A/N: My dear friends! This is the final installment in the series, and it is going to be long. At least as long as blood in the breeze, probably by a fair bit. I hope to finish it by the time I graduate in 2021, but... we'll see. There will be epilogues to wrap up various threads and capture a little of the future for our dear characters. I don't know about full-blown sequels, though... I've spent a lot of time on this fic, probably too much, and maybe I will want to do other things, who knows. Until then, enjoy the ride :)

Title from "Raise Hell" by Dorothy. This song takes me back to the summer of 2016, which I mostly spent watching Legend of Korra, drinking tea on my AirBnB host's balcony in 99% humidity, and frantically writing applications through tears, so it's quite significant to me, to say the least.

9 April. HARU

A hollow dawn sky drenches his vision as he stares emptily out from the doorway of the abandoned home where they crash-landed the glider. It's a humble cottage, but a distant enough refuge from the Northern Air Temple and any pursuers.

Azula hasn't spoken since regaining consciousness, though she responds to his directions when he settles her into sleep on the most hospitable corner of the floor in the unfurnished house. He lets her be, having seen her like this before. When she couldn't earthbend, when they walked through the Eastern Air Temple searching for Zuko in vain. Each time, he'd thought she couldn't fall any farther. But the universe seems determined to push her down time and time again without reprieve. All he can do is extend a hand to pull her up, regardless of whether she accepts it.

He doesn't know exactly what happened, but he can guess. Azula looks so torn-up and listless that he doesn't think she attacked Zuko with the intent to hurt him. Why Zuko would provoke her into striking the first blow is also unknown, but he believes Azula would not have had reason to fight back except in self-defense. They came to the Northern Air Temple to ally with Zuko, after all, and now there's no possibility of that.

He looks at the shallow bowl next to him that's collected a few mouthfuls of water from the early morning showers. There's a chance, however slim, that Zuko survived. He recalls the vial of spirit water he gave to Katara. Maybe it worked, maybe it didn't. Either way, he doesn't want to give Azula false hope when he can't be certain. But the alternative is that Zuko, the Avatar, is dead, killed by his own sister. Nothing now stands between the Fire Lord and the world.

Inside the house, Azula stirs, and he hastens back to her side. Her eyes flutter open reluctantly.

"Azula. Are you okay?" He can only ask about the most superficial aspect of her wellness, knowing that of course, she's not okay at all.

She doesn't reply and sits up instead, every movement sluggish and uninspired. He offers her the bowl of water, which she takes with drugged hands.

"How long did I sleep?" she asks, voice a gritty rasp, courtesy of Aang's heavy-handed retribution.

"Ten hours?" he estimates. It had been late evening when they'd made their escape, and the sun is now an inch from rising.

She drinks, swallows painful and labored, then exhales deeply, weary beyond the fathoms of the earth. "I don't want to talk about it."

She anticipates him well, and he her, so they say nothing.

ZUKO

He wanders in the dark; he does not know time or space. Around him drift the shadows of the unknown, like a hint of death's enthralling kiss.

He tries to ask, "Where am I? How am I here?" but finds himself wondering instead, "Who am I?" and "Why am I still here?"

If he is alive, he shouldn't be. If he is dead, he shouldn't be feeling it still.

That begs the question—how am I feeling? What am I feeling? He begins to rediscover these things as he assigns attributes to himself, as hopelessly fundamental as they are.

Empty—so he knows he has a body, to be filled. Adrift—so he knows he belongs to a physical realm, to which he must return. Afraid—so he knows he is alive, to be fearful of death.

He considers this. It's a start.

Presently, he hears a haunting verse echoing through whatever space he occupies, its words unsettlingly familiar.

Leaves from the vine, falling so slow

Like tiny, fragile shells, drifting on the foam

Little soldier boy comes marching home

Brave soldier boy comes marching home

"Come home, Zuko," a voice calls, lilting and eerie. "Come home."

He would like to, but he doesn't know how to get there from this place. He hasn't even fully elucidated what this place is.

He finds his voice—that, at least, is easy—and asks, "Where is my home?"

"Where your heart is," comes the immediate answer, but now it turns malicious. "Oh, but your heart is broken."

The shadows like fog around him clear a little, and through their phantom hues, he perceives (he doesn't know if he truly sees) a dark silhouette, menacing and ominous. It approaches, and he shrinks back, not knowing where he can seek shelter in this empty place.

"Who are you?" In a sense, he feels relieved to hear of another being's presence here. If they are real, then he too is real, though what comfort that should bring him is unclear.

The figure looms, mist rolling off its shape until its outline becomes clear.

"I trust you have been well since the last time you tried to kill me, Avatar?"

There's a lot to unpack there, Zuko thinks, flailing in his efforts to process what passes as a hostile greeting at best. "I'm sorry," he begins, not wanting to appear boorish and discourteous. "What…?"

"It feels like yesterday for me," the being says. Its face, a white mask with a neutral stare, gazes down at him from its perch atop a monstrosity of a body: scorpion-like, but with countless heads and closed off faces, dormant for now.

"Koh," he realizes. "It's you, isn't it?"

