Author's Note: Whew, this chapter was probably the reason I started this story in the first place. As soon as I saw the idea of Zuko being the Avatar, I immediately knew that in my version, Iroh would have known from the start. I thought long and hard about a backstory for how Iroh would have known, and nothing at all really came to me until I was lying in bed one night, trying to sleep but wide awake, and I visualized most of this out in my head.

I told my friend Kelsy, who has been a great source of inspiration and help on this fic so far, about it, and she was a wonderful enough friend to help me decide on names for all the past Avatar incarnations. She's much better at the naming process than I am, and she managed to find actual Chinese, Korean, and Pacific Islander names that had meaning whereas whatever I thought up would probably have been an insult to all cultures everywhere.

I had to rely a lot on information from the show for this chapter too, as well as some headcanon of my own devising. This all had to be before the death of Lu Ten, I realized, but I still wanted Iroh to experience some sort of major character development before then. I also had to arrange the ages of the Avatars to coincide with the hundred years in passing, so if you'll notice, twelve, sixty, then twelve again equals eighty-four...and Zuko, of course, is sixteen. Whew, that's the extent of my math for awhile. I apologize in advance if I made any mistakes about the reigning years of Sozin and Azulon, but it never says in the show just when, exactly, Sozin died, so I've always supposed that he was like Kyoshi, who lived to be approximately two hundred thirty years old. And Azulon was stated to have only reigned as Fire Lord for twenty-three years in the show, so I did my best with what I had.

I've been getting some really nice reviews lately! All of you are really great, and I'd like to thank ArrayePL and sokkantylee in particular for always seeming to review so often. All your feedback really makes me smile. :D

Finally, this chapter is really dialogue heavy, because obviously Iroh's the one who has to tell it. I kept it strictly from Zuko's perspective this time because hey, he's the Avatar. I'll probably get back to flip-flopping perspectives in the next chapter.

This is all I can think to say right now, so I hope you guys enjoy!

Chapter 5: Iroh's Secret

"It is difficult to know where to start, my nephew, but I will try. I suppose everything began after the death of the last fully realized Avatar, Avatar Roku—who was, as you know, from the Fire Nation, much like yourself."

"So what? Roku was a traitor. Great-grandfather Sozin asked him to help spread our nation's glory to the rest of the world and he refused. Then he attacked Sozin and threatened to kill him."

Zuko had finally consented to sit down for the telling of all his uncle's secrets, knowing better than anyone else in the tent that his uncle could make a story last for hours at a time. He was tired, besides; the exhaustion from having gone out into the storm and awakening his Avatar state was catching up with him in spite of all his anger, and he might as well sit because standing up just to glare at Iroh wasn't going to do him any good anyway. He had planned not to interrupt his uncle initially, wanting to catch every detail possible, but found he was already breaking his internal vow because he was simply too opinionated. He didn't want his uncle to compare him to Avatar Roku. Avatar Roku had been the Fire Nation's biggest threat at the time, a complete traitor who served as the prime reason why the Avatars since had still been considered threats and had been tirelessly, ruthlessly hunted down.

He was the reason Zuko himself now could never go home. Before Avatar Roku, Zuko's banishment might have been a surmountable obstacle, Avatar or not. Now, he would be seen as an enemy no matter what, a threat to the whole nation. Zuko hated the man even though he'd never met him, because his traitorous deeds had now branded Zuko a traitor of the same kind, although he'd never done anything remotely traitorous in his life aside from speaking out against one general's crazy, thankless plan in his father's war room, long ago.

But Iroh didn't seem to mind the fact that he had already interrupted. In fact, his uncle simply looked at him sadly—he would even dare to say pityingly—for a moment or two, and then continued. "There is more to Roku's story than you are aware of, Prince Zuko, and it does relate to you. But we can perhaps discuss that…another time."

Zuko scowled. He had had enough of secrets being kept from him, of details being held back, but he held his tongue, not for his uncle's sake, but because he wasn't sure how many unpleasant revelations he could stand to hear in one day. How much more could he take before he broke down entirely? His uncle was right; a separate story could wait. But if he thought that Zuko would forget about it entirely and let it drop, he was wrong.

"Avatar Roku died shortly before the arrival of Sozin's comet," Iroh continued, "giving your great-grandfather Sozin some time to plan the progression of the war. While Roku was alive, Sozin took only a few colonies from the Earth Kingdom before he was stopped. But Roku's death meant fewer obstacles than ever before stood in the way of the Fire Nation conquering the entire world.

