Born with a king's heart

When they meet on the beach, Zuko has cleaned a place and lined it with rocks to set up boundaries. A nice boxing ring, one might suggest. Indeed, in nothing but crimson pants and his now let-down hair, he looks like a shag-headed teen boy, ready for volley ball or maybe slap-n-tickle with the girlfriend. (Liz, alas, is just plain Too Old for Zuko. This is probably a blessing, because her boyfriend would attempt to rearrange his vital organs into those balloon animals that he asked about earlier.)

A stump of a log, driftwood, has been set aside. There is a very modern cooler sitting out of place next to that archaic combat ring. No matter. Zuko wants drinks and a snack ready. Firebending, after all, is a hell of a work out.

He's patient enough, sitting on a blanket on the sand in a position that's almost at attention, ready and waiting. After all, this is not his first pupil -- but quite honestly, he thinks this one will fair better then Sylar... Sylar's fire felt wrong. It was off, too powerful and yet alien. Liz is -- a sibling flame; yes, burning brighter then Zuko may ever dream of... but there's still kinship to their gifts.

He won't lie: He hopes this student works out better than the last.

There are times when Zuko realizes he should have left very much alone. Sitting there, staring at the crown of the Heir Apparent on his desk, he knew that following the clues (and who else would have, could have left them, even from his prison cell?) that had lead him to the truth... yes, he should have ignored them.

He hid the crown in a drawer; several of them had false bottoms for just this purpose. It was slipped inside and then locked away. This wouldn't stop someone like Azula if she really wanted to find out what he was hiding, but it would dissuade a servant, at least.

The hour was late and the moon was high. He could not go bother Mai at this hour, no matter how much he'd like a distraction from his dark thoughts. Gaze turning to the cupboard -- he realized that sleepless nights could be fixed with time away: Time in a far away place, away from responsibility and trick-playing uncles. Having a fixed door gave him a great convinience; allowing him to come and go as he pleased. It was the only thing he seemed to be able to control right now, and he relished the ability to grab a few things, open the wardrobe and--

--see the back of the wardrobe.

He reached out; touching the too-solid wood, finding no door knob in the back, no welcoming noise or light, no familiar voices greeting.

A few minutes later, servants were asking what the noise was all about. Zuko ordered them away from where he lay on his bed, heat cascading around both fists. The wardrobe still stood, with all his clothes inside, unharmed...

...but come morning, it was a tempting target. Still, it seemed the Landlord was trying to tell him the same thing his uncle had: There is no running away from this; you must face your destiny.

But the path was forked. One path, smooth and easy, lead to his father's side...

The rocky path lead to the Avatar's. The thought made him sick to his stomach. Almost a year ago, he couldn't have even conceived of such treason, not so easily -- not like it seemed logical to walk away from this luxury and ease to fall into the arms of his enemy...

Even if they'd accept him at all.

He groaned, hiding his face in his pillow. Sleep evaded him the rest of the night, slippery as an eelhound, ungraspable. Come morning, he barred his door to servants, and opened the wardrobe to grab a robe for the day--

--and the welcome noise of Milliways greeted him.

"Not funny," he muttered despite the smile that slipped to his lips. Tired though he might be, he grabbed clothing and his well-hidden bag, and slipped through to the other side.

If Bar had wanted to make him sweat the night through and not escape his too-busy mind, she's succeeded. But it didn't stop him from being happy to see the place after many long months...

He has been coming and going freely now; in the Wardrobe to the bar and back again. It's good to get away to think -- the noisy bar is far better then one might expect -- it has places to escape to, where there are not a hundred attendants waiting to help him dress or dine. (When did doing that on his own become important, anyway?)

The other trips are to less pleasant places. He goes to the cells; to the darker parts of town to find the man with The Eye. He is not embarassed at benig caught in the former, per se, by Azula; merely disconcerted. Her concern is -- distasteful. Strange, at best, possibly demeaning, and at worse, a tool against him.

It's nothing, though-- nothing! He puts it out of his mind... and opens the door to the Bar.

A good drink and some good company will cheer him, certainly. That's all he needs to make him happy...

Right?

It was a long hallway; not as long as he remembered from years ago -- but certainly, each step seemed like it spanned miles. Miles of tapestry, miles of ornate tile, miles and miles of tense breathing and that stone in Zuko's stomach, cold and hard and weighing him down.