"Unlike you," Koh says waspishly, displeased at not being recognized right away, "I don't need to ask if it's you. Who besides the Avatar would so rudely barge into the spirit world and hold a spirit hostage right away? Remind you of anyone?"

Not this again, he thinks dully. It seems, however, that this world knows no boundaries between thought and speech. Koh hisses in distaste.

"You say that, Avatar, and yet you do not seem to learn. Your predecessors before you were the same. You call yourself the Great Bridge, but you're really more of a Great Homicidal Invader of the Spirit World, don't you think?"

"What do you mean?" he asks, confused.

"What do I mean? Clearly you Avatars are forgetful, along with murderous. Ten thousand years ago, when you were Hou Yi, you killed nine of the sun spirit's siblings. Then, just two generations ago, the firebender Naoki killed the moon spirit and brought about the fall of the Northern Water Tribe fifty years ago. I took her face in retribution, and Kuruk, your previous life, then tried to kill me.

"Despite knowing all this, you went on to try and control the great sun spirit and bend it to your will. You humans are all the same: selfish and conniving."

He rallies his spirits, trying to counter the damning energy exuded by Koh's fury. It's as if the more argumentative Koh becomes, the more he remembers of what transpired. "Why do you care? Jinwu refused to cooperate with me on a matter that would benefit both humans and spirits. The sun spirit's misguided principles will doom both our worlds."

"I don't care about your world, human," Koh snarls. "Extinguish yourself and all other humans, that's no concern of mine. But care to threaten any spirit, and this world will not be wide enough to contain my wrath."

So Koh thinks of himself as some kind of guardian of the spirits. "And if I don't agree?"

"Then I will take the face of someone you love, just as I did with Avatar Kuruk." Koh's body gyrates wildly, and with it, the empty faces lodged on his body like the fruits of a rotting tree. He pauses, and one face comes to the fore: that of a beautiful young woman, long black hair sleekly framing her closed eyes. "Do not approach the sun spirit again, Great Bridge. You will come to regret it."

The tree of faces dissolves into the mist, Koh gone as suddenly as he came, and Zuko stares through the obscuring fog, all the more at a loss as to what to do. There is nothing here to show him the way, not a single landmark to guide him. He is alone.

He is alone.

11 April. IROH

He gazes down at the figure in the bed, transfixed into another time and place long ago, reliving the same scene over again.

No, it was only in his dreams. He shakes his head self-reprovingly; there was no body to bury when Lu Ten died. The dead were too many to count, and his son rests among that number. Zuko is here before his eyes, though, younger and slighter than Lu Ten was, but laid low by an even heavier burden.

"I don't understand," Aang says. "It's been three days. Why hasn't he woken yet?"

"His spirit is wandering," Iroh murmurs. "The damage he suffered while in the Avatar state was too great. His body and spirit are strangers to each other now."

"It's a miracle that he's even alive at all," Katara says. With studied, tense efficiency, she compounds the various herbs and powders Iroh brought with him, mixing and diluting with water. Zuko will need every bit of the White Lotus' remedies that he can get in order to make a full recovery.

"How do we get him back, then?" Aang asks, a trace of desperation shading his voice. He paces before the foot of the bed, reluctant to stay in one place, as if his stasis will leave him no other choice than to look at Zuko's motionless body.

"By giving his spirit a reason to stay," Iroh says. "You remember your lessons with the guru. You know what is necessary to release your earthly tether, and conversely, what is needed to keep it secured."

Aang nods, but the others look confused. "Keep a vigil by his side," he advises more plainly. "There should always be at least one person with him: myself, any one of you, any person in the Northern Air Temple who has a significant emotional connection to Zuko. Talk to him, read, sing, recite dramatic poetry or ghost stories." Sokka perks up at that idea. "Do not underestimate the power of words and the meaning that your emotions imbue them with. They are the source of the energy that will suffuse his spirit and allow it to return."

It is not a definitive solution, but only time will tell how successful they are. Zuko needs just that: time, and for once, they happen to have it. If only he had been able to do the same thing for his own son, to tear himself away from selfish visions of his own victorious return from war and carve out the time to actually help Lu Ten… much would be different. This time is not that time, though. This time, he will see Zuko return, alive and well, and exonerate himself.

HARU

"We were so close," she laments, joining him outside. "He went into the spirit world like I told him to. Everything was going fine. But then he started changing, like he was compelled by some kind of demonic glow…" She struggles to find the words. "For a moment, I saw my father, about to strike me down. It was like I was back home, and these past few months were for nothing."

She laughs, a bitter, harsh sound. "Well, actually, they were for nothing in the end. I killed him and would have died in turn without you. Though somehow I think I'd be better off dead anyway."

Privately, Haru disagrees, but Azula seems too lost in thought to suffer much disagreement. There's got to be some way to salvage this situation.

"I don't understand. Is this retribution for my perfect childhood?" she demands of the lightening sky. "I did everything right as my young, prodigy firebending self, so now I've got to compensate by doing everything wrong?"

"Why does everything I touch turn to ash?"

…

"I didn't," Haru says helpfully.

AZULA

I didn't.

The words take a moment to process, echoing in her head.

