Fic: There All The Honor Lies (A:TLA)
I didn't finish enough stories to complete a bingo on hc_bingo, and the deadline's long gone, but I DID write stories for several prompts. What I will be doing here for the holiday season is going through my writing folders from top to bottom, finding the things that lack only editing and cracking down on them. After all, December is National Novel Editing Month. :)
First up: Avatar.
Title: There All The Honor Lies
Author: ravenclaw42
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Rating: PG
Summary: Iroh realizes what he has to do to save a horribly burned Zuko after the Agni Kai with Ozai.
Disclaimer: The characters and situations don't belong to me. I make no profit with my writing.
Notes: This was originally meant to fill the prompt “burns” on my hc_bingo card. The dialogue in the last scene is lifted from the flashback in “The Western Air Temple”.
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There All The Honor Lies
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Even with his eyes closed, Iroh saw blood. The heat from the fire washed across his face, a yellow-white glow silhouetting the red tracery of veins in his eyelids, and he almost thought he saw the shadow of the boy inside the light. The roar of the flames could not drown out the scream.
Guilt seized him, guilt like he hadn't felt since - since Ba Sing Se, since the messenger hawk and the overwhelming stillness of a world gone wrong. He had been drifting since then, telling himself he was happy to be retired, that amusing himself and minding his own business were the only ways he could prevent anyone else from being hurt by his mistakes. He couldn't look at the children - he couldn't. Zuko was a sharp and forward boy, so much like Lu Ten, so easy for Iroh to smother under a false identity. Iroh couldn't bear it. He was kind to the boy, but he kept his distance.
He'd looked away. He'd always looked away. Iroh had no illusions about his brother, although he tried not to hate Ozai for things past. He'd thought that he'd earned the privilege of age - to choose his company, and dismiss those relationships he'd had to endure in his youth for the sake of politics. But he couldn't choose or dismiss family, and it was now, only when it was too late, that he realized what a mistake he'd made in his neglect.
And another child had suffered for that mistake.
Iroh put a hand over his eyes, blocking out the light. The roar had died back, but flames still crackled along the dueling platform. Drapery, clothing, skin, hair. In the quiet, everyone in the room must have heard the crackling choke that was the Crown Prince swallowing another scream. Trying to be brave. A gust of warm air that smelled of charcoal and cooked meat brushed against Iroh's face. His stomach turned.
Iroh heard a soft sound of disdain, then footsteps. A rustle at his side was Zhao, that foul sycophant, stepping forward to shout commands in a clear, ringing voice. Iroh barely listened, but he heard the word “exile” and realized like a jab in the solar plexus that this had all been planned. Just like Ozai's bloodless usurpation of the throne twenty years ago, playing on Iroh's lack of military ambition. Iroh's brother played the personalities of those around him like a string quartet.
Iroh was no fool. He saw how Ozai groomed Azula, and he'd known what it had meant for Zuko when the Queen had disappeared. Suicide, said Ozai, but there was no body. No sign at all. And Zuko had loved his mother.
The obvious mismatch in power was the only reason Zuko wasn't dead. The whole assembled crowd of Fire Nation nobility could see that even if the boy had made an effort, he wouldn't have been able to defend himself against the bending prowess of the Fire Lord. Ozai would surely use Zuko's self-abasement against him, but the boy had begged for forgiveness honestly, and in the innocence of his youth had expected honesty in return. From his father.
Zuko had done nothing wrong, had expected nothing he didn't have the right to expect. The charge of public disrespect was tenuous at best. Iroh knew that several other officers in the Council that day had agreed with the brash young prince, but they knew better than to speak out. With the slightest excuse, knowing that the excuse itself wouldn't support an outright execution, Ozai had done what he could to wipe Zuko out of the political picture. A debilitating injury - possibly fatal - and summary exile. Even if he was willing to, Zuko wouldn't be able to return to his home until he had healed. And the spirits only knew what the chances of that were.
Finally, Iroh lowered his hand and opened his eyes, insides churning with a newfound urgency. His hands clenched into fists at his sides. He felt he needed to get out of here now, out of this room, out of the capital, out of the Fire Nation. Wild thoughts tumbled through his head of assassins sent in the night to the bedside of a boy too broken to defend himself, too badly hurt for his death to come under scrutiny. Iroh was close to panic.
Zuko was kneeling on the platform, unable to move. Iroh was amazed that he was still upright. A few straggling wisps of hair remained on the left side of his head, and his face and chest were a mass of blackened skin showing red through a few cracks. Even as Iroh watched, a crack eased open above Zuko's left temple and a brief wash of blood cut through the soot, over his closed eyelid. Zuko made little involuntary sounds with each breath. Iroh was frozen for a moment by disgust and disbelief, and the raging desire to hunt down his brother and scalp him for this, to pull out Ozai's innards with his bare hands and set them on fire in front of his face.
His storming thoughts began to settle into something structured. He asserted calm over himself with an effort of will. His hands relaxed and his expression went placid. No one paid him any mind.
Iroh might win in an Agni Kai. He still had a few secrets hidden from Ozai, knowledge that he minded quietly and shared with no one. But there were underground lines of communication that Iroh would disrupt by engaging in a public confrontation with the Fire Lord, especially if he played any of his trump tiles too early - and besides, if he walked into the fire now, Zuko would be left alone.
With a sudden and intense clarity, Iroh knew what he had to do. Similarity to Lu Ten was no excuse; loss and cowardice were Iroh's own burdens to bear, not Zuko's. The boy had never truly known a father, and now this.
Iroh couldn't let Zuko go anywhere alone. He had to protect the prince, no matter the cost. And Zuko would need more than mere physical healing - as Iroh had after the world he thought he understood had betrayed him at Ba Sing Se. If the best he could be to the boy was an ally in a world that would offer Zuko few friends, that would have to be enough.
Iroh was sick to the heart of this place, of trying to forget what had led him here. It was time to move on.
----
Guards lifted Zuko gently from the floor. He couldn't help crying out, but he choked the sound off short by sheer effort of will. His jaw clenched tight against the continued need to scream.
Iroh trailed the guards wordlessly to a suite of rooms, not Zuko's own, where a small gaggle of nurses had already laid out crisp white sheets on a low bed, surrounded by the accoutrements of their work. Iroh remained in the room after the guards had gone back to the corridor.
A nurse looked in his direction, clearly thinking about telling him to leave, but Iroh drew himself up and she withered under his gaze.
