Southern Star

Chapter Six: From All Your Hiding Out

Zuko had never been much of a deep sleeper. When he'd been really little, he'd suffered from night terrors and lucid dreams that he avoided talking about around his father and sister. Then, it had been painful to sleep after the failed Agni Kai against his father, and by the time his wound had fully settled into scar tissue, he had developed unhealthy sleeping habits that never allowed him to find a way to get the sleep he needed. Of course, he hadn't slept on a bed as comfortable as the one in his room in years, but by the time he had access to that luxury again he was suffering from almost constant nightmares.

All of this is to say that as soon as he heard footsteps, he came awake.

They were coming from outside of his door, running away. Zuko, still bleary and shaking from the latest round of mental torture, pursued them as quickly as he could get out of bed. He just caught sight of someone disappearing around the corner, but wasn't able to make out what they looked like.

He was about to run after them, but then he paused. In front of him on the floor was a rolled-up letter, not dissimilar from the ones Song Lee sent him.

Had sent him.

He picked it up and opened it, reading out loud: "You need to know the story of your great-grandfather's demise. It will reveal your own destiny."

Zuko dropped the letter from his line of vision and stared out over the hallway. It was drafty, and the curtains in front of the windows waved as if there were people dancing behind them. In the back of his mind, he could remember Azula's small voice echoing as she called out numbers for a nonsense child's game they had once played.

All of the talk of destiny in the letter sounded a lot like something his Uncle would tell him. What about Sozin's death did he not know?

Song Lee coughed her lungs out the moment she reached shore. She was exhausted. Her aunt had sent her to the island her parents had once lived on, too small to have a name despite its renowned seasonal fire-trees. At first, Song Lee hadn't wanted to go, but Aunt Yan Song had insisted, and to be honest, she was desperate to find anything her father may have left her.

Aunt Yan Song had maintained a stranglehold on the details, though, telling Song Lee only that there was a piece of parchment hidden somewhere in her mother's home.

It didn't matter. It took about three days to sail from Hira'a to the island of her parents when sailing alone, or two with a better boat and an experienced crew. It had taken Song Lee five days, and she didn't get any sleep for any of it, even though she desperately wanted it. There were two reasons it had taken so long. She had to avoid Fire Nation patrol ships, first of all, and in the fog, it was really hard to tell which kind of ship was which, so Song Lee had just avoided everything on her little sailboat. The second reason was that, after the third day with no sleep, her focus had almost completely disappeared, so she had just drifted for a while.

It didn't matter. She was finally there, and that was something. She decided that as soon as she made it to her mother's house, she would sleep first, and then she would find whatever it was that her father had left her, and then she would figure out what to do with herself. She could go help the Avatar's friends... that was her plan. But she was so tired. Who could blame her if she retreated back into the loving arms of her aunt, the only family she had left?

She pushed her weariness and lack of direction out of her mind and set her focus on the task at hand.

In order to avoid getting caught, Song Lee had beached her sailboat near the docks she and her father had once tied their boats to, but not close enough to be seen from them. She used almost all of what was left of her strength to pull it further up onto the beach before giving up, relieved that it was high tide and that her boat wouldn't just wash away. She did find a big stone to tie it to, though.