It was the pain that woke him.

He felt as though a miniature octosquid had got loose in his head and was beating his brain with eight hammers.  Everything was dark, but then again, that made sense, because his eyes were shut.  Carefully, he opened one, then shut it with a groan.  The light had made the pain in his head a million times worse.

A soft voice crooned next to him and a rough tongue licked his cheek.

What…?  Rather than open his eyes, he tried moving his hand up to see what had just licked him.

It was some kind of winged lizard — a dragon?  But dragons were extinct!  He'd learned that in school—

School?  He'd gone to it.  He knew about schools.  But he couldn't remember anything about—

Oh, spirits.

"You're awake. Good," a male voice said from the doorway.

Startled, he opened his eyes again, and yelped this time as he squeezed them shut.  Nope, still a bad idea.

"You'll need to stay down for a while. Then perhaps you can help us care for the babies; that one seems to like you."

"Where… where am I?" he asked.

"You're in the Sun Warrior city," the male voice replied.

The Sun Warriors?  But they were gone too, right?

Apparently not.  He moaned.  "I can't remember—"  Anything.  There was nothing there.  Parents, siblings, friends, enemies, nothing.  Not even a name.

"That happens sometimes, when you hit your head," the other replied. "You're wearing Fire Nation palace colours. We've sent a message to them, someone should come and claim you soon. In the meantime, we'll look after you."

Palace?  That was wrong, wasn't it?  He wasn't from the Fire Nation, he was from the Earth Kingdom.  But he wasn't Earth Kingdom — colony.  He was a colonist.  Why was he in the colours of the palace?  Distressed and hurting, the boy whimpered.

"Just lie there. Our doctor says you'll maybe be able to get up again in a few days. For now, stay where you are. The black dragonet will look after you." Receding footsteps meant the owner of the male voice was leaving.

"What happened to me?" the boy asked in a whisper, not expecting an answer.

 

It was nearly a day before Kouji could open his eyes without the light hurting him, and two more before the ache in his skull subsided.  By that point, at least, he had managed to remember his name — and was going utterly berserk with the enforced idleness.  When the man who had first spoken to him on his initial awakening again brought up the possibility of looking after the baby dragons, Kouji leapt at the chance to be useful.

Amused by the boy's enthusiasm, the man — Ham Ghao was his name — showed him how to handle the reptiles.  Through the entire demonstration and explanation, the black dragonet padded after Kouji like a second shadow, which he found amusing.  After all, he was usually the one doing the following.

Kouji grasped for that small fragment of memory, hoping there would be more attached to it, but it hung alone, suspended in nothing.  Sighing, he returned his attention to Ham Ghao.

For six days, Kouji lived with the Sun Warriors, caring for the baby dragons — referred to alternately as dragonlings or dragonets — and trying to recall his past.  He had more success with the former than with the latter, which the Sun Warriors didn't mind at all.  However, no less than four of the girl-children Kouji's age seemed to find the amnesiac stranger a mysterious and romantic figure.  Soon, the boldest of them began to seek him out.

As it turned out, a concussion and memory loss was not enough to cure Kouji of his fear of girls.

To escape her attentions, the boy wound up fleeing inside a cave.  Hearing a noise, he turned around, thinking it was the object of his search.  Instead, there was a tall man in green clothes with a circle on the chest.  "Who are you?" Kouji asked, taking a wary step back.  He wasn't fast enough — the man stepped forward and pressed a damp cloth over the boy's nose and mouth.  Kouji tried to back-pedal, but then he tripped and everything went black dragon.

The boy cried out and fell to his knees, trembling, his grey eyes wide.  The black dragon, who had indeed been the cause of the noise behind him, crooned softly as she climbed into his lap and then partly up his chest, hooking her claws in his shirt to rub the underside of his chin with the top of her head in an attempt to comfort him.  Kouji automatically wrapped his arms around her, trying to calm down.

The dragonet mewled, and he looked down at her in surprise.  "I… I don't know," he whispered.  "I just... remembered something scary.  I guess being in here brought it back — the scary thing happened in a cave."

She made an odd chattering noise, and the boy frowned.  "I… think I was looking for something — no," he corrected himself, more certain now, "someone."  Biting his lip, he tried to remember who he had been looking for, and ever so slowly, details began to fill in.

Annoyance — somebody, his brother, had promised they would practise bending together, and she'd run away again, so he had to go find her because he always could.

