Title: Twilight's Edge
Author: Inkcharm
Summary: An innocent training session goes horribly wrong for Zuko. – Over time wounds might heal. Some of them throw us off balance for the longest time.
Warnings: Post-TBR, blood, angst, mild swearing
Disclaimer: The TV show "Avatar - The Last Airbender" does not belong to me, nor do its characters or anything related to the show. I make no profit out of this story, it is written merely for fun and entertainment of other fans.
Part: 8/9
A/N: I started writing this before Book 3 Ep 16 aired, so any canon-events happening after The Boiling Rock might be ignored for the sake of the storyline.

Twilight's Edge
Chapter 8: Scab

On the third day, they started discussing the matter.

„So, Zuko is still refusing to talk?"

Katara sat down to dinner with the others. Three days had passed since she had removed the shards, and the stubborn prince had allowed no more contact than what was required for her to treat his eyes every morning and evening. He wouldn't talk to anyone, but Katara thought she knew the reasons behind his peculiar behaviour.

When she had pulled the splinters and particles from his eyes three days ago, Zuko had been in a horrible lot of pain. It had driven him beyond some edge within himself, so he had done the only thing he could in order to cope: he had broken down. Sobbing and screaming, the proud firebender had started begging for mercy, but not only with Katara, and not only concerning the pain he was currently in; it had been as though everything that had gone wrong in his life, everything that had caused him pain and grief until that very day had come back as he lay there, thrashing and hurting.

Zuko had begged with Katara to stop removing the splinters, but he had also addressed members of his family, begging his father not to burn him, his mother not to leave, his sister to stop deceiving and using him, his uncle for forgiveness, and Agni for mercy. In those horrible moments, he had laid himself bare before everyone present, and they had gotten a glimpse of the haunting secrets he kept safely locked within himself.

Worst of all, though, was that Zuko seemed fully aware of having said those things, and now he had decided that the only possible way of facing everyone after spilling his secrets was to refuse any attempts to talk about it.

They had even sent Toph in, who had emerged, hours later, without so much as a scorched eyebrow, but boiling with anger herself, because even she had not been able to get a single word out of Zuko.

None of them would have guessed these things about him. On some level, they had figured Zuko to be a pretty spoiled prince when it came down to it until that day, and it would never have occurred to any of them that, growing up, he had to pay for all the privileges with just as much pain. It was a horrible thought that once again shifted their views of the world. Zuko might never have been a completely innocent victim in this war, but he had been a victim nonetheless.

"We need to get him to talk." Katara sighed. "I just can't think of any new attempts. We have already tried everything there is to try in order to get him to confide in us."

Everyone was silently contemplating until Suki, glancing around, decided to speak. "Why?"

Katara raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me? Did you just ask why we should get Zuko to open up?"

"No." Suki shook her head. "I mean, yes, actually. So what if he doesn't want to talk about these things? Shouldn't we show him that although we know, we're not about to let him drown in yet another wave of pity?"

Toph felt that she had to agree. "I told you before that he doesn't like to be mothered. Sparky's proud and strong. He doesn't like the fact that everyone around here knows what he's been through."

"So, what do you suggest?" Katara huffed. "Are we supposed to behave as though we didn't know or care about all those things he keeps bottled up inside of him?"

"I think that's exactly what we should do."

Katara threw up her hands. "I can't believe you, Suki! Don't you see that he needs help in dealing with this?"

"No." Suki's gazed wandered towards the Temple's entrance. "Actually, I see that he is trying to keep those particular doors locked. Do you really think it would be a good idea to force him to open up further? Zuko doesn't want to. Everyone wants to keep some part of their life private." A shadow seemed to pass over Suki's face, then she smiled slightly and squeezed Sokka's hand. "I think we should wait for him to come to us in his own time. Until then, let's show him that we are not going to pressure him any further."

Reluctantly, even Katara had to agree to Suki's reasoning. Maybe in her desire to prove that she was not a bad person after having harmed Zuko so horribly, Katara had let herself be swept up in doing something good for him to an extent that had pushed Zuko further away. She decided that she would back off and give him all the time he needed to decide whether or not he was ready to share his demons openly.

Her blue eyes came to rest on Suki. And what had that been about? Where there any demons the Kyoshi warrior herself was not willing to share? Katara met her father's gaze, and she could see the concern mixing with his usual pride for both his children and the girl his son had chosen.

Sometimes Katara found it helpful to remind herself that the she was not the only victim in this war.

"So" Hakoda began after sipping some of his drink. "Where is The Duke?"

It was on the fourth day that Zuko's left eye turned a milky white colour with just the slightest hint of a golden iris.

