A moonless night stared down at the humming little colony. Torchlight and shop windows cast false daylight into the streets, where a medley of personalities roamed. Tired laborers trudged their way home, brushing past bright-eyed peddlers, panhandlers asking for change, pickpockets and a dozing Fire Nation guard. A one legged bard sat over a frayed tarp, tuning his pipa. Across from there, the Avatar tended to a worn ostrich horse as he waited for his firebending teacher to finish bartering with a hoggish merchant.

"The night is long…" The bard sang, before turning back to the tuning pegs, evidently displeased.

Quite fond of music, the Avatar turned to the troubadour as he started the gentle tune again.

"A song for when the guards are away," he heard him say. "A song while we wait."

The ballad rang through the night air with a fiery cold. The airbender found himself mute, hanging onto every verse with a childish wonder. At the trading post, the firebender turned still, before paying whatever price the merchant demanded and ambling out the door.

The Avatar asked from a thought, far, far away. "What happened?"

He studied the bard, blank faced. "What? They never told you?"

"Well, to be fair," he muttered, "there were a lot of things even they didn't know."

The firebender gave a slow nod. When they'd made their way out of the town, he sighed. "It's a long story."

The bard's song chased them as they walked, and the firebender couldn't help but remember.

The prince of flame was sentenced to sail,
Burned and scarred, by his father's fire,
Searching for ghosts, he was doomed to fail,
And so turned his back on his land and sire.

The sea ravens croaked and the clouds hung low and dark like a mourner's veil. He chose to focus on that, rather than the iron steamer that bobbed on the shore, or the vast plains marching at his back, or the ostrich-horse at his side bearing their meager possessions.

Tunnel visioned by choice. He expected that the rest of his life would go on the same.

He blinked himself back into focus for a moment. A few yards away, Uncle, in his inconspicuous Earth Kingdom clothes, gave a hearty laugh at something Lieutenant Jee and some other crew members had said.

Saying their goodbyes, he guessed. They'd tell him again how much of an honor it'd been to serve the great Dragon of the West, maybe ask a final time if he was really sure about letting them leave and then Uncle would answer with a thank you, and say that he'd follow his nephew to the ends of the globe. Then the crew would nod and shake his hand, then row their little skiff back to the ship where they'd sail off into the gray horizon, and he'd never see them again.

Instead, they laughed once more, and Jee broke off from the group and met his eye. Zuko tried to gather some sense of mind as the man marched up the shore to meet him.

"Prince Zuko! The crew and I wanted to wish you well." His expression turned a mark more dour. "Searching sub-rosa won't be easy."

"No. But it would be unfair to keep you from home any longer."

"It's been unfair to keep you away from home so long. You shouldn't have had to grow up at sea chasing a fool's-"

Jee bit off his sentence and huffed, but the fire calmed from his features. From his belt, he brought up a familiar black sheath.

"You left this in your room." He studied the blade. "'Never give up without a fight.'"

Zuko took the knife from his outstretched hand without meeting his eyes. "Thank you. I must have forgotten it."

He didn't admit that he couldn't stand to look at the thing, not while his ship was pulling away from harbor like a soiled white flag waving in the wind. I've given up, it seemed to say, I've fought, but now I'm giving up.

Jee shook his head and stared up at the mourning sky.

"6 years at sea." He muttered. "You've fought hard, Zuko, but… you're not here to search for the Avatar, are you?"

His dust-colored wear hung heavily, as if it wanted to kiss the earth it epitomized. He remembered the young days of his quest, when he'd sworn time and time again that he'd search the earth for the rest of his life if he had to, that it was his destiny to find the Avatar.

He remembered stormy nights at sea. He remembered the sight of smoke so thick over the Earth Kingdom that the sky was black and ashes fell down like rain. He remember when news came that Azula had been crowned Firelord. And then destiny seemed to burn at sea.

"No." He said. "It's nothing but a ghost, Jee, we all know that. He doesn't want me back. I couldn't stay a kid forever."

The clouds thundered the message of oncoming rain. Jee stood as grim as the sky. The crew shouted from the shore that they would be leaving soon and Zuko raised his head and tried to focus one last time because his attention is the least he can offer. And Jee met his eyes, brought a fist and a palm to his chest, and bowed.

"It has been an honor to serve you, Prince Zuko. And by Agni's will." A fire burned in his eyes. "Find another way home."

The men shook his hand, rowed their little skiff back to the ship and sailed off into the gray horizon.

They walked, he, Uncle and a downtrodden ostrich-horse, across yawning plains, Zuko keeping his eyes on nothing but the path at his feet. And as he walked, he found a new fire stirring in some long empty pit within him, but this time the blinding smoke and naive flames were dead, leaving nothing left but bitter, red embers.

