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They all sat down for dinner with bleary eyes and dulled spirits. The comet wasn't close enough - surely wasn't close enough - for them to be losing hope and hours of sleep this early. And yet they were.
Katara had just finished cooking up stew - a far thinner one than they were used to, one wrought with few spices and thinned with a bit of water. Zuko had - against her wishes - helped her heat it up and then serve it out to the new populations in front of them. She shifted across from him in the circle in which they ate - across from him to perceive him, to ensure that he wasn't - wasn't betraying anyone - she still had a bitter taste in her mouth, knowing that they could have been friends, knowing that she would always be the first person to have trusted him.
It was a complicated pose, lying away from him like this - she could keep track of him, yes, but she also had to face him. The conversation that rang across the huddled, ragtag crew had diminished in enthusiasm from when Sokka, Suki, her father, Chit Sang and Zuko had come back from the Boiling Rock hours earlier. Now that the novelty of reunion had ended, the comet was in everyone's mind again. She was no exception, and the thought of it made her shake, slightly.
Sokka and Suki were crawled up next to each other, and Katara let her limp hair fall over her face and sipped on her stew, letting the warmth of it flow down her throat. Then, the silence broke: "Chit Sang," Aang asked, "why were you in prison?"
The burly man sighed and placed his hands behind his head. "I was a part of the Fire Nation army. And then I decided I didn't want to be. They were cruel."
"Obviously," Katara muttered under her breath.
Every time she closed her eyes - sometimes when she was awake - she saw her mother's burnt body in front of her, her killer gone. She remembered the betrothal necklace she'd clutched to her chest, the way she had cried and cried and cried . . .
Hakoda sounded purely curious, not very accusatory, when he turned to Zuko, sitting silent in the corner. "What do you think?"
Katara wanted to stir up anger from within herself, but she couldn't. She remembered a boy sitting on the floor of the crystal catacombs, telling her that they had something in common. Her mother, on the ground, burnt.
She did not like Zuko. Zuko had betrayed her after she had been so intimate with him - and yet, she could muster up sympathy and understanding for the pain in his eyes.
"The Fire Nation is cruel. It's an indisputable fact."
"How was it growing up in a palace, though?" Sokka asked. "If you hadn't known about it before you chased us . . ."
Zuko chuckled lowly, the fire's light glancing off his pale skin, dancing around and highlighting his scar. "I was . . . I was on that ship for three years before I even found Aang. Searching for him."
He said it quietly, into his bowl, but they heard every pronounced syllable of his words.
"Three years?" Toph asked. "You were searching for the Avatar? But . . . nobody knew Aang was alive . . ."
Chit Sang suddenly looked deeply disturbed. "Prince Zuko . . ."
"Please," Zuko shuddered. "Please don't call me that. I . . ." he swallowed, and then seemed to make some sort of internal decision, the line of his lips going from weak to straight, thin, and decisive. "I was banished at the age of thirteen."
Suki moved further into Sokka's lap, biting her lip. Everyone put their cups down.
"You're the prince. Why would you be -"
"The Fire Nation is cruel. My father - my father is cruel. To everyone. To me. To my -"
He couldn't say it, so Katara - Katara who hated Zuko, who was so, so angry at him - spoke up and answered that, to everyone's surprise. "To your mother."
"Yes," he said. They made eye contact. "My mother, when I was ten. She was banished from my household, trying to protect me from my father, who wanted to murder me. I think she's dead -"
"I'm sorry," Toph asked. "What?"
"Murder?" Sokka's jaw dropped.
Zuko looked down at the dirt floor. "The Fire Nation is cruel. When I was ten my mother was banished. When I was thirteen, I was."
Aang, who had been mostly silent, spoke up. "Zuko . . . the scar . . ."
Chit Sang seemed almost embarrassed.
Toph frowned. "The scar?"
"Zuko has a scar across the left side of his face," Aang told her. "It's . . . shaped sort of like a hand."
Katara felt a great chasm in her chest, and a type of camaraderie that was understandable, something just like Ba Sing Se.
"Oh," said Toph.
Hakoda reached out a hand to his left and laid it on Zuko's shoulder. "Son . . ."
Zuko seemed uncomfortable, but he didn't take it off. "I spoke against him at a war meeting. He wanted to sacrifice recruits in the name of - of glory," he choked out. "I told him no, in front of his war generals. He challenged me to an Agni Kai."
"What's that?" Sokka asked.
"A duel of fire," he answered. "To the death, or to the first burn."
Katara's heart rattled in her chest. She found herself staying still, and yet reaching forward with her eyes. "I'm sorry."
"Thank you, Katara," Zuko said, softly. Sokka echoed the condolence and the somber mood which had overtaken the crew turned even more grey. "I was banished afterward, forced to chase the Avatar, a mindless quest. For a long, long time, all I wanted was my father's love."
"That is not a father's love," Hakoda said, and Katara and Sokka both nodded to that. "I'm so sorry, Prince Zuko. I'm sorry that the Fire Nation turned their flames on their own children."
Zuko seemed thankful for Hakoda's words, but his gaze was reserved for Aang. "My father is a terrible person, Avatar Aang."
"I know," Aang whispered.
Zuko touched his hand to his face and turned away from the group. Katara gave him the rest of her serving of stew.