the wall. He doesn’t want to think anymore. “Heat the stone. Shatters…with a strong punch.”
Shuffling, then blissful silence. He lets himself relax, his thoughts fading into a soft fuzz.
A grunt, then a yell of pain. He starts minutely as a tirade of swears fill the room.
“It didn’t work. The stone’s too thick. Any other ideas?”
He knows he should respond, but he has nothing to say. His mouth won’t open.
“Uncle, can you hear me? Stay awake! Uncle!”
He can’t.
--
Iroh wakes in heavy chains on a cold stone floor, feeling blood trickle slowly from his temple. Zuko is kneeling next to him protectively, hunched over his body to shield it from the dozen earthbenders in the room. The eerie green torchlight, flickering across the walls and ceiling, sends a spike of pain through his head. Iroh tries to struggle to his feet beside his nephew, only for the room to spin wildly around him and nausea to rise so quickly and violently in his throat that he is forced to none-too-gently thunk his head back down against the floor with an involuntary groan. Zuko seems even more concerned now; Iroh may put on many a “weak old man” act, but at a time like this, the boy can tell he isn’t faking.
The Dai Li can tell, too. Within seconds they have Zuko pinned up on the wall and Iroh bound to the floor with thick manacles of earth that press the iron cuffs into his wrists painfully.
It is only when they drag Zuko, kicking and snarling and struggling, into a stone chair that Iroh focuses enough to take notice of the large track encircling it and the lamp they are lighting on it. Iroh cannot recall much about the practice, but he has heard sickening rumors from his days on the battlefield.
“It was horrifying,” a shellshocked captain doing undercover work in the city had reported to him seven years ago. “They took Sergeant Kumi down for questioning, and when we saw her again - it was like she didn’t even know us anymore. Her hair was cut short and wrapped around an Earth Kingdom hairpin, and she was wearing noble robes. She didn’t have glasses anymore - and she’s blind as a wolf-bat without them, let me tell you - and she had the creepiest smile. It was like her face was stretched out, so there were no wrinkles, no pimples or scars or worry lines or the barest hint of fat, no nothing!” He had shuddered, heels of his hands digging into his eyes. “I don’t know what they did to her down there, but I’m not sure I ever want to.”
“Nephew,” he croaks, struggling to feel for his bonds and how loose they are despite the dull throbbing in his right shoulder as the Dai Li hold the lamp in place, speaking to Zuko with threatening voices. Iroh’s head hurts so much that he cannot grasp onto the words being exchanged, and his trembling hands find no give in the stone for him to exploit. Firebending in this state is out of the question.
Suddenly, the stone melts away. Iroh, dazed, almost doesn’t react in time, but he steels himself and lurches to his feet, fighting off the painful heaving of his gut as he starts sliding into a classing firebending stance. Before he can, though, the nearest agent drives a foot into his stomach hard, shoving him backwards and forcing him to hunch over as he loses the battle with his roiling gut.
Dimly, he registers Zuko yelling in the background. When he finishes emptying the contents of his stomach and the agent comes for him again, he regains just enough clarity to duck under the first swing to his head and deliver a vicious backhand to the man that sends him reeling. Another agent steps forward with a snarl, and Iroh does some fancy footwork he had spent weeks perfecting as a young adult and used many times in his combat career to weave behind him and wrap the chain between his hands around the man’s neck.
At this point, the other agents are stepping forward to subdue him, but Iroh still maintains a stranglehold on the one in his grip, who thrashes his legs and scratches at his fingers in an attempt to dislodge him. The chain is thick, and despite Iroh’s age and injury, his hold is tight and strong, and the thick metal presses fiercely into the man’s neck. Finally, the man grows still in his arms, and Iroh lets him go, his vision slowly darkening at the edges.
He fights to stay awake as a few Dai Li break off to examine the now-dead agent. There’s still eleven more to get rid of so he can get Zuko out of here, but the repeated clobbering he is receiving from the rest that manhandle him to the wall and bind his hands tightly behind his back renders him lost and ready to pass out.
Dimly, he registers the agent next to Zuko asking him a question, and the teen delivering a scathing retort. The man slaps him, causing Zuko to snap again, before an agent holding Iroh slams his already pounding head into the wall.
Iroh is too woozy to make out anything else except the beatings of the agents as Zuko yells and bites, and eventually the soothing, rhythmic light dances beyond his closed eyelids as he sinks into unconsciousness.
--
The next time he wakes, he is alone.
His head is wrapped in gauze and his hair and beard have been shaved away, leaving him feeling bare and exposed. He is dressed in clean, fresh green robes with a dark green trim - traditional servant robes. His dislocated shoulder has been set and splinted, and the pain from earlier has faded to a deep soreness. His dizziness and stupor have thankfully disappeared, leaving him clear-minded with hazy memories of the last two days. He’s had worse, so he can ignore it for now.
He winces as he stands, cataloguing all the scrapes and bruises deemed too minor for whatever healer had treated him, and looks around. He is in a small, dimly lit cave with a wire-frame cot he was just lying on, and there is a sink affixed to the wall with a mirror hanging above it. Iroh sees his own amber eyes gaze forlornly back at him.
There are no openings in the stone walls save for a small vent above the cot, just enough to allow the flow of air but not nearly large enough to fit through. Iroh makes a mental note to conserve his breath just in case; he definitely won’t be able to firebend in here, even for meditation. The flames would eat up all his air faster than the vent could replace it.
There is no way for him to leave yet. A cursory sweep of the walls and occasional tapping against the stone reveals that they are all too thick for him to bust through even if he were at optimal strength.
He waits for what he gauges is almost a full Earth Kingdom hour before the wall opposite his cot grinds open and four Dai Li file into the cramped space, followed by Long Feng. One of them bends up a stone table and places a tray on top of it with a single teacup.
Iroh greets the man with silence. He wants desperately to demand the whereabouts and condition of his beloved nephew, but six years away from the battlefield have not washed away memories of dealing with this man. While his army never went head-to-head with this elite earthbending team, he’d heard plenty from his soldiers about the brutal physical and psychological tactics Long Feng would employ. Some even called the Grand Secretariat’s crimes akin to General Fong’s barbarism.
Long Feng curls his lip at him. “So this is how the great Dragon of the West finally breaches this city.”
