Chapter Text
Zuko snapped awake at the sound of Katara’s scream.
He shot out of his sleeping bag so fast that his legs got tangled in the fabric, and he wasted precious seconds trying to get out as his heart did its best to escape via his mouth. He shoved Ran’s wing aside as he and Sokka scrambled out of the warm tent that was his very disgruntled dragon.
“What’s going on?” he yelled as he ran in the direction the sound had come from, Firefang squealing in his pocket at the disturbance. Sokka followed behind him, boomerang at the ready.
The two boys burst out of the bushes and onto the beach, ready to fight anything that would do their friend harm.
Instead, they found Katara hugging someone who Zuko had never seen before.
Sokka clearly recognised him, though, because he dropped the boomerang with a yelp of surprise. “Bato?”
“Sokka!” the man called, opening his Katara-free arm to give the other boy a hug.
Sokka allowed himself to be folded into the embrace with a wry grin. “It’s so good to see you, Bato!”
Bato returned his grin and released them. “I didn’t think I’d be seeing you kids for at least another year. By Tui and La, look how much you’ve both grown!”
Katara bounced on the balls of her feet, grinning like a maniac. “Do you want to see the new waterbending moves I’ve learned?”
Bato shrugged. “Sure, why not. Tui above, that time you brought the igloo down on your brother… I hope you’ve improved your control, penguin.”
Katara pulled some water from the ocean and began swirling it around her. She met Zuko’s eyes, and a glint appeared in hers.
“Think fast!” she called, and Zuko had less than a second to react before a blast of water slammed him in the face and he tumbled back.
“Fuck you!” he yelled as he struggled to his feet, dripping, and lit a flame in his hand to see better.
Bato cursed and swept the other two behind him. “Ashmaker!” he roared as he pulled out a boomerang very similar in style to Sokka’s.
“Bato, no–” two voices chorused, right before Zuko saw stars.
Azula shoved the telescope away from her eye with a snarl. “Fucking Zhao! He’s following us!”
Her uncle’s hand was on her shoulder, why was he always doing that. “Niece, I’m sure it’s just an innocent mistake–”
“He’s been on our trail since we left the harbour!” Azula exploded.
“It’s possible he’s just taking the same route we are,” Iroh ventured.
Azula scowled. “Lieutenant! Set our course for the nearest harbour. I have a score to settle with our beloved friend Admiral Zhao.”
“Shit, Bato, you absolute idiot!” Katara let go of the older Tribesman and ran over to Zuko, who had crumpled in the sand after being hit in the head by a close-range boomerang.
Bato scowled. “You were being followed by a firebender, Katara! Don’t tell me you didn’t realise–”
“He wasn’t following us,” Sokka cut him off. “He’s our friend, and when he wakes up, he’ll explain that.”
“You’re friends with an ashmaker?” Bato asked, eyebrows disappearing into his unkempt hair. “But wasn’t your mother–”
“Killed by a firebender, I know,” Katara broke in impatiently as she pulled some water out of her pouch and began running it over the bruise that was already forming on Zuko’s head.
The water glowed turquoise, and Bato’s eyebrows climbed higher. “You’re a healer?”
“Sort of,” Katara said distractedly as she concentrated on removing the pain from the Avatar’s head.
Bato shook his head wonderingly. “You two never fail to impress me.”
Zuko mumbled something and sat up, rubbing his head. He glared, bleary-eyed, at Bato. “What was that for?” he griped.
Bato folded his arms defensively. “You’re a firebender. Isn’t that reason enough?”
Katara facepalmed, and heard the sound of Sokka’s palm hitting his forehead too.
“...Am I missing something?” Bato said slowly, looking between the waterbender, the firebender, and the warrior.
“Yes,” all three of them chorused.
“Also,” Zuko added, “this is for earlier.”
Katara spent a split second wondering what the fuck he was talking about, before she was blasted in the face by water.
“Zuko, why?” she groaned, spitting salt water out of her mouth as Sokka doubled over laughing.
“Definitely missing something,” Bato decided.
“Princess Azula.” Zhao inclined his head with the same oily smugness as always. “Can I help you?”
“No, but you can answer my questions.” Azula thrust a cup of tea at him, at her uncle’s insistence. “Why are you following me?”
Zhao smirked. “I was not following, per se. I was merely… how shall I put it… supervising.”
Azula ground her teeth together in frustration. “I did not ask for your ‘supervision’.”
“Ah, but you see, Princess, I’m scouting.” Zhao blew steam away from his teacup and sipped it with such irritating politeness.
