a/n: It's the character speaking, not my personal opinion.

#

The metal door creaked as it opened. They still had not done as she'd ordered and oiled the hinges, and the sound set her teeth on edge. The woman carried in the tray with the scent of stale rice and a less-than-artful mixture of odds-and-ends vegetables which should never grace the same bowl, and set it in her reach through the bars one dish at a time. She had come to despise eating, least of all for the reason that prisoners were given food barely edible. With her hands constantly chained behind her back, she would have to wait until she wasn't being watched, and hope that her hair remained tied back well and no strand would fall out. If a grain of rice stuck to it, she would have no easy way to groom herself clean afterward, and the posture she had to adopt to eat was reminiscent of an animal. It was becoming tedious.

The guard prepared to depart. She stopped when Azula spoke. "Say. Would you like to hear a story?" The woman paused with her back to her halfway to the door, thinking it over. Guards were specifically instructed to listen to what the prisoners said, in case any of them had something of value to confess. In a moment she turned around and nodded.

Azula smiled as she began. "Well, this is just postulation, but in a few weeks, you can tell me how well I guessed."

#

While Toph had no trouble walking in the darkness, he and Katara stumbled after her on the uneven grass. The area had been long inhabited, and, while above it looked like a clear empty plain, below the grass were hidden remnants of previous structures as cracked foundations and strewn bricks, which were easy to trip over. The downpour continued. It had started as a light shower while they sheltered in the cave, and after waiting for the cover of darkness it had intensified. The night was practically dark, although the moon was almost full, and the cloud-cover was relentless. His hearing was flooded by the pounding rain.

He staggered to the side, and the mud and slush under his feet gave out. The grass was ripped roots-up as he slipped, and his knee crashed into the ground. He brought his palm up, which had broken his fall, and could barely see the thick coating of sopping muck. He flicked it off his hand and stood up.

"Are we even going in the right direction?" Zuko asked.

Toph answered, "Yes, we are," like she would have preferred not to speak to him. He swallowed his words and gave up on saying anything else. They'd been walking for two hours and weren't back yet. She must have been taking them far around the village perimeter, in case anyone was hunting for them. He couldn't even guess what the Dai Li's next move would be, whether they had only wanted to ruin his reputation or if they meant to put him out of his misery. Even Katara hadn't spoken to him. Since leaving the cave, she had not held his hand, either. She may have been rethinking things. Toph surely would have told them he was a liar. He continued walking, following after the slim figure of the earthbender, who was his only guidepoint in the darkness. Water ran down his chin and neck, soaking his clothing through down to his shoes, which squelched with each step, adding an additional layer of slippage that was unreasonable to continue in, to which he had no other choice but trudging onward.

Katara was not bothering to keep herself dry from the rain. Her hair was sleeked down and she stared ahead without comment, her eyes downcast from fatigue.

If he firebent, it would be visible for a mile. That might be enough to lure the Dai Li, or Jet, if he broke from them and ran off to be found alone. He could end things for himself. Fighting might have been better than the long silence.

Zuko wiped his hand on his clothing and kept walking.

A part of himself was convinced Toph would guide him to the shore and Katara would drown him there. Eventually they reached the mansion, which he hadn't thought they would ever see again, and Piandao looked him over without comment then gestured upstairs, towards their room. The master himself looked fatigued in the candlelight at the saucer in his hand. Zuko couldn't look at the fire.

He didn't know where Katara was sleeping, but it wasn't next to him. He betrayed her motion of boycott by falling asleep anyway, quickly and heavily, as each step of the night trek reverberated through his feet and legs as a dull throbbing pain. The residual dampness of not having fully dried off lingered down his spine.

In the morning he woke with no conception of the time. It seemed impossibly bright—he had never remembered day to be so blinding. In the bathing room he saw what a poor job he'd done cleaning the mud off himself and washed at the basin, thoroughly, scrubbing himself raw as if it would scrape off the events of the previous day and the mindless words that had fallen from his mouth and set the knife to his neck. In the end it became a means of procrastination. He looked into the water, filthy and swirling in murk, completely tepid and stagnant. He left it there and changed into his casual outfit, which looked like something a boy might wear, and it underlined his own enduring immaturity. Then he sat at the side of the bed a long while, trying to listen to what was going on.