It's true. Despite their unlikely beginnings, Haru has been with her through thick and thin, staying long after he had the chance to leave. They have saved each other's lives countless times, and despite her being less than loveable most of the time, their relationship has only grown stronger.

He is a turn of the head away from her, and she finds that that turn of her head, seeking his face, seeking his lips, is the longest and most highly anticipated of her life, a moment of truth. In that moment, she wants. They are so close, and it is like a dream that she's never indulged in. Her eyes start to flutter closed as he leans in toward her; she pushes forward, feeling safe and unguarded, unafraid…

Only to slump into empty air as he yanks himself away before they touch, unwilling to close that last gap.

Her eyes snap open, nonplussed at the distance he now maintains—why? Why lose his nerve now when he's kept pace with her for so long without batting an eyelash, more than anyone's ever been able to claim? He avoids her eyes, as if what he saw in them wasn't what he wanted when everything beforehand indicated otherwise. This doesn't make sense.

"What's wrong?" she breathes. "Don't you… didn't you want to…?"

She hates how uncertainty makes her voice sound, trembling with the fear of rejection—no one without a death wish refuses Princess Azula of the Fire Nation.

That's not you anymore, though, is it? You burned the Princess away, and now you're just Azula, an outcast with a bleak future and apparently a loveless one, too.

Everything you touch turns to ash.

"I'm… sorry," he manages, sounding about as devastated as she does. "I did, but…"

"But what?" she demands. How hard is it to give in to what you want? What's holding you back?

"But, is it what you really want? You might think you want or need this, but you're at an all-time low right now, Azula." He speaks to his feet, wringing his hands together. "I… I don't want to presume to take advantage of your emotional state, you know? I'd hate for that to damage our friendship later—"

"Oh, don't make yourself out to be the chivalrous gentleman, Haru, it doesn't suit you," she sneers.

"I mean it," he says urgently. "I'm not saying I don't feel the same way, nor that you don't, but what if you regret it later when you're more clearheaded? I'm just saying, for your sake, let's not rush into this."

She storms to her feet, a little woozy from several days of subsisting on water and Haru's scavenged-wild-herbs soup. Blood pounds through a heart almost too weak to sustain her, through her head like a war drum, its tempo frenzied, summoning soldiers to battle. The battle, she muses, is to defend the fortress of her heart from being broken down, as Haru now threatens to do. How did it come to this?

"No," she breathes, bending down over his seated figure, face just a little farther away than it was moments ago. "You're just being selfish, trying to protect your own feelings because you think you might get hurt. I didn't expect this of you, Haru."

"Fine, maybe I am being selfish, for once!" he throws back at her, standing as well. He takes a step back, then another, and some vague part of her that isn't angry at him is grateful. Standing directly in front of her, he would be three inches or so taller, and she doesn't think she would like to deal with that right now in light of her recent trauma.

"Have you thought that maybe I deserve to be careful with my feelings? All this time with you hasn't exactly been smooth sailing, and lately it's been even rockier than usual."

"Then leave!" she screams, on the verge of a breakdown. The one constant that remains to her, the rock-solid foundation of Haru's heart, is shaken, crumbling, and she will not let it stick around to tear her down too.

He freezes, not expecting this.

"I gave you a chance, early on, when we buried Jinora. You said no, you said I needed you more than your family. Well, I'm telling you now, I don't need you anymore."

That's a lie; if anything, she needs him more than ever, but she can't bear to look at him now, at his skittish expression, wary of her attempts to control him. Trust is for fools; she's always known this, yet wantonly discarded it when it came to Haru. Now she remembers the foundations of her philosophy. Fear is the only tool worth using.

"Don't test me," she hisses, lightning flickering at her fingertips, and this time she sees fear, real fear in his eyes as never before. A sliver of satisfaction pierces her heart, painful but delightful at the same time. It's been a while. "Just go."

He goes.

21 April. KATARA

They take it in turns to stay at Zuko's bedside, to tether his spirit to the physical world, as Iroh so obliquely puts it. Katara herself doesn't carve out dedicated slots of time for Zuko, but rather pops in and out, while the others are there, to attend to his wound care. She lingers long enough to notice how each person tends to act around him, how everyone has their own style of keeping Zuko tethered. It's intriguing to watch, if a bit sobering.

Uncle Iroh sits tranquilly, plucking at a beautiful carven lute, humming or singing a low tune. In other instances, he'll spend the time working on assorted correspondence and minutiae, taking care of the many duties of the White Lotus from afar with a serious expression.

Sokka usually walks around the room while reading out loud the revised plans for the day of Sozin's comet that he's been discussing with Iroh, animatedly annotating them as inspiration strikes him. "I just don't want him to feel left out when he wakes up," he says when Toph points out that Zuko can't hear a word he's saying.

Toph alternates between stony silence and chatty inanity. When Sokka dutifully points out to her that "Newsflash! Zuko can't hear you!" she punts him out the door and irritably clarifies that she's talking at Zuko, not to him. "Mostly to sort out my own mind," she confides to Katara. "You know, like journaling, but out loud. It's better when your interlocutor is asleep, because then they can't argue with you or make dumb comments."

