[fic] Something to Hold Onto, Epilogue: Part Two
:: Continued from Part One ::
"I don't like this," said Katara, cross-legged on the floor of a canvas tent. "We should wait for Aang to get back."
"Avatar Aang already knows what part he will play tomorrow," said Iroh. "And he knows that we are counting on him. He will be waiting on Crescent Island before the Fire Lord and his fleet pass overhead."
"But we don't even know where he is," Katara pressed. "Maybe he's hurt…or lost! Or maybe he's in the Spirit World again! We should be looking for him, before-"
"We've asked him to sacrifice a great deal to fight for all of our freedom," said Piandao, somehow managing dignity despite the trickle of sweat on his temple. "The least we can offer in return is a chance to make peace with himself."
Jet stifled a yawn and rubbed his eyes with the heel of his palm. He had said very little since this meeting had started an hour ago. Not because of a lack of interest - Aang had grown on him in the last few weeks, and he was as worried about the kid as anyone else - but because he had never been this goddamn hot for this many days in his life.
He understood why they were here, and couldn't really complain given the circumstances. Azula had found their last camp with scouts and good guesses - in retrospect, of course she would have looked for Aang at the closest Airbender temple. Leaving under the cover of darkness with next to no time to prepare, they had been forced to choose a new hiding place they could reach before dawn, where they couldn't be seen from the air and which Azula wouldn't immediately think to search.
Thus had they ended up in the dense jungle at the fringes of the Sun Warrior ruins, their tents and dismantled airships hidden beneath the lush canopy of leaves and tangled vines. After half a month of sweltering days followed by infinite, airless nights, Jet's energy and patience were both in short supply. But he was no stranger to poor sleep and discomfort, and at least they had the Sun Warriors' help with keeping their stomachs full.
He bit the inside of his cheek and tried to pay attention.
"With our new allies from the Boiling Rock helping us, our numbers in the capital will be larger than we'd counted on," Hakoda was saying. "If we're smart about it, we should be able to overtake the Imperial forces without too many people getting caught in the crossfire."
"I'm more worried about those air ships," said Sokka, leaning forward to peer at the map laid out at the center of their circle. "We're sure that's where Ozai's gonna be?"
"Our intelligence has confirmed most of what the two defectors have told us," said Chen. "The Fire Lord plans to lead the airship fleet himself and participate in the assault. He will leave the palace bunker approximately four hours before the comet's arrival, and the fleet will reach Crescent Island two hours after their departure from the capital. That should allow the Avatar sufficient time to engage him, as well as provide a window for our own forces to move into the caldera before the effects of the comet bolster Fire Nation defenses. This should help minimize civilian casualties, as discussed. However, the princess' agenda remains uncertain."
"She'll be on one of the airships," said Zuko quietly. "Razing the Earth Kingdom was her idea. She'll want to see it for herself."
"Aang's going to have his hands full just trying to fight Ozai," said Sokka. "We'll need someone else to keep Azula busy while my team disables the airships."
"I'll do it," said Zuko.
"Not by yourself," sad Jet, speaking for the first time in an hour.
Zuko shook his head. "She's my responsibility. I can handle her. "
"Last time we fought Azula, Aang almost died," said Katara. "I'm coming with you."
"Katara-"
"Pakku brought another vial of water from the Spirit Oasis. That's what saved Aang, but I have to be there to use it." She reached up to finger the leather cord it hung from, tied around her neck. "Besides," she added darkly. "I owe her."
"So do I," said Jet. "I told the Siguo she'd pay for what she did. Don't make a liar out of me."
"This is not a mission of vengeance," said Iroh. "What we do tomorrow will be in the name of peace. Not retribution."
"Call it justice, then," sad Jet. "I don't care. Just let me be there to make it happen."
"I have been told of your battle with General Zha," said Jeong Jeong, "and I do not mean to diminish that triumph. But Princess Azula is one of the most powerful Firebenders alive. Swords and quick thinking will not stop a bolt of lightning, and only a Firebender can learn to redirect it."
"Would you say the same to me?" asked Piandao.
"You are a master. He is a boy."
"And I've been fighting Firebenders since I was eight," said Jet. "Besides. I won't be alone. Zuko and I know how to watch each other's backs." He turned to Zuko, flashing a lopsided grin. "Right?"
Zuko licked his lips. "Actually…" His throat moved as he swallowed. "I'm not so sure you should go."
Jet blinked at him. "What?" he asked with an uncertain chuckle. "Why not?"
"I just…don't think it's a good idea."
Jet felt heat rise to his face as he looked around the informal council they'd assembled. No one moved to argue with Zuko. Of course not, Jet thought to himself, the nauseating weight of embarrassment settling into his stomach. He's the only reason you're here at all.
"You know, I told Smellerbee and Longshot I'd help them get their gear together for the raid on the airships," he said as he got to his feet, his affect as casual as he could convincingly manage. "Lemme know what you guys decide on everything else, all right?"
He slipped through the door of the tent before anyone could reply. A handful of the Boiling Rock prisoners were hovering outside, likely waiting their turn to speak to Zuko. Jet nodded to them but didn't meet their eyes, his shoulders hunched as he pushed his way into the underbrush.
The air wasn't any cooler out here than it was inside, although at least he could feel a hint of breeze coming from the brook a short way away. Their camp had been erected in the densest part of the jungle, tents built around tree trunks and in the hollows of vast root systems. They had tied long ropes between the trees to guide them at night, or to keep them from getting lost in the daytime when they moved out of sight of camp. Within a few strides, Jet could no longer see patches of canvas through the undergrowth.
At home, he would have pulled himself up onto a low-hanging branch and listened to the wind in the leaves for a while. But the canopy of this forest was too high to easily reach, and the air stuck to him like a second skin, dense with a cacophony of insects and birds and the small, quick panther monkeys that lived in this part of the jungle.
He was perched on the trunk of a fallen tree, watching a line of ants progress along its bark, when he heard Zuko call for him. Just then, he didn't particularly want to answer, but he supposed that Zuko would pin him down soon enough regardless. With years of tracking the Avatar behind him, Zuko had a knack for finding people that bordered on the supernatural.
"Here," said Jet, just loud enough to cut through the din. He didn't look up as Zuko picked his way through the brush and settled down onto the log beside him.
"I don't think this is where they keep their gear," said Zuko quietly.
"Yeah, well, you caught me."
He felt Zuko's hand on his back, the same touch that had comforted him so often that summer. Now he shrugged it off, tense with unfocused irritation. "I shouldn't have come," said Jet.
"Don't be-"
"No one wants me to be here," said Jet, embarrassed at his own petulance but unable to stop himself, sitting in this jungle where he so obviously didn't belong. "No one wants my help. Not even you."
Zuko frowned. "Jet…"
"It's fine," said Jet with a fierce stab at indifference. "I get it. You don't think I can handle her. Whatever."
"No. You don't understand," said Zuko. There was a quiet, frightened urgency to his tone. "You don't know what she's like. It'll be bad enough having Katara there…Jet, she'd go after you just to get to me. And I can't…" Zuko reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "I wouldn't be able to help myself. I'd do anything."
"You would for anyone," said Jet.
"It's not the same."
Jet remembered the look on Zuko's face under Lake Laogai, when Ping had told him there wasn't time and they would have to leave Jet behind. There had been no considered decision; no careful weighing of options. In that instant, Zuko had thrown away the life he'd built, exposed all the lies he'd told and begged the vengeance of those he'd told them to, rather than risk whatever the Dai Li might do to the boy he loved.
Jet bowed his head, his hands folded over the nape of his neck. He could still feel the too-smooth skin where the burns had healed over. "I shouldn't be here," he said again.
"I need you."
"Right."
"I do," said Zuko, stubbornly insistent.
"What am I supposed to do, then? Join the airship team? Peacekeeping in the capital?" Jet sniffed. "You don't need me for any of that."
Zuko looked down at his hands, palms turned up to catch what sunlight managed to filter through the leaves. "Look, Jet…even if we actually manage to take back the capital tomorrow, there's no telling how bad things will get," he said. "If the peacekeeping forces can't reach the palace before the comet arrives, a lot of people could get hurt. Hundreds of servants live there, and it's not like any of this is their fault."
Jet grunted in acknowledgment, his eyes carefully focused on his boots.
"I want to send a small team to evacuate the palace staff and secure the grounds," said Zuko. "Mai and Ty Lee know the layout better than anyone - they were there a few weeks ago, and there's only so much Azula could've changed since then. But we can't send them in alone. We barely trust them enough to sleep in our camp."
"All right."
"Then there's the seven Dai Li my sister brought back with her. Chang wants to be there to fight them, but…look, I know he's done a lot for the Siguo-"
"No, you're right," said Jet. He sighed, relaxing a little into the familiar rhythm of logistics. "Smellerbee and Longshot should stay on the airship team. They're good with heights, they've done a lot of sabotage on Fire Nation equipment. Keep their heads."
"Sure."
Jet rubbed his eyes, hard enough to hurt a little. "Fuck, I wish Ping was here."
"I know," said Zuko.
This time, when Jet felt Zuko's hand on his back, he leaned into the touch. "Chang and Xiao Si Wang really clicked on the way over here," he said. "He says she reminds him of his little sister from back home, before Long Feng took him away. He's from the plains, did you know that?"
"No. Huh."
"If she comes, he'll behave," said Jet. He worried his bottom lip between his teeth, contemplative. "Who else…"
"The Duke?"
"He'll go with Teo. Help him run the transports."
"What about Haru?"
"Mustache?" Jet smiled a little, remembering a rooftop conversation from what felt like another life. "How good is he, anyway?"
"Good."
"Ping good?"
"Ni Shui Jian good. And Ty Lee likes him."
Jet snorted. "She likes everyone."
"Jet…"
"I can handle her. And Mai. You don't need to worry about me."
He tried to sound confident, not wanting Zuko to worry any more than was unavoidable, but in truth he felt anything but. He had no idea what the Fire Nation capital looked like, beyond the barest details gleaned from conversation. He imagined the palace as a sweltering temple to imperial might, all sharp angles and dark corridors and gaudily patriotic decor in red and gold. No less alien a landscape than this forest, and far more dangerous.
Despite the dripping jungle heat, Jet pressed closer to the other boy. "Can she really bend lightning?" he asked, very soft.
Zuko's arm slid around Jet's shoulders, and he felt warm breath against his hair. "Uncle taught me how to redirect it," Zuko murmured. He kissed Jet's forehead. "I'll be fine."
Jet closed his eyes. "You might have to kill her. You know that, right?"
"I know."
They sat together that way for some time, listening to the forest, until the light dimmed.
Katara was waiting for them when they returned to the camp. She stood outside the small tent they shared with Longshot, Smellerbee and Xiao Si Wang, her face drawn with worry. "Where have you been?"
"Just needed to talk about a few things." said Jet.
"Sorry," said Zuko.
"A hawk came from Fat while you were gone," said Katara.
Jet arched an eyebrow. "Who?"
"Piandao's butler. He's been keeping an eye on the capital for us," said Zuko. He looked back to Katara, frowning. "What happened?"
"Ozai's lost it," she said. Jet could hear the panic in her voice, now. "He's started calling himself the 'Phoenix King'-"
"The what?" asked Jet, his nose wrinkled.
"Look, I don't know," Katara snapped, although Jet could tell she was more afraid than angry. "He crowned himself this afternoon."
"What about Azula?" asked Zuko quietly.
Katara hesitated, her hand coming up to tug at a lock of her hair. "Zuko…"
"Just tell me."
Katara sighed and shook her head. "He made her Fire Lord," she said. "The coronation's tomorrow."
Jet lay on a thin, damp mattress on the floor of a musty tent, his bare skin slick with sweat and his ears full of the sound of insects and night birds, alone with the suffocating darkness. A few hours before, he had watched Zuko and Katara disappear into the forest, lead by one of the Sun Warriors toward the ruins of their city. An hour from now, before the sun rose, he would climb aboard Aang's bison, along with the team he'd chosen, and set out for the Fire Nation capital. Not to strike at the heart of the empire which had taken so much from him; which had orphaned a boy in the forest and turned him into a killer; which had burned and beaten and raped and enslaved his country and his people. Not to exact the revenge that he had hungered for since the night he'd watched his village burn. But to save Fire Nation lives from the careless cruelty of their own sovereign.
Jet stared into the blackness above him and laughed, desperate and breathless, until his stomach arched and his lungs burned, gasping for air like a drowning man.