A face — like his, but rounder, softer, eyes amber instead of grey, mischief everywhere he looked — it belonged to her, to his twin sister.

"Yui," his mouth said.

It was as though speaking her name loosed a flood.  Memories washed over him in a flash, one after another, every memory dragging three more with it.  In a space of seconds, most of the major events, and no few of the minor ones, of Kouji's childhood flooded his mind: the day he'd realised he liked the Earth Kingdom more than his mother country, his terror on realising he was an earthbender, the time Ichiro had caught him bending and revealed that he was a firebender and had kept that secret so he wouldn't be sent back to the Fire Nation, the vow that he, Ichiro, and Yui had made to keep their love for the Earth Kingdom a secret from their xenophobic, jingoist parents…

There were still holes, of course, and everything stopped where the man in green had knocked Kouji unconscious, but at least half of his childhood was no longer empty.  Shaken, the boy put the dragonet down and emerged from the  cave to tell the Sun Warriors what he remembered —

And saw Ichiro.

 

*          *          *

 

After a week of travel, two letters, carried by hawks of a breed neither Haru nor Ichiro had ever seen before, were dropped on Zuko's head within hours of one another. After reading the first, the young Firelord said he knew where Kouji was. The second told them that the boy had hit his head and lost his memories.

"That… is either a good or a bad thing," said Ichiro, after a moment's deliberation.  He sounded strangely calm, given that he was matching Zuko step-for-step in mad intensity to get to the twelve-year-old.

Zuko shrugged. "Either way, we know where to find him now. We'll deal with what we find when we get there."

They arrived in a ruined city a little over a week later.  Haru let out a whistle as he felt the stones.  "Wow… this place is ancient."

"Yes," Zuko replied, shortly, and went in search of its residents.

Oddly enough, the first person he saw was Kouji — clothed in the garb of a Sun Warrior, with a bandage around his head, emerging from a cave with a stunned, haunted look on his face.

"Kouji?" he asked, not quite daring to hope he was recognized.

The boy turned to stare at him.  "Do I… know you?"

"Only if you want to," the young monarch said, after a brief pause. "I mean, yes, you do, but you don't have to. I just... I needed to make sure you were all right." He was slurring slightly, fatigue and pain finally catching up with him now that he'd reached his goal and his single-minded adrenaline rush was fading.

"Don't mind him," said Haru cheerfully, coming up behind the Firelord.  "He was really worried about you, Kouji."

The boy took a step back, confused.  "I… I don't…  I—"

"Kouji?"  It was Ichiro.

Kouji froze, then flung himself at his older brother, crying incoherently.

Zuko said nothing, just watched the two of them, wobbling a little.

"Sit," ordered Haru as the preteen started babbling at Ichiro, saying how he could only remember bits and pieces, he didn't know how he'd gotten here, the last thing he remembered was a cave and a man…

Zuko shook his head — and then fell over completely.

Haru caught him.  "Now what?" he asked.  Zuko didn't answer, just started to pull away from Haru to push himself upright again, with very little success.

And then Kouji said in a tiny little voice, "Zuko…?"

"Yeah?" he mumbled.

There was a sudden small explosion at his waist — Kouji had released his brother to cling to Zuko.  "I'm sorry I'msorryI'msorryI'msorry—"

"S'ok, don' worry 'bout it," Zuko assured him, definitely slurring now. "You got between them'n me, s'all that matters."

"Okay, Zu, bed rest.  Now," Haru said, detaching Kouji and scooping the Firelord up in his arms.

"Pumme down, 'm fine," he mumbled.

"Lies."

"Not lying."

Haru ignored him, carrying Zuko away to find the nearest Sun Warrior and politely ask for a bed. 

 

Meanwhile, Kouji went back to the chores he'd been given while the Sun Warriors looked after him — namely, feeding the baby dragons.  More of his memories had returned — specifically, his memories of that hellish night when he had been triggered and made to lead the Firelord into a trap.

The black dragon looked up at him and crooned.

"They'll kill me if I go back," he whispered to her.  "What I did was treason…"

She snorted.

"Well, no, he wouldn't…"

She tilted her head, giving him a knowingly exasperated look.

"So instead they lock me in prison like… like…"  Kouji groped for what he'd been trying to think of, but the memory eluded him.

She considered this for a moment, then crooned again.

"I betrayed him.  There's no getting around that."