Iroh smiles benevolently, misleadingly. “It seems there is a mistake,” he begins. “Zuko and I are not here in the name of the Fire Nation. I retired after my foolish and terrible siege and left the Fire Nation three years ago to accompany my young nephew in his banishment.” He spreads his hands, hoping to appear more harmless. “We have recently been declared traitors, as I am sure you have heard by now. The Fire Lord blames us for the failures of Admiral Zhao’s naval siege on the Northern Water Tribe capital.”
“Oh, I’ve heard,” Long Feng muses, bending up two more slabs on opposite sides of the table and gesturing for Iroh to sit with him. “General Fong’s report was quite detailed on the matter. The young Avatar mentioned an attempt to kill the Moon Spirit?”
“Yes,” Iroh confirms, still on edge as Long Feng accepts a small jug from another agent and pours lukewarm tea into the stone cup. “Admiral Zhao’s folly, in targeting the physical manifestations of the spirits. I tried to stop him, alongside the Avatar and his companions, but he was unfortunately successful. This angered the Ocean Spirit, who took the Avatar as a host to exact revenge. And Zuko,” he adds as an afterthought.
Long Feng sets the jug down. “He didn’t talk about either of you very much in his report.”
“Likely because we were not the priority of the night,” Iroh reasons. “Upon Zhao’s blow to Tui, Zuko pursued him out into the wider city to fight him, while the Avatar targeted Zhao and the other Fire Nation soldiers. I remained with the dying spirit as the princess of the Northern Water Tribe gave her life to resurrect it.”
“Did she now.” Long Feng’s face gives nothing away, and Iroh can only hope being cooperative with this information will at least play some part in convincing the man that they mean no harm.
“Yes.” Iroh makes no move for the now full cup. “So you see, our presence there has given Fire Lord Ozai the excuse he needed to declare us traitors. We have been alone these past few months, hiding from the Fire Nation. We have no desire to harm the Earth Kingdom.”
“I see.” Long Feng nudges the cup closer to Iroh. “Drink.”
Iroh blinks. “I understand that this may be a little hard to believe,” he starts cautiously, before Long Feng cuts him off.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “We have you in custody already. We have been watching you since you boarded that ferry. You have told me nothing that I do not already know.” He folds his hands on the table, displaying the myriad of glinting gold, silver, and emerald rings on his fingers. “You and Prince Zuko do not pose a threat to the larger integrity of this city without your army, and we do not involve ourselves with war affairs outside our walls. You are simply here because of your former crimes and the image of war you bring to our streets.”
Dread pools in Iroh’s stomach. “Then what do you plan to do with us?”
“As it turns out, young minds are especially pliable,” Long Feng replies idly, his cool green gaze boring into Iroh’s own amber. “We’ve already wasted too much effort on torture, and gleaned almost nothing. I hardly expect you to break sooner than an emotionally distraught and heavily traumatized teenage boy. He requires a little more time and attention, and you will remain here so that he gets it.”
Iroh’s hands tighten on the edge of the stone table. “If you harm a hair on his head, I will ensure that your corpses are unrecognizable before I cut you down.”
The man has the audacity to chuckle. “Don’t worry, General Iroh. You’ll see him soon enough. He’s still in one piece, but the same may not be said of you, should either of you not comply.” He picks up the cup of tea and holds it out to Iroh. “You wouldn’t refuse tea from a gracious host, now, would you? By all accounts, I have heard you are quite a polite and pleasant man when you are not busy being a warmongering general.”
Iroh laughs humorlessly. “You think I do not know that it is laced with the drugs you are so fond of experimenting with?”
“You should consider yourself lucky that bending suppressants are all we are giving you. The ones with stranger psychological effects are typically reserved for more…extreme situations. Since you have no valuable information to offer us, and your nephew is far more vulnerable to such things anyway, there is simply no reason to waste valuable poisons on you.” He shakes the cup a bit. “Drink it.”
Iroh pointedly does not glare at him, as much as he wants to. He will not give the man the satisfaction of seeing that his provocation has worked. He takes the teacup, the smooth white surface, not even warm, sliding against his rough palms. The smell alone is earthy and stale, but strong enough to mask the true scent of the tea ingredients. Iroh’s nose, however, as refined as it has become over the years of his investment in the beverage, can detect a truly rancid undertone.
Under Long Feng’s and the agents’ watchful eyes, he lifts the tea to his mouth and sips with a grimace. The taste is just as disgusting as he expected, and he gracelessly tips his head back to let the rest of it slide down his throat. Instantly, he feels the steady flickering of his inner flame gutter out as the suppressant does its work.
Finally, Long Feng appears pleased, standing up and motioning the agents to take the cup and drag Iroh into standing again. “You have been most agreeable, General Iroh. In return, I have tried to be quite candid with you, as best as I can be in these circumstances. Now that you know your worth to us, I hope you will understand your situation a little better and know the futility of resistance.” He pushes a hand down to flatten the table and chairs, the floor smoothing over like nothing had disturbed it while another agent bends the wall open again.
Iroh watches them leave, shame curdling in his stomach. He splashes his face with water from the sink and seats himself on the edge of the cot, letting his whirling thoughts settle to form a plan.
He set out to keep his nephew from harm, and Agni damn anyone who gets in his way.
--
He thinks it may be morning of the fifth day when the agents come again.
He has hardly slept, mind churning with ideas, but as he quickly loses track of the winding tunnels the agents lead him through, he realizes it may be harder than he thought. This escape would take time and planning that they don’t have.
Eventually, they come upon a huddle of people filtering into an opening in the wall. A line of haggard prisoners are chained together, feeding into the cave entrance ahead, and the agents flanking Iroh chain him to the end and disperse to talk to other agents. A low chatter fills the corridor, from both the agents’ conversations and the prisoners’ hushed whispers, as the line grows longer.
Finally, the line inches forward, and the prisoners shamble into the…yard, if it can even be called one. The torchlight is red instead of green, comforting and a nice change of pace, but they are still miles from the surface and sun, sick and cold and dying. Iroh is horrified to see that hundreds of people of all ages lie about - families huddling together, little children chasing each other around in a corner, teenagers scuffling, and middle-aged men and women kneeling next to sick elderly relatives. As he looks closer, the light glints off of their telltale golden eyes.
He can’t exactly say he’s surprised, but even he never expected this from a city so dedicated to staying out of the war.
It takes approximately five deep breaths for him to lock his gaze with a certain heavily injured and distinctly royal teenage boy.
