lost in the sauce

special shout out to my friend @resurrected-blot for making this gorgeous cover art!! look at him, he's so precious🥹🥹🥹

sneak peak of chapter eight:

Jee shuffled from where he stood and pulled out a plain folder. Unfamiliar faces, save Bujing’s, stared back at Zuko.

Iroh didn’t need to look, he watched keenly for any microexpression on his boy’s face. Zuko had always been an emotive boy, even as a child. His eyes told the story, accompanied by how he used to speak with his hands as if they were animating thin air into shapes. Once he went on for over twenty minutes about one of the plays Iroh took him and Azula to when they were seven and five respectively.

But, for the first time in three years, there was no story in his face. No flicker of recognition, as Zuko stared through the photos of random men. Iroh held his breath when gold eyes finally landed on Bujing's, but one blink and his gaze passed it as if it meant nothing. The boy made a small sound, his limbs shifting under the thick blankets.

“Do you recognize one of these men?” Ming, in a noble attempt, asked. “Can you see the one who attacked you?”

It was like when his mother first deteriorated. Blank, listless eyes that burned through you. She had been a stranger in her own mind, and Iroh was afraid the same thing was happening to his nephew as they watched Zuko's eyes droop, shadows bruised underneath his eye.