Katara froze in motion when she saw it, her hands still holding the bandage she had just taken off to examine how the healing was progressing hovering in mid-air. "I…"

"I know."

Those were the first words he had said to her ever since her attempts to heal him. Katara's hands were shaking slightly.

"The other eye seems to be doing fine, though", Katara offered, her voice shaking.

They did not speak any more than that. After all, what else was there to be said?

On the fifth day, Zuko groaned when the door opened a few hours before Katara would usually come to check up on him. He knew exactly who was invading his kingdom of silent misery once again. Ever since the shards had been removed, The Duke had come to visit each and every day. He would sneak in after breakfast, right before lunch, right after lunch, and for hours after dinner.

Zuko, of course, never said a word during these visits, but The Duke did not seem to mind. He just talked, babbling about this and that, and the Fire Prince was not quite humbled enough by all that had transpired to admit, even to himself, that he would miss the chatter should The Duke not visit again.

But there was really no need to let anyone know, not even himself.

Stubbornly, Zuko refused to join the talk. Not that The Duke minded, though. There were no awkward silences simply because the young boy trampled any pauses to death with more words.

It had proven just the tiniest bit useful even. While the boy talked, Zuko tried his new technique of feeling for the heat or the lack of it. It helped to improve his skill and take his mind off the pain, which had, quite frankly, told him that it was willing to lessen but would not leave him alone for a while yet.

"And then Aang just kind of thrust his arm like this…"

The Duke copied the motion, his arm shooting out somewhere above Zuko. The firebender didn't even think, but grabbed the boy's wrist instead. For a second, there was silence. Zuko himself was utterly stunned. He was still wearing the bandage until Katara told him to remove it – yes, past experience had taught him well – but he had not fumbled or guessed the position of the wrist. He had grabbed it just as surely as if he had seen it.

Because, he realized, he had seen it as clearly as any picture that could be looked upon. A streak of warmth in a field of cooler air. He could make out no details, of course, but the difference in temperature slowly but surely became something he didn't need to reach out towards. The more he lay in the dark, the more attuned he became to the temperature outside the dark void that was his world beneath the bandage.

Zuko smirked.

The Duke blinked. And then he just threw himself into another rambling.

For a while, Zuko listened, but something was bubbling inside of him. A tension, a tingling, an itch deep within his chest, his throat, his mouth, and finally words spilled out without asking for permission first.

"Have you ever lost something that you didn't really need, on the contrary, it was more of a hindrance, useless, maybe even painful, but you still found yourself missing it?"

Thinking, The Duke scratched his chin. He wrinkled his nose and screwed up his face. Then he just grinned broadly. "All the time." There was a strange sort of catch in his voice, so strange in fact that Zuko decided not to inquire further.

Three hours later, Katara stood in front of the firebender's room, hand raised towards the door's handle, but not touching it. She had not meant to eavesdrop, of course, and felt a flush of embarrassment when she found that still she was standing there, straining to hear what was being said.

It seemed that Zuko and The Duke had been talking for quite some time. Weirdly enough, the current topic obviously revolved around swords and fighting techniques.

"But you could heat the blade itself and make it super-hot!" came The Duke's voice, muffled.

Zuko actually seemed to consider the suggestion for a while. "I don't think it would work. The metal would melt or the very least lose its solidness."

Some silence. Then, almost hesitantly: "I guess that would be a bad idea, then."

There was something in Zuko's voice that made Katara believe he was feeling guilty. A slight catch in his breath, a pause. She knew he was licking his lips. It was a nervous gesture, one that he wasn't aware of. "Not… bad. Your intentions were good."

"Why are good intentions never good enough?"

There was no response, but that was worse than anything Zuko could have said. Slowly, Katara backed away from the door. Good intentions were a bad topic. Good intentions were what had brought them all into this mess.

She would check up on Zuko later today. Now, though, Katara would have to ponder the situation for a while. She needed to think about some things. Most of all, she needed to hide her tears of shame.

On the sixth day, Katara talked to her father about good intentions. His words, she knew, would stay with her forever, for they touched something in her.

"It's natural, Katara, to do something with the best intentions in mind and still have it result in disaster. Imagine a hunter wanted to catch an animal to feed his starving family. He might set a deadly trap so as to be sure to have something on the table for dinner. But now imagine he didn't watch the trap too closely and another human being walked into it. Might have been another hunter, the only man to feed another family. Still, now he's dead and there is nothing you can do about it. But does that make the first hunter a bad person?"

For a while Katara pondered the situation. "He only wanted his family to survive. And still, with all the effort he made, they had nothing to eat and someone else was also dead. I'd say his intentions were really good, but he failed to find the right means to his ends."