Your great-grandfather and his war advisors set their sights on the Air Nomads, knowing that the Avatar would next incarnate there in the Avatar cycle. But they could not attack immediately, you see, for the nomads had distanced themselves from the rest of the world, seeking shelter in the most secluded mountains in existence. Nor were the Air Nomads unaware of the Fire Nation's eagerness for war, though I think they may have underestimated how deep it ran.

In any case, the Fire Nation chose not to attack any of the air temples for twelve years. Most people were unaware as to why, besides the difficulty involved in reaching the temples themselves, but Sozin himself studied the night skies often, and it is rumored that he had access to knowledge from an unknown source, and he knew the date of the comet's arrival, and what power it would lend to our people.

Your airbender incarnate, a girl by the name of Hui-ying, lived during these twelve anxious years, born at the moment that Roku departed this life. The monks of the air temples knew within the first year of her birth that she was the Avatar. There at the air temples, the airbenders had a tradition by which to pick out the Avatar that the Fire Nation has never adopted. Since all the airbenders lived as monks, they were able to test every child born into the monastery for certain signs, providing thousands of toys to choose from in their infancy. Should a child ever choose the four toys possessed by past Avatars, each from one of the different nations, the monks know then that that child is the new Avatar. But they never told her. For most of her life, she never knew she was the Avatar; the other nomads thought her too young, even with her unnatural prowess for airbending, and believed her entry into the war could wait a few more years.

But the Fire Nation invaded sooner than expected, when Hui-ying was barely twelve. She hailed from the western air temple, but even had she been from one of the other temples it would not have helped her. Sozin had stationed as many Fire Nation troops as he could within range of the air temples for months in advance, letting them test their new technology to find ways to infiltrate the temples.

On the day of the comet's arrival, your great-grandfather launched the largest attack in Fire Nation history.

The only reason anyone knows for certain that Hui-ying was the Avatar is because the soldiers cornered the monks, heard them trying to tell the girl in their final moments of her powers. Perhaps they hoped that she could somehow trigger her Avatar state and save them all, though those hopes must have been slim. But it was all too sudden, too much, too soon. The girl knew only airbending, and even the greatest masters around her didn't stand a chance against the firebenders, whose powers were amplified a hundredfold by Sozin's comet.

The soldiers cared not that she was a child because their orders had been to kill every airbender possible. No other way was known to prevent the Avatar cycle than to kill off an entire nation, thus stopping the cycle from repeating in the end. So they killed Hui-ying and every other airbender present at the temples, and then they left and reported the news to their superiors. The only thing remaining, it seemed, was to kill the next three Avatars as quickly as possible so the Avatar cycle would be finished."

Here Uncle Iroh finally took a break in his story, examining Zuko carefully, calmly, trying to see what effect this was having on his nephew. But Zuko couldn't bring himself to feel much of anything, besides that always-present anger. He knew most of this already—maybe he hadn't known the age of the girl, but everyone knew the attack on the airbenders had been swift and decisive. There wasn't supposed to be any mercy in war. Some sacrifices always had to be made, no matter what side you were on.

Not knowing about being the Avatar, though…well, Zuko supposed he could relate to that, at least.

He glanced back behind him, suddenly aware again of the feeling of eyes watching him incessantly. The three water tribe peasants were still there—he'd already almost forgotten about them in the course of his uncle's story. Again, he considered if he should try and rouse himself enough to kick them out of the tent. If this was going to get into personal details about the Fire Nation or his uncle's life, then it was really none of their business. Then again, it was their tent. Guess that meant they could stay.

When he looked back at his uncle, Iroh was holding an outstretched cup of tea his way. "I thought you might like some before I continued, Prince Zuko," he said.

Zuko stared long and hard at the tea, fighting down the urge to knock it out of his uncle's hand. He didn't want tea, he didn't want any of his uncle's stupid, calming rituals. He wanted to know the facts that had been kept from him for sixteen years. Only the truth was going to be able to take his mind off of his anguish at the thought that he was now more permanently unwelcome at home than ever. "Just finish your story," he grumbled, looking away again.

So Iroh continued.

"The Fire Nation knew that the next Avatar would hail from a water tribe, and launched attacks on both. The southern water tribe was never as well-protected as the first, even in its prime…and I am afraid that all the southern waterbenders were rounded up as quickly as possible. Without the power from the comet, the Fire Nation was content to capture, not kill, most of the waterbenders—they supposed that with all the airbenders wiped out, there was no reason to kill all their other opponents. It is…to my deepest regret that we crippled the southern water tribe in such a way," he said humbly, turning to bow his head towards the three members of the southern water tribe among them.