The night is long when the fire has died,
The night is long when there's smoke in your eyes,
Come bury your dreams in the ash tonight,
Till the wind fans the spark to a flame.

"Gaoling's been taken!" The man thundered past him on his ostrich-horse, a line of dust trailing behind them.

His words passed over his head for a moment, as most of everything did, but once they processed he reined his own ostrich-horse so suddenly the wagon they were pulling pitched forward and almost threw him to the ground.

Behind him, the crier had reached the village green, where all conversation had gone silent. The place itself was nothing special, just a flat plot of untilled dirt with a few young peach trees and a rickety gazebo, but it was the only communal point for miles. Fields of crops stretched out to the horizon, dotted by tired, little shacks and laced with narrow, winding paths. Days were long, nights were lonely and meeting up in that plot of dirt was the only way to help it.

"Gaoling's been taken!" The man cried again.

"That's impossible."

"Get a hold of yourself!"

"How?" They said, all at once.

"They stormed the governor's hall. They're barricading the city. Anyone with half a mind's gone into hiding!" The messenger said, hysterical.

One of the men gripped his shoulders and said again. "Get a hold of yourself."

"Gaoling's only a day's walk from here. It's only a matter of time." He wailed.

"We need to run."

"We need to hide!" Another says.

"Run where? They've taken Ba Sing Se, Omashu, now Gaoling."

"South to the plains?"

"It's only a matter of time. We have to fight."

The wailing swelled again. He started to wheel his cart as casually as he could around, hoping to slip past while they argued and howled.

"You, Lee!" Someone called out to him. "You're a learned man, Lee, you've been places. What do you make of this?"

The group was quiet for him. What did he think of all this? He tried his best not to think much at all.

A part of him cried out in misery, in anger, for himself, for his uncle, for the people of the Earth Kingdom that had been nothing but amiable to him. The Fire Nation had no right to steal this last shred of peace from them. But those were hollow flames, and Zuko had too much experience in how to quell them. Fire led to ash. Life led to death. Hope led to ruin.

In the distance, a line of smoke rose from the horizon.

"Only a matter of time." He said. " It'll always be just a matter of time."

Then he whipped up his reins and rode home, where Uncle sat on the porch and gave him a questioning look, wondering why he was back so early.

"Gaoling's been taken." He said simply.

Then he disappeared inside, threw his hat onto the table, and went early to bed.

The phoenix rose and scorched the Earth,
Turned to ash all in his way,
But a dragon did the phoenix birth;
From a son that he'd once thrown away.

"Zuko, wake up!"

He knows it's a dream.

"You will fight for your honor."

His father's voice, the eyes of the crowd, the cold tile under his palms; it's all smoke and mirrors. If only that meant anything. This moment created him and destroyed him, and redefines him every day, and perhaps dreams are nothing more than smoke but memory beats down as real and constant as Agni's light.

"Get up, Zuko!"

"I meant you no disrespect." He hears himself say, weak and detached and familiar, like an echo. "I am your loyal son."

He sees himself kneel, and feels the tears start to streak down his cheeks. He shakes his head bitterly. Loyalty meant nothing to Ozai, he knows that now. He remembers sailing past charred husks of buildings, of bodies, after the day of the comet. Mercy meant even less.

The shadowy figure makes another step towards him, and a flame burst in his hand.

"Rise and fight, Prince Zuko!"

His eyes chase the fire, the fire that would streak across his face forever, the fire that would sentence him to prison at sea, the fire that would send him to an early grave in a land a thousand miles from home.

Rise and fight, he hears again. It makes his hands tremble and the dream sharpen, and it would be lying if he said that he'd never imagined running his sword through the man's neck at least once in his life.

His image still kneels, and he hates it more than even the shadow and the flame.

And he opens his mouth to say I will not fight you, but he will not let the words pass. He has spent too long kneeling. He has spent enough time waiting for mercy.

In the distance, a line of smoke rose from the horizon.

The mirrors crack and the smoke thickens. The stands fill with red flames that rise like columns and lap at the dais like waves, and even his younger self turns to ash and is blown away, until it is just him and his father's shadow. White fire wreaths his arms while a red flame dances in Ozai's palm.

Rise and fight, Prince Zuko. He makes a step forward, the heat of the flames no worse than the anger in his veins. He watches the fire in his father's hand, and raises an arm to match.

"I'm only following orders." He closes the distance between them.

Then the flames wash across the stage, and everything turns dark.

"Wake up, Prince Zuko!"

