Chapter Text
This is a bad idea. The thought—useless as it might be—lingers. He tries not to think about it too much, but... well, not thinking is what got him into this mess in the first place.
The ground is firm beneath his feet, and he can feel the shape of each pebble he walks over through the thin soles of his tabi. He concentrates on that. The tabi are well-worn and comfortable. There was a time where he wore them beneath his standard issue boots, to make sure they got broken in. This wasn’t what he had in mind for them, but then again, nothing about this situation is anything he wants.
Whatever. Nothing about his life is anything he wants. He should be used to the disappointment, by now. Better to focus on something worthwhile, like going over his equipment before he undertakes what is undoubtedly the stupidest thing he’s ever done. His left temple gives a sharp throb, as though in chastisement, and he mentally amends himself: before he undertakes what is undoubtedly the second stupidest thing he’s ever done.
This is a bad idea, but it’s the only one I’ve got.
He needs to focus on something else, anything else.
The tabi are good—high quality cloth and the soles outfitted with thin and flexible rubber treads that help distribute his weight more evenly—but the gi is even better. The top layer is silk, dozens of shades of black, gray and blue woven together in rippling waves that make his movements hard to pick out under the cover of night. The under layers are a dense mesh of cotton blends; not as good as mail, of course, but enough to offer him some protection. And then, of course, there’s the mask.
Some part of him—that small boy that he used to be, that wanted everything to be fair and good—still feels a little guilty about just taking it, but it really is for the better that the mask isn’t traced back to him, or worse yet, back to his crew.
If he could, he’d go back and tell the mask maker that he does good work. Although it’s meant to be a theatre mask, it’s of a good weight and the cloth lining lets it sit snug to his face without smothering him. The eyeholes are long and wide enough that he hasn’t lost all of his peripheral vision and the small holes lining the mouth make his breath soft enough to pass undetected.
Finally, the swords. He shouldn’t be so excited to use them; weapons are lesser, in a world where one can shape the elements to their will, and a sign of weakness. But he can’t bend here, not if he wants to get out of this alive. He’s never been that good a bender, anyway; never good enough to pass muster, never good enough to please others, never as good as he should’ve been. But swords… he’s good with blades. They’re decent ones, too. Nice weight, good balance, and he made sure to oil and sharpen them earlier.
The tabi and the gi and the mask are enough to hide his face and let him blend into the darkness and soften his steps, but the blades are what gives him a fighting chance. He never wanted to be a soldier, but he’s never been able to just go down without a fight, either.
Except—, his traitorous mind begins, but he bears down on the intrusive thought and smothers it. He has enough problems already; he doesn’t need to think about that.
Beneath his feet, the firmly packed dirt gives way to something looser. He looks up, and the Pohuai Stronghold looms before him. Zuko sighs, and rolls his shoulders.
Time to get this stupid idea over with.
Not dead yet. If you’re not dead, you can still fight.
He keeps the thought going in his head like a mantra. Death means dishonor and failure. Death means that he’s lost, that he’s sunk as low as he can go. Death means that he will never go home, that he will die Burned and a failure of an heir. But he’s not dead, even if it feels like he should be.
Sneaking in was easy, relatively speaking. He’s had enough practice sneaking past crew members on the Wani, past royal guards in the Palace, past his sister. He knows how to be quiet, when to move slowly but steadily and when to move, too fast for peripheral vision to track. Finding his quarry is easier yet; the increased presence of soldiers is a dead giveaway. He comes in fast and hard, catching them by surprise and putting them down, making sure that he’s using enough force that they stay down.
His quarry is scared to see him, until he uses the swords to break the chains binding him—it. He has to think in terms of quarry and target, because if he doesn’t, if he thinks about what he’s really doing—really, actually doing—he might scream. Or cry.
This isn’t helping him. But it’s hurting Zhao, and he’ll take what he can get, these days.
He takes point and his quarry follows, jabbering a mile a minute, questions upon questions. Who are you, are you here to rescue me, why are you here to rescue me, have you seen any frogs around lately?
