More than anything, he felt trapped. Sozin and Iroh's respective revelations were backing him into a very dangerous corner. He managed to sneak back into his room without getting detected, mind whirling. I have two options, same as in Ba Sing Se. Leaving or staying. What's waiting for me if I leave? It's what Uncle wants me to do. And maybe what I'm Supposed to do. That tasted oddly bitter. It wouldn't be real if it wasn't his choice. (He'd begun to fear that the earlier choice, the one in Ba Sing Se, had been less than real — one of his sister's pets had mentioned brainwashing in passing, and he realized that the conversation and fight in the cave didn't account for all the time between his capture and when he emerged that night.) And if Kouji got out of Ba Sing Se alive — of course he had, but Zuko wanted to try and consider all possibilities; so many of his mistakes had come from failing to think things through — he's with them. And if I stay? This was just as bitter. Yeah, Dad loves me now. At least until the next time I screw up. Azula watches me all the time, waiting for that. And Mai… Yes, there was Mai. Essentially, it came down to the two relationships least tainted by his mistakes. Kouji or Mai.

"There you are, highness." He turned to see who'd come. A rather frazzled-looking guard.

"What is it?" he said, forcing himself out of his downward spiral before I start plotting suicide again.

"We've been looking for you, sir. Your father wants to speak with you, immediately."

Zuko had a sinking feeling his choice was about to be taken away from him again. He tried to keep this off his face. "Okay."

The other man looked relieved, and turned to lead him on. Zuko snagged his swords from the bedside table and hid them under the cloak he'd yet to take off.

The guard left him at the door to his father's study and… scampered wasn't the word for it. But he left in great haste. Zuko took a deep breath, and knocked.

"Enter."

The knob turned with a very soft click, and he ghosted into the study and knelt. Silence, for a few seconds.

"Come."

Knowing that to speak unbidden would bring dire consequences, he said nothing as he rose and slipped closer to the desk. A small, thin scroll was handed to him.

"Explain."

It took a second to unroll it, another to absorb its contents, a third to come to the logical conclusion.

I'm not getting out of this alive.

"Well?"

Three seconds had been too long.

I'm dead anyway. Might as well go out with style.

He deliberately took another three seconds, savouring the taste of the air and what he once was and might have become, if things hadn't gone so horribly awry and he'd gotten his chance to stand on the other side of the desk.

Then he shrugged, almost delicately, and finally spoke. "I was duelling the waterbender. Azula hit him with lightning. We assumed he was dead. She let me take the credit."

Three more seconds of silence.

"Lies."

You know I'm a terrible liar, Father.

"I'm not lying."

"Really."

Three more seconds. Zuko was starting to get slightly uncomfortable with all the one-word sentences and no action.

"Really," he echoed. Let the storm come. I can take the storm. I can't handle the calm before.

As if by grace of some unseen force, or in response to his unspoken plea, his father finally spoke at length.

"I think," he said, quietly, "that your actions in Ba Sing Se were false, an attempt to place an enemy agent here in the palace. I neither expect you to tell me how he survived now, nor would I trust it if you did."

Oh, gods…

Brace yourself.

He didn't wait for his father to finish. He dove for the desk, hoping to overturn it and stall his father long enough to run. He skidded to a halt halfway there and shifted position, noting the sparks leaping from his father's hands and recognizing them. He caught it, barely, and twisted — in, down, up, out — there was a cracking boom, and the desk was a loss. He fled, heard shouting behind him, and then he was surrounded.

Ohgodsohgodsdon'tmakeme...

He remained on the defensive, refusing to strike back any more than absolutely necessary. If I can just get to the window...

Snap, crackle, searing pain, the smell of burning flesh almost overpowered him, almost sent him three years back — no, no, no, long ago and not here — and he reached the window and leapt out.

He rolled when he hit the ground, spreading the impact so nothing broke — though, if he survived this sunrise, he'd be covered in bruises — and ran. His arm was still smouldering, he was bleeding from a thousand bits of glass, but he was alive. He'd gotten out alive. He'd won.

Oh, it was bitter.

He kept running until he fell, then dragged himself up and walked until he fell again, dragged himself up once more and stumbled on. The adrenaline rush died shortly after sunrise, leaving him crumpled in a little heap some distance from the capital. Need to find someplace to hide… He tried to rise, and, when he found he couldn't, he crawled.

After an endless moment, he found a little hollow, invisible from the main path, where he should be safe for a couple hours. He curled up in it, to take stock of his assets and injuries.

The first was a rather short list. He had clothing, his cloak wasn't too badly damaged, his swords were intact, he was alive.

The second wasn't long so much as grave. Several cuts of varying length and depth from the window, bruises already forming from his landing, and, more serious and frightening, his right arm was burned, badly, from his wrist nearly to his elbow. Fragments of slightly reddened glass enlivened the flaky black ruin of his flesh. He swallowed. This was worse than the wreck that had been made of his face years before. And he no longer had access to supplies for proper treatment, so there was only so much he could do to keep it uninfected. And he was far too recognizable to risk seeking help elsewhere, even far from the capital.

I'm going to die out here, he thought, almost dreamily. Doesn't matter what choices I do or don't make, this is going to kill me. Oh, well. At least I'll probably just start looping, that's supposed to be painless...

Something that felt remarkably like the back of someone's hand connected with the back of his skull. He leapt to his feet and twisted, pulling out his swords, ignoring the pain and the shame when suddenly nerveless fingers on his right hand failed to hold. Adrenaline giving him strength to stand, he looked around wildly for his assailant. He saw nothing.