(Seriously, why couldn’t he just be rude to her and have done with it?)
“Scouting for what?” she asked, trying to keep her voice level, because holy shit was this man infuriating in all the worst possible ways.
“Well, you see…”
(Yes, for Agni’s sake, she saw, just get on with the explanation already.)
“I’m running a… how to put it… expedition. To the North.” Zhao paused for dramatic effect and took a sip of his tea. “I believe you and your crew are exactly the kind of people I’m looking for. Strong, talented…” His eyes drifted to her right leg. “Resilient in the face of pain.”
That dig was about as subtle as a brick wall.
“Forget it,” Azula snarled. “You’re not recruiting me, or my crew.”
“Oh, but you see–”
“Yes, I fucking see! You can stop saying that!” Azula snapped.
Zhao raised an eyebrow. “You see, Princess, I have already recruited your crew. They took some… persuading, but they came around.”
“What?” Azula yelped.
“Yes,” Zhao said, in that same silky, condescending voice he always used for people he saw as inferior. “I’m taking your crew. Every single member. Unless you wish to challenge me for command of my soldiers…?”
“Yes, I do.” Azula stood so fast that she knocked over the table with the teas. “Admiral Zhao, I challenge you. Agni Kai, at sunset.”
Zuko blinked, apparently taken aback. Then his face contorted into an ugly sneer. “Very well, Princess. Sunset it is. If you’ll excuse me.” He stood, inclined his head, and swept out of the room.
Iroh entered almost as soon as he’s left. “Azula. Please don’t tell me you intend to follow up on this challenge–”
“I intend to follow up,” Azula interrupted, “and I intend to win. Now if you’ll excuse me, I only have about an hour to prepare.”
“The Avatar?”
“Yes,” Zuko said impatiently as Bato stared at him, a chopstick’s worth of noodles halfway to his mouth. “We’re heading to the North Pole so that Katara and I can learn waterbending.”
Bato blinked, then bowed his head. “My sincerest apologies, Avatar–”
“Don’t bother,” Zuko interrupted with a wry smile. “It comes with being Fire-born in a time like this.” His eyes drifted to the man’s shoulder, which was out of his shirt, wrapped in bandages. “If you don’t mind me asking– what happened to your arm?”
Immediately, Zuko knew he’d hit a sensitive spot. He tried to backpedal. “I mean, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to–”
“A burn,” Bato said softly.
Zuko blinked. “...Oh.”
A burn? But it was so big. He hadn’t thought it was even possible to survive a burn that big.
Vaguely, he remembered a salve the healers of the Air Nomads taught him to make. Burns were rare among adult Nomads, but common among the children who would light campfires and play with them using airbending. The salve was a Fire recipe.
“The Fire Nation knows burns better than any other,” Liluta had told him as she showed him how to mix the cream. “The element you deal with is a powerful, dangerous one in the wrong hands.”
Powerful, yes. But in the wrong hands… deadly.
Zuko stood. “I’ll be right back,” he called over his shoulder.
Sokka blinked after the Avatar. “What’s with him?”
Katara bowed her head. “He gets really, really guilty over this kind of thing.”
Bato raised an eyebrow. “I haven’t been told everything.”
So Sokka explained. He told the older Tribesman about how Zuko had fled from the Fire Nation a hundred years ago, how he’d jumped from the back of his dragon into polar waters, and spent the past century hibernating.
Bato shook his head wonderingly. “I kept thinking the name Zuko was familiar. I thought he was named for a past Avatar, but… Tui above. He really is a past Avatar.”
Sokka hmmed his agreement, and turned to stare in the direction that Zuko had disappeared in. “I just hope he’s okay,” he mused. “The last time he found out about something similar did not go well.”
Azula knelt facing away from her opponent, adjusting the prayer bands that constricted her bare arms and the flag that wrapped her shoulders.
Uncle fretted over her, smoothing her hair back, even though she knew her topknot was already perfect.
She slapped his hand away, but lightly. “Uncle. I’ll be fine,” she told him.
(Whether she was reassuring him, or herself, she wasn’t quite sure.)
A bell rang out. She took one more deep breath, then rose to her feet, letting the flag fall behind her.
She could win this. She would win this. She would wipe that smug sneer right off of Zhao’s too-polite face.
He made the first move, and she let him, deflecting his fire blast with a grace that came easily even with her leg slowing her. This was the first time she had ever seen Zhao firebend, and she analysed his style with each burst of flames that came her way, staying on the defensive so that she could do so.
