Embers: Chapter Seven
Sep. 26th, 2025 07:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
masterghandalfThis is a repost from Das_Sporking2; previous installments of this sporking may be found here.
Warning: This chapter contains some discussion of the deaths from the previous chapter.
MG: Well, everyone, it’s time to continue our journey through Vathara’s Embers! Last time, Zuko and Iroh saved some bystanders from bandits, Zuko learned some new tricks and started pretending to be a waterbender, we learned about some of Vathara’s interesting takes on the idea of balance and the Avatar’s role, and got some unfortunately victim-blamey commentary on the Air Nomad genocide. Yay. Today, we wrap up the fic’s first major arc and meet a minor but noteworthy recurring character. Joining us today will be Sokka and Aang!
Chapter 7
Baths are good, Zuko thought wearily, sneaking from the tavern's bathhouse in through the kitchen's back door, silently dancing through the blind spots of the preoccupied cook at the stove and her harried sons as they scurried in and out with food and dishes. Uncle might have found a fellow Pai Sho enthusiast in the bartender, but Zuko still preferred not to use the front door. No sense asking for attention.
No sense at all, given the bartender apparently wasn't just a bartender.
Sokka: It was Combustion Man, making an early appearance! Hey, the guy had to be doing something with his life in-between carrying out hits on people, right?
MG: As amusing as that would be, Combustion Man actually doesn’t appear in the fic at all, IIRC.
Sokka: …huh. I’d have thought Vathara would like a guy who could shoot fire with his brain.
Order of the White Lotus. What on earth is that? And Uncle's a Grand Master? What the hell's going on?
Aang: Wait, the bartender just happened to work for the White Lotus? And Zuko just happened to overhear him and Iroh talking about it?
MG: Well, in canon, it was a florist who was a member of the White Lotus that Zuko and Iroh met… but apparently we still need to have that bit, just in a completely different location with a different guy.
Stations of the Canon: 13
Out of the kitchen, through the common room's shadows, and up the stairs. They actually had a room, for once, even if it wasn't much more than a glorified closet with a cot and a window. And how Uncle had pulled that off, he really didn't want to know.
Aang: Sounds like he just sweet-talked the guy or used White Lotus connections? Do I want to know what else Zuko thinks he did?
He should want to know. He should be down there kicking in the bartender's door, or at least leaning on it, listening in to Uncle's conversation.
But he was tired. And sick, in a way fire couldn't heal.
Sokka: Well, fire’s not the only element that can heal… but I guess Vathara’s going to decide she hates my sister before too long, so that’s off the table.
MG: Well, we’ll be meeting another waterbending healer next time – and we’re going to have things to say about her, believe me.
Door closed behind him, Zuko curled up near the window, breathing in spring's night air. Baths were good. Clean hair. Clean skin. Clean clothes - though half of them were borrowed, and he was wearing a too-familiar embroidered robe over them all to hold in as much of the bath's heat as he could manage.
Too bad a bath couldn't do anything for his mind.
Aang: I don’t know; baths can be surprisingly soothing if you go into them in the right mindset!
No witnesses.
Eleven bandits, snuffed out like candle flames.
Candles I could light again.
Sokka: *nonplussed* Zuko, I’m very glad you have the decency to feel bad about killing, even killing bad guys… but I think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself if you think you can raise the dead.
MG: Weirdly, the way this is worded just puts me in mind of a bit early in Garth Nix’s Sabriel, where the title character stumbles onto some dead soldiers and is seriously tempted to try and resurrect them. Of course, Sabriel could try to do that because she’s not a healer, she’s a necromancer… and because of how necromancy works in that setting, there are very, very good reasons why she shouldn’t try to do that.
Tactically, he knew Uncle was right. There had been too many to take them with just bare hands and steel. And once they started bending….
Once they started, they couldn't leave anyone alive.
If we're discovered, we're dead.
And they hadn't been good people. To put it mildly. He still felt sick.
MG: Like Sokka, I do appreciate this bit. Intellectually, Zuko knows the bandits were bad guys and also why, tactically, he and Iroh couldn’t risk letting them live (though I am a bit creeped out that “kill anyone who sees us firebending” seems to rate higher as a priority than “kill them because they’re murderous bandits”) but he still has enough since of decency to feel sickened by it.
I don't want to die. I don't want Uncle to die. Zuko dug fingers into his scalp, nails biting even through hair. So get a grip and deal with it already!
It didn't feel right. Nothing felt right.
Letting go, he stared at his fingertips, and wondered when his own hands had betrayed him.
Aang: *bemused* Okay, who let the bloodbender in here? Is it even the full moon?
Still strong, despite everything they'd been through. Still callused with years of stubborn blade-work and firebending katas. But other marks were starting to appear. Red-rubbed skin, where Asahi's reins tugged against him. Nails rough-trimmed almost to the quick, after hunger had left them prone to tearing.
MG: Huh. You know, this description makes it sound like Zuko has ordinary human nails. However, as we’ll later learn, in Embers!verse he – and most Fire Nationals – actually don’t. Remember last chapter’s bit about dragons and the Fire Nation being descended from them? So in hindsight this bit feels very odd, and makes me wonder just when Vathara decided to commit to certain aspects of her worldbuilding.
Thin white scars on the back of his left hand; he thought they were from that ill-fated attempt to drag the Avatar through the blizzard. But he wasn't sure.
It scared him, that he wasn't sure.
MG: That said, I do like this whole bit of Zuko seeing the evidence of all he’s been through on his hands and being painfully aware of how it’s changed him.
You had him, Zuzu, Azula's voice crooned in his mind. You had him, and you were just too weak to hold him.
Sokka: To be fair, running off with Aang into the middle of a blizzard at the North Pole was not one of Zuko’s finer hours.
At the fortress. At the North Pole. In the desert-
No, Zuko told himself, remembering fear and panic and rage as charred flesh knit back together under his fingers. Not that time.
Three master benders and an idiot with a boomerang against him. On his side, an injured man. And the sure knowledge of a returning enemy.
Aang: Yeah, Zuko didn’t even really try to hold onto us that time. We all knew we had bigger things to worry about… but I guess it really doesn’t feel that different to him right now, does it?
Loyalty to the Fire Lord-
Did not require suicide. It never had. Soldiers might choose to fight to the death; he'd heard what other nations did to captured firebenders, and it was the stuff of nightmares.
Sokka: *crosses his arms* As opposed to what the Fire Nation does to their prisoners, which is clearly the stuff of sunshine and rainbows and fluffy polar puppies. Seriously, I saw the prison rig for earthbenders, I was at the Boiling Rock, and I heard all about what happened to Hama. And wait a minute, can’t you die if you break loyalty? So if your lord orders you onto a suicide mission, say, it seems like you kind of have a choice of “do it and die” or “don’t do it and die.” You lose either way.
The Real Victims: 4
But loyalty meant living for your lord, not dying for him. He was alive, and Uncle was alive, and they'd have another chance. Just as Iroh's soldiers had, after he'd broken the siege of Ba Sing Se.
He wasn't a traitor, Azula. He wasn't a coward. Did you read the casualty reports? It wasn't just Lu Ten. Those earthbenders made the terrain inside the wall a deathtrap. We can't afford losses like that. Not if we want to hold the rest of our territory in any kind of good order.
If we take land, it's ours. If people live there under our laws, they're our people. If we can't give them something better than the war, what's the point?
MG: *groans, rubs their forehead* Of course, on the one hand, take this with a grain of salt. It’s Zuko trying to justify things for himself, not a manifesto. On the other hand… this will be consistent with how the Fire Nation is going to be presented as operating throughout the fic. That any conquered land becomes part of the Fire Nation, and all conquered peoples become Fire Nation citizens. And that’s just… not how empires work. Broadly speaking, empires in general are going to have a central territory and population where power is located (the core) and an outer region of subjected lands and peoples from which resources are extracted to fuel the core (the periphery). Merely being conquered by the empire doesn’t make you part of the core (the core may gradually expand to encompass more and more of the empire’s subjects – see for one example, the gradual expansion of Roman citizenship until it was eventually extended to all free people in Roman territory – but this tends to take a long time when it happens, and it doesn’t always) it makes you subjected to the core. To paraphrase ACOUP, for much of human history empire was the dominant form of social organization, and by far the most common experience for humanity was being on the “business end” of the empire rather than directing it. And sure, this is a lot of oversimplification… but it bears out what we see of the Fire Nation in the show. We draw a clear distinction between the Fire Nation proper and the “colonies” elsewhere in the world, and there’s also a clear social hierarchy of actual Fire Nation citizens> Fire Nation colonials>everyone else. So, at best, this just feels like Zuko being very naïve about just what it is he’s still notionally a part of… and at worse, like yet more of Vathara choosing to whitewash her favorite faction at the expense of everyone else.
The Superior Element: 7
But it was the Fire Lord's war.
It's - it's not my problem. I have my orders. Capture the Avatar. Alive.
Azula said their father didn't care anymore-
Azula always lies!
Aang: I might have something to say about what kinds of people Ozai and Azula are and whether getting their approval was really worth any of this… but I know how long and hard it was for the real Zuko to figure that out, so I guess I’m just going to have to wish this version luck and hope he gets there too?
Breathe. Fold fingers into fists. Unclench them. The Avatar was gone, and Uncle was alive, and he was not a traitor. He just - had to think. About what to do next.
Scars and wear and callus, and the weird tickling of hair against his ears. Why couldn't he think?
Sokka: Uh, you’ve clearly just been through something really stressful and aren’t exactly in your right mind? And maybe you should try eating and drinking something? That usually helps!
Someone knocked on the door, brisk but quiet. "Hello?" A fumbling at the latch. "I'm looking for Lee? Your uncle said you could help."
Act normal, Zuko told himself, standing to reach the door.
…Would help if I had any idea what normal is.
MG: Which is actually another bit I like. As I’ve seen noted elsewhere, too much A:TLA badfic tries to depict Zuko as a suave and dangerous bad boy when the fact is that Zuko is a dork who clearly has very little idea how to handle ordinary human interactions in a lot of cases (Azula too, for that matter, when she’s in a situation where she can’t fall back on pretending to be a cold marble pillar or treating social interactions like a weapon). I appreciate that Vathara does remember that.
He braced himself and opened the door. "I'm Lee," he managed. "What's the-"
Green. A kind of nice, darker forest green, bordered by pale yellow like a shaft of sun through shadows. Only if the frogs closing her dress were there, then the soft roundness he was looking at was-
Flushing, Zuko jerked his eyes up to meet a blue gaze. "Where are you from, Kyoshi Island?"
Aang: Uuuh… I know Avatar Kyoshi was tall, but I never really noticed everyone else from Kyoshi Island being that tall?
Sokka: …so, should I be expecting Suki to be having a growth spurt sometime, or…? Not that I’d say no if she did, mind you…
MG: It does kind of make me wonder if the character we’re about to meet is actually meant to be distantly descended from Kyoshi herself (we know she had at least one daughter at some point in her life). Though the Kyoshi novels would later confirm that Kyoshi was not actually originally from the region that would become Kyoshi Island, and her height is not typical for that area.
Almost a head taller and at least a few years older, she looked down and back, her own jaw dropping as expressions flitted across her face. Annoyance, surprise, sudden shock….
Zuko stared right back, fingers curling. Don't you. Dare. Pity me. "What's the problem?" he said roughly. "Is someone hurt?"
Sokka: *rolling his eyes* Yeah, it’ll totally reassure her when the healer she’s been sent to fetch acts all surly like this…
"I'm Xiu," she said, eyes narrowed slightly in consideration. "My Grandma has an awful headache. Your uncle said you'd help." She backed up a step, and crossed her arms. "He didn't say you were raised by raven-wolves."
Aang: …I’ve heard about being raised by wolf-bats, is that different?
MG: And so, unless Asahi counts, Xiu is really the first of the fic’s stable of major recurring OCs we’re going to meet (there are going to be so many, guys). She’s… fairly unimportant, all told, but she’s going to crop up several more times across the fic when her path crosses with Zuko’s. So, she’s sort of like the cabbage merchant, but less comedic and with more characterization.
Sokka: …huh. Whatever did happen to that guy, at least after the Ember Island Players interviewed him?
