The night was cold, the kind of cold that seeped into the bones, whispering through the cracks in one’s armor. Zuko sat alone by a dying fire in the woods, the shadows of the trees dancing like ghosts around him. The emberlight flickered across his scarred face, tracing the jagged edge of a memory he could never truly leave behind.

He held a piece of charred wood in his hand, fingers clenched so tight his knuckles turned white. The camp was silent. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.

And then it came—the voice.

Not real, not truly. But it was his voice. Ozai’s.

“You will learn respect… and suffering will be your teacher.”

Zuko flinched. His breath hitched. That voice echoed in his skull like a blade scraping metal. He squeezed his eyes shut, but that only made it worse. He saw the court again, the blue flames of Agni Kai. His father's silhouette. The silence before the fire. The betrayal.

“You’re weak.” “You shame me.” “You are nothing without your honor.”

The log in his hand snapped, and he stared at it, shaking. That word again. Honor. The thing he chased like a ghost, a shadow he bled for. And for what?

His lips trembled. He let the broken wood drop. "I didn’t ask for this," he whispered. “I just wanted to be… enough.”

The tears came without warning. Hot and heavy. They streaked down the scarred side of his face, stinging as if the fire had never truly left him. He covered his mouth, trying to hold in the sobs—but they broke through, small and broken at first, then louder. Angrier.

“I loved you!” he cried out into the void. “I worshipped you. And you burned me for it.”

No one answered. Just the echo of his own voice, too raw to feel like his own. He pulled his knees to his chest, shoulders shaking.

He had thought chasing the Avatar would fix him. That Azula’s approval meant something. That maybe, somewhere, his mother still thought of him as good.

But in the quiet of the night, Zuko realized: he was still that boy on the floor, screaming as fire consumed half his face. And maybe… a part of him always would be.