Iroh instantly breaks from his line of prisoners, drawing as close to his nephew as his chains will allow - which, thankfully, are just long enough for him to reach the boy. As he approaches, he takes in Zuko’s own chains, the hunch in his frame, the smattering of cuts and bruises, and the lack of recognition in his eyes as he cups Zuko’s face in his trembling hands. “Zuko, my boy,” he mutters, so relieved to see him alive.
Zuko’s vacant stare breaks his heart, and his stomach bottoms out at the boy’s words. “Who is Zuko?” he asks, his voice drier than it ever has been.
Iroh has seen what became of captured soldiers from the siege. He knows how to recognize it.
Cradling the boy’s head to his chest - a gesture that a lively Prince Zuko would never have allowed, but this lost boy accepts by sinking into him - Iroh feels the first tears trickle down his face. “Oh, nephew,” he whispers, voice cracking, “what have they done to you?”
“My name is Joo Lee,” Zuko continues, voice half-muffled by his face being pressed into Iroh, as if he never spoke. “I am a cultural servant of Ba Sing Se, and I help maintain peace and order in the city alongside other dedicated citizens, like the Dai Li.” His tone is hollow and monotone, like he is reading from a script he has been memorizing since birth.
“Nephew, no,” Iroh pleads with him, drawing back enough to feel his fever-hot forehead. “Your name is Zuko. You are a teenage boy from the Fire Nation!” He does not dare reveal their status as formal royalty with other listening ears. They are surrounded by refugees who suffered greatly from their family’s campaign of violence and are desperate enough to take out their anger on a representation of their enemies that won’t fight back.
Before Zuko can respond, Iroh’s chains are jerked back by an irritated agent as the other prisoners in his line look on sympathetically. As the agent drags him and the line away from Zuko and guides them further into the chamber to sit with a quarter-loaf of bread each, the woman next to him rests a comforting hand on his arm and diligently pretends not to notice him shaking and sobbing silently as she tears into her bread.
--
This cannot stand. Iroh begins his workout routine the second the stone door seals shut. It may have been six years since he last took up exercise this extreme, but his body remembers.
Slowly, slowly, his strength builds.
--
Long Feng has stopped bringing him tea personally. Iroh supposes he’s decided he has better things to do than watch an ailing old man he doesn’t care about drink bending suppressants and complain about the poor quality of his tea. Two agents stand at the door instead, waiting for him to drink it.
It’s still horribly disgusting at room temperature, but without Long Feng here to recognize light bending, he draws what little vestiges of his inner flame have returned to borrow Zuko’s low-energy tea-heating trick. At least if he scalds the leaves with liquid so hot it masks the horrid flavor, it could be at least somewhat palatable.
He pretends to sip it until it is hot enough that he can actually drink it without tasting too much, but not too hot it burns his tongue. For once, he doesn’t feel a chill sweep through him; in fact, the hot liquid trails down his throat and warms his chest.
It’s…not a bending suppressant.
A thrill of fear shoots through him as he imagines what other poison he may have just ingested, until he sniffs the bitter remains at the bottom of the cup. It still smells like the bending suppressant, and it certainly tastes like a hotter version of it - so what happened?
The agents take the cup as usual, and Iroh steels his face so he doesn’t give away that he noticed a difference. As they leave, he contemplates what little he knows about herbal drugs.
His mind jumps, unbidden, to a faint memory from many years ago, in the first few weeks of Lady Ursa’s stay in the Fire Nation palace following her and Ozai’s wedding. She had been crouching in the garden when Iroh came across her, rooting around in the dirt under a camellia bush.
“What are you looking for?” he inquires curiously, kneeling in the grass beside her. She startles, not expecting him, and hurries to scramble into a quick bow before Iroh stops her. “Come now, we are family. No need for that.”
She nods, flustered, and sits back, eyes trained on the bush. “I was looking for a weed,” she mumbles, cheeks tinged with pink as she brushes dirt off her robe. “It grows everywhere in Hira’a, but here they care for the yards so meticulously that there are hardly any. They’re good for minor ache relief.”
“Oh?” Iroh leans forward, interested. “I did not know you have knowledge in healing, Ursa.”
She shrugs. “My mother is a healer, and my father is old,” she replies. “She taught me the recipe at a young age, and I was always very good at this one in particular, so I would make it for my father often when his joints ached.” Her expression takes on a touch of sadness. “I imagine my mother is doing that for him now that I’m gone.”
“If it is not a secret, do tell the recipe,” Iroh chuckles, hoping to wipe that dismay from her face. “I might need some for my own old bones soon.”
Ursa brightens with a hint of pride glimmering in her eye as she lists off a simple set of common village ingredients. “The trick, you see, is in the heat. You make a tea or a paste out of the weed, but if the fire isn’t hot enough, you won’t get much juice out of it. Too hot, though, and you risk breaking down the very elements in the juice that make it so effective.”
“Fascinating,” Iroh murmurs before they move on.
Iroh assumes this knowledge applies to the Dai Li’s drugs as well - probably the reason they don’t even attempt to disguise the flavor with heat or sugar. Drugs like these are finicky, and Iroh has just discovered a way to render them completely and utterly ineffective.
--
Iroh is feeling much stronger the next day with the gradual return of his bending. Years of pretending to be harmless have turned him into a fine actor, though, and he manages to fool the agents into believing nothing has changed.
For the first time, one of them speaks. “So you’re the Dragon of the West, huh.”
Iroh raises an eyebrow at him wordlessly as the cup heats surreptitiously in his hands.
“So the scarred boy. Crown Prince Zuko?”
Iroh gives him nothing.
The agent smirks. “He’s been quite obedient lately. Following commands like a lost wolf-pup, even when we take a torch to his arms.”
Iroh’s grip tightens on the cup, but he does not rise to the bait.
“Really,” he continues, even as the other agent - a young man off the battlefield, by the looks of him, with scars across his clean-shaven face and chunks of skin taken out of his ears and nose like a ceramic pot - shuffles in place uncomfortably, “I hadn’t expected such a crass teenage boy to actually be so skilled. Took out quite a few agents before we snapped his arm and mindbent him into oblivion. Long Feng let us take our sweet time writing exactly what we thought of him on his skin. That was pretty fun.” He spits on the ground and gives Iroh a nasty grin. “I must admit, when we first deflowered him I didn’t know he’d be so good at-”
The teacup shatters.
Pieces fly everywhere, scattering across the floor as boiling liquid stings Iroh’s hands, but he hardly cares as blood roars in his ears. One piece has impaled the despicable agent in the upper arm, and he snarls, starting forward.
