Title: Reclaiming Honor

Chapter Title: What is or is Not Written in Stone

Rating: PG-13

Word Count: 4,000

Part Six: What is or is Not Written in Stone

Near silence was a thing that, after two years at sea, was hardly uncommon in Prince Zuko’s bedchambers; he usually preferred it, especially in comparison to his uncle’s babbling or the horrible warbling the crew made during Music Night. Silence allowed him to reflect in relative peace, to think of everything he had lost and of what he might gain on returning home.

Of course, with his plan in motion, there really was no going home; not now, anyway. He wondered distantly if he would have another chance. He doubted it.

Doing what was right--for he knew, rationally, as well as in his heart, that letting the Avatar escape was surely right--was costing him more than he wanted to realize. There was, of course, his throne, his status, his people, his home--these things were all about to be thrown aside to save the boy. The Avatar’s life was supposed to be sacred to all, even in the Fire Nation, and no normal person’s wants or needs should, logically, have been comparable.

What would his father think, he wondered, if he brought home a twelve-year-old who had barely mastered one element? In many ways, Aang was no different from any boy his age. Even if Fire Lord Ozai did accept him back with open arms (as open as they had ever been, anyway; in his lifetime, Prince Zuko could not recall his father ever embracing him), his youngest sister, Princess Azula, surely would not. She would mock him, he was certain. After all, how difficult could it be to find a yellow-and-orange-clad boy with a bright blue arrow on his head?

His older sister, Qieluo, might still welcome him home; she had been there almost daily while he was recovering after the Agni Kai, according to Uncle Iroh. Although his memory was excellent, the weeks he had spent recovering just before his exile were all but blurred together in a red and black mass of pain and opium; what little he had been certain was real had turned out to be nothing more than hallucinations. His mother certainly hadn’t been at his side, watching him, retelling legends of the gods and great spirits, of the little boy trickster Nézhā or the great vermilion bird, Zhū Què, who rose from fire when she died.

Vividly though he remembered it, he could not often make out his mother’s face. Or anyone else’s back home, he realized.

The exiled prince wondered if anyone remembered his.

While there had once been time to think, to lament, this was not the time; contemplating his situation in the near-darkness of his chambers at night was one thing, but not now, only hours from home, hours from having to turn back and chase after the Avatar all over again. Especially not with the boy responsible taking up his bed only a few paces away.

Contemplating his abysmal situation, he realized, was no different than the Avatar pouting in the corner. It was one thing for the Avatar, who was still a child, to be sitting at the edge of the Fire Prince’s futon, arms crossed and face pressed against his knees, with his shoulders hunched up near his ears. For Zuko, Prince of the Fire Nation, to be doing effectively the same thing was just preposterous.

“This is ridiculous,” he snarled, rising to his feet to cross the room in three strides. Whether he meant the situation, his urge to make up with the Avatar, the almost undeniable urge to make out with the Avatar, or the boy’s existence in general was unclear; simply that this, the lot, was insane.

Crouching in front of him, Prince Zuko leveled his best glare at the boy’s baldpate, at the arrow that marked him as much as a member of his long-lost nation as Zuko’s scar marked him an outcast. “Stop sulking,” he commanded, not wholly comfortable with the knot in his stomach as he spoke. He would have preferred to use some other method to get his attention, to start repairing the damage done by their argument, but none seemed appropriate. Despite still feeling justified in his words, he could not afford to have Aang be uncooperative later on. “I’m not going to sit here and wait for you to grow up. I’ll tie you down and leave if you keep acting like a child.”

Unsurprisingly, his coarse words did nothing to coax Aang out of his protective half ball. He barely flinched, making no move to look up even when the older boy grasped his arm to be sure he held his attention. Then Aang drew in a deep breath and spoke, offering a question of his own rather than the response the exiled prince wanted:

“Why do you always say things you don’t mean?”

A brief look of surprise crossed the Firebender’s features, for that question was certainly one he had never expected of the boy. “If you think, for a second, that I wouldn’t tie you up again--“ Prince Zuko protested automatically, good eye narrowing visibly.  

“That’s not what I mean,” Aang said, cutting him off and turning a little to face him. He opened his eyes then, and to Prince Zuko’s surprise the whites were somewhat reddened, as if Aang had been trying not to cry. Although he still believed himself to be in the right, it felt like a swift kick in the gut. The little Avatar waited another moment, staring up at Zuko with a patience he did not truly appear to possess, perhaps born from the ludicrousness of the situation as a whole. “You were more real last night. Not… I don’t know, not like this. Almost everything you say sounds like somebody’s putting words in your mouth. Why don’t you just say what you really believe instead?”  

