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“Bye, Aang! Bye, Zuko!” Katara shouts as everybody—even Toph, who’s said a million times that she’s sick of stupid Fire Nation towns where all the buildings are made of stupid wood—leaves to go have fun.
Zuko’s hand is still on Aang’s shoulder. Aang knows from experience that Zuko is really good at stopping him from running away by now. He sighs.
“Sooo,” Aang says, “any chance your idea is teaching me how to make fireworks pop out of my fingers?” He demonstrates by spreading his hands and making little pow pow pow noises, just in case that might end up being the deciding factor in his argument.
He knows the answer is going to be No, because that’s Zuko’s favorite word.
“No,” Zuko says, which isn’t a surprise. But then he says, “We’re taking a break from firebending,” which is a bigger surprise than anything he’s said since Hello, Zuko here.
“What? Really?” Aang turns around and sees Zuko smiling. Zuko. Smiling. It’s a small one, but still. Baby steps.
“Yeah. How’d you like to see my favorite place on Ember Island?”
They ready their disguises.
Aang tries, anyway, grabbing the pointy hat with the stripe that quietly reassures him his arrow is still there underneath when he catches his reflection in shiny surfaces. Zuko stops him with a hand on his arm.
“You’ll want something tighter,” he explains. “Something that won’t fall off as easily.”
Over his own face, he wraps a thin maroon scarf. His hands deftly pull it tight across his forehead and down around his jaw. He finds a second one and wraps a section of his left arm.
“Why are you doing that?” Aang asks. He didn’t think Zuko had a particularly recognizable bicep, but being frozen for a century means Aang is constantly discovering new and novel things about the world as it is now. Maybe the Fire Nation royal family all share a birthmark he never noticed, or expectations of modesty have shifted but Zuko never bothered covering up his scandalous elbows in front of his friends, or—
“To make it look like I have other injuries. Hiding my scar doesn’t help if it’s obvious that’s the only thing I’m hiding.”
“Ooh! Should I do that too? I could make it look like I have a huge head wound, and then I’ll wrap up my feet! I could probably make a crutch out of my staff, and I’m sure Sokka wouldn’t mind if I borrowed his club for another one—”
“We’re trying to avoid drawing attention to ourselves.” Zuko sighs. He pinches the bridge of his nose like he does when he’s trying not to start yelling. “At least I look old enough to enlist. You look like you should be in school making noodle art.”
“I did that once,” Aang says, thinking back fondly on the realism of his portrait of the Fire Lord. “Fire Nation school is boring. How do you guys all stand it?”
“When in the—?” Zuko shakes his head. “Sometimes I wonder how you guys ever actually stayed a step ahead of me. You know, uh,” he cringes slightly, “back then.”
“I remember!” Aang says brightly. “And it never felt like we were ahead of you for long, if that makes you feel better. You were pretty scary.”
Zuko snorts.
“So were you.”
“Oh.”
Aang remembers, for the first time in a while—for the first time in too long—the fear in Zuko’s eyes during that first escape. Zuko was the first person whose terror at the sight of the Avatar state Aang ever watched unfold on their face. It wasn’t fun.
That guilt was heavy when Zuko was a threat. But now that he’s a friend, it’s—
“Hey,” Zuko interrupts the thought. “How about this?”
He rifles through a drawer in the main room on the first floor—the sitting room? The parlor? That’s a thing fancy rich people have, right?—and pulls out something floppy and red that looks like somebody cut a kuai ball in half.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a cap,” Zuko grouses at Aang’s tone. “For keeping your hair dry when you go swimming.”
“But I don’t have hair.”
“And we’re not going swimming! Just put it on.”
He puts on the cap.
“Great!” Aang says, gesturing at the two of them: himself, in the cap, loose pants, and a tunic that’s short enough he suspects it belonged to Zuko circa age nine; Zuko, in the same outfit he’s worn since the Western Air Temple, because he categorically refuses to put on any of the clothes in the beach house that fit him, plus the silk bandages of a veteran with an ironclad dedication to fashion.