Zuko passed out when he was laid down. The sheets were a mess of blood and char within minutes. An image of Lu Ten on the bed, scorched and raw, came into Iroh's mind unbidden, and he had to turn his head while the sickness subsided. But he didn't close his eyes this time. He would never do that again, as long as he could help it.
After many tense, silent minutes, the nurse who had looked at Iroh earlier approached him, traces of blood around her fingernails despite a thorough hand washing. Her long black hair was pulled back in a pragmatic knot.
“General,” she said with a deep bow.
“How is he?” Iroh asked sharply.
“He will live,” she said. “I've seen worse wounds in war. But the fire was concentrated, and I'm afraid that even with all our skill, we will not be able to prevent scarring. And... he may lose his eye.”
Iroh let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. He looked over at the bed, but Zuko was lying on changed sheets and draped all over with damp cloths. Iroh couldn't see his face. The cloth draped over its left side was already beginning to redden.
“He will need constant care for a fortnight at least,” said the nurse. “Full recovery may take months.”
“We'll have plenty of time,” Iroh said softly. “We're going on a long journey.”
“I'm sorry?” the nurse asked nervously.
“I must ask you to do as I say now,” said Iroh. “For the prince's sake, please.”
“General?”
“Do not leave this room for the next hour. Do not let anyone enter. Say whatever you have to say to keep people out. The guards cannot be trusted. Watch the windows, watch the walls. Protect the prince. I have messages to send, a ship to outfit. As soon as arrangements are set in motion, I will return.”
The nurse gave a wide-eyed nod.
“You must understand why I'm asking this,” Iroh murmured. “This is his most vulnerable moment, and he has enemies. One of them has just done this to him.”
Her eyes widened a fraction more as she drew the connections. She nodded a little more slowly.
“My vow is to heal,” she said, so quiet that her voice barely carried to him. “To protect my patients against all harm.”
“Thank you,” said Iroh. “What is your name?”
“Anil,” said the nurse.
“Thank you, Anil,” he said. “If I haven't returned on the hour, please - move him somewhere safe.”
“Where would that be?” asked Anil.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” said Iroh.
----
With ten minutes left on Anil's watch and a handful of powerful favors called in, Iroh pushed open the double doors to the throne room.
The Fire Lord sat behind his wall of flame, meditating - or seeming to. The nobles and military leaders that usually surrounded him had cleared out. A day when a king proclaims his son an exile is not an ordinary day by any means.
Iroh was certain he was expected.
“General,” Ozai said quietly. His voice carried in the empty room, over the hiss and snap of the fire.
Iroh drew himself up, fists clenched at his sides. His eyes reflected the firelight. “Ozai,” he said. “I thought you might like to know that your son will live.”
“He remains a disgrace,” Ozai said with unsettling conviction.
Iroh restrained the dragon that his whole body urged him to become. If he lashed out now - but he wouldn't, for the boy's sake. “You disgrace yourself,” Iroh said coldly. “I have loved and lost what you have never even acknowledged, much less deserved. The boy is the rightful heir. He will have your throne one day, and he will remember this parting. As will I.”
“You had your chance at power, old man,” said Ozai.
“You spirits-forsaken fool,” snarled Iroh. “You haven't broken Zuko's will. He will only try everything in his power to return to you and prove himself.”
“I have decreed that he can regain his honor,” said Ozai, “if he can bring me the Avatar.”
Ice seized Iroh's spine. A fool's errand. And knowing Zuko, he would follow it like a man possessed because of his father's promise.
“You shame this family,” said Iroh into the dead stillness. “You shame this house and this nation. I am going with Zuko. It is my dearest hope that I never see you again in this life.”
Ozai laughed, a rich, deep sound, and Iroh loathed every inch of the man.
“Then we share one hope, brother,” Ozai said.
Iroh grimaced as he fought the urge to fight back. With words or power - nothing would have any impact, and he knew it. The only thing he could do was walk away.
Iroh bowed and turned to leave.
----
The makeshift infirmary in the hold of the war galley remained stuffy no matter how often Iroh waved the smoke from the lamps out the door. There were no windows to open, and the hot dimness didn't give any relief to the fevered figure breathing shallowly on the pallet in one corner.
Iroh sat at a small table, holding a book of poetry open next to a burning lamp. He glanced across the room at the pallet. Anil had been in half an hour ago to change Zuko's dressings, but he still hadn't woken. It had been a full day since they'd set out from the capital. Anil fussed over how little water Zuko would swallow.
Iroh stayed with Zuko at all times, allowing Anil to be his eyes and ears on deck. A female healer was unthreatening enough to overhear a lot of loose talk that would have dried up had Iroh gone deckside to take a stroll in the pleasant weather.
The news was good. Iroh had managed to act quickly enough after the Agni Kai to beat Ozai's orders to the docks, mainly because Ozai delegated downward while Iroh had direct drinking and pai sho-playing connections with some of the more genial dockworkers and naval officers. With a little work and a few significant promises, Iroh had procured a solid ship and a solid crew in place of whatever deathtrap Ozai's loyalists would surely have shunted Zuko onto. Anil had overheard nothing threatening, only professionalism mingled with a little intrigue. The crew knew who was belowdecks, but not exactly why, and Iroh didn't intend to tell them. Not yet, anyway. The general consensus seemed to be that the prince had been in a training accident and was traveling while he recovered. The news from the palace was still too new to have spread through the entire navy.
Anil had also agreed to come with them. She knew an herbalist in the city who made the strongest painkillers, but they hardly seemed enough. Iroh, like Anil, had seen worse in war - but this was not war and Zuko was still a child. His shallow breathing hitched every once in a while, making Iroh flinch every time.
Zuko was not as badly injured as he'd first seemed. Raw. angry redness spread across most of his face and chest, but Anil had pointed out the only real areas of danger - small patches of paper-white skin scattered across his left collarbone and shoulder, and a larger swath of the same eerie paleness over his left eye, continuing back to his ear. As the hours passed and the patches on his chest and shoulder reddened, swelled and became fluid-filled blisters, Iroh allowed himself a few small sighs of relief. But both Iroh and Anil worried constantly about the burn on Zuko's face and the eye that hadn't opened since the duel.
Iroh tried to concentrate on his poetry. The ship yawed, the lamplight guttered and smoked, the pages wavered. Eventually, Iroh gave up. He stood and walked cautiously over to the pallet on the floor, having not yet entirely regained his sea legs, and settled down in the lotus position to meditate - or, failing that, simply to think about what course they should take in the upcoming week.
Some time later, but not long enough for Anil to have come down for another dressing check, Iroh was moved from his reverie by a change in Zuko's breathing.