Zuko maintains his silence and keeps his jaw clenched tight. His silence, however, isn’t enough of a deterrent because he’s bombarded with another stream of persistent questions as they slip down the hallway. Is he a spirit? Is he the spirit of swordsmen? How did he know that his help was needed? No really, if he saw any frogs could he please grab them?
Luckily—for Zuko’s tentative grip on his own temper, if nothing else—the next rotation of guards choose that moment to come running around the corner, armor clanking.
(They’re either amateurs or the unfortunate third shift dragged out of sleep. Your armor isn’t supposed to clank.)
Zuko draws the dao smoothly, the rasp of metal against metal calming him. Re-centering him.
No time for talk, now.
If you’re not dead yet, you can still fight.
Of course, it was too good to be true.
It’s his own damn rookie mistake. He assumed that the guards were set in standard shifts; a man at each corner on the outside, lookouts mounted high and every soldier in the line of sight of at least one other. He’d had less than a few hours to do reconnaissance, and now he’s being pressed into a corner.
His quarry is shoving soldiers out of the way with broad, sweeping moves that remind Zuko of watching the maids sweeping cinders out of the kitchen. The gate is to his back, almost a mockery. He was so close to getting away, but now they’re pinned and his target is running out of room, and—
Zuko grabs his target and pulls it close and draws his dao up. Zhao, mid-sentence, pauses. The contingent of soldiers continues to advance, slowly spreading out to block off all routes of escape.
The admiral narrows his eyes, but Zuko is wearing a stone-faced, snarling mask, and he knows that the light from the wall-mounted sconces are drawing a gleam off the finely-honed edge of his blades. His target is prey-still, but for a fine tremble.
Take the bluff.
Up on the parapet, Zhao narrows his eyes.
Take the bluff. You’re too stupid not to, don’t prove me wrong now of all times, you—
Zhao holds up his hand, and the soldiers move back. There’s a creak as the great, tall halves of the gate slowly open. Thank Agni.
Even as Zuko stifles his sigh of relief, his quarry remains still beneath his blades. Another thing to thank Agni for. Kid’s bouncier than a rabiroo, otherwise.
Zuko walks backwards, step by step, keeping his shoulders tense in case he need to dodge. But no one comes charging after them. He passes through the gate, and keeps going, angling for the forest. The gates start to get smaller, and smaller.
Wait, there—He can barely make out the painted white face in the moonlight, the glint of something—shit, shit, that’s a Yu Yan archer, why and how does Zhao have Yu Yan—
He remembers taking the arrow to the shoulder, tensing his jaw with a grunt instead of a shout, and the Ava—his quarry—twisting, dirt kicked up by air. Remembers stumbling, tripping over his feet more than running, barely holding onto his quarry, barely upright. Remembers the smell of pines and oaks growing closer. Remembers thinking that at least the second stupidest idea will end better than the first.
Nothing else.
He comes back to himself between one pained breath and the next, hand snapping out on instinct to grab whatever is hovering over his face. His fingers clamp down, vice-like, on smaller, longer fingers.
“Sorry, sorry!” A high, young voice babbles, the hand in his grip trembling like a leaf, “I just wanted to see who you were—I mean, um, you weren’t waking up I wasn’t sure if—”
He stops paying attention to the stream of words and starts taking stock instead. His shoulder hurts like hell, and he’s sore all over, but he’s not dead, so that’s... something. And his mask is still snug over his face, the cloth lining damp from the heat of his breath. It hasn’t been removed; he can still feel the small blades sewn into the lining, a firm pressure along his jaw. That level of precaution might be overkill, but if anyone sees his face—anyone—he’s dead. He’s dead and dishonored and, knowing his luck, he’ll drag Uncle and the crew of the Wani down with him.
His quarry is still babbling.
“—and I didn’t really get a chance to say it before, because suddenly those archer guys were like thwp thwp thwp, there was a whole cloud of arrows, but thanks for getting me out of there! Um, are you okay?”
He sits up, and the kid backs off, gives him room to breathe. Zuko almost wishes he hadn’t, because breathing means thinking, and thinking is what gets him into these messes.
