Out Loud

Zuko had been to hell and back.He had tearfully met the unrelentingly cruel gaze of his father at thirteen, and slowly nursed himself back to life. He had scoured the earth for whispers of an almost-forgotten legend for years, never knowing if he could find home again. He had screamed his throat raw at the gods and the spirits with only the rumbling of thunder in response. He had been struck at with lightning from both remaining family members.Yet he had never faced anything so perilous as this.The nasty voice that dictated his life for years on end, the one that whispered in his ear about his incompetence and foolishness, resurfaced in a way that it had not in years.He dimly noted that every muscle in Sokka’s body was tense.It was just the two of them in the royal courtyard, and the awkward distance between them seemed all at once too large and too easy to cross.“Zuko?”The fire lord swallowed.