“Alright, let’s go.”
Zuko doesn’t lead him towards town, which Aang appreciates. Their disguises are impeccable, but not so much that the rest of their friends wouldn’t recognize them. He’s not eager to find out how Katara would react to the two most wanted enemies of the Fire Nation sneaking out to go have fun.
Even though Aang hasn’t been allowed to have fun in weeks.
“For the record,” Zuko says casually as they climb up a hill toward the eastern side of the island, “I never actually went to school. My sister did, though.”
“Why not?” Aang stops to brush prickly burrs out of his sleeve and accidentally gets one caught in the skin of his thumb. He almost pushes himself over the next bush with a small air blast, but then catches the distant-but-not-distant-enough sound of hikers on the nearby trail.
How anyone walks anywhere without airbending is a mystery. It stinks. He takes another step and finds his pants completely caught in the same bush.
Zuko turns to answer, but pauses when he sees Aang struggling. He sighs again and points. Down the hill runs a narrow path, which Zuko followed between the bushes instead of through them. The ribbon of bare earth is deep but thin, probably worn into the hillside by years of rainfall. It’s high summer, brambles overgrown—easy to miss if you don’t know the way.
Aang suddenly remembers that Zuko hasn’t come here in years. Something as small as that path around the prickly bushes stuck with him, pieces of a happier time.
Zuko pulls a burr off Aang’s shoulder, then flicks it at his face. Without thinking, Aang blows a rapid puff of fire from his mouth. The spines burn away, but the body of the burr still strikes him on the nose.
“Good reflexes,” Zuko nods. Aang beams at him. “You have soot on your nose.”
Aang rubs at his own face as they keep walking.
“How come you never went to school?” Aang asks again. He dodges a thin tree branch that swings back towards his head as Zuko lets it go.
“I had tutors.” He shrugs. “I barely left the palace as a kid.”
“And Azula?”
“She went to the Royal Fire Academy for Girls,” he says. Aang can’t see his face, what with the fact that Zuko is walking ahead of him and all, but he can hear the eye-roll. “My father said it was because she was too advanced for her tutors.”
“Let me guess,” Aang says, trying for levity, “she scared all of them off?”
“Yeah,” Zuko replies. “Last I heard, nobody’s seen our mathematics tutor in years. But if you light a candle in the royal instruction rooms, late at night, you can still hear him reciting equations.”
“Um.” Aang gulps.
Zuko turns around, right eye wide and a pink tinge to his cheek.
“That was,” he coughs. “I was joking.”
“Oh,” Aang breathes a heavy sigh of relief.
“Sorry.”
“No, no.” He holds up his palms reassuringly. First a smile, and now a joke? Zuko must be having a great day. “It was fine! But, um, in the future, maybe fewer jokes about your sister murdering her math teacher? Just a thought.”
“…Okay, I see your point.”
“But seriously,” Aang continues, “great job! I’m sure you’ll get the hang of this joke thing soon. Maybe you could ask Sokka for pointers? He’s sort of the comedy guy around here.”
“I noticed,” Zuko says dryly.
Aang pauses, processing. Was that…?
Laughter bubbles out of him like a bird taking flight. It takes over his whole body until he’s doubled over, braced against a tree.
“What?” Zuko demands. “That one wasn’t even a joke! If anything, it was an insult. Aren’t you supposed to be above that stuff, Mister Peace and Harmony?”
Aang wants to respond, but he can’t stop laughing long enough to form words. It’s just funny, how far they’ve all come—Crown Prince Zuko, banished heir to the throne of the Fire Nation, son of Fire Lord Ozai, master of fire and the dual dao, secret identity of the Blue Spirit… grousing sarcastically about the quality of Sokka’s jokes.
“S-sorry, Sifu Hotman,” Aang hiccups. He wipes at his eye. “Whew. I haven’t laughed that hard in days! You’re pretty funny, Zuko.”