"I was not!"
Aang: *glances back at the previous chapter* Raised by dragon-people, I guess?
"And you're half right. Dad was from Kyoshi Island. Left to join the military over here; no way was he wearing a dress. He just never went back."
Sokka: *outraged* That is a warrior’s uniform to you! And what, was Mr.-Xiu’s-Dad just too manly for that? I mean, Suki practically had to force me into the thing, but in my defense, I was fifteen, and kind of an idiot.
Zuko blinked, struck by the memory of a Southern Tribe wolf-tail above red and white makeup. It'd been pretty funny, afterward. Once he'd gotten over being slammed into the wall by the Avatar's fans. "Why are you telling me this?"
Sokka: And apparently even the story isn’t going to let me live that one down. Seriously, Vathara, you just couldn’t let it lie, could you?
"You remind me of my cousin, Yingpei," Xiu said ruefully. "He's lousy with people, too. And when he's surprised - well. It's not pretty." She tilted her head. "Coming?"
This was so many different kinds of wrong, it made his head hurt. Just get through it. "I need to get our teapot-"
Aang: You’re pretending to be a healer, and it sounds like this girl has someone who needs to get healed? I don’t think it’s that wrong?
"We've got hot water downstairs." She gave him a hint of a smile. "That's what your uncle said you like to work with, right?"
"Y-yeah." The floor was solid. He could feel it under his feet. Why did he have the same kind of knot in his gut as when the ship was about to fall into the trough of a rogue wave?
Just keep moving.
No candles lit the room the old woman rested in, though a basin of water sat on a warming pan of coals near a worn towel. She looked up when they opened the door, brown eyes slitted. "So you're a healer, young man?"
Just inside the doorway, Zuko froze.
I'm not a healer. I'm a firebender.
Aang: Technically, you’re kind of both?
I'm not Earth Kingdom. I'm not a waterbender. If Uncle didn't need this for our disguise….
Sokka: Yeah, yeah, you’d never dream of lowering yourself to pretend to be a waterbender if you didn’t have to, disrespect my culture a bit more, why don’t you… which I have a feeling Vathara is going to be doing a lot of, before we’re through.
I'm your enemy! Can't you see that? You don't want me here!
Aang: Technically, you are on the run from the Fire Nation – but I do have to wonder why Zuko is having this freakout now, when he’s been doing the healer thing for a while? Is it just because he’s already on edge from the bandit fight?
"He's not real great at talking, Grandma." Xiu shut the door, forcing him forward. "Go on, it's all right."
No. It wasn't. But-
Do what you have to.
Grimly, Zuko picked up worn cloth, and reached for hot water.
I think he thinks Grandma is going to eat him, Xiu thought wryly.
MG: Perhaps Zuko has mistaken Xiu’s grandma for a very confused and out-of-place Baba Yaga?
Not quite like Yingpei, then. Her cousin didn't usually know someone had ill intent until they stole his lunch out from under him. Lee seemed perfectly aware that Grandma was best handled with kid gloves, or possibly iron pincers. She was proud enough of her status as a fine silk weaver at the best of times; headaches made her downright cranky.
Leaning against the wall by the door, the younger weaver watched Lee work with interest. Outside of ports that the Water Tribes visited, how often did anyone get to see a bending healer?
Sokka: I mean, considering even Katara didn’t know she could do it until she stumbled onto it by accident, and we’d been traveling the world for a while by that point, I’d say “not very often.”
No one told me there were pretty colors.
Flickers of gold and green and violet, shimmering through cotton as Lee moved the steaming towel over Grandma's forehead. Like stories her father had told of the southern lights, dancing in Kyoshi Island's winter skies.
How did he know where Dad was from? Xiu wondered. Kyoshi's been neutral since the war started. Most people have never met an Islander.
Aang: Because you’re tall? Even though that really doesn’t make much sense…
A puzzle. And not the only one. Lee - well, from his height, she'd have guessed he was fourteen, tops.
Then again, maybe short just runs in the family. His uncle's pretty… compact.
Sokka: But Zuko clearly isn’t built like his uncle, so I’m not sure how far that gets you?
Must be. Lee certainly didn't act fourteen, and once you looked past the scar, he didn't look fourteen either.
Once you looked past the scar….
I'm an idiot. Burn scar - looks years old - and he's with his uncle? No parents?
War orphan. Had to be. Spirits, no wonder Lee was jumpy.
And no wonder he didn't know what to do with his eyes, either. If he was the late teens his voice gave away, he would have been burned just about the time he'd started figuring out girls just might like to go on walks in the moonlight. Ouch.
MG: Though do keep in mind that “dragon-children” apparently develop a bit slower than ordinary humans in this ‘verse; I wonder if that’s why Vathara keeps harping on how Zuko looks younger than his age (which isn’t really a thing people seem to think about him in canon).
Still. Some things about Lee just didn't fit.
That robe, for one.
Pine-dark, embroidered with old-fashioned fire-thorns in ruby-rust on every hem and seam. Not the expensive, flashy materials someone would use trying to impress; she was a master weaver, she knew what was in style. No; that was old-fashioned wild silk thread, spun from broken oak-cedar moth cocoons and dyed with cochineal-dew roasted with sea salt.
Earth and Air, Water and Fire. Someone was serious.
Mushi wearing a protective scarf was one thing; he was old as Grandma, probably, the kind of person who adhered to traditions because they suited him. Both of them? Either respect for the spirits ran in the family-
Somehow, that just doesn't seem to fit Lee.
Aang: I don’t know. Some of the old monks at the Southern Air Temple could be pretty grouchy. You can’t always just tell how spiritual someone is.
-Or they'd run into the same kind of trouble as the villagers near Hei Bai, after the Fire Nation burned the forest down. Angry spirits, who didn't care if the people they hurt were innocent. Which was… scary.
Sokka: Angry spirits also don’t care if the people they kidnap have a chance to use the bathroom, which is… less scary and more uncomfortable and inconvenient!
Kind of makes sense for him to be panicked, though. Great-Gran used to say, benders touch the spirit world to get their power. And it can touch them back.
Even that didn't sit right. There was just something about Lee that-
Pale hands shifted as he plunged cloth back into steaming water, and Xiu swallowed.
"What?" Lee asked roughly, glancing her way.
"I thought the dao were your uncle's," Xiu said honestly. She hadn't had much chance to look inside their room, but it wasn't much of a room. "They're yours, aren't they?"
Lee looked down at callused hands, and something shut down in his face. "The roads aren't safe."
Aang: Yeah, we met plenty of people who traveled armed. The roads really weren’t.
Which was no answer at all, and more than she wanted to know.
I've seen Dad look like that, after….
After he had to kill somebody.
Cool and calm, Xiu. Remember what Dad always says. Be like a mountain lake. If you're right - Lee's already jumpy. Don't make anything worse.
"No wonder you're such a confused young man," Grandma said sternly, squinting to test the absence of pain as Lee put the towel down. "A healer, learning steel? What is the world coming to?"
Sokka: …I guess Grandma hasn’t heard of a combat medic, then?
The door creaked slightly. "And why should one not?" Mushi said genially. "The waterbenders of the North Pole are some of the fiercest fighters anywhere. I have heard they recently turned back an assault by the Fire Navy."
Sokka: Yeah, and they also made it so that only women learn healing, and then not learn to fight, which Katara made a real big deal about not long before this, so I’m not quite sure that helps the point Iroh is trying to make here…
"I heard they had help," Lee said darkly.
"Hmm. A giant spirit-monster rampaging through the fleet," Mushi's hand made a sort of swimming motion, "would count, yes."
"Spirit-monster?" Grandma said skeptically. "Nonsense. The spirits haven't bothered with our world in over a century. They've abandoned us." She scowled. "Just like the Avatar."
Aang: *hunkers down, looking guilty*
"…He didn't abandon you."
"Lee," Mushi said quietly.
"It's wrong, Uncle! 'The Avatar has to save us. The Avatar abandoned us. The Avatar's returned, and he's going to fix everything.' That's all I hear, everywhere we go. And it's crazy! The Avatar is twelve years old!"
Sokka: …big words coming from the guy who was hoping the Avatar would return and solve all his problems… in a manner of speaking.
MG: I can’t help but feel that this is part of another of Vathara’s recurring ideas in the fic – trying to problematize the idea of putting the fate of the world entirely on the shoulders of one kid. Which, you know, a significant portion of the show is already about what a very difficult position that is to be in… and I also can’t help but feel that the not-so-subtle subtext is that Aang was the wrong kid and it should have been Zuko instead, because he actually knows what he’s doing, so it’s less “putting the fate of the world on the shoulders of one person is wrong” and more “the author’s favorite character would be better at it.” But clearly, Zuko is a whole sixteen rather than twelve, and those four years make all the difference/s.
He's… what? Xiu thought, stunned.
"The Avatar is a child! An idiotic, naïve, hyperactive little airbender who thinks everybody deserves to live!
Aang: Actually, the idea that all life is sacred is one of the most important Air Nomad teachings, and…
Sokka: *sighs* I somehow don’t think Vathara cares, Aang. I really don’t think she cares.
And people think he's going to save them? How? Ask the Fire Lord to think really, really hard about the war and decide to play nice?" Knuckles were bone-white in clenched fists. "You want somebody to save you from the Fire Nation? Grow up and do it yourselves!"
Sokka: Because clearly, this very old lady and her teenage(?) daughter are in a position to take on the Fire Nation, the greatest military power in the world, led by the world’s scariest firebender and his only-slightly-less-scary daughter. Sure; they should just get right on that.
Aang: And, uh, I was always planning to fight Ozai? I literally spent most of a year training to do that? Sure, I’d have liked to be able to talk to him and try and get him to see reason, but I think I always knew deep down that probably wasn’t going to happen.
He Has Much To Learn: 10
The door slamming was almost an afterthought.
Mushi blinked at the space where his nephew had been, and sighed. "I must apologize-"
"Indeed you must!" Grandma snapped, eyes glinting. "You're training that boy as a healer? He may be a bender, but he'll never do!"
Sokka: I mean, on the one hand there’s no need to be judgy – you can be a jerk and be good at things, they don’t cancel each other out! – but on the other hand Zuko did cross some lines there, so… everybody here probably needs to calm down a bit?
"I'd go to him," Xiu cut in, before her grandma could really get going. Respect for your elders was honorable and right, but it was also the reason Dad had left Kyoshi Island in the first place. And the reason she'd been stuck with Grandma on the trip back home, when Mom had decided to stay to help nurse Aunt Wen through the latest bout of fever. Thanks, Mom. You owe me. Big-time. "I like to hear the truth. Even if he is as blunt as a dropped ax." She stood straight, and gave Mushi a sober look. "It is true, isn't it?"
Mushi hesitated. "I might leave out idiotic…."
Aang: Uh, the part about my being a kid is right, but I’m pretty sure the part about Xiu and Grandma needing to fight the Fire Nation on their own isn’t, unless Xiu is secretly the world’s most powerful earthbender (sorry, Toph…) and Grandma has some sort of all-powerful spirit in her back pocket.
"Oh, boy," Xiu said faintly.
"My nephew spoke nothing but the truth," Mushi agreed soberly.
Sokka: Except for the part where he got really judgy about both Aang and you – that was more like an opinion, which is not the same thing!
MG: But keep in mind that Zuko is the author’s favorite character… which means that, while it’s true he’s not omniscient and not always right, Vathara does mostly keep him from being too egregiously wrong about anything, and the narrative backs him up more often than not…
Sokka: …great.
"We have encountered the Avatar on our travels, and while he is a master airbender, he has no wish to take a life.
Aang: Yeah, hello, monk here?
If people are hoping for a great warrior to stop the Fire Nation's advance, they are mistaken."
Sokka: Except for, you know, at the Northern Air Temple, and the Northern Water Tribe, and hey, even the Rough Rhinos at Chin Village – sure, maybe Aang’s not like some great warlord from the old sagas, but he’d kicked plenty of Fire Nation butt by this point! *beat* With some help.
He bowed to Grandma. "If you will excuse me…."
"Good riddance," Grandma sniffed.