A slight flush came into the older boy’s face, and he scowled. People were not supposed to read him so easily, especially an enemy! But then, Aang was a perceptive person, despite his young age. The Air Nomads, he vaguely recalled, had been very spiritually connected. It was perfectly logical, then, that Aang would be wise beyond his years. Not to mention, he was the Avatar--that surely had something to do with it, too.  

He almost refused to answer, hoping that his pride might take less of a blow that way. But in maintaining his silence, he only proved Aang’s suspicions right; he did not, could not, say what he truly believed, because it was inherently wrong. The Fire Nation was right in beginning, continuing and ending the war; his ancestors had not made mistakes. If they had, none of them had been banished for them.  

“My ideas don’t matter,” the Fire Prince said finally, voice distant, as if he was trying to resign himself to that fact, even after two years--no; a lifetime--of living to perpetuate the legend of Fire Nation royalty in its superiority and perfection. “We all have our parts to play, and I’m playing mine. That’s all.”

Aang watched him, listened, disbelief written plainly on his face. For half a moment, Prince Zuko expected him to hold his tongue, to accept his answer; but if anything, the Avatar was an unpredictable person. He was, after all, a young boy. “You don’t want that,” he said, straightening a little where he sat as his back ached in protest at having to move just as he was getting accustomed to his awkward position. Aang’s brows furrowed, and the boy looked him dead in the eye, seeing more than Prince Zuko could bear to let him. “You’re not happy like this. It’s not a play--you can change your part anytime!”

How often had his mother said something like that? The older boy scowled, no more soothed by the words than he had as a child, born to play second fiddle to his younger sister. “If I were you, maybe,” he responded, looking away. An unyielding bitterness was evident in his voice; of course the Avatar could change anything he wanted, anytime. He could master his destiny as easily as he could any of the four elements; the Avatar was as much change personified as he was hope for the world.

The fact that Aang hadn’t mastered them all was irrelevant.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” the Avatar asked, sounding somewhat exasperated. He had hoped (perhaps in vain) that the exiled prince was through with thinking of him as just the Avatar; no self-respecting fully realized Avatar would have burst into tears and crawled into another man’s lap the night before, after all.

In retrospect, Aang wondered why he had done that; it was unlike him, hugely so, and he could not imagine doing something like that even with his friends. In times of crisis it was his place to pull people together, to save the day at the last possible moment, not break down--he still might do exactly that, if his Avatar spirit felt threatened enough. He wondered if it would react at all. So far there had been no intervention from his past lives whatsoever.

The flat look the golden-eyed prince gave him almost made his verbal response unnecessary. “You have the ability to change your destiny,” Prince Zuko snapped, gesturing with his hands by spreading them wide, trying to separate the two topics. “A blacksmith can’t make a vase. A pot-maker can’t forge a sword. Normal people can’t grab the future and mold it with their hands--”

In his rambling, the older boy did not notice as Aang neatly closed much of the distance between them, leaning forward and catching his hands almost too quickly for him to react. Prince Zuko jumped, though, and only barely kept back the instinctual flames that tried to flare to life to repel the Avatar. “What are you doing?” he squawked, staring wide-eyed as the Avatar brought his palm up to inspect it more closely, breath tickling the older boy’s hand.

“Reading your palm,” Aang said simply, peering out from behind the Firebender’s hand to give him an even look. He released the teen’s left hand, favoring the right, and deftly turned it so Prince Zuko could see. Ignoring the flabbergasted look on his face, the boy went on, tracing down the center of his hand with a feather-light touch that made him squirm a little. “I’m going to see if any of what you just said is already written there.”

Never having been much interested in the cryptic arts, the exiled prince could not find an argument against the Avatar’s assertion, and he fell silent. Truthfully, he was a little curious to hear what the boy found, to see if there was anything bright in his future at all after living for years in the dark.

Aang ‘hmm’-ed softly as he studied the varied ridges and wrinkles on the older boy’s hand, wholly unsure of what to make of them. Shortly before running away from the Air Temple, on one of his many trips to visit friends in the other nations, he had come across a fortuneteller in the Earth Kingdom. The woman had told him great things, detailing a long life and a litany of great achievements in the little Airbender’s future--but he had paid relatively little attention to where on his hand she had been coming up with these things. A rare butterfly fish in a tank behind her had distracted him.

But he did remember some of the predictions she had given him, and on inspection Zuko’s hand did not really look all that different. Surprisingly, Aang found that the Fire Prince actually had smoother lines and softer skin than he did, with the exception of a few small scars that looked like they might have come from a knife, and the boy had to refrain from giggling. Earning a withering glare from the other male, he sobered, clearing his throat loudly. “Okay, let’s do this!” Aang announced; Prince Zuko only rolled his eyes.

