Southern Star

單獨

Alone

The boy wandered aimlessly, the darkness around him complete in its presence. He felt changed but he knew neither why nor how. He couldn't see where he was going. He didn't care. He just kept moving, kept up his pace. His heart was blank, and his mind was untroubled.

"Where are you going?" asked the darkness. Its voice was plain, and it was empty of emotion and smooth as glass. Though not particularly deep, it reverberated through his bones. It had come from no direction and every direction at once.

He didn't reply, though he did stop walking. His mind remained blissfully blank, but his heart changed. A knot formed in his stomach.

Guilt.

"Where are you going?" asked the darkness again. Though he couldn't hear any emotion on it in particular, he couldn't help but imagine a kind of neutral curiosity in its undertone.

"Nowhere," he whispered. His voice echoed out and back a thousand times.

A light fell suddenly, one he hadn't seen before, a few meters in front of him. He stumbled back a few steps and looked up, but nothing had changed. The darkness was still absolute except for him and the light. He approached it, but he didn't touch it, his own hesitation keeping him from getting too close.

It was a star.

Another light fell. He stayed where he was. Another fell, and another, until stars were raining down through the darkness, surrounding him. The heavens were emptying. He took off running, adrenaline and an inexplicable terror settling into his core. The stars kept falling, a lot of them shattering on impact. He cut his bare feet on their shards.

"What are you running from?" asked the darkness, empty and curious.

Zuko woke up, then, the question still echoing in his mind, as loud as if someone had hit a gong right next to his head.

First, he focused on his breathing, the way he was almost hyperventilating. He swallowed the lump in his throat and kept breathing, trying to calm down. Then, he became aware of the sweat running rivers down his face, arms, and back, and the way that his blankets clung to his body. After that, he became aware of the room, the way it was rocking and the way the familiar yet foreign decor lined the walls.

He was on a Fire Nation ship, and he was on his way home. He was alone.

Again.

Zuko stood up and went to splash water on his face and torso. Most of the dream, or nightmare or whatever it had been, began fading from his mind as he did so, though that question remained heavy on his mind as he pulled clothes on. What was he running from? That's what he'd been asked. He didn't think he was running from anything. He was just running home.

Home...

He still couldn't believe it.

He walked up to the deck, which was mercifully deserted this late at night. Despite it being early summer, or late spring, the evening air was biting, and his still-damp face made that all the more prominent. He was reminded, very suddenly, of leaving the ship to meet Vice Admiral Hegu and his daughter for the first time, Iroh by his side.

Zuko couldn't stand to think of her name. He'd been avoiding thinking about her for weeks, the same way he'd avoided looking at her when she'd been restrained against the wall, blood running down her side..

The moon was full when he looked up, and it glowed yellow in the hazy sky. The last time it had been full had been when he'd scoured the roofs of the Lower Ring in Ba-Sing-Se, searching for hints of the Avatar's sky bison. A mere month had passed since then. In that time, so much had changed.

Then again, since the Avatar had returned, it felt like everything had changed.

Zuko made his way over to the edge of the deck, learning on the railing separating him from a fall into the ocean. He pushed Ba-Sing-Se out of his mind and focused on what he was going to do when he made it home. What was he going to do when he made it home? Azula had seemed so carefree, blissfully unworried, and Mai and Ty Lee didn't seem bothered at all. He could barely let himself imagine being home, sleeping in his own bed, sitting in his garden, watching the turtle ducks.

"Aren't you cold?" he heard from behind him. Mai.

Zuko looked at her—she was smiling—and then he looked back at the reflection of that yellow moon on the ocean. The wind combed through his hair. It felt nice, in all honesty, despite the cold. "I've got a lot on my mind," he told her. "It's been so long. Over three years since I was home."

He paused for a moment. He couldn't see the stars very well.

"I wonder what's changed," he said. "I wonder how I've changed."

Mai yawned, and he looked at her again, suddenly cowed. He found that he didn't want to tell her anything else. "I just asked if you were cold," she said. "I didn't ask for your whole life story."

Zuko bit back a sigh as he looked away. How could she be so unconcerned? Mai walked closer, hugging him from the side and angled his head to look at her again. "Stop worrying," she said. She was still smiling.

Mai drew even closer and pressed her mouth to his. Kissing her was nothing like when he had kissed Jin in Ba-Sing-Se. It was so much more. He had loved Mai when they were children, and he loved her now. Zuko was beyond grateful that she was there with him, even if she didn't think that he should worry.

When she pulled away, they smiled at each other, and then she left him where he was.

Zuko closed his eyes, letting the wind fill his ears. His mind was full of turmoil, despite Mai's assurances, and his heart was troubled. That knot in his stomach was back.

What are you running from?

He wasn't a boy anymore. He opened his eyes and stared out across the water. It had been the eleventh nightmare since he had left Ba-Sing-Se. They were almost home, and his exhaustion made him thoughtful.

Maybe he was running from everything.