Zuko woke with a low groan. His right eye blinked fully open, struggling to focus, while his left eyelid barely twitched. It slid up by a fraction, and Iroh peered close to Zuko's face to see if the eye itself was damaged. It was hard to tell in the low light.
Zuko blinked again and hissed with startlement at the face so close to his own. Iroh leaned back. “Zuko,” Iroh said, keeping his voice level and quiet. “It's good to see you awake.”
The boy took a breath to speak, then winced and took another, this one more careful and shallow. His right hand lifted from the pallet to prod at his chest. Iroh caught Zuko's hand in both of his own before Zuko managed to shift any of the loosely arranged dressings.
“How bad is it?” Zuko managed at last.
“Not so bad,” said Iroh. “You'll be fine again soon enough.” He put one hand back on his knee, but kept holding Zuko's with the other. Zuko's hand tightened involuntarily around Iroh's as he kept breathing carefully, feeling out the extent of the pain.
Zuko closed his eyes again and said, “I can't feel my face.”
Iroh breathed out slowly and gave Zuko's hand a little squeeze. “The nerves are damaged where the burns are worst. You may have a scar.”
Zuko clearly struggled with this information. He wasn't exactly a vain boy, but he was used to the passive privilege his looks and his pedigree bought him. Now both were in jeopardy. And a scar would be with him forever, never letting him forget the hideous instant of the fire leaping from his father's hand.
After a long silence, Zuko asked in a voice almost too small to be heard, “Is Father still angry with me?”
The boy was suddenly five years younger and fragile from the inexplicable disappearance of his mother, gripped with an unmanning terror of his sister, his world falling apart after the abrupt death of his grandfather. The only thing he had left was the tenuous possibility of his father's approval. For the first time, Iroh opened his eyes and saw Zuko as a young man, the child in him peering out from behind a burgeoning wall of teenagehood, perhaps for the last time.
“Your father is always angry, Zuko,” Iroh said quietly. “But not at you.”
Zuko jerked his hand out of Iroh's and snatched at a fistful of sheet instead, knuckles turning white. He couldn't quite turn his head away, but his eyes flicked to the opposite wall. What little Iroh could see of Zuko's left eye under the pallid, nerveless lid seemed quick and responsive, and he breathed a little sigh of relief.
Iroh returned both his hands to his lap and let Zuko fight in silence. Too many years of closeted hurts and discreetly ignored betrayals had broken into ugly clarity in a single moment, and a rage Zuko couldn't possibly understand strained and seized just under his thin skin. Iroh ached for him, remembering distantly what it was like to be fourteen and betrayed, and wished he could take some of that pain away.
After a while, the set of Zuko's shoulders shifted and he let out one short, sharp breath. “Where are we?” he asked, voice rough.
“A ship,” said Iroh. “Your new home. In two days, three at most, we will pass out of Fire Nation waters.”
“Exile,” Zuko muttered. Then, with a flicker of understanding, his eyes rolled back over to Iroh. “You... why are you here, Uncle?”
Iroh gave Zuko a broad smile. “Ah, it has been too long since I traveled the world, Prince Zuko! I have missed all the exotic varieties of tea one cannot get in the stuffy old Fire Nation! And I have heard no new songs in at least six months. My old brain is getting empty!”
Zuko snorted, then winced.
“I'm sorry,” Iroh added in an exaggerated stage whisper. “I'll try not to make you laugh.”
Zuko scowled and looked at the far wall again. “You can go back whenever you want,” he muttered, trying to force cold encouragement into his tone.
Iroh snorted, loudly. “Of course I can't,” he said dismissively. “And why would I want to? I've already told my brother exactly what I think of him.”
Zuko looked back at him with narrowed eyes, but Iroh thought he saw a flicker of mixed amazement and relief behind the dour front.
“Now,” said Iroh, rubbing his hands together. “There is one condition to your exile. You may return if you can find the Avatar!”
Zuko's eyes widened as much as they could. “But - that's -“
Impossible, Iroh filled in. Insult on injury. “The perfect excuse!” he declared.
“For - what?” Zuko seemed to have forgotten his pain in his bewildered focus on Iroh.
“If the Avatar is alive, he must be an old man,” said Iroh conspiratorially. “And old men love their comforts, you know. Surely he will be content drinking tea and playing pai sho somewhere. All we have to do is follow the tea shops!”
Zuko groaned and rolled his eyes. “Uncle...” he began.
“Hush!” said Iroh, holding up a hand. “No more shop talk. You need to rest and heal. Now that you're awake, I want you to try to drink as much water as you can.”
“Ugh,” said Zuko, and didn't speak again. He made a pained effort to sit up when Iroh helped him, though, and drank the water he was handed without complaint.
A few minutes later, Anil returned. She became completely businesslike when she saw that Zuko was awake, and asked him intent questions while she checked his bandages and probed gently at his burns. He answered in monosyllables. A second cup of water was surreptitiously laced with something to ease the pain and help him sleep. He drank half of it before his working eyelid began to droop and he slumped back down to the pallet.
Iroh stopped Anil with a hand on her arm just as she was making as if to stand and leave.
“Thank you for all your help,” said Iroh, then hesitated.
“But?” she said, kneeling back down beside him.
“When we leave Fire Nation waters, we won't be able to come back,” he said.
She held Iroh's eyes for a moment longer, but then her gaze fell. “I know,” she said.
“There is no reason you should have to leave your family,” said Iroh. “Tomorrow we will make port at the last outpost before the blockade. I can get you passage on the first ship back.”
“I...” She trailed off, looking at Zuko and then away. “I have a son. Grown and in the army. I don't see him.”
“If you are with us, he won't know where to find you when he comes home,” Iroh said firmly. “Prince Zuko is going to be fine. There are more wounds to heal elsewhere.”
Anil wiped one trembling hand over her brow, then let it drop to her lap with the other, where her fingers twisted uncertainly. “I don't want to leave the Fire Nation,” she said. “It's my home. But... it's selfish to think, when so many can't come home... I mean... I don't know what I mean.”
“It's the same in every nation,” said Iroh. “While the war lasts, anyway. You should go home, Anil. And I will give you some names - people working for peace. Talk to them and they can help you do more for the good of the people than you already are.”
She closed her eyes and nodded. Then she rose to her feet and, after some hesitation, bowed low. “All I want is to see Tozen again,” she said, looking down.
“I know,” said Iroh.
Anil left. Iroh watched Zuko sleep for a long moment, then buried his face in his hands. “I know,” he murmured.
----
“If I have to do it, I'm going to do it right,” Zuko said the next day, sitting up on his pallet.