Well, that's one way to appreciate Zuko's current status. Katara has to acknowledge Toph's ever-apt dark humor. Technically Zuko isn't an interlocutor in this situation, but she'll let Sokka do the nitpicking as he so loves to do.

She carries on their habit of journaling, noting significant happenings around the temple. Iroh arrives on the third day. On the fifth day, Teo and the Mechanist bring some kind of steam-powered diffuser they've put together which concentrates the medicinal infusions from the White Lotus's herbalist. It emits a fragrant fine spray at regular intervals that makes the whole room smell like the forest gods just visited, but more importantly, it's supposed to make Zuko heal faster. It might be working; Zuko's wound is fully closed, though still pink and soft, one week after that.

The village kids come to visit every now and then, supervised by Aang. Some of them bring their best artistic renditions of Avatar Zuko and Sifu Aang. Others offer up sheets of handwritten calligraphy to hang on the walls, brushstrokes uneven and childish, characters lumpy and misshapen.

"Master Piandao would have an aneurysm," Sokka says, clucking over the sorry state of their skills.

Iroh smiles benignly. "It is the intent behind their gifts that matters," he says, pasting one of the sheets up with care. This particular get-well-soon wish boasts the two characters for 'recover' mistakenly written in reverse order.

Two girls in particular, Yue Fei and Yue Zha, seem very concerned.

"Is he going to die, Sifu Aang?" Yue Fei asks.

Aang shakes his head. He puts on a composed façade for the girls, seeing to the scented diffuser as it gives off a serene poof of mist. "No, Yue Fei. He's going to live, don't you worry."

She knows that Aang can hardly be expected to deal well with the simultaneous news of his mother's passing and Zuko's incapacitation, but she still worries for him more than for Zuko sometimes. He stays with Zuko for long stretches of time, frozen, as though he'll wake up if Aang watches for long enough. He leaves only when badgered by Katara or politely ushered out by Iroh, and when he goes, he doesn't come back for hours. She can't figure out where he goes until she enlists the sisters, the village's eyes and ears.

"There's this swing set at the very top of the highest temple spire that you can't get to without airbending or gliding. There's no ground beneath your feet, just a mile of empty air. If you fall out, you die," Yue Fei reports to her matter-of-factly.

"You're supposed to push yourself with your feet using airbending," Yue Zha explains. "Sifu Aang told us about it once in class. But he just sits there without swinging and looks really, really sad."

Katara sighs. This is a conversation she's anticipated but not prepared for. Really, it's not something most people know how to approach, and yet, someone has to.

"Aang, is there something pressing on your mind?" she finally dares to broach the topic one day. "You look like you haven't slept in ages." Or eaten, or done anything besides wait for Zuko to wake up.

"No, I'm just worried about Zuko," he says reflexively. "That's all."

"Oh, well…" Gods, why is this so hard. "If you ever want to talk about anything, you know—"

"Yeah." Aang doesn't want to hear the rest of her stumbling attempt at consolation. "Thanks, Katara."

He slips out the door, evading any further awkward conversations. Directly afterwards, Iroh steps in, very much aware of what has just transpired.

"Do not fault yourself," he says gravely. "Sometimes we want to do too much without realizing we are not the right person for the job that we think needs doing. And that is no shortcoming of yours."

"But Aang—" she begins, not convinced, still wanting to do more, care more without end, without heed for her own limits.

"—will find the person he needs," Iroh finishes, settling himself in the chair at Zuko's bedside. "Rest, Katara. All will be well."

IROH

He rouses these old bones for a midafternoon trek and takes brisk strides toward the place the two little girls attending Zuko assured him he would be able to find Aang. In the distance, he sees the craggy, unforgiving spires of the temple, and sure enough, at the very top hangs a swinging bench, exposed to the elements, containing one very morose airbender. From this far away, he's just a frail blur of saffron and goldenrod and a tiny streak of blue: one against the sky's expanse.

Iroh waves vigorously, well past the age of feeling foolish if anyone were to see him like this, waving to apparent thin air. Then he departs for a more hospitable locale. It is no use trying to force the matter; injured animals always crawl away into seclusion to nurse their wounds. Wait long enough, though, and they will come to you.

Aang finds him in one of the meditation gazebos on the north side behind the temple. He drifts in just as Iroh sets a teapot to boil on the lit brazier. Iroh looks again and notes that the tea is a little redundant at this point. Aang is visiting in his spirit projection form, having left his body precariously at the top of the mountain.

"What brings you here, my friend?"

Aang fidgets with the edge of his robe, nervous habits not forgotten despite his incorporeal form. "I don't feel right," he admits, a statement so broad and vague it could apply to anything. Headache? Upset stomach? Heartache? Heartburn? Migraine aura? But Iroh suspects it has nothing to do with any of those, so he lets Aang continue.

"I feel like this is all my fault," he confesses. "I should have stayed with Zuko. I should have protected him from Azula. He told me all about their childhood, how Azula was always their father's favorite. I don't suppose I have to tell you; you saw it all," he says. Iroh hears the slightly unsheathed dagger in his words, the accusation on the tip of his tongue, whether conscious or not, hastily withdrawn. Why couldn't you have done anything about your dysfunctional royal family?

