Reconstruction
Part 26 of the Dragon of the Yuyan
Read on AO3 | Series Masterpost
CONTENT WARNING: Offscreen Perceived Major Character Death; Brief Non-Explicit Suicidal Ideation
The silence in the wake of Zuko’s screams is deafening.
Iroh barely waits for Ozai (his brother, his brother the monster, he should have known something like this was going to happen, how could he not have known) to leave the arena before he hurries onto the field and drops to his knees beside his nephew. Zuko is unconscious, which can only be a blessing considering the absolute wreck Ozai has made of the child's face.
Oh Agni. Iroh just witnessed his brother strike down his own child.
His stomach turns, but he tamps down on it with the iron will that kept him hammering at the Walled City for six hundred days, and focuses on the task in front of him. He roars for medics, and two arrive immediately, bearing a stretcher. The next thing Iroh knows, he's being gently pushed out of the infirmary as the doctors and nurses scramble around the bed his nephew is laid out on. The doors are shut firmly, and all Iroh can do is hurry up and wait.
His stomach chooses that moment to announce its rebellion, and Iroh couldn't even care less that the porcelain urn he vomits into dates back to Sozin's coronation.
There are things he needs to do, things he should be doing, but he couldn't leave his post before the infirmary doors even if the Avatar themself were to suddenly appear and attempt to drag him away by his beard. Servants bring tea, bring a chair, but Iroh doesn't move from his spot in front of the infirmary doors. He won't, he can't, not until he knows Zuko's fate. One way or another.
Suddenly the doors open, and the Chief Doctor bows and salutes him with the Flame.
"Prince Iroh," he says, tone mild and impassive. This is not the first time the young Crown Prince has spent time in the infirmary, not the fifth, not even the tenth or fifteenth or twentieth. The infirmary staff are well-acquainted with Zuko, and he with them, and if Iroh actually sits down and thinks about it, he would go feral and burn this accursed palace to ashes.
"Take me to my nephew," Iroh commands, and the Chief Doctor obeys.
Zuko is tucked into the farthest bed in the ward, beside a large window that looks out upon the gardens. It's the bed that he always occupies during his stays in the infirmary, when he's injured or ill enough to spend the night. He's still unconscious, pale enough to nearly blend into the bleached white sheets of the bed and the bleached white bandages wrapped around nearly half his head. His breathing is shallow and weak, but steady. Iroh sits down on the stool placed beside the bed and takes his nephew's hand.
"Tell me," he commands.
Ozai is a Master Firebender. His control is nearly legendary. The burn is awful, almost but not quite down to the deepest layers of skin, and it will scar. Horrifically. But his eye is almost entirely untouched, and the cartilage of his ear will be shriveled but his hearing should be entirely unharmed. If he can make it through the next several days without infection or losing more body fluid than the doctors can replace, he will recover.
Physically.
Mentally, Iroh's unsure if his nephew will ever recover from this insult. He'd only wanted to be a good prince, a good leader to his people. He'd only wanted to protect his people from savage war leaders who only saw their value as battle fodder. He was impulsive, yes, and impolite, but he was only being a teenager. A child. Children are meant to be protected and nurtured and allowed to grow and make mistakes. Iroh had known basically since Zuko was born that Ozai would provide none of these things, so he did his best to provide them himself in the very little time he could spend with his nephew, but now...
Now, Ozai's brutality towards his son has gone too far.
The plan lays itself out in Iroh's mind like a battle strategy, a series of steps to victory:
First, contact his brothers in the Order. Piandao, specifically, and possibly Jeong-Jeong. Pakku, as a last resort. They will need somewhere safe to lay low while Zuko recovers, and to wait for him to finish growing up.
Second, clean out as much coin from his personal treasury as possible. Wherever they end up, they'll need it, and he wouldn't put it past Ozai to simply claim it, and possibly Zuko's as well, after they're gone.