Zuko watched the girl he now knew to be a southern waterbender very carefully, and could see the anxiety in her and her brother's eyes, but he chose not to say anything to his uncle. Not yet, anyway.

"When it became apparent that the next Avatar was not among the southern waterbenders, the northern water tribe was targeted next. They possessed a powerful naval fleet at the time, however, one that was nearly impenetrable, and your great-grandfather turned his life instead towards attempting to break through to the north and locate the Avatar.

Your great-grandfather Sozin lived an unnaturally long life, and when his son—your grandfather Azulon—came of age, he helped him in his search for the Avatar. Your father and I were already young boys by the time this occurred, for Sozin's reign was much longer than Azulon's twenty-three years. As the northern water tribe's strongholds held out, the search intensified—years and years passed, you see, and while the water tribes have never used the airbenders' methods for determining the next Avatar, they have methods of their own. The spirits grace the waterbenders with visions more than they do any other nation, since the waterbenders have great ties to the moon and ocean spirits themselves. With every day that passed, the likelihood increased that the waterbenders had discovered the next Avatar and would tell him or her of their destiny as soon as possible, so as to avoid a repeat of what had happened to the last Avatar.

As my father became increasingly immersed in his duties as Crown Prince, he sent others in his stead to continue the siege of the north. The waterbenders could not hold out forever, and so long as we damaged their fleets, it mattered not if we captured all of them, he said.

And so he chose me, his oldest son, and several of his most trusted generals, to lead an invasion force, as soon as the word returned that the northern fleet had been sufficiently crippled to allow for a journey into the heart of the North Pole. I was still too young to lead in anything but name; I was expected to watch and learn so that I could lead the hunt for the next Avatar, when they were born into the earthbending cycle.

The invasion didn't take long, because our goal was one person only. We found the next Avatar more easily than expected, and indeed, by the time we found him, he was well over sixteen, and aware of his status as the Avatar. He was a young man by the name of Haku, skilled naturally at waterbending and trained in some earthbending—only minor, as you can imagine, since the North Pole is just as icy as the South Pole—as well, thanks to a tutor from the Earth Kingdom who had snuck into the northern water tribe more easily than all the naval forces of the Fire Nation had broken through. Haku was much like yourself, my nephew, quite headstrong, fearless, and determined. Although he knew nothing of firebending or airbending, he insisted with the other waterbenders that he be allowed to defend his tribe. And when it became clear that his tribe would not be eliminated as the airbenders had been, so long as he came quietly, he ceased fighting and let our forces capture him.

I am ashamed to say that our people repaid his honorable deed most unjustly.

Since he came quietly, in the end, my grandfather Sozin decided not to kill him right away, as had been the case with the airbender. Avatar Haku was taken prisoner instead, placed into isolation away from the southern waterbenders and Earth Kingdom prisoners. He was kept there for…many years. I recall this clearly because I was often sent by my father to check in at the prison. I came to be sickened by what I saw, but I said nothing—to my regret. I did not want to anger my family.

In isolation, Haku was most gravely mistreated. Fed only the worst scraps of food, insulted…I think the guards might have tortured him if only they could have been sure of not provoking him into the Avatar state. Either way, it was a horrible existence, and it lasted for nearly forty years.

Then came the day when Haku turned sixty, and my grandfather decided he had done his duty in keeping Haku as prisoner for a time. He ordered the death of Avatar Haku, a deed carried out most viciously, most shamefully. My loyalty to my country never wavered, but it was then, I think, that I first sought a way out of having to kill the Avatar. I could not condone it in my mind."

And Iroh paused again, a break that no one seemed to want this time because the entire tent was filled with listeners baiting their breath. Zuko himself was becoming more caught up in his uncle's story than he would have liked to admit, forgetting sometimes even how angry with his uncle he was. This part of the story had touched a little too close to home for comfort, and he had a feeling that his uncle knew it.

Zuko knew very much what it was like to object to the plans of your nation without meaning it as a traitorous offense. He himself bore his scar and his banishment as a result of speaking out against what he had seen as one general's horrifying plan to put new Fire Nation troops out on the front lines as cannon fodder. But simply because he had disagreed with the general had never meant that he didn't love his country, or his father. It didn't matter. That was how he'd been treated, in the end.

He had been sitting cross-legged thus far, but he found he had nothing to say, no bitter remarks or snide comments to his uncle, so he uncrossed his legs, only to bring his knees up under his chin. He sat in sullen silence, unwilling to comment.

To his surprise, someone else commented for him—the waterbender girl.