“Thanks, I guess,” he grunts, still clearly confused. “Come on, it’s on the other side of the hill.”
They walk in silence for a few more minutes. Aang is getting better at staying silent. He used to hate doing that when he wasn’t meditating, but being around Zuko has made it clear how silence can be its own kind of communication. Not just with listening, either, since Zuko isn’t always the best listener, but in the way he never says anything without purpose.
Except for when he’s angry, of course.
Aang has been trying to figure out where that comes from. Not the anger—he knows a lot about that, when it comes to Zuko. The quiet. The way he lets a nod suffice when it can, the way he sometimes pauses for so long when he talks that one of the group will think he’s finished and change the subject, the way Aang usually can’t even hear him breathing.
“We’re here,” Zuko says, breaking Aang’s thoughtful silence. That’s funny, too. It’s usually the other way around.
Aang whips his head to the left, then the right. All he sees, besides the sharp drop-off in front of them, is trees, a few bushes, and trees. For some reason, he was expecting… more.
“Oh,” he says. “It’s, uh. Nice?”
Zuko shakes his head.
“Follow me,” he says, and then steps backwards over the edge of the cliff.
Aang’s jaw drops.
“Zuko!” He runs to the cliff and looks over the ledge. There’s nothing but sheer rock falling away and the distant tops of trees. Aang’s stomach swoops clean out of his body.
Oh, no. Oh no, no, no, this is very, very bad. His firebending teacher just fell off a cliff in the middle of the nation that wants him burnt to a crisp and they weren’t even supposed to leave the house and Katara just stopped wanting Zuko dead, how is he going to explain this—
“Down here,” comes a muffled voice. Aang spies an arm with a maroon scarf wrapped around it waving at him from under a narrow ledge about ten feet down.
“Phew,” Aang breathes, heart slowing to a pace that isn’t threatening to burst right out of his ribcage. “Coming!”
He hops over the edge and, with only a little airbending, honest, launches himself into the narrow opening in the side of the hill.
“Took you long enough,” Zuko comments. The space inside the hill opens up much wider just past the hole they came in through, so there’s room for him and Aang to stand up fully. Zuko has pulled the scarf off his head and looped it loosely around his neck.
“Is this it?” Aang asks.
The view from inside the hill, looking out, is peaceful. The trees roll away to the far side of the island, where he can see a strip of white sand beach before the ocean takes over. Hazy in the horizon are the volcanic peaks of the next island in the archipelago. Aang can imagine standing here for a while, a flock of birds wheeling by every now and then, the sound of the wind like a flute in the mouth of the cave.
“Not quite.” Zuko points behind him. A tunnel disappears into its own darkness, sloping down into the hill. “It’s safe, I promise.”
“I’m not scared,” Aang huffs. Before Zuko can tease him, he jumps down the hole like it’s a delivery chute in Omashu—or an actual slide. Either one.
He hears Zuko give a startled, “Hey!” and then jump down the hole behind him.
“This is pretty fun!” Aang shouts. “How far down does it— Ah!”
The stone under Aang disappears. He tumbles, falling through empty space for a handful of seconds. Aang blows a long stream of air as a buffer. From the corner of his eye, he catches sight of a dark red, pale, and black blur that must be Zuko. Aang alights on the ground and Zuko sticks the landing.
“This is it,” Zuko says. “I mean,” he rubs the back of his neck, “I know it’s not much, but…”
Aang looks around. His eyes widen and his breath leaves him.
They’re in a cavern underneath the hill, lit by a half-dozen tunnels of varying sizes and depths like the one they came in through, all spilling pools of sunlight. The quiet sound of rushing water fills the space. A thin waterfall empties into a pond so clear Aang can see to the bottom of it. Tiny praying mantis-shrimp dart around in the water, flashing like gemstones in the uneven light. Around the edges of the cavern, where the rock casts deep shadows, red-and-purple spots glow in the dark. Aang steps closer and sees that they’re clusters of mushrooms.
