Water Lily in a Sea of Fire

Chapter 50: Day of Black Sun

Zuko and Anzo left the prison and returned to the tunnels. Zuko did not speak since leaving the prison, and when they arrived in the tunnels near the Order's hideout, he dismounted the rhino, removed the uniform he was wearing, and started walking towards the palace with a sword and knife in his hands. He was not ready to speak to anyone. He needed time to process everything, but there was too much to do, and now he was not sure how he would be able to focus on his tasks. It was early in the morning, hours before sunrise when he knocked on the kitchen door from the hidden passage.

"Prince Zuko," bowed Ren.

Ren could see he was upset, but he knew it was not his place to ask questions, so he took him back to his room in a laundry cart.

"If there's anything I can do for you, please let me know," he said after Zuko climbed out of the cart.

He nodded listlessly, and when the door was shut, he lay on his bed feeling despondent. Now, lying alone, imprisoned in his room with nothing to do at the moment, the wound in his heart over the loss of his wife was beginning to ache painfully as the news continued sinking in. Before speaking to Iroh, there was always a small ray of hope that kept him from completely caving in to despair. But that hope was gone, and he found the thought of moving on too difficult. How could he go on without the one person who had always been there for him even when he found his life most challenging? Even in her absence years before, he could look forward to a messenger hawk flying to his window with words she had written to him. Now there would be nothing but emptiness. No words of comfort in her sweet voice, no letters addressed to him from her. He lifted her sword that was lying next to him and looked at it. He would never see it in her hands again or spar with her or go swimming with her. Everything they had done together would just be memories with no opportunity of making more. The realization that she would not be in his future made him feel like abandoning everything.

He had always divided his life into two parts: before his banishment from the Fire Nation and after. Chiara's death made a new division, one that would erase the first. Despite the hardships they endured, before her death there was light, a light he never appreciated. He took the light's existence for granted. It was there; it would always be there...until it was gone. It was only after her death that he noticed its absence; now nothing remained but darkness. He lay grieving until the sun began to light up the sky, and he watched as the darkness in his room was slowly overcome by the light, yet the darkness in his heart still remained.

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That morning, Iroh was sitting in his cell appearing disheveled and languid when Warden Poon entered the room carrying a bowl of rice. The warden dropped the bowl on the floor and kicked it towards Iroh who, like a starved animal, crawled towards the bowl and began eating it off the floor.

Poon sneered in disgust. "Look at you," he growled. "You're just a fat, disgusting old man. You do nothing, you say nothing, you just eat and roll around in your own filth like a pig." Iroh cotinued eating as if he heard none of the insults. "You're a disgrace," finished Poon before spitting on the floor.

After the warden left the cell, Iroh moved the hair from his face. He sat up, picked up his bowl, and began eating in a more dignified manner.

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It was not long after sunrise when Ren entered Zuko's room with a service cart.

"Your breakfast, Prince Zuko," he said as he bowed.

Zuko slowly sat up. It just occurred to him that Ren was the same servant who had been serving his meals since he had been brought back to the palace.