He bolts upright in his bed, sweating hard, hands clutching at his mite-eaten sheets. Despite it all, it feels as if the world had come into sharper focus, as if the grain in his vision had been smoothed out. In the darkness, he hears the familiar roaring of fire.

"The soldiers are taking the field." Uncle's wrinkled hands are iron on his shoulders. "They're trying to fight back. We must leave while it's still in chaos."

Seldom is Uncle the one who's hysterical and Zuko the one composed, but tables tend to turn on nothing more than a whim. On the wisp of a dream.

He doesn't run that night, not away, anyhow. He grabs a sword, lights a flame and flies into battle to settle a score. He doesn't run to free the Earth Kingdom or to reclaim a throne or to wreak justice for all the wrong, but for now those all go in the same direction.

Firebender fighting under an earthen flag, a prince fighting against his people, the banished leading the people to topple the crown; there's a sort of silent poetry in it. And perhaps even then, after the battle had died and he sat under a young peach tree in the common green as the villagers debated what comes next, he already knew that he was writing his own elegy.

The dragon lead the earth to quake,
Filled the sky with ships of steam,
Underneath, the tunnels snaked,
And at sea, the golden suns gleamed.

Seven years come and go. The peach trees blossom. Rebellion flares. Zuko heads a war council.

"You're being too ambitious." One general rumbles. "Proceed with caution: history will not give you mercy."

"Neither will Ozai." He answers. The man's expression goes to brick.

"And what happens if it goes wrong? What's our back-up plan? How do we rebound from there?"

"If it all goes to hell," he says. "We don't need to worry about coming back."

Sokka stares at him blankly, Katara furrows her brows as if trying to have faith in his words and Toph had gone silent ever since he'd told her that she would be the one who stayed behind.

Even now, he still stands alone.

The order had been selfish, perhaps. Reckless, absolutely. But the end was so close that it was as if he had his blade at Ozai's neck, and there was no such things at going back.

Zuko adjourns the meeting, and that is poetry enough.

The night is long when the fire has died,
The night is long when there's smoke in your eyes,
Come bury your dreams in the ash tonight,
Till the wind fans the spark to a flame.

Algor Pass. They say it's never the same journey twice.

12 years ago. The memory of his Uncle's words feels as if it had come from a different lifetime. Spirits, where had all the time gone?

Flotsam, crags, glaciers, ice floes; they all bob along the surface ready to sink the greatest ships. Always changing. One ship can sail in and be skimming the Northern Water Tribe in just hours. Another ship may take entire weeks. Some never come out.

He ducks into an alcove as another round of arrows or fire or buckshot or who knows what - the sky is a hellstorm - rains from the cliffsides of the Royal Plaza. In those scarce seconds, the memory brings something from his pocket. It's a map, inked in black with ill-defined coasts and smudged lines

A perfect place for the Avatar to be hiding then.

Perhaps. But be wary of following hope here. Sail only to find an exit without heeding the sea, and you'll find yourself at the bottom of the ocean. Only sail without knowing where you wish to be, and you're sure to be just another piece of wreckage.

Zuko has sailed wrong.

Those are the rules of the pass. Follow them, and you will be beyond reach.

He draws the path, north through Algor, in ash.

Zuko learns that when everything has fallen through and plans have shattered like glass, Sokka listens to anything with a sense of reason. He slips the map into his palm and tells him to get all he can and leave. He doesn't look back to see if Zuko is running to shore as well.

He thanks the spirits for that. There's not much left to be done when he picks up a helmet from the ground and raises his sword for the final stanza, but he is still thankful. Sending to safety the few people he might have grown to love was one right turn in a voyage doomed to run aground.

The walls wouldn't fall, the dragon turned to the west,
Sailed through the fire, to set the earth free,
But blue flames guarded the phoenix nest,
And the dragon drowned at sea.

He wished they could cut his head off without having to take off his helmet, but that's asking for too much.

When the battle's over, they drag the survivors in a row, kneeling and heads lowered. When he hears the crackle of her voice, he wishes for it all over again.

They go down the row, ripping off helmets, disarming them, tying their hands behind their backs for easy transport to prison or execution or who knows where for him.

Zuko's numb to his fate now, but why did it have to come so unbearably slow?

When the guard tears off his helmet, for one wondrous second, no one notices. Then he stumbles back, the man behind him leaves the ropes slack around his hands and Azula's eyes drip with malice.

She pulls a sword from a guard's sheath and swings it back to take his head. His allies howl.

Her blade stops short, but he can't hide the wince. Her laughter grates at his ears like nails on stone.

"Well, isn't this a surprise." She hisses. "It's always so enjoyable when family comes to visit."