“I thought,” Zuko continues awkwardly, “since it’s not really safe for you to bend where someone could see, you could— I mean, there’s water and… and rocks here, and I guess there’s air, obviously, and I know from experience this place is pretty much impossible to find if you’re not looking for it, so—”
“It’s amazing, Zuko! How did you know it was here?”
Zuko shrugs.
“I found it when I was a kid. One of the tunnels up there,” he points to his left, where a much smaller hole leads away into darkness, “has an entrance that’s not hard to reach if you climb a tree. I’m too big to fit through it now, though.”
“So you just crawled into a random hole?” He turns back to Zuko and raises his eyebrows.
Aang would be a hypocrite if he judged anyone for going on ill-advised exploring expeditions when they were a kid—for a second, he’s a hundred years removed from this moment and climbing a mountain with Kuzon to see if the rumors about the dragon who likes to kidnap cats are true—but this is Zuko. There’s always more to it with Zuko.
“I was trying to get away from my sister.” He sits on a rock near the pool, watching quick, colorful flashes of life go about their business. “I started coming back here because it was the only place on the island I could go that she didn’t know about. Or my father, but he wasn’t usually—” Zuko trails off.
Aang waits, but Zuko seems to be done talking for now.
“Back at the Air Temple,” Aang says, “we didn’t have siblings. All the young monks I grew up with were sort of like brothers and sisters, but also not. And I traveled all over the world as soon as I was old enough. Some of my friends had siblings, but I didn’t get to know them very well.”
“You’re not missing much,” Zuko grunts.
“See, that’s where I think you’re wrong,” Aang says. He backpedals, “I don’t mean you’re wrong about your sister. But when I woke up after I was in that iceberg, and I started traveling with Katara and Sokka, I was surprised. I didn’t understand how one minute they could be arguing like I’d never seen two people argue before, and the next they’d risk their lives to save each other. I don’t know if I’ve ever loved somebody like that.”
“What are you talking about?” Zuko’s right eye is wide. “You love them, and Toph, and—and you love people you’ve never met enough to try and salvage the country that killed your people! I can’t imagine anyone in the world who could make you think they have more love in their life than you.”
“I didn’t say more,” Aang corrects, and he thinks he’s understanding something new about Zuko. “Just different. I love all my friends, and I love my people—not loved, it isn’t gone even though they are—” Zuko makes a quiet noise at that and looks away, but Aang knows he’s still listening, “—but I don’t think anybody makes me as angry as those two make each other sometimes. And that anger doesn’t mean they love each other any less. I think it means they love each other more. They get angry because it matters.”
Zuko’s hair falls over his face. The only sound in the cavern is the trickle of water and the distant wind in the trees.
“I wasn’t running from Azula because I was afraid, the first time,” he says at last. “We were playing a game. I don’t remember why I thought the tunnel was a good idea, but when I ended up in here I couldn’t find my way out. I shouted myself hoarse, hoping she’d find me. She didn’t, and when I finally got back,” Zuko huffs a laugh, “she was so mad about losing, she said we could only play hide-and-explode for the rest of our vacation. I hated that game.”
“Wait,” Aang shakes his head, “they have hide-and-seek and hide-and-explode in the Fire Nation? Why do you need two games about hiding?”
Zuko stares at him.
“Because one has explosions, and one doesn’t.”
“Right, of course.” Aang throws his hands in the air. “My mistake.”
Zuko shakes his head at Aang’s foolishness, but his heart clearly isn’t in making fun of him.
“It’s weird,” Aang adds, because he might be getting better at not talking but that doesn’t mean he’s mastered it quite yet, it’s like earthbending in that way, “thinking of Azula as a kid, playing games. Not trying to kill anybody.”
“Yeah,” Zuko agrees. He gives a long exhale. “Yeah. I think… When I was back for a while, she—” His brow scrunches up like he’s getting a headache.
“What?”
“Never mind.” Zuko waves Aang’s question away. “Are you ready to go back?”
