Zuko blinks awake feeling dazed, vaguely nauseous, and extremely disoriented.

The first thing he becomes aware of is the hard ground he is kneeling on. The second is that he is staring up at a bright, cloudless sky rimmed in by four rather decorative and tall walls. One of the palace courtyards? How did he get here?

He remembers a meeting with several spirits. Agni and Tui, the sun and moon, spoke directly to him. He'll have to ask Aang if he has any advice regarding audiences with spirits, being the Avatar and all. If he's lucky, maybe Aang will even have some idea of whatever this plan is that the spirits are putting into motion. He's not holding out much hope for that, but it would be nice to be given a clearer goal to work toward.

Zuko groans and runs a hand over his face.

...Wait? What? How?

His scar is missing.

For that matter, his whole face feels wrong.

Zuko jolts into full wakefulness with that realization. What have the spirits done to him?

The sound slams into him from all sides, the whispers of many and the shouts of a few. Flames crackle in the background. One voice manages to catch his attention by the simple virtue of being closer than all of the others.

"Father?"

Zuko drags his eyes away from the sky to locate the source of the young voice. Gasps and swears ripple through the gathered crowd and the boy in front of the Fire Lord falls backward in shock, catching himself on his elbows as he openly gapes at Zuko. He can't be more than fourteen years or so and he looks... familiar. Is he a nobleman's son? Or maybe a son of one of the palace servants? He can't place where he's seen the teen before but it nags at the back of his mind like a half-forgotten memory.

"Father," a second voice says from his left. It's a girl, somewhere between the ages of ten and twelve if he had to guess, who looks eerily like Azula did when she was that age. She's looking right at Zuko, but... she can't be addressing him. Can she? She crosses her arms and leans casually against the raised platform. It is only then that Zuko recognizes his surroundings as the Royal Agni Kai Arena in the western wing of the palace.

Zuko feels sick. Why is he here? Has there been another challenge? He glances at the boy slowly reapproaching him. Why has this child been allowed onto the combat platform? Why is he dressed as if he is a participant?

"Father," the girl says again, reclaiming his attention and steadily meeting his gaze. Why does she keep calling him that? "Your eyes are glowing," she says, as if it is a completely mundane thing to claim, and then she follows that impossible statement up by asking, "Did you know?"

She even sounds like... "Azula?" he asks.

The girl immediately straightens. "Yes, Father?" After a slight hesitation that most would miss, she dares to question the Fire Lord, "Are you well?"

He ignores the inquiry as his gaze flies to settle on the boy sharing the arena with him. He recognizes that young, tear-streaked face now. Unscarred and naive, a thirteen-year-old Prince Zuko stares back at him with open concern.

Zuko's stomach promptly relieves itself of its contents.

Screams fill the courtyard.

"Father!" two terribly young voices cry.

"Medic!" Iroh bellows.

Zuko hardly hears any of them.

Ozai. He's in Ozai's body.

He is also six years in the past.

Zuko squeezes his eyes shut and gasps for air past a burning throat.

Even when attempting to be kind, the spirits are cruel. Agni has schemed a way to spare his family and simultaneously thrown Zuko headlong into something more horrifying than even the worst of his nightmares.

There is a furnace at his back and a too-warm hand on his shoulder. "Breathe, Fire Lord," Agni instructs.

Zuko reaches for the hand on his shoulder and clings to those fingers like they're his last lifeline. He doesn't bother to open his eyes.

"I never wanted to be my father," he rasps in a weak voice. It's a lie. The foolish child in front of him wants nothing more than to be just like Ozai. Or, at least, the person that the teenager has built up Ozai to be in his mind.

"And you are not. Nor could you ever be," Agni says, "You are your own man."

"Please, Agni, I can't do this." He hasn't begged like this since the seconds before his father burned his face. The fact that he is here, again, pleading for mercy, again, makes his already emptied stomach roll.

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The Sun Spirit squeezes his shoulder and then withdraws despite Zuko's attempt to hold onto the spirit's hand. "The choice has already been made, Zuko of Second Fire, and it was never yours to make." Agni touches the back of his neck, like he had only moments ago in the spirit world, and says, "You are capable of greater things than you know, Fire Lord. But for now, tend to that which cannot wait and then rest. A man needs his rest."

The heat at his back and the hand on his neck both vanish between one breath and the next. As suddenly as Agni had come, he leaves.

"Fire Lord? Your majesty?"

Zuko opens his eyes in time to spot a cautious healer reaching toward his face. He jerks away from the offending hand and snarls, "I'm f--" The Fire Lord coughs and spits into the puddle of bile and a half-digested meal that he is still kneeling beside. Zuko grimaces. "I'm fine," he insists in a calmer tone, "Get someone to clean that up."

Zuko draws a deep breath and lets it go slowly. Agni had told him to focus on what couldn't wait. So, what is it that can't wait?

The boy, obviously. An Agni Kai continues until the first burn and not a single flame has been summoned. Thankfully, in this particular Agni Kai, he has another option available that the Fire Lord typically wouldn't have.