Xiu sighed, already considering what she'd have to do to clean up, given Grandma's fading eyesight. Towel, water, coin purse - oh no. "Grandma! Did you pay him?"
Grandma straightened, obviously feeling well enough to act her stature. "We are silk weavers, Xiu. If a rag-tag tramp of a water-blooded peasant doesn't have enough sense to hold his tongue when- What are you doing?"
Sokka: …I’m starting to get the sneaking suspicion we’re not supposed to like Grandma very much – just a hunch!
It's dark in here. She probably didn't even see the scar. Much less… ooo, respect be damned! "He was bending, Grandma. He's hungry." Snatching clinking strings from the purse, she dashed out.
Light was flickering under their door; they must have had the window open, though Xiu couldn't feel any draft.
Aang: So… did Zuko set something on fire in there, or?
She couldn't make out what they were saying, either, but she didn't have to. Older sane relative trying to talk sense into a sullen teen was easy to pick out. She knocked. "Lee? You forgot something."
The door inched open, and Lee swallowed. "I'm - sorry?"
"Don't worry about it," Xiu said bluntly. "Grandma can't stand Yingpei, either." She looked at him askance. "I know your uncle's already given you an earful on this, but listen. If you're good, and I'm betting you are going to be good, you're going to have to deal with a lot of people like Grandma. This isn't like the border towns, or whatever little port you came from. This is the heart of the Earth Kingdom. I hate to say it, but a lot of our nobles and artisans think acting like that is a good reason to cheat you." She pressed the coins into his hands. "Don't let them."
MG: In contrast to Fire Nation nobles, who would never dream of doing anything so dishonorable *rolls eyes*. That said, while Vathara does like to take periodic swipes at lazy or corrupt Earth Kingdom nobles (to either implicitly or explicitly contrast them with the Fire Nation, of course) most of the ones we see on-page – including Toph, as we’ve already seen, and also the Earth King himself when we meet him – still end up beneficiaries of her thing for aristocrats in one way or another.
He stared at her as if she were as weird as the Earth King's bear. "But… why?"
"Dad was from Kyoshi Island, remember?" Xiu smiled wryly. "I've seen it all before. He always said, noble blood might be a gift from the spirits, but noble behavior is a gift you give your family. And yourself."
Aang: And the monks always said that a noble’s life isn’t any more or less important than a commoners, or an ostrich-horse’s, or even a bug’s. All life is connected and all life has value and what you’re born as is less important than how you live… but I guess they wouldn’t think about it that way in either the Earth Kingdom or the Fire Nation.
She backed up a step, and grinned. "Besides, you kind of did me a favor. Grandma's going to be so mad about you, all 'improper behavior' and 'what is this world coming to', she's not going to even think about pestering me to 'stop pining after that no-good soldier boy and settle down with a nice rich young man'. As if. Rich men's wives don't get to weave the way I do." She winked at him.
"Um… you're welcome?"
"Xiu!" rang down the hall.
"Good luck, Lee!" Still grinning, she dashed off.
One nag-free night, coming up. Yay!
Sokka: I, uh, guess I’m happy for her? *muttering* Even if her grandma makes me think a bit of what Master Pakku was like before he loosened up…
"I must give my compliments to Master Xueyou's wife," Iroh said, leaning back on his cot as he rubbed a bit of candle-wax between his fingers. "That was delicious!"
"You can probably tell her in the morning. If you catch her early enough." Zuko's eyes were closed, but he lay tense on the futon below, obviously awake despite the darkness.
"Early?" Iroh arched an eyebrow. Firebenders rose with the sun, true, but given the chance, most people slept later.
Sokka: Yeah, because firebenders are weird (and apparently much weirder in this story…) what else is new?
"Bread with dinner. Made this morning. She's probably up hours before dawn."
MG: *quietly refers back to Chapter Three and LanWan’s observation about staple grains in the periods the Earth Kingdom is based on and how they’re prepared*
"Ah, yes." Iroh smiled. "I forget, sometimes, how often you found the ship's ghost watch convenient, to be… unobserved."
"Not as easy as you'd think," Zuko said quietly. "Bakers, millers, brewers… smiths, sometimes… all kinds of people get up in the dark."
Aang: Blue Spirits, sometimes…
He shifted on the futon. "Where are we going?"
"Full Moon Bay, eventually," Iroh answered, allowing the conversation to shift. One of these days he would pin Zuko down about the Blue Spirit. But not tonight. "We will make a stop shortly beforehand, to pick up some… documentation."
"False documents."
Sokka: No, real documents, with a great big “we’re the Fire Lord’s brother and son, please come arrest us!” seal stamped on them. You’ll blend right in!
"But very good forgeries, I am assured," Iroh said cheerfully. "From there, we should be able to reach Ba Sing Se unhindered. The city is vast, and full of refugees. We should pass unnoticed."
"You mean hide." But it wasn't accusing. Just… tired.
"Yes," Iroh acknowledged. "We are tired, nephew. We need rest, and time to breathe, before we plan our next move." And I intend to stretch that time as long as possible.
"We have a bounty on our heads, Uncle! Hiding's no good if someone knows where you are!"
But no one would- oh. He had not explained, had he? "Master Xueyou does not know who we are," Iroh said firmly. "He recognized the moves, and certain words. But the only name he knows, is Mushi."
Aang: And, uh, nobody tied him to you or has any idea he’d done anything wrong, so why would they even be questioning him in the first place?
Zuko's hand lifted, hesitated near his face. "I'm not exactly easy to miss, Uncle. If Azula finds this place-"
"Then it is well that Xueyou knows my nephew is a waterbender, is it not?" Iroh said pleasantly.
"…You set up that thing with Xiu's Grandma on purpose."
Sokka: So, what, if Iroh hadn’t needed a cover story he’d have just left the old lady to suffer? That doesn’t sound much like the Iroh I know…
"It was convenient," the retired general allowed. "Two leaves in the forest, nephew. I rely on your courage, and determination."
"You do?"
Spirits, the surprise in his nephew's voice. And - was that a hint of hope? Toph was right. I do need to tell him I need him. "I have always relied on you to do what you believed was right, nephew."
Zuko: *sticking his head in* Too bad my sense of right and wrong was still all turned around at this point…
Aang: Hey, don’t worry about it, you were trying, and you figured it out eventually, right?
Sokka: Could’ve figured it out a bit sooner, but who’s keeping track?
Gold eyes glanced at him, then away. "Why did she do that?"
"Because Xiu has her own honor," Iroh said plainly. "Get some rest, nephew. If we move too slowly in the morning, I fear we are destined to meet that most unpleasant woman again. And some destinies are best avoided."
With a snort of laughter, Zuko pulled the covers over his head.
Aang: …that kind of makes it sound like they’re avoiding a prophecy about meeting her again or something… which would be kind of weird, but not the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen? And I do think it’s kind of obvious Vathara really wants us not to like Grandma.
Smiling himself, Iroh turned the bit of wax over again, recalling Zuko's stricken look as the candle flared in the wake of their argument. I know I can rely on you, nephew. But I think, wherever we hide, we will need shutters.
Small enough price to pay, for that glimmer of hope on Zuko's face.
That was the boy I knew, years ago. The one I thought I had lost with Lady Ursa.
MG: Because spending three years at sea with Zuko – including the bit where, you know, Zuko went out of his way to rescue his uncle from being captured by earthbenders, or when Zuko temporarily put aside his hunt for Aang to protect his crew, or when Iroh outright admitted he viewed Zuko as being like another son to him – don’t count?
How very odd, that speaking of the Avatar should bring it so close to the surface….
No. Not the Avatar. That Aang is a child, expected to do the impossible.
Only for the Avatar it was possible. Or so legends said. Even the boy himself seemed to think so.
Aang: Possible. That is not the same thing as easy.
Still. Why should that strike home with his nephew, who truly did have an impossible task…?
MG: *sighs* And of course, we have to be reminded that Zuko, in Vathara’s opinion, has a worse task than Aang…
Oh, spirits.
His Zuko. His dear, shy nephew, who worked so hard and loved them all so fiercely, years ago. Who failed so often, but struggled onward, because he had hope.
He never believed it was impossible.
Iroh let out a quiet breath, resisting the urge to pound his head against the wall. Zuko needed his sleep.
Yet another true proverb: there is no fool like an old fool.
All this time - all this time! - he had thought Zuko's quest driven by pure, stubborn determination. A burning need to take the cruel fate, the punishment, that had been unjustly laid on him, and force it down Ozai's throat.
I was wrong. It was never about rage.
Not rage as most knew it, at least. Not the bitter anger driven by hate. No; this was a brighter, purer flame, and all the more desperate for it.
He loves his father. And so the task must not be impossible.
MG: Hmmm. On the one hand, this is one of those bits that, in a vacuum, is pretty gut-wrenching, both Iroh’s realization and what it says about Zuko’s character. At the same time, and this may just be a question of interpretation, but I don’t really agree with it? The impression I always got from the show is that Zuko was very much aware that Ozai had intended sending him after the Avatar to be a futile snipe hunt whose sole purpose was to humiliate him – he was just single-mindedly determined to prove himself by doing it anyway. Again, maybe this is just quibbling over details, but I do think it reflects Vathara’s overall approach to writing Zuko – he has to be the most sympathetic and the biggest victim who has suffered most but still has basically morally pure motivations. And maybe it’s just the overall knowledge of the fic’s Zuko-centric morality that makes me read this in a negative light – or maybe it’s just a point of characterization where there’s some ambiguity and Vathara and I happen to disagree. Not giving any points, in any case, but it just felt worth noting. And I also think this is kind of a reflection of a theme where Iroh is the one explaining Zuko’s mindset to the reader, so he has to only realize important elements of his nephew’s characterization as the fic goes on… which I don’t think reflects very well on Vathara’s Iroh, considering this is the same man who is supposed to love the boy like a son and be the good father figure his actual father never was.
And if he fails, again and again… it is not because it cannot be done. It is because he is as Ozai has always told him he is. A disappointment. A failure. No true son of the Fire Lord.
MG: Hmm. Again, I think Zuko was absolutely aware of just how difficult the task that had been set before him was, especially after Aang slipped through his fingers the first time. But I also do agree that it would’ve only further fueled Zuko’s sense of failure and inadequacy each time Aang got away, so… toss-up?
Not a punishment; not to his nephew. A gift. A poisonous, terrible gift, that Zuko had taken to his heart. For it was a gift from his father, and what else could he do?
Spirits. What do I do?
Sleep, Iroh decided sternly. You were wrong. Know you were wrong. What you told Zuko is still true: you are both tired. Rest, and see if a better answer presents itself.
And hope the spirits have no more bandits between here and Ba Sing Se.
MG: Well, we’re almost to Ba Sing Se, which is where the fic is really going to get in gear. As for bandits in Ba Sing Se… maybe, if Jet counts (I’m sure Vathara totally thinks Jet counts; she does not like Jet).
"You're twitching," Zuko said dryly, leading Asahi down the dusty road.
Uncle Iroh blinked at him, almost innocent. "Oh? And why would two innocent traveling healers need to be alarmed, Lee?"
Sokka: Uh, you already mentioned the possibility of bandits? Bandits aren’t really known for respecting the sanctity or your person or whatever – that’s kind of what makes them bandits!
Right. Like he needed any extra reminders to watch his tongue, out here where anyone might be listening. Every once in a while they passed other travelers; sometimes a few weary stragglers, sometimes whole caravans.
For a hidden bay the Fire Nation's not supposed to know about, this place is awfully popular.
Aang: It was kinda full of refugees, wasn’t it? Though I think the Fire Nation had bigger things to worry about right then – literally, this is when they were about to use the Drill, isn’t it?
"You're twitching," Zuko repeated, letting his gaze flick over road, rocks, trees. "Just wait. Whatever it is, it'll get us later. When you're not expecting it."
"It has been remarkably quiet these past few days," Uncle grumbled.
"Like I said. Wait."
It had been quiet. Quiet enough, long enough, that all his screaming nerves had pretty much screamed themselves out, and were now quivering in exhausted knots while Zuko held his breath in anticipation of the next disaster.
At least I've got the teapot bluff down.
