Chapter Text
He knew he had a nephew. The people who had brought him back to his room had talked about him. And Mushi didn’t question why he only had fractured slivers of memories about him, sensations, the sound of a voice, the feeling of a washcloth in his hand dabbing at the metallic-scented fluid seeping from a burn.
He didn’t remember the boy’s name, and something at the back of his mind told him this should bother him. It didn’t. And later, when the boy, Zuko, Zuko was his name tried to tell him his own name was something else, he figured maybe that was normal. Maybe the names of people close to them were something everyone forgot.
And love him the boy did. It was plain in every spoonful of porridge Zuko held to his mouth, every sad, frightened look, and Mushi had no idea what he had ever done to deserve such care. Such a nice boy.
And then Zuko was crying on the floor, sobbing like a broken thing close enough to touch, and Mushi knew there was something he should be doing to fix this, to make him feel better. Such a shame he didn’t remember what.