She nuzzled him.

"But I still…"

She nudged him again.

Kouji was silent for a long moment.

She waited.

"He… I haven't seen him since he collapsed…"

She rolled her eyes.

Kouji sighed.  "I guess I kinda have to, don't I."

She nodded.

Wincing, the boy slid down the wall of the nestling cave and scratched her behind the ears.  She crooned and nuzzled up against him, and Kouji smiled sadly, turning all his attention to her.  He was spared having to search for Zuko when, several hours later, the monarch found him. "Kouji?"

The twelve-year-old had been dozing with the black dragonet in his lap; hearing Zuko, he jerked awake.  "Y-yeah?"

"I'm sorry about earlier," Zuko started, then paused.

"You were exhausted," Kouji said softly.

"...Not so bad as all that. Really." He was lying through his teeth and they both knew it.

The boy sighed and gently stroked the dragonet's head.  Zuko watched the pair of them, unsure what to say next.  Finally, Kouji blurted, "What's gonna happen to me?"

"...If you come back with me, you'll be watched, to make sure you're not triggered again, and to make sure no one can get to you any other way, either."

Kouji blinked.  "Th-that's it?"

Zuko nodded. "What happened wasn't your fault."

"But I led you into a trap!" the boy wailed.

"Not by choice," Zuko reminded him. "Look, forget that. There's only one thing I need to know. Would you ever intentionally do anything to harm me, my uncle, Song...I'm sure you can come up with a good list of the people I mean?"

Kouji shook his head vigorously, looking horrified at the very thought.

"See?"

"But what if they get to me again?" Kouji demanded.  "I don't even know how they got me the first time!"

Zuko was silent for a long moment. "A few months before you came to the palace, the Dai Li managed to seize me off of the grounds. I still don't know how much of their conditioning stuck. So, yeah, you could be triggered again. But maybe I can be triggered, too." He shrugged, concealed a wince when his shoulder protested, and continued. "You're worth the risk, little brother."

Kouji froze and stared up at the Firelord.  Little brother?  Did he just…?  Does he really mean…?

Zuko was watching him, waiting for his response. When it didn't come, he started talking again, as if aware that he was probably just digging himself a deeper hole, the way he always did. "You don't have to come back if you don't want to. But I'd like it if you did."

Gently, Kouji moved aside the dragon in his lap.  Once he was clear, he launched himself at Zuko, holding the Firelord tightly around the waist and burying his face in the teen's shirt.  Zuko, after a brief initial moment of startlement, hesitantly and painfully hugged back.

"I'll go back," whispered Kouji.  "I can't leave you again… niisan*."

"Okay," Zuko said, relieved. "We'll get going as soon as you're ready." And he knew damn well Haru and Ichiro would argue, but if they tried, he would tell them exactly where they could shove their objections. He was fine, dammit.

...At least until he got home and his mother and fiancée started yelling.

Kouji let go reluctantly.  "Okay."

"So, just let me know."

Before Kouji could respond, the black dragonling woke up, and curled herself around the boy's shoulders in a remarkably possessive manner.

"I think she wants to come with you," Zuko said.

"Wh-wh-what?" stammered the boy.

The dragonling crooned in agreement, licking Kouji's ear.

"I-I-I can't take her with me— the Sun Warriors are try-trying to repopulate the dragons, it wouldn't be right—"

"You two bonded. She won't breed now, anyways," a Sun Warrior said, coming up unexpectedly behind them.

Zuko jumped, on instinct reached for a pair of swords he no longer carried, cringed a little, remembering the last time he'd used them, and, very quietly, said, "Please don't jump out at me from nowhere, sir."

The Sun Warrior bowed to the Firelord. "I apologize, Lord Zuko." He then turned to Kouji. "You and this lovely lady bonded, and we can't change that. You're stuck with her forever. If you leave, she will follow."

Kouji's grey eyes were wide.  "We bonded? How?  When?"

"We don't really know how it happens," the Sun Warrior admitted, "but some dragons bond other dragons, some bond humans, some don't bond at all." He shrugged. "As for when...well, we don't really know that, either."

"Oh." Kouji glanced up at the dragon around his shoulders.  "Guess I should name you then, huh, girl?"

She nuzzled him.

"How about… Qiang?"

She crooned a little and licked his ear.

Kouji couldn't help but laugh.  Suddenly, things were looking up.

Even Zuko almost smiled.