Zuko held his scrap of fire cupped in both hands, arms extended and head bowed just as Chief Wuruk had shown him. He had taken it from the Eternal Flame and carried it up the mountainside and the great stone staircase, just as he had weeks ago when Uncle had first brought him to this place. Only now he stood alone on the narrow walkway between the masters' caves, and the favor he had come to ask was far greater than a brief moment of insight, however profound. It had cost Ran and Shao very little to share the truth of their art with him, but this request was of another order entirely. This could easily get one of them killed.
He felt the roar before he heard it, vibrating through the stone walkway. It reached his ears as a cool breeze stirred his hair, forced up from the depths of the caverns. His body tensed in anticipation, but he kept his hands outstretched, concentrating on the flame. He wouldn't lose it this time.
Master Ran erupted from the mouth of his cave, his enormous head glimpsed for only a moment before it roared past, the coils of his body flowing past Zuko like a river of fire. Another blast of wind buffeted him from behind, and a second current of scales joined the first, twin streams of red and blue that glittered in the dawn light.
Below him on the platform, he could hear Katara's alarmed voice calling his name.
Glimpses of a persimmon sky could be seen through the palace windows, a streak of light just visible above the eastern battlements: the comet, burning with white-hot malevolence as it tore across the midmorning horizon. Jet had been told what to expect, but in hindsight the explanations seemed laughable. No words could have prepared him for how this would feel. The air itself was on fire.
"I thought we were trying to do this before the comet came," he'd grunted as they'd scaled the far slope of the caldera, through the same blind spot between the guard towers that Mai and Ty Lee had used on the night they'd left the palace.
"It's like the eclipse," Mai had said. "It doesn't just happen all at once."
Wang had paused in her climb to peer up at the sky, then eerily tinged with yellow as what looked like a second sunrise broke over the ocean. "How do we know when it's time?" she'd asked quietly.
"When you can hear it," Ty Lee had replied, disconcertingly sober.
With Azula's coronation so close at hand, Jet had expected the halls of the palace to be a whirlwind of activity. Even the Freedom Fighter's triumphant parade through Ba Sing Se, mere days after the end of a devastating occupation, had required dozens of hastily conscripted attendants. This was the Fire Nation capital near the peak of its power, its palace glutted with the spoils of a hundred years of war, about to crown a new monarch on the morn of its fiery dispatch of the continent.
But they had found the palace halls abandoned, the expected Imperial Firebenders missing from their posts. The living quarters of the servants they had come to protect showed signs of hasty departure, clothes scattered and emptied drawers left open. Muttering something about auras, Ty Lee had found a young attendant hiding in a wardrobe, a small bag of her possessions clutched to her chest. "I have to go," she'd said, her face hidden in her hands. "She'll kill me if she finds me here."
"What happened?" Ty Lee had asked gently, her smile at its most disarming. "Where is everybody?"
"Banished," the girl had whispered.
Azula had banished her servants that morning. And the guards. And her advisors. All that remained were the handful of Fire Sages who would perform her coronation.
"What about the Dai Li?" Jet had asked, struggling to keep his voice calm.
The girl had shaken her head, tears on her cheeks as she told them she didn't know. But Chang had been certain he did. "They're here," he had said quietly. "Even if she did banish them, they wouldn't leave. They must know what's happened in Ba Sing Se. They have no where else to go."
Now Jet and his group moved through the deserted marble corridors, past the royal portrait gallery and the shrouded entrance to the throne room, down hallways of gilt and lacquered wood and gleaming marble floors, toward the grand courtyard at the heart of the palace. Zuko had once lived here, he knew, but that fact was hard to actually believe. How could this place be a home to anyone?
"This way," said Mai quietly, her footsteps silent beneath her billowing trousers. Jet stayed close behind her as she crept toward a length of heavy brocade, emblazoned with the Fire Nation crest, that hung at the far side of the room. Her thin, white hand reached out to push the edge of it aside. And in a moment that would count among the most surreal in his life, Jet peered through the gap into the courtyard beyond, where Princess Azula knelt before the robed Fire Sages.
Jet watched as the royal coronet was lifted into the air, its golden surface gleaming in the comet's unsettling glow.
Above the rooftops of the outer walls, a sinuous outline wound its way across the sky, two figures seated between its wings.
Then a stone fist hurled toward him from the rafters above, and there was barely enough time to knock it aside with his swords before a dark figure in a wide, flat helmet jumped down in its wake, cracking the stone slabs beneath them with the force of his impact. Jet tried to keep his balance as he leapt hastily backward, swords extended to either side. But Haru was already rushing forward to come to his defense, stopping the second fist in mid-air before it connected with Jet's throat.
A wave of stone shot across the marble, and Jet pushed off from its crest with one foot as Chang swept past him. He landed beside Xiao Si Wang, her own blades flashing as she cut shards of rock from the air, the stray fragments stinging his cheeks. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw another Dai Li pull a shield of marble from the floor to catch the handful of daggers Mai had thrown. He looked away completely as he knocked the next wave of projectiles aside, but he could hear the Dai Li's shout of alarm and the thud of a limp body hitting the ground.
Ty Lee, Jet thought, grinning even as he rolled to avoid a razor-edged discus of stone. That left five more, by his count.
Jet knew what had happened in the Fire Lord's bunker during the eclipse. He knew they had to keep the Dai Li busy for as long as Zuko needed them to, whatever the cost to themselves. Azula wasn't interested in a "fair fight" any more than Jet would've been in her place, and the Dai Li had every reason to try and win back her favor.
Maddening fragments of sound drifted in from beyond the curtain - a woman's bloodthirsty laugh, the crackling torrent of Firebending, a gasp that might have been Katara, a shout that he knew was Zuko.
In rare moments of silence, he could hear a low rumbling in the eastern sky.
The power was incredible.
Great torrents of flame poured from Zuko's hands, dwarfing him with their size and baking his skin with their heat. He felt as if a wildfire raged in his chest - a vast reservoir of energy that strained against the inside of his ribs. In the past, the act of bending had felt like the strength of his heart manifested as flame, redirecting the flow of chi within his body and urging it to heat the air in front of him. There in the courtyard, the effort was not one of creation, but of restraint. Each gesture opened a floodgate, and the boiling mass of fire rushed out of him in a stream so forceful he could barely contain it. His ears rang with the deafening roar of combustion.
Azula made no attempt at control. She threw haphazard waves of fire across the courtyard, blue with deadly heat and wholly indiscriminate. Precision and ruthlessness had always been her strengths, but without the first the second had consumed her. Zuko channeled what he could away from himself, but the excess splashed against the walls, licking at wood and plaster. The palace was on fire, and Azula did not care. He wasn't sure she'd even noticed. Her laugh had a raw, unhinged quality that prickled the back of his neck.
Master Ran had retreated to the rim of the caldera, his silhouette just visible against the red, low-hanging clouds. Katara, whom Zuko had made promise not to interfere, now shook with the effort of self-restraint behind him. Somewhere inside the burning palace walls, Jet and Xiao Si Wang and Mai and Ty Lee and Haru and even Chang were all fighting the Dai Li and Imperial Guards. The people of the capital had watched the lost heir to the throne descend on the back of a dragon no one had thought still existed; Zuko knew that an army of strange men and women - and an army it was, whatever Uncle called it - was now moving through the streets, overpowering imperial guards and telling citizens to stay in their homes until the comet had passed. An entire city was waiting for him to win this Agni Kai. And all of them would suffer if he didn't.
As he and Katara had flown toward the capital, the massive bulk of Master Ran beneath them and the Fire Nation archipelago stretching out toward the horizon, Zuko had finally understood what his purpose would be that day. Far more powerful benders than himself could have fought Azula, if winning were the only thing that mattered. But they had decided he would face her alone, in the palace on the day of her planned coronation. And his triumph would count for more than simply besting his sister in combat; the reward for victory was the crown itself.
Zuko didn't want to die like this, standing in the courtyard of his home after three long years away, finally at the cusp of the destiny he'd chosen for himself. As a boy, he had been burned and banished because of his compassion for his countrymen. He had been too young, then, to stand up against the cruelty of his father. He hadn't known to question the world that Sozin had made, and had had no hope of changing it besides.
He wasn't too young any more. And his people had waited long enough.
"They must be desperate if they sent you here," said Azula, shouting to be heard over the growl of her own bending. "At least Uncle Fatso would've been a challenge. This is just depressing."
Another slash of her arms sent an arc of fire toward Zuko's head. He dropped to sweep his leg along the ground, kicking up a defensive wall for her next attack to shatter against.
"Although I suppose you do get some credit for nerve," she went on, her smile crooked and hungry as she conjured a torrent of blue heat. "It must have taken quite a bit of it to show your face here again."
Zuko braced himself, arms half-bent as he redirected the stream of flame, his feet slipping on the granite paving stones. "I had to come," he growled, jaw tight and forehead beaded with sweat. "I had to stop you."
Azula laughed, and Zuko saw the telltale shift in her stance; the change in her hands, all but the first two fingers of each clenched into a fist. "You should've stayed in Ba Sing Se, Zuzu," she said, half snarling malice and half manic amusement. She drew circles of crackling energy through the air before her, erratic but no less deadly. Zuko felt his hair stand on end. "Oh, well!" she chirped, bright and sharp as a blade. "Better to die a traitor than a coward."
Fighting every instinct he had, Zuko reached out toward the bolt of jagged, white light, his fingers pointed as hers were, his uncle's words echoing in his memory. A buzzing, prickling numbness coursed down the length of his arm, the muscles tensing into hard knots that resisted every effort to do as he'd been told; to pull the stream down, through his stomach and away from his heart. His gut, already simmering with the heat of the comet, clenched into what felt like a hot block of stone as the lightening passed through it.
Then the flow of his chi pushed it up again, the energy skimming along the outside of his ribs and down his other arm. He released it back into the air with an explosive burst of heat and sound. For an instant, he couldn't see anything past his own hand, the tendons stretched taut beneath his skin.
Silence followed. Zuko blinked, still half-blinded by afterimages, and rubbed at his eyes with the knuckles of his trembling fists. When he looked again, he saw a crumpled figure lying on the ground. At first, he wondered who had gotten in the way - what poor idiot had wandered into the middle of an Agni Kai.
The Dai Li were the first to notice - clued in, Jet supposed later on, by some trick of their bending. They froze mid-attack, their heads turning as one to face the palace courtyard, the abandonment of offense so sudden that Jet's own men ground to a halt, hesitant in their confusion. All except Chang, whose expression was one of exhausted satisfaction.
"The Princess," one of the Dai Li murmured, barely audible beyond the crackle of burning wood in the middle distance.
Ty Lee's hands flew to her mouth, her gray eyes wide and round. Mai sighed and re-sheathed the daggers in her hand. "Come on," she said as she strode across the antechamber, toward the brocade hanging at the far end. "We should make sure the Fire Sages don't try anything."
Jet glanced at Chang, who said, "I'll manage the Dai Li."
"I'll help," said Xiao Si Wang. Jet offered a tight smile and quick nod, then followed Mai and Ty Lee into the courtyard.
Scorch marks traced paths of combat across the paving stones. Small fires licked at the the elegant rooftops of the long, covered galleries to either side of them, sending black tendrils of smoke up toward the burning clouds. The comet's savage purr seemed to come from the whole of the sky.
Zuko knelt on the ground beside a woman in gilt leather armor. Her sleek hair had come loose of its bindings and now pooled haphazardly around her, a few flyaway strands of it laid across her face. Her skin was bone white. Her chest was perfectly still.
The Fire Sages watched from the palace steps, lines of indecision carved deeply into their ancient countenances. Katara stood to one side, her expression unreadable and her fist clenched over her collarbone.
Ty Lee sunk to her knees at the top of the steps, her hands still at her mouth as she shook her head, her long braid swinging. Mai's features were even stonier than Katara's, her lips set in an unwavering show of indifference. But her fingers moved to rest on Ty Lee's head, and the thrum of her pulse was hummingbee-quick along the side of her slender neck.
Zuko did not look up as Jet crouched at his side. His head was bowed, and this close Jet could see the tears that ran along his nose, leaving dark spots on the brocade of Azula's sleeve. "She's dead," Zuko whispered, hoarse with panic and sorrow. "Jet, she's dead."
Jet had no idea what to say. This woman was the Fire Lord's chosen successor. She had almost destroyed Be Sing Se, and had left what remained in the hands of a merciless occupation. She had masterminded the firestorm that Ozai now hoped to rain down on the Earth Kingdom. Moments ago, she had tried in earnest to destroy the man that Jet loved.