Third, hire a vessel to take them to Shu Jing. Something small, or an about-to-be-junked warship if nothing else. If he finds something especially suitable, purchase it outright, and hire the former owner and crew on. Depending on Ozai's reaction to their departure, it may be safer to keep moving than to settle in one place.
Fourth, hire a doctor to oversee Zuko's recovery. Iroh is passable at field medicine, but his boy deserves more than the inexperienced fumbling of an old general.
Fifth, remove Zuko from the palace, from Caldera. They'll go to Shu Jing, and depending on both Ozai's reaction and Piandao's recommendations, they'll either stay there or leave for the colonies as soon as Zuko can stand more sustained travel.
His boy's hand, callused from swordplay, is cool in his own, and the fingernails are tinted slightly blue. Shock. This is easy enough for Iroh to treat himself, and he quickly grabs the pillows from the surrounding beds and stacks them at the foot of Zuko's. He carefully wraps Zuko's blanket around his feet like he's folding dumplings, and rests them gently on top of the stack of pillows.
He very, very gently runs his hand over the crown of Zuko's head. His phoenix plume has been cut, both as a symbol of his "shame" of forfeiting an Agni Kai, and to make treating the burn easier by enabling the doctors to shave away the burned hair and clip away any that might get caught in the wound.
"Stay strong, my nephew," he murmurs to the unconscious boy, and curls his hand around the dagger he'd given Zuko years ago. The boy shifts restlessly, and his hand tightens around it. "I will be back as soon as I can."
He doesn't sleep that night. He sends hawks, orders the withdrawal of as many funds from his treasury as he can, packs everything of his and Zuko's he can think of that he can carry, goes to the port and charters a fast-moving boat. His valet, a man who has been in his service for nearly thirty years, assists him without a word, silently pointing him towards the more hard-wearing clothing and least ostentatious-looking tea set. He makes sure to pack Zuko's dao swords. He also packs portraits of Seong-Min, Ursa, and Lu Ten, so that Zuko can see images of the people who had truly loved him.
He gets a response from Piandao as the sun rises. The swordmaster loves Zuko nearly as much as Iroh does, and demands that they take refuge in his castle for as long as it is safe to do so. It's the response Iroh has been waiting for, and he asks his valet to take the luggage down to the boat, handing the man a large purse of gold and thanking him for his years of loyal service. Ren bows to him solemnly, takes the two stuffed rucksacks in his own hands, and disappears. Iroh takes a deep breath, and walks with speed back to the infirmary.
The bed is empty.
For a moment, Iroh wonders if the entire last day and night have been just a nightmarish hallucination. The bed is empty, the linens smoothed and tucked with military precision. He closes his eyes, sees his nephew kneeling before Ozai against his eyelids, and opens them again.
The bed is empty.
"Prince Iroh," comes the impassive voice of the Chief Doctor behind him. Iroh doesn't normally like people coming up behind him, but he has more pressing matters to think about at the moment.
"Where is my nephew."
The bed is empty.
"Sir, Prince Zuko succumbed to an infection just after midnight. It was too quick, there was nothing we could do."
The bed is empty.
His nephew is dead.
Why does Agni still rise?
His nephew is dead by his own father's hand. And Iroh did nothing. He looked away.
Why do the spirits not strike him down where he stands? Where is the Avatar, to smite him for allowing such a bright flame to be snuffed out? Why does Agni still rise?
Iroh turns and walks out.
His feet, his body, work without his mind's control. He is back in his rooms, a portrait of a smiling boy in his hand. He is walking out of the palace, deaf to the questions of the palanquin bearers. He is boarding the boat he hired less than three hours ago.
Three hours ago, Zuko had already been dead for two hours.
Why does Agni still rise?
The boat pulls away from the dock. Iroh finds somewhere to sit, out of the way. He blinks, and they've docked at Shu Jing. Iroh heaves himself up, takes a step, and falls to the deck.
A voice sighs. "Ah, my friend. I'm so, so sorry."