He was powerful, but aggressive. He didn’t defend his centre, perhaps hoping that the constant barrage of fire wouldn’t let anyone get close enough to do any damage.
She deflected the next fireball, and attacked.
The battle that followed was unlike any other she’d been in before. Sure, she’d had disagreements with other firebenders before, but not like this. He wasn’t hoping to get her to yield. He was trying to burn her.
…She’d just have to burn him first, then.
The Princess and the Admiral were a blur of red and blue against the backdrop of Agni’s setting rays. Azula gritted her teeth, fending off yet another fireball and retaliating just as fast with her own.
She didn’t see how it happened, but her foot failed to connect with the ground. Her back hit stone, and she lay, gasping, as Zhao towered over her.
“Looks like I win,” he said smugly.
Then there was a flame on his finger, travelling down – oh fuck no – travelling down toward her burned leg.
Nope. Nope, not today, Zhao.
She kicked upwards, hitting him exactly where she intended to. He doubled over, groaning, and with one last push, he was the one on the ground.
She stood over him, flames on her fist, drawn back and ready to hit him. But– but–
But he wasn’t fighting back, and there was no honour in burning a man who lay defenseless on the ground.
“What are you waiting for?” he growled. “Do it!”
Azula took a deep breath. Closed her eyes.
Her fist punched forward.
Zhao blinked, turning to look at the burnt patch of ground inches from his head.
“Coward,” he spat.
Azula turned away with a grim satisfaction, shrugging on the cloak that her uncle handed to her.
She would have been defenseless, had Iroh not intervened, and sent Zhao sprawling once more.
“You are defeated, Admiral,” he said, the calm in his voice colder than the South Pole without a fur coat.
Katara looked up as Zuko returned to the camp, a pot of something in one hand, a pestle in the other.
“Where have you been?” she started to ask.
Zuko ignored her. He walked straight past her, and handed the pot to Bato.
Bato sniffed it uncertainly. “What’s this?”
Zuko fidgeted awkwardly. “Burn salve. It’s, uh. It’s a Fire recipe. I used it on my face. It’s– you don’t have to use it, but–”
Bato put a hand on his shoulder, a ghost of a smile twitching at his lips. “Thank you, Avatar.”
“Um.” Zuko blinked, apparently not expecting to be accepted straight away.
He was saved from thinking of a response by Firefang crawling out of his pocket and onto his shoulder.
“He’s so cute!” Bato yelled, and scooped the gecko into his palms.
Zuko brightened visibly. “He’s called Firefang.”
The lizard chirped, and fell over. The stubs had lengthened.
(Katara didn’t think he was sick. More likely he was just growing. But Zuko wouldn’t take that as an answer, so she kept trying to heal something that didn’t need help.)
Azula stormed belowdecks, shaking off her uncle’s attempts to give her tea, or even just to talk. She needed to be alone.
She flopped facedown on her bed, door locked once more, and yelled into her pillow.
Even after everything, all her preparation, forty-five minutes spent meditating, Zhao had almost beaten her. Would have beaten her, if she hadn’t thought fast enough.
She was supposed to be a prodigy. Supposed to be the best firebender in the family, even better than her father, maybe at a stretch, better than her uncle. If not better with technique, then certainly in power – who else had fire that burned twice as hot as normal flames?
But she’d still almost lost.
Her yell broke off into sobs, cracking her voice and soaking her pillow.
Uncle knocked on her door, once. Told her that the offer of tea still stood.
She didn’t need his tea, or his proverbs.
What she needed was some quiet.
“Sokka.”
Sokka looked up from sharpening his boomerang to tilt his head quizzically at Bato. “Yeah?”
The older Tribesman sipped his tea. “Tell me, kid. Did Hakoda ever take you ice dodging?”
Sokka shook his head sadly. “No, he didn’t. I wasn’t old enough before you all left for war.”
Bato nodded seriously. “If you want–”
Sokka never found out what he was going to say, because Zuko cut him off by dumping a scroll tube on his lap.
“Message for you,” he said gruffly.
Bato smirked as he popped the lid off the tube. “I can see that.” He unrolled the scroll that sat in the tube, and his eyebrows lifted.
“What is it?” Sokka asked, putting down the boomerang.
Katara plopped herself down next to him. “Is it from Dad?”
“As a matter of fact, it is,” Bato grinned. “They’re docked at a bay a few miles from here. The agreed rendezvous point to pick me up.”
Zuko sat down on Sokka’s other side. “I thought you were with the rest of the tribe already?”
Bato laughed. “If I were, Avatar, you’d have seen them by now. I don’t know how the Fire Nation was a hundred years ago, but the Water Tribes are very social. Someone would have dropped by to say hello.”