As much as he doesn’t want to, there are facts he needs to face: his shoulder hurts like hell, and everything else is equal turns sore and stiff, and there’s no way he can capture his quarry and hold it. His eye stings, but he doesn’t cry. He hasn’t cried for a while, for years, ever since—that’s not the point. That doesn’t make it any less frustrating. He’s so close, so close, but he knows he can’t—
“Go.” The word comes out soft, choked and raspy from his dry throat. The mask distorts the sound even further.
“Huh?” The Avatar stammers. Doesn’t matter what he thinks or feels now, better to face it like it is, instead of dancing around it. He’s letting the Avatar go. He’s never going to be able to go home.
“Go.” He says again, and this time it’s louder, sharper. Still thick and raspy, like the rough bark of a komodo rhino. The Avatar flinches backward, uncertain and wide-eyed. He looks hurt. Zuko wants to burn something. He’s never going to go home, and the Avatar has the, the nerve to look hurt, to look betrayed as Zuko tells him to go away, like they’re friends.
“Did I do something wrong? I’m sorry I almost took off your mask, but really, you weren’t breathing right and—”
Does he ever shut up? Does he ever listen?
“Leave.” Zuko snarls, feels the sound of it tear at his throat, pull at his lungs. He can feel fire building up in his chest, strong and angry.
When he looks up, the Avatar is gone. Not even a stirring of the leaves to mark his departure.
He sits there, in the dense cover of the forest, for a long moment. He tries not to tremble, not to think too hard, not to scream out his frustrations like he wants to. He lifts his good hand to his shoulder and palms the bit of arrow still stuck there. He prods at it, riding out the resulting dizziness, and tears some of the lining from the robes to wrap it snugly. He does it all without a sound; he’s clenching his teeth too hard for anything to escape.
He doesn’t look over at the cropping of rocks where the Avatar was perched, not even moments ago. He doesn’t look.
He sits there, fingers clenching tight at his knees and bites his lips until they bleed. He lets it all out—his anger, his frustration, that damning urge to cry because he just wants to go home—in one big, deep, shuddering sigh. He slumps against the rocks, too tired to remain upright, too tired to do much of anything, really.
Agni blast it.
A twig snaps underfoot.
He's on his feet in a moment, already leaping back, but it's too late. He was so caught up in his own head—dangerous place to be—that he wasn't listening. All around him, the breaking of dry wood under softened steps, the slide of cloth against tree bark and rustling leaves.
He's surrounded.
He crouches, for all the good it will do him. The haunting faces peering out at him from the foliage are all Yu Yan, arrows already knocked and trained on him. He can parry arrows, in small groups. By his count, there are no less than fifteen Yu Yan around him. With his shoulder injured, he might be able to parry the first few arrows, if they shoot one at a time.
He's not betting on it.
Another twig snaps and leaves rustle, and one last Yu Yan steps out of the underbrush.
"By order of Admiral Zhao, under the authority of the Fire Lord, you are to come with us. Admiral Zhao is... especially eager to speak with you."
The head Yu Yan speaks with an inland accent, and a bland tone. If anything, he sounds amused.
Zhao will kill him. Quickly, if he's lucky, but Zuko has never had the fortune of luck. More likely, Zhao will wring every ounce of hope and defiance out of him and then arrange for the public execution of the pitiful banished Prince. The Traitor. The Failure.
But he’s not dead yet. He can still fight, even if fighting here will do him no good.
He never did know when to just quit.
… Agni above, this is going to hurt.
He staggers back, breath punched out of him by the weight of an arrow piercing his already wounded right side, tearing at the muscles of his tricep. He tastes blood on his teeth, and grits them to stifle the yelp of pain.
Another arrow catches him in the opposite shoulder. Another in the soft flesh between his clavicle and his arm.
He chokes on his own breath, biting his lips bloodier and bloodier to hold back his instinctive reaction. Let them kill him here. But he will not firebend and he will not scream. He won't give Zhao the satisfaction.
His breath is wet against his face, trapped by the mask. His limbs have been reduced to points of agony and shaking muscles.
For a moment, it had almost seemed like he might make it. The Yu Yan had him and their sights, but none of them seemed all that eager to fire on him. He imagines that it has something to do with the fact of his single-handedly storming the Pouhai Stronghold, with no backup and no bending.
But the Yu Yan archers aren’t benders, and even with the dao still at his side, he’d have to reach them, first.