Iroh poured a cup of water and handed it to Zuko, who took it absently and held it without drinking.
“How close are we to the air temple in the west?” asked Zuko.
“I've never been there,” said Iroh. “I'm not certain.”
“I want to see a map,” said Zuko. “And communicate my orders to the captain. I don't want to be seen yet.” He paused and glanced at Iroh, then added, “Please.”
Iroh gave Zuko a small smile. “If you will drink your water, I will get you a map,” he said.
Zuko looked at the cup like he didn't realize he was holding it. He blinked at it once, then took a sip.
“You know, we will be making port in a large city,” Iroh said, trying for nonchalant. “I have heard they hold a pai sho tournament in the early autumn that is highly regarded throughout the Earth Kingdom. The most excellent players come from all over...”
“We're not stopping for half a season so you can watch old farts shift tiles,” said Zuko, scowling over the rim of his cup.
“They always have tables for late arrivals,” Iroh muttered.
“Map,” grunted Zuko. There was now a focused, scalding fierceness about him. Iroh grimaced.
He and Zuko spoke little in the following days. Iroh barely had time to see the sky once they had reached the coast of the Earth Kingdom, much less take some shore leave. In the fore of his thoughts there was always a terrible fear of what Zuko might do if left alone. Possibly nothing. But Zuko was as unpredictable now as Iroh had ever known him, and Iroh couldn't even hazard a guess at what his poor judgment might advise him to do. The boy was clinging to a cliff edge that his family had been trying to push him over for his entire life, and he was no longer certain whether he ought to claw his way back to solid ground, as he had always done before, or simply let go.
Iroh tried to bring a grounding element of normality, even a little levity, to Zuko's waking moments, but the boy was relentless. His vision had tunneled to contain only his mission, and there was no persuading him to stop and consider the impossibility of it. He barely seemed aware of Iroh's presence, never meeting his eyes.
Anil had slipped away quietly, taking the first freighter back from the outermost islands along with a hold full of bream and a crew who didn't care about passengers as long as they paid. Zuko studiously ignored both the presence of his burns and Iroh's regular care of them. By the time they made port the wounds were able to bear more firmly bound dressings, changed less often. Iroh knew Zuko was in terrible pain, but other than the faintest tightening around his good eye when Iroh wound fresh linen around his chest and shoulder, he never acknowledged it.
An ancient and weathered map from the captain's library, drawn up before the genocide of the Air Nomads, contained the most accurate location of the Western Air Temple. Iroh dressed in as little red as possible and went out into the dock taverns one evening, and the location he dropped in casual conversation was corroborrated by local hearsay.
When he brought the news to Zuko, the fire it lit in him was immediate and intense. The crew, increasingly bewildered as to why they had the prince on board in the first place and where they were supposed to be going, were full of bile and questions when Iroh ordered them to organize personal transport for himself and the prince into an apparently empty stretch of wilderness.
Three days after they'd docked, Zuko emerged from belowdecks to stride purposefully across the ship towards the lizard hounds waiting on the shore, already saddled and loaded with provisions. The crew muttered as he passed, but Iroh cast a firm look at them as he followed the prince. Zuko didn't speak, nor even glance around at the assembled men.
He didn't speak all the way across the countryside. Iroh filled the silence for a while with loud traveling songs, but eventually, winded, he stopped, and they sped through sparsely wooded terrain with an agitated urgency the lizards seemed to pick up from Zuko.
Iroh wished he could forget why they were there when they finally reached the place. The temple was breathtaking. Panting and sweating a little from the effort of rappelling into the main pagoda, he looked around and couldn't help but feel a little lightheaded. His gut clenched at the emptiness of the place. Oh, to have seen it in its full use and purpose - full of monks and flying bison, the air inhabited with the same thoughtless three-dimensional grace with which fish moved through the ocean.
“What a stunning view,” he murmured appreciatively.
“The only view I'm interested in seeing is the Avatar in chains.”
Iroh glanced at Zuko. His face was a blank, half of it covered by a large bandage bound with a twisted length of linen. The corner of his mouth made the tiniest twitch of what could have been anything - disgust, resentment, regret.
Iroh looked back out at the beautiful vista. The air rushing through the impossible structures of the temple made sounds like soft flute-playing. He wanted to close his eyes and listen for hours. “You know,” he said quietly, “the Avatar hasn't been seen for a hundred years. The chances of finding him here are very slim.”
Zuko jerked his head a fraction of an inch to the side, as if shaking off an irritating insect. “First we'll check each of the air temples,” he said, almost as if to himself. “Then we'll scour the world, searching even the most remote locations until we find him.”
“Prince Zuko, it's only been a week since your banishment,” said Iroh, a little more firmly. “You should take some time to heal and rest.”
“What else would I expect to hear from the laziest man in the Fire Nation?” Zuko snapped, turning to glare at Iroh. Iroh tried to meet his eyes, but Zuko was already whipping around to face the empty canyon, turning his back on Iroh and clenching his fists at his sides.
Iroh sighed. The insult was crude, a low blow, and Zuko had never attacked Iroh with quite such directness before. But Iroh thought he knew what Zuko was trying to do. All Iroh could do to fight the anger in Zuko was to be relentlessly unflappable. The temple around them brought out the natural calm within Iroh, but a gnawing feeling in his insides told him it wouldn't always be this easy. Zuko had only just begun to test how effective viciousness and cruelty could be, after being the passive object of them for years.
“The only way to regain my honor is to find the Avatar,” Iroh heard Zuko mutter, almost to low to hear. “So I will.”
Iroh closed his eyes, shutting out the beauty of the temple and the sight of his poor, ravaged nephew standing in the middle of it, an ineffectual and insignificant speck. Only when Zuko realized that this was not a bad thing, merely the nature of individuality, would he finally be capable of recovery - and of seeing where he belonged in the connected whole. Zuko needed to feel significant again. He needed to erase the helplessness and terror and betrayal of the Agni Kai, and he would do it in the only way he had ever been taught: with pride, arrogance and repression. Iroh couldn't begin to imagine how long it would be before Zuko would be able to open his eyes - both of his eyes - and look out at this incomprehensibly wonderful place and see its true value.
Nor could Iroh imagine a time when Zuko would be able to close his eyes, acknowledge himself as he was and see the true value there. Iroh couldn't imagine it - but he could hope for it, and he told himself that he would continue to hope for it with all his might, because nothing else could save Zuko now.
Iroh turned away from Zuko and from the beauty of the temple. He would come back here someday. In happier times, he hoped; or, he feared, more likely as a final refuge when the world fell apart, as it seemed poised to do. He hoped that when he came back it would be with his nephew, in a time of healing.
