Chapter Text
In hindsight, he knew that one day he wouldn’t be able to tame the chaos anymore. He still can’t properly admit it to himself but he felt himself drifting away from his normal life a long time ago. He can’t even recall the moment it all started to fall apart … It just has been this way for as long as he can remember.
Ruminating about the miserable feeling stuck inside his heart makes Zuko clench his jaws in a stubborn fight against his tears. He absolutely hates the emotion of sadness, so much though that it physically hurts to hide it. He has been fighting the darkness inside of him for more than a year, maybe even much longer. But now he feels like he has come very close to an absolute breaking point. In the loneliness of the Fire Lord’s bedroom, the tears dare to escape from his eyes. He still tries to keep his sobs inside but the giant wall he has been building has since long shown cracks. The heart wrenching sobs come naturally, making the young monarch slide onto the red carpet of the giant room, leaning against the bed frame.
Every memory of the last year runs through his mind, plaguing him with moments of embarrassment, shame and beliefs that everyone despises him. If he would be asked, Zuko couldn’t say exactly what made him fall into this dark hole. It started a year ago when he slowly lost the feeling of joy in his life. He started to feel like he was drifting away from everyone: Mai, his mother, his friends … His mother’s distance from him, her new family he never felt like he belonged to, Mai’s frustration with him for not being able to meet her needs nor speaking out his own, his friends being annoyed with him for ruining the mood every time they met up … But Zuko can’t explain why he is the way he is. The pain of abandonment became so big that he didn’t know how to be Fire Lord anymore, that he couldn’t make himself think clearly, that felt like his life had come to a sudden unexpected end … There’s nothing for me left anymore.
Of course he thought about communicating his deep feelings of sadness to anyone around him. But for some reason he can’t get it out of his mouth.
“ I’m miserable … I feel terrible … I don’t see the purpose in life anymore … I can’t live this life anymore. I want to love but somehow people don’t care about me … Am I not worthy enough? Is there something so fundamentally wrong with me that no one cares about me? Why can’t you see it? I’m trying to show the world how much I’m suffering! Please, look at me! Ask me what’s wrong! I’m trying to show you! Why would you ignore me?!”
He has had plenty of conversations with himself about the things he wants to say to his family and friends, but he always hides them in his mind. He hopes by behaving depressed and refusing to do normal activities in life that someone eventually would notice and come up to him.
“Are you okay? You don’t look good, buddy. I can see you’re suffering. Do you need help?”
No, he would probably answer that. In Zuko’s imaginative inside world, he always pictures Aang to be the one person catching onto his attention seeking behavior … But when his best friend appeared to be as clueless as everyone else, Zuko felt his heart shatter. How could Aang not see?
The last year, Zuko has been withdrawing from his friends and family, retreating to the loneliness of his bedroom that he once shared with his wife. After his fight with Mai, she decided to take time for herself and move to Kyoshi Island with Ty Lee for as long as she needed. “I need to sort things out, Zuko. Just give me time.” She had said it calmly to him while he was crumbling on the inside. Did he just ruin his marriage by turning himself into a pity? He respected her decision but his mind was screaming. After that, his world turned awfully dark. He started to feel irritated with everyone, isolating himself, showing anger towards people who didn’t deserve it and refusing to have open talks about his feelings. But what do I have to talk about? I don’t know what to say … I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
It’s not that he had an entire plan for people to notice his struggles and pity him … He just slowly started to lose interest in life, in friends. Sleeping became hard, eating started to make him sick so he stopped that all in once. After he noticed his sharpening face, he thought: Maybe someone will notice and ask questions that way? That was six months ago but the concern never came. He continued starving himself both out of disgust with food and the idea that it all didn’t matter anymore. And even now that he’s skin and bones, people still don’t grant him a worried glare. Maybe he’s really that unimportant to the world?
The thinner he got, the more nights he cried himself to sleep. The thinner he got, the more he struggled to fall asleep before the sun rose. Now, his robes are too wide, his skin is oddly pale and for a month, he’s losing strands of hair. Whenever he looks into the mirror, he wants to burst into tears, feeling so frustrated with himself that he can’t look himself in the eyes anymore. His duties as Fire Lord have been abandoned too. He knows his entourage is running around in his place trying to hold things together but they don’t come to him to either say he has to get himself together again or to express any worry. He’s the Fire Lord after all … He just does what he wants.