“Oh, my mistake,” Iroh guffaws, acting as if he isn’t seconds away from strangling this man to death. “My grip is quite strong, it seems. This happens sometimes.” He bends over and carefully scoops up a handful of shards, holding them up as a barrier between him and the furious agent.
The scarred agent steps forward cautiously, grabbing the shoulder of his injured partner and shoving him back. He reaches out slowly and Iroh deposits the shards in his hands without a fuss. Now, he knows, is not the time yet to fight. Instead, they both kneel and collect the rest of the shards on the floor while the injured agent spits slurs, profanity, and disturbing threats of bodily harm at Iroh.
Interestingly enough, the man squeezes his arm gently as they stand, eyebrows drawn together with a downward tilt to his mouth. He turns to lead his partner out, not speaking a word to Iroh.
Iroh is left by himself to breathe and calm himself down, but it takes thirty-four deep breaths and a punch to the floor that bloodies his knuckles for him to stop himself from attempting to break down the walls with his bare hands. When done, he crosses to the sink to run his smarting hands under a steady stream of cold water.
A sharp sliver of stone lies in the basin, and Iroh looks up to see a hairline fracture erupting from the bottom of the mirror, about the length of his hand and chipped right at the end where the stone must have hit and fallen into the sink. Quickly, Iroh scoops up the shard, still red on one edge where it sliced against his hand, and tucks it into his robes.
The uninjured agent returns later with a new cup of tea, and Iroh is decidedly more careful in heating this one - just as careful as the agent who watches him.
--
Between the bending suppressant, the easy loss of time, and Iroh’s lack of knowledge about the underground prison, it takes close to a week for him to be able to formulate a proper escape plan. He begins with the agent who brings him tea; it’s the scarred man that pulled away the horrid agent that taunted him about Zuko, who hasn’t returned since (though Iroh almost wishes he would, if only to take away time he might spend hurting Zuko). He would almost feel bad, but he holds no sympathy for those who aid and abet vile abusers.
(He should know. If anyone deserved a smack upside the head for something like that, his past self would certainly be very high on the list.)
Still, he’s a little gentler with this one. He strips the unconscious guard of his armor, transferring the stone shard from the teacup to his new robes, and stuffs him under the cot, which he has moved next to the door, and drapes the thin blanket over the edge to hide it. Hopefully, that will make passerby less suspicious, even if the open door and empty cell are pretty conspicuous.
The next portion of his plan relies on his memory of the twisted corridors from the days they’ve moved him from his cell, whether to the yard for food or to the shallow cave pools to bathe. It’s far from a solid layout of the whole compound, but hopefully it will be enough for him to evade patrols and find Zuko before the alarm is raised.
Not even two minutes hustling through the hallways does this plan go to Koh’s lair in a handbasket.
“Hey, stop!” someone yells down the corridor. Iroh speeds up, rounding the corner to an empty hallway and breaking into a run. There’s no way he’ll lose a Dai Li earthbender in an underground cavern, but if he can find Zuko before then, they might be able to make it out together.
He bursts through room after empty room, rushing through the caverns blindly once they run past the extent of his memory. He vaguely recalls the direction he’s heading in being another prisoner wing, but with the Dai Li close behind him as he dodges their stone hands, he doesn’t think to check where he’s running.
The next room he bursts into is filled with dozens of stunned Dai Li agents milling about casually - a lunchroom of sorts. They all blink at him, startled into ready positions, as he tears across the room.
(He is an imperial firebender who has fought in battle. The instinct to freeze was trained out of him long, long ago.)
They snap out of it in an instant, sinking him into the ground before he can make it to the other end of the room. He doesn’t hesitate, heating the stone around him in a flash until it’s pliable enough to mold a path up for his arms. He shoves himself out of the hole and launches off the ground, borrowing one of his brother’s techniques to shoot himself through the air to the opening in the wall.
There is an agent in his path, a face Iroh can never forget. A shocked expression graces the visage of the despicable agent that had mocked him, spoke vile things about Zuko, hurt his nephew….
Iroh lands and grabs him, twisting him around by the shoulders and holding the shard of stone to the man’s throat in a wordless warning. The Dai Li stop, eyeing each other nervously, as Iroh backs out of the room, dragging the man with him.
“Where is my nephew?” he growls in the man’s ear.
He is pale and sweating. Iroh digs the blade into his skin lightly, drawing blood that streams down his neck, and he breaks.
“Left,” he blurts out. “Down the hall and take a right, he’s in a doorless cell just like yours.”
“Very good,” Iroh murmurs, pulling the agent down the hall with him. “You’re going to open the cell for me.”
The Dai Li trail after them, searching for an opening to attack Iroh - or, perhaps, waiting for an order to strike regardless of their fellow agent being in his clutches. Iroh makes it to where the door should be and lets the agent stand, holding a fire blade to his back to keep him or the other agents from pulling any tricks.
The agent squares into an earthbending stance and lifts part of the stone wall into an opening. Iroh hears him groan softly and leans around him to peer inside.
The cell is identical to his; a smooth mirror sits on the wall above a sink, and a small pile of robes sits on the floor next to a creaky cot stained with small droplets of blood. It doesn’t have an unconscious agent stuffed underneath, but aside from that, it is just as empty as Iroh’s is right now. Either the agent lied to him, or Zuko has been taken from his cell.
“Where is he?” Iroh demands calmly, digging the point of the stone shard into the man’s back and heating it enough to make the man wince. “What have you done with him?”
“I-I don’t know, I swear!” the man gasps. “I mean, he’s probably with Long Feng, he’s a Joo Lee now so-”
His speech abruptly cuts off, and Iroh steps back, horrified, as blood spatters across his face. The man’s head has caved in, skull shattered by another agent’s stone. “Get in the cell, Prince Iroh,” the man at the front of the crowd of agents orders, not twitching from his rooted stance.
Iroh doesn’t, obviously. Instead he thrusts forward with flames growing in his hands, letting them flood the corridor. The Dai Li bring up walls of stone to block him, and the game is afoot as they try to force him into the cell or kill him while he does anything to get them away.
But Iroh has been starved and exhausted for months, old and out of shape for years, and his week-long workout isn’t enough for a fight against thirty young, healthy men. He makes a critical error in failing to watch behind him, an open corridor that no doubt circles around, and the last he knows is a stone clocking him in the back of the head before he goes down.