But she was also Zuko's little sister. And the part of Jet that remembered family - the dusty, atrophied part that had once been a village boy, with parents and an infant brother of his own - reached out to pull Zuko into his arms, burying his face in hair that smelled of ozone and smoke.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, and meant it.
The soft scuff of booted footsteps made Jet lift his gaze. He hadn't noticed Katara move before, but now he watched as she knelt at Azula's other side.
For several seconds, Katara stared silently at the other girls' still face, her hand still clasped at her throat.
"I should just let her die," she said.
"Probably," Jet agreed.
"It's what she deserves."
"It is."
Katara looked up at Zuko, whose face was pressed tight against Jet's shoulder. Then she sighed, quick and irritated, as she lifted a leather cord up over her neck, the small glass vial that dangled from it catching glints of red light.
"Dammit," she murmured.
She held the vial in one hand as the other bent its contents out into the air: a glowing tendril of crystalline water which spun in a tight, circular blur above her palm before she lowered it to Azula's chest, at the place where her armor had burned away.
"Today, this war is finally over. I promised my Uncle that I would restore the honor of the Fire Nation, and I will. But the road ahead of us will be a challenging one. A hundred years of fighting have left the world scarred and divided.
We've already taken the first steps toward returning to the right path. The Siguo Jundui has been true to its name - an army for all of us. And with the Avatar's help, I believe we can heal the rifts that have separated us for so long. As one people, working together, we'll build a better future. And we'll begin a new era of love and peace."
Zuko knelt, his long robes trailing on the ground, as the oldest of the Fire Sages moved to stand behind him. The sage lifted a shining, golden diadem high in the air. Along with Zuko's clothes, it seemed comically huge - like hand-me-downs he hadn't quite grown into.
Then the sage inserted it into Zuko's topknot, and with it marked the younger man forever.
"All hail Fire Lord Zuko!" the sage cried, and the crowd erupted with cheers. All but Jet, who stared dumbly at the crown as a knot of dread twisted itself up in his stomach.
He stood between Wang, Longshot and Smellerbee, their group a little apart from everyone else. All around him, families and old comrades were reuniting, hugging and thumping each other on the back as they shared news of the parts they had each played yesterday.
Jet hadn't wanted to miss watching Zuko's coronation, but now that the event had passed he didn't much feel like celebrating. He'd spent the last twenty-four hours or so hovering around the edges of court business that didn't concern him, and mostly he just wanted to find a quiet, dark place to go and get some sleep.
"Jet?"
Shit, he thought, and looked up in time to see Pipsqueak moving toward him through the crowd, The Duke pointing excitedly from atop his shoulder.
"See, I told you!" The Duke chirped. "I told you, he was at the Air Temple with us!"
"Pipsqueak," said Jet, looking up at the much larger man.
"Jet," Pipsqueak rumbled. "Longshot. Smellerbee."
"Hey," said Smellerbee. Longshot inclined his head.
"Been a while," said Jet.
"It has," Pipsqueak agreed. "Can't say I was expecting to see you here."
"Yeah…" Jet rubbed the back of his neck, his eyes now focused somewhere in the middle of Pipsqueak's chest. "Well, you know. Been a pretty crazy summer."
Pipsqueak frowned slightly. "That's one way of putting it."
"Um…" Jet glanced over at Wang, who looked up from Pipsqueak from her slight stature with a reverence Jet wouldn't have expected. "Are you…one of Jet's Freedom Fighters? From the forest?"
Pipsqueak's thick eyebrows arched. "Sure."
She started to bow, but thought better of it halfway through and instead offered her arm, forming a comically steep angle with the ground. "I'm Xiao Si Wang," she said, high-pitched and warbling. "I'm a Freedom Fighter, too. From Ba Sing Se. I mean…well, I was. I guess now I'm in the Siguo instead, but-"
"We're still Freedom Fighters," said Longshot quietly, making Wang jump. "It's a part of us. That won't change."
Pipsqueak chuckled. "Maybe."
"Wait…does that mean the Fire Lord's a Freedom Fighter?" asked The Duke from his perch, sounding cautiously hopeful.
Smellerbee laughed. "Yeah, I guess when you put it that way, he-"
"That's different," said Jet, the words clipped. The others turned to look at him, five brows wrinkling in concern, which only ruffled him further. He pulled a stalk of grass out of his belt and tucked it into the corner of his mouth, then jammed his hands into his pockets, his shoulders hunched up toward his ears. "Look, there's some shit I have to take care of."
Smellerbee pursed her lips in disapproval. "Jet, come on, we're just-"
"You guys have fun catching up," said Jet, turning away from them. "I'll find you later."
He elbowed through a crowd of Earthbenders, not especially caring about any direction but "away." No one called after him, though he imagined he could feel their stares on the back of his head.
Fucking Pipsqueak. Jet remembered listening to that deep, rumbling voice on his last night at home. Pipsqueak had explained, at length, how the Freedom Fighters had no choice; how the flooded town would only bring more Fire Nation, more soldiers, more misery for everyone; how they couldn't afford to let things get any worse; how Jet had gone too far one time too many. "He's gonna get himself killed," Pipsqueak had said. "It's just a matter of when, and how many of us he takes with him."
Jet had always assumed he'd be able to talk his way back into his old friends' good graces; that the village he'd built would welcome him home again, after everything he'd done in Ba Sing Se. But really, who was he kidding? From what The Duke had told him, Pipsqueak had been completely, infuriatingly prescient. The Fire Nation had come. The Freedom Fighters had scattered. All he had to look forward to were more awkward reunions in strange places, where the others would pretend they hadn't thrown him out, and Jet would let them get away with it. Not even he could deny that they'd had every right to.
Jet slouched toward one of the covered walkway that ran alongside the courtyard, carefully staying out sight of anyone who might recognize him until he'd ducked into the shadows beneath the long, tiled roof.
They'd given him a room of his own, but he didn't remember where it was in the labyrinthine palace complex, and didn't particularly want to go there besides. He'd spent the night alone, sitting crosslegged on an enormous silk-draped bed and watching the moonbeams travel across the floor. Zuko had finished overseeing the imprisonment of his sister and father, and then been whisked away to an emergency audience with his advisors which had lasted until dawn.
Two hours before the coronation, Zuko had turned up at Jet's door with a platter of dumplings, a pot of tea and a basket of the necessary porcelain balanced in his arms. They'd shared a brief but private breakfast, during which Zuko had rehearsed his speech several times and demanded Jet give him an honest opinion. ("They'll love it," Jet had said, although he'd felt strangely irritated when the crowd had proved him right later on.)
And now Zuko was Fire Lord, apparently. Jet caught glimpses between the columns of him waving to the crowd, looking serene and somehow regal in his outsized brocade as he stood with Aang at his side.
Jet still wasn't entirely clear on which parts of the palace he was allowed to wander through, but he assumed some guard would kick him out of anywhere he wasn't welcome. He slipped into one of the interior corridors, empty except for a single imperial Firebender who looked annoyed at having to miss the ceremony outside.
All at once, he felt impossibly out of place beneath the vaulted ceiling. At least at the Earth King's palace he's been among his own people, with a job to do and trusted allies all around him. Here, Jet was nothing but a shabby, unwashed trespasser who'd served his purpose and overstayed his welcome.
"You look lost."
Jet stopped, then backed up several steps to the dimly-lit doorway he'd just passed by. As his eyes adjusted, he saw towering shelves of scroll cases that disappeared into the gloom above, illuminated by a small, glass lamp on one of the reading tables. There sat Mai, a teapot beside her and a jade cup held to her lips.
Though not precisely unhappy to see her, Jet wasn't interested in company just then. He scowled a bit and squared his shoulders. "Shouldn't you be off getting trashed with Ty Lee somewhere?"
"She's busy," said Mai. She took a delicate sip from her cup. "Probably trying to win over the Kyoshi Warriors again."
Jet snorted. "Didn't you guys put them in prison?"
"We did."
"Seems like kind of a lost cause, then."
Mai shrugged with graceful nonchalance. "She likes their auras."
"Uh-huh."
"And she can teach them chi-blocking."
"True." Jet took a step inside the room, peering up at the stacks of gilt cases. "Surprised she never taught you, actually."
Another shrug. "Not my style." She gestured to the seat beside her - mahogany, with delicate serpentine dragons carved into the back. "Come on, you're making me nervous." She set a second cup in front of him as he settled, and lifted the kettle to pour.
"No thanks," said Jet, covering the cup with his hand. "Not really in the mood for tea."
"Neither am I," said Mai. Something in her tone made him relent, and she poured him a measure of amber liquid. It wasn't until he raised it to his lips that he caught the sharp scent of alcohol.
He laughed and downed it in one gulp, wincing as it burned his throat. "Fuck," he said, his voice somewhat constricted. "That shit's not messing around."
"I only have an hour before the banquet," she said. "This seemed like the most efficient way to make sure I don't kill everyone there." Another sip, her perfect composure more impressive now that he knew what she was drinking. "You should get dressed, by the way."
"There's no fucking way I'm going to that thing."
"And how exactly do you think you'll get out of it?" she drawled. "Zuko-"
"Has more important people to worry about than me."
Mai regarded him with arched eyebrows for several seconds. "You're an idiot," she said as she poured him another cup.
This time he sipped it with a fraction more reserve, although it felt like it was sizzling on his lips. "Fuck you."
"I'm serious. You're what…General of the Siguo Jundui?"
"Major General," Jet muttered into his cup. "I think."
"And his boyfriend."
"Something like that."
"Well, I'm the ex-friend of the girl who just tried to kill the Fire Lord, and consequently one of the least popular people in the city," said Mai. "So if I have to go to this banquet, so do you."
"You're nobility. And you're, you know…Fire Nation." The words came out more like an insult than he'd meant them to be, but he blamed that on the whiskey. "It's not the same. I don't belong here."
"Don't be stupid," said Mai. "None of us 'belong' anywhere. We end up where we end up, and we try to make the best of things. At least no one expects you to know what you're doing here. Zuko's probably ready to throw himself off a balcony by now."
Jet raised his eyebrows and held out his now-empty cup. "Why? He's home. He's Fire Lord. His crazy sister's in jail and his dad can't Firebend anymore. Sounds like he's pretty on top of things to me."
Mai rolled her eyes. "Think about it," she said as she refilled the cup. "He was banished when he was thirteen, so the commoners barely know who he is, other than a story you use to scare misbehaving children. He's been living like a peasant for years and half his allies are foreign commoners, so the court won't take him seriously. The royal advisors will tell him he's an idiot for ending the war like this, and if he he tries to replace them the governors will throw a fit. I should know, my father's one of them."
"So how's it gonna help anything if I go to this stupid banquet?" He took another sip. "Sounds like he'd be better off without me hanging around."
Mai sighed. "Look, it's not just this banquet. He's going to spend the next year being told he sucks at his job, that he's a traitor, that Ozai was a better Fire Lord. He'll wake up every morning wondering why he didn't just stay in Ba Sing Se, and he'll go to bed every night wishing he had. It'll be awful, and probably at least once someone'll try to kill him."
"Your point?"
Mai gave him a withering look. "He's going to need people he trusts," she said flatly. "He won't make it through this otherwise."
"I think Aang's got him covered."
"The Avatar has kind of a lot on his plate right now."
"Iroh, then. Whatever. He'll be fine"
For the next several seconds, Mai regarded him thoughtfully over the rim of her cup. Then, "Oh. I get it, now."
"Get what?"
"You're just looking for a reason to leave."
"What?" Jet spluttered.
"You obviously don't want to be here, but you haven't left," said Mai, with an infuriating matter-of-factness. "So, what, are you waiting for permission?"
Jet could feel his ears burning. "I never-"
"Look," Mai went on, somehow cutting him off completely without actually raising her voice. "It's like I said. Things are going to be pretty fucking terrible around here for a long time. And the last thing any of us need is some smug asshole from the Earth Kingdom sneering at us while he whines about how no one likes him."
Jet slammed his cup down, spilling the better half of its contents on the table. "Lady, where the fuck do you get -"
"So if you want to leave, then go," she concluded, nonplussed. "Save us the grief."
"Maybe I will," Jet grumbled, surly and humiliated. "No one wants me here."
"Are you being this dense on purpose?"
"Other than Zuko."
Mai refilled his cup another time - as if he'd simply drunk it down again, rather than sloshing it around in impotent fury. "Why do you care what anyone but Zuko thinks?" she asked. "He's the Fire Lord."