Sokka: …out of context, “the teapot bluff” sounds like it could’ve been one of those scams we ran with Toph in the Fire Nation. Just saying.
He'd had one or two false starts in the past few days, complete with nervous looks at the little firepot that seemed to flare contrary to breezes or fuel. But he'd persisted, and slowly, things seemed to fall into place. Using hot water was still hard… but it was a good hard, like a tough practice, or climbing down rough cliffs. He could handle it. Unlike Uncle, who was all but tearing gray hair out trying to get candle flames to flux into the healing fire, those few times they could practice unobserved.
He'll get it. We just need some time.
They'd have time, if Uncle was right about Ba Sing Se. And yet….
It's too easy.
Someplace they could hide. Someplace they'd be safe. Someplace no one from the Fire Nation had ever, supposedly, been able to invade - so obviously, anyone who made it inside couldn't be Fire Nation, and no one would suspect them.
Perfect. Too perfect.
It's a trap.
Sokka: *flatly* Yeah, I don’t think Long Feng and the Dai Li were exactly looking for you. “Too good to be true” isn’t the same as “trap.”
He didn't know how. Not yet. But he hadn't survived thirteen years in the palace and more than three scouring the world without listening to his instincts. They might be flawed and tattered and singing tension down his nerves whenever a stray lizard-bird twitched wrong, but they'd kept him alive.
Perfect and pretty equaled poison. White jade. Flutter-hornets. Azula.
But Uncle thinks it's safe.
No. Uncle hoped it was safe. He might have intelligence and reports and secret society contacts, but he'd never been there. And while Zuko knew his grasp of military strategy paled next to Azula's, he knew this: a good commander never, ever declared an area safe. Not until he'd ground-truthed it himself.
Aang: That still doesn’t sound like “trap,” it sounds like “might be dangerous.” Which it was! Trust me, I nearly died in Ba Sing Se, I know what I’m talking about! But it’s not really a “trap.”
He's counting on me.
Okay. He could deal with that. Stay calm, stay back; let Uncle be the friendly face while he watched for the jaws of the trap. Then, depending on the situation, either tell Iroh what he'd found-
And hope he listens - no, he promised he would. He promised.
-Or, if everything had just dropped into Koh's lair in a hand-basket, grab Uncle and run.
Aang: …how does Zuko know about Koh? I’d never heard of him before Roku sent me to ask him about the Moon and Ocean Spirits!
MG: Well, spoilers, but Vathara has decided to make Koh into a well-known and much-feared mythological figure in-universe, with “Koh’s lair” and similar terms being used as curse’s like an English-speaker IRL would use “hell” (to be fair, this fic was mostly written before Korra introduced the Fog of Lost Souls). More on what Vathara does with Koh as a character as the fic goes on; for now, let’s just say I do not like Vathara’s Koh and think he has very little to do with the character as presented in the show and captures very little of what made canon!Koh so popular and frightening; she also falls into the fallacy that “Koh is the scariest spirit Aang meets in canon, so he must be the absolute worst thing the Spirit World has to offer,” which later Avatarverse material would quite comprehensively debunk. Again, more later. To be fair, calling out Vathara for having Koh be more widely known than he was in canon may be a bit hypocritical of me – in one of my own fics I had Azula be familiar with stories of Koh, but I’d always kind of justified it to myself that a younger Azula might well be drawn to stories of frightening and terrible things and found her way to some obscure stuff; and I’d have done things differently if I was writing that fic now. Again, this may be nitpicky, but it is something I wanted to bring up.
Decision made, Zuko breathed a sigh of relief, murmuring endearments to Asahi when she turned her head to look at him. He had a plan. Not much of a plan, but given what usually happened to his plans….
Yu Yan archers. Typhoons. Ocean-spirits. Azula.
Sokka: Hey! You left out “boomerangs”!
Given that, he'd just have to keep his eyes open and be ready to improvise.
Speaking of. "Someone thinks they're being sneaky," Zuko murmured, not looking where the brush was rustling.
"I see." Iroh smiled, gentle as a komodo-rhino about to take down an annoying little gate. "I believe we should allow him to think us fooled. For now."
Harmless travelers. Right. Damn.
Turning off the open road to reach the oddly tree-shaped rock Iroh's source had described, the retired general stopped, and cleared his throat. "Hello?"
"No names!" Shorter than Earth Kingdom average, and not at all skinny, the man who slunk out of the bushes still reminded Zuko of a weasel-mink. Without the pretty coat. "No names, I don't know you, you don't know me, I was never here- urk!"
Sokka: You know, you’d think someone who does sneaky stuff for a living might be a little less conspicuous about it…
Casually gripping the man's wrist, Zuko held him while Iroh checked the little documents their nameless contact had pressed into his hands. "They appear to be in order," Uncle said calmly.
"Of course they're in order! You don't think I'd risk my life - er, your lives - with bad papers, do you? You've got what you were promised! Let go!"
"Who are you afraid of?" Zuko asked darkly.
"Afraid? Me? Do I look afraid? Ha!" The man yanked against his grip, and blanched. "Son of a hog-monkey- er, I mean, you can let go anytime-"
Aang: Okay, even I can tell this guy’s about five seconds away from fainting. Is he really the best person for this job the White Lotus had?
"Who'd trace fake papers back to you?" Zuko said, voice low and dangerous. "Tell me!"
"N-no one! I swear!" He yanked harder, and yelped.
"You are, perhaps, unaware of the consequences of that particular hold, Master Nameless," Iroh observed thoughtfully. "Another such unwise move is likely to fracture your wrist. Which would do much damage to one of your more… lucrative sources of income."
Sokka: Also, it would really, really hurt. Don’t underestimate that part!
Sweating, the forger gulped.
"Now. So that we may all avoid unpleasantness, and leave you to enrich yourself further - who is it, that you fear more than simple refugees longing for a better life?"
"The - the Dai Li," the forger stuttered. "They work for the Earth King. Or so people say. They don't leave Ba Sing Se, usually, but when they do… they're earthbenders. Cross them, and you just disappear. Or - worse."
"Worse?" Iroh asked levelly.
"I don't know. I don't know! People say - sometimes those they take, go away for a while. And when they come back, they're not them anymore. No one knows why. No one knows how! But it happens. And it's not going to happen to me!"
MG: So, this is kind of interesting, considering how Vathara is going to end up lionizing the Dai Li later on (which you may recall I have a whole count waiting for, though I’ve not had occasion to dust it off yet). Like, Long Feng still gets to be a bad guy, sure, but basically the entire rest of the organization – including Long Feng’s apparent number two – are just “honorable men making the hard decisions to protect their city” with a real secret and totally important and necessary purpose the show never even alludes to; we get a few more references to the Dai Li’s canon atrocities, but somehow none of the various Dai Li agents we’re supposed to sympathize with are directly involved in them. Convenient, that. In any case, more on this later, though it does make me wonder if Vathara just hadn’t decided what she wanted to do with the Dai Li yet, or if this guy is just meant to be misleading.
At Iroh's glance, Zuko let him go. "Thank you for the generous advice," Iroh said genially. "We wish you the best of fortune."
Straightening his robes, the forger sniffed. "You're going to need more than that. They don't let animals into Ba Sing Se. Not with refugees." With a last, irate glance toward Zuko, he scurried back down the road.
They don't…. Zuko swallowed hard, patting Asahi's neck when she bumped against him. "Uncle?"
Aang: Ooh, boy. I remember that old lady freaking out about cabbage slugs… and poor Asahi is a bit bigger and more conspicuous than a slug…
Iroh sighed. "I have the name of a reputable caravan master, as well," he said plainly. "We should be able to find a representative of his near the ferries."
Oh.
Breathe. In and out. He hadn't been gutted by a sword blade. It just felt that way.
"I am sorry, nephew-"
"Let's go," Zuko said harshly, tugging on Asahi's reins. "We're wasting daylight."
He could make it to shore after he'd been blown out of his own ship. He could do this.
Besides, it wasn't like he'd had the right to expect anything else.
Silly Zuzu, Azula's voice crooned as he walked. You know nothing you love is yours to keep.
MG: And, on the one hand, this is a pretty powerful gut-punch of a moment on its own. Most of the individual moments of Zuko bonding with Asahi are pretty good, actually. I think a bigger issue is what’s between those moments, where Asahi often feels like she just… drops out of sight for long stretches, including this very chapter (which makes the sudden twist ending of Zuko having to be separated from her feel more random than it probably should). Now, I know, animal companions are hard to write – and unlike in a visual medium, you can’t just have them be a constant presence in the background without explicitly going out of your way to point them out, generally speaking – but it does feel to me like Vathara isn’t as consistent as she could be about making Asahi a major, continuous presence in the story, and that hurts the intense Aang-and-Appa type bond she wants us to see Zuko and Asahi as having. Then again, as I mentioned back in my read of Embers on my journal, maybe it’s just that I’m not really a horse person. Anyway, that’s it for today’s chapter, and on to the AN! Which is very short!
-
A/N: We will see Asahi again, but it'll take several chapters.
MG: “Several chapters” here having the meaning of “not until after the Ba Sing Se arc is done,” but yes, Asahi is going to be showing up again.
And yes, the Star Wars reference in Chapter 6 was intentional. I couldn't resist.
MG: And here we have confirmation of the Star Wars reference I mentioned last time. And that’s it for the AN! Anyway, this chapter… was mostly pretty decent, getting a chance to see more of Zuko being a healer, dealing with his guilt over killing the bandits last time, and Iroh trying to help him work through his trauma, with most of my issues – the rant about Aang, the aside about Fire Nation governance, some of the details of Zuko and Iroh’s characterization or the worldbuilding – feeling more like nitpicking than anything, though they all stand out to me because I know they’re reflective of deeper issues in the fic as a whole.
Anyway, with this chapter complete, we’re now also done with what TVTropes calls the “Walking the Earth Kingdom” arc – ie, the fic’s first major arc! Woohoo! On the one hand, this is probably the consistently best part of the fic. Vathara tends to work best when focusing just on Zuko and Iroh, their various adventures, and Zuko gradually developing his fire-healing and working to untangle his past and his various issues. Really, most of my bigger problems – the characterization of the Gaang, the portrayal of the Fire Nation, its relation to other nations, and the war, things like loyalty, Zuko starting to become Special, etc. – are more signs of worse things to come than anything. On the other hand, this part of the fic does meander a bit and feels very episodic without clear focus, and we do have some gratuitous darkness (you know what I mean, the rape stuff) that just feels like it was thrown in to be edgy and doesn’t really add anything of substance to the fic. And we’ve already seen some of the holes in the fic’s supposed “realism” and “well-researched worldbuilding” (thanks again to LanWan for helping me catch some of this stuff!). Still, compared to some of the other stuff I’ve been sporking, at the moment this is practically a breath of fresh air (though I know that’ll be changing the further into the meat of things we go). Something that does jump out at me as, weirdly, how these first few chapters barely even feel like Embers. As of yet, the fic’s actual overarching plot hasn’t even really shown itself yet, though some elements have been introduced; we’ve heard a lot about Ozai but the fic’s other two big bads have really only been alluded to in the most vague ways; we’ve barely met any of the multitudinous OCs the fic is going to end up full of; even a lot of the defining and controversial elements of the fic – the Fire Nation favoritism, the dragon stuff, Zuko being the specialest person in the world, Air Nomad and Water Tribe bashing, Aang and Katara bashing, etc. – are present, but only in their infancy.
Unfortunately, next time we’re going to start the first part of the Ba Sing Se arc, which is where we’re going to immediately meet a lot more of Vathara’s major OCs, and a lot of the fic’s more notable elements are going to either be introduced or get a lot more promiment. We’ll see you then! Our counts stand at:
Beware the Sugar Queen: 5
The Blind Bandit Wins Again: 8
The Deadly Depths: 1
Detached from Reality: 6
Divine Right to Rule: 7
Elemental Determinism: 3
He Has Much to Learn: 10
Prince Stuko: 14
The Real Victims: 4
Simple Rubes from the Water Tribes: 6
Stations of the Canon: 13
The Superior Element: 7
The Ultimate Firebenders: 8
Warning: This chapter contains some discussion of the deaths from the previous chapter.