There was a large amount of activity outside. Whatever it was, it was undoubtedly his fault, so he stood to go downstairs and face everyone. His reception was cold. He was offered neither breakfast nor tea, and his stomach bit at him. Zuko remained silent and kept his gaze to the floor. Suki was in a chair in the sitting room while Katara tended her injuries, a variety of scrapes and abrasions. He wanted to smile that she was okay, but couldn't quite manage it. Suki was dressed in the clothing of a stranger, Fire Nation clothing she must have stolen in town to replace her Kyoshi outfit. Her face was bare of makeup and her hair disheveled.

Katara wasn't yet aware of his presence. He waited nearby without announcement for her to finish. Sokka and Aang watched him but did not greet him. Piandao was busy, and only checked in occasionally to speak with the two, then left again shortly afterward. It was clear the students were being put to some task, but he had no conception of what it might be, only that it was complex and frantic. No one offered him an explanation. He watched Katara work. She was in the same outfit she'd worn the previous night in the rain, and it was still caked with mud and grass-stained. Her hair was tangled, as if she hadn't braided it for bed, and the ornament was missing.

When she finished with Suki's injuries, she discarded the bloodied water into a dish and stood back, wiping her face on her forearm, and sniffled like she had been crying. Katara glanced at Sokka and then Aang, who were both staring behind her at Zuko, and then turned around. Her eyes were red and wet, lined with dark circles like she'd spent the night awake crying. He swallowed a hard lump. The look she gave him was of pure loathing, but her voice was quiet and toneless as she said, "Come with us," and turned to walk out. They all followed her out, and he paced after them.

It was early afternoon. The rain had turned the yard into a patchwork of reflective sheen and verdant flora. Clouds rolled above intermittently. Despite the heavens pouring an ocean out onto him the previous night, they seemed prepared to repeat it. He couldn't fathom the preparations the students were making. The ground at the perimeter was torn up into ditches and rises, like they were building a wall around the campus. Toph walked over. She was covered in mud and dirt, and her expression was slow-simmered anger. They met in a clearing and everyone turned to him expectantly.

He didn't know what to say, and didn't want to meet their eyes. The standoff lasted several minutes. Suki stood supported by Sokka, still weakened from whatever she had suffered because of him, and Katara periodically wiped her eyes.

Toph shouted, "Fuck this," stomped forward, and the ground broke under him. He fell to his knees and clamped his eyes shut through a sudden motion of his footing. When he opened them, he was fifteen feet in the air on a thin pillar only ample enough to kneel on, and Toph stood on her own a short distance from his face. "Confess."

"Toph, what do you want to hear?"

"Why you lied about the letter to your sister." From the distance the others on the ground could perfectly well hear them, even if looking down to see their expressions made him dizzy with vertigo.

"I shouldn't have written her. I regret it."

"Oh, you regret it? I think we all regret it. Do you know what happened to Suki last night? She went after Yue, and the Dai Li didn't like that. The townspeople didn't like it either, because they connected her with you. She spent the night hiding in the town trying not to be killed while the Dai Li hunted her. Aang and Sokka found her this morning at dawn, bruised and bloody. They had to carry her here."

"I'm sorry."

"Not yet you're not. Talk, or that pillar under your ass is becoming gravel."

He felt it wobble, and shouted, "Okay, okay. I was embarrassed. I don't know what to do about this case, and I don't know how to fix it. I should, but I don't. Azula has always been smarter than me, she's always had the answer to everything. I sent her a letter on a hawk from Piandao's aviary. It was me, not them, who took it."

"And then you lied about it."

"Yes, I lied. I didn't want anyone to know."

"Why?"

"Because Katara told me not to ask Azula for advice, but I did anyway. Azula never even answered me, and I gave the Dai Li everything they needed to undermine me. Everything is ruined now. I lied because I'm humiliated."

