To keep myself from having a breakdown over my STBB...
I bring you guys Avatar The Last Airbender fic! Because yeah, I watched M Night's movie and was pretty upset with all the liberties he took with my precious tv-show. Therefore, in retaliation, I write Jetko! Also, um, sorry I've been dead to the world of Atla? I really shouldn't have left this story hanging the way I did, and I've really got no excuse. So, sorry to anyone who read it and freaked out when I just stopped posting :((
Title: Asleep on the wind (chapter 5/6)
Author: alpha_hydra
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Jet/Zuko
Warnings: Unbetaed
Spoilers: References to "The Southern Raiders"
Summary: Jet hated change.
Disclaimer: Avatar: the Last Airbender and all related people, places, and things are property of Nickelodeon, Michael DiMartino, Bryan Konjetzko, and lots of other people who aren't me. No copyright infringement is intended.
Also, if you've forgotten what happened in this story, or if you've never read it before, here are:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3 and
Chapter 4
The next morning dawned dull and overcast. Jet watched the weak rays of sunlight spill into his room for a while before jerking out of bed and meandering through the temple. He got lost-It’s bound to happen, Sokka had said, this place is like a labyrinth-but Jet found he didn’t mind. He’d discovered that after spending so much time alone or with only the company of Smellerbee and Longshot, being around the gang left him feeling a bit claustrophobic. So he wandered down empty hallways, torn between anger and reluctant acceptance.
Well, he wasn’t really angry. After all, he hadn’t been lying last night when he said he’d forgiven Zuko. It’s just; he could still hear Bee’s voice in the middle of the night, tinged with disappointment as she said it: I thought you finally understood the difference between sabotaging the Fire Nation and blaming the son for the father’s mistake.
Damn her and her stupid, inadvertently appropriate metaphors and Damn Li-Zuko for being the Fire Nation prince and the stupidly perfect example of an outcast all along. But mostly, he damned himself for changing so much since he’d first awoken in that Evil Waterbender’s home.
He turned a corner and caught sight of Haru and Teo, Haru leaning over the back of Teo’s wheelchair and speaking quietly into his ear. He watched the way Teo smiled softly and dropped his gaze, tilted his head slightly to the side and allowed Haru to lean in closer. Jet raised an eyebrow and backtracked the way he came.
When he finally found his way to the courtyard, a clap of thunder sounded overhead and brought with it the first few drops of rain.
Chit Seng was there, standing by the campfire with his hands behind his back. He looked up from where he was staring into the fire and smiled, wide and crooked. Jet still wasn’t sure what to make of him; the firebender who’d been imprisoned by his own kind because he was apparently a menace to the cause. He’d listened to the stories the man had told, yesterday with the rest of the gang when all he really wanted to do was keep an eye on Zuko, still firebending off in the distance even after six hours.
But, if anything, there was more reason to like Chit Seng than there was Zuko, so he gritted his teeth against the slowly evaporating distrust and smiled back.
“Early riser, huh?” Chit Seng asked and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Me too.”
“Yeah,” Jet said. “Where is everyone?”
“Still asleep, is my guess.”
Chit Seng frowned down at the fire.
“Oh, except for that little blind girl, she went off with that kid in the helmet.”
“The Duke?” he tried, and Chit Seng nodded.
“Yeah, that’s his name,” he answered. “They said they were gonna go find some meat, since we didn’t bring any with us. That little girl’s pretty tough for her age.”
‘Yeah I guess she is,” Jet said appraisingly. If he’d met her before he’d stumbled across the Avatar, he probably would have recruited her to the Freedom Fighters.
Jet watched the rain drizzle around them, safely covered by the cliff.
“What do you think would happen if this part of the cliff just collapsed under the pressure of that temple?” Chit Seng said after a long moment, pointing up to the building as a few stray pebbles were knocked down around them by the rain.
Jet looked at him, imagined just what would happen in that scenario, and laughed.
After a while the rest of the group sauntered into the courtyard, in varying degrees of sleepiness; most mourned the loss of a day frolicking in the sun, while Katara dragged Aang away to teach him something complicated involving rainwater and bending.
Eventually Toph and The Duke scampered back into the campsite, a large flat rock hovering over them like a giant umbrella. The Duke was holding a pair of rabbit-quails, beaming from ear to ear. Toph was laughing at something he’d said, and when they finally reached the campsite, she stole the rabbit-quails from The Duke and dropped them into Zuko’s lap.
Zuko, who had been quietly meditating slightly apart from the group, scowled heavily when she thumped him on the shoulder, and yelped indignantly when the dead animals landed in his lap. Chit Seng took that moment to excuse himself from Jet’s presence, mumbling something that Jet didn’t quite hear.
“We went hunting Hotman,” Toph said vindictively from the other side of the campsite, sitting beside Zuko and ignoring the withering glare he shot at her.
“Yeah, we just need someone to pluck and skin them,” The Duke said proudly, puffing out his chest.
Zuko’s scowl slowly melted off his face.
“Oh,” he said, running a hand through his hair a little sheepishly. “I don’t know how to do that. Where’s Haru?”
The Duke pouted.
“He and Teo are exploring the temple again,” he said. “They wouldn’t let me go with them this time.”
Jet smirked, remembering the coy smile on Teo’s face as Haru whispered into his ear; he made a mental note to tease them about it later. The others didn’t seem to notice him. Toph tsk-ed at Zuko dispassionately and snatched the carcasses from his grip, stomping over to Jet and holding them out expectantly. Jet smiled and raised an eyebrow.
“What?” he asked, playing dumb.
“Don’t even try to lie to me, sweet-talker,” she said, tapping her foot impatiently (Jet noticed that each time she did that, a few pebbles would come flying out of the ground). “You think Sokka’s gonna be any help to us now that his girlfriend’s joined the gang?”
“Hey!” Sokka called from where he was sitting with Suki-being no help whatsoever, Jet thought wryly.
“Exactly,” Toph said. “So you and the Jailbird are going to have to start doing stuff too.”
Jet smiled.
“Fine,” he said.
“And furthermore-” Toph began, but cut herself short. “What do you mean ‘fine’? No one just says ‘fine’ after hardly any arguing.”
Jet looked up to find Zuko watching him intently.
“Maybe I want to help,” he said, keeping eye contact with Zuko until the other blinked and looked away. Jet smiled down at Toph and The Duke. “Come on, I’ll teach you guys how to skin a rabbit-quail.”