Iroh sighed, opened his eyes, and walked back to the climbing rope.
-----
First up: Avatar.
Title: There All The Honor Lies
Author: ravenclaw42
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Rating: PG
Summary: Iroh realizes what he has to do to save a horribly burned Zuko after the Agni Kai with Ozai.
Disclaimer: The characters and situations don't belong to me. I make no profit with my writing.
Notes: This was originally meant to fill the prompt “burns” on my hc_bingo card. The dialogue in the last scene is lifted from the flashback in “The Western Air Temple”.
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There All The Honor Lies
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Even with his eyes closed, Iroh saw blood. The heat from the fire washed across his face, a yellow-white glow silhouetting the red tracery of veins in his eyelids, and he almost thought he saw the shadow of the boy inside the light. The roar of the flames could not drown out the scream.
Guilt seized him, guilt like he hadn't felt since - since Ba Sing Se, since the messenger hawk and the overwhelming stillness of a world gone wrong. He had been drifting since then, telling himself he was happy to be retired, that amusing himself and minding his own business were the only ways he could prevent anyone else from being hurt by his mistakes. He couldn't look at the children - he couldn't. Zuko was a sharp and forward boy, so much like Lu Ten, so easy for Iroh to smother under a false identity. Iroh couldn't bear it. He was kind to the boy, but he kept his distance.
He'd looked away. He'd always looked away. Iroh had no illusions about his brother, although he tried not to hate Ozai for things past. He'd thought that he'd earned the privilege of age - to choose his company, and dismiss those relationships he'd had to endure in his youth for the sake of politics. But he couldn't choose or dismiss family, and it was now, only when it was too late, that he realized what a mistake he'd made in his neglect.
And another child had suffered for that mistake.
Iroh put a hand over his eyes, blocking out the light. The roar had died back, but flames still crackled along the dueling platform. Drapery, clothing, skin, hair. In the quiet, everyone in the room must have heard the crackling choke that was the Crown Prince swallowing another scream. Trying to be brave. A gust of warm air that smelled of charcoal and cooked meat brushed against Iroh's face. His stomach turned.
Iroh heard a soft sound of disdain, then footsteps. A rustle at his side was Zhao, that foul sycophant, stepping forward to shout commands in a clear, ringing voice. Iroh barely listened, but he heard the word “exile” and realized like a jab in the solar plexus that this had all been planned. Just like Ozai's bloodless usurpation of the throne twenty years ago, playing on Iroh's lack of military ambition. Iroh's brother played the personalities of those around him like a string quartet.
Iroh was no fool. He saw how Ozai groomed Azula, and he'd known what it had meant for Zuko when the Queen had disappeared. Suicide, said Ozai, but there was no body. No sign at all. And Zuko had loved his mother.
The obvious mismatch in power was the only reason Zuko wasn't dead. The whole assembled crowd of Fire Nation nobility could see that even if the boy had made an effort, he wouldn't have been able to defend himself against the bending prowess of the Fire Lord. Ozai would surely use Zuko's self-abasement against him, but the boy had begged for forgiveness honestly, and in the innocence of his youth had expected honesty in return. From his father.
Zuko had done nothing wrong, had expected nothing he didn't have the right to expect. The charge of public disrespect was tenuous at best. Iroh knew that several other officers in the Council that day had agreed with the brash young prince, but they knew better than to speak out. With the slightest excuse, knowing that the excuse itself wouldn't support an outright execution, Ozai had done what he could to wipe Zuko out of the political picture. A debilitating injury - possibly fatal - and summary exile. Even if he was willing to, Zuko wouldn't be able to return to his home until he had healed. And the spirits only knew what the chances of that were.
Finally, Iroh lowered his hand and opened his eyes, insides churning with a newfound urgency. His hands clenched into fists at his sides. He felt he needed to get out of here now, out of this room, out of the capital, out of the Fire Nation. Wild thoughts tumbled through his head of assassins sent in the night to the bedside of a boy too broken to defend himself, too badly hurt for his death to come under scrutiny. Iroh was close to panic.
Zuko was kneeling on the platform, unable to move. Iroh was amazed that he was still upright. A few straggling wisps of hair remained on the left side of his head, and his face and chest were a mass of blackened skin showing red through a few cracks. Even as Iroh watched, a crack eased open above Zuko's left temple and a brief wash of blood cut through the soot, over his closed eyelid. Zuko made little involuntary sounds with each breath. Iroh was frozen for a moment by disgust and disbelief, and the raging desire to hunt down his brother and scalp him for this, to pull out Ozai's innards with his bare hands and set them on fire in front of his face.
His storming thoughts began to settle into something structured. He asserted calm over himself with an effort of will. His hands relaxed and his expression went placid. No one paid him any mind.
Iroh might win in an Agni Kai. He still had a few secrets hidden from Ozai, knowledge that he minded quietly and shared with no one. But there were underground lines of communication that Iroh would disrupt by engaging in a public confrontation with the Fire Lord, especially if he played any of his trump tiles too early - and besides, if he walked into the fire now, Zuko would be left alone.
With a sudden and intense clarity, Iroh knew what he had to do. Similarity to Lu Ten was no excuse; loss and cowardice were Iroh's own burdens to bear, not Zuko's. The boy had never truly known a father, and now this.
Iroh couldn't let Zuko go anywhere alone. He had to protect the prince, no matter the cost. And Zuko would need more than mere physical healing - as Iroh had after the world he thought he understood had betrayed him at Ba Sing Se. If the best he could be to the boy was an ally in a world that would offer Zuko few friends, that would have to be enough.
Iroh was sick to the heart of this place, of trying to forget what had led him here. It was time to move on.
----
Guards lifted Zuko gently from the floor. He couldn't help crying out, but he choked the sound off short by sheer effort of will. His jaw clenched tight against the continued need to scream.
Iroh trailed the guards wordlessly to a suite of rooms, not Zuko's own, where a small gaggle of nurses had already laid out crisp white sheets on a low bed, surrounded by the accoutrements of their work. Iroh remained in the room after the guards had gone back to the corridor.
A nurse looked in his direction, clearly thinking about telling him to leave, but Iroh drew himself up and she withered under his gaze.
Zuko passed out when he was laid down. The sheets were a mess of blood and char within minutes. An image of Lu Ten on the bed, scorched and raw, came into Iroh's mind unbidden, and he had to turn his head while the sickness subsided. But he didn't close his eyes this time. He would never do that again, as long as he could help it.