MG: Well, everyone, it’s time to continue our journey through Vathara’s Embers! Last time, Zuko and Iroh saved some bystanders from bandits, Zuko learned some new tricks and started pretending to be a waterbender, we learned about some of Vathara’s interesting takes on the idea of balance and the Avatar’s role, and got some unfortunately victim-blamey commentary on the Air Nomad genocide. Yay. Today, we wrap up the fic’s first major arc and meet a minor but noteworthy recurring character. Joining us today will be Sokka and Aang!
Chapter 7
Baths are good, Zuko thought wearily, sneaking from the tavern's bathhouse in through the kitchen's back door, silently dancing through the blind spots of the preoccupied cook at the stove and her harried sons as they scurried in and out with food and dishes. Uncle might have found a fellow Pai Sho enthusiast in the bartender, but Zuko still preferred not to use the front door. No sense asking for attention.
No sense at all, given the bartender apparently wasn't just a bartender.
Sokka: It was Combustion Man, making an early appearance! Hey, the guy had to be doing something with his life in-between carrying out hits on people, right?
MG: As amusing as that would be, Combustion Man actually doesn’t appear in the fic at all, IIRC.
Sokka: …huh. I’d have thought Vathara would like a guy who could shoot fire with his brain.
Order of the White Lotus. What on earth is that? And Uncle's a Grand Master? What the hell's going on?
Aang: Wait, the bartender just happened to work for the White Lotus? And Zuko just happened to overhear him and Iroh talking about it?
MG: Well, in canon, it was a florist who was a member of the White Lotus that Zuko and Iroh met… but apparently we still need to have that bit, just in a completely different location with a different guy.
Stations of the Canon: 13
Out of the kitchen, through the common room's shadows, and up the stairs. They actually had a room, for once, even if it wasn't much more than a glorified closet with a cot and a window. And how Uncle had pulled that off, he really didn't want to know.
Aang: Sounds like he just sweet-talked the guy or used White Lotus connections? Do I want to know what else Zuko thinks he did?
He should want to know. He should be down there kicking in the bartender's door, or at least leaning on it, listening in to Uncle's conversation.
But he was tired. And sick, in a way fire couldn't heal.
Sokka: Well, fire’s not the only element that can heal… but I guess Vathara’s going to decide she hates my sister before too long, so that’s off the table.
MG: Well, we’ll be meeting another waterbending healer next time – and we’re going to have things to say about her, believe me.
Door closed behind him, Zuko curled up near the window, breathing in spring's night air. Baths were good. Clean hair. Clean skin. Clean clothes - though half of them were borrowed, and he was wearing a too-familiar embroidered robe over them all to hold in as much of the bath's heat as he could manage.
Too bad a bath couldn't do anything for his mind.
Aang: I don’t know; baths can be surprisingly soothing if you go into them in the right mindset!
No witnesses.
Eleven bandits, snuffed out like candle flames.
Candles I could light again.
Sokka: *nonplussed* Zuko, I’m very glad you have the decency to feel bad about killing, even killing bad guys… but I think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself if you think you can raise the dead.
MG: Weirdly, the way this is worded just puts me in mind of a bit early in Garth Nix’s Sabriel, where the title character stumbles onto some dead soldiers and is seriously tempted to try and resurrect them. Of course, Sabriel could try to do that because she’s not a healer, she’s a necromancer… and because of how necromancy works in that setting, there are very, very good reasons why she shouldn’t try to do that.
Tactically, he knew Uncle was right. There had been too many to take them with just bare hands and steel. And once they started bending….
Once they started, they couldn't leave anyone alive.
If we're discovered, we're dead.
And they hadn't been good people. To put it mildly. He still felt sick.
MG: Like Sokka, I do appreciate this bit. Intellectually, Zuko knows the bandits were bad guys and also why, tactically, he and Iroh couldn’t risk letting them live (though I am a bit creeped out that “kill anyone who sees us firebending” seems to rate higher as a priority than “kill them because they’re murderous bandits”) but he still has enough since of decency to feel sickened by it.
I don't want to die. I don't want Uncle to die. Zuko dug fingers into his scalp, nails biting even through hair. So get a grip and deal with it already!
It didn't feel right. Nothing felt right.
Letting go, he stared at his fingertips, and wondered when his own hands had betrayed him.
Aang: *bemused* Okay, who let the bloodbender in here? Is it even the full moon?
Still strong, despite everything they'd been through. Still callused with years of stubborn blade-work and firebending katas. But other marks were starting to appear. Red-rubbed skin, where Asahi's reins tugged against him. Nails rough-trimmed almost to the quick, after hunger had left them prone to tearing.
MG: Huh. You know, this description makes it sound like Zuko has ordinary human nails. However, as we’ll later learn, in Embers!verse he – and most Fire Nationals – actually don’t. Remember last chapter’s bit about dragons and the Fire Nation being descended from them? So in hindsight this bit feels very odd, and makes me wonder just when Vathara decided to commit to certain aspects of her worldbuilding.
Thin white scars on the back of his left hand; he thought they were from that ill-fated attempt to drag the Avatar through the blizzard. But he wasn't sure.
It scared him, that he wasn't sure.
MG: That said, I do like this whole bit of Zuko seeing the evidence of all he’s been through on his hands and being painfully aware of how it’s changed him.
You had him, Zuzu, Azula's voice crooned in his mind. You had him, and you were just too weak to hold him.
Sokka: To be fair, running off with Aang into the middle of a blizzard at the North Pole was not one of Zuko’s finer hours.
At the fortress. At the North Pole. In the desert-
No, Zuko told himself, remembering fear and panic and rage as charred flesh knit back together under his fingers. Not that time.
Three master benders and an idiot with a boomerang against him. On his side, an injured man. And the sure knowledge of a returning enemy.
Aang: Yeah, Zuko didn’t even really try to hold onto us that time. We all knew we had bigger things to worry about… but I guess it really doesn’t feel that different to him right now, does it?
Loyalty to the Fire Lord-
Did not require suicide. It never had. Soldiers might choose to fight to the death; he'd heard what other nations did to captured firebenders, and it was the stuff of nightmares.
Sokka: *crosses his arms* As opposed to what the Fire Nation does to their prisoners, which is clearly the stuff of sunshine and rainbows and fluffy polar puppies. Seriously, I saw the prison rig for earthbenders, I was at the Boiling Rock, and I heard all about what happened to Hama. And wait a minute, can’t you die if you break loyalty? So if your lord orders you onto a suicide mission, say, it seems like you kind of have a choice of “do it and die” or “don’t do it and die.” You lose either way.
The Real Victims: 4
But loyalty meant living for your lord, not dying for him. He was alive, and Uncle was alive, and they'd have another chance. Just as Iroh's soldiers had, after he'd broken the siege of Ba Sing Se.
He wasn't a traitor, Azula. He wasn't a coward. Did you read the casualty reports? It wasn't just Lu Ten. Those earthbenders made the terrain inside the wall a deathtrap. We can't afford losses like that. Not if we want to hold the rest of our territory in any kind of good order.
If we take land, it's ours. If people live there under our laws, they're our people. If we can't give them something better than the war, what's the point?
MG: *groans, rubs their forehead* Of course, on the one hand, take this with a grain of salt. It’s Zuko trying to justify things for himself, not a manifesto. On the other hand… this will be consistent with how the Fire Nation is going to be presented as operating throughout the fic. That any conquered land becomes part of the Fire Nation, and all conquered peoples become Fire Nation citizens. And that’s just… not how empires work. Broadly speaking, empires in general are going to have a central territory and population where power is located (the core) and an outer region of subjected lands and peoples from which resources are extracted to fuel the core (the periphery). Merely being conquered by the empire doesn’t make you part of the core (the core may gradually expand to encompass more and more of the empire’s subjects – see for one example, the gradual expansion of Roman citizenship until it was eventually extended to all free people in Roman territory – but this tends to take a long time when it happens, and it doesn’t always) it makes you subjected to the core. To paraphrase ACOUP, for much of human history empire was the dominant form of social organization, and by far the most common experience for humanity was being on the “business end” of the empire rather than directing it. And sure, this is a lot of oversimplification… but it bears out what we see of the Fire Nation in the show. We draw a clear distinction between the Fire Nation proper and the “colonies” elsewhere in the world, and there’s also a clear social hierarchy of actual Fire Nation citizens> Fire Nation colonials>everyone else. So, at best, this just feels like Zuko being very naïve about just what it is he’s still notionally a part of… and at worse, like yet more of Vathara choosing to whitewash her favorite faction at the expense of everyone else.
The Superior Element: 7
But it was the Fire Lord's war.
It's - it's not my problem. I have my orders. Capture the Avatar. Alive.
Azula said their father didn't care anymore-
Azula always lies!
Aang: I might have something to say about what kinds of people Ozai and Azula are and whether getting their approval was really worth any of this… but I know how long and hard it was for the real Zuko to figure that out, so I guess I’m just going to have to wish this version luck and hope he gets there too?
Breathe. Fold fingers into fists. Unclench them. The Avatar was gone, and Uncle was alive, and he was not a traitor. He just - had to think. About what to do next.
Scars and wear and callus, and the weird tickling of hair against his ears. Why couldn't he think?
Sokka: Uh, you’ve clearly just been through something really stressful and aren’t exactly in your right mind? And maybe you should try eating and drinking something? That usually helps!
Someone knocked on the door, brisk but quiet. "Hello?" A fumbling at the latch. "I'm looking for Lee? Your uncle said you could help."
Act normal, Zuko told himself, standing to reach the door.
…Would help if I had any idea what normal is.
MG: Which is actually another bit I like. As I’ve seen noted elsewhere, too much A:TLA badfic tries to depict Zuko as a suave and dangerous bad boy when the fact is that Zuko is a dork who clearly has very little idea how to handle ordinary human interactions in a lot of cases (Azula too, for that matter, when she’s in a situation where she can’t fall back on pretending to be a cold marble pillar or treating social interactions like a weapon). I appreciate that Vathara does remember that.
He braced himself and opened the door. "I'm Lee," he managed. "What's the-"
Green. A kind of nice, darker forest green, bordered by pale yellow like a shaft of sun through shadows. Only if the frogs closing her dress were there, then the soft roundness he was looking at was-
Flushing, Zuko jerked his eyes up to meet a blue gaze. "Where are you from, Kyoshi Island?"
Aang: Uuuh… I know Avatar Kyoshi was tall, but I never really noticed everyone else from Kyoshi Island being that tall?
Sokka: …so, should I be expecting Suki to be having a growth spurt sometime, or…? Not that I’d say no if she did, mind you…
MG: It does kind of make me wonder if the character we’re about to meet is actually meant to be distantly descended from Kyoshi herself (we know she had at least one daughter at some point in her life). Though the Kyoshi novels would later confirm that Kyoshi was not actually originally from the region that would become Kyoshi Island, and her height is not typical for that area.
Almost a head taller and at least a few years older, she looked down and back, her own jaw dropping as expressions flitted across her face. Annoyance, surprise, sudden shock….
Zuko stared right back, fingers curling. Don't you. Dare. Pity me. "What's the problem?" he said roughly. "Is someone hurt?"
Sokka: *rolling his eyes* Yeah, it’ll totally reassure her when the healer she’s been sent to fetch acts all surly like this…
"I'm Xiu," she said, eyes narrowed slightly in consideration. "My Grandma has an awful headache. Your uncle said you'd help." She backed up a step, and crossed her arms. "He didn't say you were raised by raven-wolves."
Aang: …I’ve heard about being raised by wolf-bats, is that different?
MG: And so, unless Asahi counts, Xiu is really the first of the fic’s stable of major recurring OCs we’re going to meet (there are going to be so many, guys). She’s… fairly unimportant, all told, but she’s going to crop up several more times across the fic when her path crosses with Zuko’s. So, she’s sort of like the cabbage merchant, but less comedic and with more characterization.
Sokka: …huh. Whatever did happen to that guy, at least after the Ember Island Players interviewed him?
"I was not!"
Aang: *glances back at the previous chapter* Raised by dragon-people, I guess?
"And you're half right. Dad was from Kyoshi Island. Left to join the military over here; no way was he wearing a dress. He just never went back."