So he went over and plunked himself down next to Zuko, who gave him a slightly perplexed expression but said nothing.
“You need to learn how to do this too, your Highness,” Jet said, answering Zuko’s unspoken question.
It had the desired effect of annoying Zuko;
“Don’t call me that,” he snapped, even as he watched Jet carefully pluck the rabbit-quail’s tail feathers.
Jet shook his head, smiling.
“Can’t call you your Highness, can’t call you Li, can’t call you Sifu Hotman,” he began, turning to The Duke and raising his eyebrows significantly. “What can I call you then?”
Zuko said nothing, and when Jet turned back to him, he saw Zuko frowning down at the floor, hair falling into his face so that it obscured his eyes. Jet bumped shoulders with him, for some reason glad he’d sat down on Zuko’s right side, so he could read the lines on his face instead of the scar.
“Zuko,” he said significantly, and when he looked up, Jet dumped the other rabbit-quail in his lap. “You’re not squeamish, are you?”
“What? No!”
Jet grinned, cheeky.
“Good,” he said. “You can start on that one then.”
Jet watched the way Zuko’s frown melted off his face, slowly thawing a block of ice somewhere deep in Jet’s chest that he’d not noticed before. He smiled back, pulled out a dagger concealed in his leggings and looked back at the rabbit-quail.
“So,” he began, turning to Toph and The Duke like he was a grand storyteller. “The first thing you want to do, guys and gals, is cut off the back legs.”
It was a good day, Jet decided that night as he lay awake in bed. He’d avoided arguing with both Haru and Chit Seng, provoked a sword-fight with Sokka (who’d become surprisingly useful with that space-sword of his, not that it stopped Jet from kicking his butt), ate three square meals that day, and had avoided thinking too much-he’d had enough introspection wandering around the Fire Nation alone, thank you very much.
Surprisingly, however, he’d spent more or less the entire day sitting with Zuko-who’d felt sluggish because of the rain and didn’t have much to do with Aang off learning from Katara. It felt normal almost, kind of like he was back with Smellerbee and Longshot.
Except, he thought, with Bee and Shot, he could communicate entire stories with a simple quirk of his eyebrow-they’d all picked it up from Longshot, apparently-but Zuko was really not that good at reading facial expressions or jumping to the right conclusions. Jet found himself re-learning how to talk to people with Zuko, something he hadn’t realized he forgot how to do until now.
It was the same in some ways, yes, but different in other ways, ways that weren’t all that unwelcome.
Eventually, he fell into a light sleep, with dragons and fire swirling through his vague dreams. For once though, the fire in his dreams wasn’t burning or destroying; it was simply there, offering warmth and light in the darkness.
There were little things that Jet noticed over the course of the next few days. Jet liked Chit Seng more than he liked Haru; he liked listening to Sokka talk about Piandao, a Fire Nation Swords Master who’d helped him make his ‘space-rock sword’, more than he liked running through the Air Temple with Teo and The Duke. But the most incriminating, by far, was the simplest.
He liked Zuko.
It was almost strange, how easy it was to like the banished Fire Nation prince, how the notions he’d had on the ferry into Ba Sing Se resurfaced so easily after a day or two in his company. Zuko felt like a puzzle he’d been working on for months, fitting together the bits and pieces of the other boy as he learned them and slowly revealing the entire picture.
One night they were all sitting around the campfire; Katara had just cleared away the mess they’d made at dinnertime, and everyone else was talking and laughing amiably. Toph and Chit Seng, in particular, were the loudest; they’d gotten along famously after Chit Seng lost to her in an arm wrestling match-Chit Seng swore he let her win and Toph claimed that she had cheated and used earthbending. At that point, Chit Seng had punched her on the shoulder, shared a long laugh with her, and that had been that.
After a while, the chatter subsided; Katara sighed and turned to Aang.
“So, when do you think we should be leaving?”
Ten pairs of eyes turned to the two of them suddenly. Aang looked up from where he’d been absently petting Momo and frowned. Somewhere to the right, Jet heard Appa yawn.
“Who said anything about leaving?” Aang said, and although his smile was wide and seemingly uncaring, Jet saw the way his eyes narrowed ever so slightly; stubborn.
“Aang,” Katara began gently. “You know we can’t stay here too long; it’s dangerous.”
“It can’t be too dangerous Katara,” he answered. “I mean, we’ve already been here for a while now, and no one’s tried to kill us so far.”
“Except for Sparky-Sparky Boom-Boom Man,” Sokka added. “But that was only because Zuko sent him after us. Now that there’s no one actively trying to kill us-”
“What do you mean ‘no one’s actively trying to kill us?” she retorted, suddenly angry-not before shooting Zuko a furious scowl that Jet couldn’t help but notice. “How about, I don’t know; all of the Fire Nation? You think they’re not actively trying to kill us?”
“That’s not what I meant!”
Zuko, who’d been sitting in between Toph and Jet, frowned and looked at the floor. Jet elbowed him lightly in the ribs, tuning out Katara and Sokka’s squabbling. He did it again when Zuko refused to look up, and bumped his knee against the other boy’s leg after that. Finally, he looked up, half scowling.
“What?” he asked irritably.
Jet didn’t answer; he only smirked until Zuko rolled his eyes and offered him a tiny smile in response.
“I understand what it’s like to leave a place you once called home,” Hakoda was telling Aang from in between Sokka and Katara, looking like a wall dividing two warring nations. “I think we all do. None of us would blame you for wanting to spend as much time as you can here.”
Aang smiled at him, but Katara only frowned.
“Thank you, Hakoda,” he answered, triumphant smile fading at the look on Katara’s face. “But I think Katara’s right. We should be leaving soon.”
Hakoda nodded once, turned to Zuko and fixed him with an unreadable expression.
“At the Boiling Rock,” he said. “It was your sister we were running from, right?”
The expression on Zuko’s face darkened, like a light went out somewhere in his mind. He nodded.
“Azula is a lunatic,” he said bitterly, “but a powerful one, and smart. She’ll find us before long.”
Hakoda nodded, as if satisfied. He turned to Chit Seng, and they seemed to have a silent conversation before simultaneously standing.
“We’ll start packing up,” Chit Seng said, and waved everyone back down when they all stood to help. “You kids enjoy yourselves, at least for tonight.”
The rest of the group sat in silence for almost a minute after Hakoda and Chit Seng left.