"He killed my boy, 'Dao," Iroh gasps, as strong and gentle hands help him up and support him as he stumbles off the boat. "'Dao, my boy, he killed my boy. He killed my boy."
"I know, my friend, I know," Piandao soothes. "Fat, get the bags."
Iroh blinks again, and he's tucked into a bed. Piandao is seated by his bedside, scribbling furiously on a parchment with a charcoal stick. When he finishes writing, he sets the parchment and charcoal aside, and blinks when he looks at Iroh.
"I didn't expect to see you awake so soon, my friend," he says. "I talked to the captain of your little boat, he said you barely ate or drank anything the entire two days you were sailing. How do you feel?"
Iroh can't even begin to parse out how he feels right now. He doesn't even know why he's awake at all. Why does Agni still rise?
"Zuko..." He murmurs.
Piandao's eyes close. "Yes, Iroh," he says softly. "Zuko is dead."
+
Iroh doesn't leave his bed for weeks.
He eats when food is presented. He drinks when provided with water or tea. He sleeps when Agni's hateful brilliance gives way to Tui's cool glow, and stares at the ceiling when he can't. He wonders why the spirits have yet to let him cross over.
There are times when he wonders why he doesn't do it himself.
Piandao is there more often than he isn't. When he's not, Fat is. The times he's alone are few and far between.
He doesn't cry. He doesn't scream. He doesn't roar. A part of him, a tiny, miniscule part that is still the Dragon of the West, wants to do those things. But the Dragon of the West is dying. All that's left is the shell of Iroh, heartbroken and waiting for… something. An opportunity? But Piandao and Fat watch too closely.
He doesn't know who's coordinating the Order. He doesn't care. Beneath the razor-sharp fog is a well of pain too wide and deep to focus on anything more than existing. And some days, even that much is a challenge.
+
Eventually, the fog recedes, the well of pain slowly shrinks, until Iroh can feed himself, clean himself, perform his katas and take himself on long, rambling hikes through the Shu Jing countryside. The well will never disappear, and he will always be vulnerable to falling into it and drowning, but most days he can function passably. He cannot look at the portrait of his poor, smiling boy without sobbing desperately, but the same goes for the one of his Lu Ten, and he puts both portraits away and tries to live, for them.
The Dragon of the West is no more, and Iroh stands in his place, battered and beaten but still alive, and with a powerful desire to see his brother burn for his crimes. Alongside that desire is his enduring love for good tea, and a passion for sharing it.
He sits in Piandao's study, across the table from the swordmaster, a cup of tea warm in his hands. A good blend, one Iroh hasn't encountered before, and as Piandao fills him in on the weeks of Order business he's missed, an idea sparks.
He is an old man, and the last few years of sitting on councils and behind a desk and indulging his taste for the finer things has altered his appearance accordingly. In the correct attire, without his Fire-style topknot and with a merchant's pack on his back, he could be just another traveling tea seller, all but invisible to both Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom forces. Harmless.
He runs his idea past Piandao, and if he didn't know the swordmaster as well as he does, he'd think that the man supports him simply out of delight that Iroh is showing any interest and initiative at all. He agrees to be Iroh's financial backer, using a portion of his personal wealth as capital.
Four months after Zuko's death, Iroh boards a colony transport as Mushi of Shu Jing, traveling tea merchant. He carries only a change of clothes in the rough homespun favored by the lower classes, a basic traveler's tea set, a single simple dagger for self defense (more to lend credence to his cover than for any real need of it), supplies for traveling on foot, and the portraits of his late wife, sister-in-law, and sons.
Did I not say once, Seong-Min, that my greatest secret dream was to become a simple tea seller? He thinks, as the ship pulls into Yu Dao. It took losing everything, but here I am.
