(A/N) AU, written and set directly after the events of 'The Headband'.

When Zuko came back, he had cooled off --you know, that thing Uncle had always been suggesting to him for years now-- and the thought, the idea of heat rising and dissipating, had always niggled slightly in the back of Zuko's mind, but it had never really done more than that.

And he stepped in the door, and thought to himself, alright, I'll apologize, and then he'll help. That was the order of things, that was how people worked.

Zuko mentally braced himself for the scraggle, and the burlap, and the smell of mold and sweat and urine and senility, and the way he wouldn't say anything. Then he looked up and saw a tiny, white flower.

The gamepiece sat patiently in the center of an empty cell.

And that was the first moment of his life that he had ever been afraid of his Uncle.