After many tense, silent minutes, the nurse who had looked at Iroh earlier approached him, traces of blood around her fingernails despite a thorough hand washing. Her long black hair was pulled back in a pragmatic knot.
“General,” she said with a deep bow.
“How is he?” Iroh asked sharply.
“He will live,” she said. “I've seen worse wounds in war. But the fire was concentrated, and I'm afraid that even with all our skill, we will not be able to prevent scarring. And... he may lose his eye.”
Iroh let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. He looked over at the bed, but Zuko was lying on changed sheets and draped all over with damp cloths. Iroh couldn't see his face. The cloth draped over its left side was already beginning to redden.
“He will need constant care for a fortnight at least,” said the nurse. “Full recovery may take months.”
“We'll have plenty of time,” Iroh said softly. “We're going on a long journey.”
“I'm sorry?” the nurse asked nervously.
“I must ask you to do as I say now,” said Iroh. “For the prince's sake, please.”
“General?”
“Do not leave this room for the next hour. Do not let anyone enter. Say whatever you have to say to keep people out. The guards cannot be trusted. Watch the windows, watch the walls. Protect the prince. I have messages to send, a ship to outfit. As soon as arrangements are set in motion, I will return.”
The nurse gave a wide-eyed nod.
“You must understand why I'm asking this,” Iroh murmured. “This is his most vulnerable moment, and he has enemies. One of them has just done this to him.”
Her eyes widened a fraction more as she drew the connections. She nodded a little more slowly.
“My vow is to heal,” she said, so quiet that her voice barely carried to him. “To protect my patients against all harm.”
“Thank you,” said Iroh. “What is your name?”
“Anil,” said the nurse.
“Thank you, Anil,” he said. “If I haven't returned on the hour, please - move him somewhere safe.”
“Where would that be?” asked Anil.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” said Iroh.
----
With ten minutes left on Anil's watch and a handful of powerful favors called in, Iroh pushed open the double doors to the throne room.
The Fire Lord sat behind his wall of flame, meditating - or seeming to. The nobles and military leaders that usually surrounded him had cleared out. A day when a king proclaims his son an exile is not an ordinary day by any means.
Iroh was certain he was expected.
“General,” Ozai said quietly. His voice carried in the empty room, over the hiss and snap of the fire.
Iroh drew himself up, fists clenched at his sides. His eyes reflected the firelight. “Ozai,” he said. “I thought you might like to know that your son will live.”
“He remains a disgrace,” Ozai said with unsettling conviction.
Iroh restrained the dragon that his whole body urged him to become. If he lashed out now - but he wouldn't, for the boy's sake. “You disgrace yourself,” Iroh said coldly. “I have loved and lost what you have never even acknowledged, much less deserved. The boy is the rightful heir. He will have your throne one day, and he will remember this parting. As will I.”
“You had your chance at power, old man,” said Ozai.
“You spirits-forsaken fool,” snarled Iroh. “You haven't broken Zuko's will. He will only try everything in his power to return to you and prove himself.”
“I have decreed that he can regain his honor,” said Ozai, “if he can bring me the Avatar.”
Ice seized Iroh's spine. A fool's errand. And knowing Zuko, he would follow it like a man possessed because of his father's promise.
“You shame this family,” said Iroh into the dead stillness. “You shame this house and this nation. I am going with Zuko. It is my dearest hope that I never see you again in this life.”
Ozai laughed, a rich, deep sound, and Iroh loathed every inch of the man.
“Then we share one hope, brother,” Ozai said.
Iroh grimaced as he fought the urge to fight back. With words or power - nothing would have any impact, and he knew it. The only thing he could do was walk away.
Iroh bowed and turned to leave.
----
The makeshift infirmary in the hold of the war galley remained stuffy no matter how often Iroh waved the smoke from the lamps out the door. There were no windows to open, and the hot dimness didn't give any relief to the fevered figure breathing shallowly on the pallet in one corner.
Iroh sat at a small table, holding a book of poetry open next to a burning lamp. He glanced across the room at the pallet. Anil had been in half an hour ago to change Zuko's dressings, but he still hadn't woken. It had been a full day since they'd set out from the capital. Anil fussed over how little water Zuko would swallow.
Iroh stayed with Zuko at all times, allowing Anil to be his eyes and ears on deck. A female healer was unthreatening enough to overhear a lot of loose talk that would have dried up had Iroh gone deckside to take a stroll in the pleasant weather.
The news was good. Iroh had managed to act quickly enough after the Agni Kai to beat Ozai's orders to the docks, mainly because Ozai delegated downward while Iroh had direct drinking and pai sho-playing connections with some of the more genial dockworkers and naval officers. With a little work and a few significant promises, Iroh had procured a solid ship and a solid crew in place of whatever deathtrap Ozai's loyalists would surely have shunted Zuko onto. Anil had overheard nothing threatening, only professionalism mingled with a little intrigue. The crew knew who was belowdecks, but not exactly why, and Iroh didn't intend to tell them. Not yet, anyway. The general consensus seemed to be that the prince had been in a training accident and was traveling while he recovered. The news from the palace was still too new to have spread through the entire navy.
Anil had also agreed to come with them. She knew an herbalist in the city who made the strongest painkillers, but they hardly seemed enough. Iroh, like Anil, had seen worse in war - but this was not war and Zuko was still a child. His shallow breathing hitched every once in a while, making Iroh flinch every time.
Zuko was not as badly injured as he'd first seemed. Raw. angry redness spread across most of his face and chest, but Anil had pointed out the only real areas of danger - small patches of paper-white skin scattered across his left collarbone and shoulder, and a larger swath of the same eerie paleness over his left eye, continuing back to his ear. As the hours passed and the patches on his chest and shoulder reddened, swelled and became fluid-filled blisters, Iroh allowed himself a few small sighs of relief. But both Iroh and Anil worried constantly about the burn on Zuko's face and the eye that hadn't opened since the duel.
Iroh tried to concentrate on his poetry. The ship yawed, the lamplight guttered and smoked, the pages wavered. Eventually, Iroh gave up. He stood and walked cautiously over to the pallet on the floor, having not yet entirely regained his sea legs, and settled down in the lotus position to meditate - or, failing that, simply to think about what course they should take in the upcoming week.
Some time later, but not long enough for Anil to have come down for another dressing check, Iroh was moved from his reverie by a change in Zuko's breathing.
Zuko woke with a low groan. His right eye blinked fully open, struggling to focus, while his left eyelid barely twitched. It slid up by a fraction, and Iroh peered close to Zuko's face to see if the eye itself was damaged. It was hard to tell in the low light.
