Chapter Text
There were certain things one got used to travelling with the Avatar. Supernatural happenings were surprisingly rare, but memorable. This was what Sokka told Zuko during his first days with the group. Zuko heard him, believed him, even. He processed this new information and thought he had come to terms with it, but now, he was staring out at the world from the other side of a glass prison, and he didn't know how to escape.
"This place is beautiful," Katara said, looking the thick trees and brush leading down to the beach. Zuko's mouth twisted ruefully as he surveyed the landscape. These had once been well cultivated gardens, abundant with fruit and flowers and medicinal herbs. Now it seemed the wild nature of the grounds had reasserted itself, and he struggled to see beauty in the tangled mess. But, he reflected, he and Katara had only been on good terms for a few days. It would behoove him to stay there.
"I guess," he mumbled in reply. "It used to look a lot nicer. But there aren't any gardeners anymore."
"Not everything has to be in order to be beautiful." Katara shrugged. She reached up into the low branches of a nearby tree and plucked a ripe mangonut. "We can't just go and pick food from trees at home. The wilderness is beautiful there, too, but it's not nearly as giving." Zuko cast another dubious gaze, but this time his eyes lingered on the crawling vines of yellow summer melon and the medicinal silver wort growing in the shade of the mangonut tree. Spoils like this would've been heavenly in his days on the run with his uncle. From that angle, he could see how the mess that had once been one of his favorite gardens was beautiful.
"I'm going to get started on dinner," Katara announced a few moments later. "Any requests?"
"Whatever is fine with me," Zuko said. Katara turned and went inside, calling to her other friends that dinner would be ready within an hour.
Zuko lingered at the edge of the trees. There was a small pond with a waterfall dropping into it. He remembered swimming in it as a child, preferring the clear, cool water to the crashing briny waves of the ocean some days. He would tell Katara about it later. She would appreciate it more than anyone else there. First, though, Zuko would have to remember where it was. When he'd gone before, his cousin, Lu Ten had always led the way. He thought he remembered roughly the direction, though.
After half an hour of walking, Zuko had still not found the pond. He didn't remember the grounds of the summer palace being quite this extensive. Was he even still on the grounds, he wondered. The vegetation was growing thicker around him. He had to pull out a sword and cut a path for himself. If he didn't find the pond in the next ten minutes, he told himself, he would turn back. As it was, he would be late for dinner regardless, but he was loathe to give up.
He was about to make good on turning back when something caught his eye just a few yards ahead. Something was glinting between the trees up ahead. It wasn't the pond, he was certain, but he couldn't think of what else it could be. He pushed through the trees and found himself in a small clearing. This wasn't here before, he thought. Then he spotted what had caught his attention in the first place.
The mirror was large and ornate. There was no way one person could have carried it alone, even back when there were actually paths through the forest. It towered above the leaf littered ground, and the frame was solid tea-oak. What was strangest of all, though, was the condition it was in. The polished wood gleamed, as if a fresh coat of lacquer had been applied that day. The glass was clear, and unbroken and clean. Zuko and the others had been in the summer palace for nearly two weeks at this point, and Zuko was certain that if anyone else had been on the grounds, they would've noticed by then. Then again, the grounds were also much bigger than he recalled. But who would've done so much work upkeeping this mirror when they could've been squatting in the palace?
Zuko stepped forward to inspect the mirror. He pushed at it, but it was just as heavy as he thought it would be. Too heavy to be standing without a wall to support it, in fact. He bent low and inspected the base. The mirror was held in place by equally heavy looking feet that the mirror slotted into, but strangely, the wooden feet seemed to be stuck in the ground. As if they had been carved there. As if they had grown there. Frowning, Zuko circled the mirror, looking for what he wasn't sure, but he ran his hand along the edges and the back as high as he could reach (the mirror stood a good three feet taller than him). There was nothing unusual about the mirror though, except for it being in the woods. He went around to the front of it and looked at the glass. There was nothing unusual there either. Until he looked at his reflection.
The Zuko in the glass was grinning at him in the most unsettling way. Zuko, gasped and tried to stumble back, but the mirror Zuko's hand shot out through the glass and grabbed Zuko's arm. Instead of shattering, the glass rippled as if it were made of liquid. Then Zuko felt himself falling forward. He passed through something cold. When he looked up, he was in some nebulous dark space. The forest was gone. Then he heard the sound of knuckles on glass and he spun around. The mirror Zuko peered in at him from the forest where the mirror stood. His malicious grin widened and he waved good bye before disappearing from view. Zuko rushed forward, ready to break through the glass and stop whatever that...that thing was. He slammed into the pane and ricocheted off of it. Zuko stared up at the glass in disbelief. Cautiously, he stood up and pressed his hands against the now unyielding glass.
"Hey!" he shouted. He scanned the clearing as far as he could see looking for the thing that looked like him. "Hey! Let me out!"