"You just…" Jet clenched his jaw, momentarily overcome with the urge to either strangle her or tear out his hair or both. "Mai, you just told me about how fucked he is."
"I said things would be tough," said Mai, the tinge of amusement in her voice doing nothing for Jet's mood at all. "And they will be. But if he wants you here, no one else will tell you otherwise. That crown does actually mean something." She sighed. "Jet, you're overthinking this. Really. No one will blame you if you decide you can't handle the palace. All I'm saying is that no one's making you leave."
Jet slumped back into his chair, another mouthful of fire whiskey smoldering its way down his throat. "You really know how to cheer a guy up," he said, not quite managing sarcasm.
"I've had enough of boys slouching around feeling sorry for themselves," said Mai. "It's excruciatingly dull."
Jet opened his mouth, full of bristling indignance, but was saved from having to come up with a response more clever than "shut up" by a new arrival at the entrance of the library. Sokka, still dressed in his Water Tribe armor, leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed. "So this is where you've been hiding," he drawled, his eyes on Jet.
"I'm not hiding," said Jet, with a slightly slurred petulance that he knew couldn't be helping anything.
Sokka lifted one brow. "Well, Zuko's been looking for you," he said. "So maybe you could hide in his room for a while instead?"
Jet pushed back from the table - the moment when, in his admittedly extensive experience, he'd discover exactly how drunk he'd become. On this occasion, the answer turned out to be "moderately."
He put his cup down on the tabletop with deliberate care. "You'd better show up for dinner," he said to Mai. "I'll need you to tell me which bowl to use."
"I'll do what I can," she said, and Jet imagined her tone was fractionally warmer than before.
Sokka had a somewhat better grasp of the palace's labyrinthine corridors than Jet did, but the only route to Zuko's chambers that he could remember was an indirect one, and as such the two of them had a much longer walk together than Jet had counted on. Although Sokka had apparently gotten over the worst of his dislike of Jet, their connection could hardly be called a friendship, and they had spent next to no time alone together since Jet's arrival at the Western Air Temple several weeks before.
As they left the library behind, Jet expected their trek through the palace to pass in silence, awkward or otherwise, while he wondered how much more whiskey it was going to take to get him through the banquet. They had only made a few turnings, however, when Sokka abruptly started talking, which in Jet's current state made him teeter a little to one side in surprise.
"Hey, you know," said Sokka, "I never thanked you."
Jet scanned through his recollections of the past month, but nothing came to mind. "For what?"
"Katara told me what happened during the eclipse."
"Yeah?"
"I know she can take things a little far sometimes," Sokka went on, more serious than Jet was accustomed to. "I mean, she's my sister, I've seen her go through some pretty bad stuff. She doesn't always know when to stop."
"Sure," said Jet, who still had no idea what Sokka was talking about.
"You weren't there," said Sokka, "but when Azula almost killed Aang…that hit Katara really hard. We were just kids when we lost mom, you know? This was different. She hasn't really been the same since then."
"Yeah," said Jet. "I know how that can be."
"So when Zuko hit Azula with that lightning yesterday…Katara knows she did the right thing. But she told me she almost couldn't go through with it."
"Can't say I blame her."
"Yeah. But I guess having you there really snapped her out of it. If you could bring yourself to spare some Fire Nation general, well…the least she could do was help Zuko's sister."
"Oh," said Jet. He rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah. Sure, I guess, but it's not like I actually did anything…"
Sokka shrugged. "Katara thinks you did."
They walked another few yards, past tapestries and gilt molding and other absurd trappings of Fire Nation royalty. "All right," said Jet quietly.
"Look, I don't want this to get weird," said Sokka. "I guess I'm just sorry I was kind of a dick to you before, okay? Obviously I read you wrong."
"No," said Jet. "You didn't. Some things changed, is all."
Sokka chuckled. "Speaking of which…" They turned a final corner, then, and Jet abruptly recognized where they were - the corridor in front of Zuko's rooms, the doorway flanked by Imperial Firebenders in full dress uniform despite the summer heat.
"His Highness isn't accepting visitors," said the guard on the left.
The guard on the right turned to hiss at her. "That's him."
The first guard's eyes widened as comprehension dawned. "I'm sorry, sir. You're expected."
Jet felt Sokka clap him on the shoulder. "Just try and keep him from making a break for it, okay?"
Then Sokka was gone, whistling tunelessly as he turned down an adjacent hallway, and the guards were bowing slightly as they opened the door for Jet to pass through.
Zuko's chambers - they could hardly be described any other way, no matter how silly Jet felt about it - began with a sort of formal sitting room, which had been stripped of Ozai's furnishings and refilled with a few pieces that had once belonged to Zuko's mother. It had the musty smell of storage and seemed almost barren, with only a few tables and chairs and a handful of art pieces to fill the enormous space.
Jet found Zuko in the room beyond - a cavernous, marble box with a bed in the middle and tall windows all along the far wall. They faced the largest and most elaborate of the palace gardens, and the curtains had been drawn back, allowing warm rectangles of afternoon sunlight to flood across the floor.
Zuko paced before them, his Fire Lord's robes whispering as they dragged along the ground and his crown flashing in the sun. Anxiety rolled off of him, his every movement terse and uncertain. He was also talking to himself, reciting what sounded like a list of names and titles, and as such didn't hear Jet's footsteps crossing the room.
"Hey," said Jet. "Busy?"
Zuko stopped mid-stride, his robes billowing around him. "Jet," he said. His voice, always raspy, now sounded outright strangled. "You're here."
"Of course."
Zuko swept toward him, and suddenly Jet was encased in a hug that was as much brocade as boy, Zuko's face pressed against his cheek and his hands clenched on fistfuls of Jet's shirt. "You're here," he said again, hoarse with a relief that caught Jet entirely off guard. The same way he'd sounded at the Western Air Temple, clinging to Jet as if he'd come back from the grave. As if he'd never expected to see Jet again.
Jet felt a sharp pang of remorse in his chest, the warm buzz of alcohol seeping away. He'd been such an ass.
Jet kissed the scarred corner of his eye, his fingers sliding into the short hairs at the nape of Zuko's neck that had come loose from his topknot. "I'm always gonna be here," he said. And though his own, chaotic life bore testament to how ridiculous a thing that was to say, he meant it.
"Good," Zuko muttered against Jet's neck.
Jet chuckled. "So what's the problem?"
"I'm fucked," said Zuko.
"Not yet," said Jet, grinning. "You said I had to wait until-"
Zuko pulled back enough to glare at Jet unconvincingly. "Jet, seriously, they're gonna kill me."
"Who?"
"The governors," said Zuko. "And the court. Basically everyone." He pulled a scrap of parchment from his sleeve and held it still long enough for Jet to glimpse a long list of names and short descriptions, all written in Zuko's careful scrawl. "I'm supposed to have these memorized," he said, tight with panic. "I've never even met most of these people."
"So they'll introduce themselves."
"No, see that's the thing, I'm supposed to just know."
Jet laughed a bit, incredulous. "That's crazy."
"It's completely crazy!"
Jet plucked the list from Zuko's fingers and frowned down at it, quickly skimming the characters. "You know, this isn't any worse than remembering all the Freedom Fighters at the Jasmine Dragon," he said.
"Which I was terrible at."
"Maybe," said Jet. He walked over to Zuko's bed and sat down on it crosslegged, the list still in his hand. "If we break this down and memorize it in chunks, I don't think we'll have a problem."
His robes made it impossible for Zuko to sit properly on the bed, so he perched on the edge of it near Jet, his hands on his knees. "Jet, I'm not you," he said, at once irritated and anxious. "I can't just remember a whole bunch of people in an hour."
"Then I'll stay close enough to give you hints," said Jet.
Zuko shot him a dubious glance.
"No, listen, I'll just be like, 'Oh, look, your Highness, isn't that Lord FlameAss over there, governor of the Fire Provinces?' And then you'll be all, 'Why yes, General, I do believe it is! Smashing!'"
The corner of Zuko's mouth twitched. "I don't really think that's in keeping with court etiquette."
"So what? I'm the eccentric foreign dignitary. No one expects me to know this shit. I'm just supposed to stand around being interesting and exotic."
"Jet…"
"I think this system's gonna work out," Jet went on, scooting closer to Zuko across the quilt. "I'll be like your Royal Who-the-fuck-is-that-guy Advisor."
Zuko finally gave in to a proper smile, then. "I think we might have to come up with a shorter title."
"I get to sit near you at the banquet, right? Or at least Mai, she's my bowl consultant."
"Aang will be at my left. Uncle will be at my right." Jet felt his chest tighten a little before Zuko added, "You'll be next to Aang. He said he wouldn't mind us talking over him, and Katara wants to sit with her family anyway."
"Oh…" Jet rubbed his neck, the old scars a little warm under his fingers. "Wow. Yeah, that sounds fine." He paused, looking up at Zuko. He could see his reflection in the engraved diadem, golden patterns of flame and dragons overlaid across his face. "Are you sure that's okay?"
"You're part of my life," said Zuko, quiet but firm. "You belong at my side." He faltered, his gaze flickering away. "If you want to be."
"Well, I'm sitting in the Fire Lord's bedroom," said Jet, who had grown so used to saying absurd things that he almost didn't notice anymore. "So yeah, I guess I do."
Zuko clasped his hands in his lap, the tendons standing out along his knuckles. "This is my room."
"Seems like."
"I'm the Fire Lord."
"Apparently."
Zuko bowed his head, until his brow rested on his hands. "This is so messed up."
"It's not," said Jet. "It's what needed to happen. Really."
"I don't know," said Zuko, his voice muffled. "This isn't what I thought it would be like. I didn't think I'd have to see Azula screaming and crying in a prison cell. I didn't think I'd even have a father anymore, let alone…" He said up again, laughing from nerves. "I mean, taking his bending away? How is that even a thing you can do?"
"Dunno," said Jet honestly.
"And I'm glad Aang got to be a monk about it, I guess, but you know, some people are a little freaked out that Avatar can just up and decide you don't get to be a bender anymore. Some people like the Fire Sages. And the courtiers. And the governors-"
"That's Aang's problem to worry about," said Jet. "Not yours."
"Is it? Because no one here seems to think so." Zuko ran a hand down over his face, pulling at his skin. "Fuck. Jet, I have no idea what I'm doing,"
Jet slid an arm around Zuko's waist, leaning in to kiss the other boy's throat as he pulled him close. "You'll figure it out," he said. "We're all still learning, you know? The world's not the same as it was yesterday. You can't just turn heel overnight."
"But I have to," said Zuko. "Everyone's-"
"Everyone can fucking wait a couple days, Zuko. Really."
"Maybe, but-"
"It's all gonna be fine," said Jet. "I promise."
"You can't promise that," Zuko muttered, although he relaxed a little as he leaned into Jet's arms.
"I just did," said Jet. He smiled. "Lucky you, I keep my promises."
The palace, overwhelming even in daylight, became a forbidding cavern of flickering shadows after sunset. Jet and Zuko had stumbled back to the Fire Lord's chambers after the banquet, drunk and exhausted and leaning heavily against each other, and Jet had had barely enough wherewithal to be annoyed with the servants who insisted on helping Zuko out of his formal robes. Soon enough, the two of them had been left alone, the enormous room lit only by a small lantern, the walls and ceiling lost in the dark.
Zuko fell asleep immediately, but Jet lay awake for what felt like a very long time, watching the curtains stir in the breeze. Beyond them, the calls of unfamiliar insects and night birds filled the moonlit garden.
Jet did not know this place, and despite Zuko's assurances, Jet was aware of how reluctantly it welcomed him. He was a child of the Earth Kingdom forests, born and grown to manhood beneath distant trees, and he felt somehow that even this sheltered palace garden could sense it. His presence here was dissonant, and would be for some time.
And yet. He listened to the other boy's soft, slow breathing, and felt the thrum of his heartbeat through his ribs. His hand rested on the sharp point of an exposed hip, and his nose was pressed to the nape of Zuko's neck, inhaling the scent of jasmine tea that always seemed to linger there.
Home, Jet thought. For now, at least. Maybe for always.
:: The End ::
The illustrations for this chapter, and the artists who drew them, are as such:
By boredgods:
This awesome promo pic, posted over at jetheartszuko!
Jet held Zuko's head in both of his hands and kissed him, long and hungry, in front of everyone
"I prefer to think of myself as 'efficient'"
Xiao Si Wang
Mai regarded him with arched eyebrows for several seconds
By achtung_baby:
Jet kissed him with the breathless hunger of too many days apart
"You're here," he said again
"I don't like this," said Katara, cross-legged on the floor of a canvas tent. "We should wait for Aang to get back."