"I want to believe that Azula came to us with good intentions, but I wish I hadn't been so blasé about letting her meet with Zuko alone. I should have expected the worst instead of giving her the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes I think that's a weakness with us airbenders."

The water boils; Iroh pours the tea, one cup for himself and one for Aang, for courtesy and symmetry's sake. "When you sought out the help of Guru Pathik, he told you to release your earthly tether by letting go of your attachments, did he not? Letting Zuko sort out his differences with Azula without outside interference was one way of letting him go."

He smiles at Aang's perplexity. "The teachings of the ancient gurus are not prohibited from use by the layperson. It is important to draw wisdom from different places. If you take it from only one place, it becomes rigid and stale. You have learned this too, but are you willing to put it into practice?"

Aang passes a hand through his tea, the boiling water unable to burn him. "I did let Zuko go, and I opened all the chakras. But I feel like I'm undoing all the work we did with the guru, like I'm letting all these turbulent emotions flow back into me and mess things up, and I can't fix me. I don't know anyone who can."

Iroh nods. Unspoken is the understanding that normally Zuko would be that person. The two of them are closer than any of the friends, and he does not need Aang to tell him that Zuko means everything to him. Yet while Zuko remains gravely unable to register anything anyone says to him, Aang still needs someone tangible who can help him.

"There is nothing wrong with letting the people who love you, help you," he says gently.

Aang sighs. "I don't know that that would be a good idea. The things in my head right now… aren't good. It's bad enough keeping them to myself but spreading them to the others is just a recipe for low spirits all around. I… I just can't."

Reading between the lines, he hears that the things bothering Aang exceed what he has told Iroh thus far, and that does not surprise him. These youths have encountered so much at such a tender age with little to no guidance, but that does not have to stay true.

"I do not mean Toph, Sokka, and Katara, though I believe they would be more than willing and able to help you. I mean someone closer to you."

Aang frowns. "Who?"

Iroh gestures at Aang's wispy, intangible form. "You have mastered the art of spirit projection; you roam free between the planes. Zuko's spirit wanders in realms beyond this one, and you know that as the Avatar, his spirit incorporates not only himself, but all his past incarnations as well."

He watches understanding bloom on Aang's face like a water lily, slow and shy beneath a torrid sun, but radiant in its fullness by the end.

AANG

Toph and Sokka are at Zuko's side when Aang returns, elated by the potential of Iroh's advice.

"Oh hey, Aang," Sokka greets uncertainly. "Twinkletoes, you're not okay." Toph is tired of beating around the bush; Katara must have tipped her off. "Your footsteps are heavier than I've ever felt them. What's on your mind? Spit it out already."

Aang resists the urge to grin and stomp his feet loudly, reinforcing the heaviness. Toph always understands even if she has the least delicate way of expressing herself.

"You're going to be a little weirded out but bear with me here. There's someone I need to talk with, and he's right here in the room with us."

"Hate to break it to you, but His Avatar-ness still isn't receiving any audiences," she says sarcastically.

"Yeah, I know, but I didn't mean Zuko. I meant my father, the Avatar before Zuko."

"What?"

He scoots Zuko's legs over to make room at the foot of the bed and settles into a meditative pose, eyes closed. Toph and Sokka seem confounded, but it's not like they haven't seen weirder things before. Get with the program, kids; this is part and parcel of hanging out with the Avatar.

"See you all in a bit," he says as he slips away from his body with cheerful ease.

AAA

He knows he will succeed, because if Zuko's spirit is indeed somewhere wandering in his mind, nonadherent to his body, then Aang's spirit only has to follow it to find his father.

"Hello, Aang."

"Dad." It comes so naturally to his lips, even though he's never had the chance to say it in person. "I… I found you." Obviously. Gods, Aang, he's going to think your mother raised an idiot.

"No child of mine could ever be an idiot, especially not if raised by Jinora," his father says, a reproving smile gracing stern lips. "Don't trouble yourself with trying to prove anything to me. You have shown the substance of your integrity and virtue to Zuko time and time again, and that is enough for me."

Zuko… "Dad, Zuko might never come back to his body because of me. I shouldn't have stayed so far away while he was holed up with Azula. He needed me. I'd just gotten the news that mom had passed, and I was in shock, feeling guilty for not being there for her. I didn't react fast enough. I should've been right there, right away to help him."

He waxes on, unable to stop the rush of guilt and shame that envelopes him. "It's not just that. Azula hurt Zuko, but I hurt her even more. In that moment, I truly wanted to kill her. I nearly did. What kind of an Air Nomad does that make me? I know you think the world of me because Zuko does, but Dad, I'm nothing like that. I'm the last airbender, but I'm not fit to be. I can't.

"I've learned the ways of the gurus. I'm passing on everything that mom taught me to the next generation, but at heart, I'm falling short of who and what I need to be."

"Aang, tell me about the cicada," Tenzin says, appearing to ignore everything he has just said.

"The cicada…?" Aang halts abruptly, unable to determine where Tenzin is going with this. He knows that his father mentioned it in his last letter to Jinora before he died, so it must be worth remembering.

