(Zutara) Let Me Pretend; Your Soul is Winter Fire

Awakened

When Zuko wakes, he thinks he is the sun. He burns, but not with righteous influence, and does not radiate with holy, forgiving light. He blazes with pain, harsh and hot, shooting right through his body, flaming in his leg and across his ribs. His legs float, lost in the sky with nothing solid beneath him.

He wakes to red flowing across his vision and sees his home setting into the earth.

How long does a sun stay in the sky? Agni's radiance is eternal. Zuko is still shy his twenty fifth year, his rays weak, barely stretching beyond the Fire Nation. The Fire Lords of the past don't respect his light, and beyond the Caldera the other nations are icy to his warmth. He's tried to let his light spread to the darkest reaches, to the people lost in shadow and those who chose to live there, to free them from the black of their existence and give them peace and warmth. He's failed, and now he is cursed to rise and set across his home, watching it fall with him so he can rise upon its ashes.

"The inflammation in his leg is receding." The voice drifts through his waves of heat, a calm breeze, one he recognises from before his reign of the sky, when he lived a simple life of tutors and lessons, before he was swallowed into the sun.

"If I keep the cold treatments going it should continue to withdraw. His ribs are still setting, but it will be a few more treatments before he will be safe to move. I have to finish his leg first. Running from me undid most of yesterday's work."

"His mobility?" A hand strokes through his hair, parting it across his face so it doesn't matt with the sweat. It's gentle, but Zuko's so fevered by pain he feels every wrinkle and callous as if stones were falling down a hillside.

"With rehabilitation it should remain uncompromised. My skills are helpful, but he'll need regular massages and stretches. With luck his leg will not become stiff."

The other voice tries to be clinical, but her verbal callouses are not yet developed, and crack towards the end. She, for even he can tell it is a woman, sounds upset. Failure is too familiar a home in his heart for him not to be able to hear its neighbours when they come knocking. Who has she failed to sound so wretched?

"You have done so much already, my lady. Please, rest. I can keep him comfortable in the time you need to regain your stre-"

"Iroh." She's firm, but kind.

Terror spikes in Zuko. Iroh, she called him Iroh.

It's her. Azula. She knows where they are. She found them, found his Uncle. He didn't make it in time.

"His heart's racing." The soft exhaustion snaps into cold concentration. Hands plant themselves on his chest. He struggles, weak and laboured by whatever weight is trapping him to the ground. "Spirit's, how is he still so strong?"

Azula's found him. He has to get away. He has to take Uncle, find Katara, get them to find that stupid bison and get out of the city.

"Prince Zuko." The panic in Uncle's voice doubles his efforts.

He roars, but all he hears is a weak moan as he fights his way up onto his elbows. The force pressing on his shoulders moves around him, fingers finding a grip and trying to pull instead of push. He wrenches harder and feels a stabbing agony down his left side. Still, he struggles. Still, he kicks with a leg that refuses to work

Azula won't take them. He won't let her.

A hand plants itself right over his heart. Another cups the side of his neck. "Sleep. Please, Zuko." Something rests against his forehead. He starts to feel the words instead of hear them as they are whispered over and over against his fevered brow.