“I guess,” Aang sighs. He looks at Zuko’s tense shoulders and gets an idea. “Wait! Zuko! I think there’s something in the water!”
“What?” Zuko stands up and peers into the clear pool. “You mean the praying mantis-shrimp? I don’t see any— Bleugh!”
He sputters as a thin whip of water splashes him right in the face. He glares at Aang with his shaggy hair plastered to his face, scowling like a wet pygmy puma.
“You should see your face, Sifu— Aah!”
While Aang is busy laughing, Zuko arcs a hard chop into the water and splashes Aang right back. Aang has to admire his aim. He’d make a decent waterbender. It’s too bad Aang doesn’t have any hair to appreciate it, because the cap stays firmly on his head.
The game is on.
“No fair!” Zuko shouts when Aang diverts another splash mid-stream and sends it right back at Zuko. “Only one of us can waterbend!”
“Only one of us can airbend, too!” Aang laughs, jumping right over Zuko’s head.
Zuko dodges a gentle water whip, then another. Aang is starting to worry he won’t get another drop of water on the guy when Zuko’s heel catches on a rock and, with a furious bellow and an enormous sploosh, he falls backwards into the pond.
“I think I won,” Aang says, landing at the edge of the pool with a toothy grin. “It’s time for an honorable surrender, your highness.”
Zuko surfaces, spitting out a long stream of water that doesn’t quite hit Aang in the face but comes very close. He glares for a moment, then reaches out a hand.
“A Water Tribe gesture, huh?” Aang observes, reaching back to clasp Zuko’s arm. “Very appropriate— Woah!”
Zuko grips Aang’s forearm and drags him bodily into the pool.
“Honor,” Zuko says when he stops shoving Aang’s head under the surface and lets him come up for a breath, “is overrated.”
After they both climb out of the water, Aang dries himself with a swirling sphere of air. He looks over at Zuko and stops resisting the urge to crack up.
“What,” Zuko says flatly.
“N-nothing,” Aang giggles. “Your hair looks great, by the way.”
Zuko reaches for his own scalp. His fingers brush his forehead, then go up, up… up to where the ends of his hair prickle like a boarcupine, blown completely vertical.
“If I weren’t wanted for treason,” Zuko growls, “I’d be trying to capture you right now.”
“A little treason’s never stopped you before,” Aang teases. He sees the light glint in Zuko’s eyes.
“Good point,” he says, and lunges.
Aang airbends his way out of the cavern, but once they’re both above ground he can’t do any more than that. The laughter he can’t hold back at Zuko’s exaggerated shouting behind him as he gives chase takes up most of the space in his lungs. By the time they reach the beach house, they’re both out of breath.
Aang can’t remember the last time he was out of breath. Running without airbending stinks so, so bad.
“Just,” he gasps, “one second—ha—your royal fieryness.”
“You can’t—huh—escape that easily, Avatar,” Zuko growls, though the dramatic effect is dampened somewhat by his hair and the fact that he’s lying flat on his back in the courtyard. “I will… Ugh, what kind of stupid stuff did I even say back then?”
“I mostly remember you yelling,” Aang says.
“Me too.”
They stay quiet for a while, just breathing. Badgerfrogs croak and the ocean slaps against the sand.
“You know, Zuko,” Aang says, “it seems like I make you pretty angry sometimes.”
“What do you mean?” Zuko sits up. He looks worried. “I’m not going to hurt you, I—”
“No, no, that’s not what I’m trying to say. I trust you.”
“Okay.” He stares suspiciously. “So what were you trying to say?”
“Nothing.” Aang shrugs. He might be wrong, anyway.
Most brothers have a whole lifetime to know that’s what they are. Probably better to wait and see. Aang is getting good at that, these days.
“Hi, Aang! Hi Zuko!” Katara’s voice announces the arrival of their friends, none too soon. “We’re back. We got some stuff for dinner. The sea-slug is a little on the ripe side but I think that’ll be fine as long as I— Uh. What happened to your hair?”
“Ask Aang. He started it!”