 Far from giving him ease, this spurred him on. He bent down and retrieved his sword with his good hand, putting the pair away — they were all but useless separate, his style required both to avoid leaving massive deadly openings — then staggered on, looking for a new hidey-hole.

He stumbled into a pretty, sunlit clearing he was sure he'd never seen before. Apart from its unfamiliarity, the area was far too well-lit for this early in the day. Two boys about his age were there, the taller of the two sprawled on the grass, reading, the stockier in the process of snagging some kind of fruit from a nearby branch.

The taller boy looked up from his book. "You can sit down, you know. You're exhausted, and it's safe here."

"Prob'ly the only safe place left for you," the stocky boy agreed, jumping down and biting into his fruit. Unbidden, Zuko's eyes fastened on it, his body choosing now to remind him that he'd been too agitated about the first letter to eat the night before.

He wavered a moment, then his knees buckled, and yet another choice was taken away from him.

"You're overthinking it," the tall boy said, quietly, stealing his friend's fruit, cutting off the bitten part, and offering it to the erstwhile prince, who tried — and failed — to maintain some modicum of dignity and not outright snatch it. "You still have choices, it's not set in stone."

"Uh-huh."
"Granted, you're pretty much fucked whatever you choose," the stocky boy said, airily, still glaring at his friend for the theft.

Tall Boy ignored him, focusing steadily on Zuko. "You do still have options. Three, right?" Now he turned to his friend, who shrugged.

"Well, four, technically," Stocky said, sitting cross-legged some distance away. "You could always surrender. Throw yourself on your dad's mercy."

It didn't even occur to Zuko to question how these surreal clearing-dwellers knew his problems. He looked away. "I don't want to be tortured."

"I don't blame you," Tall Boy said, then sighed. "You could just… walk away, from everything."

"I'd never be able to stop running," Zuko pointed out, bleakly. "I tried living alone on the run before, I don't think I could handle it again. Plus, I don't run want to from my mistakes. Again."

Stocky snorted and started to say something, but Tall Boy smacked him. He glared at his friend, rubbing at the back of his head. "Well, there's the invasion coming. You could pitch in. Help repel it. Hope that counts for something."

Zuko considered this quietly for a long moment, barely noticing when Tall Boy pressed more fruit into his hand. "I'd have to survive 'til then, which I'm not sure I could do. Plus, my arm might not be all the way healed, so I wouldn't be able to use my swords, and I won't be able to bend during the eclipse. All I'd really accomplish was dying."

"Gloriously," Stocky said. Tall Boy hit him again. This time, he hit back. "Besides, it would pretty much restore your name, and none of the other options exactly present a significant lifespan."

"You said there were four options?" Zuko said, choosing not to respond to what he knew was true.

"When the invasion comes, you could pitch in and help it succeed," Tall Boy informed him, quietly.

"Same problem."

"That's true," Tall Boy admitted. "But, whichever side you join, it beats torture or always looking over your shoulder."

"He's got a point," Stocky said, ripping up the grass and toying with it. "So, what you really gotta do is pick a side. Which side is worth giving your life for?"

This took some thought. The more he thought about it — despite Mai, and how much he loved her — the more the cards seemed stacked in the Avatar's deck. But doing that means the treason will be real, not just Dad's misinterpretation of things.

"Well?" Stocky asked, sounding so eerily like his father Zuko jumped.

"Give him time," Tall Boy hissed, irritated.

But if Kouji survived and made it out of Ba Sing Se, he's with them. And if anything in my life is worth dying for, it's him. Or at least the chance to make sure he's okay is worth dying for. Since I probably fucked up that relationship and he's not there for me to die for anymore.

Stocky hit him. "You're doing it again."

"Overthinking," Tall Boy added.

"It's irritating."

"But I think you've made the right decision."

"Or you've made a right decision, anyway."

"Here, we should clean his arm for him."

The speed of discourse and sudden change of subject were dizzying, and they conspired with pain and exhaustion to shove him down into a bottomless pit.

"Now you've done it," Stocky's exasperated voice echoed behind him, then the pit swallowed him up and there was nothing.

 

He woke in the woods, some time later, with his arm cleaned and bandaged, and the glass picked out of his other cuts. There was no sign of the clearing, fruit trees, book, or boys. Except for the dressing on his arm. He shivered a little, skin crawling at the proximity to something so obviously unnatural, then dragged himself up to find a new hollow to curl up in for a few hours.

The next few weeks passed in a numb haze, falling into an endless, droning pattern, scares from soldiers becoming so frequent they became part of the cycle. Get up, wander, try to find food, find a new shelter, clean and rebandage arm, crash for an hour or two, repeat. At some point, he vaguely noticed he was losing weight at an alarming rate, having difficulty finding enough food without drawing unwanted attention. This, like the near-constant pain from his arm, he largely ignored. It wouldn't matter much longer anyway.

It wasn't until he groggily heard sounds of fighting that he realized he almost missed the invasion. He used a long stream of words that would make the entire Fire Navy blush, then scrambled off in the direction of the capital.

He just barely caught sight of the bison retreating. Luck was — for once — on his side, providing him with an untended balloon. He almost lost track of the bison while working to power it up — given his weight loss, exhaustion, and injury, this took longer than it had when he'd taken Mai out for a night flight earlier that summer — but managed to get in the air and orient himself by a flash on the animal's armour. He'd offer, and if they'd have him, he'd make sure to make his death one for the history books, for good or ill. If not… well, he wasn't helpless yet. It wouldn't take too much to carve a fifth road.