--
They removed the mirror and the sink while he was unconscious, and his cot is now bamboo instead of wire-frame. The chamber pot has been bent into the ground so he cannot pry it out. For all he knows, this may even be a different cell. Iroh doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
His hands are also no longer operational, swathed in thick bandages stained red in various places where his knuckles should’ve been. If he had the energy left to cry, he probably would.
As it is, he doesn’t have the luxury. The Dai Li may have crippled him, but he refuses to let it hold him back from rescuing his nephew. He doesn’t bother sitting up from the cot, already concocting new plans with the information he has gleaned. It is a welcome distraction from the dull throbbing in his hands that makes the lump in his throat thicken.
Iroh is not keeping track of time, but he can still tell that many hours have passed without the agents’ presence. They are intentionally starving him. He knows it will not be long before their passive restraints from before turn into active malice and torture.
Two days go by before someone comes by to check on his bandages. He sits silently, no more weapons in his arsenal, as the agent unwraps the bandages and clinically examines his hands. There are two others with him, watching with keen eyes.
The agent checking his fingers clicks his tongue. “This is going to get infected if it isn’t set properly,” he tsks. “They’ve been trying to heal like this for too long. I’m going to have to re-break them a bit.”
“I’ll send for a numbing drug,” one of the other agents mutters.
He is gone for close to half an hour while the healer continues to tut over the state of Iroh’s hands. Finally, he returns with two other agents, a cup of medicinal tea in his hands.
Iroh realizes with a start that his broken hands cannot hold the cup. He has no more defense against their drugs.
He shakes his head as the man brings the cup to his lips, pressing them together in blatant refusal. “We don’t have time for this, you decrepit old fool,” the agent growls, grabbing his jaw in one calloused hand and forcing his face to the front.
The healer steps back while the other three agents crowd around Iroh, holding him down as he writhes and prying his jaw open until they can stream the tea freely into his mouth. Iroh coughs and splutters, trying to expel it from his body, but it’s too late - he is forced to swallow, shattered hands twitching painfully with the inability to push the agents away.
As he suspected, it is not just a numbing agent. It is as cold as the first day they gave it to him.
--
Later, in the solitude of an empty cell, Iroh thanks his old field healer for the invaluable lessons he received while griping about his injuries in the man’s tent as he re-breaks the bones in his hands himself. He does not trust the Dai Li to care enough about the operation of his healing hands to do it properly.
--
Visits after that are sporadic. The doses of bending suppressant are stronger, allowing the Dai Li agents to come more infrequently. Every once in a while he receives visits from monotone women with blank stares who tend to his hands or agents who bring him small bowls of food and water. Iroh knows this imprisonment tactic; they mean to distort his sense of time with the lack of routine until he drives himself mad, and he fears it is beginning to work.
One day is exponentially worse than all the rest.
He has spent many days wishing to see his nephew again, if only to know that he is alive and relatively unharmed, but he did not expect his own temper to get the best of his relief. They march the young boy into the room and Iroh’s heart skips a beat.
“Zuko,” he breathes, any subtlety or attempt at concealment of his emotions abandoned. “Are you alright? How have they hurt you?”
The agent shakes Zuko’s shoulder hard before he can respond, and Zuko grimaces lightly. Iroh takes a moment to catalogue every piece of information he can glean from Zuko’s appearance.
His green robes, same as Iroh’s, hang loosely around his painfully thin frame until he seems almost like he is drowning in them. His hair is longer, draping a shaggy curtain over his eyes, but it is matted and greasy. The distinct facial scar is covered by heavy cosmetics, and faint bruises adorn the other side of his face. His scratched and bleeding knuckles have scabbed over, clean but unbandaged. Zuko’s shoulders are hunched inwards, unconfident and waiting for the other shoe to drop.
With a sickening lurch in his stomach, Iroh connects this image to the boy he knew in the palace, shortly before his banishment. The spirits he curses have never been on his nephew’s side.
Iroh quickly learns that this is not a check-in. Two other agents advance on him, and Iroh has no defense as they kick him to the floor and proceed to beat him, one even going so far as to step on his hands. As he gasps in agony, he sees the agent holding his nephew’s arm bend over and growl something menacing in the boy’s ear.
Iroh doesn’t know how long it is until the agents stop kicking him and leave him lying on the floor, moaning in pain. He manages to lift his head before they leave to catch one last look at Zuko, who is still but horrified, tears streaming down his face in a way he hadn’t allowed Iroh to see for a very long time.
Heartbroken, Iroh lays on the cold floor and prays for mercy to whatever spirits are left.
--
“What is a Joo Lee?” Iroh asks before obediently gulping down today’s tea.
The woman who brings him his tea now - they don’t send agents anymore, only wide-eyed servants with creepy smiles like the one who tends to his hands - kneels on the floor next to his cot, setting the empty cup down on the tray. “Joo Lees are cultural servants of Ba Sing Se who help maintain peace and order in the city alongside other dedicated citizens, like the Dai Li, and Joo Dees like me,” she explains. The words ring hollow, an echo of what Zuko told Iroh weeks ago.
Iroh tries to approach this conversation delicately, knowing the woman before him is just as much a victim as his nephew, despite the churning anger in him and the burning desire to scream. “And how do you become such a noble servant?”
She smiles at him, vapid and empty. “The Dai Li offer the position only to those they believe the most capable,” she says. “They observe the population to select those with potential.”
Iroh hums contemplatively, closing his eyes against a wince. “What happens if someone refuses?”
He can hear the note of forced cheer in her reply. “No one does. They are quite persuasive. After all, who doesn’t want to lay down their lives in service of their king and people? The Earth Kingdom needs our loyalty and diligence. It is an honor to accept such an invitation.”
“Is it now,” Iroh murmurs. “Does it not get tiring? Do you not wish at all for a choice?”
He sees something flicker in Joo Dee’s eyes. “The Dai Li give us everything we need.”
“But it is not yours,” Iroh concludes. “It has always been theirs, to give and take away at their leisure, as they have done with too many of the people of this city.”
Her smile drops. With shaky hands, she picks up the tray and leaves without another word.
--
She does not come back.
--
Neither does Zuko.
--
The agents do not listen to his pleas any more than they listen to his threats.
--
He might die here.
--
“…people in the walls,” Iroh hears as he wakes to the sound of the far wall opening.
He blinks, half convinced he is hallucinating, as a group of children crowd around the doorway, observing him with silent horror. “You’re the young earthbender on the trail. And…the Avatar?” He goes to rub the sleep out of his eyes, confused, and pauses when he feels a twinge in his hands from the movement.