Zuko blinked again and hissed with startlement at the face so close to his own. Iroh leaned back. “Zuko,” Iroh said, keeping his voice level and quiet. “It's good to see you awake.”
The boy took a breath to speak, then winced and took another, this one more careful and shallow. His right hand lifted from the pallet to prod at his chest. Iroh caught Zuko's hand in both of his own before Zuko managed to shift any of the loosely arranged dressings.
“How bad is it?” Zuko managed at last.
“Not so bad,” said Iroh. “You'll be fine again soon enough.” He put one hand back on his knee, but kept holding Zuko's with the other. Zuko's hand tightened involuntarily around Iroh's as he kept breathing carefully, feeling out the extent of the pain.
Zuko closed his eyes again and said, “I can't feel my face.”
Iroh breathed out slowly and gave Zuko's hand a little squeeze. “The nerves are damaged where the burns are worst. You may have a scar.”
Zuko clearly struggled with this information. He wasn't exactly a vain boy, but he was used to the passive privilege his looks and his pedigree bought him. Now both were in jeopardy. And a scar would be with him forever, never letting him forget the hideous instant of the fire leaping from his father's hand.
After a long silence, Zuko asked in a voice almost too small to be heard, “Is Father still angry with me?”
The boy was suddenly five years younger and fragile from the inexplicable disappearance of his mother, gripped with an unmanning terror of his sister, his world falling apart after the abrupt death of his grandfather. The only thing he had left was the tenuous possibility of his father's approval. For the first time, Iroh opened his eyes and saw Zuko as a young man, the child in him peering out from behind a burgeoning wall of teenagehood, perhaps for the last time.
“Your father is always angry, Zuko,” Iroh said quietly. “But not at you.”
Zuko jerked his hand out of Iroh's and snatched at a fistful of sheet instead, knuckles turning white. He couldn't quite turn his head away, but his eyes flicked to the opposite wall. What little Iroh could see of Zuko's left eye under the pallid, nerveless lid seemed quick and responsive, and he breathed a little sigh of relief.
Iroh returned both his hands to his lap and let Zuko fight in silence. Too many years of closeted hurts and discreetly ignored betrayals had broken into ugly clarity in a single moment, and a rage Zuko couldn't possibly understand strained and seized just under his thin skin. Iroh ached for him, remembering distantly what it was like to be fourteen and betrayed, and wished he could take some of that pain away.
After a while, the set of Zuko's shoulders shifted and he let out one short, sharp breath. “Where are we?” he asked, voice rough.
“A ship,” said Iroh. “Your new home. In two days, three at most, we will pass out of Fire Nation waters.”
“Exile,” Zuko muttered. Then, with a flicker of understanding, his eyes rolled back over to Iroh. “You... why are you here, Uncle?”
Iroh gave Zuko a broad smile. “Ah, it has been too long since I traveled the world, Prince Zuko! I have missed all the exotic varieties of tea one cannot get in the stuffy old Fire Nation! And I have heard no new songs in at least six months. My old brain is getting empty!”
Zuko snorted, then winced.
“I'm sorry,” Iroh added in an exaggerated stage whisper. “I'll try not to make you laugh.”
Zuko scowled and looked at the far wall again. “You can go back whenever you want,” he muttered, trying to force cold encouragement into his tone.
Iroh snorted, loudly. “Of course I can't,” he said dismissively. “And why would I want to? I've already told my brother exactly what I think of him.”
Zuko looked back at him with narrowed eyes, but Iroh thought he saw a flicker of mixed amazement and relief behind the dour front.
“Now,” said Iroh, rubbing his hands together. “There is one condition to your exile. You may return if you can find the Avatar!”
Zuko's eyes widened as much as they could. “But - that's -“
Impossible, Iroh filled in. Insult on injury. “The perfect excuse!” he declared.
“For - what?” Zuko seemed to have forgotten his pain in his bewildered focus on Iroh.
“If the Avatar is alive, he must be an old man,” said Iroh conspiratorially. “And old men love their comforts, you know. Surely he will be content drinking tea and playing pai sho somewhere. All we have to do is follow the tea shops!”
Zuko groaned and rolled his eyes. “Uncle...” he began.
“Hush!” said Iroh, holding up a hand. “No more shop talk. You need to rest and heal. Now that you're awake, I want you to try to drink as much water as you can.”
“Ugh,” said Zuko, and didn't speak again. He made a pained effort to sit up when Iroh helped him, though, and drank the water he was handed without complaint.
A few minutes later, Anil returned. She became completely businesslike when she saw that Zuko was awake, and asked him intent questions while she checked his bandages and probed gently at his burns. He answered in monosyllables. A second cup of water was surreptitiously laced with something to ease the pain and help him sleep. He drank half of it before his working eyelid began to droop and he slumped back down to the pallet.
Iroh stopped Anil with a hand on her arm just as she was making as if to stand and leave.
“Thank you for all your help,” said Iroh, then hesitated.
“But?” she said, kneeling back down beside him.
“When we leave Fire Nation waters, we won't be able to come back,” he said.
She held Iroh's eyes for a moment longer, but then her gaze fell. “I know,” she said.
“There is no reason you should have to leave your family,” said Iroh. “Tomorrow we will make port at the last outpost before the blockade. I can get you passage on the first ship back.”
“I...” She trailed off, looking at Zuko and then away. “I have a son. Grown and in the army. I don't see him.”
“If you are with us, he won't know where to find you when he comes home,” Iroh said firmly. “Prince Zuko is going to be fine. There are more wounds to heal elsewhere.”
Anil wiped one trembling hand over her brow, then let it drop to her lap with the other, where her fingers twisted uncertainly. “I don't want to leave the Fire Nation,” she said. “It's my home. But... it's selfish to think, when so many can't come home... I mean... I don't know what I mean.”
“It's the same in every nation,” said Iroh. “While the war lasts, anyway. You should go home, Anil. And I will give you some names - people working for peace. Talk to them and they can help you do more for the good of the people than you already are.”
She closed her eyes and nodded. Then she rose to her feet and, after some hesitation, bowed low. “All I want is to see Tozen again,” she said, looking down.
“I know,” said Iroh.
Anil left. Iroh watched Zuko sleep for a long moment, then buried his face in his hands. “I know,” he murmured.
----
“If I have to do it, I'm going to do it right,” Zuko said the next day, sitting up on his pallet.
Iroh poured a cup of water and handed it to Zuko, who took it absently and held it without drinking.
“How close are we to the air temple in the west?” asked Zuko.