Zuko ducked his head. “Right.”
Sokka took the letter from Bato and squinted at it.
It wasn’t a letter, really.
It was a map, drawn in his father’s distinctive scrawl. He traced the lines with a finger, remembering other maps, other times, happier, simpler times. Times when his only concern was impressing his father with the latest big catch on his spear, or begging him to take him out ice dodging so that he could finally be a real man.
“Three years,” Katara whispered from beside him. “We could see him again.”
Zuko tilted his head at the map, and said nothing.
Sokka blinked, and swallowed the lump that came to his throat. “No. We have to get to the North.”
Katara’s breath hitched, then released in a sigh. “You’re right.”
Zuko’s voice was rougher than normal. “You don’t have to pass this up for me, you know,” he said softly.
Sokka swallowed again and blinked back tears. “We’ll see our dad again,” he promised to the room at large.”
Promised, to Bato, to Katara, to himself.
“But not yet,” Katara added, and the words carried a sense of finality.
Bato nodded. “In that case, I have something to offer before you leave.”
All three heads turned to him expectantly. But Bato had eyes only for Sokka.
“Sokka of the the Water Tribe,” he said, a grin spreading across his face. “On behalf of your father – how would you like to go ice dodging?”
Zuko clung to the mast of the ship and tried to keep from vomiting.
He’d been on ships before, way back when he was still in the Fire Nation, travelling to and fro with his father and brother on official journeys. But those ships were stable, and metal, and they didn’t rock with every tiny swell of the water like this one did.
Sokka conferred with Bato in the front of the boat, while Katara tried to keep the waves around them as small as possible.
There was no ice here, on the south coast of the Earth Kingdom, so instead, they were going to be dodging rocks. Big rocks. Rocks that would absolutely not have any second thoughts about tearing a tiny boat to shreds.
“I’m going to be sick,” he announced to nobody in particular.
Katara smirked. “Instead of being sick, why don’t you come and help me?”
Zuko grimaced, and let go of the mast, taking tentative steps toward the grinning waterbender. “Holy shit!” he yelped as the boat gave a particularly violent lurch.
Katara raised her hands, and the boat steadied a little. “And this is why I need your help, Avatar.”
Zuko grumbled and yelped and teetered his way toward the other side of the boat, taking control of the water there. His seasickness receded into the back of his mind as he concentrated.
“Ready?” Sokka yelled over the wind.
“Yes!” Katara crowed back.
“No, but let’s go,” Zuko muttered.
The boat lurched forwards, and immediately almost crashed into a rock as the wind caught the sail the wrong way. Instinctively, Zuko abandoned the water, leaping for the rope, and tugged it back into place.
Bato shot him a thumbs-up.
Zuko rolled his eyes, and concentrated, both on holding this line steady and not vomiting all over the boat.
(Firefang chirped in alarm as he rolled across the deck, and was scooped up by Bato.)
They had quite a few more close calls. Several times, Zuko tasted his own stomach. But they made it out of the other side of the rapids, and back to the shore, with not too much difficulty.
Zuko collapsed, face down, into the sand. “Land, sweet land,” he muttered.
Firefang wriggled out of Bato’s grip and landed on his head.
“Congratulations, kids,” Bato grinned. “Now where… ah, here it is.”
From the depths of his pocket, he produced a small pot of blue powder. He hauled Zuko to his feet and lined the three of them up.
He went to Sokka first, dipping his finger in the pot with a smile. “For you, Sokka - the mark of the wise, for navigating the boat successfully through every obstacle you encountered.”
He drew a line and a dot on Sokka’s brow with a nod and a grin.
Sokka grinned back, and hugged him.
“For you, Katara,” Bato went on, “the mark of the brave, for facing every wave with courage and, if I may say so, very skillful waterbending.”
Katara flushed, and looked at her feet.
Bato dipped his finger in the powder again and approached Zuko. Zuko felt his shoulders tense, and looked down.
He felt fingers under his chin, tipping his face up.
“And for you, Avatar Zuko,” Bato concluded with a wry smile, “the mark of the trusted, for your quick thinking in handling the sail, which kept the rest of the team safe.”
A powdery finger scraped across his forehead.
Zuko blinked back tears.
“Also,” Bato added, “an apology. I should have asked who you were before I smacked you on the head with a boomerang.”
Zuko folded his arms, and tried to glare. It was ruined by the smile he couldn’t hold back.
“Apology accepted,” he managed, before he burst out laughing.