Iroh is much too old to be an apprentice, but he takes a job at a local tea shop, and uses the work as an opportunity to learn the side of the tea trade that he never got to really see as a Prince of the Fire Nation. The owner of the shop, a man even older than Iroh himself named Trai, is more than happy to have Iroh take over duties in the shop as he learns them. Three months after Iroh's arrival, Trai passes over to the spirit world peacefully in his sleep, leaving the shop and the flat above it and everything inside both to Iroh, since Trai has no family of his own. Iroh spends a month hiring and training tea-makers and waitstaff, then chooses the most talented brewer of the lot, and signs over the shop to her. Then he gathers the wages he'd earned over the last four months, a copy of the map of farms Trai had sourced his product from (the original is with Aiko--it wouldn't do to leave her a tea shop with no tea to sell), and sets out.
Over the next six months, he learns more about the cultivation and preparation of tea leaves than he ever thought possible. He makes friends with growers and merchants and buyers all over the Earth Kingdom. His own tea-brewing skill improves by leaps and bounds, and he's invited to brew for the richest and most influential families in the Earth Kingdom.
Including the House of Beifong.
It is almost a year and a half since Zuko's death. Iroh has been staying in the town of Gaoling for a couple of weeks, networking with a tea farmer in the nearby mountains. He receives an invitation stamped with a golden seal in the shape of a flying boar, and he would be an absolute fool to turn down such an opportunity.
Lao Beifong is everything Iroh has heard he is. The product of generations of Earth Kingdom wealth, the only difference Iroh can see between him and Ozai is the lack of overt cruelty and bloodlust. Lao is not warm or kind, but he honors his deals and does not glory in the suffering of those under him. His wife Poppy is beautiful, but not much concerned with anything more than the running of her household and the latest fashions from Ba Sing Se.
Their daughter Toph, on the other hand, is different. At first glance, the little girl is nearly the exact clone of her mother, quiet and demure, the blindness her parents constantly bemoan like a thoughtless habit keeping her docile. But Iroh can see the way she quirks her head ever so slightly whenever someone speaks, the way her fists tighten in her lap whenever her parents comment on her supposed "helplessness". If Toph is in any way helpless, Iroh will sell his teapot.
They don't have much contact, him and Toph: he's an old man, a stranger, and the Beifongs are fiercely protective of their only child. She is not allowed to leave the estate grounds, and there are hired guards constantly within shouting distance. He can see Toph stifling here in real time, just like Zuko had been stifling under the oppressive cruelty of Ozai, but his hands are even more tied now than they had been then. Then, Ozai would not have cared enough if Iroh had done what he should have and gotten Zuko away before it was too late, but now, the Beifongs would not hesitate to report him as a kidnapper and set every bounty hunter they can pay screaming for his head.
He can only hope that Toph is strong enough and clever enough to survive until she has an opportunity to escape.
Lao Beifong gives him an opportunity of his own: a passport to Ba Sing Se, and enough capital to start a tea shop of his very own within the Walls. In return, Iroh will give Beifong five percent of his profits. Iroh accepts the deal, and once the deal with the supplier in the mountains is finalized, he sets out to the hidden ferry to Ba Sing Se that all refugees use. It's absolutely appalling, the state of things in that miserable place, and Iroh vows to himself that he will do whatever a simple tea shop owner can to make things even a little better for those people, who have all lost so much to the Fire Nation.
It's what Zuko would want.
Once he is within the Inner Wall, he finds and buys out the worst tea shop in the poorest refugee neighborhood in the Lower Ring. Pao is happy to sell, especially when Iroh gives him a price far higher than the dingy little shop is worth, and Iroh immediately renames the shop The Jasmine Dragon.
Jasmine had been both Zuko's and Lu Ten's favorite.
Within two months, The Jasmine Dragon is one of the single most popular tea shops in the neighborhood. He does necessary repairs on the building, supporting local workmen and paying them well for their quality work. He hires refugees who need some help getting on their feet, especially very young people who are otherwise on their own, paying them better than most of his local competitors. The first time he gave an employee their day's wages, he'd thought the boy's eyes would fall out of his head at the amount, and he quickly gains a reputation for being a kind, honest employer who pays excellently. The shop does a brisk business, and once he figures out the flow of the work day in the neighborhood and tailors the shop hours accordingly, he often has a line out the door. Despite this, he refuses to sacrifice the quality of his teas, nor will he increase his prices past what his patrons can afford. The shop's reputation grows and spreads.