To eschew fame and wealth and be without desire

And take pleasure in singing alone

With a clear bright voice that grows ever stronger

Like the will of an honorable man.

"Do cicadas sing constantly, every moment of their lives?" Tenzin asks. "Do they devote all their time to an endless song?"

It's a leading question, but Aang still hesitates. "Well, no. They have to sleep for seventeen years, and when they wake up, they have to eat, find their mates, do… whatever cicadas do in their spare time."

"Exactly. If even the cicada does not sing constantly, who are you to think that your voice must ring out stronger, clearer, brighter, without cease? You are finite, you are human. Your journey and your spiritual progress do not fall in on a straight line."

Aang fiddles with his fingers, flickering between six meditation hand signs like a nervous acolyte. "Yes, but I feel as if I've already lost the progress that I've made. The guru said once I open all the chakras, I'll be able to achieve balance within myself. But now I feel like I'm completely out of balance."

"Opening the chakras does not mean you will never again feel the emotions that initially blocked them," Tenzin says. "You will open your chakras many times throughout your life. That does not mean that you have failed. It simply means that you recognize when your emotions are keeping you from accessing your true potential. You will find that it gets easier each time."

He rises, and Aang does the same, puzzling his way through the nebulous unknowable space that they occupy. From around his neck, Tenzin unravels a necklace with wooden beads and hands it to him. Aang examines it carefully: in the center rests a row of seven special beads, carved with elemental symbols and set off with a red tassel on either side.

"These will help you meditate through the seven chakras and remember what it is that you must let go."

Aang nods, then looks up at his father, uncertain about how to approach the last thing on his mind. "Dad… Zuko and I… we have this thing going on. It's hard to explain."

Tenzin's lips twitch in a minute smile. "Could this thing be referring to your undying love and trust that's been developing ever since the two of you met and will likely continue for the rest of your lives?"

"No! Well, yes… I mean, I think we have a deeper connection. Somehow, we're always able to find each other. When I don't know where to look, I just feel for him, which probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense the way I'm explaining it…" he rambles. "I don't usually get an exact location, but more of a general sense of where he is, physically, emotionally, er… metaphysically, I guess. Er." He stumbles to a halt, tied up in his own words. "Is that normal?"

"Of course," Tenzin says crisply. "Your mother and I were just the same."

Oh. Well, that was a lot more reassuring than he'd expected. "So I'll always be able to find Zuko when he needs me."

"Naturally. However… you will find that part of letting go of Zuko is knowing when he needs you, and when he needs to be found. Know this, and you know him better than anyone alive."

AAA

He opens his eyes and looks down at Zuko's still-comatose countenance. Do you need to be found? Or do you need to find your own way back? Either way, I'll be here waiting.

"So what's your dad like?" Sokka asks, looking up from a complicated table of tallies scrawled on a fresh scroll.

"Are you collecting paternal statistics for the group?" That's the only explanation Aang can think of for Sokka's sudden interest.

"0 out of 10 for my dad," Toph says immediately.

"No, 0 for Zuko's dad, 1 for your dad since we did manage to bully him into signing an agreement." Sokka assigns values with enthusiasm, even though that's definitely not the purpose of his multilevel table of numbers. It's probably a schematic for supply trains for the regiments or something practical like that, Aang hypothesizes.

"10 for my dad because he's awesome, 8.5 for Uncle Iroh, points deducted for sometimes confusing wisdom," Sokka continues. "So what was he like, Aang?"

Aang smiles, the light sensation of immaterial wooden beads slung around his neck still lingering into the physical world. "My dad was great. Gave me lots of great advice on life and love."

"…" Sokka doesn't seem impressed. "You left your body and entered Zuko's just so you could get romantic tips from your father, who's also housed in Zuko's body? That's weeeeird."

"I think it's kind of sweet," Toph declares.

30 April. ZUKO

"Leaves from the vine, falling so slow…"

He knows that voice, even if he cannot seem to open his eyes to see who it is yet.

"Like tiny, fragile shells, drifting on the foam…"

He shunts all his efforts into trying to move his heavy eyelids, his lips, his fingers, anything to escape this leaden paralysis that's settled over him.

"Little soldier boy, comes marching home…"

Come on. He grits his teeth, pushing past his lethargy, the muddled sleep of oblivion.

"Brave soldier boy, comes marching home…"

Finally, he manages to open his eyes, blurry vision greeting him, and a familiar face he has not had opportunity to see for a long time. Uncle Iroh smiles down at him. "Well, that worked like a charm. You came home to yourself, just as I knew you would."

"Uncle…?" He struggles to gather his thoughts, mind like a confused tumbleweed of tangled strands and ideas.

"Don't stress yourself just now. You've been through a very arduous ordeal, and no one expects you to be back to full speed right away," Iroh reassures him.

He nods, not knowing what else he can do.

"Focus on your breathing and your body. Reacquaint yourself with this world. You've been away for some time."

Zuko does as he says, long breaths in through his nose, out through his mouth, the air suffusing his body and restoring his circulation, and he starts feeling more clearheaded presently.