“What should we do now?” Teo asked, eyes turned down to his lap.
“I could make us some tea,” Zuko suggested.
“Is that your suggestion for everything?” Sokka asked, but he was smiling as he said it, teasing.
Zuko scowled and looked into the fire.
“Uncle always said that there was nothing a good cup of tea couldn’t fix.”
The statement hung in the air for a moment longer, heavy with something unspoken; Jet imagined it as a new, sharp-edged piece to the puzzle that was Zuko, wondered when he’d be able to put it into place.
“I’d like some tea,” he offered casually, leaning back on his elbows so that their shoulders touched. “Jasmine, if you guys have any.”
“Yeah, Zuko, you do make some pretty good tea,” Suki said from across the fire.
And soon enough, the others readily agreed. Zuko got up and fetched an old, battered teapot from one of the packs; Jet felt his absence as cold draft all along his side.
“Why don’t you tell Suki and Jet that tea joke of your Uncle’s, while you’re at it Zuko,” Toph called out happily, grinning at her feet.
Everyone laughed at that; Sokka whispered something in Suki’s ear that had her giggling. Jet tilted his head back until he could see Zuko upside-down behind him.
“Must have been some joke,” Jet said curiously, quiet enough so that only Zuko could hear-and possibly Toph, because she heard everything.
“Shut up,” came the reply.
He didn’t miss the way Zuko started at catching Jet watching him, the high flush that spread up his neck. He grinned until Zuko smiled shyly back, turned away and finished pouring tea into ten separate cups.
They fell asleep around the campfire, dozing off in exhaustion after exchanging countless childhood memories and stories of what life was like before they’d all met the Avatar, or in Aang’s case, life one-hundred years ago.
Jet was the last one to drift off that night, staring into the fire in silence long after the others had decided in a fit of laziness to sleep here instead of wandering about an upside-down temple while only half-sentient.
Zuko had drifted off first, head drooping onto Jet’s shoulder in a vain search for something comfortable. Now, almost an hour later, he’d rearranged himself in his sleep so that his head was pillowed in Jet’s lap. Jet buried his hand in Zuko’s thick hair and smiled to himself.
That was a good night too.
He was jerked into alertness at dawn, to the rumbling of earth and a deep, telling crash that could only have been an explosion. Jet sat up, spared a moment to relish the warmth Zuko provided, curled around Jet like he’d never slept any other way, before he jumped up, searching frantically for his hook swords.
Very abruptly, the campsite fell into total chaos. Zuko ran off quickly, at the sound of a sharp, female voice; Jet ran in the opposite direction, looking for-
“The Duke!” he called out, panic beginning to grip him.
From directly above him, Jet heard a sickening crunching sound, and he had less than a second later he had to roll out of the way as one of the spires of the temple came crashing down.
“JET!” he heard, and it was Teo, with The Duke in his lap, holding his helmet in place as they rushed toward him. “This way, Toph’s made a way out!”
So Jet ran after them, skidding to a halt by Haru and Hakoda, watching as Aang tried vainly to get Appa into the large whole that had suddenly appeared in the wall. A compromise was reached, and as Katara hugged her father fiercely (“We were separated once, I won’t let it happen again!”), Jet put a hand on Haru’s shoulder.
“If you guys head west, you’ll find two of my Freedom Fighters in a small city,” Jet said urgently, watching the way Haru’s dark eyes darted around their surroundings. “Smellerbee and Longshot. The Duke’ll know them. They’ll help if you need it.”
Haru nodded sharply, already turning around to follow the others. Jet grabbed his wrist again quickly.
“Wait,” he said. “Take care of The Duke.”
“I will,” Haru answered, this time giving Jet his full attention.
Then they were gone, disappearing into the darkness. Jet shook himself and sprinted after Aang, diving to avoid a blast of fire that had been sent his way and landing neatly in Appa’s saddle four feet under the cliff face.
“Didn’t think I’d let you guys have all the fun, did you?” he said, standing and brushing invisible dirt from his shirt.
Toph grinned at him.
“Wouldn’t have dreamed of it, Smooth-talker,” she said.
“Where’s Zuko?” he asked then. They all exchanged a glance before Aang shouted:
“There he is! Appa, yip yip!”
And Appa was plummeting at nearly dangerous speeds to overtake two tumbling figures. Jet realized with a jolt of dread that one of them was Zuko-
Katara grabbed hold of him and hauled him onto the saddle; he brushed her aside and scanned the skies.
“She’s not going to make it,” Zuko said, and Jet couldn’t decide if he sounded relieved or sad or horrified.
But then Azula conjured two blue flames out of her feet and shot herself directly into the rock wall. She grabbed hold of a vine and grinned-even from this distance Jet could see the wide grin plastered on her sharp features.
“Of course she did,” and that time, Jet was sure he heard bitterness in Zuko’s voice.
***
Later that night, they were sitting around the campfire in shocked silence, not quite making eye contact. Jet wondered if they were all thinking about what they’d lost again that day. It took him a minute to notice that at some point, Zuko had slithered off, but when he did, he stood up and stretched languidly.
“I’m going to bed,” he said, grinning broadly and using that specially designed tone of voice he used to use back in the forest, when they’d failed a mission and had suffered a dangerous blow to the ego. “See you guys tomorrow, yeah?”
“Yeah, goodnight,” Sokka said, staring intently into the fire. He was the only one who acknowledged his departure.
Jet found Zuko sitting on a rock facing the water, hands splayed out on the rock’s surface behind him. The moon was nearly full that night; Jet watched the way the moonlight bounced off Zuko’s hair and tried very hard not to think about just how beautiful that boy really was.
He cleared his throat to let Zuko know he was there, and he visibly flinched away from the sound. Jet crossed into his line of vision and smiled slightly.
“Sorry if I bothered you,” he said, looking down at the floor.
“Its fine,” Zuko said automatically, bringing his knees up close to his chest and wrapping his arms around them.
Jet expected him to say something, anything after that, but Zuko stayed silent, looking out into the water with a distant expression in his eyes. And Jet knew how to read people; he knew when someone who normally didn’t want to talk wanted to talk. So he casually sat himself down on the rock beside Zuko and waited.
After a lengthy silence, Zuko finally sighed and extended his legs again. Jet waited for him to start pouring his heart out, the way so many others had done before, but Zuko remained silent. And then he remembered; even in the Earth Kingdom, Zuko had never been the type to offer up information freely. Jet remembered how hard it had been to get even vague answers out of him.
