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Zuko was confused. He couldn’t understand what was going on.
They had just escaped the Northern Water Tribe and for the first time since he was banished, Zuko just wanted to rest .
He lied down when Uncle suggested it. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the images the bodies of his countryman made as they floated, sodden and broken, amongst the wreckage of the fleet. He ignored the unnatural feeling of anxiety rising in his chest and attributed the cold, clammy feeling as lingering effects of swimming in polar waters.
He closed his eyes for a moment. Just a moment. To rest, to forget, to just give in.
When he woke up, he couldn’t open his eyes and Uncle was crying.
Why was Uncle crying?
The older man was kneeling by his side, frantically pressing, searching, his body for — Zuko didn’t know what. Uncle was saying something but he couldn’t hear it. It felt like he was still swimming under the ice, everything sounded muffled and distant; his heart was racing from exertion and his limbs were heavy.
The only thing he could make out was that Uncle’s voice was choked with tears and his breath was heaving.
It sounded like he was pleading.
Pleading for what? What could make Uncle sound so desperate? They escaped, they found enough debris to make a raft, food and water would be an imminent concern but not yet, so why?
Zuko was still tired. So tired; even more tired than before. Wasn’t resting supposed to make him less tired? Why was he awake if he still needed to rest? Shouldn’t he go back to sleep then?
Uncle's hands pressed on a tender spot on his side, in an area where he had crashed into the frame of the window on the bridge on his ship when it blew up. It was bruising, last he checked, making the skin on that side a kaleidoscope of colours.
It hadn’t bothered him too much before the battle started, he had toughened out worst pain before, but now the pressure Uncle was putting on it made him inhale sharply
( — and now that he noticed it, his breathing was all wrong as well. Short, shallow breaths in time with his heart; uncontrolled and wrong. All wrong. Wrongwrongwrong. Everything was wrong ).
He was hurting.
(Why didn’t he notice earlier?)
He was tired.
(He just wants to sleep .)
Uncle was sobbing now.
What was happening?