Zuko hadn't been to Ru's in some time. During the summer, Zuko had the bad habit of letting his friends and acquaintances get away from him as he spent the days wasting away, reading books and otherwise inventing new ways to be lazy. That said, not much had changed since Zuko had last visited. The same nice two-story home, with well-trimmed hedges, and flowers in the garden each in various states of bloom. It was nice, though smaller than other homes Zuko had seen. Unlike many of the kids that went to the academy, Ru's family didn't live in the caldera, instead they lived in a nice neighborhood in the lower city - which made for a longer journey on Zuko's part, almost an hour by carriage.

He wasn't annoyed by this though, Zuko had brought a book to keep him occupied during the trip. That, and he didn't get to leave the caldera often, so occasionally he'd just look out the window to see what was there.

Ru was waiting for him at the front door, smiling as he always did when Zuko came. He liked that. Nobody else smiled at Zuko except for mom, it made him feel special. Zuko smiled back.

"Hey, nice to see you." Ru greeted him. "I'm glad you're here."

"Me too." said Zuko, wishing that he had gotten over his bad habit and visited during the summer. He hadn't even stepped through the door and already he began to remember how much he liked it here, visiting a friend.

Ru smiled again and gestured for Zuko to follow, which he did, stepping through the door (stopping only to take his shoes off) and following Ru inside, walking through the living room and up a stairway to Ru's room.

Unlike the outside of the house, which looked more or less the same, Ru's room had been completely transformed. What had once been an average teenage bedroom with nothing distinguishing it except for an above-average messiness and some art supplies on his desk was now practically an art studio. The floor was covered with this thick dark paper, which apparently acted as a protective layer between dripping paints and the carpet underneath. The walls had been completely taken up by canvasses, each in various states of completion ranging from a few strokes making out a shape to almost fully-fleshed pieces of art. Every flat surface, even his bed to a more minor degree, was covered in reference material, paints, and sketches.

In one summer his room had gone from almost neat to a barely-contained chaos of color.

"Wow." said Zuko out loud.

"Yeah, I've been doing a lot of decorating." said Ru, half jokingly, half pridefully as he walked into the midst of all his works, looking them over. "Here's the one I've been meaning to show you." he pointed to the canvas currently on the stand, showing a beautiful young woman with long brown hair standing in what almost could have passed as a garden, with wildflowers surrounding cherry blossoms that overlooked the ocean, the sunshine filtering through the branches.

"She's beautiful." was all Zuko could say, briefly transfixed by the image Ru had rendered.

Ru smiled again, this time with pride on his face. "Yeah, Xiu is pretty." he said. "Though she likes to say it's my painting that makes her look so nice." Ru chuckled. "She's very modest."

Zuko almost comically shook his head, remembering that it was Ru's sister that was in the painting, and not some abstract image of a beautiful woman he could stare at all he wanted. "Oh, right." he said awkwardly.

"Well, do you like it?" Ru asked, either not seeing or choosing to ignore Zuko's strange expression.

"Yeah." he said honestly. "It looks-" he stopped himself from saying beautiful again, like a drooling idiot. "-amazing." he recovered. "I can tell you put a lot of work into it."

"Yeah, I did." Ru nodded, taking the opportunity to bask in Zuko's awe of his skill. It wasn't often he got to show off. "I've had a lot of practice, though." he said, letting his moment of boasting come to an end and gesturing to all the less-impressive pieces that had preceded this one.

Zuko took a moment to survey the other paintings. "These are still good too, though." said Zuko honestly, not having the foggiest clue about how he'd approach drawing something even half as good as some of the paintings Ru apparently viewed as rejects.

"That's what my sister says." Ru said with a nod. "I painted myself into a corner on most of them, though. They're all missing something."

"...painted yourself into a corner?" he asked.

"Oh." said Ru, realizing the expression was a little odd. "It's the point in a painting where you've been working on it so long that everything starts to look wrong. The angles, the colors, the shadows. Every time you go back to it something else is wrong, no matter how many things you fix." he explained.