“So that was your sister,” he said, and yes, Zuko might as well have poured his heart out at the dark look that seeped onto his face.
“Yeah,” Zuko said quietly, scowling at the sea.
“She seemed pleasant,” he joked.
At that, Zuko tore his gaze away from the water and fixed his eyes on Jet.
“Azula is an evil psychopath,” he said bitterly.
And, really, Jet should have known Zuko was one of those types, who held onto their bad moods like a greedy man held onto gold. Jet chose his next words carefully.
“You’re two very different people,” Jet replied, making sure his voice sounded casual and light, like he was just stating a fact.
Zuko didn’t answer right away.
“Sometimes I don’t think so,” he finally said and then, before Jet had time to respond to that, “Why do you even talk to me?”
“What do you-”
But it seemed that Jet had inadvertently opened up the floodgates. Zuko quelled him with a single, furious look and continued on.
“You nearly died in Ba Sing Se, and it was my fault,” he said quickly, like the statement was being ripped out of him against his will. “You were arrested and brainwashed, and I don’t know how the hell you managed to survive under Lake Laogai from what Aang and the others say. I don’t get how you can even manage to look at me after everything I’ve done to you.”
Jet pursed his lips at that. Zuko frowned and looked away, a fait flush creeping up his neck.
“I’m only gonna say this once,” he finally said, quiet and serious. Zuko looked up sharply from where he’d been frowning at his feet. “So pay attention. You are not your sister. You’re not your Dad either, or Fire Lord Sozin. You’re just…Zuko, you know? An outcast. And you know what I always say about outcasts.”
The ghost of a smile flickered across Zuko’s face; Jet tried really hard not to feel giddy at the sight. He draped an arm around Zuko’s shoulders and grinned widely.
“Us outcasts have to stick together,” he finished. “You know?”
“Yeah,” Zuko said quietly, and that sounded like a good enough promise to him.
“Awesome,” he said, and “Come on, I’ll walk you to your tent.”
***
Zuko was still many minds about Jet, even after last night. But now, at least he knew that when he caught Jet watching him every now and then, he wasn’t secretly plotting how to discretely kill Zuko. He was relieved. Zuko really didn’t want Jet to hate him.
Katara, on the other hand, was another matter entirely. It seemed like he couldn’t escape her disapproving glare, no matter what he did. And when he found out why, how it wasn’t even his fault that she hated him, he was sure she’d go on hating him for the rest of his life.
“Well,” Jet said that night, after he left Sokka’s tent and was wondering what he should do-Zuko wasn’t sure when exactly he’d started going to Jet for advice, but he was pretty sure Sokka had been waiting on Suki, and he didn’t know where else to turn. “You know who those guys were, right?”
“The Southern Raiders,” Zuko answered. “I know them.”
He looked away quickly, into the fire, still unsure how Jet would react to his familiarity with the Fire Nation militia. He half-expected Jet to say something deprecating and insulting, but he just shook his head thoughtfully, picked a stalk of grass from the ground and chewed on the end.
“Katara has some darkness inside her,” Jet said finally. “I think what she needs is some good, old-fashioned closure.”
Jet cocked his eyebrow in a way Zuko was beginning to understand meant that Jet was imagining violent things. Zuko frowned.
“I don’t think revenge would be the best thing,” he answered, thinking back to every time he’d sought revenge, the bitter feeling it left in his stomach.
“But she doesn’t know that,” Jet said, tossing his stalk of grass into the fire. It snapped and burst into flame within seconds. “She’s got all this anger burning inside her, and even if she doesn’t acknowledge it yet, what she really wants right now is to cause those guys some pain. But when she gets there, she’ll make the right choice. She’ll figure out that revenge isn’t everything.”
Zuko looked up at that, startled at the insight Jet had just shown. Then he realized that, of course, Jet would know about revenge and retribution, he’d spent most of his life fighting because of revenge.
“You’re thinking too much again,” Jet said casually, nudging Zuko’s foot with his own.
“I’m not-”
Jet grinned at him, somehow cutting Zuko off with just a look.
“Yeah, you are,” he said. “Quit wondering if I’m just pretending to like you so I can exact my revenge on you. I meant what I said about revenge not being everything, dork.” Somehow, Jet’s grin softened with some unknown emotion. “Go find Katara; I’ll bet you my left hook sword I’m right about this.”
Zuko most certainly did not pout at that.
“Fine,” he said, standing and searching the area for a sign of Katara.
“Why thank you Jet, for your sound and amazing advice,” Jet said, pitching his voice an octave deeper in a horrible imitation of Zuko. “You are truly an amazing person, and I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Zuko flushed, even though he pulled his face into a scowl.
“I am never coming to you for advice ever again,” he said, instead of denying the statement.
Jet laughed at him in response. Zuko stomped away.
The worst part about that particular outing was that Jet had been right. There was something dark in Katara that Zuko didn’t think many people ever saw. But he saw it, imposing and menacing and powerful, forcing the general to his knees with the power of her waterbending, the chilling nonchalance with which she turned away, sparing a man she didn’t know only because she wanted to reach her prize more quickly.
And then when she had what she’d so often dreamed of-the man who killed her mother cowering at her feet, Zuko finally saw the truth to Aang’s words, to Jet’s words: that violence was never the answer, and revenge isn’t everything.
On the long fly back, when Katara finally seemed at peace and wasn’t threatening to kill him with every glance, Zuko realized that perhaps this had been the most important trust-gaining-episode yet. Katara was a good person, a powerful waterbender, and a dangerous enemy. It was a good thing that he’d finally found a way to gain her trust.
Later that night, everyone was silent, tense because Aang had yet to return from his walk. And Zuko hadn’t meant to freak him out so bad; he’d just wanted to know how Aang planned on defeating Ozai without violence. It had been a simple question, but still, when Katara had asked him what had happened to make Aang so upset, he’d said the Avatar just needed some time alone. After all, he didn’t need another reason for Katara to be upset with him, after they’d just planted a few hesitant seeds of friendship.
Aang returned at dawn, looking exhausted and miserable.
“We need to move on,” he said, waving away Katara’s worry.
“Where should we go?” Jet asked, turning from Aang to Zuko and frowning.
Sokka made a contemplative humming noise and began to pace.
“Does it really matter?” Toph asked sleepily. “We’re in the Fire Nation already, people. It’s not like we can go anywhere and be all that safe.”