Of course, this attracts the attention of the local protection racket.
Near closing one day, Iroh is in the kitchen, overseeing his most recent hire (an excitable young man named Lin, who is probably only twelve if he's a day) as he washes cups and pots while Iroh himself puts away the teas and makes note of the varieties that had been most popular that day. Out in the dining room, he can hear Jin (a delightful young lady of fifteen, Lin's older sister) chattering away at Hyeon (a quiet man in his late twenties) as they wipe down the tables and sweep the floor respectively.
He hears the door open, and Jin speaks up sweetly, "I'm so sorry sir, the tea master just closed down the kitchen for the night."
"No problem, sweetheart, we just need a quick word with the Master," a sneering voice replies.
"Yeah, we'll be in and out real quick," a second voice growls.
Heavy footsteps slap on the stone floor, until they stop abruptly.
"Employees only in the back," Hyeon rumbles. It's one of the few rules Iroh seriously enforces, because he keeps the shop safe in the corner he uses as an office, as well as a locked cabinet where he keeps truly rare and valuable teas. Trai had taught him to disguise those items, and Iroh is the only one yet allowed to access them, but still. Better safe than sorry.
"I will be out in a moment!" Iroh calls. "Jin, dear, would you mind coming back and finishing up the inventory for me?"
"Sure, Master Mushi!" Jin replies, hurrying into the kitchen. Her customary wide smile is in place, but her hands tremble a bit as she takes the writing tablet from him.
"Stay back here with your brother, my dear," he tells her quietly. Jin nods, and Iroh bustles out to the main room and takes in his visitors with a General's eye.
Two men, one tall and bulky in the way earthbenders generally are, the other lean in the way that reminds Iroh of sword-fighters. Both have dark hair in messy queues, and their green eyes are small and mean. Their clothing is roughly patched and dirty.
"Welcome to The Jasmine Dragon, gentlemen," Iroh greets them with a broad smile, well aware of Hyeon hovering over his shoulder and scowling at the men. "I am Mushi, owner and tea master. How can I help you?"
The sword-fighter leans down and leers at him, and not for the first time does Iroh wish he had inherited his father's height. "More like what we can do for you, Master Mushi," he sneers. "Nice place like this, be a real shame if something were to... happen to it."
The earthbender proves himself thus by stomping on the stone floor and causing the entire room to rattle.
Iroh had spent sixty years growing up in the corpse of a volcano in an archipelago famous for them. He had spent thirty seven of those sixty years in direct combat against earthbenders. He knows many soldiers develop severe stress reactions to combat, especially to combat against earthbending, but he was never plagued with such misfortune. His only reaction to the earthbender's display is a raised eyebrow.
The men seem a bit nonplussed at his lack of reaction, and he gives them a pitying smile.
"Gentlemen, I am not a fool, however much I may look like one," he says genially. "I have no need for your services, and attempting to persuade me otherwise would be unwise."
The earthbender blinks, and the sword-fighter scowls.
"You'll be singing a different tune before long, old man," he snarls, hands twitching towards his back. The earthbender, studying Iroh intently, places a huge hand on his companion's shoulder. When the sword-fighter snarls at him, he shakes his head.
"Can I interest you gentlemen in a cup of tea? It's no trouble to put on a quick kettle," Iroh asks. These men might be thugs attempting to intimidate him into going with their little protection scheme, but there's no reason not to be hospitable.
"Save your disgusting swill for the morons who waste their money on it," the sword-master snaps, as the earthbender leads him out of the shop. "We'll leave you to reconsider your decision." The door slams shut behind them, rattling the clay pots and cups on the shelves lining the walls of the dining room.
"Well, that was an interesting experience," Iroh muses, smiling slightly as he imagines how indignant Zuko would be at the situation.