"So…what happened next?" she asked, apparently in spite of herself.

Though she had continued sending him looks of mingled fear and resentment this entire time, Zuko could tell that she didn't distrust Uncle Iroh half so much. Of course. Only people from the Fire Nation would consider his uncle to be shallow or distrustful for his legendary defeat at Ba Sing Se; everyone else from the other nations most likely considered him a kind of secret hero. He glared at the girl, wondering if she was really so pressed for details from other people's lives. He could have made another quip then, about how life must be even more boring in the South Pole than he'd thought if this was what she resorted to, but considering her reaction to his last (entirely truthful) comment, he thought it better to keep quiet.

Iroh didn't seem to mind her tentative entrance into the conversation. Instead he turned his gaze on her and gave her a small, albeit melancholy smile, as though what Zuko saw as her pretentiousness, he saw as charm. "Next," he said, "came the busy times.

Fire Lord Sozin passed away two years after the death of Haku, leaving the throne open to my father, Azulon. I was deemed the new Crown Prince and put under more rigorous training than ever before. I was also put in charge of capturing the new Avatar, a more daunting task perhaps than the previous ones, not only because of my newfound resolution to not kill the Avatar at all, but because the Earth Kingdom is broader and more diverse than either the water tribes or the air temples. I went away on frequent journeys as often as I could get away with, in attempts to clear my mind.

During the next few years, when I was not gathering what information I could on whether the Earth Kingdom had identified its next Avatar yet, I was attempting to broaden my views. I became interested in spirit lore—you may have heard of my trip to the spirit world, my nephew. Indeed, that trip occurred in the midst of those busy years, and I learned many things from it, things both about the Avatar and the state of our nation.

And not long after my journey into the spirit world, news came that the Avatar had been discovered in a tiny, rural Earth Kingdom village, a few years sooner than we expected.

You see, Prince Zuko, we knew of no way in which the Earth Kingdom normally identifies its Avatars. Its lands are so vast, its people so numerous and different, that it would be impossible for every child to be tested the way they were in the Air Nomads' temples. Most of the time, an Avatar will discover the truth about themselves when they turn sixteen. In the air temples, the monks would tell them on their sixteenth birthday, in the water tribes, the priests would tell them, and of course, in the Fire Nation the answer is usually divined by the Fire Sages by then and also told to the Avatar in question on his or her sixteenth birthday.

If the Avatar is not told voluntarily by any persons surrounding them, they discover it for themselves in one way or another…such was the case with you tonight, Prince Zuko. I know you are angry that I did not tell you, but know that I only feared you would think me a liar, and I knew that you would eventually discover it in one way or another tonight, as fate would have it.

The Earth Kingdom uses this natural discovery of the Avatar because of its vastness; it saves worrying and searching, in most cases. We were surprised, therefore, because the Avatar in question was yet again only twelve years old when she discovered her destiny. When we went to the village in question, we heard she had fled. My soldiers demanded all the information that they could, and found that the girl had been triggered into the Avatar state earlier than expected, for ordinarily the Avatar state is only triggered when one is in life threatening danger, a situation that never occurs for most civilians in the heart of the Earth Kingdom, far from the conflict with our nation at its outer edges.

But a landslide had begun, threatening to wipe out her and everyone else in her tiny mountainside village, and the girl, Bao-yu, accidentally triggered her powers, and all the memories of her past lives.

She was difficult to track from there, but somehow we managed. She was little more than a scared twelve-year-old girl who had stumbled into her power too early; her terrified appearance made an impression on any villagers who saw her elsewhere, so she stuck to the wild as much as possible. Still, we found her in less than a year.

Young though she was, she was smart. She attempted to flee through the cave of tunnels that leads to the great city of Omashu, knowing well the uneasy rumors that existed of the cave's curse. My soldiers refused to follow her in after there, convinced they would meet early deaths. And I, seeking a chance to speak to the girl away from prying eyes and ears, seized my chance—I followed her into the labyrinth.

However, she had not gone into the cave to escape to Omashu, as I had originally thought. When I finally caught up to Bao-yu, it was to see her, illuminated by my firelight, with a boulder hanging over her own head. I wondered then if she would attack me, thinking me her enemy, but she was determined only that I not try to stop her.

I asked her why she would want to kill herself. When she wouldn't speak to me, I told her of my conviction that the Avatar was no enemy of the Fire Nation. I offered to teach her firebending in secret if only she would refrain from killing herself. I do not know whether she believed me or not, but my offer got her to speak at last. She told me she could not stand the pressure of being the Avatar. At only twelve years old, she had triggered too many memories too fast; she had seen all the pain and suffering brought upon her past two incarnations and feared what would happen to her if she followed in their footsteps. She wanted to kill off the Avatar cycle, she said, and end the pain and suffering felt by future Avatars. She hoped that she could somehow again trigger her Avatar state, and that she could crush herself to death then, forever breaking the cycle.