"Avatar Aang already knows what part he will play tomorrow," said Iroh. "And he knows that we are counting on him. He will be waiting on Crescent Island before the Fire Lord and his fleet pass overhead."
"But we don't even know where he is," Katara pressed. "Maybe he's hurt…or lost! Or maybe he's in the Spirit World again! We should be looking for him, before-"
"We've asked him to sacrifice a great deal to fight for all of our freedom," said Piandao, somehow managing dignity despite the trickle of sweat on his temple. "The least we can offer in return is a chance to make peace with himself."
Jet stifled a yawn and rubbed his eyes with the heel of his palm. He had said very little since this meeting had started an hour ago. Not because of a lack of interest - Aang had grown on him in the last few weeks, and he was as worried about the kid as anyone else - but because he had never been this goddamn hot for this many days in his life.
He understood why they were here, and couldn't really complain given the circumstances. Azula had found their last camp with scouts and good guesses - in retrospect, of course she would have looked for Aang at the closest Airbender temple. Leaving under the cover of darkness with next to no time to prepare, they had been forced to choose a new hiding place they could reach before dawn, where they couldn't be seen from the air and which Azula wouldn't immediately think to search.
Thus had they ended up in the dense jungle at the fringes of the Sun Warrior ruins, their tents and dismantled airships hidden beneath the lush canopy of leaves and tangled vines. After half a month of sweltering days followed by infinite, airless nights, Jet's energy and patience were both in short supply. But he was no stranger to poor sleep and discomfort, and at least they had the Sun Warriors' help with keeping their stomachs full.
He bit the inside of his cheek and tried to pay attention.
"With our new allies from the Boiling Rock helping us, our numbers in the capital will be larger than we'd counted on," Hakoda was saying. "If we're smart about it, we should be able to overtake the Imperial forces without too many people getting caught in the crossfire."
"I'm more worried about those air ships," said Sokka, leaning forward to peer at the map laid out at the center of their circle. "We're sure that's where Ozai's gonna be?"
"Our intelligence has confirmed most of what the two defectors have told us," said Chen. "The Fire Lord plans to lead the airship fleet himself and participate in the assault. He will leave the palace bunker approximately four hours before the comet's arrival, and the fleet will reach Crescent Island two hours after their departure from the capital. That should allow the Avatar sufficient time to engage him, as well as provide a window for our own forces to move into the caldera before the effects of the comet bolster Fire Nation defenses. This should help minimize civilian casualties, as discussed. However, the princess' agenda remains uncertain."
"She'll be on one of the airships," said Zuko quietly. "Razing the Earth Kingdom was her idea. She'll want to see it for herself."
"Aang's going to have his hands full just trying to fight Ozai," said Sokka. "We'll need someone else to keep Azula busy while my team disables the airships."
"I'll do it," said Zuko.
"Not by yourself," sad Jet, speaking for the first time in an hour.
Zuko shook his head. "She's my responsibility. I can handle her. "
"Last time we fought Azula, Aang almost died," said Katara. "I'm coming with you."
"Katara-"
"Pakku brought another vial of water from the Spirit Oasis. That's what saved Aang, but I have to be there to use it." She reached up to finger the leather cord it hung from, tied around her neck. "Besides," she added darkly. "I owe her."
"So do I," said Jet. "I told the Siguo she'd pay for what she did. Don't make a liar out of me."
"This is not a mission of vengeance," said Iroh. "What we do tomorrow will be in the name of peace. Not retribution."
"Call it justice, then," sad Jet. "I don't care. Just let me be there to make it happen."
"I have been told of your battle with General Zha," said Jeong Jeong, "and I do not mean to diminish that triumph. But Princess Azula is one of the most powerful Firebenders alive. Swords and quick thinking will not stop a bolt of lightning, and only a Firebender can learn to redirect it."
"Would you say the same to me?" asked Piandao.
"You are a master. He is a boy."
"And I've been fighting Firebenders since I was eight," said Jet. "Besides. I won't be alone. Zuko and I know how to watch each other's backs." He turned to Zuko, flashing a lopsided grin. "Right?"
Zuko licked his lips. "Actually…" His throat moved as he swallowed. "I'm not so sure you should go."
Jet blinked at him. "What?" he asked with an uncertain chuckle. "Why not?"
"I just…don't think it's a good idea."
Jet felt heat rise to his face as he looked around the informal council they'd assembled. No one moved to argue with Zuko. Of course not, Jet thought to himself, the nauseating weight of embarrassment settling into his stomach. He's the only reason you're here at all.
"You know, I told Smellerbee and Longshot I'd help them get their gear together for the raid on the airships," he said as he got to his feet, his affect as casual as he could convincingly manage. "Lemme know what you guys decide on everything else, all right?"
He slipped through the door of the tent before anyone could reply. A handful of the Boiling Rock prisoners were hovering outside, likely waiting their turn to speak to Zuko. Jet nodded to them but didn't meet their eyes, his shoulders hunched as he pushed his way into the underbrush.
The air wasn't any cooler out here than it was inside, although at least he could feel a hint of breeze coming from the brook a short way away. Their camp had been erected in the densest part of the jungle, tents built around tree trunks and in the hollows of vast root systems. They had tied long ropes between the trees to guide them at night, or to keep them from getting lost in the daytime when they moved out of sight of camp. Within a few strides, Jet could no longer see patches of canvas through the undergrowth.
At home, he would have pulled himself up onto a low-hanging branch and listened to the wind in the leaves for a while. But the canopy of this forest was too high to easily reach, and the air stuck to him like a second skin, dense with a cacophony of insects and birds and the small, quick panther monkeys that lived in this part of the jungle.
He was perched on the trunk of a fallen tree, watching a line of ants progress along its bark, when he heard Zuko call for him. Just then, he didn't particularly want to answer, but he supposed that Zuko would pin him down soon enough regardless. With years of tracking the Avatar behind him, Zuko had a knack for finding people that bordered on the supernatural.
"Here," said Jet, just loud enough to cut through the din. He didn't look up as Zuko picked his way through the brush and settled down onto the log beside him.
"I don't think this is where they keep their gear," said Zuko quietly.
"Yeah, well, you caught me."
He felt Zuko's hand on his back, the same touch that had comforted him so often that summer. Now he shrugged it off, tense with unfocused irritation. "I shouldn't have come," said Jet.
"Don't be-"
"No one wants me to be here," said Jet, embarrassed at his own petulance but unable to stop himself, sitting in this jungle where he so obviously didn't belong. "No one wants my help. Not even you."
Zuko frowned. "Jet…"
"It's fine," said Jet with a fierce stab at indifference. "I get it. You don't think I can handle her. Whatever."
"No. You don't understand," said Zuko. There was a quiet, frightened urgency to his tone. "You don't know what she's like. It'll be bad enough having Katara there…Jet, she'd go after you just to get to me. And I can't…" Zuko reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "I wouldn't be able to help myself. I'd do anything."
"You would for anyone," said Jet.
"It's not the same."
Jet remembered the look on Zuko's face under Lake Laogai, when Ping had told him there wasn't time and they would have to leave Jet behind. There had been no considered decision; no careful weighing of options. In that instant, Zuko had thrown away the life he'd built, exposed all the lies he'd told and begged the vengeance of those he'd told them to, rather than risk whatever the Dai Li might do to the boy he loved.
Jet bowed his head, his hands folded over the nape of his neck. He could still feel the too-smooth skin where the burns had healed over. "I shouldn't be here," he said again.
"I need you."
"Right."
"I do," said Zuko, stubbornly insistent.
"What am I supposed to do, then? Join the airship team? Peacekeeping in the capital?" Jet sniffed. "You don't need me for any of that."
Zuko looked down at his hands, palms turned up to catch what sunlight managed to filter through the leaves. "Look, Jet…even if we actually manage to take back the capital tomorrow, there's no telling how bad things will get," he said. "If the peacekeeping forces can't reach the palace before the comet arrives, a lot of people could get hurt. Hundreds of servants live there, and it's not like any of this is their fault."
Jet grunted in acknowledgment, his eyes carefully focused on his boots.
"I want to send a small team to evacuate the palace staff and secure the grounds," said Zuko. "Mai and Ty Lee know the layout better than anyone - they were there a few weeks ago, and there's only so much Azula could've changed since then. But we can't send them in alone. We barely trust them enough to sleep in our camp."
"All right."
"Then there's the seven Dai Li my sister brought back with her. Chang wants to be there to fight them, but…look, I know he's done a lot for the Siguo-"
"No, you're right," said Jet. He sighed, relaxing a little into the familiar rhythm of logistics. "Smellerbee and Longshot should stay on the airship team. They're good with heights, they've done a lot of sabotage on Fire Nation equipment. Keep their heads."
"Sure."
Jet rubbed his eyes, hard enough to hurt a little. "Fuck, I wish Ping was here."
"I know," said Zuko.
This time, when Jet felt Zuko's hand on his back, he leaned into the touch. "Chang and Xiao Si Wang really clicked on the way over here," he said. "He says she reminds him of his little sister from back home, before Long Feng took him away. He's from the plains, did you know that?"
"No. Huh."
"If she comes, he'll behave," said Jet. He worried his bottom lip between his teeth, contemplative. "Who else…"
"The Duke?"
"He'll go with Teo. Help him run the transports."
"What about Haru?"
"Mustache?" Jet smiled a little, remembering a rooftop conversation from what felt like another life. "How good is he, anyway?"
"Good."
"Ping good?"
"Ni Shui Jian good. And Ty Lee likes him."
Jet snorted. "She likes everyone."
"Jet…"
"I can handle her. And Mai. You don't need to worry about me."
He tried to sound confident, not wanting Zuko to worry any more than was unavoidable, but in truth he felt anything but. He had no idea what the Fire Nation capital looked like, beyond the barest details gleaned from conversation. He imagined the palace as a sweltering temple to imperial might, all sharp angles and dark corridors and gaudily patriotic decor in red and gold. No less alien a landscape than this forest, and far more dangerous.
Despite the dripping jungle heat, Jet pressed closer to the other boy. "Can she really bend lightning?" he asked, very soft.
Zuko's arm slid around Jet's shoulders, and he felt warm breath against his hair. "Uncle taught me how to redirect it," Zuko murmured. He kissed Jet's forehead. "I'll be fine."
Jet closed his eyes. "You might have to kill her. You know that, right?"
"I know."
They sat together that way for some time, listening to the forest, until the light dimmed.
Katara was waiting for them when they returned to the camp. She stood outside the small tent they shared with Longshot, Smellerbee and Xiao Si Wang, her face drawn with worry. "Where have you been?"
"Just needed to talk about a few things." said Jet.
"Sorry," said Zuko.
"A hawk came from Fat while you were gone," said Katara.
Jet arched an eyebrow. "Who?"
"Piandao's butler. He's been keeping an eye on the capital for us," said Zuko. He looked back to Katara, frowning. "What happened?"
"Ozai's lost it," she said. Jet could hear the panic in her voice, now. "He's started calling himself the 'Phoenix King'-"
"The what?" asked Jet, his nose wrinkled.
"Look, I don't know," Katara snapped, although Jet could tell she was more afraid than angry. "He crowned himself this afternoon."
"What about Azula?" asked Zuko quietly.
Katara hesitated, her hand coming up to tug at a lock of her hair. "Zuko…"
"Just tell me."
Katara sighed and shook her head. "He made her Fire Lord," she said. "The coronation's tomorrow."
Jet lay on a thin, damp mattress on the floor of a musty tent, his bare skin slick with sweat and his ears full of the sound of insects and night birds, alone with the suffocating darkness. A few hours before, he had watched Zuko and Katara disappear into the forest, lead by one of the Sun Warriors toward the ruins of their city. An hour from now, before the sun rose, he would climb aboard Aang's bison, along with the team he'd chosen, and set out for the Fire Nation capital. Not to strike at the heart of the empire which had taken so much from him; which had orphaned a boy in the forest and turned him into a killer; which had burned and beaten and raped and enslaved his country and his people. Not to exact the revenge that he had hungered for since the night he'd watched his village burn. But to save Fire Nation lives from the careless cruelty of their own sovereign.
Jet stared into the blackness above him and laughed, desperate and breathless, until his stomach arched and his lungs burned, gasping for air like a drowning man.