“You’re the old tea man!” she yelps, pointing at him. “What are you doing down here?”
“Zuko’s uncle?” the Avatar’s waterbending friend pokes her head in. “What happened?”
Iroh stands on wobbly legs still recovering from his last beating and hobbles across the room to them. “The Dai Li captured us some number of months ago,” he explains hurriedly. “Zuko and I were separated. I need to find him!”
The children exchange worried looks, and Iroh realizes there is something they know that he does not. “Will you help me? Please?”
The Avatar grips his staff, face scrunched in determination. “Of course we’ll help! We came looking for him and Appa too.”
As they rush through the halls, Iroh directing them to the corridors of prisoner cells that the young earthbender frees one by one, the other children fill him in on everything he has missed between them and Zuko. The adrenaline is enough to keep him from breaking down and sobbing, but it is close. He expends that energy into breathing furious licks of flame at any agent that comes close.
Iroh can barely hear his own thoughts over the screaming of children and the panicked reunions of separated refugee families when they burst into a larger room he doesn’t recognize. The refugees fan out behind them as the children slide into battle stances, eyeing the ring of Dai Li around them.
Iroh’s eyes lock with Long Feng’s, and his vision tunnels until the man’s cold stare is all he can see.
“WHERE IS MY NEPHEW?” he bellows over the cacophony.
The man smirks imperceptibly, infuriatingly. Dead, Iroh reads off his lips through the roar in his ears.
He screams, raw and unfiltered, and steps forward to burn the cruel man to a crisp. In return, Long Feng slips into a bending stance of his own and hurls a boulder the size of his torso at him.
Iroh instinctively lifts his hands to blow it to pieces and gasps in agony when they collide with the tough rock, dropping to his knees. The other children shield him as they fight, defending the terrified refugees from the Dai Li.
He has no choice but to bite his tongue as the children around him blast their way through the Dai Li and Long Feng disappears. He is furious with Long Feng and the Dai Li, with himself, and with the world for allowing any of this at all.
A low rumble makes itself known amidst more screaming. Toph’s voice sounds off from somewhere to his left, bouncing around the cavern over the chaos. “The whole place is coming down! We need to get out of here!”
Iroh lifts his head to see her holding up an opening in the shaking stone wall while Aang furiously tries to hold back the lake water pouring through widening cracks in the ceiling. It is clear that Toph’s passage will not fit everyone before the lake comes down.
Sokka is gesticulating wildly, and the refugees are arguing with him. Iroh can only hear a ringing in his ears, but as he stands and stumbles over, a lot of them are pushing their children forward. Saying goodbyes.
It breaks Iroh’s heart, but it is the only choice they can make. “Come. We must hurry,” he rasps, gesturing to the doorway. “Everything will be okay. We will get you out.”
“I can’t hold this forever!” Toph yells.
“Katara! A little help?” Aang calls over the fighting.
“I’m a bit busy here!” she replies, fending off the remaining Dai Li alongside some of the stronger refugees.
“Mama!” a toddler screams in terror, hands reaching for a sobbing woman that whispers soothing words through her tears, cradled by a young girl who stifles her cries.
Iroh leads the stream of children through the tunnel while the rest of the adults try to push the Dai Li to the other side of the cavern, guiding them through the dark rock with tiny licks of flame from his mouth. Sokka and a few of the adults follow up, before a tremendous crash resounds from behind and the tunnel slams shut.
Iroh winces, heartbeat quickening, as Sokka throws himself against the wall and screams. A few agonizing seconds pass as several children begin wailing. “Katara!” Sokka cries. “Aang! Toph!”
Suddenly, the wall opens up in a second place a few steps from the closed tunnel, spitting out Toph, Katara, and Aang with a few gallons of water before it reseals. They lie on the ground, coughing and spluttering, as Sokka attacks them with hugs and a cry of relief.
They’re shaking. Toph turns her sightless eyes to the ground, dripping hands pressed tightly against the dirt. “They’re all dead.” Her voice trembles with the unsteadiness of a teenager witnessing her first deaths.
Iroh lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding as Katara quickly checks over everyone for water inhalation. As they walk up the corridor, Toph giving directions on where to turn, the Avatar and his friends try to comfort the crying children, and Iroh finds himself checking in on various kids to say a few words.
There are two Dai Li stationed at the last turn. They round the corner as the escapees approach, poised to attack. Before they can, both of them still, then collapse.
Behind them stands the scarred young agent Iroh had last seen - how long ago? He isn’t really sure. The man slides out of the stance he used to bend rocks at the other agents and pulls a small dagger from his robes. Meeting Iroh’s eyes, he grabs the end of his long Earth Kingdom braid and slices it at the base.
“There are more waiting for you above the surface,” he says, and his voice is as young as his face. “You won’t all get out, especially not the children.”
“Is there any other way out?” Iroh’s voice is steady. A general to a soldier.
The man nods. “If they are distracted, I can sneak you out down the shore.”
“Take the refugees to a safe place,” Iroh orders, turning to meet the eyes of the Avatar’s group individually. “We will draw off their attack.”
“You’re injured,” Sokka points out. “You should go with them.”
Iroh’s mouth twists in a ghost of a smile. “I appreciate the concern, young man, and you have a good point. But I will not rest until I find my nephew or all of them are dead.”
Toph grins and punches a fist into her hand. “More Dai Li pounding? And no water or creepy ladies this time? I’m down.” Without further ado, she thrusts an arm out and lifts the ground out from ahead, revealing a slope up to the lakeshore and a bright sky above.
Iroh trundles out with the Avatar’s group to meet the offending forces. Sure enough, a few dozen more Dai Li stationed around the lake rush to meet them. Iroh may not be able to fight with his hands, but he breathes sweeping bursts of flame at any that get too close to them or too far from the group.
A deep low from above and a hulking shadow is the only warning they get before the Avatar’s bison plops onto the ground behind them. “Appa!” Aang cries, bounding over to throw his arms around the large animal’s head. “You’re okay!”
Iroh hears a small girl cry from atop the bison, and Aang gasps in horror. “Katara!” he yells. “There’s an injured kid here!”
“What!” she yelps, rushing over. Iroh, Toph, and Sokka hold the rest of the Dai Li at bay as they back up towards Appa and scramble up.
