"Please, Father! I am your loyal son!" Zuko was hardly more than a child but he understood, somewhere deep in his bones, what it meant when the Fire Lord's fists clenched just a little tighter. The boy tried to step back but even that small signal only betrayed his weakness and Ozai took two strides, stopping just a few feet from his son. In a panic, the teen fell to the packed dirt, bowing his head so his father couldn't see the fear and horror in his eyes.

"No child of mine would grovel at the feet of their opponent! Get up and fight!" Ozai growled. Before he could move, Zuko's breath was knocked out of him as Ozai swept his foot around and caught the boy in the side, knocking him to the side with a pained cry.

"I will not fight you, Father! I meant no disrespect. I meant only for the good of the Fire Nation!" He was pleading, begging, crying. Anything to try to make him understand.

What Zuko failed to realize is that Ozai did understand. He completely understood.

The Fire Nation needed and deserved a strong ruler who wouldn't be afraid or hesitant to make tough decisions. Who cares if they lost a platoon of rookies? It was an honor to die serving your lord. Zuko was unable to see that. He was blind to the fact that the Fire Nation would win a glorious victory over the filthy Earth Kingdom peasants because of his bleeding heart.

Ozai would burn that heart out of him, just as he should have from the start. He knew exactly what the mistake was: allowing the boy's mother to influence him as she did. Azula had more limited contact and the difference was obvious: she was strong, determined, and, most of all, understood the need for collateral damage. If it had been Azula at that war meeting and not her fool of a brother, the attack would already be underway and he wouldn't be wasting his time teaching the boy a lesson he should have learned years ago.

"I am the Fire Nation," Ozai growled. "Stop your foolishness and fight!"

"I will not fight you, Father," Zuko repeated, bowing down low to the ground as if that would disguise the way he was shaking.

"You are a disappointment, a coward," the Fire Lord hissed before reaching down and grabbing Zuko's hair, yanking him up onto his knees. "You shall learn respect and suffering shall be your teacher!"

Zuko watched, wide-eyed, as the ball of fire appeared in his father's hand and his blood ran cold.

"Father... Please," he whimpered. That was all he could say before the flames seemed to reach out to him, to envelop him.

Zuko jerked awake, his breathing heavy and his heartbeat erratic. After a moment to regain his bearings, he sat up and forced his breathing to slow and even out. Slowly. In through your nose, out through your mouth, he coached himself.

The dream-no, the memory-had begun to ebb away by the time his heartbeat had returned to its normal rhythm. It would never quite go away, though, and it would always be there, hidden in the back of his mind. That day was seared into his soul just as the evidence of it was seared into his skin.

His hand rose to touch the scarred tissue and he sighed wearily, pulling his blankets around his shoulders again.

If someone had asked Zuko where life would take him six months before, this wouldn't have crossed his mind. Six months previously, he was living a mostly-decent life. Azula was cruel and Father unresponsive but that was how they were. He would try his best to please Father and to be patient with Azula but, at the end of the day, he would be home.

The FNS Salamander didn't feel like his home did. There weren't any servants to clean up after him or nobles to bow down to him, just the handful of soldiers that were crazy enough or angry enough to follow him into exile. There was his uncle, who was both crazy and angry to follow him, and that was basically it. There was his mission but even at fourteen Zuko was able to understand that there wasn't anyone back home waiting for him to come back with any measure of success.

Zuko truly and honestly wanted to return to the Fire Nation, but he couldn't ignore the truth of his situation. With the hindsight granted to him by time, he now saw that he was only weak and petulant when within the safety of the palace. Since his banishment, he'd been forced to adapt and grow stronger to fit his new role as a commander, even if his forces were only twenty-four bodies strong. His bending had begun to improve and, with his uncle's guidance, he returned his attention to the dao swords that Ozai had always devalued, believing that anything other than firebending was a waste of time for a prince. Zuko had also had some much-needed social skills beaten into him by the volunteers that had followed him into exile and, though the battles were fought hard and often, he had improved the span of his patience whenever Iroh declared the need for a stop at port to restock on tea.

Another thing that his banishment had shown him, in a rather abrupt and painful way, was perspective. The Fire Nation taught all of its children the same propaganda. The war may have started as a way for the nation to share its wealth and its glory with the rest of the world but, after wandering through coastal Earth Kingdom villages and seeing the effects of the war through a more narrow lens, Zuko couldn't see anyone benefitting from the war.

"Prince Zuko?" There was a polite knocking on the door and Zuko hesitated for a moment, searching to fit a name to the voice.

"Yes, Jun?"

"General Iroh has requested that we make port at the next town," the soldier replied. Zuko sighed softly to himself, knowing that there was only so long he could delay his uncle's request.

"Of course he has... Thank you, Jun. You may return to your duties now."

The banished prince was making a point to remember each of the crewmembers' names aboard the FNS Salamander. It wasn't hard due to how small the ship was and it was the least he could do. By following Zuko, they had forsaken their lives back in the homeland. The men and women on his ship were unlikely to ever return home, just as Zuko was. The only one on the whole ship who had half a chance of a return home was Iroh and Zuko was grateful that his uncle seemed determined to watch his nephew make every mistake in the book.

Zuko leaned back on his bed for a moment longer, staring at the blackened metal ceiling of his chambers.

'Tomorrow' was a question that Zuko didn't have an answer for. There were different options that he could take: pour his heart into a fruitless chase, tell his crew to take off and try to live while they're still reasonably free, join the war effort...

Zuko was also never sure which 'war effort' he'd join. It changed every time he stepped foot in a Fire Nation occupied Earth village but changed back each time he returned to a Fire Nation port for resupply. There was no good anywhere in the war, but Zuko had learned enough to know that, while neither side was truly innocent anymore, neither side was wholly guilty either. Fire Nation men and women, people who were serving their leader and obeying their orders, were massacred by Earth Kingdom and Water tribe rebels. The Fire Nation troops still standing took that pain and rage out on the only people they could: the civilians. The rebels became enraged at the cruelty of the Fire Nation and the cycle began anew.

The war needed to end, but it was never clear who should be the victor. It was never clear if, after a hundred years of war, anyone would be able to celebrate a victory.

The banished prince sighed and resigned himself to another day of travel, another day of sitting and sailing in limbo. He needed a catalyst for change, a sign to tell him that this side of the war is the one worth joining. He needed something to say that this side of the war is the one where he can earn back his honor.

At the end of the day, one simple fact remained clear in Zuko's mind. His father had destroyed what little honor he had had in the Fire Nation. Zuko intended to get it back.

Updated 9:47, 4.21.20