Sokka: *outraged* That is a warrior’s uniform to you! And what, was Mr.-Xiu’s-Dad just too manly for that? I mean, Suki practically had to force me into the thing, but in my defense, I was fifteen, and kind of an idiot.
Zuko blinked, struck by the memory of a Southern Tribe wolf-tail above red and white makeup. It'd been pretty funny, afterward. Once he'd gotten over being slammed into the wall by the Avatar's fans. "Why are you telling me this?"
Sokka: And apparently even the story isn’t going to let me live that one down. Seriously, Vathara, you just couldn’t let it lie, could you?
"You remind me of my cousin, Yingpei," Xiu said ruefully. "He's lousy with people, too. And when he's surprised - well. It's not pretty." She tilted her head. "Coming?"
This was so many different kinds of wrong, it made his head hurt. Just get through it. "I need to get our teapot-"
Aang: You’re pretending to be a healer, and it sounds like this girl has someone who needs to get healed? I don’t think it’s that wrong?
"We've got hot water downstairs." She gave him a hint of a smile. "That's what your uncle said you like to work with, right?"
"Y-yeah." The floor was solid. He could feel it under his feet. Why did he have the same kind of knot in his gut as when the ship was about to fall into the trough of a rogue wave?
Just keep moving.
No candles lit the room the old woman rested in, though a basin of water sat on a warming pan of coals near a worn towel. She looked up when they opened the door, brown eyes slitted. "So you're a healer, young man?"
Just inside the doorway, Zuko froze.
I'm not a healer. I'm a firebender.
Aang: Technically, you’re kind of both?
I'm not Earth Kingdom. I'm not a waterbender. If Uncle didn't need this for our disguise….
Sokka: Yeah, yeah, you’d never dream of lowering yourself to pretend to be a waterbender if you didn’t have to, disrespect my culture a bit more, why don’t you… which I have a feeling Vathara is going to be doing a lot of, before we’re through.
I'm your enemy! Can't you see that? You don't want me here!
Aang: Technically, you are on the run from the Fire Nation – but I do have to wonder why Zuko is having this freakout now, when he’s been doing the healer thing for a while? Is it just because he’s already on edge from the bandit fight?
"He's not real great at talking, Grandma." Xiu shut the door, forcing him forward. "Go on, it's all right."
No. It wasn't. But-
Do what you have to.
Grimly, Zuko picked up worn cloth, and reached for hot water.
I think he thinks Grandma is going to eat him, Xiu thought wryly.
MG: Perhaps Zuko has mistaken Xiu’s grandma for a very confused and out-of-place Baba Yaga?
Not quite like Yingpei, then. Her cousin didn't usually know someone had ill intent until they stole his lunch out from under him. Lee seemed perfectly aware that Grandma was best handled with kid gloves, or possibly iron pincers. She was proud enough of her status as a fine silk weaver at the best of times; headaches made her downright cranky.
Leaning against the wall by the door, the younger weaver watched Lee work with interest. Outside of ports that the Water Tribes visited, how often did anyone get to see a bending healer?
Sokka: I mean, considering even Katara didn’t know she could do it until she stumbled onto it by accident, and we’d been traveling the world for a while by that point, I’d say “not very often.”
No one told me there were pretty colors.
Flickers of gold and green and violet, shimmering through cotton as Lee moved the steaming towel over Grandma's forehead. Like stories her father had told of the southern lights, dancing in Kyoshi Island's winter skies.
How did he know where Dad was from? Xiu wondered. Kyoshi's been neutral since the war started. Most people have never met an Islander.
Aang: Because you’re tall? Even though that really doesn’t make much sense…
A puzzle. And not the only one. Lee - well, from his height, she'd have guessed he was fourteen, tops.
Then again, maybe short just runs in the family. His uncle's pretty… compact.
Sokka: But Zuko clearly isn’t built like his uncle, so I’m not sure how far that gets you?
Must be. Lee certainly didn't act fourteen, and once you looked past the scar, he didn't look fourteen either.
Once you looked past the scar….
I'm an idiot. Burn scar - looks years old - and he's with his uncle? No parents?
War orphan. Had to be. Spirits, no wonder Lee was jumpy.
And no wonder he didn't know what to do with his eyes, either. If he was the late teens his voice gave away, he would have been burned just about the time he'd started figuring out girls just might like to go on walks in the moonlight. Ouch.
MG: Though do keep in mind that “dragon-children” apparently develop a bit slower than ordinary humans in this ‘verse; I wonder if that’s why Vathara keeps harping on how Zuko looks younger than his age (which isn’t really a thing people seem to think about him in canon).
Still. Some things about Lee just didn't fit.
That robe, for one.
Pine-dark, embroidered with old-fashioned fire-thorns in ruby-rust on every hem and seam. Not the expensive, flashy materials someone would use trying to impress; she was a master weaver, she knew what was in style. No; that was old-fashioned wild silk thread, spun from broken oak-cedar moth cocoons and dyed with cochineal-dew roasted with sea salt.
Earth and Air, Water and Fire. Someone was serious.
Mushi wearing a protective scarf was one thing; he was old as Grandma, probably, the kind of person who adhered to traditions because they suited him. Both of them? Either respect for the spirits ran in the family-
Somehow, that just doesn't seem to fit Lee.
Aang: I don’t know. Some of the old monks at the Southern Air Temple could be pretty grouchy. You can’t always just tell how spiritual someone is.
-Or they'd run into the same kind of trouble as the villagers near Hei Bai, after the Fire Nation burned the forest down. Angry spirits, who didn't care if the people they hurt were innocent. Which was… scary.
Sokka: Angry spirits also don’t care if the people they kidnap have a chance to use the bathroom, which is… less scary and more uncomfortable and inconvenient!
Kind of makes sense for him to be panicked, though. Great-Gran used to say, benders touch the spirit world to get their power. And it can touch them back.
Even that didn't sit right. There was just something about Lee that-
Pale hands shifted as he plunged cloth back into steaming water, and Xiu swallowed.
"What?" Lee asked roughly, glancing her way.
"I thought the dao were your uncle's," Xiu said honestly. She hadn't had much chance to look inside their room, but it wasn't much of a room. "They're yours, aren't they?"
Lee looked down at callused hands, and something shut down in his face. "The roads aren't safe."
Aang: Yeah, we met plenty of people who traveled armed. The roads really weren’t.
Which was no answer at all, and more than she wanted to know.
I've seen Dad look like that, after….
After he had to kill somebody.
Cool and calm, Xiu. Remember what Dad always says. Be like a mountain lake. If you're right - Lee's already jumpy. Don't make anything worse.
"No wonder you're such a confused young man," Grandma said sternly, squinting to test the absence of pain as Lee put the towel down. "A healer, learning steel? What is the world coming to?"
Sokka: …I guess Grandma hasn’t heard of a combat medic, then?
The door creaked slightly. "And why should one not?" Mushi said genially. "The waterbenders of the North Pole are some of the fiercest fighters anywhere. I have heard they recently turned back an assault by the Fire Navy."
Sokka: Yeah, and they also made it so that only women learn healing, and then not learn to fight, which Katara made a real big deal about not long before this, so I’m not quite sure that helps the point Iroh is trying to make here…
"I heard they had help," Lee said darkly.
"Hmm. A giant spirit-monster rampaging through the fleet," Mushi's hand made a sort of swimming motion, "would count, yes."
"Spirit-monster?" Grandma said skeptically. "Nonsense. The spirits haven't bothered with our world in over a century. They've abandoned us." She scowled. "Just like the Avatar."
Aang: *hunkers down, looking guilty*
"…He didn't abandon you."
"Lee," Mushi said quietly.
"It's wrong, Uncle! 'The Avatar has to save us. The Avatar abandoned us. The Avatar's returned, and he's going to fix everything.' That's all I hear, everywhere we go. And it's crazy! The Avatar is twelve years old!"
Sokka: …big words coming from the guy who was hoping the Avatar would return and solve all his problems… in a manner of speaking.
MG: I can’t help but feel that this is part of another of Vathara’s recurring ideas in the fic – trying to problematize the idea of putting the fate of the world entirely on the shoulders of one kid. Which, you know, a significant portion of the show is already about what a very difficult position that is to be in… and I also can’t help but feel that the not-so-subtle subtext is that Aang was the wrong kid and it should have been Zuko instead, because he actually knows what he’s doing, so it’s less “putting the fate of the world on the shoulders of one person is wrong” and more “the author’s favorite character would be better at it.” But clearly, Zuko is a whole sixteen rather than twelve, and those four years make all the difference/s.
He's… what? Xiu thought, stunned.
"The Avatar is a child! An idiotic, naïve, hyperactive little airbender who thinks everybody deserves to live!
Aang: Actually, the idea that all life is sacred is one of the most important Air Nomad teachings, and…
Sokka: *sighs* I somehow don’t think Vathara cares, Aang. I really don’t think she cares.
And people think he's going to save them? How? Ask the Fire Lord to think really, really hard about the war and decide to play nice?" Knuckles were bone-white in clenched fists. "You want somebody to save you from the Fire Nation? Grow up and do it yourselves!"
Sokka: Because clearly, this very old lady and her teenage(?) daughter are in a position to take on the Fire Nation, the greatest military power in the world, led by the world’s scariest firebender and his only-slightly-less-scary daughter. Sure; they should just get right on that.
Aang: And, uh, I was always planning to fight Ozai? I literally spent most of a year training to do that? Sure, I’d have liked to be able to talk to him and try and get him to see reason, but I think I always knew deep down that probably wasn’t going to happen.
He Has Much To Learn: 10
The door slamming was almost an afterthought.
Mushi blinked at the space where his nephew had been, and sighed. "I must apologize-"
"Indeed you must!" Grandma snapped, eyes glinting. "You're training that boy as a healer? He may be a bender, but he'll never do!"
Sokka: I mean, on the one hand there’s no need to be judgy – you can be a jerk and be good at things, they don’t cancel each other out! – but on the other hand Zuko did cross some lines there, so… everybody here probably needs to calm down a bit?
"I'd go to him," Xiu cut in, before her grandma could really get going. Respect for your elders was honorable and right, but it was also the reason Dad had left Kyoshi Island in the first place. And the reason she'd been stuck with Grandma on the trip back home, when Mom had decided to stay to help nurse Aunt Wen through the latest bout of fever. Thanks, Mom. You owe me. Big-time. "I like to hear the truth. Even if he is as blunt as a dropped ax." She stood straight, and gave Mushi a sober look. "It is true, isn't it?"
Mushi hesitated. "I might leave out idiotic…."
Aang: Uh, the part about my being a kid is right, but I’m pretty sure the part about Xiu and Grandma needing to fight the Fire Nation on their own isn’t, unless Xiu is secretly the world’s most powerful earthbender (sorry, Toph…) and Grandma has some sort of all-powerful spirit in her back pocket.
"Oh, boy," Xiu said faintly.
"My nephew spoke nothing but the truth," Mushi agreed soberly.
Sokka: Except for the part where he got really judgy about both Aang and you – that was more like an opinion, which is not the same thing!
MG: But keep in mind that Zuko is the author’s favorite character… which means that, while it’s true he’s not omniscient and not always right, Vathara does mostly keep him from being too egregiously wrong about anything, and the narrative backs him up more often than not…
Sokka: …great.
"We have encountered the Avatar on our travels, and while he is a master airbender, he has no wish to take a life.
Aang: Yeah, hello, monk here?
If people are hoping for a great warrior to stop the Fire Nation's advance, they are mistaken."
Sokka: Except for, you know, at the Northern Air Temple, and the Northern Water Tribe, and hey, even the Rough Rhinos at Chin Village – sure, maybe Aang’s not like some great warlord from the old sagas, but he’d kicked plenty of Fire Nation butt by this point! *beat* With some help.
He bowed to Grandma. "If you will excuse me…."
"Good riddance," Grandma sniffed.
Xiu sighed, already considering what she'd have to do to clean up, given Grandma's fading eyesight. Towel, water, coin purse - oh no. "Grandma! Did you pay him?"
Grandma straightened, obviously feeling well enough to act her stature. "We are silk weavers, Xiu. If a rag-tag tramp of a water-blooded peasant doesn't have enough sense to hold his tongue when- What are you doing?"