Hunkering down, Aang selected a long crease close to the older boy’s thumb; that one he remembered well enough. “This says you’ll live a long life; you’ll be mostly healthy, and you’ll travel all over the world,” he said, recalling the fortuneteller’s awe at how long his own was, as well as how complex. As far as he could tell, Zuko’s wasn’t much different. Fingers tracing upwards, between the prince’s thumb and index finger, he went on; “There’s a lot of space here, so you’re strong and courageous, but probably too aggressive sometimes. This line’s the wood line… it’s for your head,” the line he indicated was deep, but broken up in at least five places; Prince Zuko wondered if the Avatar was intentionally mocking him.

But he remained silent while the boy continued, listening intently as the Airbender alternated between pointing out locations and explaining their meaning. The fate line was faint and winding, impossible to interpret. His wood and water lines almost intersected, and when Aang told the Fire Prince that it meant he would lose himself to his emotions he nearly snatched away his hand. There was simply no way that was written there; the Avatar had to either be lying or making this all up.

Because the idea that it was all written on his hand where anyone could read it was simply too frightening for words.

“This one is about relationships with people,” Aang said, indicating a broken crease above the wood line he had pointed out earlier. “It shows that many people will care deeply about you.”

“Wait,” Prince Zuko cut in, golden eyes narrowing in suspicion. “I thought that was part of the ‘head’ line. You’ve already pointed to it twice.”

The Avatar faltered then, leaning down to squint at the line in question. “Really?” he asked, and realizing his mistake moved his finger further up. “I meant this one. But the meaning is the same,” he said, unsure of what other meaning the line could possibly have--it looked just like the one on his hand from upside down; it was probably identical.

The exiled prince, however, was not so sure about this. “You don’t know anything about reading palms. You made all that up, didn’t you, Avatar?” he asked sourly, more embarrassed that he had believed it than annoyed. He pulled his hand away then, scowling at the crisscrossing lines across his palm. They were just wrinkles, scars, creases--there was no secret meaning behind them. It was silly to believe it even for a moment.

“No!” Aang’s face flushed a cherry pink in embarrassment at being caught, and he leaned forward again to snatch the prince’s arm. Zuko would not give, however, and Aang settled for leaning over him, one hand around his wrist and the other closed around his fingers. “That’s what they mean. I’ve had my palm read before. I remember it.”

Prince Zuko was not terribly surprised that he had only been parroting things back, and he rolled his eyes. “Lines mean different things for different people,” he quipped, earning a scowl that looked more like a pout from the twelve-year-old Savior of Men. “Our hands aren’t the same.”

“Yes they are!” Abruptly, Aang thrust his hand palm up into the Firebender’s face, and the teen flinched, expecting a gust of wind purely on instinct. Prince Zuko blinked a few times; twice and then thrice, peering around the Avatar’s hand as if he did not know what to do. “Just look--they match; the union and heart lines are exactly the same. And so are the fate lines!”

With his free hand, the exiled prince grabbed Aang’s palm and lowered it, willing to humor the boy only because of his earnestness. He did not believe any of it, really, and he laid their hands palm up on his knee. The little Airbender’s hands were considerably smaller, calloused from using a staff for much of his life, with only a few scars--but to the Fire Prnce’s surprise, while the water and earth lines were nothing alike, he had been right about one thing; the faint wrinkle perpendicular to his heart line appeared to match the Avatar’s perfectly.

“The union lines aren’t the same,” Prince Zuko said finally, indicating a line extending between Aang’s pinky finger and heart line, and then a much shorter one on his own palm; deep and broken, with a small purple scar cutting through at the base. “Yours is longer. Many people might care for you…” his voice dropped considerably, a hint of disappointment creeping in. “But not for me.”

Aang frowned a little, vaguely aware that the older boy had something of a point; while his was longer, however, it was more shallow, fainter by far than the Fire Prince’s. With a quiet sigh he leaned forward a little, peering at their hands before belatedly releasing the teenager’s wrist. “Then the ones that do care more for you,” he decided, earning a dry, humorless laugh from the Firebender.

“Please,” Prince Zuko snorted, averting his eyes. “Name one person you can honestly say cares more about me than they do about you.”

For a long moment Aang said nothing, staring at him, puzzled by the question. They did not share many acquaintances, and he knew better than to try making a point that Uncle Iroh preferred his nephew--that was a given, and he knew that the older boy would not be satisfied with the answer. Logic dictated that any number of the prince’s crew felt the same, and if he had not been certain that the Fire Lord was a heartless, bitter man with no room for love in his heart, he would have insisted that surely Prince Zuko’s own father preferred him to the only remaining opposition to his quest to take over the world.