Hyeon eyes him calmly. "Want me to stay for the night, boss?"
"Thank you, Hyeon, but that won't be necessary," Iroh replies kindly. "I know that your lovely bride is waiting for you. I would take it as a personal favor, however, if you would be so kind as to walk Jin and Lin home."
Hyeon nods. "Was gonna anyway," he rumbles.
They put the dining room back to rights, finish wiping the tables and sweeping the floor, and then Iroh doles out the day's wages and thanks his employees for their work. Hyeon escorts Jin and Lin home, Lin nearly passed out cold on Hyeon's back, and Iroh locks up the shop and heads for his own small apartment.
A few days later, a curious rumor starts circulating of an actual dragon protecting The Jasmine Dragon Tea Shop. Apparently, a pair of local thugs running a protection racket had broken into the shop in an attempt to pressure the owner into accepting their "services". No one is quite sure exactly what happened, but the city guard had found them the following morning sitting curled up on the front step of The Jasmine Dragon, rocking and gibbering about a "fiery monster". Iroh's regular customers are insatiably curious, but all Iroh does is smile and go on brewing.
Business is bustling, and after another month Iroh feels more than comfortable leaving Hyeon in charge a few days a week while he takes a pushcart with some of the more popular varieties of tea to the Arrivals terminal at the Outer Wall. Its tiring work, but Iroh loves seeing the relief on the faces of the new arrivals when he gives them a warm cup of tea and a friendly smile. More often than not, the customers he encounters at the terminal aren't able to pay more than a copper or two, if they're able to pay at all, but the main shop does more than enough business to make up the shortfall. And profit isn't the point of this, anyway. Nearly all of the people Iroh encounters during his days with his pushcart are refugees seeking a better, more secure life. They've been through weeks, months, years of hardship, of loss and insecurity, and as safe as Ba Sing Se is, life in the Lower Ring is hard. Anything Iroh can do to make things easier, to bring a little hope and joy and comfort to these poor people, he will.
His life falls into a reassuring rhythm, simple but filled with purpose. He wishes every day that Zuko or Lu Ten (or, on harder days, both) could have lived to share this with him, but as Agni still rises each day, Iroh finds comfort in knowing that they're together in the spirit world, or reincarnated into a better life.
His wedding anniversary passes, and Iroh finds a tree on a hill high above the hustle and bustle of the city that Zuko the little ninja-in-training would have loved to climb, and that Lu Ten the artist would have loved to draw, and that Seong-Min would have loved to have tea under. He finds himself coming back to the tree at the Summer Solstice, and at Zuko's birthday, and Seong-Min's.
That winter, whispers circulate through the refugees, and are ruthlessly squashed by the Dai Li, which grows more and more active as time passes. Iroh is careful with his firebending, only using it when absolutely necessary, like when the small braziers in his pushcart go out and he can't find his spark rocks.
And then, three years to the day after Zuko's death, everything changes.
His communications with the Order have been sparse, mostly due to Iroh's nomadic lifestyle and then his decision to settle in Ba Sing Se. With the Dai Li tightening their grip on the city, it's become even harder to get secret communications in and out, but somehow, he receives a message from Pakku.
Zuko is alive.
Immediately, Iroh understands what must have happened. Zuko hadn't succumbed to his injuries, but Ozai must have had the boy spirited away somewhere and let Iroh believe he was dead. It neatly solved two problems at once: Iroh had been too heartbroken and buried in his grief to be any trouble, and it gave Ozai the opportunity to get rid of the "useless" heir to pave the way for the one he preferred.
If Pakku knows that Zuko is alive, then he must have escaped from wherever Ozai was keeping him. Once Iroh gets over the shock, the idea makes him laugh aloud in the privacy of his small two-room apartment. Even as a small child, Zuko was always getting in and out of the most unlikely places. It nearly drove poor Ursa mad trying to keep him contained. Ozai never stood a chance, once Zuko healed up enough to really put his mind to leaving.