There are indeed two young children on the back of the bison - a girl, sobbing hysterically, and a boy, lying flat on his back and bleeding profusely. As Aang gives a panicked “Yip yip!” to send the bison into the air, they all grip some of the fur as tightly as they can. Iroh nearly falls off, unable to grab any himself, until Sokka reaches out to steady him. Katara bends over the boy, pulling as much water as she can from her waterskin, but Iroh can see that the light has already left his eyes. No amount of healing could bring him back from that much damage fast enough.
After a few tense moments, Katara sits back, covering her mouth in shock. The girl screams and throws herself over his body.
The trip back to the Avatar’s house is solemn, the air thick with grief. Katara unwraps some of the delicate bandages around Iroh’s hands when they are more steady in the air, and she is able to relieve most of the throbbing pains that shoot through them, but she warns him that it will take a few sessions for her to heal all of the damage the Dai Li did to them. They might never work the same again.
He tells her he doesn’t care while she’s working on his other injuries. As long as he can still firebend with them, he can adjust. They only have to work long enough to get him and his nephew to the end of this war alive.
Or, barring that, enough to eviscerate the Dai Li, make it to the Fire Nation, and strangle his viper-rat brother. Whichever is necessary. Maybe both.
“We need to tell the Earth King,” Aang declares from Appa’s head. “He’s the only one with the authority to get rid of Long Feng. Once we tell him about the war, he’ll help us.”
His voice is firm, and the other teens murmur agreement. Iroh nods along; it’s not like he has much of a plan right now anyway, beyond finding Zuko and healing from his injuries.
Katara puts a gentle hand on the crying girl’s shoulder. “What’s your name?” she asks kindly. “Is there anyone you want to find? We could help you find a safe place to stay.”
“M-my name is Mari,” she sniffles, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “This was my twin brother, Ling. W-we don’t have any family.”
A shadow passes over Katara’s face, and she draws Mari into a tight hug. “I’m so sorry, Mari. You could stay with us, if you want.”
Mari nods and buries her face in Katara’s shoulder. “Thank you.”
“How did you find Appa?” Aang asks.
Mari’s hands twist in the hem of her shirt. “We snuck out of the break yard and tried to run away,” she mumbles into the fabric of Katara’s shirt. “We were found by some Dai Li and a guy with a big burn scar on his face. He fought the agents and helped us escape on the bison, b-but h-h-he was caught,” she explains, trailing off into hiccupping sobs again while Katara rubs soothing circles into her back.
“Zuko,” Iroh breathes.
“He might still be alive,” Sokka surmises as he goes to pull each shell-shocked kid into a quick but comforting side-hug. “Either they dragged him out before the lake collapsed, or he was held there until it was too late to escape.”
Iroh grits his teeth and steels his resolve. He will find his nephew, no matter the cost.
--
Ink splatters across the thick paper, and Iroh curses in his head for the seventh time. He would do it out loud, but there are children present.
(These children, at least, did not spend the last three years spitting fouler swears than he ever did. He is somewhat embarrassed to admit that a not insignificant amount of his vocabulary came from what a young teenage Zuko on a ship full of ex-navy sailors would yell at him through the slammed door of his bedroom.)
Katara frowns at him from across the room. “Your hands aren’t that steady yet, Uncle,” she admonishes gently, setting down the pot of tea she is brewing. “It’ll take a few more sessions before you’ll be able to write.”
Iroh wants to pick up and throw the whole table, but instead he moans in his helpless-old-man way to diffuse the tension. “Oh, but what shall I do until then? Cannot brew tea, cannot move pieces for Pai Sho, cannot even write to my old pen pals about my predicament! Unless…” he sits up suddenly, eyeing Sokka across the room, who is examining a nick in his boomerang.
There is silence for a second before Sokka looks up, and he immediately shakes his head and hands vigorously. “Oh, no,” he yelps. “Not again.”
“Aang and Toph are not here, Sokka,” Iroh urges, tilting his head to the upended Pai Sho board on the floor from earlier that morning. “I am sure you would not get distracted with bending the pieces you are supposed to move for a poor old man.”
“I don’t even know where half of them went!” Sokka exclaims, glancing over his shoulder as if Aang and Toph could reappear from earthbending practice at any second. Mari, who is sitting in the other corner of the room, giggles softly, a marked improvement from the blank stare she has held for the last few days following the traumatic lake escape.
“I understand,” Iroh says, sighing deeply in feigned disappointment. “May I trouble you for a favor, though? I wish to write a letter to an old friend of mine.”
Sokka stands and makes his way over. “That reminds me, I should draw some more posters.”
Katara sighs, taking the pot off the heat and setting down teacups on the counter. “We’ve been searching for days, and there’s no sign of him. The Earth King hasn’t heard anything, and the Dai Li claim not to know either. Where else can we even look?”
“He must be somewhere,” Iroh insists. “Even if I have to pull apart every building in this city, tear up the ground, fight a thousand Dai Li, I will do it for my boy.”
He barely registers the pain shooting through his hands until Katara comes over and unclenches them from the table. “We’ll keep looking,” she promises. “We’ll find him. We have to,” she adds softly under her breath.
She hands out the teacups, and Iroh wraps his shaking hands around his, lifting it slowly and carefully to his lips. He stares at the dark, steaming liquid swirling around inside, blowing on it gently to cool it. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Katara lean over to offer Mari a cup. The young girl shakes her head no, curling in on herself.
As Katara takes the cup back and Sokka prepares some paper to draw some more strange caricatures that are supposed to look like Zuko, Iroh watches her while he sips his tea and, not for the first time, thinks back to the situation she had described following their escape from the lake. The Dai Li had captured, but not killed, Zuko. They could have taken him to brainwash again, but he had beaten it once, in a way no one else had before. It was equally likely that they had gone to find Long Feng, who Iroh was sure had escaped the lake. The Dai Li would know, after all, that they would be bringing it down, and the earthbender excavators had yet to uncover Long Feng’s or Zuko’s bodies amidst the many they pulled out of the depths.
A knock sounds at the door, and Sokka goes to throw it open. A man dressed in prim, expensive jade green robes with a dark green hem clears his throat. “The Earth King wishes to inform the Avatar and his companions that the Kyoshi Warriors have arrived at the palace, citing a connection with your party.”
“Suki!” Sokka exclaims, brightening immediately. “Oh, man, this is great!”
“We should go meet them and ask for their help,” says Katara, putting down her empty teacup. “They’re pretty efficient. If anyone could find information in a city as big as this, I’m sure they could.”