She orders the guards to hoist him to his feet, where he has no choice but to look at her. Azula eyes have always been unsettling, but now they glowed too bright in her face, as if the power of Sozin's comet had stayed imbued in them after all these years. Her grin glared at him crudely.

"My, haven't we grown Zuzu? Maybe that pretty face of yours has, but it seems that head of yours has stagnated."

There were no words to answer her. There was nothing left for him to preserve.

She stepped closer. "You always used to throw tantrums. That's what got you banished in the first place, wasn't it? That temper of yours in the war council? I really thought you would've outgrown that by now, Zuzu. But it looks like I miscalculated."

Azula walked past him towards the shore. The guards turned him to face her.

"Your tantrums just got bigger. More fatal. More reckless. And look at how many people got caught in the crossfire."

He had been focusing on Azula's back, on the crown atop her head, but then she waved her arm across the horizon and he foolishly glanced away. Bodies littered the ground like ash heaps, no colors to tell them apart, earthen barricades stood in vain, already crumbling, and at sea he spotted the blue sails of Water Tribe ships pulling away from harbor. Iron steamers trailed them like vultures. In the moment before he looked away, he saw the navy cloth painted red with fire.

Zuko may be numb to death, but shame burned through him like flames on blue sails.

"Look at it, Zuko. You've turned against your own people. You've lead your army to their deaths."

She picks a torn banner from the ground.

"And after all of that, did you ever find that honor of yours? Because from what I see, you still have none."

The gold and green emblem burns in her hands. She gives him a pitying smile.

"Guards, prepare a ship to Ba Sing Se for my dear brother. I'm sure our king would love to see him again."

He watches blue sails catch fire as he was dragged towards the shore, with greaves grating against the earth and Azula's words pulsing through him worse than lightning.

The night is long when the fire has died,
The night is long when there's smoke in your eyes,
Come bury your dreams in the ash tonight,
Till the wind fans the spark to a flame.

He doesn't know why.

Perhaps it was the spirit's will. Fate. Destiny. All those meaningless words. Or perhaps it was some animalistic instinct of self preservation, a bodily will to live that hadn't burned with the rest of him. Maybe the thought of death by his father's hands was so abhorrent that it had struck a chord in his soul that his mind had been too numb to realize. Maybe.

He vaguely knows how. Melting locks, breathing flames, fires blazing and dying so easily they might have been fireflies dancing. Coal dust easily lit. Blasting jelly in the cargo hold. The cold sea stealing his breath.

He shouldn't have been able to, he wished he hadn't been able to, but he's retching saltwater out of his lungs on a shore who knows where while the burning carcass of a ship glows like a dying candle in the distance.

Zuko is free. He's alive. And he waits for the kiss of death, but sand and brine is all that meets his lips.

He staggers to his knees, arms clawing at his chest until they find it.

Somehow, it had made it through. After being left on a ship he'd never see again, after countless battles, after facing Azula and her faceless guards; here it was, mocking him still. The knife glinted in the moonlight.

Never give up without a fight.

He has fought, over and over and over. Time and energy, life and limb, love and peace; he's given it all up in a heartbeat.

And now he's here with nothing.

He stares at the knife in his hands.

Never give up without a fight. Never give up without a fight. Without a fight. Fight. Fight. Rise and fight, Prince Zuko.

No one can say he never fought. The sight of fiery sails is burned in his mind as testament.

But all the straws he's every grasped at have broken and now they're littered at his feet ready to burn. And everything he's ever done is sinking beneath the waves like the waning candle on the horizon.

And what is there left to do when every card you play spells out failure?

And what is there left to do when you've tossed everything you might have loved into your pyre, and you're the only one who doesn't burn?

And what is there left to do when the fight is done?

Except give up? Except hobble to your feet and wander the shore until you die, or find a little port town where you call yourself Lee, who works at the teashop and feeds the turtleducks in the morning, and pretend that this is all you've ever been?

It is cold daybreak, the fires have stopped burning, and Zuko gives up.

AN: And that's where the title's from. Only made you wait eleven chapters. Anyway, satisfied with how this chapter went, could have been better in some places but I really want to move on. The past is done for the most part, just the future left to care about.

The end is nigh. Not that nigh, maybe a third away, but still nigh. I don't plan on this story to go above 20 chapters.

Also, I'm making a forum soon, mainly to discuss another story, a Candle to the Dragon, but there'll be bits about this too. If you've got anything to say about that story, this story, or you want to know where I disappear to in between these chapters, pop on over, I'll have the link on my profile eventually I presume.

Thanks for sticking around this angstfest and see you next chapter.