“That’s not true,” Sokka said, turning to Suki with a smile. “We just need to go somewhere where no one will expect to find us.”
Zuko sighed as an idea came to him.
“I think I know the perfect place.”
Title: Asleep on the wind (chapter 5/6)
Author: alpha_hydra
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Jet/Zuko
Warnings: Unbetaed
Spoilers: References to "The Southern Raiders"
Summary: Jet hated change.
Disclaimer: Avatar: the Last Airbender and all related people, places, and things are property of Nickelodeon, Michael DiMartino, Bryan Konjetzko, and lots of other people who aren't me. No copyright infringement is intended.
Also, if you've forgotten what happened in this story, or if you've never read it before, here are:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3 and
Chapter 4
The next morning dawned dull and overcast. Jet watched the weak rays of sunlight spill into his room for a while before jerking out of bed and meandering through the temple. He got lost-It’s bound to happen, Sokka had said, this place is like a labyrinth-but Jet found he didn’t mind. He’d discovered that after spending so much time alone or with only the company of Smellerbee and Longshot, being around the gang left him feeling a bit claustrophobic. So he wandered down empty hallways, torn between anger and reluctant acceptance.
Well, he wasn’t really angry. After all, he hadn’t been lying last night when he said he’d forgiven Zuko. It’s just; he could still hear Bee’s voice in the middle of the night, tinged with disappointment as she said it: I thought you finally understood the difference between sabotaging the Fire Nation and blaming the son for the father’s mistake.
Damn her and her stupid, inadvertently appropriate metaphors and Damn Li-Zuko for being the Fire Nation prince and the stupidly perfect example of an outcast all along. But mostly, he damned himself for changing so much since he’d first awoken in that Evil Waterbender’s home.
He turned a corner and caught sight of Haru and Teo, Haru leaning over the back of Teo’s wheelchair and speaking quietly into his ear. He watched the way Teo smiled softly and dropped his gaze, tilted his head slightly to the side and allowed Haru to lean in closer. Jet raised an eyebrow and backtracked the way he came.
When he finally found his way to the courtyard, a clap of thunder sounded overhead and brought with it the first few drops of rain.
Chit Seng was there, standing by the campfire with his hands behind his back. He looked up from where he was staring into the fire and smiled, wide and crooked. Jet still wasn’t sure what to make of him; the firebender who’d been imprisoned by his own kind because he was apparently a menace to the cause. He’d listened to the stories the man had told, yesterday with the rest of the gang when all he really wanted to do was keep an eye on Zuko, still firebending off in the distance even after six hours.
But, if anything, there was more reason to like Chit Seng than there was Zuko, so he gritted his teeth against the slowly evaporating distrust and smiled back.
“Early riser, huh?” Chit Seng asked and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Me too.”
“Yeah,” Jet said. “Where is everyone?”
“Still asleep, is my guess.”
Chit Seng frowned down at the fire.
“Oh, except for that little blind girl, she went off with that kid in the helmet.”
“The Duke?” he tried, and Chit Seng nodded.
“Yeah, that’s his name,” he answered. “They said they were gonna go find some meat, since we didn’t bring any with us. That little girl’s pretty tough for her age.”
‘Yeah I guess she is,” Jet said appraisingly. If he’d met her before he’d stumbled across the Avatar, he probably would have recruited her to the Freedom Fighters.
Jet watched the rain drizzle around them, safely covered by the cliff.
“What do you think would happen if this part of the cliff just collapsed under the pressure of that temple?” Chit Seng said after a long moment, pointing up to the building as a few stray pebbles were knocked down around them by the rain.
Jet looked at him, imagined just what would happen in that scenario, and laughed.
After a while the rest of the group sauntered into the courtyard, in varying degrees of sleepiness; most mourned the loss of a day frolicking in the sun, while Katara dragged Aang away to teach him something complicated involving rainwater and bending.
Eventually Toph and The Duke scampered back into the campsite, a large flat rock hovering over them like a giant umbrella. The Duke was holding a pair of rabbit-quails, beaming from ear to ear. Toph was laughing at something he’d said, and when they finally reached the campsite, she stole the rabbit-quails from The Duke and dropped them into Zuko’s lap.
Zuko, who had been quietly meditating slightly apart from the group, scowled heavily when she thumped him on the shoulder, and yelped indignantly when the dead animals landed in his lap. Chit Seng took that moment to excuse himself from Jet’s presence, mumbling something that Jet didn’t quite hear.
“We went hunting Hotman,” Toph said vindictively from the other side of the campsite, sitting beside Zuko and ignoring the withering glare he shot at her.
“Yeah, we just need someone to pluck and skin them,” The Duke said proudly, puffing out his chest.
Zuko’s scowl slowly melted off his face.
“Oh,” he said, running a hand through his hair a little sheepishly. “I don’t know how to do that. Where’s Haru?”
The Duke pouted.
“He and Teo are exploring the temple again,” he said. “They wouldn’t let me go with them this time.”
Jet smirked, remembering the coy smile on Teo’s face as Haru whispered into his ear; he made a mental note to tease them about it later. The others didn’t seem to notice him. Toph tsk-ed at Zuko dispassionately and snatched the carcasses from his grip, stomping over to Jet and holding them out expectantly. Jet smiled and raised an eyebrow.
“What?” he asked, playing dumb.
“Don’t even try to lie to me, sweet-talker,” she said, tapping her foot impatiently (Jet noticed that each time she did that, a few pebbles would come flying out of the ground). “You think Sokka’s gonna be any help to us now that his girlfriend’s joined the gang?”
“Hey!” Sokka called from where he was sitting with Suki-being no help whatsoever, Jet thought wryly.
“Exactly,” Toph said. “So you and the Jailbird are going to have to start doing stuff too.”
Jet smiled.
“Fine,” he said.
“And furthermore-” Toph began, but cut herself short. “What do you mean ‘fine’? No one just says ‘fine’ after hardly any arguing.”
Jet looked up to find Zuko watching him intently.
“Maybe I want to help,” he said, keeping eye contact with Zuko until the other blinked and looked away. Jet smiled down at Toph and The Duke. “Come on, I’ll teach you guys how to skin a rabbit-quail.”
So he went over and plunked himself down next to Zuko, who gave him a slightly perplexed expression but said nothing.
“You need to learn how to do this too, your Highness,” Jet said, answering Zuko’s unspoken question.