It was not until he reached the great double doors of the audience chamber that he alloweod himself to take a breath, deep and cleansing, and considered what would happen next.

Would he be welcomed?

Would he be dismissed?

Would this just be the prelude to the oubliette's embrace?

There was only one way to find out: open the door, step beyond, walk before the dais and bow down.

Now, all he had to do was wait.

He was not sure what to say, really. Jin was left behind -- embaressed (and she was such a nice girl it made him feel strangely guilty) and abandoned in favor of listening to Mai laugh through the dark alleys of the Lower Ring of Ba Sing Se.

"You didn't have to do that," he says to her -- not really an admonishment. "And there's nothing to be even for." After all, when he soaked HER in a fountain, it was-- protection! From his crazy sister. Not, y' know, launching ice at his head by proxy.

But she's laughing and it's brief and small and it's precious because he knows she doesn't do it very often, so she's forgiven. She might even know it.

Damn girls.

Everything is dashed to dust when his sister finds them. He can't not fight her, pride demands that he stand against her despite that he has only one new move in his Firebending repertoire. He fails, he falls--

--and he finds himself face to face with someone he hasn't seen in months (blessedly): the waterbender. It's like they hadn't parted -- just like that time on the lakeshore, when he tried to be-- someone he just wasn't, he realizes. She tosses accusations and he simply endures. It's just like old times, only it he's quite now, doesn't refute them. What's the point?

And then she cries.

She never cried like this before. She never mentioned her mother before.

It demands that he speak gently (it hurts to lose a mother) and engage in compassion (his uncle said a ruler must have compassion and command in equal measure) and --

They are together for a moment, this time without the sizzle of steam, fire and water meeting in frenzied elemental combat. No, this time it's a gentle touch on his face, and the realization that he could be whole, unmarked, himself again. She could give it to him.




He cannot help but feel robbed, yet again, when the Avatar interrupts them. Oh, he's grateful to see his uncle is well, but--

He was so close to something. What, he couldn't say -- but --

She leaves with her savior and Zuko stays and listens to his uncle speak of the future, of peace, of doing the right thing...

All he can feel is bitterness; he had something close to him, something like -- like -- a mother, something like a connection and now it's gone.

Fucking Avatar, he wants to swear, but swallows it.

"This," Zuko had explained, "is a motorcycle."

It has a combustion engine, can carry two people, and is a zippy form of transport for the stylish and those who want to be able to go places a car cannot. Zuko does not explain ALL of that in detail, but when he gets on and waits for his sister to get behind him --

-- he shows her instead, twisting and turning on the heavy duty tires down the road till one is leaving rural Yorkshire and heading into Harrogate at breakneck speed.

He doesn't spare an ounce; no, he roars that thing fast and hard and the speed would make an airbender jealous.

Zuko is hoping that it'll make Azula a little green, too.

He was settling into the forge -- it was only a day, and he was poking around it -- all the folks connected to the pirate ship out in the lake -- inlet, whatever it was -- seemed to have vanished, and that was fine by Zuko.

The forge was man-sized; since Turner had it, he supposed that was logical. He didn't really approve of his level of organization (but nobody matched the level of anal retentive that Zuko possessed) and so he went about fussing in things there.

He didn't fuss too bad, though -- for all he knew, Will would come back and want the place back. (Little did he know that the blacksmith was like everybody Zuko knew-- he had a destiny, where Zuko had diddly.) After all, everything in his life seemed impermanent, so why not the forge too? It was -- on loan, like everything else.

Borrowed, one might say.

Didn't stop him from checking to see to the maintenance (Turner had been up on that, definitely) and anything that needed finishing (nothing he could find) and then settling in and getting a feel for the place.

Sulking gets old after a while. Zuko can maintain it for quite some time-- the deep and abiding irritation, the brooding aura, the scowl over his maimed face. He really gets into it.

But it's tiring. It's why he's sprawled out on the couch with a book on his chest an an arm over his head, with the dogs sleeping in a heap in the kitchen. It's almost homey, except for the part where Zuko hates this box he lives in here (and in the Earth Kingdom) and the dogs are dreaming of the green open spaces of Yorkshire.

He broods, even when he sleeps.

His place was still clean; mostly because he had barely been here since she had seen him last. The dogs followed thme up, happily padded over to the pile of blankets, and dropped down into them once Zuko had reached a kitchen chair and sat down.

He gestured to the place. Katara was given free reign-- he simply sat, rested his head in one hand, and looked weary.