Zuko pushes himself to his feet and impatiently waves off the small flock of doctors still hovering around him. They withdraw while bent over in deep bows and Zuko uses the back of his hand to wipe his mouth. He could really use some water. His mouth tastes disgusting.

"Prince Z--" his throat closes up. It's his name. It isn't fair that the spirits have effectively taken everything down to his name from him. It would be more unfair to deny it to a teenager that has done nothing wrong and is fully ignorant of the spirits' meddling. "Prince Zuko," the Fire Lord forces himself to say, "your forfeiture is accepted."

"Thank you, Father," the prince says in a full kowtow. He's trembling. The Fire Lord looks away.

He scans the crowd behind Azula. "Un-- Iroh, escort the... What are you doing?"

Iroh straightens from his crouch and offers a bow before saying, "Fire Lord, if you are not in need of the healers, may I suggest they take a look at Captain Zhao? Though I am not certain they will be able to do anything for him."

Zuko's eyes widen. "What?" he demands before leaping down from the platform and striding to the other man's side to see for himself. The crowd parts quickly for him and soon Zuko is staring down at a shell of a man. Zhao lies crumpled on the ground where he collapsed sometime during the earlier chaos. The man's eyes gaze forward unseeingly and drool dribbles from his mouth.

"The Ocean Spirit swept up Zhao of Second Fire into a fate far worse than that of a man drowned at the sea floor."

Zuko hadn't been sure what to make of Agni's statement at the time. He has some idea now of what the spirit had been talking about.

"He's fallen out of the spirits' favor," Zuko says around a grimace, "There's nothing that can be done for him."

"Spirits?" Iroh questions.

"Yes," Zuko answers as he waves the healers over. "Bring him to the infirmary and take care of the body until it dies," he instructs, pitching his voice for the whole courtyard to hear, "Then perform the usual funeral rights and scatter his ashes in the sea. Furthermore, he is hereby stripped of all honors he has previously been awarded." He glances over at the scribe that has been assigned to record the Agni Kai. "Did you get all that?"

"Yes, your majesty!" the man squeaks, drawn out of his stupor by the direct address and writing furiously to catch up with the unfolding events.

Zuko sighs and spares the body one last glance as it is loaded onto a stretcher and taken away. A part of him thinks he should declare Zhao a traitor, have him executed and his name recorded in dishonor. Except the shell of a man being whisked off to the palace infirmary hasn't done any of the things that would have earned such a sentence. While Zuko doesn't doubt he already has the will to go through with the crimes that he would have committed in three years' time, it also doesn't matter now. La's judgement has proven itself to be harsher than anything that the Fire Nation is capable of doing.

"Iroh, escort the prince and princess back to their rooms," he says, "After that, send word to the generals that there will be a war meeting ten degrees before sunset. An important one. And have the Fire Sages send at least one of their number to join us, more if they are willing."

Uncle's eyebrows climb high on his forehead. "It will be done."

"Good, and," he says but hesitates. He has no indication that the spirits have included Uncle in their plots and he doesn't know their reasoning for that one way or the other. He doesn't know how much he should tell the older man, but he's going to need his help in holding the Fire Nation together through the changes ahead of them. "Come find me when you're done," he settles on saying, "We need to speak privately before the war meeting."

Iroh looks no less surprised by this request. "As you wish, Fire Lord."

"Thank you." Zuko ignores the reaction those words prompt from everyone close enough to be eavesdropping on the conversation. This whole debacle is already going to cause dozens of rumors that will spread faster than a summer wildfire. That the Fire Lord might be capable of expressing gratitude isn't one that worries him.

"This Agni Kai is over," he announces loudly, "You are all dismissed. Unless you have duties here, leave." He doesn't wait for the crowd to disperse before striding out one the doorways himself.

It's probably not the right thing to do, not after two children just watched their father... Well, Ozai had likely collapsed to his knees, considering the position he'd woken in, and then Zuko had thrown up, which doesn't sound like a man in good health. He probably should have tried to reassure the prince and princess, somehow. No matter how undeservedly, Prince Zuko and Princess Azula love their father. He knows that bone-deep. What he doesn't know is what to say to either of them. He'd been nervous about learning how to be the father of one small newborn, not... not two...

Zuko clenches his eyes closed and steadies himself with one hand on a nearby wall as a wave of grief crashes into him. His child with Mai doesn't exist now. His child will not ever exist. He never had so much as a chance to hold them. Mai hadn't told him which names she had settled on for their first child. The baby is simply gone. Come to that, his marriage is effectively over. His whole life is over.

And in its place he has a nation he must guide out of its slow self-destruction, along with some much faster global destruction. He also has two half-grown children he has no idea how to act around. Finally, he has an estranged un-- brother that he desperately needs to support him. He already knows he will crumble under the weight of his responsibilities if Iroh refuses to help him.

Zuko pushes away from the wall and continues on his way through the palace corridors. There will be a time to address his sorrows and fears, but that time is not now.

For now, he has a war meeting he needs to prepare for.