“I've never been there,” said Iroh. “I'm not certain.”
“I want to see a map,” said Zuko. “And communicate my orders to the captain. I don't want to be seen yet.” He paused and glanced at Iroh, then added, “Please.”
Iroh gave Zuko a small smile. “If you will drink your water, I will get you a map,” he said.
Zuko looked at the cup like he didn't realize he was holding it. He blinked at it once, then took a sip.
“You know, we will be making port in a large city,” Iroh said, trying for nonchalant. “I have heard they hold a pai sho tournament in the early autumn that is highly regarded throughout the Earth Kingdom. The most excellent players come from all over...”
“We're not stopping for half a season so you can watch old farts shift tiles,” said Zuko, scowling over the rim of his cup.
“They always have tables for late arrivals,” Iroh muttered.
“Map,” grunted Zuko. There was now a focused, scalding fierceness about him. Iroh grimaced.
He and Zuko spoke little in the following days. Iroh barely had time to see the sky once they had reached the coast of the Earth Kingdom, much less take some shore leave. In the fore of his thoughts there was always a terrible fear of what Zuko might do if left alone. Possibly nothing. But Zuko was as unpredictable now as Iroh had ever known him, and Iroh couldn't even hazard a guess at what his poor judgment might advise him to do. The boy was clinging to a cliff edge that his family had been trying to push him over for his entire life, and he was no longer certain whether he ought to claw his way back to solid ground, as he had always done before, or simply let go.
Iroh tried to bring a grounding element of normality, even a little levity, to Zuko's waking moments, but the boy was relentless. His vision had tunneled to contain only his mission, and there was no persuading him to stop and consider the impossibility of it. He barely seemed aware of Iroh's presence, never meeting his eyes.
Anil had slipped away quietly, taking the first freighter back from the outermost islands along with a hold full of bream and a crew who didn't care about passengers as long as they paid. Zuko studiously ignored both the presence of his burns and Iroh's regular care of them. By the time they made port the wounds were able to bear more firmly bound dressings, changed less often. Iroh knew Zuko was in terrible pain, but other than the faintest tightening around his good eye when Iroh wound fresh linen around his chest and shoulder, he never acknowledged it.
An ancient and weathered map from the captain's library, drawn up before the genocide of the Air Nomads, contained the most accurate location of the Western Air Temple. Iroh dressed in as little red as possible and went out into the dock taverns one evening, and the location he dropped in casual conversation was corroborrated by local hearsay.
When he brought the news to Zuko, the fire it lit in him was immediate and intense. The crew, increasingly bewildered as to why they had the prince on board in the first place and where they were supposed to be going, were full of bile and questions when Iroh ordered them to organize personal transport for himself and the prince into an apparently empty stretch of wilderness.
Three days after they'd docked, Zuko emerged from belowdecks to stride purposefully across the ship towards the lizard hounds waiting on the shore, already saddled and loaded with provisions. The crew muttered as he passed, but Iroh cast a firm look at them as he followed the prince. Zuko didn't speak, nor even glance around at the assembled men.
He didn't speak all the way across the countryside. Iroh filled the silence for a while with loud traveling songs, but eventually, winded, he stopped, and they sped through sparsely wooded terrain with an agitated urgency the lizards seemed to pick up from Zuko.
Iroh wished he could forget why they were there when they finally reached the place. The temple was breathtaking. Panting and sweating a little from the effort of rappelling into the main pagoda, he looked around and couldn't help but feel a little lightheaded. His gut clenched at the emptiness of the place. Oh, to have seen it in its full use and purpose - full of monks and flying bison, the air inhabited with the same thoughtless three-dimensional grace with which fish moved through the ocean.
“What a stunning view,” he murmured appreciatively.
“The only view I'm interested in seeing is the Avatar in chains.”
Iroh glanced at Zuko. His face was a blank, half of it covered by a large bandage bound with a twisted length of linen. The corner of his mouth made the tiniest twitch of what could have been anything - disgust, resentment, regret.
Iroh looked back out at the beautiful vista. The air rushing through the impossible structures of the temple made sounds like soft flute-playing. He wanted to close his eyes and listen for hours. “You know,” he said quietly, “the Avatar hasn't been seen for a hundred years. The chances of finding him here are very slim.”
Zuko jerked his head a fraction of an inch to the side, as if shaking off an irritating insect. “First we'll check each of the air temples,” he said, almost as if to himself. “Then we'll scour the world, searching even the most remote locations until we find him.”
“Prince Zuko, it's only been a week since your banishment,” said Iroh, a little more firmly. “You should take some time to heal and rest.”
“What else would I expect to hear from the laziest man in the Fire Nation?” Zuko snapped, turning to glare at Iroh. Iroh tried to meet his eyes, but Zuko was already whipping around to face the empty canyon, turning his back on Iroh and clenching his fists at his sides.
Iroh sighed. The insult was crude, a low blow, and Zuko had never attacked Iroh with quite such directness before. But Iroh thought he knew what Zuko was trying to do. All Iroh could do to fight the anger in Zuko was to be relentlessly unflappable. The temple around them brought out the natural calm within Iroh, but a gnawing feeling in his insides told him it wouldn't always be this easy. Zuko had only just begun to test how effective viciousness and cruelty could be, after being the passive object of them for years.
“The only way to regain my honor is to find the Avatar,” Iroh heard Zuko mutter, almost to low to hear. “So I will.”
Iroh closed his eyes, shutting out the beauty of the temple and the sight of his poor, ravaged nephew standing in the middle of it, an ineffectual and insignificant speck. Only when Zuko realized that this was not a bad thing, merely the nature of individuality, would he finally be capable of recovery - and of seeing where he belonged in the connected whole. Zuko needed to feel significant again. He needed to erase the helplessness and terror and betrayal of the Agni Kai, and he would do it in the only way he had ever been taught: with pride, arrogance and repression. Iroh couldn't begin to imagine how long it would be before Zuko would be able to open his eyes - both of his eyes - and look out at this incomprehensibly wonderful place and see its true value.
Nor could Iroh imagine a time when Zuko would be able to close his eyes, acknowledge himself as he was and see the true value there. Iroh couldn't imagine it - but he could hope for it, and he told himself that he would continue to hope for it with all his might, because nothing else could save Zuko now.
Iroh turned away from Zuko and from the beauty of the temple. He would come back here someday. In happier times, he hoped; or, he feared, more likely as a final refuge when the world fell apart, as it seemed poised to do. He hoped that when he came back it would be with his nephew, in a time of healing.
Iroh sighed, opened his eyes, and walked back to the climbing rope.
-----