It had the desired effect of annoying Zuko;
“Don’t call me that,” he snapped, even as he watched Jet carefully pluck the rabbit-quail’s tail feathers.
Jet shook his head, smiling.
“Can’t call you your Highness, can’t call you Li, can’t call you Sifu Hotman,” he began, turning to The Duke and raising his eyebrows significantly. “What can I call you then?”
Zuko said nothing, and when Jet turned back to him, he saw Zuko frowning down at the floor, hair falling into his face so that it obscured his eyes. Jet bumped shoulders with him, for some reason glad he’d sat down on Zuko’s right side, so he could read the lines on his face instead of the scar.
“Zuko,” he said significantly, and when he looked up, Jet dumped the other rabbit-quail in his lap. “You’re not squeamish, are you?”
“What? No!”
Jet grinned, cheeky.
“Good,” he said. “You can start on that one then.”
Jet watched the way Zuko’s frown melted off his face, slowly thawing a block of ice somewhere deep in Jet’s chest that he’d not noticed before. He smiled back, pulled out a dagger concealed in his leggings and looked back at the rabbit-quail.
“So,” he began, turning to Toph and The Duke like he was a grand storyteller. “The first thing you want to do, guys and gals, is cut off the back legs.”
It was a good day, Jet decided that night as he lay awake in bed. He’d avoided arguing with both Haru and Chit Seng, provoked a sword-fight with Sokka (who’d become surprisingly useful with that space-sword of his, not that it stopped Jet from kicking his butt), ate three square meals that day, and had avoided thinking too much-he’d had enough introspection wandering around the Fire Nation alone, thank you very much.
Surprisingly, however, he’d spent more or less the entire day sitting with Zuko-who’d felt sluggish because of the rain and didn’t have much to do with Aang off learning from Katara. It felt normal almost, kind of like he was back with Smellerbee and Longshot.
Except, he thought, with Bee and Shot, he could communicate entire stories with a simple quirk of his eyebrow-they’d all picked it up from Longshot, apparently-but Zuko was really not that good at reading facial expressions or jumping to the right conclusions. Jet found himself re-learning how to talk to people with Zuko, something he hadn’t realized he forgot how to do until now.
It was the same in some ways, yes, but different in other ways, ways that weren’t all that unwelcome.
Eventually, he fell into a light sleep, with dragons and fire swirling through his vague dreams. For once though, the fire in his dreams wasn’t burning or destroying; it was simply there, offering warmth and light in the darkness.
There were little things that Jet noticed over the course of the next few days. Jet liked Chit Seng more than he liked Haru; he liked listening to Sokka talk about Piandao, a Fire Nation Swords Master who’d helped him make his ‘space-rock sword’, more than he liked running through the Air Temple with Teo and The Duke. But the most incriminating, by far, was the simplest.
He liked Zuko.
It was almost strange, how easy it was to like the banished Fire Nation prince, how the notions he’d had on the ferry into Ba Sing Se resurfaced so easily after a day or two in his company. Zuko felt like a puzzle he’d been working on for months, fitting together the bits and pieces of the other boy as he learned them and slowly revealing the entire picture.
One night they were all sitting around the campfire; Katara had just cleared away the mess they’d made at dinnertime, and everyone else was talking and laughing amiably. Toph and Chit Seng, in particular, were the loudest; they’d gotten along famously after Chit Seng lost to her in an arm wrestling match-Chit Seng swore he let her win and Toph claimed that she had cheated and used earthbending. At that point, Chit Seng had punched her on the shoulder, shared a long laugh with her, and that had been that.
After a while, the chatter subsided; Katara sighed and turned to Aang.
“So, when do you think we should be leaving?”
Ten pairs of eyes turned to the two of them suddenly. Aang looked up from where he’d been absently petting Momo and frowned. Somewhere to the right, Jet heard Appa yawn.
“Who said anything about leaving?” Aang said, and although his smile was wide and seemingly uncaring, Jet saw the way his eyes narrowed ever so slightly; stubborn.
“Aang,” Katara began gently. “You know we can’t stay here too long; it’s dangerous.”
“It can’t be too dangerous Katara,” he answered. “I mean, we’ve already been here for a while now, and no one’s tried to kill us so far.”
“Except for Sparky-Sparky Boom-Boom Man,” Sokka added. “But that was only because Zuko sent him after us. Now that there’s no one actively trying to kill us-”
“What do you mean ‘no one’s actively trying to kill us?” she retorted, suddenly angry-not before shooting Zuko a furious scowl that Jet couldn’t help but notice. “How about, I don’t know; all of the Fire Nation? You think they’re not actively trying to kill us?”
“That’s not what I meant!”
Zuko, who’d been sitting in between Toph and Jet, frowned and looked at the floor. Jet elbowed him lightly in the ribs, tuning out Katara and Sokka’s squabbling. He did it again when Zuko refused to look up, and bumped his knee against the other boy’s leg after that. Finally, he looked up, half scowling.
“What?” he asked irritably.
Jet didn’t answer; he only smirked until Zuko rolled his eyes and offered him a tiny smile in response.
“I understand what it’s like to leave a place you once called home,” Hakoda was telling Aang from in between Sokka and Katara, looking like a wall dividing two warring nations. “I think we all do. None of us would blame you for wanting to spend as much time as you can here.”
Aang smiled at him, but Katara only frowned.
“Thank you, Hakoda,” he answered, triumphant smile fading at the look on Katara’s face. “But I think Katara’s right. We should be leaving soon.”
Hakoda nodded once, turned to Zuko and fixed him with an unreadable expression.
“At the Boiling Rock,” he said. “It was your sister we were running from, right?”
The expression on Zuko’s face darkened, like a light went out somewhere in his mind. He nodded.
“Azula is a lunatic,” he said bitterly, “but a powerful one, and smart. She’ll find us before long.”
Hakoda nodded, as if satisfied. He turned to Chit Seng, and they seemed to have a silent conversation before simultaneously standing.
“We’ll start packing up,” Chit Seng said, and waved everyone back down when they all stood to help. “You kids enjoy yourselves, at least for tonight.”
The rest of the group sat in silence for almost a minute after Hakoda and Chit Seng left.
“What should we do now?” Teo asked, eyes turned down to his lap.
“I could make us some tea,” Zuko suggested.
“Is that your suggestion for everything?” Sokka asked, but he was smiling as he said it, teasing.
Zuko scowled and looked into the fire.