Another night on the floor of his bedroom, crying out of misery he doesn’t get a clear understanding of, makes Zuko slightly pull at his hair in frustration. Why is life so hard?! Why is my life so hard?! He cries over Mai leaving him, probably forever, he thinks. He cries over his mother giving all her attention to her new family, making him feel like he’s merely a bad memory for her. He cries over his friends enthusiastically talking about their perfectly satisfying lives, unintentionally telling him what a miserable failure he is compared to them. He cries over the hatred for himself, over the inability to love himself and make something meaningful out of his life. He has admitted it to himself before, even though it was hard to even think it, but Zuko knows he’s severely depressed. He knows he’s desperately fighting a dark shadow holding on to him that wants to drag him down a hole of misery. And he can’t fight it anymore … He can’t do this alone … He can’t anymore …
After hours of ruminating on his disastrous life, the fear of being trapped becomes so hard for him to bear that a compulsive idea repeats itself in his mind: Get away from here. Leave this place and everyone behind. There’s nothing left for you here. You don’t want to deal with the world anymore, you don’t want to see people anymore. You can just leave and hide for the rest of your life. That way you will never be confronted with the misery of your life anymore …
The thoughts linger on for a very long time. The urge to flee grows with every passing minute, as if the room is suddenly trying to crush him if he doesn’t get out of here. But what truly makes Zuko get off of the floor, is the thought that people will be worried about him: If you disappear, your friends and family will finally get the message that something’s wrong. They finally will start to worry about you. You will have their attention. They will feel how you have been feeling, maybe even recognize the pain they have caused by ignoring you. They will come after you to …
Zuko aimlessly paces around in his room, brooding on the idea when suddenly he realizes how selfish he sounds. He wants to make everyone worried just because he can’t open his mouth? And what if they truly don’t care? He can’t handle the pain of being confronted with being a liability to everyone. He considers himself already a burden and now he wants to make it even worse? … His eyes hurt from the tears but none are coming anymore. The Fire Lord has come to a halt in the middle of his room, indecisive about what to do with his life. The only thing that repeats in his mind is the belief that he has to get out of here.
His inner voice is stronger than his will. He has always been impulsive so the decision to step out onto the balcony isn’t hard to make for him. If anything, he hears his uncle’s voice saying once again that he doesn’t think things through. No, I don’t … But the pain is too much. In his ordinary robes, without the Fire Lord’s crown in his topknot or any other sign of his status, Zuko’s red teary eyes look over the dark courtyard. He knows where he has to be, but instead of walking around his own palace, he jumps over the balcony and slides his way down. Shaking from distress, he steps towards the stables to the only living creature that keeps him around in this world.
Druk lies curled up into his giant stable that was specifically made for him. The giant beast looks like a regular pet when sleeping, hiding the fact that few people are comfortable with the dragon. When Zuko adopted him a few years ago, the palace staff wasn’t happy at all. Where would they house a giant dragon? What does it even eat? Despite Druk being enormous, Zuko never feared him. On the contrary, his pet has been a great source of comfort he needs, especially now. And it hurts even more that no one understands the bond he has with Druk. Everyone is terrified of the dragon, his ministers saying that he’s irresponsible for bringing such a beast inside the capital. His mother is greatly concerned for her son hanging around a giant dragon and his friends joke that Druk could just eat him with ease … They never understood the love Zuko feels for the animal. They don’t understand how Druk is the only one keeping him in this world right now. With Druk, he doesn’t have to talk. The animal somehow senses his emotions and comes to him when he needs it.
From the moment Zuko sets foot into the stables, Druk’s big yellow eyes open. He picks up the presence of his human quicker than a fly bounces off the wall. And from the first go, Druk shows that he feels Zuko’s distress. The dragon lets out a small blow through his nostrils, turning his head towards Zuko. Without using words, Zuko embraces the beak and rests his head on it with quiet sobs still leaving his throat. Druk lets out a small purr in an attempt to provide his human some comfort.
“You’re the only one really caring about me, right?” Zuko sobs against the few patches of soft fur. Druk responds by letting out another breath. “I need to get out of here. I can’t do this anymore. I need to get away, Druk.”
Druk moves his head, making Zuko lift his head up. The dragon lifts his paw and puts one of his claws on Zuko’s shoulder, covering his chest with the giant foot. To an outsider, it would look like the dragon is about to crush the Fire Lord between his claws but Zuko has no fear of it. To him this is the same as having a cat crawling onto your chest. With fresh tears rolling from his eyes, Zuko holds a hand on the claw.
“I don’t know what to do”, he admits to his source of comfort.
As if Druk can read his inner feelings, he crawls out of the stable towards the open courtyard and gets into position for Zuko to hop on. He lies his head down on the stone for his owner to get on easily, as if telling him that he will bring him to any destination he wants without asking questions. Zuko doubts his intentions once again. Is he really just going to leave this place without telling anyone? Is he going to selfishly put his friends and family through fear of him disappearing? Should he not leave a message so no one would be worried about him? Druk patiently waits for Zuko to decide.
“I’m leaving everyone behind”, Zuko comes closer to his pet once again. “Am I being selfish?”
Druk responds with another purr that could mean anything. Zuko lingers onto the decision now that the chance is sitting right in front of him. As is always the case with him, he acts without thinking any longer. In a state of daze, Zuko takes the saddle and fixes it on top of Druk’s neck before hopping on himself. When the dragon pushes himself up, Zuko thinks that he’s making the best and worst decision at the same time. But he can’t deny that the feeling of flying away from this place is liberating.
“You know where to go, boy”, Zuko sobs, having a destination in mind where he knows no one will come to his doorstep.
Druk trusts Zuko's guidance to the right place and so the dragon takes off, jumping into the sky and spreading his giant wings to fly. Zuko doesn’t look back down towards the palace, nor does he look down over the land he rules over. He doesn’t want to see his decision into action. Instead, he keeps his eyes locked on Druk, who only becomes more visible with the rising sun in the early morning hours. When they have left the capital, Zuko’s tears become dried up despite the sadness staying clenched around his heart. He steers Druk towards the north, knowing exactly where he has to be … not knowing if he’s ever going to turn back.
And that way, Zuko disappears from his home without anyone spotting him a last time. It’s almost too easy, actually. It should be concerning how little the guards notice. But this time, Zuko is grateful for the incompetence of his people.