Zuko held his scrap of fire cupped in both hands, arms extended and head bowed just as Chief Wuruk had shown him. He had taken it from the Eternal Flame and carried it up the mountainside and the great stone staircase, just as he had weeks ago when Uncle had first brought him to this place. Only now he stood alone on the narrow walkway between the masters' caves, and the favor he had come to ask was far greater than a brief moment of insight, however profound. It had cost Ran and Shao very little to share the truth of their art with him, but this request was of another order entirely. This could easily get one of them killed.
He felt the roar before he heard it, vibrating through the stone walkway. It reached his ears as a cool breeze stirred his hair, forced up from the depths of the caverns. His body tensed in anticipation, but he kept his hands outstretched, concentrating on the flame. He wouldn't lose it this time.
Master Ran erupted from the mouth of his cave, his enormous head glimpsed for only a moment before it roared past, the coils of his body flowing past Zuko like a river of fire. Another blast of wind buffeted him from behind, and a second current of scales joined the first, twin streams of red and blue that glittered in the dawn light.
Below him on the platform, he could hear Katara's alarmed voice calling his name.
Glimpses of a persimmon sky could be seen through the palace windows, a streak of light just visible above the eastern battlements: the comet, burning with white-hot malevolence as it tore across the midmorning horizon. Jet had been told what to expect, but in hindsight the explanations seemed laughable. No words could have prepared him for how this would feel. The air itself was on fire.
"I thought we were trying to do this before the comet came," he'd grunted as they'd scaled the far slope of the caldera, through the same blind spot between the guard towers that Mai and Ty Lee had used on the night they'd left the palace.
"It's like the eclipse," Mai had said. "It doesn't just happen all at once."
Wang had paused in her climb to peer up at the sky, then eerily tinged with yellow as what looked like a second sunrise broke over the ocean. "How do we know when it's time?" she'd asked quietly.
"When you can hear it," Ty Lee had replied, disconcertingly sober.
With Azula's coronation so close at hand, Jet had expected the halls of the palace to be a whirlwind of activity. Even the Freedom Fighter's triumphant parade through Ba Sing Se, mere days after the end of a devastating occupation, had required dozens of hastily conscripted attendants. This was the Fire Nation capital near the peak of its power, its palace glutted with the spoils of a hundred years of war, about to crown a new monarch on the morn of its fiery dispatch of the continent.
But they had found the palace halls abandoned, the expected Imperial Firebenders missing from their posts. The living quarters of the servants they had come to protect showed signs of hasty departure, clothes scattered and emptied drawers left open. Muttering something about auras, Ty Lee had found a young attendant hiding in a wardrobe, a small bag of her possessions clutched to her chest. "I have to go," she'd said, her face hidden in her hands. "She'll kill me if she finds me here."
"What happened?" Ty Lee had asked gently, her smile at its most disarming. "Where is everybody?"
"Banished," the girl had whispered.
Azula had banished her servants that morning. And the guards. And her advisors. All that remained were the handful of Fire Sages who would perform her coronation.
"What about the Dai Li?" Jet had asked, struggling to keep his voice calm.
The girl had shaken her head, tears on her cheeks as she told them she didn't know. But Chang had been certain he did. "They're here," he had said quietly. "Even if she did banish them, they wouldn't leave. They must know what's happened in Ba Sing Se. They have no where else to go."
Now Jet and his group moved through the deserted marble corridors, past the royal portrait gallery and the shrouded entrance to the throne room, down hallways of gilt and lacquered wood and gleaming marble floors, toward the grand courtyard at the heart of the palace. Zuko had once lived here, he knew, but that fact was hard to actually believe. How could this place be a home to anyone?
"This way," said Mai quietly, her footsteps silent beneath her billowing trousers. Jet stayed close behind her as she crept toward a length of heavy brocade, emblazoned with the Fire Nation crest, that hung at the far side of the room. Her thin, white hand reached out to push the edge of it aside. And in a moment that would count among the most surreal in his life, Jet peered through the gap into the courtyard beyond, where Princess Azula knelt before the robed Fire Sages.
Jet watched as the royal coronet was lifted into the air, its golden surface gleaming in the comet's unsettling glow.
Above the rooftops of the outer walls, a sinuous outline wound its way across the sky, two figures seated between its wings.
Then a stone fist hurled toward him from the rafters above, and there was barely enough time to knock it aside with his swords before a dark figure in a wide, flat helmet jumped down in its wake, cracking the stone slabs beneath them with the force of his impact. Jet tried to keep his balance as he leapt hastily backward, swords extended to either side. But Haru was already rushing forward to come to his defense, stopping the second fist in mid-air before it connected with Jet's throat.
A wave of stone shot across the marble, and Jet pushed off from its crest with one foot as Chang swept past him. He landed beside Xiao Si Wang, her own blades flashing as she cut shards of rock from the air, the stray fragments stinging his cheeks. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw another Dai Li pull a shield of marble from the floor to catch the handful of daggers Mai had thrown. He looked away completely as he knocked the next wave of projectiles aside, but he could hear the Dai Li's shout of alarm and the thud of a limp body hitting the ground.
Ty Lee, Jet thought, grinning even as he rolled to avoid a razor-edged discus of stone. That left five more, by his count.
Jet knew what had happened in the Fire Lord's bunker during the eclipse. He knew they had to keep the Dai Li busy for as long as Zuko needed them to, whatever the cost to themselves. Azula wasn't interested in a "fair fight" any more than Jet would've been in her place, and the Dai Li had every reason to try and win back her favor.
Maddening fragments of sound drifted in from beyond the curtain - a woman's bloodthirsty laugh, the crackling torrent of Firebending, a gasp that might have been Katara, a shout that he knew was Zuko.
In rare moments of silence, he could hear a low rumbling in the eastern sky.
The power was incredible.
Great torrents of flame poured from Zuko's hands, dwarfing him with their size and baking his skin with their heat. He felt as if a wildfire raged in his chest - a vast reservoir of energy that strained against the inside of his ribs. In the past, the act of bending had felt like the strength of his heart manifested as flame, redirecting the flow of chi within his body and urging it to heat the air in front of him. There in the courtyard, the effort was not one of creation, but of restraint. Each gesture opened a floodgate, and the boiling mass of fire rushed out of him in a stream so forceful he could barely contain it. His ears rang with the deafening roar of combustion.
Azula made no attempt at control. She threw haphazard waves of fire across the courtyard, blue with deadly heat and wholly indiscriminate. Precision and ruthlessness had always been her strengths, but without the first the second had consumed her. Zuko channeled what he could away from himself, but the excess splashed against the walls, licking at wood and plaster. The palace was on fire, and Azula did not care. He wasn't sure she'd even noticed. Her laugh had a raw, unhinged quality that prickled the back of his neck.
Master Ran had retreated to the rim of the caldera, his silhouette just visible against the red, low-hanging clouds. Katara, whom Zuko had made promise not to interfere, now shook with the effort of self-restraint behind him. Somewhere inside the burning palace walls, Jet and Xiao Si Wang and Mai and Ty Lee and Haru and even Chang were all fighting the Dai Li and Imperial Guards. The people of the capital had watched the lost heir to the throne descend on the back of a dragon no one had thought still existed; Zuko knew that an army of strange men and women - and an army it was, whatever Uncle called it - was now moving through the streets, overpowering imperial guards and telling citizens to stay in their homes until the comet had passed. An entire city was waiting for him to win this Agni Kai. And all of them would suffer if he didn't.
As he and Katara had flown toward the capital, the massive bulk of Master Ran beneath them and the Fire Nation archipelago stretching out toward the horizon, Zuko had finally understood what his purpose would be that day. Far more powerful benders than himself could have fought Azula, if winning were the only thing that mattered. But they had decided he would face her alone, in the palace on the day of her planned coronation. And his triumph would count for more than simply besting his sister in combat; the reward for victory was the crown itself.
Zuko didn't want to die like this, standing in the courtyard of his home after three long years away, finally at the cusp of the destiny he'd chosen for himself. As a boy, he had been burned and banished because of his compassion for his countrymen. He had been too young, then, to stand up against the cruelty of his father. He hadn't known to question the world that Sozin had made, and had had no hope of changing it besides.
He wasn't too young any more. And his people had waited long enough.
"They must be desperate if they sent you here," said Azula, shouting to be heard over the growl of her own bending. "At least Uncle Fatso would've been a challenge. This is just depressing."
Another slash of her arms sent an arc of fire toward Zuko's head. He dropped to sweep his leg along the ground, kicking up a defensive wall for her next attack to shatter against.
"Although I suppose you do get some credit for nerve," she went on, her smile crooked and hungry as she conjured a torrent of blue heat. "It must have taken quite a bit of it to show your face here again."
Zuko braced himself, arms half-bent as he redirected the stream of flame, his feet slipping on the granite paving stones. "I had to come," he growled, jaw tight and forehead beaded with sweat. "I had to stop you."
Azula laughed, and Zuko saw the telltale shift in her stance; the change in her hands, all but the first two fingers of each clenched into a fist. "You should've stayed in Ba Sing Se, Zuzu," she said, half snarling malice and half manic amusement. She drew circles of crackling energy through the air before her, erratic but no less deadly. Zuko felt his hair stand on end. "Oh, well!" she chirped, bright and sharp as a blade. "Better to die a traitor than a coward."
Fighting every instinct he had, Zuko reached out toward the bolt of jagged, white light, his fingers pointed as hers were, his uncle's words echoing in his memory. A buzzing, prickling numbness coursed down the length of his arm, the muscles tensing into hard knots that resisted every effort to do as he'd been told; to pull the stream down, through his stomach and away from his heart. His gut, already simmering with the heat of the comet, clenched into what felt like a hot block of stone as the lightening passed through it.
Then the flow of his chi pushed it up again, the energy skimming along the outside of his ribs and down his other arm. He released it back into the air with an explosive burst of heat and sound. For an instant, he couldn't see anything past his own hand, the tendons stretched taut beneath his skin.
Silence followed. Zuko blinked, still half-blinded by afterimages, and rubbed at his eyes with the knuckles of his trembling fists. When he looked again, he saw a crumpled figure lying on the ground. At first, he wondered who had gotten in the way - what poor idiot had wandered into the middle of an Agni Kai.
The Dai Li were the first to notice - clued in, Jet supposed later on, by some trick of their bending. They froze mid-attack, their heads turning as one to face the palace courtyard, the abandonment of offense so sudden that Jet's own men ground to a halt, hesitant in their confusion. All except Chang, whose expression was one of exhausted satisfaction.
"The Princess," one of the Dai Li murmured, barely audible beyond the crackle of burning wood in the middle distance.
Ty Lee's hands flew to her mouth, her gray eyes wide and round. Mai sighed and re-sheathed the daggers in her hand. "Come on," she said as she strode across the antechamber, toward the brocade hanging at the far end. "We should make sure the Fire Sages don't try anything."
Jet glanced at Chang, who said, "I'll manage the Dai Li."
"I'll help," said Xiao Si Wang. Jet offered a tight smile and quick nod, then followed Mai and Ty Lee into the courtyard.
Scorch marks traced paths of combat across the paving stones. Small fires licked at the the elegant rooftops of the long, covered galleries to either side of them, sending black tendrils of smoke up toward the burning clouds. The comet's savage purr seemed to come from the whole of the sky.
Zuko knelt on the ground beside a woman in gilt leather armor. Her sleek hair had come loose of its bindings and now pooled haphazardly around her, a few flyaway strands of it laid across her face. Her skin was bone white. Her chest was perfectly still.
The Fire Sages watched from the palace steps, lines of indecision carved deeply into their ancient countenances. Katara stood to one side, her expression unreadable and her fist clenched over her collarbone.
Ty Lee sunk to her knees at the top of the steps, her hands still at her mouth as she shook her head, her long braid swinging. Mai's features were even stonier than Katara's, her lips set in an unwavering show of indifference. But her fingers moved to rest on Ty Lee's head, and the thrum of her pulse was hummingbee-quick along the side of her slender neck.
Zuko did not look up as Jet crouched at his side. His head was bowed, and this close Jet could see the tears that ran along his nose, leaving dark spots on the brocade of Azula's sleeve. "She's dead," Zuko whispered, hoarse with panic and sorrow. "Jet, she's dead."
Jet had no idea what to say. This woman was the Fire Lord's chosen successor. She had almost destroyed Be Sing Se, and had left what remained in the hands of a merciless occupation. She had masterminded the firestorm that Ozai now hoped to rain down on the Earth Kingdom. Moments ago, she had tried in earnest to destroy the man that Jet loved.