Sokka: …I’m starting to get the sneaking suspicion we’re not supposed to like Grandma very much – just a hunch!
It's dark in here. She probably didn't even see the scar. Much less… ooo, respect be damned! "He was bending, Grandma. He's hungry." Snatching clinking strings from the purse, she dashed out.
Light was flickering under their door; they must have had the window open, though Xiu couldn't feel any draft.
Aang: So… did Zuko set something on fire in there, or?
She couldn't make out what they were saying, either, but she didn't have to. Older sane relative trying to talk sense into a sullen teen was easy to pick out. She knocked. "Lee? You forgot something."
The door inched open, and Lee swallowed. "I'm - sorry?"
"Don't worry about it," Xiu said bluntly. "Grandma can't stand Yingpei, either." She looked at him askance. "I know your uncle's already given you an earful on this, but listen. If you're good, and I'm betting you are going to be good, you're going to have to deal with a lot of people like Grandma. This isn't like the border towns, or whatever little port you came from. This is the heart of the Earth Kingdom. I hate to say it, but a lot of our nobles and artisans think acting like that is a good reason to cheat you." She pressed the coins into his hands. "Don't let them."
MG: In contrast to Fire Nation nobles, who would never dream of doing anything so dishonorable *rolls eyes*. That said, while Vathara does like to take periodic swipes at lazy or corrupt Earth Kingdom nobles (to either implicitly or explicitly contrast them with the Fire Nation, of course) most of the ones we see on-page – including Toph, as we’ve already seen, and also the Earth King himself when we meet him – still end up beneficiaries of her thing for aristocrats in one way or another.
He stared at her as if she were as weird as the Earth King's bear. "But… why?"
"Dad was from Kyoshi Island, remember?" Xiu smiled wryly. "I've seen it all before. He always said, noble blood might be a gift from the spirits, but noble behavior is a gift you give your family. And yourself."
Aang: And the monks always said that a noble’s life isn’t any more or less important than a commoners, or an ostrich-horse’s, or even a bug’s. All life is connected and all life has value and what you’re born as is less important than how you live… but I guess they wouldn’t think about it that way in either the Earth Kingdom or the Fire Nation.
She backed up a step, and grinned. "Besides, you kind of did me a favor. Grandma's going to be so mad about you, all 'improper behavior' and 'what is this world coming to', she's not going to even think about pestering me to 'stop pining after that no-good soldier boy and settle down with a nice rich young man'. As if. Rich men's wives don't get to weave the way I do." She winked at him.
"Um… you're welcome?"
"Xiu!" rang down the hall.
"Good luck, Lee!" Still grinning, she dashed off.
One nag-free night, coming up. Yay!
Sokka: I, uh, guess I’m happy for her? *muttering* Even if her grandma makes me think a bit of what Master Pakku was like before he loosened up…
"I must give my compliments to Master Xueyou's wife," Iroh said, leaning back on his cot as he rubbed a bit of candle-wax between his fingers. "That was delicious!"
"You can probably tell her in the morning. If you catch her early enough." Zuko's eyes were closed, but he lay tense on the futon below, obviously awake despite the darkness.
"Early?" Iroh arched an eyebrow. Firebenders rose with the sun, true, but given the chance, most people slept later.
Sokka: Yeah, because firebenders are weird (and apparently much weirder in this story…) what else is new?
"Bread with dinner. Made this morning. She's probably up hours before dawn."
MG: *quietly refers back to Chapter Three and LanWan’s observation about staple grains in the periods the Earth Kingdom is based on and how they’re prepared*
"Ah, yes." Iroh smiled. "I forget, sometimes, how often you found the ship's ghost watch convenient, to be… unobserved."
"Not as easy as you'd think," Zuko said quietly. "Bakers, millers, brewers… smiths, sometimes… all kinds of people get up in the dark."
Aang: Blue Spirits, sometimes…
He shifted on the futon. "Where are we going?"
"Full Moon Bay, eventually," Iroh answered, allowing the conversation to shift. One of these days he would pin Zuko down about the Blue Spirit. But not tonight. "We will make a stop shortly beforehand, to pick up some… documentation."
"False documents."
Sokka: No, real documents, with a great big “we’re the Fire Lord’s brother and son, please come arrest us!” seal stamped on them. You’ll blend right in!
"But very good forgeries, I am assured," Iroh said cheerfully. "From there, we should be able to reach Ba Sing Se unhindered. The city is vast, and full of refugees. We should pass unnoticed."
"You mean hide." But it wasn't accusing. Just… tired.
"Yes," Iroh acknowledged. "We are tired, nephew. We need rest, and time to breathe, before we plan our next move." And I intend to stretch that time as long as possible.
"We have a bounty on our heads, Uncle! Hiding's no good if someone knows where you are!"
But no one would- oh. He had not explained, had he? "Master Xueyou does not know who we are," Iroh said firmly. "He recognized the moves, and certain words. But the only name he knows, is Mushi."
Aang: And, uh, nobody tied him to you or has any idea he’d done anything wrong, so why would they even be questioning him in the first place?
Zuko's hand lifted, hesitated near his face. "I'm not exactly easy to miss, Uncle. If Azula finds this place-"
"Then it is well that Xueyou knows my nephew is a waterbender, is it not?" Iroh said pleasantly.
"…You set up that thing with Xiu's Grandma on purpose."
Sokka: So, what, if Iroh hadn’t needed a cover story he’d have just left the old lady to suffer? That doesn’t sound much like the Iroh I know…
"It was convenient," the retired general allowed. "Two leaves in the forest, nephew. I rely on your courage, and determination."
"You do?"
Spirits, the surprise in his nephew's voice. And - was that a hint of hope? Toph was right. I do need to tell him I need him. "I have always relied on you to do what you believed was right, nephew."
Zuko: *sticking his head in* Too bad my sense of right and wrong was still all turned around at this point…
Aang: Hey, don’t worry about it, you were trying, and you figured it out eventually, right?
Sokka: Could’ve figured it out a bit sooner, but who’s keeping track?
Gold eyes glanced at him, then away. "Why did she do that?"
"Because Xiu has her own honor," Iroh said plainly. "Get some rest, nephew. If we move too slowly in the morning, I fear we are destined to meet that most unpleasant woman again. And some destinies are best avoided."
With a snort of laughter, Zuko pulled the covers over his head.
Aang: …that kind of makes it sound like they’re avoiding a prophecy about meeting her again or something… which would be kind of weird, but not the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen? And I do think it’s kind of obvious Vathara really wants us not to like Grandma.
Smiling himself, Iroh turned the bit of wax over again, recalling Zuko's stricken look as the candle flared in the wake of their argument. I know I can rely on you, nephew. But I think, wherever we hide, we will need shutters.
Small enough price to pay, for that glimmer of hope on Zuko's face.
That was the boy I knew, years ago. The one I thought I had lost with Lady Ursa.
MG: Because spending three years at sea with Zuko – including the bit where, you know, Zuko went out of his way to rescue his uncle from being captured by earthbenders, or when Zuko temporarily put aside his hunt for Aang to protect his crew, or when Iroh outright admitted he viewed Zuko as being like another son to him – don’t count?
How very odd, that speaking of the Avatar should bring it so close to the surface….
No. Not the Avatar. That Aang is a child, expected to do the impossible.
Only for the Avatar it was possible. Or so legends said. Even the boy himself seemed to think so.
Aang: Possible. That is not the same thing as easy.
Still. Why should that strike home with his nephew, who truly did have an impossible task…?
MG: *sighs* And of course, we have to be reminded that Zuko, in Vathara’s opinion, has a worse task than Aang…
Oh, spirits.
His Zuko. His dear, shy nephew, who worked so hard and loved them all so fiercely, years ago. Who failed so often, but struggled onward, because he had hope.
He never believed it was impossible.
Iroh let out a quiet breath, resisting the urge to pound his head against the wall. Zuko needed his sleep.
Yet another true proverb: there is no fool like an old fool.
All this time - all this time! - he had thought Zuko's quest driven by pure, stubborn determination. A burning need to take the cruel fate, the punishment, that had been unjustly laid on him, and force it down Ozai's throat.
I was wrong. It was never about rage.
Not rage as most knew it, at least. Not the bitter anger driven by hate. No; this was a brighter, purer flame, and all the more desperate for it.
He loves his father. And so the task must not be impossible.
MG: Hmmm. On the one hand, this is one of those bits that, in a vacuum, is pretty gut-wrenching, both Iroh’s realization and what it says about Zuko’s character. At the same time, and this may just be a question of interpretation, but I don’t really agree with it? The impression I always got from the show is that Zuko was very much aware that Ozai had intended sending him after the Avatar to be a futile snipe hunt whose sole purpose was to humiliate him – he was just single-mindedly determined to prove himself by doing it anyway. Again, maybe this is just quibbling over details, but I do think it reflects Vathara’s overall approach to writing Zuko – he has to be the most sympathetic and the biggest victim who has suffered most but still has basically morally pure motivations. And maybe it’s just the overall knowledge of the fic’s Zuko-centric morality that makes me read this in a negative light – or maybe it’s just a point of characterization where there’s some ambiguity and Vathara and I happen to disagree. Not giving any points, in any case, but it just felt worth noting. And I also think this is kind of a reflection of a theme where Iroh is the one explaining Zuko’s mindset to the reader, so he has to only realize important elements of his nephew’s characterization as the fic goes on… which I don’t think reflects very well on Vathara’s Iroh, considering this is the same man who is supposed to love the boy like a son and be the good father figure his actual father never was.
And if he fails, again and again… it is not because it cannot be done. It is because he is as Ozai has always told him he is. A disappointment. A failure. No true son of the Fire Lord.
MG: Hmm. Again, I think Zuko was absolutely aware of just how difficult the task that had been set before him was, especially after Aang slipped through his fingers the first time. But I also do agree that it would’ve only further fueled Zuko’s sense of failure and inadequacy each time Aang got away, so… toss-up?
Not a punishment; not to his nephew. A gift. A poisonous, terrible gift, that Zuko had taken to his heart. For it was a gift from his father, and what else could he do?
Spirits. What do I do?
Sleep, Iroh decided sternly. You were wrong. Know you were wrong. What you told Zuko is still true: you are both tired. Rest, and see if a better answer presents itself.
And hope the spirits have no more bandits between here and Ba Sing Se.
MG: Well, we’re almost to Ba Sing Se, which is where the fic is really going to get in gear. As for bandits in Ba Sing Se… maybe, if Jet counts (I’m sure Vathara totally thinks Jet counts; she does not like Jet).
"You're twitching," Zuko said dryly, leading Asahi down the dusty road.
Uncle Iroh blinked at him, almost innocent. "Oh? And why would two innocent traveling healers need to be alarmed, Lee?"
Sokka: Uh, you already mentioned the possibility of bandits? Bandits aren’t really known for respecting the sanctity or your person or whatever – that’s kind of what makes them bandits!
Right. Like he needed any extra reminders to watch his tongue, out here where anyone might be listening. Every once in a while they passed other travelers; sometimes a few weary stragglers, sometimes whole caravans.
For a hidden bay the Fire Nation's not supposed to know about, this place is awfully popular.
Aang: It was kinda full of refugees, wasn’t it? Though I think the Fire Nation had bigger things to worry about right then – literally, this is when they were about to use the Drill, isn’t it?
"You're twitching," Zuko repeated, letting his gaze flick over road, rocks, trees. "Just wait. Whatever it is, it'll get us later. When you're not expecting it."
"It has been remarkably quiet these past few days," Uncle grumbled.
"Like I said. Wait."
It had been quiet. Quiet enough, long enough, that all his screaming nerves had pretty much screamed themselves out, and were now quivering in exhausted knots while Zuko held his breath in anticipation of the next disaster.
At least I've got the teapot bluff down.
Sokka: …out of context, “the teapot bluff” sounds like it could’ve been one of those scams we ran with Toph in the Fire Nation. Just saying.