The two Water Tribe siblings rush to grab their things. Iroh longs to go with them, but with the state of his hands, he is more of a liability than an asset; this, he understands as a general, as much as it pains him to admit. Besides, someone has to stay and watch Mari, which Katara reminds him of when she hugs the girl quickly before leaving.
Iroh sets his own teacup down as well. Silence stands in the wake of the siblings’ departure, and he considers Mari, who is kicking her feet slightly and staring at the floor, expressionless once more.
The Dai Li killed her twin brother in front of her. She watched him bleed out and die. Given her amber eyes, Iroh can only imagine how much her parents must have sacrificed to bring her and her brother to Ba Sing Se in the first place. And she may be young, but children are smarter than Iroh used to give them credit for; she is no doubt well aware of the potential fate of her savior.
“The remedy for dirt is soap and water,” Iroh says slowly, and she looks up at him. “The remedy for dying is living.”
He meets her confused eyes. “Your brother lives on in your heart, Mari,” he tells her firmly. “He may not be here physically, but his spirit will always watch over you. He is here when you laugh, when you are warmed by a sunbeam, and when the gentle breeze blows the hair out of your eyes. He has blessed you every day with his memory, and you must live your life with that love for him.”
She tears up. “I miss him a lot. A-and my mom isn’t here to tell me not to be sad, either.”
Iroh pats the seat next to him on the bench. “Come, sit.” She obeys, crossing the room to sit next to him.
“You are not alone in this anymore,” he says gently, comfortingly, and with a strong sense of deja vu. “Life was hard for you. You had to fight to survive and keep you and your brother safe. But not anymore. We will do our best to make sure you do not have to go through that again.”
She starts sobbing, and Iroh draws her into a hug. They stay that way for several minutes while Mari trembles in his arms and Iroh consoles her. If he closes his eyes, it almost feels like a young Lu Ten scared during his first thunderstorm, or a little Zuko he found hiding behind a stone pillar in the courtyard after losing to Azula in a sparring match.
She calms down after some time, and to cheer her up, they rifle through some of Sokka’s drawings and try to come up with things they might be. Iroh would feel bad about insulting the boy’s artistic ability so much, but it is for a good cause, and what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.
His eyes fall on the splattered ink from earlier. He does still have some letters to write - and perhaps a few more might be in order, for Mari’s sake.
“My dear, would you mind doing an old man a favor?”
--
The door slams open as the sun is setting, and the four children pour in hurriedly. Mari, who had dozed off against Iroh’s side on the bench, startles awake, and Iroh’s head jerks up as he abandons his brief meditation.
“Where have you been so long? What is the rush?” he asks as Katara stalks around the room, grabbing various items and pulling food from the shelves while the other three kids dart into their respective rooms.
“Azula,” Katara gasps, out of breath. “We have to go.”
Iroh understands immediately, and he nudges Mari to stand. As she goes out to Appa, who is waiting outside impatiently, Iroh helps Katara pack quickly. Soon, all of them have their belongings securely stowed away on Appa’s new saddle.
“Yip yip!” Aang chants. As they rise into the sky, Iroh glances back to see several Dai Li agents running in the direction of their house, only a few streets away. He sees them stop and point up, but they are too far away for them to earthbend at.
He turns back to Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Toph. “Tell me everything,” he demands.
They do. Katara and Sokka speak of Azula and her friends’ deception and Sokka’s escape, while Aang chimes in with Sokka’s warning to them and their subsequent break-in with Toph. From there, Katara picks up the story of meeting Zuko in the catacombs, and Iroh’s heart aches. “He is alive?” Iroh’s voice cracks, and he brings a hand up to clutch his rapidly beating heart.
Aang and Katara get pinched looks on their faces then, and his heart sinks. “Azula grabbed him before he could get to us,” Aang explains. “We think the cave collapsed.”
The meaning is implicit, but there. Azula may have escaped somehow, but it is doubtful she would have let Zuko survive, whether he managed to escape live burial a second time or not. Iroh can only hope it was not painful.
“Ba Sing Se has fallen,” mourns the Earth King, looking back on the city shrinking behind them. Iroh does a double take, having barely taken notice of the man during the journey.
So now he has lost not just one, but two sons to this Agni-damned city. His hands clench into fists once again, and his voice shakes with fury. “I will bring them all down,” he vows, eyes hard. “Everyone who has made him suffer. Their days are numbered.”
--
The soft white sand glitters in the bright noon sun as Iroh lifts his face to feel the warmth. Cool blue waves lap at the shore a few feet from him, leaving thin trails of white seafoam. The dark shadows of towering wooden ships and a single steel one stretch across the water, gently rocking as men traipse up and down the gangplanks of each, transporting resources between each other. Behind him is the low chatter of the Water Tribe encampment, where they prepare to depart and refine the invasion plan.
He hears laughter off to his left. Toph slides her feet through the thin grains, concentrating for a few seconds, then thrusts her hands up to form the sand in the shape of a small camelephant. Mari squeals and claps her hands a bit, demanding another.
He is glad they seem to be healing. For children in a constant war, taking on heavier and heavier burdens, these moments are precious. Even though Toph and Mari are here, Aang and Katara have taken route to the Eastern Air Temple once again to master the Avatar State, and Sokka still stands in the planning tent, running through the logistics of war. Iroh will join him and his father soon to offer his knowledge and expertise, but he has other obligations to attend to first.
The last few days have seen his hands in better health, thankfully. He was right to re-break them, it seems; both Katara and the Water Tribe healer affirmed that they would be healing nicely and back to original form soon. For now, they are well enough to hold a pen, even if his calligraphy will be shaky and nigh unrecognizable.
The White Lotus has been inactive for too long. As Iroh conveys the current plans onto paper and requests allies, he reflects on what will be left waiting for him. He resolves to see out the end of this war, for the sake of the two sons he lost to it and the many more people who are suffering for it. His brother dead or imprisoned, Long Feng’s broken body deep underground, and a world working towards peace - that is all Iroh can ask for now.
Yet, Zuko has managed to surprise him time and time again. He has grown stronger over his travels, and he is not the little boy he once was in Iroh’s eyes. Perhaps, once again, he has defied all odds.
He shuffles through the papers in his hands, going through the responses he has received from his last letters detailing the situation at hand. This appears to be quite a harrowing experience, General Iroh, he reads between the subtle code. We are ready to come to your aid to liberate the city. Please advise on next steps.
One specifically stands out to him. What a burden to be halved, it reads. I wager you have some interesting information to offer me about the state of my city. A penny for your thoughts, Grandmaster Iroh?