"You sang that song earlier, didn't you?" he realizes. "I remember hearing it when I was… elsewhere." In that strange, grey underworld where monstrosities roamed, where his memory is still fuzzy and clouded with confusion.

"Hm…" Uncle sounds like he's puzzling it out, unable to match Zuko's memory to his own. "Ah yes, I did. It was quite a while ago, though."

Zuko frowns, parsing his words. "Uncle, I… when did you get here? How long…? The sun spirit attacked me, and then I don't know what happened… I was in this foggy place and it was dark, and I didn't know where anyone else was—"

Iroh places a hand on his shoulder, strong, firm grip grounding him even as he tumbles to a panicked crescendo. "Deep breaths, Zuko. I will answer your questions, but before I do, you need to focus your breaths."

He pushes himself to renew his breathing, regulating its rhythm and sensing his body and its surroundings, not letting himself escape into his mind again.

I'm here. Alive, he reminds himself stoutly. By here, I mean in bed. In my bed. In Aang's and my bed. Where's Aang? No, not right now. If Aang were hurt or otherwise unwell, he would feel it, he knows. Focus on yourself.

I'm here. Uncle is here too. I'm alive, definitely. Well? Eh… He assesses matters briefly. His arms and legs feel like lead pipes, but they respond when he shifts them. His neck and back ache, likely from lying here for unspecified lengthy length of time…? For some reason, his torso is constricted by a generous helping of bandages that wind around his chest and up past his left shoulder. Uncle helps him to sit up, and he wiggles his shoulders, stiff and sore. A particularly vigorous shrug sends a lancing pain throughout his left half, and he winces gingerly.

"Azula told me to find the sun spirit, to stop the comet, to stop its power," he says, piecing things together. "I went into the spirit world and met the sun spirit, but it turned on me. It was angry at me, a human trying to interfere… I was terrified."

He looks to his uncle, trying to figure out what transpired after his memory leaves a blank. "Uncle, what happened?" He puts on his most neutral face, portraying a calm and composed exterior, though Iroh probably sees through that with ease.

"You don't remember?"

Would I be asking if I did? This whole time, ever since leaving home, has been a quagmire of searching for answers that don't exist. Why can't things ever be straightforward?

Iroh picks up the teapot next to him and pours a cup of tea. "Azula attacked you while you were in the spirit world, then fled. For what reason, I do not know, but the damage she wrought was severe." He nods at the length of bandages swaddling Zuko's chest. "I arrived soon after I received the news from Sokka. You've been asleep for just over three weeks."

He hands the cup of tea to Zuko, who takes it with numb hands. Three weeks… Zuko's stomach feels hollow, and not just because he hasn't eaten in all this time. Everyone must be worried sick about him, and yet he's just been lying here useless, unable to help with the organization for the last battle, or train with Aang, or see to the young Air Acolytes' education, or do anything at all. Shame floods him, disappointment in how far they've been set back by his incapacitation and inability to recruit the sun spirit.

"I couldn't get the sun spirit to agree to our plan. I failed." He sighs, lifting the cup to his lips. "Well, what else is new?"

The tea has cooled, and he blows on it to reheat it. He drinks again—it's still cool. What's going on?

Iroh watches as he carefully sets the cup down on the table and holds a hand out in front of himself. He's been doing this for almost a decade; it's not supposed to be hard. Breathe in, breathe out, and breathe the fire into being… except that it doesn't work. The surface of his palm remains stubbornly barren of the bright flame that he normally summons with ease.

"Zuko…"

It can't be. How could I have lost my bending? In quick succession, he pulls the water from the tea cup, swirling it around his head in a frantic whirlpool; sends a flurry of compressed air around the room, rattling the window shade and knocking several scrolls from their nooks; and finally returns to his empty teacup, bending the finely designed clay into an amorphous lump. So I've only lost my firebending, he concludes.

Only? another voice in his head mocks. Lose one and the rest are worthless. You'll never re-achieve the Avatar state with just three elements.

He leans back against the headboard, suddenly exhausted.

"Zuko, your firebending is not forfeit; we do not know that for sure yet," his uncle cautions. "It is not unheard of for benders to temporarily lose their abilities after great shock and trauma. Your own cousin lost his firebending after a devastating battle during the war, but he persisted and went on to win many battles."

Zuko absorbs this information numbly. Lu Ten never told him that, but he hardly wonders why he bothers to be surprised anymore. This war has taken and taken and taken everything from us, and we keep on giving in spite of it.

"Did he ever get his bending back?" The answer almost doesn't matter. Uncle says nothing, and Zuko tries to suppress his unkind amusement at Iroh's stymied silence. Sometimes wisdom doesn't come at the tap or switch of a faucet, to be divvied out at will.

"Remember the old man on the frontier, who never saw a good omen as good alone," Iroh offers, ever a fount of handy proverbs. "The converse is true: no misfortune is ever just a misfortune."

"His horse ran away, which was a good thing, because it brought back more horses, which was a bad thing, because his son got thrown by one of the new horses and broke his leg, which was a good thing, because as a result he wasn't conscripted and didn't end up dying in the war like everyone else," Zuko recites dully. "Gods, maybe Lu Ten should've thought of that before he went off to war."