“Uncle always said that there was nothing a good cup of tea couldn’t fix.”
The statement hung in the air for a moment longer, heavy with something unspoken; Jet imagined it as a new, sharp-edged piece to the puzzle that was Zuko, wondered when he’d be able to put it into place.
“I’d like some tea,” he offered casually, leaning back on his elbows so that their shoulders touched. “Jasmine, if you guys have any.”
“Yeah, Zuko, you do make some pretty good tea,” Suki said from across the fire.
And soon enough, the others readily agreed. Zuko got up and fetched an old, battered teapot from one of the packs; Jet felt his absence as cold draft all along his side.
“Why don’t you tell Suki and Jet that tea joke of your Uncle’s, while you’re at it Zuko,” Toph called out happily, grinning at her feet.
Everyone laughed at that; Sokka whispered something in Suki’s ear that had her giggling. Jet tilted his head back until he could see Zuko upside-down behind him.
“Must have been some joke,” Jet said curiously, quiet enough so that only Zuko could hear-and possibly Toph, because she heard everything.
“Shut up,” came the reply.
He didn’t miss the way Zuko started at catching Jet watching him, the high flush that spread up his neck. He grinned until Zuko smiled shyly back, turned away and finished pouring tea into ten separate cups.
They fell asleep around the campfire, dozing off in exhaustion after exchanging countless childhood memories and stories of what life was like before they’d all met the Avatar, or in Aang’s case, life one-hundred years ago.
Jet was the last one to drift off that night, staring into the fire in silence long after the others had decided in a fit of laziness to sleep here instead of wandering about an upside-down temple while only half-sentient.
Zuko had drifted off first, head drooping onto Jet’s shoulder in a vain search for something comfortable. Now, almost an hour later, he’d rearranged himself in his sleep so that his head was pillowed in Jet’s lap. Jet buried his hand in Zuko’s thick hair and smiled to himself.
That was a good night too.
He was jerked into alertness at dawn, to the rumbling of earth and a deep, telling crash that could only have been an explosion. Jet sat up, spared a moment to relish the warmth Zuko provided, curled around Jet like he’d never slept any other way, before he jumped up, searching frantically for his hook swords.
Very abruptly, the campsite fell into total chaos. Zuko ran off quickly, at the sound of a sharp, female voice; Jet ran in the opposite direction, looking for-
“The Duke!” he called out, panic beginning to grip him.
From directly above him, Jet heard a sickening crunching sound, and he had less than a second later he had to roll out of the way as one of the spires of the temple came crashing down.
“JET!” he heard, and it was Teo, with The Duke in his lap, holding his helmet in place as they rushed toward him. “This way, Toph’s made a way out!”
So Jet ran after them, skidding to a halt by Haru and Hakoda, watching as Aang tried vainly to get Appa into the large whole that had suddenly appeared in the wall. A compromise was reached, and as Katara hugged her father fiercely (“We were separated once, I won’t let it happen again!”), Jet put a hand on Haru’s shoulder.
“If you guys head west, you’ll find two of my Freedom Fighters in a small city,” Jet said urgently, watching the way Haru’s dark eyes darted around their surroundings. “Smellerbee and Longshot. The Duke’ll know them. They’ll help if you need it.”
Haru nodded sharply, already turning around to follow the others. Jet grabbed his wrist again quickly.
“Wait,” he said. “Take care of The Duke.”
“I will,” Haru answered, this time giving Jet his full attention.
Then they were gone, disappearing into the darkness. Jet shook himself and sprinted after Aang, diving to avoid a blast of fire that had been sent his way and landing neatly in Appa’s saddle four feet under the cliff face.
“Didn’t think I’d let you guys have all the fun, did you?” he said, standing and brushing invisible dirt from his shirt.
Toph grinned at him.
“Wouldn’t have dreamed of it, Smooth-talker,” she said.
“Where’s Zuko?” he asked then. They all exchanged a glance before Aang shouted:
“There he is! Appa, yip yip!”
And Appa was plummeting at nearly dangerous speeds to overtake two tumbling figures. Jet realized with a jolt of dread that one of them was Zuko-
Katara grabbed hold of him and hauled him onto the saddle; he brushed her aside and scanned the skies.
“She’s not going to make it,” Zuko said, and Jet couldn’t decide if he sounded relieved or sad or horrified.
But then Azula conjured two blue flames out of her feet and shot herself directly into the rock wall. She grabbed hold of a vine and grinned-even from this distance Jet could see the wide grin plastered on her sharp features.
“Of course she did,” and that time, Jet was sure he heard bitterness in Zuko’s voice.
***
Later that night, they were sitting around the campfire in shocked silence, not quite making eye contact. Jet wondered if they were all thinking about what they’d lost again that day. It took him a minute to notice that at some point, Zuko had slithered off, but when he did, he stood up and stretched languidly.
“I’m going to bed,” he said, grinning broadly and using that specially designed tone of voice he used to use back in the forest, when they’d failed a mission and had suffered a dangerous blow to the ego. “See you guys tomorrow, yeah?”
“Yeah, goodnight,” Sokka said, staring intently into the fire. He was the only one who acknowledged his departure.
Jet found Zuko sitting on a rock facing the water, hands splayed out on the rock’s surface behind him. The moon was nearly full that night; Jet watched the way the moonlight bounced off Zuko’s hair and tried very hard not to think about just how beautiful that boy really was.
He cleared his throat to let Zuko know he was there, and he visibly flinched away from the sound. Jet crossed into his line of vision and smiled slightly.
“Sorry if I bothered you,” he said, looking down at the floor.
“Its fine,” Zuko said automatically, bringing his knees up close to his chest and wrapping his arms around them.
Jet expected him to say something, anything after that, but Zuko stayed silent, looking out into the water with a distant expression in his eyes. And Jet knew how to read people; he knew when someone who normally didn’t want to talk wanted to talk. So he casually sat himself down on the rock beside Zuko and waited.
After a lengthy silence, Zuko finally sighed and extended his legs again. Jet waited for him to start pouring his heart out, the way so many others had done before, but Zuko remained silent. And then he remembered; even in the Earth Kingdom, Zuko had never been the type to offer up information freely. Jet remembered how hard it had been to get even vague answers out of him.
“So that was your sister,” he said, and yes, Zuko might as well have poured his heart out at the dark look that seeped onto his face.
“Yeah,” Zuko said quietly, scowling at the sea.