"I think I understand." said Zuko, not knowing anything about artistry but understanding the feeling of working on a lost cause. "You're getting better though." he remarked.

"For sure, I actually finish things now."

Zuko joined Ru in a laugh.

For the next hour, Zuko dutifully listened as Ru explained how he'd been using techniques he learned from art history to improve his own art, coloring his explanations with illustrations in various expensive-looking books he had lying around. Though dutifully wasn't the right word, exactly. Zuko was enjoying himself, listening to Ru talk about things he'd probably forget in an hour. If anyone else had given him a lecture on art history, Zuko might have fallen asleep. Instead he listened as Ru went over each technique, each long-dead (yet renowned) artist.

"Anyways, I figure that's enough about art. How are you doing?" Ru asked, taking Zuko off-guard.

"Oh, uh.." Zuko trailed off. "I'm fine, I guess. I don't have any paintings to show you, though." he half-smiled.

Ru laughed. "No worries. What about the crown though, any progress on getting that back from your sister?" he asked.

"Not really." Zuko admitted, his voice suddenly glum. Truthfully, he would have preferred Ru continue on about his art, he was actually enjoying that. "I'm still thinking about it." he said after a pause, wishing for a swift end to this line of questioning.

"You gonna challenge her to an Agni Kai?" Ru asked, undeterred by Zuko's non-answer.

A long pause.

Ru's upbeat demeanor gave way to a half-concerned half-curious stare. "Don't tell me you already fought her and lost." he said, the question implied.

"No." Zuko answered. "I haven't fought her. I can't." he finally admitted, ashamed to say it out loud in front of his best friend. Before, it had just been a thought he could ignore. A decision he could put off. But saying it made the decision feel permanent, as though speaking the words closed off the possibility entirely and doomed him to a life of cowardice.

"You can't?" said Ru, less in disbelief, more in stubborn refusal to see his friend say something so defeated.

"Yeah." said Zuko, his voice as empty as the caldera catacombs. "She's too powerful. I can't beat her." he said, the words again feeling heavier than the thoughts that had made them.

A moment's pause as Ru thought of what to say next.

"Well, that's okay." he said, trying to stay optimistic for his friend. "You're gonna get better. You don't have to beat her now, it's not as if she's gonna sit on the throne tomorrow."

Zuko sighed. "Yeah, I guess." he said, truthfully having thought that before but just now realizing the emptiness of it, hearing it out loud. "But every year she gets better, and I don't. It's like I'm stuck." he admitted, shaking his head as he heard his mother's voice say Stop being so dramatic. Zuko wasn't being dramatic. He tried hard every year, and could only barely keep up with his peers at school. Let alone Azula.

Silence.

"What about your swords? Didn't you use to train with that Master Piando?" Ru asked.

"You can't fight an Agni Kai with swords." said Zuko, not amused by Ru's efforts to cheer him up.

Ru shook his head. "Of course not. You can't challenge your sister to a swordfight." he acknowledged. "But you can challenge other people."

Zuko gave Ru a funny look. "I don't understand." he said. "Who would I fight other than Azula? She's the one who has the crown now."

"Look," Ru said, his voice more steady and enthusiastic now that he had an angle. "Your dad chose your sister cause he thinks she's better than you, right? She's got some cool fire powers." he stated the obvious. "So all you gotta do is do something more impressive than having cool fire powers. Like fighting in the war."

Zuko looked up, considering for a moment, not just dismissing it out of hand. "But Azula's going to fight too. Dad even sent her to the front a few times." he said, going back to being defeated.

"So? All you need to do is fight better than her. Flashy firebending may help you ace exams and win agni kai, but it won't win the war. You just got to play to your natural talents. Instead of trying to be better than your sister at everything, just focus on what you're good at. The recruitment office is always saying that they need more than just good firebenders. They need everything from swordsmen to cryptographers to strategists to detectives. There's gotta be a niche in there for you somewhere, something you can be the best at."

Another pause as Zuko considered. "You really think that would work?"

"Sure." said Ru. "You're a smart kid, the army needs people like you. Once your dad sees how well you perform in the real world, not just trying to ace exams and tests, he'll have to reconsider his stance!"