"But what are the right means? Sometimes we cannot foresee the consequences of our actions. Sometimes we cannot even clearly distinguish good from bad. What if you end up doing the right thing, but did it for all the wrong reasons? What if you end up doing the wrong thing, but you did it for all the right reasons? We like to tell ourselves that the world is black and white. It isn't."

They sat in silence for a long time.

"You mean to say that Zuko is not a bad person." Katara frowned, thinking hard. "You mean to say that he did some bad stuff alright, but he did it with good reasons considering his past. That he could not foresee where his steps would take him in the end."

She sighed, combed her hair. Hakoda was right, of course. And not only that, the same concepts applied to her as well. She shouldn't wreck herself with guilt over what she did. Doing the wrong thing for the right reason. Good intentions and bad means to fulfil them. It was time she made up with Zuko and prepared to start anew with him.

"Thanks, Dad."

With those words she rushed off.

Hakoda stayed seated, watching nothing in particular, arms crossed and eyebrows pulled together. It took a few minutes until Suki jumped from the platform above, where she had been sunbathing. The Kyoshi warrior slumped next to the older man and shifted her gaze to the direction Katara had dashed off to.

"You didn't actually mean to say any of the things she took your words to be, huh?"

Hakoda's eyes were serious. "No. But that is what being a father is all about. Your children need to think that you have all the answers. And if they come to a realization you better let them believe it was your intention all along." With his index finger he touched the tip of his nose. "That, my dear, is the whole trick."

Suki snorted with laughter. "Yeah, I can see how that would not work for Sokka." And then she blushed as Hakoda raised an eyebrow questioningly. "I mean to say. If Sokka ever. Were he to ever have. I mean. Speaking hypothetically. Well."

"The second trick", Hakoda explained gently, as he took Suki's hand and gave it a squeeze. "is to make your child's chosen mate feel as though she had said something wrong, just to see her off balance for a bit. It's also important to help her back onto her feet after." A gentle smile played on his lips. "I wouldn't worry about Sokka. He's going to have an amazing wife. And she'll kick his butt from North to South and back again if need be."

A smile bloomed on Suki's face once more. It was nice to know that she had a family now.

The pain had softened to a dull throbbing by the end of the week. He could keep the bandage off for a few hours without the pain returning, and he could really see with his right eye once more.

It was still early; the sun had not yet crawled over the horizon. Gently, he stroked the curved double blades with his fingers, one golden and one milky white eye fixed on some point in the distance.

Zuko knew that he was off balance. He had tried a few bending forms earlier, a few sword figures. Something was off, though. He kept flinching to the right, for he could not know what was going on left of his face. It was most irritating. Another hindrance. Zuko's mood was of such a sour nature that morning that he found himself wishing Katara had blinded him completely instead of just taking away half his sight.

Of course, the feeling was just a fleeting depression. He had experienced it before, when his father had burned his face, that anger with life bitterness taking over, dragging a black cloth over the world. He would get over it in time, step by step, throwing himself into one obsession or the other. That was how he got so tangled up in finding the Av-… in finding Aang. That was how he got so tangled up in destroying his own life. But then again, it brought him a little good in the end, right?

Because no matter the hardships, there are things no one can take away again, despite the pain and the loss and the constant struggle with the good people. Things like Toph's rough friendship, The Duke's innocent support, Suki's warm smiles and Sokka's high-pitched laughter. Things like Hakoda's comforting smile and Aang's affectionate gestures.

Things like Katara's soft words last night.

"We can't be friends yet. But I am willing to try. Can you give me another chance? Can I prove to you that I can be your ally as you are trying to prove to us? I know these are but good intentions. We both know that good intentions aren't always good enough. So we'll both just have to try as hard as we might. The results don't need to be perfect. They just need to be as good as you and me can manage."

They'd probably never be friends. But, one day, they might just find themselves willing and able to forgive each other, to look past what had happened and stand side by side in the battles yet to come, to have each other's back. Maybe they'd learn to trust one another, and maybe they'd learn to function while being around each other.

Agni knew they both deserved some semblance of peace in here, what with the bloodshed going on all around them. Zuko still wasn't about to talk to the others about his feelings, not yet anyway, but he felt just about ready to move towards the others once again. After all, he had managed without crying himself to sleep last night. It was a tiny step in the right direction.

So Zuko slowly breathed in and out, and slid back into a fighting stance, his blades ready. Slowly he closed his eyes, drenching the world in darkness, heat radiating from his body, invisible tendrils to guide his every step. Zuko moved, the swords cutting through the air, slashing and spinning and moving.

On the seventh day, Zuko regained his balance.

TBC....