“She seemed pleasant,” he joked.
At that, Zuko tore his gaze away from the water and fixed his eyes on Jet.
“Azula is an evil psychopath,” he said bitterly.
And, really, Jet should have known Zuko was one of those types, who held onto their bad moods like a greedy man held onto gold. Jet chose his next words carefully.
“You’re two very different people,” Jet replied, making sure his voice sounded casual and light, like he was just stating a fact.
Zuko didn’t answer right away.
“Sometimes I don’t think so,” he finally said and then, before Jet had time to respond to that, “Why do you even talk to me?”
“What do you-”
But it seemed that Jet had inadvertently opened up the floodgates. Zuko quelled him with a single, furious look and continued on.
“You nearly died in Ba Sing Se, and it was my fault,” he said quickly, like the statement was being ripped out of him against his will. “You were arrested and brainwashed, and I don’t know how the hell you managed to survive under Lake Laogai from what Aang and the others say. I don’t get how you can even manage to look at me after everything I’ve done to you.”
Jet pursed his lips at that. Zuko frowned and looked away, a fait flush creeping up his neck.
“I’m only gonna say this once,” he finally said, quiet and serious. Zuko looked up sharply from where he’d been frowning at his feet. “So pay attention. You are not your sister. You’re not your Dad either, or Fire Lord Sozin. You’re just…Zuko, you know? An outcast. And you know what I always say about outcasts.”
The ghost of a smile flickered across Zuko’s face; Jet tried really hard not to feel giddy at the sight. He draped an arm around Zuko’s shoulders and grinned widely.
“Us outcasts have to stick together,” he finished. “You know?”
“Yeah,” Zuko said quietly, and that sounded like a good enough promise to him.
“Awesome,” he said, and “Come on, I’ll walk you to your tent.”
***
Zuko was still many minds about Jet, even after last night. But now, at least he knew that when he caught Jet watching him every now and then, he wasn’t secretly plotting how to discretely kill Zuko. He was relieved. Zuko really didn’t want Jet to hate him.
Katara, on the other hand, was another matter entirely. It seemed like he couldn’t escape her disapproving glare, no matter what he did. And when he found out why, how it wasn’t even his fault that she hated him, he was sure she’d go on hating him for the rest of his life.
“Well,” Jet said that night, after he left Sokka’s tent and was wondering what he should do-Zuko wasn’t sure when exactly he’d started going to Jet for advice, but he was pretty sure Sokka had been waiting on Suki, and he didn’t know where else to turn. “You know who those guys were, right?”
“The Southern Raiders,” Zuko answered. “I know them.”
He looked away quickly, into the fire, still unsure how Jet would react to his familiarity with the Fire Nation militia. He half-expected Jet to say something deprecating and insulting, but he just shook his head thoughtfully, picked a stalk of grass from the ground and chewed on the end.
“Katara has some darkness inside her,” Jet said finally. “I think what she needs is some good, old-fashioned closure.”
Jet cocked his eyebrow in a way Zuko was beginning to understand meant that Jet was imagining violent things. Zuko frowned.
“I don’t think revenge would be the best thing,” he answered, thinking back to every time he’d sought revenge, the bitter feeling it left in his stomach.
“But she doesn’t know that,” Jet said, tossing his stalk of grass into the fire. It snapped and burst into flame within seconds. “She’s got all this anger burning inside her, and even if she doesn’t acknowledge it yet, what she really wants right now is to cause those guys some pain. But when she gets there, she’ll make the right choice. She’ll figure out that revenge isn’t everything.”
Zuko looked up at that, startled at the insight Jet had just shown. Then he realized that, of course, Jet would know about revenge and retribution, he’d spent most of his life fighting because of revenge.
“You’re thinking too much again,” Jet said casually, nudging Zuko’s foot with his own.
“I’m not-”
Jet grinned at him, somehow cutting Zuko off with just a look.
“Yeah, you are,” he said. “Quit wondering if I’m just pretending to like you so I can exact my revenge on you. I meant what I said about revenge not being everything, dork.” Somehow, Jet’s grin softened with some unknown emotion. “Go find Katara; I’ll bet you my left hook sword I’m right about this.”
Zuko most certainly did not pout at that.
“Fine,” he said, standing and searching the area for a sign of Katara.
“Why thank you Jet, for your sound and amazing advice,” Jet said, pitching his voice an octave deeper in a horrible imitation of Zuko. “You are truly an amazing person, and I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Zuko flushed, even though he pulled his face into a scowl.
“I am never coming to you for advice ever again,” he said, instead of denying the statement.
Jet laughed at him in response. Zuko stomped away.
The worst part about that particular outing was that Jet had been right. There was something dark in Katara that Zuko didn’t think many people ever saw. But he saw it, imposing and menacing and powerful, forcing the general to his knees with the power of her waterbending, the chilling nonchalance with which she turned away, sparing a man she didn’t know only because she wanted to reach her prize more quickly.
And then when she had what she’d so often dreamed of-the man who killed her mother cowering at her feet, Zuko finally saw the truth to Aang’s words, to Jet’s words: that violence was never the answer, and revenge isn’t everything.
On the long fly back, when Katara finally seemed at peace and wasn’t threatening to kill him with every glance, Zuko realized that perhaps this had been the most important trust-gaining-episode yet. Katara was a good person, a powerful waterbender, and a dangerous enemy. It was a good thing that he’d finally found a way to gain her trust.
Later that night, everyone was silent, tense because Aang had yet to return from his walk. And Zuko hadn’t meant to freak him out so bad; he’d just wanted to know how Aang planned on defeating Ozai without violence. It had been a simple question, but still, when Katara had asked him what had happened to make Aang so upset, he’d said the Avatar just needed some time alone. After all, he didn’t need another reason for Katara to be upset with him, after they’d just planted a few hesitant seeds of friendship.
Aang returned at dawn, looking exhausted and miserable.
“We need to move on,” he said, waving away Katara’s worry.
“Where should we go?” Jet asked, turning from Aang to Zuko and frowning.
Sokka made a contemplative humming noise and began to pace.
“Does it really matter?” Toph asked sleepily. “We’re in the Fire Nation already, people. It’s not like we can go anywhere and be all that safe.”
“That’s not true,” Sokka said, turning to Suki with a smile. “We just need to go somewhere where no one will expect to find us.”
Zuko sighed as an idea came to him.
“I think I know the perfect place.”