As spring unfolds, Iroh is distracted as he tries to keep an eye out for his nephew. There is no shortage of refugees (in fact, their numbers have only increased in his time in the city), but none of them are Zuko. In his absentmindedness, he forgets his spark rocks more often than he doesn't, but thankfully no one seems to notice. He does catch one fierce-looking young man with a bush of wild brown hair staring at him, but the boy moves on quickly, and Iroh dismisses it as the poor lad mistaking him for someone else for a moment.
Until the boy crashes into his shop one evening a couple of weeks later.
"I'm tired of waiting," he snarls, holding a pair of hook-swords at the ready. "That man's a firebender!"
Iroh's touched by how quickly the patrons in his little shop rise to his defense, but the boy is battle-tested, and Iroh finds himself being backed out of the shop and onto the street with a blade to his throat and one in the perfect position to gut him if he moves wrong. The boy is taunting him, trying to get him to firebend to defend himself, while Iroh's mind is racing trying to strategize a way out of this situation without giving himself away or seriously injuring the lad.
Suddenly, the boy jumps, and the blades disappear. Iroh stumbles away and turns around to find his assailant snarling and spitting like an enraged pygmy puma at another young man, dressed in dark shades of brown and green with a mop of black hair, holding a pair of twin dao. In the light of the paper lanterns and large stone lanterns illuminating the street, Iroh can see a shiny, wet spot in the messy brown hair on the back of the first boy's head.
"You again!" The brown haired boy sneers. "What the fuck are you doing here, you traitor?"
The other boy doesn't answer, only raises his dao and his chin disdainfully. This causes the inky black hair to fall out of his face, and the light of a nearby streetlamp illuminates the large red burn scar across his left eye.
It takes every speck of self control Iroh has not to scream the name out loud.
Zuko.
"I'm starting to think you're fucking one of them, you ashmaker-loving bastard," Iroh's assailant shouts. "Are you a firebender too? Are you in on this old guy's plot to infiltrate the city?"
Zuko says nothing, but the expression on his face is achingly familiar--the same mix of confusion and irritation he wore when Iroh was trying to teach him to play Pai Sho as a little boy.
The brown haired boy throws himself at Zuko with a roar, slim hooked blades moving faster than the eye can see. Zuko meets him in silence, his dao ringing as he blocks the hook swords.
The fight is brutal, all the more for the horrible things the brown haired boy is shouting at Iroh's nephew. Zuko's skill with his blades has improved incredibly since the last time he demonstrated for Iroh, a few days before that disastrous war meeting, but Iroh's not sure what to think about the fact that he hasn't said a word, or even really made any kind of sound, this entire time.
It ends abruptly when a pair of Dai Li agents appear and grab the brown haired boy. Iroh's patrons all jump to tell the agents how the boy had crashed into the shop and dragged Iroh out against his will, and the agents quickly disarm the young man, wrap stone shackles around his wrists, and drag him away to an ostrich-horse cart. The boy shouts and snarls the entire way, and Iroh can only feel sorry for the poor child so tormented by the war that he can't give it up even after finding safety.
With the hullabaloo ended, the street clears up, and Iroh hears a scraping sound behind him. Hardly daring to breathe, he whirls around to find Zuko pulling his blade out of the stone of the street. He examines the tip with a pout that nearly overwhelms Iroh with memories.
"Zuko?" Iroh says hoarsely, and the boy's gold eyes, as bright as the last time he met them, snap in his direction.
A small, sideways smile spreads across his nephew's face, and he slides the blade into its sheath. He raises a hand, and gives a little wave.
Iroh bursts into tears and grabs his boy in a tight hug. Strong arms wrap around his shoulders, and he buries his face in his boy's chest. When did he get so tall? So strong? His shoulders are broad, and he's over a head taller than Iroh, and he can feel the weapons hidden under his clothing.
Iroh has so many questions. But as he stands in front of his little shop in the middle of the Lower Ring of Ba Sing Se, holding his boy in his arms for the first time in over three years, he finds that answers can wait.