It’s the captain—the troupe leader, or whatever he’s called—that fires the first arrow. His gaze never once leaves Zuko as he pulls his bow from his back and draws an arrow from his quiver. Zuko can only stand there, sore and exhausted and legs tense. He can only stand there and watch a man prepare to strike him down, the arrowhead gleaming in the dappled sunlight.
He tries to dodge the arrow. He really does, even as he has to grit his teeth against his tight muscles and sore joints. He manages to lunge to the side, enough that the head archer’s arrow goes streaking past by a hairsbreadth.
Unfortunately, Zuko forgot about the other fourteen Yu Yan. It’s a stupid mistake, and a clever tactic, and his inattention gets him two arrows to his shoulders and another two to his thighs, disabling him. If there was any chance of him fighting his way out of this mess, it’s gone now. He’ll be lucky not to bleed out before they kill him. Or take him to Zhao.
The Yu Yan captain watches it all happen dispassionately, his face never once changing from that blank, heavy-lidded look. Zuko wonders what the man would do if he knew who his team had just shot down.
He falls.
(The masked man takes five arrows before he falls. Impressive, given that he does not cry out. Just harsh breathing and soft stutters of breath every time another arrow sinks in.
Zhao had been blustering last night, furious at the nerve of this man, stealing the Avatar from under the nose of an entire unit of imperial soldiers and Yu Yan. He'd sent out the entire legion of archers at sunrise with explicit orders to capture the man and retake the Avatar.
They couldn’t have gotten far, Zhao had insisted. They’d all seen the arrow sink home, before the Avatar had kicked up a torrent of dust and the two of them had disappeared.
Until that moment, Akaashi hadn’t been sure the man in the blue mask even was a man, and not some spirit. It’s superstitious of him, but though the Fire Lord’s army holds no official stance on the nature (or the existence) of spirits, Akaashi is from the outer isles of the Fire Nation, where kitsunebi are just as common as firebirds. It wouldn’t have been impossible, or improbable even, for a spirit to mount an attack against them in order to free the Avatar.
But the masked man is just that, a man, because everyone knows that the spirits don’t bleed. And the Avatar isn't here. There's nothing here to mark its presence save scraps of rope, and Zhao doesn't have trackers.
Zhao had thought the man a mercenary, hired to steal the Avatar for some other Admiral or General. But this fool of a man actually went and let it go.
Akaashi should call off the rest of his troop, before they kill the poor bastard.
... The poor, sneaky bastard, who somehow managed to infiltrate a renown Fire Nation stronghold and run off with the Avatar with nothing to show for it but a single shoulder wound.
Zhao might not have seen it, but Akaashi had. Watching is half his job; it was no trouble to mark the masked man as he tore through reserve forces like a komodo rhino through a flock of turtle ducks, waiting for a clear shot. Those had been Imperial Firebending forms.
This man, whoever he is, is a traitor.
And so Akaashi says nothing.
But then, between the sixth arrow and the fifteenth, their masked traitor disappears.)
Good fight, says the Blue Spirit. Would that you had a few more years and you might've stood a chance.
Zuko trips over his own feet, and only just catches himself before his face smacks into the ground. Warily, he pushes himself upright.
It’s bright like the summer sun, but it’s quiet and the Yu Yan are frozen. Not just unmoving, but literally caught like photographs or paintings, arrows hanging in midair and chests still.
"Wha—" Zuko breathes, and then he stops because he can breathe. There is no pressure on his ribs, no pain in his shoulders, no sore muscles, no arrowheads scraping against muscle and bone.
You're but minutes from death, The Blue Spirit says jovially, the tone a stark contrast to the mask's snarling visage. Agni bid me see you safe.
Zuko slowly pulls his own mask from his face. If he's going to face the Great Spirit whose name he stole, he'll do it with his own face bared.
Uncle had warned him, time and again, that Spirits weren't in the world to be trifled with. Uncle had said that once, the spirits were revered and every noble worth their salt knew how to deal with them. That the spirits—Great or otherwise—all deserved respect and deference. That Zuko should treat every spirit as he would a revered stranger, because one could never know what the last human in contact with that spirit had done.