Had I not already visited the spirit world by then, I might have doubted her words that the cycle could be broken in such a way. But I knew she was telling the truth, and I pleaded with her to do otherwise, told her that the world would be saddened at her death. We stood alone in that cave for a long time.

In the end, I failed to change her mind, save for one, small concession—she decided not to trigger her Avatar state. It didn't matter, she said, the cycle would still end when it reached the airbenders again, so she would only be allowing one more person to suffer after her. She would not let me reach her. Every time I tried to approach without violent means, she would earthbend herself deeper into the cave's clutches, that boulder lingering over her all the time. I hoped to tackle her out of the way when at last she let it drop, but…I was too late. Bao-yu took her own life out of fear and desperation that no child should ever have to endure.

I was distraught. I stayed two hours longer in the cave, trying futilely to retrieve her body from that blanket of rubble. In the end, I succeeded in that much, but not without expending a great deal of energy and bloodying my hands. I wandered around the cave the remainder of the time, unsure of the way back, not particularly caring if I made it back. Somehow, I came across a light in that tunnel other than my own fire, natural lights that illuminated the cave from its ceiling and led me back to where I had started from.

My soldiers were curious as to whether the girl had actually made it to Omashu, or whether the cave had swallowed her whole. I wanted then to protect the next Avatar, born into our own nation, but knew that if I told them anything of Bao-yu's original plan to kill herself in the Avatar state, they would use that information when the next Avatar revealed him or herself, and all would be lost. I told them instead that I had killed the girl an hour beforehand, after a long chase, and they believed me, for they thought of her as a small girl only capable of some decent earthbending and little more. I was celebrated as a hero, asked to come home for something of a break period for my good deed.

I cannot deny that I was exhausted, sickened with the world and myself. A rest period at home would do me well, I thought, and it could do me no harm to stay close to the Fire Nation, where I knew the Avatar would be born again.

My nephew, you want to know how I have known all these years that you were the Avatar. I know because the day I returned to the Fire Lord's palace, some weeks later, I was greeted by my brother's wife, your mother Ursa. She was pleased to see me return in one piece, she said, but scolded me for looking tired. And she told me then that she had just had a child, a firstborn son…you. I was happy for her; I asked out of curiosity when you had been born. She told me a time that coincided, not with the time I had told my soldiers that I had killed Bao-yu, but the time at which I knew the girl had killed herself. I knew then, and my own instinct reconfirmed it when I went with your mother to look at you."

"Did my mother know?" Zuko blurted out, before he could help himself. He was undeniably sickened by his uncle's story at this point, both in the ways it applied to him and what it spoke about his nation. The hate in the eyes of all these water tribe members made a little more sense now, and yet he hated them for having good cause to hate him in return. "Did she know? Is that why she left?"

Iroh shook his head, but Zuko wasn't sure what to believe.

"I never told your mother. I could not make her worry as I began to worry in that moment. I had good cause to fear what would happen to you, were it ever discovered—simply because of the time I had given to my soldiers, off by only one hour from the time Bao-yu actually died, another boy in the Fire Nation had been taken away from his mother, to be observed for signs of being the Avatar. I trusted your mother, Prince Zuko, but I did not want her to fear for you.

Your sister was born two years afterwards, and I know of all the grief she has caused you, but at the time, her birth was useful. She was a natural firebending prodigy; her displays of talent appeared to outshine you. Most Avatars are prodigies themselves in their natural element; if you wonder why such was not the case with you, it is because the nature of firebending has become corrupted in these past hundred years. Now it draws off of anger and hate where it did not before, and you were never a child as capable of such emotions as your sister was. I could have taught you more proper ways to firebend in your youth, but again, I refrained from doing so because I believed it would only draw too much attention to your skills.

And then the perfect opportunity to train you came, I am sorry to say, in your thirteenth year, after your banishment was declared. I had had to spend time away from you during other points in the war, like my siege on Ba Sing Se, but I knew then I could serve as your own personal firebending instructor, and that I could be there when your sixteenth birthday arrived…

Perhaps I have made many mistakes, Prince Zuko. But I had your best interests at heart. I wanted only to protect you."

The tent and all its residents sat in complete silence as the weight of Iroh's secrets fell over them like a fog.