fire in your eyes • zuko

xxi

A week passed.

And then two.

Nava spent a lot of time thinking in that cell, meditating like Iroh had recommended to her, and the conclusion she came to was that she was still angry. She still hated Zuko, and if he ever came back to see her, she wouldn't hesitate to let him know. She'd heard him talking to Iroh a few days ago, and obviously he wasn't giving Zuko the answers he wanted because he snapped and called him a 'crazy old man.'

It only made Nava angrier.

Zuko returned a few days later, this time to visit her. When he first entered the room, he didn't even notice Nava at first until he stepped closer to the bars. She was sat in the corner, her knees pulled to her chest and her head resting against the wall. She was thinner, he noticed. There were dark shadows under her eyes and her hair fell in choppy strands across her wounded eye. It was jarring, seeing her so dishevelled.

"Good to see you awake," Zuko said after a bit of silence. He was kneeling in front of the bars again. "I just came to check in on you. I heard you've been training with General Shinu. I hope he isn't treating you too – "

"What do you want, Zuko?" her voice cut in, so quiet that he barely heard it. She was looking at him now, face void of all emotion. "You want me to forgive you? You want to kiss and make up and pretend that you didn't just throw the two people who trusted and loved you from the beginning in prison to rot? You're trying to make things better, I can see, because you feel bad. It's always been about your feelings, you never think for anyone but yourself. And now because of your selfishness, I'm blind in one eye and caged like an animal!"

She was on her knees now, less than a foot away from him, glaring at him with a rage he never knew she possessed. She was looking into his soul with her familiar brown eyes, but this time it was ripping him apart from the inside out, hoping he would choke on his own blood.

"Nava – "

"Get out," she seethed. "Get out and don't ever come back. I'll gouge my other eye out if that means I won't have to see you again."

Zuko couldn't move, immobilized by her words.

"I said get out!" she repeated, gripping the bars tight enough that her knuckles went white. She bared her teeth.

She almost smiled at the pain that flickered through his eyes. But he got up nonetheless and left her alone.

"You mustn't blame him," Iroh's voice startled her. "He is very confused. He is starting to realize that what he's dreamed of isn't what he wants. The Solar Eclipse is in a week and we will have a chance to take our freedom back."

///

On the morning of the eclipse, Iroh woke Nava up right at dawn.

"I'm breaking out this afternoon," he whispered. "I've planned everything down to the last second, but I'm worried I won't have time to get you out as well."

"Don't worry about me," Nava said through a yawn. "I'm not concerned with getting out just yet."

"Are you sure? You don't know when your next opportunity will be."

"That's fine with me. I don't have anything I need to do right away, anyway. I can wait."

Nava could feel the doubtful look Iroh was giving her through the wall. She heard him sigh.

"If you're sure..."

"I am. Thank you, Iroh, for everything," she said.

"We'll see each other again very soon, I am sure of it."