He was shaking, and clenched his hands to his knees. The girl's blindness was sparing that she couldn't see how pathetic his expression was. Zuko knelt under her assessment, waiting for the verdict.

Slowly he was lowered to the ground, and the pillars merged with the earth and settled. He knelt on solid ground under the eyes of the group. Toph tapped her foot. "Well? I could still bury him in a lava tunnel if you're done with him, Sweetness." He would have welcomed the darkness.

Katara didn't reply. Sokka questioned in her stead, "And were you just going to keep lying to us? Even when knowing that would have made a difference to the investigation? To finding the people trying to kill Yue?"

"I mean," he mumbled, "you would hate me, you would think I'm an idiot. You'd never trust me again."

Toph commented, "You're damned right we think you're an idiot."

Aang said, "You say we wouldn't trust you again, but it sounds like you're the one who didn't trust us. If you had explained it we would have understood you."

Sokka: "But instead you just had to go and blow it all up. We could have used that knowledge, you know. Piandao and I have been going crazy trying to figure out who sent off the hawk, and the whole time, it was you. You're secretive, and self-doubting, and us-doubting. I ask Katara and Suki for advice all the time. I even ask Aang sometimes."

Suki added, "After all that we've been through together, don't you think we would have been supportive? You should have been honest from the beginning."

Toph: "You dug yourself into a deep hole, Idiotlord."

"I'm not even mad about the letter," said Sokka. "We could have used your help."

Aang said, "We're your friends."

He raised his head. He could just barely meet their eyes, but couldn't bring himself to look at Katara yet. She hadn't spoken. "What about you?" he whispered.

She shifted, crossing her arms, and her breathing was rough, like she was furious. In his mind a dozen possibilities played out, and he realized that, although he might not lose them, he could still be facing the loss of her, and the air was arctic brisk and breathing hurt. "Katara, please."

As the silence continued, he kept his gaze to the ground. He would have gotten on his hands and knees to beg. No, it's more personal for her than for them. I slept next to her while holding this back. I kept a lie in my chest as we were intimate, and it's unforgivable. This is a new wound to an old scar—Jet lied to her, and now I have. She's going to leave me and she's right to do it. The one good thing I had is over.

But she held my hand in the darkness. She leapt onto the stage to defend me. She took my hand.

Why isn't she saying anything?

"Please, Katara."

Though he desperately wanted to see her, the chance of finding hatred in her eyes was too terrifying a possibility, and he couldn't bring himself to do it; as the silence continued with each heartbeat, he came to be more certain of that as his answer.

Without having said anything, she walked past him to return to the mansion. Zuko wished the ground under his knees would liquefy and swallow him. If he leapt up to go after her, stop her, take her hand, it might be avoidable; but he could not. She was gone.

Aang stepped to him and knelt at his side. "She just needs time." No, you're too gentle on me, Aang. Time won't fix this. "We need to understand more about the current situation. Master Piandao has the students fortifying the campus—people from Shu Jing have been trying to storm in to demand you be turned over. Others are still rioting in the town surrounding the inn, because they think Yue and her companions might also be bloodbenders, but Suki told us the Dai Li are defending Yue for the time being. Suki met with Wen and Hua after being separated from us. They assured her they still retain trust in Katara and Zuko, and they went into the inn to help Yue. If she was dead they were going to set off a firework signal Piandao gave to Hua, but the signal never lit. We think they're all okay for now." So I'm not responsible for three women dead, not just yet. "Come on. We have to meet with Piandao."

Half the citizens who supported me after the downfall of my father will hate me for this, thinking I'm nothing but a puppet of my sister, who was Ozai's right hand. The other half, who liked my father's rule and want Zhao and Azula as his successors, will want to use this to remove me from power.

Sokka attempted next. "Hey, it's okay if your sister never replied to you. If she's been imprisoned in Ba Sing Se, they're probably checking all her messages. That's why she doesn't feel able to write to you."

I should have realized that two years ago, but I didn't. I bet Iroh and my mother knew the whole time. Of course they did—it was obvious. I just thought Azula hated me in particular, and while she might be terse with our mother I wasn't even good enough to address.