While Zuko didn't share Ru's enthusiasm about his quality as an officer, he did see his point. Out here, Azula set the rules, she set the standard he had to meet, and placed the hoops he had to jump through. Out there, he could forge his own path, reclaim his honor in his own way. And if Zuko still lost, at least it would be on his merits as a servant of his nation, and not the size of his fire plumes, or his war history knowledge.

Mai had visited Ty Lee's home only once. Two reasons.

One was that it was more convenient for both of them to meet at Azula's.

Two was that somehow, Ty Lee's sisters were even more insufferable than Ty Lee was on her own. And they wouldn't leave anyone alone for longer than five minutes.

But for once Mai didn't care about convenience. The benefit of being out here and visiting Ty Lee is that Azula was nowhere to be found.

"Mai!" Ty Lee exclaimed, grabbing her involuntarily for her signature hug. "It's so nice to see you! You being here is like a nice pink surprise!" she exclaimed, already beaming despite Mai not having said a word.

"Right." said Mai, remembering the third reason she never visited Ty Lee's.

"Why don't you come in?" asked Ty Lee, doing a spin as if to give the doorframe pazaaz that it didn't have before.

"I'd rather not." said Mai dully. "Why don't you come out here." she said, turning around and walking back to the carriage.

"Oh-Okay!" said Ty Lee, closing the door behind her and following Mai, only just noticing the faint red in her aura.

Mai stepped inside the carriage. "Get in." she said bluntly, not even attempting to cast the veneer of it being an offer rather than an order. It wasn't as though she ever had patience for Ty Lee's antics, but today she wouldn't even pretend.

Ty Lee did as she was told.

"Where too, my lady." asked the driver in the front compartment.

"I don't care." said Mai. "Circle the grounds for 10 minutes. I just need to have a private conversation."

The sliding piece of wood slammed shut, closing the only opening between the two compartments. Shortly after, the carriage lurched forward as they began their pointless journey.

"Umm... Mai?" asked Ty Lee nervously. "What's going on?"

Mai turned, angling her body towards Ty Lee as much as the seating would allow. "You two are hiding something." said Mai with a glare that rivaled Azula's. "And I want to know what it is."

"What are we hiding, Mai?" asked Ty Lee, trying to sound playful and failing. Ty Lee wasn't being playful, she was hiding the truth because Azula told her to.

"Look, I know Zuko's always been a little weird. But he wears his heart on his chest, he wouldn't just stop being interested in me one day unless he was told to, not like this anyway. I saw you two talking about it, and the timing with Azula getting the crown is just too coincidental." said Mai, more a statement of fact than an accusation. "You two know something." she repeated, not admitting her true suspicion that this was one of Azula's plots somehow.

Ty Lee shook her head. "I don't know what you're talking about Mai, we're as clueless as you are!" she exclaimed, hoping that Mai would eventually give up.

Mai glared.

"You're a terrible liar, you know."

"I'm not lying!" she insisted. "We really don't know. Not for sure, anyway."

"'Not for sure'?" Mai parroted Ty Lee's words back to her. "So you do know something!" she said with a rare exclamation, both satisfied that Ty Lee had backed herself into a corner and that her admission narrowed it down. Which ruled out a few things, like something being seriously wrong with his firebending.

Ty Lee grimaced. She was a bad liar. It was because truthfully, she didn't want to lie, not to her friends. Ty Lee wished she could just tell Mai about the rose aura.

"I know you and Azula share everything." she said. "Don't play dumb."

"Look, all I can tell you is Azula went to talk to him about it, and he was sorry. Azula didn't tell me more than that." Ty Lee worked the truth into her lie this time.

Mai rolled her eyes. "I know, I heard." she said, her tone conveying exactly how little she thought about the convenient apology. "Look, I know the two of you are hiding something. And so is Zuko. Whatever it is you two know that's gotten Zuko so scared and taken him off the throne, I will find out eventually."

"I know." said Ty Lee, seeing little point in lying about the fact that she was lying. "But I really can't tell you this time Mai, it's important. It's not just because Azula said so."