But she was also Zuko's little sister. And the part of Jet that remembered family - the dusty, atrophied part that had once been a village boy, with parents and an infant brother of his own - reached out to pull Zuko into his arms, burying his face in hair that smelled of ozone and smoke.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, and meant it.
The soft scuff of booted footsteps made Jet lift his gaze. He hadn't noticed Katara move before, but now he watched as she knelt at Azula's other side.
For several seconds, Katara stared silently at the other girls' still face, her hand still clasped at her throat.
"I should just let her die," she said.
"Probably," Jet agreed.
"It's what she deserves."
"It is."
Katara looked up at Zuko, whose face was pressed tight against Jet's shoulder. Then she sighed, quick and irritated, as she lifted a leather cord up over her neck, the small glass vial that dangled from it catching glints of red light.
"Dammit," she murmured.
She held the vial in one hand as the other bent its contents out into the air: a glowing tendril of crystalline water which spun in a tight, circular blur above her palm before she lowered it to Azula's chest, at the place where her armor had burned away.
"Today, this war is finally over. I promised my Uncle that I would restore the honor of the Fire Nation, and I will. But the road ahead of us will be a challenging one. A hundred years of fighting have left the world scarred and divided.
We've already taken the first steps toward returning to the right path. The Siguo Jundui has been true to its name - an army for all of us. And with the Avatar's help, I believe we can heal the rifts that have separated us for so long. As one people, working together, we'll build a better future. And we'll begin a new era of love and peace."
Zuko knelt, his long robes trailing on the ground, as the oldest of the Fire Sages moved to stand behind him. The sage lifted a shining, golden diadem high in the air. Along with Zuko's clothes, it seemed comically huge - like hand-me-downs he hadn't quite grown into.
Then the sage inserted it into Zuko's topknot, and with it marked the younger man forever.
"All hail Fire Lord Zuko!" the sage cried, and the crowd erupted with cheers. All but Jet, who stared dumbly at the crown as a knot of dread twisted itself up in his stomach.
He stood between Wang, Longshot and Smellerbee, their group a little apart from everyone else. All around him, families and old comrades were reuniting, hugging and thumping each other on the back as they shared news of the parts they had each played yesterday.
Jet hadn't wanted to miss watching Zuko's coronation, but now that the event had passed he didn't much feel like celebrating. He'd spent the last twenty-four hours or so hovering around the edges of court business that didn't concern him, and mostly he just wanted to find a quiet, dark place to go and get some sleep.
"Jet?"
Shit, he thought, and looked up in time to see Pipsqueak moving toward him through the crowd, The Duke pointing excitedly from atop his shoulder.
"See, I told you!" The Duke chirped. "I told you, he was at the Air Temple with us!"
"Pipsqueak," said Jet, looking up at the much larger man.
"Jet," Pipsqueak rumbled. "Longshot. Smellerbee."
"Hey," said Smellerbee. Longshot inclined his head.
"Been a while," said Jet.
"It has," Pipsqueak agreed. "Can't say I was expecting to see you here."
"Yeah…" Jet rubbed the back of his neck, his eyes now focused somewhere in the middle of Pipsqueak's chest. "Well, you know. Been a pretty crazy summer."
Pipsqueak frowned slightly. "That's one way of putting it."
"Um…" Jet glanced over at Wang, who looked up from Pipsqueak from her slight stature with a reverence Jet wouldn't have expected. "Are you…one of Jet's Freedom Fighters? From the forest?"
Pipsqueak's thick eyebrows arched. "Sure."
She started to bow, but thought better of it halfway through and instead offered her arm, forming a comically steep angle with the ground. "I'm Xiao Si Wang," she said, high-pitched and warbling. "I'm a Freedom Fighter, too. From Ba Sing Se. I mean…well, I was. I guess now I'm in the Siguo instead, but-"
"We're still Freedom Fighters," said Longshot quietly, making Wang jump. "It's a part of us. That won't change."
Pipsqueak chuckled. "Maybe."
"Wait…does that mean the Fire Lord's a Freedom Fighter?" asked The Duke from his perch, sounding cautiously hopeful.
Smellerbee laughed. "Yeah, I guess when you put it that way, he-"
"That's different," said Jet, the words clipped. The others turned to look at him, five brows wrinkling in concern, which only ruffled him further. He pulled a stalk of grass out of his belt and tucked it into the corner of his mouth, then jammed his hands into his pockets, his shoulders hunched up toward his ears. "Look, there's some shit I have to take care of."
Smellerbee pursed her lips in disapproval. "Jet, come on, we're just-"
"You guys have fun catching up," said Jet, turning away from them. "I'll find you later."
He elbowed through a crowd of Earthbenders, not especially caring about any direction but "away." No one called after him, though he imagined he could feel their stares on the back of his head.
Fucking Pipsqueak. Jet remembered listening to that deep, rumbling voice on his last night at home. Pipsqueak had explained, at length, how the Freedom Fighters had no choice; how the flooded town would only bring more Fire Nation, more soldiers, more misery for everyone; how they couldn't afford to let things get any worse; how Jet had gone too far one time too many. "He's gonna get himself killed," Pipsqueak had said. "It's just a matter of when, and how many of us he takes with him."
Jet had always assumed he'd be able to talk his way back into his old friends' good graces; that the village he'd built would welcome him home again, after everything he'd done in Ba Sing Se. But really, who was he kidding? From what The Duke had told him, Pipsqueak had been completely, infuriatingly prescient. The Fire Nation had come. The Freedom Fighters had scattered. All he had to look forward to were more awkward reunions in strange places, where the others would pretend they hadn't thrown him out, and Jet would let them get away with it. Not even he could deny that they'd had every right to.
Jet slouched toward one of the covered walkway that ran alongside the courtyard, carefully staying out sight of anyone who might recognize him until he'd ducked into the shadows beneath the long, tiled roof.
They'd given him a room of his own, but he didn't remember where it was in the labyrinthine palace complex, and didn't particularly want to go there besides. He'd spent the night alone, sitting crosslegged on an enormous silk-draped bed and watching the moonbeams travel across the floor. Zuko had finished overseeing the imprisonment of his sister and father, and then been whisked away to an emergency audience with his advisors which had lasted until dawn.
Two hours before the coronation, Zuko had turned up at Jet's door with a platter of dumplings, a pot of tea and a basket of the necessary porcelain balanced in his arms. They'd shared a brief but private breakfast, during which Zuko had rehearsed his speech several times and demanded Jet give him an honest opinion. ("They'll love it," Jet had said, although he'd felt strangely irritated when the crowd had proved him right later on.)
And now Zuko was Fire Lord, apparently. Jet caught glimpses between the columns of him waving to the crowd, looking serene and somehow regal in his outsized brocade as he stood with Aang at his side.
Jet still wasn't entirely clear on which parts of the palace he was allowed to wander through, but he assumed some guard would kick him out of anywhere he wasn't welcome. He slipped into one of the interior corridors, empty except for a single imperial Firebender who looked annoyed at having to miss the ceremony outside.
All at once, he felt impossibly out of place beneath the vaulted ceiling. At least at the Earth King's palace he's been among his own people, with a job to do and trusted allies all around him. Here, Jet was nothing but a shabby, unwashed trespasser who'd served his purpose and overstayed his welcome.
"You look lost."
Jet stopped, then backed up several steps to the dimly-lit doorway he'd just passed by. As his eyes adjusted, he saw towering shelves of scroll cases that disappeared into the gloom above, illuminated by a small, glass lamp on one of the reading tables. There sat Mai, a teapot beside her and a jade cup held to her lips.
Though not precisely unhappy to see her, Jet wasn't interested in company just then. He scowled a bit and squared his shoulders. "Shouldn't you be off getting trashed with Ty Lee somewhere?"
"She's busy," said Mai. She took a delicate sip from her cup. "Probably trying to win over the Kyoshi Warriors again."
Jet snorted. "Didn't you guys put them in prison?"
"We did."
"Seems like kind of a lost cause, then."
Mai shrugged with graceful nonchalance. "She likes their auras."
"Uh-huh."
"And she can teach them chi-blocking."
"True." Jet took a step inside the room, peering up at the stacks of gilt cases. "Surprised she never taught you, actually."
Another shrug. "Not my style." She gestured to the seat beside her - mahogany, with delicate serpentine dragons carved into the back. "Come on, you're making me nervous." She set a second cup in front of him as he settled, and lifted the kettle to pour.
"No thanks," said Jet, covering the cup with his hand. "Not really in the mood for tea."
"Neither am I," said Mai. Something in her tone made him relent, and she poured him a measure of amber liquid. It wasn't until he raised it to his lips that he caught the sharp scent of alcohol.
He laughed and downed it in one gulp, wincing as it burned his throat. "Fuck," he said, his voice somewhat constricted. "That shit's not messing around."
"I only have an hour before the banquet," she said. "This seemed like the most efficient way to make sure I don't kill everyone there." Another sip, her perfect composure more impressive now that he knew what she was drinking. "You should get dressed, by the way."
"There's no fucking way I'm going to that thing."
"And how exactly do you think you'll get out of it?" she drawled. "Zuko-"
"Has more important people to worry about than me."
Mai regarded him with arched eyebrows for several seconds. "You're an idiot," she said as she poured him another cup.
This time he sipped it with a fraction more reserve, although it felt like it was sizzling on his lips. "Fuck you."
"I'm serious. You're what…General of the Siguo Jundui?"
"Major General," Jet muttered into his cup. "I think."
"And his boyfriend."
"Something like that."
"Well, I'm the ex-friend of the girl who just tried to kill the Fire Lord, and consequently one of the least popular people in the city," said Mai. "So if I have to go to this banquet, so do you."
"You're nobility. And you're, you know…Fire Nation." The words came out more like an insult than he'd meant them to be, but he blamed that on the whiskey. "It's not the same. I don't belong here."
"Don't be stupid," said Mai. "None of us 'belong' anywhere. We end up where we end up, and we try to make the best of things. At least no one expects you to know what you're doing here. Zuko's probably ready to throw himself off a balcony by now."
Jet raised his eyebrows and held out his now-empty cup. "Why? He's home. He's Fire Lord. His crazy sister's in jail and his dad can't Firebend anymore. Sounds like he's pretty on top of things to me."
Mai rolled her eyes. "Think about it," she said as she refilled the cup. "He was banished when he was thirteen, so the commoners barely know who he is, other than a story you use to scare misbehaving children. He's been living like a peasant for years and half his allies are foreign commoners, so the court won't take him seriously. The royal advisors will tell him he's an idiot for ending the war like this, and if he he tries to replace them the governors will throw a fit. I should know, my father's one of them."
"So how's it gonna help anything if I go to this stupid banquet?" He took another sip. "Sounds like he'd be better off without me hanging around."
Mai sighed. "Look, it's not just this banquet. He's going to spend the next year being told he sucks at his job, that he's a traitor, that Ozai was a better Fire Lord. He'll wake up every morning wondering why he didn't just stay in Ba Sing Se, and he'll go to bed every night wishing he had. It'll be awful, and probably at least once someone'll try to kill him."
"Your point?"
Mai gave him a withering look. "He's going to need people he trusts," she said flatly. "He won't make it through this otherwise."
"I think Aang's got him covered."
"The Avatar has kind of a lot on his plate right now."
"Iroh, then. Whatever. He'll be fine"
For the next several seconds, Mai regarded him thoughtfully over the rim of her cup. Then, "Oh. I get it, now."
"Get what?"
"You're just looking for a reason to leave."
"What?" Jet spluttered.
"You obviously don't want to be here, but you haven't left," said Mai, with an infuriating matter-of-factness. "So, what, are you waiting for permission?"
Jet could feel his ears burning. "I never-"
"Look," Mai went on, somehow cutting him off completely without actually raising her voice. "It's like I said. Things are going to be pretty fucking terrible around here for a long time. And the last thing any of us need is some smug asshole from the Earth Kingdom sneering at us while he whines about how no one likes him."
Jet slammed his cup down, spilling the better half of its contents on the table. "Lady, where the fuck do you get -"
"So if you want to leave, then go," she concluded, nonplussed. "Save us the grief."
"Maybe I will," Jet grumbled, surly and humiliated. "No one wants me here."
"Are you being this dense on purpose?"
"Other than Zuko."
Mai refilled his cup another time - as if he'd simply drunk it down again, rather than sloshing it around in impotent fury. "Why do you care what anyone but Zuko thinks?" she asked. "He's the Fire Lord."