The spirits were wise, and brave and smart, just like humans were. But spirits were also more. Spirits were the world; they had been there before people and they would be there after. Spirits were like humans, in a way, Uncle had told him. But they couldn’t be treated like humans. Transgressions were severe. And there was nothing more forbidden than taking a spirit’s name. A name was a spirit's sense of self, and messing with one could change what a spirit was.
The Fire Lord had always dismissed these warnings as the foolish and outdated beliefs of a grieving old man, and Azula had taken to mocking Uncle behind his back.
Zuko had listened to Uncle, but never really believed. He regrets that, now.
There are… a lot of things he regrets.
"Why would Agni want to save a traitor?" He asks, making the words as light and nonaggressive as he can.
The Blue Spirit—nearly a foot taller than him with broad shoulders and long legs, wearing a gi the same shimmering color of Zuko’s, and wearing it like Lord wears battle robes, standing casual and confidant in the way of the truly powerful—waves a dismissive hand.
Agni's favor is not touched by the Fire Lord, little flame, for They care little for mortal affairs.
There's not much to say to that, in the end. Zuko lets his head fall back and casts his gaze upward, watching the meager sunlight cast dappled patterned across the frozen Yu Yan.
“How—how are you going to save me? The Yu Yan aren’t going to just walk away. And I’m already bleeding pretty badly; there’s no other settlement besides the Pohuai Stronghold for at least one ri.”
He can’t see the Blue Spirit’s eyes—he’s not even sure the spirit has eyes, honestly—but either way, something about its attention sharpens. It prowls closer, stalking forward on long legs until Zuko has to rear his head back to hold its gaze, and Zuko can all but feel its power, charging the air like the thickening of air before a lightning strike. His shoulders draw up and he has to stop himself from flinching away. The Blue Spirit was already taller than him, but now it looms.
Oh ho, little spitfire, little Name-Stealer. Agni bid you safe. Not alive.
Oh.
... Oh.
Zuko clenches his teeth and blinks, hating the way that his vision has started to blur. Though the Yu Yan are as unbreathing statues, the sun is still bright and fiery in the sky, casting fractured light and shadow through the foliage. The sun is said to represent Agni’s light and strength. Even here—wherever ‘here’ is, though Zuko is starting to suspect it might be the Spirit World—Zuko can feel the blazing heat of it. He watches the sun burn and knows that Agni gazes down with a distant, uncaring eye.
It shouldn't come as a surprise.
Agni may be the Lord of the Sun and Fire, but the Fire Nation has long since fallen out of Their favor, if it ever held a place there to begin with. Zuko is an exile and a failure, and he stole the mantle of a Great Named Spirit to kidnap the Spirit of the Bridge-Between-Worlds twice over.
He’s not going to cry; that Agni would see him dead, that even a Great Spirit's favor does not grant him his life—honestly, he shouldn’t even be surprised.
I am going to die here. Alone. And a failure.
He’s never going home. He will die the way Azula always told him he would; Uselessly.
Zuko doesn’t cry—he promised himself he would never cry again, on that Night when his world fell to pieces for the first time—but he nearly twists his ankle trying to scramble backwards, because the Blue Spirit changes again, no longer looming but abruptly closer, right in front of him—
Oh, little flame. Agni does not seek your End. They have a Task for you.
“I don’t understand,” Zuko grits out, heart still hammering away in his chest. “You just said that safe doesn’t mean alive.”
It is true that Death is the price for your thievery, but Dead does not mean the End, The Blue Spirit wags one finger right in Zuko’s face, and he almost goes cross-eyed trying to follow it.
“I still don’t understand,” Zuko replies.
The living often do not. The Blue Spirit shrugs in an almost exaggerated manner, a movement that sweeps along their entire body. I can only endeavor to clarify the matter.
The Blue Spirit hums with an air of consideration, propping its chin up on one palm, the elbow of that arm cupped in its other hand. Zuko swallows around a choked breath; his mother used to look at him that way, head tilted and eyes fond.
“If I’m not going to die,” Zuko asks, “Then what’s going to happen to me?”