“I don’t know anyone,” he said finally, wincing as Prince Zuko shut his eyes and leaned away. The Avatar clasped his hand again, leaning to the side to try catching Zuko’s gaze if he did open his eyes. He waited, staring up at the prince expectantly, and a few painfully long seconds passed before Prince Zuko cracked open his eye to see if Aang had backed off.

The boy had not.

Cracking a smile and giving the Firebender’s hand a warm squeeze, Aang spoke with more assurance than he ought to have felt. “But I care a lot about you. That’s gotta count for something, right?”

Although Aang’s sentiment was surely innocent, and though Prince Zuko knew full well that he was only a child and probably had little awareness of the weight such words could carry, his words struck deeply. Heat blossomed in his cheeks in embarrassment, tingeing them a faint pink that the Fire Prince knew was impossible to miss, and he could think of no excuse; certainly not one that the little Avatar would be willing to buy into.

Nor could he think of an adequate response. After the hardship he had caused the boy and his friends, after their argument, it seemed completely illogical that he would--or could--say with a straight face that he did not hate his captor. Especially while, to Aang’s knowledge, Zuko would still be handing him over to his father. That kind of forgiveness was unfathomable.

“You’re crazy,” Prince Zuko said finally, easing his hand out of the Avatar’s grip and sitting back, willing the incessant blush in his cheeks to die down with no luck. “And that doesn’t prove anything; just that we’ve got similar destinies.” The more he thought about the Avatar’s words, the more confusing the boy became. Nothing about the twelve-year-old bridge between man and spirit made sense--and at the same time, he was so simple that it almost seemed impossible that he had kept out of the Fire Nation’s clutches for as long as he had.

He rose to his feet then, stretching a little as he stood, although he tried to be discrete about it; his back was tensing up in anticipation of a very, very dire and stressful afternoon and night, and it did nothing to make the job easier. Knowing that time was running out before they reached port, and painfully aware that he would need to enlist his uncle’s help if he was going to get back out of the Fire Nation alive once Aang escaped, he could not continue wasting time with the little Avatar. Regardless of whether or not he wanted to; the longer he spent with Aang, the more difficult this would be, possibly for them both--especially if his plan backfired.

It seemed as if he would drop the subject in favor of his almost habitual silent contemplating, and Aang watched him straighten his futon and altar before Prince Zuko headed to the door. The monk moved to rise as well, uncomfortable with being left alone when he knew he could not escape, but an oddly sharp look from the golden-eyed teen stopped him. When Prince Zuko spoke there was more resignation than harshness in his voice, and Aang could not help wondering if the sharpness in his gaze had anything to do with the telltale sheen of wetness in his better eye.

“You shouldn’t care about an enemy, Aang; you’ll just get hurt,” the Fire Prince said, pulling the door open and stepping half way through the threshold before he looked back again. “Change back into your own clothes. I’ll be gone only a few minutes.” And then, as an afterthought, he added, “Don’t go anywhere while I talk to my uncle.”

With a mournful creak of rusting metal and tired hinges, Prince Zuko pulled the door shut behind him, but not quickly enough to miss Aang’s parting shot:

“Doesn’t look like that ever stopped you.”

Again heat rushed to his face, and the exiled prince was thankful beyond measure that the door behind him was firmly shut and locked; it would keep Aang inside just as effectively as it kept him from turning and going back in to argue when they both knew full well that the Airbender was right. Caring for his enemy, for the Avatar, was costing him the first and likely only window of opportunity he had to return home--but the tradeoff would have been too painful, he realized, to take back his honor at the cost of the child’s life. He shut his eyes, inhaling deeply, trying to cleanse his mind of any and all distractions related to the sacred boy; he needed to be ready to lay his hand on the table, to break down and allow Uncle Iroh to really help him avoid losing everything with this gamble.

A familiar gravelly clearing of the throat directly in front of him nearly had Prince Zuko leaping out of his skin, and he snapped his eyes open to see the retired general in question standing before him. Uncle Iroh looked tired, with his hands folded in the sleeves of his robes and his head tilted to the side, as if he was reading and digesting the whole of his hotheaded nephew’s thoughts in an instant.

“U-Uncle,” the prince stuttered, surprised that the old man had snuck up on him, though he knew better; his distraction was costly. Coughing and regaining his composure, the teenager straightened a little, stepping away from the door only half a pace. “I was about to go look for you--“

“Prince Zuko, we need to have a talk,” the Dragon of the West said firmly, cutting him off and leaving no room for argument. There was little kindness in the old man’s face, instead lit with a mixture of disapproval and sternness. His nephew felt his stomach drop, and the bravado he had hoped to rely on faded from his own face as Iroh fixed a level look on him, despite being significantly shorter than the teen. “I cannot allow you to follow this course with the Avatar. It will lead only to disaster.”

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