"Zuko, you cannot think like that. You carry the hopes and dreams of the people of this world. You will derive something good from this misfortune, because you must, for all their sakes."

This isn't helping. "I'm their hope," he says unspiritedly. "But where is my hope? There is no hope."

"No, Zuko." This is the most unsettled he's ever seen his uncle; he must be really upset. "You must never give in to despair. Allow yourself to slip down that road and you surrender to your lowest instincts. In the darkest times, hope is something you give yourself. That is the meaning of inner strength."

Is it now? "Well, maybe I'll go find some inner strength then." He closes his eyes pointedly.

Iroh sighs, a discouraging sound. "Sleep well, Zuko."

ZZZ

He doesn't know when he fell back to sleep after Uncle Iroh stepped out, but when he wakes up again, another familiar face drifts into view.

"We have got to stop running into each other like this," he mumbles.

Aang laughs, the sweetest sound, like bells shaken by a gentle breeze. "What do you mean?"

"Well, there's the day we met, when you saved me from drowning," Zuko lists. "At Meikuang, after the tree spirit released me. At Pohuai, when you had the nerve to nearly die on me. At Laghima's island, after I almost drowned again. And then that time right after Hama bloodbent me. Mm…" He struggles to think of any more instances in which they skirted death, only to find life in each other's arms once again. He draws a blank. "I think that's it."

Aang takes one hand in his, cradling it against his face in wholesome adoration. "I could use less of the near-death experiences too," he admits. "But somehow, I don't think that's likely to happen with us. So I'm going to have to do my best to keep you from dying."

"Same." He sits up a little gingerly, and Aang stacks the pillows behind his back in support. He notices a new accessory around Aang's neck, a lovely wooden necklace with seven carved beads in the front row. "That's pretty—where did you get that?"

"I made it myself a few days ago after I visited my father. It's to help with keeping the chakras open." He scoots closer, letting Zuko trace the symbols on the beads.

"It suits you," he says. "Wait… you spoke with Tenzin?"

"I wasn't in a good place while you were out, so Uncle Iroh suggested I take advantage of your spiritual absence to let my father's spirit come to the surface… okay, that sounds kind of bad saying it like that." Aang ducks his head a little in embarrassment. "I mean, you were outside of your body, so I decided to slip in and have a talk with dad instead, and wow, I'm making it sound even worse now aren't I."

"I don't mind," Zuko says, amused at his unwarranted vexation. "I don't mind anything that makes you closer to me." He slips one hand into Aang's, plucking those long fingers out of a loose fist, pulling them to his lips and pressing light kisses to the back of his hand. "I'm sorry, Aang. You must have been so worried."

With infinite care, Aang traces the side of his face, drinking in his open eyes and expression. "I got the help I needed, and you're back now. It's okay, Zuko."

He's sixteen years old and the Avatar to boot, but somehow, it never fails to warm his heart and still his worries when Aang tells him this. Nothing is okay, absolutely nothing, and yet he knows that Aang speaks the truth, that they will be alright with time. Also, it seems that taking a nap really does wonders for the soul.

They lean into a soft kiss, lips barely parting, hands and arms wound around each other's shoulders, reveling in that blessed safety and security, heaven on earth in a tiny circumference. It's going to be okay. He will find his goddamn inner strength, and his hope, and his firebending, and a solution to this whole sun spirit debacle, one day. For now, he can tell himself that everything will be alright, and maybe, just maybe, it will be.

"Aang, is he awake yet, we want to talk to Zuko too—" Sokka's voice precedes him through the doorway, and quick as their reactions are, they're not quite fast enough to disentangle themselves. "Oh good, you're awake, but also, oogies, gahh—"

"Can you not be like this please, Sokka," Katara says tiredly. "Some people never learn to knock," Toph comments.

"The door was open!"

"There's a thing called a doorframe; shall I introduce you to it?" Toph cracks her knuckles threateningly, and Sokka says no more.

Hands still intertwined with Aang's, Zuko smiles up at the group, ineffably glad to see them all again. "Hi everyone. I'm… back," he says awkwardly.

"Yeah, we need to work on a team cheer or something for inspirational moments like this," Sokka decides. "Or a team name at the very least. Team Avatar's kind of a given, but how about something more personal? Zuko plus, hm," he scans around for a suitable second half to complete his proposed portmanteau, "uh, coven? Zukoven? Zukovenant!"

Zuko looks at Aang, his lips giving way to a reluctant twitch, and finally a bleary but genuine smile. Zukovenant. Gods, it's a mouthful, but it works.

A/N: Zukovenant is a suggestion by a dear reader; it might not stick, but I wanted to give it a shout-out.

Thank you for reading! Much of this was written during a fairly severe depressive episode, so it came out rather a lot in the chapter, though thematically appropriate :')

Leave a comment or an emoji if you liked it :) Read notes here: archiveofourown dot org/works/7019827/chapters/46929346. Contents include talk about mental health, Uncle Iroh, and Azula/Haru.

You can also find me on Tumblr: the-cloud-whisperer!