"You just…" Jet clenched his jaw, momentarily overcome with the urge to either strangle her or tear out his hair or both. "Mai, you just told me about how fucked he is."
"I said things would be tough," said Mai, the tinge of amusement in her voice doing nothing for Jet's mood at all. "And they will be. But if he wants you here, no one else will tell you otherwise. That crown does actually mean something." She sighed. "Jet, you're overthinking this. Really. No one will blame you if you decide you can't handle the palace. All I'm saying is that no one's making you leave."
Jet slumped back into his chair, another mouthful of fire whiskey smoldering its way down his throat. "You really know how to cheer a guy up," he said, not quite managing sarcasm.
"I've had enough of boys slouching around feeling sorry for themselves," said Mai. "It's excruciatingly dull."
Jet opened his mouth, full of bristling indignance, but was saved from having to come up with a response more clever than "shut up" by a new arrival at the entrance of the library. Sokka, still dressed in his Water Tribe armor, leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed. "So this is where you've been hiding," he drawled, his eyes on Jet.
"I'm not hiding," said Jet, with a slightly slurred petulance that he knew couldn't be helping anything.
Sokka lifted one brow. "Well, Zuko's been looking for you," he said. "So maybe you could hide in his room for a while instead?"
Jet pushed back from the table - the moment when, in his admittedly extensive experience, he'd discover exactly how drunk he'd become. On this occasion, the answer turned out to be "moderately."
He put his cup down on the tabletop with deliberate care. "You'd better show up for dinner," he said to Mai. "I'll need you to tell me which bowl to use."
"I'll do what I can," she said, and Jet imagined her tone was fractionally warmer than before.
Sokka had a somewhat better grasp of the palace's labyrinthine corridors than Jet did, but the only route to Zuko's chambers that he could remember was an indirect one, and as such the two of them had a much longer walk together than Jet had counted on. Although Sokka had apparently gotten over the worst of his dislike of Jet, their connection could hardly be called a friendship, and they had spent next to no time alone together since Jet's arrival at the Western Air Temple several weeks before.
As they left the library behind, Jet expected their trek through the palace to pass in silence, awkward or otherwise, while he wondered how much more whiskey it was going to take to get him through the banquet. They had only made a few turnings, however, when Sokka abruptly started talking, which in Jet's current state made him teeter a little to one side in surprise.
"Hey, you know," said Sokka, "I never thanked you."
Jet scanned through his recollections of the past month, but nothing came to mind. "For what?"
"Katara told me what happened during the eclipse."
"Yeah?"
"I know she can take things a little far sometimes," Sokka went on, more serious than Jet was accustomed to. "I mean, she's my sister, I've seen her go through some pretty bad stuff. She doesn't always know when to stop."
"Sure," said Jet, who still had no idea what Sokka was talking about.
"You weren't there," said Sokka, "but when Azula almost killed Aang…that hit Katara really hard. We were just kids when we lost mom, you know? This was different. She hasn't really been the same since then."
"Yeah," said Jet. "I know how that can be."
"So when Zuko hit Azula with that lightning yesterday…Katara knows she did the right thing. But she told me she almost couldn't go through with it."
"Can't say I blame her."
"Yeah. But I guess having you there really snapped her out of it. If you could bring yourself to spare some Fire Nation general, well…the least she could do was help Zuko's sister."
"Oh," said Jet. He rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah. Sure, I guess, but it's not like I actually did anything…"
Sokka shrugged. "Katara thinks you did."
They walked another few yards, past tapestries and gilt molding and other absurd trappings of Fire Nation royalty. "All right," said Jet quietly.
"Look, I don't want this to get weird," said Sokka. "I guess I'm just sorry I was kind of a dick to you before, okay? Obviously I read you wrong."
"No," said Jet. "You didn't. Some things changed, is all."
Sokka chuckled. "Speaking of which…" They turned a final corner, then, and Jet abruptly recognized where they were - the corridor in front of Zuko's rooms, the doorway flanked by Imperial Firebenders in full dress uniform despite the summer heat.
"His Highness isn't accepting visitors," said the guard on the left.
The guard on the right turned to hiss at her. "That's him."
The first guard's eyes widened as comprehension dawned. "I'm sorry, sir. You're expected."
Jet felt Sokka clap him on the shoulder. "Just try and keep him from making a break for it, okay?"
Then Sokka was gone, whistling tunelessly as he turned down an adjacent hallway, and the guards were bowing slightly as they opened the door for Jet to pass through.
Zuko's chambers - they could hardly be described any other way, no matter how silly Jet felt about it - began with a sort of formal sitting room, which had been stripped of Ozai's furnishings and refilled with a few pieces that had once belonged to Zuko's mother. It had the musty smell of storage and seemed almost barren, with only a few tables and chairs and a handful of art pieces to fill the enormous space.
Jet found Zuko in the room beyond - a cavernous, marble box with a bed in the middle and tall windows all along the far wall. They faced the largest and most elaborate of the palace gardens, and the curtains had been drawn back, allowing warm rectangles of afternoon sunlight to flood across the floor.
Zuko paced before them, his Fire Lord's robes whispering as they dragged along the ground and his crown flashing in the sun. Anxiety rolled off of him, his every movement terse and uncertain. He was also talking to himself, reciting what sounded like a list of names and titles, and as such didn't hear Jet's footsteps crossing the room.
"Hey," said Jet. "Busy?"
Zuko stopped mid-stride, his robes billowing around him. "Jet," he said. His voice, always raspy, now sounded outright strangled. "You're here."
"Of course."
Zuko swept toward him, and suddenly Jet was encased in a hug that was as much brocade as boy, Zuko's face pressed against his cheek and his hands clenched on fistfuls of Jet's shirt. "You're here," he said again, hoarse with a relief that caught Jet entirely off guard. The same way he'd sounded at the Western Air Temple, clinging to Jet as if he'd come back from the grave. As if he'd never expected to see Jet again.
Jet felt a sharp pang of remorse in his chest, the warm buzz of alcohol seeping away. He'd been such an ass.
Jet kissed the scarred corner of his eye, his fingers sliding into the short hairs at the nape of Zuko's neck that had come loose from his topknot. "I'm always gonna be here," he said. And though his own, chaotic life bore testament to how ridiculous a thing that was to say, he meant it.
"Good," Zuko muttered against Jet's neck.
Jet chuckled. "So what's the problem?"
"I'm fucked," said Zuko.
"Not yet," said Jet, grinning. "You said I had to wait until-"
Zuko pulled back enough to glare at Jet unconvincingly. "Jet, seriously, they're gonna kill me."
"Who?"
"The governors," said Zuko. "And the court. Basically everyone." He pulled a scrap of parchment from his sleeve and held it still long enough for Jet to glimpse a long list of names and short descriptions, all written in Zuko's careful scrawl. "I'm supposed to have these memorized," he said, tight with panic. "I've never even met most of these people."
"So they'll introduce themselves."
"No, see that's the thing, I'm supposed to just know."
Jet laughed a bit, incredulous. "That's crazy."
"It's completely crazy!"
Jet plucked the list from Zuko's fingers and frowned down at it, quickly skimming the characters. "You know, this isn't any worse than remembering all the Freedom Fighters at the Jasmine Dragon," he said.
"Which I was terrible at."
"Maybe," said Jet. He walked over to Zuko's bed and sat down on it crosslegged, the list still in his hand. "If we break this down and memorize it in chunks, I don't think we'll have a problem."
His robes made it impossible for Zuko to sit properly on the bed, so he perched on the edge of it near Jet, his hands on his knees. "Jet, I'm not you," he said, at once irritated and anxious. "I can't just remember a whole bunch of people in an hour."
"Then I'll stay close enough to give you hints," said Jet.
Zuko shot him a dubious glance.
"No, listen, I'll just be like, 'Oh, look, your Highness, isn't that Lord FlameAss over there, governor of the Fire Provinces?' And then you'll be all, 'Why yes, General, I do believe it is! Smashing!'"
The corner of Zuko's mouth twitched. "I don't really think that's in keeping with court etiquette."
"So what? I'm the eccentric foreign dignitary. No one expects me to know this shit. I'm just supposed to stand around being interesting and exotic."
"Jet…"
"I think this system's gonna work out," Jet went on, scooting closer to Zuko across the quilt. "I'll be like your Royal Who-the-fuck-is-that-guy Advisor."
Zuko finally gave in to a proper smile, then. "I think we might have to come up with a shorter title."
"I get to sit near you at the banquet, right? Or at least Mai, she's my bowl consultant."
"Aang will be at my left. Uncle will be at my right." Jet felt his chest tighten a little before Zuko added, "You'll be next to Aang. He said he wouldn't mind us talking over him, and Katara wants to sit with her family anyway."
"Oh…" Jet rubbed his neck, the old scars a little warm under his fingers. "Wow. Yeah, that sounds fine." He paused, looking up at Zuko. He could see his reflection in the engraved diadem, golden patterns of flame and dragons overlaid across his face. "Are you sure that's okay?"
"You're part of my life," said Zuko, quiet but firm. "You belong at my side." He faltered, his gaze flickering away. "If you want to be."
"Well, I'm sitting in the Fire Lord's bedroom," said Jet, who had grown so used to saying absurd things that he almost didn't notice anymore. "So yeah, I guess I do."
Zuko clasped his hands in his lap, the tendons standing out along his knuckles. "This is my room."
"Seems like."
"I'm the Fire Lord."
"Apparently."
Zuko bowed his head, until his brow rested on his hands. "This is so messed up."
"It's not," said Jet. "It's what needed to happen. Really."
"I don't know," said Zuko, his voice muffled. "This isn't what I thought it would be like. I didn't think I'd have to see Azula screaming and crying in a prison cell. I didn't think I'd even have a father anymore, let alone…" He said up again, laughing from nerves. "I mean, taking his bending away? How is that even a thing you can do?"
"Dunno," said Jet honestly.
"And I'm glad Aang got to be a monk about it, I guess, but you know, some people are a little freaked out that Avatar can just up and decide you don't get to be a bender anymore. Some people like the Fire Sages. And the courtiers. And the governors-"
"That's Aang's problem to worry about," said Jet. "Not yours."
"Is it? Because no one here seems to think so." Zuko ran a hand down over his face, pulling at his skin. "Fuck. Jet, I have no idea what I'm doing,"
Jet slid an arm around Zuko's waist, leaning in to kiss the other boy's throat as he pulled him close. "You'll figure it out," he said. "We're all still learning, you know? The world's not the same as it was yesterday. You can't just turn heel overnight."
"But I have to," said Zuko. "Everyone's-"
"Everyone can fucking wait a couple days, Zuko. Really."
"Maybe, but-"
"It's all gonna be fine," said Jet. "I promise."
"You can't promise that," Zuko muttered, although he relaxed a little as he leaned into Jet's arms.
"I just did," said Jet. He smiled. "Lucky you, I keep my promises."
The palace, overwhelming even in daylight, became a forbidding cavern of flickering shadows after sunset. Jet and Zuko had stumbled back to the Fire Lord's chambers after the banquet, drunk and exhausted and leaning heavily against each other, and Jet had had barely enough wherewithal to be annoyed with the servants who insisted on helping Zuko out of his formal robes. Soon enough, the two of them had been left alone, the enormous room lit only by a small lantern, the walls and ceiling lost in the dark.
Zuko fell asleep immediately, but Jet lay awake for what felt like a very long time, watching the curtains stir in the breeze. Beyond them, the calls of unfamiliar insects and night birds filled the moonlit garden.
Jet did not know this place, and despite Zuko's assurances, Jet was aware of how reluctantly it welcomed him. He was a child of the Earth Kingdom forests, born and grown to manhood beneath distant trees, and he felt somehow that even this sheltered palace garden could sense it. His presence here was dissonant, and would be for some time.
And yet. He listened to the other boy's soft, slow breathing, and felt the thrum of his heartbeat through his ribs. His hand rested on the sharp point of an exposed hip, and his nose was pressed to the nape of Zuko's neck, inhaling the scent of jasmine tea that always seemed to linger there.
Home, Jet thought. For now, at least. Maybe for always.
:: The End ::
The illustrations for this chapter, and the artists who drew them, are as such:
By boredgods:
This awesome promo pic, posted over at jetheartszuko!
Jet held Zuko's head in both of his hands and kissed him, long and hungry, in front of everyone
"I prefer to think of myself as 'efficient'"
Xiao Si Wang
Mai regarded him with arched eyebrows for several seconds
By achtung_baby:
Jet kissed him with the breathless hunger of too many days apart
"You're here," he said again