He'd had one or two false starts in the past few days, complete with nervous looks at the little firepot that seemed to flare contrary to breezes or fuel. But he'd persisted, and slowly, things seemed to fall into place. Using hot water was still hard… but it was a good hard, like a tough practice, or climbing down rough cliffs. He could handle it. Unlike Uncle, who was all but tearing gray hair out trying to get candle flames to flux into the healing fire, those few times they could practice unobserved.
He'll get it. We just need some time.
They'd have time, if Uncle was right about Ba Sing Se. And yet….
It's too easy.
Someplace they could hide. Someplace they'd be safe. Someplace no one from the Fire Nation had ever, supposedly, been able to invade - so obviously, anyone who made it inside couldn't be Fire Nation, and no one would suspect them.
Perfect. Too perfect.
It's a trap.
Sokka: *flatly* Yeah, I don’t think Long Feng and the Dai Li were exactly looking for you. “Too good to be true” isn’t the same as “trap.”
He didn't know how. Not yet. But he hadn't survived thirteen years in the palace and more than three scouring the world without listening to his instincts. They might be flawed and tattered and singing tension down his nerves whenever a stray lizard-bird twitched wrong, but they'd kept him alive.
Perfect and pretty equaled poison. White jade. Flutter-hornets. Azula.
But Uncle thinks it's safe.
No. Uncle hoped it was safe. He might have intelligence and reports and secret society contacts, but he'd never been there. And while Zuko knew his grasp of military strategy paled next to Azula's, he knew this: a good commander never, ever declared an area safe. Not until he'd ground-truthed it himself.
Aang: That still doesn’t sound like “trap,” it sounds like “might be dangerous.” Which it was! Trust me, I nearly died in Ba Sing Se, I know what I’m talking about! But it’s not really a “trap.”
He's counting on me.
Okay. He could deal with that. Stay calm, stay back; let Uncle be the friendly face while he watched for the jaws of the trap. Then, depending on the situation, either tell Iroh what he'd found-
And hope he listens - no, he promised he would. He promised.
-Or, if everything had just dropped into Koh's lair in a hand-basket, grab Uncle and run.
Aang: …how does Zuko know about Koh? I’d never heard of him before Roku sent me to ask him about the Moon and Ocean Spirits!
MG: Well, spoilers, but Vathara has decided to make Koh into a well-known and much-feared mythological figure in-universe, with “Koh’s lair” and similar terms being used as curse’s like an English-speaker IRL would use “hell” (to be fair, this fic was mostly written before Korra introduced the Fog of Lost Souls). More on what Vathara does with Koh as a character as the fic goes on; for now, let’s just say I do not like Vathara’s Koh and think he has very little to do with the character as presented in the show and captures very little of what made canon!Koh so popular and frightening; she also falls into the fallacy that “Koh is the scariest spirit Aang meets in canon, so he must be the absolute worst thing the Spirit World has to offer,” which later Avatarverse material would quite comprehensively debunk. Again, more later. To be fair, calling out Vathara for having Koh be more widely known than he was in canon may be a bit hypocritical of me – in one of my own fics I had Azula be familiar with stories of Koh, but I’d always kind of justified it to myself that a younger Azula might well be drawn to stories of frightening and terrible things and found her way to some obscure stuff; and I’d have done things differently if I was writing that fic now. Again, this may be nitpicky, but it is something I wanted to bring up.
Decision made, Zuko breathed a sigh of relief, murmuring endearments to Asahi when she turned her head to look at him. He had a plan. Not much of a plan, but given what usually happened to his plans….
Yu Yan archers. Typhoons. Ocean-spirits. Azula.
Sokka: Hey! You left out “boomerangs”!
Given that, he'd just have to keep his eyes open and be ready to improvise.
Speaking of. "Someone thinks they're being sneaky," Zuko murmured, not looking where the brush was rustling.
"I see." Iroh smiled, gentle as a komodo-rhino about to take down an annoying little gate. "I believe we should allow him to think us fooled. For now."
Harmless travelers. Right. Damn.
Turning off the open road to reach the oddly tree-shaped rock Iroh's source had described, the retired general stopped, and cleared his throat. "Hello?"
"No names!" Shorter than Earth Kingdom average, and not at all skinny, the man who slunk out of the bushes still reminded Zuko of a weasel-mink. Without the pretty coat. "No names, I don't know you, you don't know me, I was never here- urk!"
Sokka: You know, you’d think someone who does sneaky stuff for a living might be a little less conspicuous about it…
Casually gripping the man's wrist, Zuko held him while Iroh checked the little documents their nameless contact had pressed into his hands. "They appear to be in order," Uncle said calmly.
"Of course they're in order! You don't think I'd risk my life - er, your lives - with bad papers, do you? You've got what you were promised! Let go!"
"Who are you afraid of?" Zuko asked darkly.
"Afraid? Me? Do I look afraid? Ha!" The man yanked against his grip, and blanched. "Son of a hog-monkey- er, I mean, you can let go anytime-"
Aang: Okay, even I can tell this guy’s about five seconds away from fainting. Is he really the best person for this job the White Lotus had?
"Who'd trace fake papers back to you?" Zuko said, voice low and dangerous. "Tell me!"
"N-no one! I swear!" He yanked harder, and yelped.
"You are, perhaps, unaware of the consequences of that particular hold, Master Nameless," Iroh observed thoughtfully. "Another such unwise move is likely to fracture your wrist. Which would do much damage to one of your more… lucrative sources of income."
Sokka: Also, it would really, really hurt. Don’t underestimate that part!
Sweating, the forger gulped.
"Now. So that we may all avoid unpleasantness, and leave you to enrich yourself further - who is it, that you fear more than simple refugees longing for a better life?"
"The - the Dai Li," the forger stuttered. "They work for the Earth King. Or so people say. They don't leave Ba Sing Se, usually, but when they do… they're earthbenders. Cross them, and you just disappear. Or - worse."
"Worse?" Iroh asked levelly.
"I don't know. I don't know! People say - sometimes those they take, go away for a while. And when they come back, they're not them anymore. No one knows why. No one knows how! But it happens. And it's not going to happen to me!"
MG: So, this is kind of interesting, considering how Vathara is going to end up lionizing the Dai Li later on (which you may recall I have a whole count waiting for, though I’ve not had occasion to dust it off yet). Like, Long Feng still gets to be a bad guy, sure, but basically the entire rest of the organization – including Long Feng’s apparent number two – are just “honorable men making the hard decisions to protect their city” with a real secret and totally important and necessary purpose the show never even alludes to; we get a few more references to the Dai Li’s canon atrocities, but somehow none of the various Dai Li agents we’re supposed to sympathize with are directly involved in them. Convenient, that. In any case, more on this later, though it does make me wonder if Vathara just hadn’t decided what she wanted to do with the Dai Li yet, or if this guy is just meant to be misleading.
At Iroh's glance, Zuko let him go. "Thank you for the generous advice," Iroh said genially. "We wish you the best of fortune."
Straightening his robes, the forger sniffed. "You're going to need more than that. They don't let animals into Ba Sing Se. Not with refugees." With a last, irate glance toward Zuko, he scurried back down the road.
They don't…. Zuko swallowed hard, patting Asahi's neck when she bumped against him. "Uncle?"
Aang: Ooh, boy. I remember that old lady freaking out about cabbage slugs… and poor Asahi is a bit bigger and more conspicuous than a slug…
Iroh sighed. "I have the name of a reputable caravan master, as well," he said plainly. "We should be able to find a representative of his near the ferries."
Oh.
Breathe. In and out. He hadn't been gutted by a sword blade. It just felt that way.
"I am sorry, nephew-"
"Let's go," Zuko said harshly, tugging on Asahi's reins. "We're wasting daylight."
He could make it to shore after he'd been blown out of his own ship. He could do this.
Besides, it wasn't like he'd had the right to expect anything else.
Silly Zuzu, Azula's voice crooned as he walked. You know nothing you love is yours to keep.
MG: And, on the one hand, this is a pretty powerful gut-punch of a moment on its own. Most of the individual moments of Zuko bonding with Asahi are pretty good, actually. I think a bigger issue is what’s between those moments, where Asahi often feels like she just… drops out of sight for long stretches, including this very chapter (which makes the sudden twist ending of Zuko having to be separated from her feel more random than it probably should). Now, I know, animal companions are hard to write – and unlike in a visual medium, you can’t just have them be a constant presence in the background without explicitly going out of your way to point them out, generally speaking – but it does feel to me like Vathara isn’t as consistent as she could be about making Asahi a major, continuous presence in the story, and that hurts the intense Aang-and-Appa type bond she wants us to see Zuko and Asahi as having. Then again, as I mentioned back in my read of Embers on my journal, maybe it’s just that I’m not really a horse person. Anyway, that’s it for today’s chapter, and on to the AN! Which is very short!
-
A/N: We will see Asahi again, but it'll take several chapters.
MG: “Several chapters” here having the meaning of “not until after the Ba Sing Se arc is done,” but yes, Asahi is going to be showing up again.
And yes, the Star Wars reference in Chapter 6 was intentional. I couldn't resist.
MG: And here we have confirmation of the Star Wars reference I mentioned last time. And that’s it for the AN! Anyway, this chapter… was mostly pretty decent, getting a chance to see more of Zuko being a healer, dealing with his guilt over killing the bandits last time, and Iroh trying to help him work through his trauma, with most of my issues – the rant about Aang, the aside about Fire Nation governance, some of the details of Zuko and Iroh’s characterization or the worldbuilding – feeling more like nitpicking than anything, though they all stand out to me because I know they’re reflective of deeper issues in the fic as a whole.
Anyway, with this chapter complete, we’re now also done with what TVTropes calls the “Walking the Earth Kingdom” arc – ie, the fic’s first major arc! Woohoo! On the one hand, this is probably the consistently best part of the fic. Vathara tends to work best when focusing just on Zuko and Iroh, their various adventures, and Zuko gradually developing his fire-healing and working to untangle his past and his various issues. Really, most of my bigger problems – the characterization of the Gaang, the portrayal of the Fire Nation, its relation to other nations, and the war, things like loyalty, Zuko starting to become Special, etc. – are more signs of worse things to come than anything. On the other hand, this part of the fic does meander a bit and feels very episodic without clear focus, and we do have some gratuitous darkness (you know what I mean, the rape stuff) that just feels like it was thrown in to be edgy and doesn’t really add anything of substance to the fic. And we’ve already seen some of the holes in the fic’s supposed “realism” and “well-researched worldbuilding” (thanks again to LanWan for helping me catch some of this stuff!). Still, compared to some of the other stuff I’ve been sporking, at the moment this is practically a breath of fresh air (though I know that’ll be changing the further into the meat of things we go). Something that does jump out at me as, weirdly, how these first few chapters barely even feel like Embers. As of yet, the fic’s actual overarching plot hasn’t even really shown itself yet, though some elements have been introduced; we’ve heard a lot about Ozai but the fic’s other two big bads have really only been alluded to in the most vague ways; we’ve barely met any of the multitudinous OCs the fic is going to end up full of; even a lot of the defining and controversial elements of the fic – the Fire Nation favoritism, the dragon stuff, Zuko being the specialest person in the world, Air Nomad and Water Tribe bashing, Aang and Katara bashing, etc. – are present, but only in their infancy.
Unfortunately, next time we’re going to start the first part of the Ba Sing Se arc, which is where we’re going to immediately meet a lot more of Vathara’s major OCs, and a lot of the fic’s more notable elements are going to either be introduced or get a lot more promiment. We’ll see you then! Our counts stand at:
Beware the Sugar Queen: 5
The Blind Bandit Wins Again: 8
The Deadly Depths: 1
Detached from Reality: 6
Divine Right to Rule: 7
Elemental Determinism: 3
He Has Much to Learn: 10
Prince Stuko: 14
The Real Victims: 4
Simple Rubes from the Water Tribes: 6
Stations of the Canon: 13
The Superior Element: 7
The Ultimate Firebenders: 8
no subject
Date: 2025-12-17 07:55 pm (UTC)Yeah, that's probably part of why I always skip to the Ba Sing Se stuff when I reread.
...that, and that's where my OC gets inserted into the story, so what usually happens is I go "I should write for that story again, I'll reread the chapters around where she appears to figure out what the next part of my fic should be" and then I come up for air 20+ chapters later with an "oops".