Oh, you will die. The Blue Spirit corrects, with a faint shake of its head. Any lingering nostalgia that Zuko might’ve felt evaporates into annoyance. It’s like one of Uncle’s frosted riddles.
“That doesn’t make any sense!” Zuko throws his hands up in exasperation. “Will you stop talking in circles?!”
And then he claps his hand over his mouth in mortification.
If he wasn’t going to die before, now he is. Here lies the banished Prince Zuko, struck down for mouthing off to a Great Spirit like an idiot.
But the Blue Spirit doesn’t lash out. Its hands drop back down to its side, and through the dense foliage, Zuko swears that for a moment, the sunlight grows stronger.
Oh ho! The Blue Spirit plants its hands on its hips and leans forward. There is that fire! Be sure not to lose that, little one. You’ll surely need it in the coming days.
Zuko sighs explosively and drags his hands over his face. He has to stifle a yelp of surprise when he drops his hands, because all he can see is the smooth curve of bright, white fangs spanning upwards.
The Blue Spirit tilts its head back, far enough that it no longer eclipses the entirety of Zuko’s vision, and then it lifts one hand—broad palms and thickened with sword calluses, not to dissimilar from his own—to drag a finger across Zuko’s face.
No, not his face. Across the dead flesh of his scar.
You have remade me, little one. That which is called the Blue Spirit now echoes across time with your actions. And so you will be remade as well.
The tale of the Blue Spirit is an old one. Zuko doesn’t remember all of it, but he knows that there are plays at the Capitol all the time. One of Agni’s spirits, but not a fire spirit. Not an elemental spirit at all, actually. A righteous spirit of both retribution and reconciliation, often righting wrongs in Agni’s name.
The Blue Spirit, Zuko thinks, was never a warrior. And most definitely not a swordsman. The thought is weighty, is important and Zuko’s gaze jumps back to the unmistakable sword calluses, on the wide hand resting just inches from his face.
The Blue Spirit drops its hand, and then pivots on one foot, as though to walk away.
Wait, Zuko wants to call out. He wants to know what that means, that he will be remade. But his throat is tight and his breath is thin, and he cannot move. His mind is racing with half-formed thoughts, an epiphany portending just out of reach, and he cannot speak.
The Blue Spirit does not leave, though. It hums and twirls again, back to face Zuko. It’s a smooth movement, graceful and effortless. Zuko can only watch as the Blue Spirit cocks its head, speculative though unseeing. He hopes that he won't be found lacking, but he doesn't even know what the spirit is looking for. And while Zuko is many things, he has never once been pegged as impressive. The Blue Spirit tilts its head in the other direction and then turns its back to Zuko.
Zuko opens his mouth, to—what, question the spirit again, as though he's not already on the cusp of being punished for name-stealing?—but before he can do, or say, anything, the Blue Spirit turns around again, sharply. Quickly. Zuko takes a half-step back.
You will die, but Trickster Agni’s children know that death is not the End. Your jest has hooked Agni’s gaze, and They would have you play it out ‘til its end. It says, the words loud and echoing in the still forest. It's not an ultimatum or an offer; it's a proclamation, inescapable.
Zuko can only watch, silenced and mesmerized as the Blue Spirit turns and turns again. Slowly, he realizes that the spirit is... spinning. Or shaking. There is rapid movement for all that the spirit's feet remain firmly planted on the ground, a vibrato that turns its gi from a vast night sky to the churning of the sea, blue and black ripples widening and dark waves shuddering apart. He wants to look away, but his muscles are all but locked in place. And so he sees how, with each shudder, the Blue Spirit starts to… unravel, like threads frayed and coming undone, wisping and fluttering away into nothing.
Like an ink painting dipped in water, flowing and then gone. And yet, even as it disappears, it continues to speak.
You wish to don the mask? Very well! Now it is our True Face; Prince Zuko—Son of Fire Lord Ozai and Fire Lady Ursa, hunter of Avatars and Banished Heir—is no more, like ashes scattered to the wind from a pyre.
Now, there is only the mask and the dao, and we will rebuild each other from the dust.
By now, there is barely a face left, just curved fangs and mischievous narrowed eyes, smudged and faint like aged manuscripts.
Take luck and take care, little Name-Stealer.