does not follow the plot of the comics

It is raining the day he finds her.

It's been so long, taken such a long time, and the dark cloak around his shoulders is heavy and soaked through and cold, just like his skin, like his hands— shaking.

He finds her in a tiny, nameless Earth Kingdom village, so far removed it's barely learning that the war is over, that the world is done fighting, for now.

He finds her marked with nothing but a tiny, nameless gravestone in a tiny, nameless village— died tiny and nameless and he only knows that it's her from the descriptions of the townspeople, knows that it's her and that she was still here a few months ago, that a horrible sickness wracked the countryside and took her with it.

She was alive a few months ago, is all he can think, all he can feel, feet shaking in the mud before a tiny nameless grave.

She was alive a few months ago, his mother was alive a few months ago.

It is worse, this way, after years of believing her dead and suddenly learning that maybe she wasn't, that maybe she was still out there. It is worse because she was alive, she was living here in this tiny nameless village when he was banished, when he was searching for the Avatar, when he finally went home and when he left again and when he met the dragons and broke in and out of prison and faced his sister and his father and there is so much he wants to say, so much he wants to tell her— look how far I've come, look at all I've done, Mother, look.

But everything he wants to say, every choked back word that's been building up in his throat for the last six years stays there, won't come out, clog up his throat and his mouth and his mind and he can't breathe, all he can see is her last phantom of a smile as she turned around and walked away forever and never looked back.

(And it's not fair— it's not fair it's not fair please no.)

He wonders if he should order her dug up and re-buried back home, where she belongs, not in this tiny nameless village in a tiny nameless grave, but he cannot bring himself to move, to speak, doesn't think he ever wants to move or speak or think again and he wonders if she ever thought about him, about Azula, about the life she left behind, if she ever worried about him or missed him or if she would be proud of the person he'd become, if she would be proud or ashamed of all his mistakes or happy he'd tried to change, tried so much.

Look how far I've come. Look at all I've done. I've missed you so much I love you please look come back mother please.

He brings a hand up to cover his face. He cannot stop his shoulders from shaking, the hot tears from falling, his nails from digging into the skin of his hand so hard it hurts.

And it is raining the day he finds her.