Toph said, "Well, that's all sugar-cubes and vanilla, but we have a more pressing matter. Rather than how his sister feels about him, I'm more concerned about that mob. Look, I think the Dai Li sent a few agents ahead, and they're the ones who have been creeping through those lava tunnels, and they tried to assassinate the princess. And they only showed up the rest of them at Piandao's doorstep so they could smuggle that advance group in and out more easily. With their hats on, you can't tell the difference between them, right? They could swap one for the other to rotate them or send eight in and take ten out, and no one would be the wiser."

"Makes sense," replied Sokka. "Zuko, what do you think?"

Katara hates me.

Aang prompted in a soft voice, "Zuko? Hey, come on."

"We know you can talk," said Toph.

"Zuko?"

"Hey, come on, buddy."

With the lack of reply, they grew tired of him, and Toph sighed before saying, "I have to go back to helping. Twinkle-toes, you're the only other earthbender on staff. Get your butt over here, too. The Dai Li might be able to carve through this like paper but it'll keep the townspeople out. Piandao said that Yue's guards and sailing crew from the Water Tribe might try to kill Zuko. I don't know if waterbenders can break through this or not."

Aang lingered, still hoping he would reply, but in the end reluctantly followed after his earthbending teacher. Suki and Sokka left him not long after. He stayed in the grass like that a long while, not knowing what to get up for.

#

Sunlight had always been his comfort. As afternoon faded to evening the sunlight was blotted out and he was given rain.

The downpour broke the motivation of the mob who had gathered outside the academy and set them stumbling home down the long, vacant road back towards town. Able to relax, the students of both schools went inside to shelter and take a meal for the first time since the previous night, as they'd been holding defence even while Zuko, Katara, and Toph were sheltering in the cave. Toph and Aang relented from their duty and trudged inside, muddy and soaked, to join the students for a break. That left Zuko time to see what they had been working on. He walked to the rudimentary wall they'd established around the campus perimeter. It was rough, crumbling already, and had necessitated a moat-like ditch excavated from either side to form enough substance for the wall. A ladder had been leaned against the side, and he climbed to the top and wavered there, standing in full height above the treeline.

It was a mock version of the walls of Ba Sing Se. He saw the litter and ash collected at the other side of the wall, at the section facing the primary road, where some of the firebenders from town had impressed their anger by burning the prairie into black char. Inside the ring was the familiar vibrant green of spring, while outside was a desolation with no season. The campus grounds which felt so expansive to walk through looked in miniature. He tried to visualize the Dai Li, creeping around through the gardens and field, burrowing underground into the lava tunnels. The river was on the opposite side, in the far distance, and he caught only a few gleams of pale grey of its course.

Fragrance of cooked rice and simmered vegetables wafted across on a stray breeze. His stomach gnawed at him, but he didn't want to eat with the others. The wood of the rungs was rough in his hands as he descended the ladder. The ditch was filling with muddy runoff. He took refuge from the rain in the training dojo, sitting on the bamboo-wood floor and listening to the rain obscuring the water feature. One crack of thunder sounded, and a few minutes later another. Just as he began listening, intent to hear the next and take refuge in the nostalgia of summer storms, there were no more, and the rain continued steady and markless. He laid down and shut his eyes.

His thoughts wouldn't let him truly sleep, and about an hour later after half-drowsing he abandoned the attempt and sat up. The rain had diminished into a light, steady shower. Outside, no one was around, and the grounds were quiet. The protesters might have given it a rest for the night, and he couldn't predict what the Dai Li were going to do next. Perhaps they already accomplished their goal with the fracturing of his power. His father had made rule look effortless, and he had assumed the same natural talent would be his by right of birth, but it might have been that, unknown to him, there was more behind it than he'd assumed, and he was missing some essential quality he didn't know how to find.

The cloudcover was beginning to break up and spots of moonlight shone through. He wandered to the bamboo grove, running a hand along the sturdy shafts, green and firm. It was like being secluded in a forest and settled to